Here we are, finally back with a brief review of "A Town Called Mercy" and "The Power of Three." Frankly, we weren't all that enthused about either episode, so this is mostly just about how time travel is confusing, brain hurty type stuff. We're pretty psyched for Saturday's fall finale, "Angels Take Manhattan," so we're saving our energy for that one. (I bet you didn't know it took a lot of energy to talk about Doctor Who. Well, it doesn't. We just don't have much to begin with.)

I would, however, like to add a personal note about "A Town Called Mercy": I am shocked by the lack of art in the fan community devoted to Susan.

Spoilers follow, so don't continue if you haven't seen the episode.

We're back with our second Doctor Who review of the much anticipated "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." It's an episode jam packed with all sorts of nerdy goodness, and that's on top of the titular dinosaurs populating the aforementioned spaceship. It was also the episode that gave us two excellent pieces of advice: 1. Whenever you enter someplace new, press buttons; and 2. carry a trowel.

Spoilers follow, so don't continue if you haven't seen the episode.

(From Lissy-Strata's DeviantArt Page)

I'm relatively new to Doctor Who, while Francene is a longtime fan, but we were both really excited for "Asylum of the Daleks," the start of the new season, on Saturday night. We thought we would have a little virtual viewing party, and then share our reactions with our readers. Of course, we wound up being slightly more absorbed in watching the show than commenting on it. It was a pretty major episode, with a lot of changes and revelations though.

Spoilers follow, so don't continue if you haven't seen the episode.

It probably wouldn't make any sense to you if you haven't seen it anyway.

Last night on Animal Planet, they re-ran a faux documentary program called Mermaid: The Body Found. It was in a similar vein as Trollhunter (though, nowhere near as well-produced,) and from what I gather, every time Animal Planet airs this show, it generates quite a bit of confusion.

It's made to look like it's really one of those "found footage" "alien autopsy" sort of programs that explores the mysteries of mermaids. It's also supposed to inform people of actual technologies, as well. Still, there is some question why it was on a "real channel" like Animal Planet, a channel that is owned by the same company that owns Discovery Channel, which airs -- among other things -- a reality show about auctioneers (to better compete with the HISTORY Channel and their successful show about PAWN SHOPS.)

Don't get me wrong, I love Deadliest Catch, but it's not exactly educational programming, which doesn't happen all the time anymore on cable networks like Discovery. Can you even remember what TLC was supposed to stand for? Just a hint, it's not "Kitchen Boss Marathons." So when Chew's Rob Guillory was bewildered last night by a re-airing of Mermaid: Body Found, he did some looking and came up with possibly the greatest representation of awful comments currently on the interwebs.

(Summer is Coming tee from Busted Tees.)

Sometimes, book reviews are hard, and it has nothing to do with the quality of the book. Sometimes, when it comes to writing a book review or vacuuming the apartment, I choose vacuuming. Sometimes, I have a hard time coming up with something more than, "this is good."

I'm having one of those times now.

On Saturday morning, I awoke at 6 am and then decided that was too damned early to be awake on a Saturday. So I decided to stay in bed as long as possible, which meant reading Twitter and, eventually, going through my nightstand looking for those issues of Casanova I bought a while back but never read.

What I stumbled upon was a bag of vintage comics I'd purchased probably two years ago at an antique store for $4 apiece. Included was Lois Lane #129, and Supergirl #2, both with amazing covers. Basically the recipe to get me to buy a silver or golden age comic is to have an amazing cover (the ones that are "cliffhangers" are my favorite) and to be less than $5. (Because I am not actually a collector, just cheap.)

The end result is me, lying in bed and tweeting my reactions, which I'll recap here, because not only am I cheap, I'm lazy.

This image a metaphor for the entire film. A beautiful mess.

Imagine Die Hard. (If you're on this site, I'm gonna assume you've seen it at least once. More than likely, you're like every other geek who counts it as a "Christmas movie" and watches it several times every December.)

Die Hard is a great movie. I'll go out on a not-very-dangerous limb here and say it actually defines the action movie genre, in the best possible way. So picture it in your head: An average schmo -- middle aged, balding, blue-collar looking dude -- finds himself in a crazy terrorist hostage situation on Christmas Eve. Dude's just trying to patch things up with his wife, and he suddenly he has to be John Wayne.

As we all know, at the end, the villain gets thrown out of a window and plummets 30-some floors to his death.

Now imagine the end of Die Hard, and picture Hans Gruber slinking away laughing "I'll get you NEXT TIME, JOHN MCCLANE, MUAH HA HA!" Winky wink to the camera, fade out, credits up.

Be honest. You'd want to punch that movie in the dick.

