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Monday News Roundup 04/04

Matt — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:14:00 +0000

- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

Putting together the first news post after April Fools Day is always a challenge. There were some great stories out there this week but many of them turned out to be not-so-much true. One of my personal favorites was the story from Comic Mix about Warner Brothers lawyers handing out cease and desist orders to people with “unlicensed” tattoos of DC comics characters. This, in my mind, is how you do it right. The story was juuuuuust plausible enough that it really gave me pause. Think Geek also did a fine job again this year with their lightsaber popsicles and the Angry Birds pork rinds.

I’ve done my best to sort through and find some actual news stories but if something in here seems too good to be true it probably means someone’s joke slipped past.

Books

The short list for the first Terry Pratchett Anywhere but Here, Anywhen but Now First Novel Prize has been announced. The six nominees are:
- Postponing Armageddon by Adele Abbott
- The Platinum Ticket by Dave Beynon
- Half Sick of Shadows by David Logan
- Apocalypse Cow by Michael Logan
- Lun by Andrew Salomon
- The Coven at Callington by Shereen Vedam
The winner will be chosen by Sir Terry Pratchett and four other judges and announced at a party to be held on May 31.

Comics

IDW Publishing announced at Wondercon this weekend that they have acquired the rights to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and would be publishing new TMNT stories along with reprints of the original Eastman and Laird comics. Comic Book Resources is reporting that IDW’s take on the Turtles will be based on the original series but there was no comment on whether or not Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird themselves would be involved in the relaunch. The new series is scheduled to debut this Summer.

According to an official press release, Too Much Coffee Man creator Shannon Wheeler has signed a three-book deal with BOOM! Studios. Wheeler will be publishing Too Much Coffee Man: Cutie Island & Other Stories and a follow up to I Thought You Would Be Funnier as well as an all new graphic novel titled Grandpa Won’t Wake Up under BOOM!’s BOOM! Town imprint. Grandpa Won’t Wake Up and Cutie Island & Other Stories are scheduled to be out this year and the I Thought You Would Be Funnier follow up will be out in Spring 2012.

Movies

Warner Brothers released four minutes of footage from Green Lantern into the wild. This is a “condensed version” of the footage that was a huge hit at Wondercon. Enjoy!

Tabletop

Twilight Creations’ Deadlands boardgame may finally make it in to stores. From their website;

After many delays we are happy to announce that Deadlands: Invasion of Slaughter Gulch (affectionately known as DL2) is at the printers. We expect to have it sometime in late May. We think you will find that it was worth the wait.

The game, which has been listed as “coming soon” since 2009, has players vying for control of a frontier town and the supply of “ghost rock” in the surrounding area.

TV

The BBC continues to crank up the hype for the new season of Dr. Who with a new extended trailer that was released into the wild on Friday. Enjoy!

Show Notes – Episode #95 “Spring/Summer Movies 2011”

Shannon and Matt — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 05:36:53 +0000

There is a good crop of geeky movies coming up in the next few months and this week we’re giving you the rundown. We’ve got the previews, our thoughts on the films and we’ll tell you whether you should see it in the theater, watch it at home or skip it all together.

We also talk to Danielle from Seattle’s Pacific Science Center about the exhibit Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination and we review the locally-produced documentary Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man.

All that plus some geek news and Shannon watches another Dared Movie.

Our Geek Week

Playing Poker Night at the Inventory on the PC
Read Other Kingdoms by Richard Matheson (see Shannon’s review here)
Playing Knights of the Old Republic on the PC
Read Deathless by Catherine M. Valente (see Matt’s review here)
Read Dark Jenny by Alex Bledsoe (see Matt’s review here)
Playing You Don’t Know Jack on XBox360

Spring/Summer Movies

Sucker punch

Source Code

Super

Your Highness

Sceam 4

Rio

Thor

Priest

Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides

X-Men First Class

Super 8

Green Lantern

Geekly Extras

Charles Beaumont: The Short Life of Twilight Zone’s Magic Man

Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination

Dare Shannon to Watch a bad Movie

This week’s bad movie was Laserblast (1979)

If you want to dare Shannon to watch a bad movie, e-mail us at seattlegeekly@gmail.com or call us at (206)201-2352. Check our Dared Movies Page to see what is on the list and what Shannon has already watched.

