I am totally out of ideas for something to lead in the news post with, so I’ll just throw out a quick reminder that this week’s podcast will be another iteration of our “I Didn’t Know THAT Existed” theme in which we hope to introduce you to some geeky products, activities and trivia that you may not have known about. There is also still plenty of time to enter our The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born giveaway.

Your Monday news is under the fold

Anime

• Anime News Network is reporting that North American anime distributor Funimation has begun streaming the first four episodes of the series Slayers Revolution on YouTube dubbed in English. Slayers Revolution is the fifth TV series in the Slayers franchise which has also spawned five movies and three video games. All thirteen episodes of the fourth series are also available on YouTube.

Books

• News site SF Scope has a tiny little announcement noting that Kat Richardson has turned in the manuscript for her latest novel. The new book, Labyrinth, will be the fifth in the urban fantasy Greywalker series featuring Seattle-based supernatural private investigator Harper Blaine. If you’re an urban fantasy fan and you haven’t read this series you are seriously missing out. Pick up the books and listen to Episode #23 of our podcast for our Author Spotlight interview with Kat Richardson about the fourth Greywalker novel Vanished.

Comics

• Marvel Comics has announced that they will be publishing an adaptation of Philip K Dick’s short story “Electric Ant”. According to the press release the limited series will feature work by David Mack (Daredevil, Kabuki) and Pascal Alixe (Ultimate X-Men), along with cover artist Paul Pope (Strange Tales) and consulting editor Brian Michael Bendis (Siege, Ultimate Comics Spider-Man). Electric Ant was originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine in October 1969. It tells the story of Garson Poole who, after losing his hand in a car crash, realizes that he is an organic robot with the ability to alter the reality he perceives by changing his programming. Philip K Dick’s Electric Ant #1 will be in stores this April.

Movies

• Plenty of awards news today. Genre films and TV continue to do well in the nomination department with the release of The British Academy of Film and Television Arts slate of film nominees. Avatar, District 9 The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Star Trek and Coraline all picked up nominations in various categories. Genre works actually winning awards is a different matter it seems, as both the Producers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild have given out their awards and genre films did not fare as well. The sole winner in the SAG awards was Star Trek which picked up the award for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture and the PGA shut out the genre films entirely.

Video Games

• PS3 owners in the U.S. may finally be getting a version of Settlers of Catan for Playstation Network. Game developer Game Republic, which has produced Catan for the PS3 in Japan and Hong Kong, just got a rating for an English language version from the ESRB which implies an impending release in the United States. Catan has been available on XBox LIVE since 2007.