(Jeremy Renner needs to play Repairman Jack)

I have a confession to make. I'm cheating on my collection of sci-fi and fantasy novels.

My brother introduced me to Repairman Jack back in March. He'd been going on for years about how I would really like him but I have such a vast pile of books to read that I never listened to him. But then, I had the awesome chance to meet the creator of this fictional fix-it man at C2E2 - F. Paul Wilson. I figured 'dI better read The Tomb so I didn't seem like a complete tool when I asked him to autograph a book for my brother.

Due to a bunch of scheduling snafus, Carey was the only Geektress that was able to make it to our annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo meetup this year. But she carried on like a champ and did a bunch of picture taking and blogging for us. Unfortunately, the site was suffering its malware malady and so she posted her roundup on her personal blog. So, after the jump, we have some of the highlights.

I know I'm slow on the uptake with book reviews. I have so many that I try to read that I don't usually get to new ones until they've been out for a few months. Unless of course publishers send me ARCs (hint, hint - I need more of these!). I finally got around to finishing David Anthony Durham's Acacia trilogy this week. The final book, The Sacred Band, came out late in 2011. The trilogy as a whole was a rare, satisfying read. I like to compare books to food. Books are food for the brain, and like food for the stomach, they can taste great (or awful), fill you up (or leave you starving), and nourish you (or give you gut rot and cavities). Durham's trilogy manages to do all three.

When I was in my teens and early 20s, I lived for The X-Files. I had the hots for both Mulder and Scully. And also Krycek, occasionally Skinner, and the cute bearded Lone Gunman. Shoot, I wanted to have Chris Carter's babies. I watched Millenium when that came on, even though it was only peripherally related to The X-Files. I even watched The Lone Gunmen, and it made me weep, but I watched it. I saw the movie on opening night - twice. And in my mind, there is only one movie - I like to think I only imagained the second one in a horrible nightmare.

It was a pretty big week for comics last week. Brian K Vaughn's Saga finally dropped (I didn't read it), and another much-anticipated book, Womanthology, showed up in comic stores (I sort of read it, but I'm in it, so I mostly just obsessed over my mistakes.) (I'm on page 194, go look it up.)

However, three much more exciting (to me, anyway) stories ended up on my digital (and actual) doorstep this week. I didn't think I could top the thrill of seeing my own work in print, but the following three comics were so well done, they have confirmed my choice to only read creator-owned / indie comics from here on out.

Warning: This Way Lie Spoilers

It's no secret that I love Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy. I've read the books three times now, the last time so I could write a fancy learning, academic-like paper. I am so pumped for the movie. It comes out the weekend before my birthday so I'm going to go see it. Maybe twice. And while I'm happy with the finality of Mockingjay - seriously, not every series or movie franchise or television show has to go on forever and ever until it's too awful to continue - I am kind of sad that the adventures of Katniss, Gale, and Peeta are pretty much over.

So, when offered the chance to review the movie tie-in version of The Girl Who Was on Fire, a compliation of essays on The Hunger Games trilogy by other YA authors edited by Leah Wilson, there wasn't much arm twisting involved. FYI, there is an edition of this book in stores currently, but this is a review of the movie tie-in edition with three additional essays.

I've been remiss in writing about comics for Geektress. I'm a slacker, but isn't that what comic readers do? DC's relaunch has given me the chance to start fresh, and read comics I've never looked at before. Here's what I think as a new reader to the DC-verse (selected titles only since I can't afford to read them all):

I have been waylayed by my horrible lack of any sort of organization. I have also been feeling a little like breaking up with pop culture and the internet, because I live in a barren wasteland devoid of actual thought. We call it Texas. (Ok,there are some awesome people here. They are just so spread out we dont live close to each other. ) Anyhoo, here is some stuff I have been staring at.

Yes, we fully realize how terrifying this photoshop is.

In December, Patty Jenkins, the director of Monster, was let go from the production of Thor 2. She would've been the first female to direct a major superhero movie (really?) and her firing reportedly pissed off Natalie Portman (though, we think it just sounded more like Natalie was kind of bummed out, not "furious.") Since then, Marvel has hired Alan Taylor (most known for directing television -- and we don't mean anything negative by that) to helm Thor 2, which should begin filming this summer (with a November 2013 release date.)

The part that gave us pause was that Marvel didn't consider any other female directors to replace Patty. A lot of speculation around the 'net was that the "only" other viable candidate would be Kathryn Bigelow. Partly because she's Oscar-accredited, partly because she's apparently an "action" director. (Though, if Branagh can direct a superhero movie, why can't any other genre director, but that's just sensible talk.) So here's our list of possible replacements for Alan, should he decide he'd rather direct another episode of Game of Thrones, instead:

A while back, I did a review of The Maze Runner, by James Dashner. I believe I said something about potential and that The Maze Runner had issues but I was confident Dashner would work through those in the The Scorch Trials. I am back to tell you that I totally lied.