Contest!

Win a Pile o’ Books!

We have a pile of books courtesy of Tor and Ace and we want to give them to YOU!

The books include:

River Marked by Patricia Briggs
Glen Cook’s third book in the Instumentalities of the Night series Surrender to the Will of the Night
The Bird of the River by Kage Baker
SIGNED COPIES of Paul of Dune and the brand new book Hellhole by Brian Herbert & Kevin J Anderson!

This contest starts today and we’ll be picking the winner during our show on April 14. We will ship the books to you via USPS.

“How do I enter?”
Please register / log in to our website, and leave a comment on THIS POST. You can just say “hi” or whatever! One entry per person please, we’ll delete any multiple or offensive posts. Make sure you use a valid e-mail address when you register so we can contact you if you win!

“How will you randomly pick someone?”
We have D&D dice of all shapes and sizes, even a 100 sider! We’ll roll and see who wins!

News

Epic Game Day II is April 30! Event submissions are open now if you want to host a game!
Wolverine Pirate Pleads Guilty to Copyright Infringement

Music

Music this week was ‘Geek Rock’ and ‘Far From Home’ by Sci-Fried off their new album Future Tense.

Next Episode: April 14 – Episode #96 – Even Yet Still More Geek Music! Interviews and samples from another selection of geek musicians.

Seattle Geekly by http://www.seattle-geekly.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

Monday News Roundup 03/28

Matt — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:33:27 +0000

- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

From the “almost entirely self-serving news” department, tabletop gamer geeks in the Greater Seattle area will be pleased to hear that event submissions for Epic Game Day 2 are now open! If you want to host a game at the event, head over to EpicGameDay.com and fill out one of the event submission forms. There are some very nice perks for those who volunteer to be GMs including, but not limited to, a free menu item and (non-alcoholic) drink voucher at AFK Tavern where the event is being held. Epic Game Day will take place April 30th and is absolutely FREE!

The rest of the Monday News is under the fold

Anime

Japanator is reporting that Sentai Filmworks will be releasing Angel Beats! on Blu-ray and DVD in the U.S. for the first time. Angel Beats! follows the adventures of Otonashi, Yuri, and Angel, three students at a high school that is actually a Purgatory where students learn to give up any lingering attachments they still have from life before continuing to an afterlife or reincarnation. The series was written by Jun Maeda and directed by Seiji Kishi. It originally ran in Japan between April and June of last year.

Books

‘Shada’, the Doctor Who episode written by Douglas Adams which was never completely filmed and never aired, is being adapted into a novel by Dr. Who and Sara Jane Adventures writer Gareth Roberts according to SFX. The episode was intended to be the final serial of the 1979-80 series with the fourth Doctor, Tom Baker, but production was interrupted by a strike at the BBC and it was never completed. Pieces of the footage that was shot were used in ‘The Five Doctors’ and Adams re-used some of the elements of the plot in Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. The novelization is scheduled to be released in march of 2012.

Movies

Those who listened to the interview with Brian Herbet and Kevin J. Anderson that was in Episode #94 of our podcast will have heard Brian Herbert talking optimistically about a new version of a Dune movie. It seems that his optimism may have been somewhat… optimistic. *shudder* SyFy’s Blastr.com is reporting that the plug has been pulled on Paramount’s development of the film. The project had gone through two directors and several screenplays and had never built up much in the way of momentum towards actually getting made. The possibility still exists for another film version to be made but it will almost certainly have to start from scratch.

