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Monday News Roundup 04/18

Matt — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:37:36 +0000

Game of Thrones premiered on HBO last night. You don’t have to worry about any spoilers here though. I can’t really talk about the show since, due to my ridiculous day job schedule Monday mornings, I was not able to stay up and watch it. What I can talk about is the genre snobbery in the mainstream press reviews.

Disdain for genre fiction is certainly nothing new. The Culture Show on the BBC recently aired a special titled ‘The Books We Really Read‘ that was so dismissive of genre fiction that it prompted a letter of protest signed by 85 science fiction, fantasy and horror authors ranging from Iain Banks to Michael Moorcock. Authors like Margaret Atwood have spent their entire careers fighting against having their work classified as “science-fiction” no doubt in some part because of the stigma attached to the label by critics. Given that, it isn’t surprising that some reviewers have been pretty contemptuous of the Game of Thrones premiere.

The New York Times review is particularly bad. The reviewer praises HBO for shows like The Wire, The Sopranos, Deadwood and Big Love but goes on to say that “when the network ventures away from its instincts for real-world sociology, as it has with the vampire saga ‘True Blood,’ things start to feel cheap, and we feel as though we have been placed in the hands of cheaters.” So real world = good, vampires or fantasy setting = bad. Got it.

The review also criticizes Game of Thrones as being “boy fiction” to which HBO added sex and romance “as a little something for the ladies, out of a justifiable fear, perhaps, that no woman alive would watch otherwise,” an accusation so egregious that George R. R. Martin took the rare step of responding to the critic

I am not going to get into it myself, except to say

if I am writing “boy fiction,” who are all those boys with breasts who keep turning up by the hundreds at my signings and readings?
and

thank you, geek girls! I love you all.

The worst part of the review is that it fails to do any kind of actual review of the show itself. The reviewer talks about how expensive it was to produce, complains about the fantasy setting, explains how the show came to be on HBO, makes a couple of cracks about the use of invented languages, takes a swipe at D&D players and makes her laughable and vaguely sexist “boy fiction” comment all with virtually no discussion of what the show is actually about.

As I have mentioned before, in spite of the rising popularity of geekdom, the easiest way to prove your cool cred in the mass culture is still to make fun of the nerds and that is pretty much all the New York Times is doing with this review. Game of Thrones is something geeks would like, therefore it can’t be any good.

I will be watching Game of Thrones at the earliest opportunity and since I am both a boy and a D&D player I anticipate enjoying it thoroughly

The Monday News is under the fold.

Comics

the 2011 Stumptown Comic Art Awards were presented at Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland over the weekend. The winners are:

Manga

Manga publisher Tokyopop has announced that they will be shutting down their North American publishing division as of May. Founder Stu Levy put a posative spin on the closure in a post on the Tokyopop website saying “our community has fought the good fight, and, as a result, the Manga Revolution has been won –manga has become a ubiquitous part of global pop culture.” Tokyopop’s film and television projects and European operations, including the German publishing program, will not be affected by the North American office closure.

Anime News Network is reporting that Fruits Basket creator Natsuki Takaya will launch a manga series called Liselotte and Witch’s Forest starting this May. Takaya wrote Fruits Basket from 1998-2007 and the series was published in the U.S. by Tokyopop starting in 2004. The new series “centers around Liselotte — a girl who, until now, has lived a different life from others on the very easternmost tip of a country.”

MMO

Developer Bigpoint announced in a press release that their browser-based Battlestar Galactica MMO has passed the one million subscriber mark since the open beta started in February. The game centers around space combat and allows players to fly missions either as Cylons or Humans and has story based PvE missions as well as strategic PvP battles for resources. BSG Online is free to play with optional microtransactions.

TV

Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon created something of a stir with a tweet on Saturday. The tweet, saying only “Great meeting at Syfy yesterday. New project. HUGE. New series. Very excited. Very, very excited” has created a lot of speculation about what the nature of this project is and how huge it could be. Farscape ran on *shudder* SyFy from 1999 – 2003, was plagued by changes in time slots and was finally cancelled by the network due to the show’s high production cost. We will be watching for further developments on this.

We mentioned a few weeks ago the rumors started by SGU producer Joseph Mallozzi that if the ratings were good enough for the final episodes of the show that an SGU movie was not out of the question. Well those hopes have now been pretty definitively dashed by an announcement by executive producer Brad Wright at this weekend’s Creation Stargate convention in Vancouver. Airlock Alpha reports that Wright told an audience at the convention that financing for future Stargate projects had fallen through, partially because of the recent bankruptcy and financial restructuring at the show’s studio home MGM. *shudder* SyFy officially canceled the series in December and the last episode is scheduled to air in May.