If you're not following any of these fine folks on the tweeting mechanism, then you are probably missing out. Here are some of our favorite bon mots from the past month, and also pictures of attractive women with red velvet cake. (Photoshops compiled from requests to our Facebook, Twitter, and this blog.)

This entry has zero informational content and, if you're a hetero male, might alienate you a little bit.

Too bad. When we were discussing what our 500th entry should be, first it was pointed out by Laura that we should call attention to being a website for over 4 years and only just now getting to 500 entries. Well done, us! We are awesome at procrastinating.

Second of all, we decided it should be awesome. And there is really nothing more awesome to us than cake, and also attractive men.

That's what you get here.

Wheee! We bought a Wii! And in our grand tradition of buying a new gaming system, the first game we bought was the new Zelda, titled "Skyward Sword."

Do I like this game more than Windwaker? No I do not. Am I any good at playing this game? No I am not.

I have decided to make it my mission to read as many Young Adult dystopian narratives as I possibly can. Mostly because I like them, but also because I’m trying to figure out why I like them. I like them the same way I like zombie apocalypse books. There’s something super attractive about a world where most people are gone and the survivors are left to remake things the in the way they want. Or there’s the scenario where the world has been remade and it’s going to hell so it’s up to a scrappy band of teens to fix it. However, this attraction hinges on the fact that first, I’d be one of the survivors and second, I’d be in charge. Considering I’m too fat to outrun zombies and I have a constitution of about -10, it’s unlikely that I would survive any world altering destruction. But, a girl can dream…

I will be the first to admit that Laura and I talk about Merlin way too much. I don't even know how we keep finding new things to discuss. Although, to be fair, we somehow kept ourselves discussing Smallville for far longer than we should have. Since Merlin is supposedly based on the idea of Smallville (and it happens to be better than Smallville,) I guess it shouldn't be a surprise at all that we spend our free time planning ways to expand our love for Merlin and pizza to include the whole world.

I think I started reading The Passage by Justin Cronin back in August. It had been on my must read list for a while and it remained that way until recently. I kept getting distracted by other books I had to read for reviews or paper writing but a couple of weeks ago, I decided I would sit down and finish The Passage if it killed me.

It didn’t kill me, but the book left me feeling drained. Other reviewers have compared it to The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and yeah, that’s an apt comparison to an extent. Except Cronin uses quotation marks with his dialogue and the end of The Passage doesn’t make you want to shoot yourself in the face. [Oh, so I guess the book was like that, too? -Ed.]

For comics lovers, there are a ton of great sales going on today. First and foremost is Dark Horse Digital, who are offering 134 Star Wars comics for $100. Threadless is selling all their t-shirts for $10, including the ones by comic book artists. If you want original art, check out your favorite creator's Etsy store. For instance, Sean Dove will take 20% off your order if you use the code "CYBERMEN" in his Etsy print shop. And all Ten East Read items by Christiann at Stickcomics are 25% off until Wednesday! (Enter THANX11 at checkout.)

Plus, you can go to Amazon and save on pretty much any tv box set or dvd or blu-ray you're hoping to get this Christmas.

Hope you have a happy Turkey day! And if you're not in the U.S., hope you have a great Thursday. Links are after the jump!

Under the Skin is a novel by Michel Faber, first published in 2000. In 2010 the movie version was greenlit, with Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) directing and Scarlett Johannson starring. Glazer had been working on an adaptation of the book for five years before filming started. The protagonist, Isserley, is a female from a species of alien that is apparently four-legged and furry. She shaves, gets a boob job, and stands upright to try and abduct human hitchhikers along the A9 in Scotland.

At no point in the book does ScarJo's character (now renamed "Laura," according to IMDb?) rescue a surfer. (Seen above.)

(Click to Embiggen.)

So, we failed to bring you the entire transcription of this press conference because typing is tiring. To recap: there was a Venture Bros. panel for press before the panel for the general public at New York Comic Con, and since I didn't go to the latter, I am bringing you a transcript of the former, hoping it's unique and original. Enjoy.

Earlier this week, Variety reported on a comment by David Yates, director of the last few "Harry Potter" movies, that he was about to start developing a "Doctor Who" movie for BBC Worldwide (the presumably evil, L.A. based company in charge of making sucky Hollywood versions of BBC properties -- I'm guessing). Even though this report seems to be completely overblown, people have apparently started to talk about who should play the Doctor in said pipe-dream movie. I know because Simon Pegg complained about it on Twitter.