TV

Deadline.com is reporting that Showtime is developing a live-action TV series based on the comic book Chew. Supernatural and Eureka writers Terri Hughes Burton and Ron Milbauer reportedly wrote the script and Stephen Hopkins, who has directed episodes of 24 and Californication, is attached to direct. This story has been pretty well confirmed with tweets from Chew creators John Layman and Rob Guillory. No information about a potential air date was given.

Fringe has fought off the “death slot” of Fox Friday nights and been renewed for a fourth season. Ratings have falling somewhat since the move to Fridays, but that didn’t stop Fox from ordering another full 22 episodes. The announcement was initially made in a tweet from series executive producer J.H. Wyman and later confirmed in a press release. In spite of it’s somewhat lower ratings Fringe remains the best performing show Fox has had in the “death slot” and will likely remain there next season.

In more Doctor Who news, the BBC has released a teaser for the upcoming sixth series into the wild. New episodes start April 23.

Monday News Roundup 03/21

Matt — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:48:14 +0000

- Kick off your week with a roundup of the geek news you may have missed -

One last bit of Emerald City ComiCon news to start off. We got word on attendance numbers from the man himself, Jim Demonakos the founder and organizer of ECCC. He tells us that 32,000 people were at the convention center over the course of the weekend versus 20,000 last year. To put that in a little broader context, San Diego reported 130,000 attendees last year but in my book being smaller than San Diego is not at all a bad thing.

The Monday News is under the fold

Comics

Stumptown Comics Fest has announced the final list of 2011 nominees for the Stumptown Comic Arts Awards and you get to decide the winners! The nominees include:
To vote in this year’s awards visit stumptowncomics.com/awards_ballot. After voting, you will receive an email which must be confirmed in order for your vote to be counted. Winners will be announced at the Stumptown Comics Fest, the largest creator-focused comics convention in the Pacific Northwest, which will be held April 16-17 at the Oregon Convention Center.

The Stumptown Award nominated writer Greg Rucka is returning to Marvel with a new ongoing Punisher series. The announcement was made at the Marvel’s Cup O’ Joe panel at C2E2 this weekend. Rucka said that he will be taking a “back to basics” approach on the book;

There is a baseline that is very clear in this character, in my opinion, and I have no urge to f*ck with that at all. In all sincerity. It’s working, it’s dynamite for the character, it defines him well — I’m not going to go in there and mess with that, no way.

Newsarama is reporting that the series will have art by Marco Checchetto of Squadron Supreme fame and will debut in August.

Manga

Publisher Kodansha USA announced in a press release that it will be reprinting the entire run of Naoko Takeuchi’s Sailor Moon. In addition to “deluxe editions” of the series, which has been out of print since 2005, they will be releasing the two-volume prequel series Codename: Sailor V which has never been published in the United States. The original 18 volumes have been condensed into 12 volumes covering the main storyline, and two volumes dedicated to short stories. They will be released bi-monthly starting in September of this year.

Movies

Warner Brothers has released a behind-the-scenes teaser video for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 into the wild. Enjoy!

Tabletop

Atlas Games has announced Cthulhu Gloom, the newest addition to their line of “transparent” card games. Cthulhu Gloom can be played either as a stand alone game or as an expansion for the basic Gloom card game. It continues with the basic Gloom mechanic of having players try and inflict the most suffering on the members families they control before engineering their tragic deaths and will also add two new mechanics, Story cards and Transformation cards. Cthulhu Gloom was designed by Keith Baker and will be in stores this August.

TV

The first picture of actress Adrianne Palicki in her role as Wonder Woman for the new NBC series has been making the rounds (click the thumbnail for full size). Reviews have been mixed from fans and other interested parties. On the positive side, original TV Wonder Woman Lynda Carter told E Online that she liked the new costume;

‘I think she looks fabulous,’ said Carter, who originated the role in the classic (and oh-so-campy!) series in the mid-’70s. ‘It’s a new look and, jeez, her body looks fantastic.’