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!

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 03/14

Matt — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 16:09:30 +0000

To kick off the Monday News I wanted to highlight the third annual Dead Letter Awards, the winners of which were announced in Episode 158 of the Mail Order Zombie podcast. Whatever medium you like your zombies in, be it books, movies, video games, or whatever, there will be something there for you. This is also not your typical award show. Think of it as part Oscar Night and part Zombieland. You can download the episode here and you may hear a few familiar voices as part of the show.

The rest of the Monday News is under the fold.

Art

The eighteenth annual Spectrum awards for excellence in science fiction and fantasy art were chosen on Saturday. The winners include:
The full list of winners is available here.

Books

Fantasy Magazine is relaunching with a new editor and a new online format for its March issue. Following in the footsteps of its sister publication, Lightspeed, Fantasy will be offering all of its content online with electronic subscriptions and copies of individual issues available for purchase as well. Each issue will include four short stories (two originals and two reprints), three nonfiction articles, closely tied to the fiction, plus one feature interview. Fantasy will also be prodcing two fiction podcasts. The March issue will include stories by George R.R. Martin, Holly Black, Tanith Lee, and Genevieve Valentine and is available now.

Comics

If you listened to the podcast last week you will remember us talking about yet another delay in the release of DC’s new Batwoman comic. Now series artist J.H. Williams III has commented about the delay on his blog. He said that the delay was not the choice of the creators but offered no details, saying only that he is “not at liberty to really discuss [it].” The up side to the delay, according to Williams, is that they have had plenty of time to get ahead on production and he showed off some artwork for the cover of issue #3 to help ” keep spirits up.” The series is now expected to debut next month.

MMO

BioWare released a new trailer for Star Wars: The Old Republic in to the wild at PAX East this weekend. Enjoy!

TV

Entertainment Weekly is reporting that both BBC One and BBC America have confirmed air dates for the new series of Doctor Who. The sixth series will air on BBC One on April 23 and on BBC America on the same day a few short hours after it’s premiere in England. The first empisode will be a two-parter written by Steven Moffat. The series will include guest appearances by Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin from Battlestar Galactica and Crowley on Supernatural) and Alex Kingston (River Song).

SyFy *shudder* has started airing the final ten episodes of Stargate Universe but the possibility exists for the story to continue. Show producer Joseph Mallozzi wrote on his blog about the chance for SG:U to return as a TV movie after the series finale titled ‘The Gauntlet’.

Hopefully, by the time its airs, we’ll have definite word on a potential movie or two. If it’s a go and fans can look forward to a proper end to Destiny’s mission, then Gauntlet will certainly set the stage for a grand conclusion. If, on the other hand, things don’t pan out and Gauntlet does turn out to be the bittersweet finale, fans will be thrilled, touched, heartbroken – and left to wonder what could have been.

‘The Gauntlet’ is scheduled to air in May.

Monday News Roundup 2/21

Matt — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 18:12:21 +0000

Those of you following us on twitter or facebook will already know that we are in the process of moving ourselves and the massive Seattle Geekly production studios from one part of north Seattle to a different, slightly more southerly part of north Seattle. Fear not though! This move will not (fingers crossed) disrupt the flow of geeky goodness! We are still on track to have our Pre-Emerald City ComiCon show next week which will feature, among many other things, interviews with Felicia Day and Amy Okuda from The Guild! You’ll want to listen.

The Monday News is under the fold

Anime

Some good news for Studio Ghibli fans. The Borrower Arrietty won the Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year on Friday (full list of winners here). This, along with Ponyo in 2009, is the second win for Studio Ghibli in the four years since the Animation of the Year category began four years ago. Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away won for Picture of the Year prior to the creation of the animation category. In other Ghibli news, Anime News Network is reporting that studio founder Hayao Miyazaki will be directing another film. No details on the story or release date were given, but it is possible that the film would be one of the “epics” mentioned in the studio’s 2008 5-year plan.

A teaser trailer for the X-Men anime being developed by Marvel and Madhouse Studios has been released into the wild. The show is set to premiere in the U.S. later this year on G4TV.