I thought it would be much more fun to think about who shouldn't be in a Doctor Who movie, and asked our Twitter followers to share their own worst case scenarios (using the hashtag #WorstDoctor). I offered up my own with Vin Diesel as the Doctor and Jessica Alba as his companion (that being my nightmare casting for any movie ever, basically), but what I got back was so much better. There were even a few I found intriguing enough to want to see.

If you don't know already, Brett-Livingstone Strong is hailed as “A modern day Michelangelo”, and has the most amazing mullet I have ever seen. He painted the only portrait of Michael Jackson that Jackson ever sat for in his lifetime, which really seems hard to believe. When I think Neverland Ranch, I think giant vanity oil paintings. It seems ridiculous to me that the King of Pop only had one, when A-Rod can have two paintings of himself as a centaur.

Anyway, at New York Comic Con this year, we were handed a pamphlet detailing Strong's portrait of Michael Jackson and its importance to Jackson collectors everywhere. Not only is Michael sitting in the foreground, he's being painted in a painting in the background! There's a Peter Pan statue! There's a Thriller mask! There are hidden olive branches representing MJ's vision of world peace! There's even a sculpture that Strong did in 1988 slyly hidden in the corner. Oh, but wait, there's more:

At New York Comic Con, we got the chance to test out "Skullgirls," a 2-D animated fighting game coming out next year. We talked to Peter Bartholow, Community Designer and Manager at Reverge Labs (the producers of Skullgirls.) After the jump we have a sneak peek at the game, its storyline, and our interview with Bartholow.

This is a pegasus, though.

Our next charity walk is tomorrow! If you're in the Dallas area, come join our Autism Walk Team tomorrow at QuikTrip Park/Air Hogs Stadium, the walk starts at 10am and it's free to join our team! If you donate to the team, you're registered to win a prize pack from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab.

Thanks to everyone who has supported our walk so far! Cuteness and awesome after the jump:

Neal Adams' Batman: Odyssey returns from hiatus, post-DC-reboot, with a new #1. Except, once you look inside, you realize it's the same story that was going on pre-reboot. But this is Neal Adams and he didn't get the chance to finish his (apparently) epic tale of Ra's Al Ghul and his son, Sensei, blah blah blah.

I am not reading this book because there are heists and people killing children and Deadman possessing The Joker, even though that was cool.

No, I am reading this title because five out of the previous six issues have started with a shirtless, hairy-chested Batman talking to someone about what's happening in the story, and as with this issue (#7, labeled #1, but... it's #7,) I read the shirtless parts, set the comic down, and somehow forgot I didn't finish the comic until I tried to review it.

When DC's animation department announced that they were going to start a Green Lantern tv show, I probably yawned. It's no secret that most of us here find the Lantern Corps. boring. Nothing against the thousands of fans of the comic book, but Hal Jordan just doesn't appeal to us.

During New York Comic Con this year, Bruce Timm (who executive produces the show) debuted the series first episode. We didn't get to see the episode, but after the jump we have some info on the two part premiere, including a look at some clips from it, and our thoughts.

I’ve been feeling guilty lately over my reading habits. Mainly the habit of never reading anything my brother asks me to read. His taste, however, is sometimes questionable. He’s sent me three copies of Stranger in a Strange Land because he keeps forgetting that he gives it to me. I think I’m the only person in the universe who really doesn’t like that book. He’s also trying to get me to read the Repair Man Jack series, but I just don’t have the time. And the Dark Tower series, which I have no interest in. However, I finally took one of his recommendations and read Feed by Mira Grant.

Don't forget, our Autism Walk is next weekend! If you donate to the team, you're registered to win a prize pack from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab. If you're in the Dallas area, you can walk with us instead! Signing up for the team is free, come on down and support our Geektress family.

Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends is the cartoon that made me the geek I am today. It's true. It was my first exposure to the world of superheroes that I love so much. I don't even remember how old I was when I first saw it and Spider-Man became my favorite character.

It's also the origin of my love for Cyclops and Doctor Doom. It just goes to show you how little I have actually changed since I was a toddler. The fact that this Holy Grail of my geekdom is now streaming on Netflix Instant has provided me with two wonderful opportunities. The first is to share it with my two-year-old nephew, who now insists on watching it with me every time I see him. The second is to make fun of it, hopefully, for the enjoyment of you, dear reader. In that spirit, I have recapped the first episode, "Triumph of the Green Goblin."

My obsession with the Red Lanterns is no secret. (See here and here.) I love angry cats and I also love being angry. Really, I do. It’s liberating. This is why I’m pleased with the direction the Red Lantern book is going. In the second issue Atrocitus asks the all important question for the Red Lanterns: is some rage more justifiable than others?