On the negative side we have Fox News. Fox responded to the photo by republishing an article from July about the Jim Lee-designed costume from the Wonder Woman comics on which the new TV costume is based. In the article they complain that Wonder Woman has “been stripped of her patriotism” with the removal of the stars-and-stripes motif of the original costume. I would make the attempt explain to the Fox writers that Wonder Woman is not actually an American but I’m afraid if I did they would start calling for her to be deported.

Good news for fans of Being Human. Both the BBC and *shudder* Syfy have announced new seasons for their respective incarnations of the series, a fourth for the BBC and a second for *shudder* Syfy. Both versions of the show will begin airing new episodes next year.

Monday News Roundup 02/28

Matt — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 21:00:52 +0000

The world of science fiction and fantasy fandom has been around for a long time and occasionally it is nice to be reminded of that. Andy Porter has posted a collection of historical photos of science fiction fandom on Flickr that I have enjoyed browsing through immensely. The collection is 92 photos from conventions, author portraits and more dating back to the 1920s. Porter told SFScope that “I have thousands which are not scanned in. They are, primarily, from the late 1970s through 2002″ and I really hope that more of the collection makes it online soon.

This example of the enduring nature of fandom was nice to see since, once again, genre films did not fare terribly well outside of the technical awards at the Oscars last night. Inception picked up awards for cinematography, visual effects, sound editing and sound mixing, Alice in Wonderland won for art direction and costume design and Rick Baker and Dave Elsey won for makeup in Wolfman. The highlights were slim enough that Anne Hathaway’s electric-blue dress (which apparently looked kind of like something from Tron Legacy) made Blastr’s list of 11 most memorable sci-fi moments during last night’s Oscars. Oh well, there’s always next year!

The Monday news is under the fold.

Books

The Horror Writers Association has announced the nominees for the 2010 Bram Stoker Awards. The nominees include:
The awards will be presented at World Horror Con in Austin, Texas the weekend of April 28.

The final ballot for the 2010 Nebula awards has also been announced by the SFWA. The nominees include:
The awards will be presented at the 2011 Nebula Awards Weekend, May 19-22, in Washington, DC.

Movies

Paramount Pictures has acquired screen rights to John Scalzi’s Old Man’s War. The project has Wolfgang Petersen attached to direct, David Self adapting the screenplay and Scott Stuber producing. Word from John Scalzi himself via his blog;

I’m very happy with the team putting it together. I’ve been an admirer of Wolfgang Petersen’s for a long time now, both as a director and as someone whose films do great business here and abroad, and I think he’s a very good fit for Old Man’s War. Scott Stuber is likewise a very smart and savvy producer, and someone who knows how to shepherd a film through the process right to the big screen. Screenwriter David Self has done some great work adapting material (see: The Road to Perdition), so I was very happy to hear he was operating on my work. I’m also very pleased to be at Paramount, who knows their way around making, marketing and distributing very large science fiction and adventure films. Basically, a good fit all the way around.

He also notes that “As with any potential film project, there’s a lot that can happen between an announcement of a project and the first time it ever gets shown to an audience. We’re in very early days, and my philosophy is: let’s see what happens next. I’m optimistic and realistic.” Fingers crossed!

Music

Just in time for his show at Kracklefest in Seattle this Saturday, Adam WarRock has released a mixtape in conjunction with Oni Press. The album features music inspired by several Oni comics and includes “interlude” tracks with Oni creators Jarrett Williams, Cullen Bunn & Brian Hurtt, Jen Van Meter, Greg Rucka and Antony Johnston. Best of all you can download the mixtape for free from Adam WarRock’s website.

Video Games

Some good news for fans of Guitar Hero and DJ Hero. After the well publicized cancelling of the franchises by Activision it was announced that, following the currently scheduled releases, no further downloadable content would be forthcoming. Now, due to “continued support” from fans, it seems Activision may have reconsidered. The announcement of new DLC was made via the Guitar Hero and DJ Hero Twitter pages but no other details have been released.