Internet

I mentioned back in January that Wizard and it’s sister magazine ToyFare were ending publication to be replaced by the online-only Wizard World magazine, now there are a few more details about what Wizard World will be. In an interview with iFanboy, Wizard founder Gareb Shamus says that the new magazine is “going to be free, and it’s going to be weekly, and it’s going to be available everywhere. So however people are going to want to read it, whether it’s through their iPad, they’re going to be able to read it online, they’re going to be able to read it through a bunch of different mobile devices.” The first issue of Wizard World will be out February 23.

TV

HBO has released another preview trailer for Game of Thrones. Enjoy!

Video Games

Telltale Games has come out with a string of very cool announcements over the last few days. First they have a long term agreement with Robert Kirkman to produce games based on The Walking Dead. According to the press release Telltale will be releasing multiple Walking Dead titles for PC, Mac, console, handheld, mobile and social gaming media over the next few years. They have also announced an agreement with DC Entertainment to create games based on Bill Willingham’s comic book series Fables. The Fables game will also be “episodic and multi-platform”. Finally they have announced a sequel to their popular game Puzzle Agent. Puzzle Agent 2, scheduled to release for PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and PlayStation Network, “builds on the award-winning puzzler developed in collaboration with indie comic artist and animator Graham Annable.” No specific release dates were announced for any of the games.

Monday News Roundup 02/14

Matt — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 17:52:36 +0000

Before we get in to the news I have a short rant about death in comic books.

Even non-comics readers will probably have heard about the death of Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, in a recent issue of The Fantastic Four. The story broke into the mainstream press, as I’m sure Marvel had hoped it would, generating considerable buzz for the event. The resulting spike in sales of the Fantastic Four was apparently enough that it prompted David Gabriel, Senior Vice President of Sales at Marvel Comics who spoke at the ComicsPRO trade meeting in Dallas this weekend, to announce that Marvel will kill a main character every quarter adding, according to one report, “this is not a joke”. Since word of this leaked Gabriel has backed away from the statement, saying “It’s partially true and said as a humorous response to the question ‘What can you do to bring more outside folks into comic shops?’ The actual point made was that these stories should not be seen as merely death stories, but more important is the aftermath.”

No one I have talked to is actually expecting Johnny Storm to stay dead. By this point everyone knows that major characters never stay dead in comics. Jean Grey/Phoenix, Batman, Superman and Captain America all had heavily hyped deaths and all have since returned. The phenomenon is so well known that there is even a Wikipedia entry for “Comic Book Death“. Seattle Geekly’s resident comic book expert Ed has pointed out that even the timing of the Human Torch’s death gives a hint as to when he will return. He dies in issue #587, leaving time for a one year/12 issue “aftermath” storyline before his triumphant return in Fantastic Four #600.

The death of a hero has become a cliché and this is what I find most troubling about David Gabriel’s comment and even his explanation – clichés do not make for good storytelling. Marketing gimmicks run amok were a big part of what nearly killed the comics industry in the 90s. Sales were driven by an artificially created collector market based on nothing but hype. Once people realized that not only were the ultra rare foil variant covers not really valuable collectables, but there was also no story to speak of inside, the bubble burst. An endless cycle of The Death of [Character X], The Aftermath of [Character X]‘s Death and The Amazing Return of [Character X] stories would have the same effect. It wouldn’t take long at all before those stories just weren’t worth reading and, with the demise of the collector market, if comics aren’t worth reading, they aren’t worth buying.

Marvel was once known as “The House of Ideas” and that is what generates sustainable readership. Good ideas, good writing and good art. I really hope someone on the creative side of Marvel remembers that before the marketing side drives them in to another hole.

The Monday News is under the fold.

MMO

Developer ArenaNet quietly announced through an update to the FAQs that closed alpha and beta testing on Guild Wars 2 will begin sometime this year. ArenaNet posters on the GuildWars2guru forums were quick to point out that the release date for the game is the same as it has always been – “when the game is ready” – but this is still an encouraging sign.

Movies

This Wednesday is Film and Media Day in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You may well ask why you should care, but if you scroll down the list of events on the website you will notice that one of them is an open casting call “in which ALL of New Mexico’s working Casting Directors and SAG franchised Talent Agents and/or their representatives will be present” including those for The Avengers. This could be your chance to be an extra in a crowd scene directed by Joss Whedon!