This year at New York Comic Con I took the opportunity to head over to the Clutter booth and see what was up with their magazine. What I found out is that it's a $10, quarterly guide to some of the best in the designer toy-making industry, packed full of interviews with all sorts of artists. Not only were there full-color photos of toys, but beautiful original artwork from creators like Lou Pimentel and Leecifer (issue #15.)

After the jump, we have an interview with Clutter's Managing Partner, Josh Kimberg, about their site, and the Designer Toy Awards.

I'm not sure if Ashley Eckstein is your typical baseball wife, but if she is, it makes loving baseball that much easier. Her Her Universe line of clothing and accessories launched last year at San Diego Comic Con, and in just over a year it has expanded past a few Star Wars licensed t-shirts to jewelry and underwear that includes Battlestar Galactica and new SyFy channel franchises. It was awesome to be able to interview her this year at New York Comic Con and find out just what they have in the works, and experience in person how excited Ashley is to talk about Star Wars and sci-fi in general.

After the jump we have the full interview, plus a little video clip show of the Her Universe booth in the Star Wars pavilion. Enjoy!

Scare the pants right off your legs! Some of those are my all time favorite movies. Unless you are a zombie, you know Monday is Halloween. Please do not do the lazy lingerie with animal ears thing. Seriously, we will know.

Dead Man's Run #0 by Greg Pak, Tony Parker, and Peter Steigerwald (colors) & Josh Reed (letters) came out today from Aspen Comics. (Walking Dead producer Gale Anne Hurd is also producing Dead Man's Run through her Valhalla production company.) I received a review copy in the mail this week and couldn't wait to read it, as Pak is quickly moving up the list of my favorite writers (my first experience with his writing being the Battlestar Galactica comics.)

Laura always suggests, and I now second this, that if you don't know what titles to read, follow the author. Lots of people followed Gail Simone and are now discovering the Batgirl title for the first time. (Though, I still recommend everyone check out Bryan Q. Miller's run on the title.) After Vision Machine, and this comic, I'm pretty sure I'm going to follow Greg Pak around, too.

...It doesn't hurt that he apparently really likes robots.

I never know whether to put my criticisms first, or the praise, so let's put it this way:

Not many of us here play video games that often, and I think even our resident gamer (Rania) hasn't had much time to sit down with the xBox since having a baby. So when Turtle Beach asked us to try out their new line of headsets at New York Comic Con, we knew we'd have to find someone to help us out. Enter Theresa!

She is a graduate of the 2008 Clarion West Writers' Workshop, and is a contributing writer for Tor.com -- covering author interviews, gaming news, book reviews, and snarky True Blood episode recaps. She tried out several headsets for us, and has a thorough review after the jump:

(click to embiggen)

It was an interesting day on Friday at New York Comic Con. I did a lot of running around and hyperventilating. The only food I could find quickly was a flatbread "sammy" from Dunkin Donuts, I missed several interviews, and had to eat aforementioned "sammy" surreptitiously during the Venture Bros. press panel. Unlike a lot of press junkets I've been at, this one seemed to be fashioned more like a press conference, the kind I normally only have to put up with for Ohio State athletic events.

Doc Hammer and Jackson Publick aren't your typical show creators (or, maybe they are,) in that they have these sorts of publicity events at conventions mainly to talk about their hopes, their dreams, their fist-fucking obsessions. They rarely have anything from the show to promote, or actually take questions. Instead they like going off on tangents and philosophizing. This was pretty much the case at the press conference before their regularly scheduled panel, as well. Below you'll find a transcript, and several photos from the event at this year's NYCC.

Here is the Friday links post we started but forgot to post on Friday, because... comic book convention, what can I say? It was an exciting weekend of running around like idiots, pointing at things and laughing and dancing. We also ate almost nothing but pizza, and I somehow have managed to lose three pounds as a result. Maybe it was all the running around and laughing, pointing at things, and also dancing?

Ben McKenzie currently stars on the excellent police drama Southland, as a rookie cop being shown the ropes by Michael Cudlitz and, for some reason, C. Thomas Howell. In kind of a reversal of his The O.C. roots, he plays a rich kid trying to fit in with a blue collar crowd. With Batman: Year One, he plays a rich kid trying to beat the snot out of the criminal crowd.

After reading multiple books this year that rival the telephone book in terms of length, I decided to return to my completely unironic love of teen fantasy fiction. I needed some quick and dirty reads that wouldn’t make me think too hard.

Disclaimer: There is plenty of teen fantasy fiction out there that will make one think hard, but this is not the sort I was going for at the time.