Monday News Roundup 02/07

Matt — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 18:29:53 +0000

Apparently there was some kind of sporting event going on in between the new movie trailers that came out yesterday. If you missed it, we got new trailers for Thor, Captain America and Cowboys vs Aliens all of which look moderately promising!

Those trailers and the rest of the Monday News are under the fold

Superbowl Movie Spots

Comics

Passes for San Diego Comic Con went on sale this Saturday at 9 am. Four day passes were sold out within a matter of hours and single day passes quickly followed. The convention was entirely sold out by 6pm, though additional passes may become available as cancellations are processed. The online ticket buying system was not exactly capable of handling the volume of customers with many people able only to get an “over capacity” error screen. The problems were so pervasive that San Francisco comic store Isotope has created a commemorative “Fail Frog” button for those that weren’t able to get through. The comic below also sums up many people’s experience with the system.

Bone creator Jeff Smith is apparently working on a superman project for DC. Smith posted this sketch of Superman (which you can click to enlarge) on his blog , saying only that it was “for an upcoming project.” He has already done some fine work on DC owned characters, namely Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil which featured Captain Marvel. No further details of the Superman project were available, but it will be one to keep an eye out for.

MMO

Blizzard has announced the dates and location for BlizzCon 2011. This year’s BlizzCon will be held at the Anaheim Convention Center on October 21-22. The press release promises that attendees will enjoy “Hands-on play time with the latest versions of Blizzard Entertainment games, discussion panels with Blizzard Entertainment developers, competitive and casual tournaments for players to showcase their talents, community contests with great prizes [and] commemorative merchandise based on Blizzard Entertainment’s game universes” but offers no specific details regarding announcements or guests that will be in attendance.

Video Games

Game Informer is reporting some good news for Fallout: New Vegas players on the PC and PS3. Dead Money, the first major downloadable expansion for Fallout New Vegas, will be arriving on the PS3 and PC later this month after being out for the XBox 360 since December. In further good news, Bethesda has announced that all future DLC packs will be made available simultaneously on all platforms.

Monday News Roundup 01/24

Matt — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 18:06:15 +0000

Before we get to the news, I’m sure everyone reading this listened to the most recent episode of the Seattle Geekly podcast, right? Of course you have! Then you’ll know that one of the events we talked about was Steamcon and how much we enjoyed it. Well if you missed Steamcon II and wanted to get a better picture of what all the fuss was about, this new video by Steamphunk Synchronic does a fine job of capturing the spirit of the event. Enjoy!

SteamCon II : Steamphunk Synchronic

The Monday News is under the fold

Anime

According to it’s just released schedule, SyFy *shudder* will be adding Chrono Crusade to it’s Ani-Tuesday lineup starting this February. Chrono Crusade is set in the United States during the 1920s and follows the story of Rosette Christopher, and her demon partner Chrono. As members of the Magdalene Order, they travel around the country eliminating demonic threats to society, while Rosette searches for her lost brother Joshua. Based on the manga of the same name, the series orginally broadcast in Japan from 2003-2004.

Books

The short list for the 2010 British Science Fiction Association awards has been released. The nominees are:
The winners will be announced at this April at Eastercon.

Comics

A small correction and an update – We mentioned in Episode #88 that DC Comics will no longer be submitting their comics for evaluation by the Comics Code Authority, instead using an in-house rating system similar to that used for video games. In the podcast I said that would leave only Bongo and Archie as the only major publishers still using the CCA. It turns out that was not entirely correct. Bongo stopped using the CCA sometime last year and on Friday of last week Archie Comics President Mike Pellerito told the website Newsarama that his company would be dropping the CCA as of February leaving, well, no one. After more than four decades of being the absolute standard for comics morality and another 10 years of diminishing influence it looks like the Comics Code Authority has finally faded into complete irrelevance.