Music

A few of the people behind RhymeTorrents, the seminal early nerdcore community, have set out to construct a new community, Nerdcore Now, and they are celebrating with the release of a compilation album featuring Ultraklystron, Beefy, Death*Star, and Adam Warrock among many others. The actual Nerdcore Now site is currently down while it gets moved to new servers but the album is available to download at NerdcoreHipHop.com and Hipster Please has an excellent review of the album plus a little reminiscence about the significance of RhymeTorrents in the history of nerdcore.

The Civilization franchise has another feather to put in it’s cap. This weekend, the Grammy for Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalists was awarded to ‘Baba Yetu’ composed by Christopher Tin. In addition to being on Tin’s album Calling All Dawns the song was used as the theme for Civilization IV in 2005 making it the fist game ever to receive a Grammy. Calling All Dawns was also nominated and won for Best Crossover Classical Album.

TV

Good news for BSG fans: filming has now officially begun on the pilot for Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome. Straight from the press release:

Production has begun in Vancouver on Syfy’s highly anticipated 2-hour pilot, Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome, the all-new chapter in the Battlestar Galactica saga. Universal Cable Productions will produce the event with Syfy utilizing cutting edge CGI and virtual technology.

Battlestar Galactica: Blood & Chrome takes place in the 10th year of the first Cylon war. As the battle between humans and their creation, the sentient robotic Cylons, rages across the 12 colonial worlds, a young, talented fighter pilot, William Adama (Luke Pasqualino), finds himself assigned to one of the most powerful Battlestars in the Colonial fleet: the Galactica. Full of ambition and in pursuit of the intense action that the Cylon war promises, Adama quickly find himself at odds with Coker (Ben Cotton), the battle-weary officer to whom he reports.

Joining Pasqualino and Cotton in the cast is Lili Bordan, who will play Dr. Beka Kelly, a Ph.D. who worked for Graystone Industries that created the Cylon robots.

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 01/10/11

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 01/03 – The return of Seattle Geekly!

Matt — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 17:10:53 +0000

Welcome to 2011!

We sort of became our own evil twins here at Seattle Geekly over the holiday break. We ignored e-mail, didn’t watch twitter and we allowed the Seattle Geekly site to languish unattended for days. On the up side I played through Fallout 3 again and put a dent in New Vegas and Shannon made some serious progress in Cataclysm. Now the holidays are done and we are back and ready for anyother year of geeking it up (in between playing New Vegas and Cataclysm)!

Before I get started on the news I would like to briefly revisit my review of the FaceEater cardgame. We got an e-mail from John Harris from the FaceEater team taking me to task, and correctly so, for overlooking the paragraph in the rule sheet that does, in fact, specify that the player with the lowest score wins. I have no adequate explanation how everyone at the table when we played the game managed to miss that and I regret the error. We also had more than one person suggest that it seemed like the kind of game that would be very amenable to “house rules” and adjusting the game to suit the mood of those at the table, an idea which Mr. Harris also seemed to endorse in his e-mail to us. I certainly acknowledge that it is quite possible that we were playing the game wrong, especially in light of having missed a key and fairly obvious element in the rules the first time around. I plan to give the game another shot and we’ll follow up.

Your Monday News is under the fold

Books

Publisher Angry Robot Books has announced that they will be having an “Open Door” month this March during which they will accept submissions from unagented authors for the first time. They are looking for novels, either standalone or as part of greater series, in the “fantasy, science fiction, horror, and that new catch-all urban or modern fantasy” genres along with the associated sub-genres. Full details are available on their Open Door Month page and their submission guidlines are here.

Comics

Dark Horse announced back in July that their seminal anthology series Dark Horse Presents would be returning to publication this year. DHP was originally published from 1986 through 2000 and saw the first appearances of John Byrne’s Next Men, Frank Miller’s Sin City, Paul Chadwick’s Concrete and Eric Powell’s The Goon among many others and returned as an online comic available through MySpace from 2007 through last year. The first issue of the new Dark Horse Presents will be 80 pages, in color and will have two different covers, one highlighting a new Concrete story titled ‘Intersection’ and one for the teaser of Frank Miller’s 300 prequel Xerxes. Both covers are below and you can click to enlarge.

TV

SyFy *shudder* will be showing the final five episodes of Caprica in a mini-marathon that will air tomorrow, January 4, starting at 6pm Pacific. Fans also have a chance to own a piece of the show with the auction, going on now, of props, costumes and other memorabilia through Propworx. Highlights of the auction include Zoe Graystone’s purple dress and Lacy Rand’s Hero motorcycle helmet along with many other items.