Last year, we listed the Top Five Completely Wrong Sexy Halloween Costumes. I'll be honest, it was kind of a gimme. Halloween costume makers keep making it easier and easier to make the "girls only like Halloween because they get to dress slutty" argument. I mean, sexy Elmo? Really?

This year, there's a sexy Oscar the Grouch and a sexy... sigh. It's just too much of a thing now to ridicule these getups. I know there are women who will actually wear Sexy Robin. I saw one at Detroit Fanfare. Sadly, she was a less-than-A cup, which means she looked more like Actual Robin in A Dress than a Sexy Girl Robin. BUT I DIGRESS.

Just because these costumes exist does not mean we need to continue to acknowledge them. In fact, here at Geektress, we've decided to encourage the men to dress totally stupid in honor of this sacred holiday of candy and drinking to excess. (Which is every American holiday, if you do it right.) So, after the jump, we've picked some really sexy costumes that the menfolk can choose to wear this October, if they really are in to equality.

Last week was the finale of series 6 Dr Who. We wont have any more episodes for a year. What is this, Sherlock or something? Moffat, what are you trying to do to us? Yes, I have had mixed feelings about some episodes, but I still love them.

Yesterday Carey gave you her thoughts on some of the DCnU #1 issues. Today it is my turn. I read a lot of the DC relaunch comics. I didn't realize how many until I had to do his post. I probably would have read more if it weren't for the fact that they cost money. I'm not completely new to the DCU, like Carey, but clearly this relaunch worked for me as if I were. I tried more titles than I probably would not have previously. I loved many of them, and plan to continue reading most of them.

As you all know, I'm pretty new to the DCU and I've used this relaunch to get involved in comics again for the first time in a while. I read trades that are already well under way, but this is the first time I've read floppies in years. So far, I'm really enjoying myself and feel like I have current stuff to talk about with Geektress and the CBQs for a change. You know, instead of what happened in X-Men back in 2003.

Damon Winter / The New York Times

Scott Snyder is not only a talented creator, he's a nice guy, too. Often on Twitter he will go on tangents, giving out advice and telling stories about American Vampire, his completely fantastic book for Vertigo. He also had an amazing run on Detective Comics, and is currently writing Severed for Image, Batman and Swamp Thing for the DC reboot.

Friday night he took some questions, and, because he doesn't have a blog, I'm going to quote him here so any interested writers out there can take a peek at his process. The following is all Snyder, and is very long (which makes it sort of impressive that he did it all on Twitter.)

There are few things that can sum up my love of being a cartoonist. Number one, despite her protests that I'd only ever be a cartoonist, was my grandmother. Number two is Bloom County. (And, Calvin & Hobbes, but everyone loves Calvin & Hobbes.)

I picked up "The Bloom County Library: Volume One" on the cheap at Mid Ohio Con last year. I'd really wanted the collection, as I had every other Bloom County collection there is (including the Outland and Opus books). The first volume promised to have Berkeley Breathed's early college work, and I wanted to own some of that stuff. I was not disappointed:

(King Cupcake by the awesome Polka Dot Cupcakery.)

I really liked the comic book miniseries Sweets, about a serial killer in New Orleans on the eve of Hurricane Katrina. I liked it so much, I bought an extra copy of the trade paperback to give away. What you might not know is that Sweets opens with a recipe for pecan pralines, and then launches in to a hard-boiled crime drama. What I'm about to tell you is that you can win a copy of the story for yourself, simply by telling us how to make your favorite sweets.

The final script from Dwayne McDuffie is the adaptation of Mark Waid’s "JLA: Tower of Babel," being released as "Justice League: Doom" in 2012. Instead of stunt casting and making us put up with a Baldwin as Batman, Kevin Conroy, Tim Daly, Michael Rosenbaum, Carl Lumbly and Susan Eisenberg will all reprise their original roles from the Justice League cartoon. Bumper Robinson joins the cast as Cyborg, and Nathan Fillion is apparently going to be Green Lantern even though we all prefer him as Steve Trevor.

I would wear Doctor Who underwear, if there were such a thing. I would also wallpaper my house with this Star Wars paper if I didnt live in a van down by the river. Okay, that isnt true. I am in a shame spiral.

New York Comic Con released their panel listing yesterday. On Friday, October 14 from 3:00-4:00 p.m. in the IGN Theater, our friends at Warner Home Video will be staging a panel with Kevin Conroy, Bruce Timm, and Andrea Romano.

Central to the panel will be the world premiere of the animated short Catwoman, starring Eliza Dushku. The panel will also include the very first footage to be seen from Justice League: Doom, the next of the DC Universe animated movies. There will also be a peek at the 2012 DC slate, and some prize giveaways. Plus, "quite possibly a few surprise guests," so it's a panel you don't want to miss. (An autograph session with the panelists will immediately follow.)