Continuing with the “end of an era” theme, Bleeding Cool is reporting that comics industry news magazine Wizard will be ceasing publication effective immediately. A press release on the Wizard World site says that Wizard Comic Con Tour will now be run by a new publicly traded company headed by Wizard Magazine founder Gareb Shamus. The press release goes on to say that the new Wizard World company “plans to launch in February 2011 an all-new digital magazine called ‘Wizard World’ that will appeal to pop-culture fans, the same audience to which Mr. Shamus has catered to, for over 20 years. Wizard World digital magazine will provide coverage of the world of comic books, toys and superheroes, and the personalities behind them”, but nothing is mentioned about the print version of the magazine. UPDATE – Newsarama has confirmed with a representative of Wizard World that both Wizard and it’s sister magazine ToyFare will be replaced by the online-only Wizard World magazine.

Movies

Slash Film

here

TV

In spite of the best intentions of those involved to keep it secret, a new six episode series of Red Dwarf has been confirmed. Craig “Dave Lister” Charles first mentioned that the entire cast was going to be returning for the new series in an interview with the BBC’s Real Radio. Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn then picked up the ball and ran with it in a post on his blog (which has since been removed).

So, the thing is, the whole point was that I was told not to say anything. Doug [series co-creator Doug Naylor] told me, face to face, ‘don’t tweet this bobby. Not yet.’

So I didn’t. I was really good. I said nothing.

I’ve just spoken to Craig, he was as usual gloriously funny about it. He said, and I quote.

‘I did a radio interview and it just sort of slipped out.’

So yes, we are making a new series, commissioned by Dave, not a special or a movie or a one off dooberry. A full 6 half hour episodes of a brand new series.

The plan at the moment, and this could change, the plan is that we record the new series in front of an audience.

We start shooting this in November this year, that is all I know, I haven’t seen scripts, I don’t know anything about plot, I don’t know who else will be in it other than Craig, Chris ["Arnold Rimmer" Barrie], Danny ["Cat" John-Jules] and myself.

Good news for Red Dwarf fans even though it looks like the shows won’t be broadcast until sometime in 2012 at the earliest.

NBC has reversed itself and picked up the pilot for a new Wonder Woman series. According to Deadline.com, NBC orginally passed on the series because it was awaiting the arrival Bob Greenblatt, the new president of programming for the network, and “couldn’t commit to the type of license fee that the studio was seeking”. Also according to Deadline,

The project is described as a reinvention of the iconic D.C. comic in which Wonder Woman — aka Diana Prince — is a vigilante crime fighter in L.A. but also a successful corporate executive and a modern woman trying to balance all of the elements of her extraordinary life.

reserving judgement on this one, but trying to not hope for too much.

Monday News Roundup 01/17

Matt — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 20:29:00 +0000

This is one of those stories that I just really hope is true. Swedish tabloid site Aftonbladet has a story about a police raid on an apartment in Uddevalla, a mid-sized city in southwestern Sweden, where it turns out a group of friends was playing Kinect Sports Boxing. Through the wonder of Google Translate;

‘Someone saw a group of people [targeting blows at] a girl, so we went there with more patrols,’ says Ms Anderson, in command at the Gothenburg police. Minutes later between six and eight police stormed [the residence]. ‘It was a bit awkward when the police came in and asked who was beaten. We felt like hell,’ said [resident] Robert Jackson. ‘In retrospect, my friends laughed at the event.’

The rest of your Monday News is under the fold.

Comics

Portland’s Stumptown Comics Fest is now accepting submissions for the 2011 Stumptown Comic Arts Awards. Categories for this year’s awards include Best Artist, Best Writer, Best Cartoonist, Best Letterer, Best Colorist, Best Publication Design, Best Small Press, and Best New Talent. Any work published after April 2010 will be eligible, and digital comics (meaning any comic published either online or for mobile devices) are also eligible for any category. Publishers and creators interested in submitting work for consideration can find the entry guidelines and a link to the submission form on the Stumptown website. The final ballot will be decided in March and winners will be determined by votes from “any and all professionals, fans and readers of the comic arts”.

Internet

Digital Spy is among the sources on the web reporting that Warner Brothers will be producing a 10 episode live action Mortal Kombat web series. The episodes will be directed by Kevin Tancharoen who’s fan video Mortal Kombat: Rebirth prompted Warner Brothers to develop the series. Filming will begin next month in Canada, but there is no word on a release date.

Movies

Multiple sources on the internet are discussing the announcement by 20th Century Fox that director Ridley Scott’s new science fiction project, which had been almost universally believed to be a prequel to Alien, is, in fact, going to be a completely new story. Deadline Hollywood quotes Scott as saying

While Alien was indeed the jumping off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien’s DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative. I couldn’t be more pleased to have found the singular tale I’d been searching for, and finally return to this genre that’s so close to my heart.

The movie has a working title of Prometheus and is scheduled for release in 2012.

The Hollywood Foreign Press Association gave out it’s Golden Globe awards last night. Genre films and TV did not fare particularly well in nominations this year so it isn’t too surprising that they didn’t win much of anything either. Notable winners include:
- Best Motion Picture – Drama: The Social Network
- Best Motion Picture – Comedy Or Musical: The Kids Are All Right
- Best Animated Feature Film: Toy Story 3
- Best Screenplay – Motion Picture: Aaron Sorkin – The Social Network
- Best Television Series – Drama: Boardwalk Empire (HBO)
- Best Television Series – Comedy Or Musical: Glee (FOX)
The full list of winners is up at the HFPA website.

Monday News Roundup 01/10/11

Matt — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 17:40:01 +0000

The People’s Choice Awards were given out last week. I mention this not because there were several nominees that were of interest to the geek set but mostly because I am, as always, almost completely baffled by the winners that The People Chose. Winners included:

Favorite Movie: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Favorite Movie Actor: Johnny Depp
Favorite Movie Actress: Kristen Stewart
Favorite Action Movie: Iron Man 2
Favorite Drama Movie: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Favorite Family Movie: Toy Story 3
Favorite On Screen Team: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner
Favorite Horror Movie: A Nightmare on Elm Street
Favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy Show: Fringe

I guess The People really loves them some Twilight.

I’ll take this opportunity to mention again that Episode #87 of the Seattle Geekly podcast will be out this Thursday and we’ll be running down our 2010 Year in Geek. We welcome your input, so if you have something in particular that rang your geek bell this last year leave us a comment and let us know! Even if it was Twilight…

Your Monday News is under the fold

Comics

I normally try and stay away from rumor mongering here on the Monday News but this is just too good to pass up. Writer Gail Simone made a post over on the Jinxworld forums in response to a poster lamenting that she had never written for Buffy the Vampire Slayer indicating that she had a standing invitation to do just that.

They asked me to, they said I can write as much Buffy as I want, and they sent all the tpbs for me to look at.

They have been pretty wonderful, actually!

Buffy Season 9 should be starting up in the not too distant future and I’m just saying that it would be pretty awesome if Gail Simone picked up the writing duties…

Digital comics distributor Graphic.ly is trying to entice new users to try their service by offering the first issue of David Petersen’s Mouse Guard: Winter 1152 as a free download this week. Graphic.ly also has Caryn A. Tate‘s Red Plains: Range War available as a free download as well as many other indie and self published titles. Graphic.ly apps are available for the iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch, Adobe Air and Windows 7.