The Catwoman short is going to be on Batman: Year One, which we have more about after the jump.

Geektress friend Lisa Lombardi is a consummate cosplayer. She is our guest poster for the day, with an awesome picspam of Dragon*Con costumes:

If you went to Dragon*Con this year and you weren't a Doctor Who fan, you were probably perplexed by the influx of colorful scarves, fezzes, and denim mini skirts dominating the convention floor. Doctor Who cosplay has always been popular at cons, but this year it ruled Atlanta. The costumed parade group dedicated to the show rivaled the size of the 501st group for the first time, and as a friend of mine said, "Amy Pond is the new Slave Leia". What everyone seemed to notice, though, was the overwhelming amount of interpretive Tardis and Dalek costumes and crafts, which is a trend that's been building over the last few years, but seems to have grown by leaps and bounds this Dragon*Con. I tried to gather as many pictures of these as I could from around the web, to show off the cool, creative work these talented geeks did for the love of a show that means so much to us.

A few weeks ago, the Japanese branch of Domino's Pizza announced they want to open a franchise on the moon.

"We started thinking about this project last year, although we have not yet determined when the restaurant might open," said Tomohide Matsunaga, a spokesman for Domino's in Japan.

Halloween is a comin', y'all better get ta makin' stuff . ( I can talk like that because it is the official language of Texas.)

(This is the banner graphic for our upcoming charity drive, "Strike Back Against Cancer." If you're going to be at Detroit Fanfare next weekend, stop by our booth and grab a print, or donate towards our raffle for a Wampa rug and ROTJ lightsaber, courtesy of ThinkGeek. Proceeds will go to UofM and OSU's cancer research hospitals.)

Star Wars releases to Blu-Ray on Friday, and it's not totally without controversy. The complete set of all six movies has been available for preorder for $80 from Amazon for months. (The list price is $140.) But soon the news came that the original, non-Special Edition versions of the trilogy would not be part of the box sets.

Then came the tinkering. (Or, rather, the further tinkering.) Lucas had already changed the original trilogy plenty, inserting an extra blaster shot in the famous Han-Greedo cantina scene, some additional dance numbers in Return of the Jedi, and that weird CGI Jabba that just never looked right. At all. And actually made A New Hope a little boring. (Sometimes, Mr. Lucas, we cut out scenes not because we decide to make actors puppets in the sequels, but because they drag on the pacing.)

The interwebs is alight with the news that some jerkoff thought it was a good time to announce a Point Break remake.

First of all, no.

Second of all, no.

Cartoon Network will finally air new episodes of Young Justice this Friday, and, while I know opinion has been pretty divided on this series, I've missed it. From the official description (below), it seems like this episode is mostly about Red Arrow being an angry idiot. I assume that he will learn some sort of lesson, like how Superboy had to learn how not to be an angry jerk in the first half of the season. I am not opposed to this, though I do wonder why rage issues are such a prominent theme on this show. It also appears that they will be furthering one of the shows ongoing plots, since the League of Shadows has already appeared once.

Red Arrow’s battle to prevent the League of Shadows from inciting a war pits him against the world’s most dangerous assassins — and allies him with someone more dangerous still. Too bad Aqualad couldn’t convince him to ask the Team for help….

For quite a while, Laura has been fascinated by the idea that Batman, having nothing better to do, would hook up his friend Barbara Gordon with his friend Clark Kent. Batman, in addition to solving the world's mysteries, has also unlocked the key to matching people up. Ever since the idea of Superman and Batgirl as a couple was brought up, I've been more fascinated by that than just The Dark Knight's SuperheroMatch.com.

I decided to take this intrigue one step further, and do some actual research.

Francene hurt her hand and it is now all bandaged up and preventing her from typing, so she sent me these links telepathically. Once you're done enjoying them, maybe drop her a tweet and tell her you love her.

(Sadly, you can't get pretty Star Trek wedding cakes from the Hilton in Las Vegas anymore because they stupidly got rid of that exhibit. This cake is from Anna White's Flickr.)

My step mom owns every single piece of Star Trek memorabilia that has ever been marketed and it doesn't even matter which show it came from. She's seen every episode of every show, read every book, seen every movie hundreds of times, and has every limited edition whatever that has ever come out.

She loves it all, but her favorite is arguably original Trek. I swear the woman would leave my dad on Christmas morning for Captain Kirk without thinking twice. She tried to get me interested in original Trek when I was younger, but I wouldn't have any of it. I was a hateful teenager and didn't have time for that hippie bullshit. My interest extended as far as the occasional episode of Next Gen on a good day and that was only if the episode heavily featured Data, who I had an inexplicable crush on.