MMO

The beta for DC Universe Online ended last week with a bang. Beta testers were treated to a full on street brawl against Lex Luthor and The Joker and they had the chance to fight along side Batman and the previously unannounced and never before seen Superman. After the brawl Sony made the official (and not tremendously surprising) announcement that Superman will be part of DCUO and they released his character art (which you can click to enlarge)

Movies

All six Star Wars movies are being released on Blu-ray in three different collections. According to the press release fans will be able to buy Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Blu-ray (9-disc Set includes all six films), Star Wars: Prequel Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes I-III) or Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy (3-disc set includes Episodes IV-VI). The Complete Saga includes “more than 30 hours of extensive special features including never-before-seen deleted and alternate scenes, an exploration of the exclusive Star Wars archives, and much more” but neither it nor the Star Wars: Original Blu-ray Trilogy set will include the theatrical releases of the original Star Wars films.

TV

The highly anticipated HBO adaptation of George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series finally has a solid air date. The series will premiere on Sunday, April 17th 2011. I am officially stating right now that this series had better not suck.

Video Games

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer made a statement at the Consumer Electronics Expo on Friday that seemed to indicate that Microsoft is working on Kinect support for the PC. Balmer told the BBC that “We’ll support that in a formal way, in the right time. When we have an announcement to make, we’ll make it.” CEE also saw an announcement that Kinect control for Zune, Netflix, Hulu Plus, and ESPN on XBox would be available sometime this Spring.

2K games is taking aplications for the Alpha test of their new Facebook game Civilization World (requires Facebook Connect). The testing will begin January 12 and those lucky enough to get in will get a special trophy that they can display to show off the fact that they were there from the beginning. Civilization World is, of course, a social gaming adaptation of Sid Meier’s Civilization and Sid Meier has put up an open letter on Facebook explaining what to expect from the game.

Monday News Roundup 12/20

Matt — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 17:33:07 +0000

Everyone reading this should already be signed up on Kirby Krackle‘s e-mail list. Those who are subscribed will have already heard this, but in case there are any holdouts Seattle’s favorite comic book rockers have released a new single for the holidays and it seemed like an appropriate way to lead off this week’s news.

In other Kirby Krackle news, their Fallout tribute song ‘Vault 101′ is now available on Rock Band Network! Go get it. Now.

The rest of the Monday News is under the fold.

Anime/Manga

Distributor Viz Media is episodes of four of their shows as free downloads via iTunes. Clearly designed to get new viewers hooked, the “Download-to-Own promotion” includes the full first episodes of Vampire Knight, Bleach, Kekkaishi, and Naruto Shippuden with all subsequent episodes available for rent for $0.99, or to own for $1.99. The free downloads will be available from now until February first.

As expected the Tokyo Metropolitan Assembly passed a revised bill to amend the city’s Youth Healthy Development Ordinance. Ostensibly aimed at keeping anime and manga with adult themes out of the hands of children the new law has been blasted by creators, fans and free speech advocates as thinly veiled government censorship. The Comics Journal has a great editorial that highlights many of the problems with the new law as well as an entertaining graphic showing how the poster for the 2011 Tokyo Anime Fair will have to be changed if the coalition of ten publishers follow through on their threat to pull out of the event if the bill passed.

Movies

Multiple sources around the internet are reporting on an interview with H.R. Giger’s wife shown on a Swiss television station in which she mentioned that the artist was busily working on concept art for the Alien prequel that Ridley Scott is set to begin shooting in February. The prequel is rumored to be titled Alien Paradise and will focus on telling the story of how the Aliens came to be on planet LV-426 where they were found by the crew of the Nostromo in the original film.

Speaking of aliens, the international trailer for Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s new comedy Paul has been released into the wild. Enjoy!

The Golden Globe nominees have been announced. Genre films did resonably well with Alice in Wonderland and Inception both picking up nominations for Best Motion Picture in their categories. On the TV front, The Walking Dead was nominated for Best Television Series-Drama and The Big Bang Theory was nominated for Best Television Series-Comedy or Musical. The full list of nominations is available on the official Golden Globes site.