(Really cool Batgirl sketch by Gregg Schigiel from SDCC 2011.)

Summer doesn't officially end until September 23rd (which, by the way, is the day before Detroit Fanfare starts, so get your tickets now.) That leaves time for some last-minute book recommendations to close out our summer reading list series.

Here's where we plug all our crap and hope that you enjoy it!

First of all, it's that time of year when all our hosting fees are due, so if you've been thinking of grabbing a t-shirt or hat from our store, doing it today would be awesome!

I also have prints and sundries in my personal store.

Of course if you want to wait in person until Detroit Fanfare on the 24th or 25th, that would be cool. By the way, tickets are still available for the 'Fare, they are $15 for a weekend pass. Convention hotel rooms are only $89 a night, which is awesome, and if you want to attend the awards ceremony Saturday night for the Shel Dorf Awards, tickets are $75 and include dinner plus an open bar!

Bill Cosby is like a national treasure. I mean that seriously.

Pictures Pages is one of those things like Mathnet or The Bloodhound Gang -- it was only a small segment of the childhoods of those of us that grew up in the 70s and 80s, but for some reason it resonated enough that we can remember the theme songs even now, 30 years later. I mentioned Picture Pages on the Twitter last week, because I was looking through some old boxes for a different blog post (the one recalling my DC nostalgia.) I remembered having purchased a Mortimer Ichabod pen secondhand from a neighbor who didn't want it anymore, and was bothered because I couldn't find it now. Our Tweeps responded overwhelmingly with sympathy and envy.

I'm back, ladies and germs, and apparently possessed by the spirit of vaudeville. Just so you know, I am so cutting edge I am doing this dressed as my male alter ego, Harry Knowles.
On to the linking of the stuff!

I've never been a DC kind of girl and never really even given two craps about anything Green Lantern before I met my husband, who is a huge fan. I used to get a kick out of making the "Jon/John Stewart isn't black" joke every time Dave went on about some Green Lantern plot line. But then, Green Lantern exploded into a whole bunch of other colored lanterns and Dex Starr was born.

I fell in love. I don't know all the details and I don't need to. What isn't there to love about an angry blue acid/blood/vomit spewing kitty? With the relaunch of the DCU comes a new comic dedicated to the Red Lanterns and you bet your rage filled ass I'll be reading it.

*This was a poorly handled reference to The Wire. Thank you.

It's DC Week here at the 'Tress, and we've decided that Tuesdays should be filled with comic book crack. We've previously brought you a very special edition of World's Finest, and on the podcast, we've discussed the above-referenced issue of Wonder Woman (#155) where she marries a brussel sprout. (Read the whole thing here.)

(The following post would be much cooler if I could find the box that contains all my childhood drawings, including my Katy Keene Fan Club notepads and pins.) (I came close, though, I found all my Cabbage Patch adoption certificates and a bunch of pictures of my grandparents that made me cry!) (You will have to settle for photos of me in various stages of awkwardness.)

Laura suggested a "DC Week" to sort of celebrate / commemorate DC's last few days leading up to the reboot. I asked if our content should be ranty, or wistful, or what. She responded that she's sick to death of complaints about the reboot, and that the various musings about "the old days" were becoming a bit much, too. "It's just comics," she said.

And she's right. Even though comics have been with me almost since the beginning, I'm learning how to let go of this anxiety I have about "missing out."

This week, on ThunderCats:

The Cats must pass a series of obstacles in order to finally get the Book of Omens, but Mumm-Ra is hot on their trail. Lion-O must stop him from getting the book first, for the book will lead whoever finds it to the Stones of Power.

More stuff by clicking the link!

I kind of feel bad for going to see Fright Night this weekend. For a couple of reasons:

1. I barely remember the original. I was 6 when it came out and maybe 8 when I saw it. My mom was going out for the night and told the babysitter she had both Fright Night and Sex, Lies, and Videotape on VHS. Which was apparently a big deal. The babysitter chose Fright Night and all I remember was being scared all to hell.

I found this parody of Lady Gaga on YouTube and had to post it, because it is all about The Doctor. Apparently, there exsists a whole mess of music dedicated to Dr Who, called Time Lord Rock, or Trock. This is a sneak peek.

Kids are already headed back to school here in Central Ohio, so I guess it's time we wind down our Summer Reading List series. Let's start the process by allowing some of our favorite podcasters to share their favorite novels.

From Scrolls (which can be found at Geek Syndicate's site), our friend Dion:

Each week I get these little clips previewing that week's ThunderCats episode, and each week something's wrong and I can't get them to stream to the interwebs. I do, however, also get a metric buttload of promo stills, too. So after the jump, a plethora of photos from last week and this week's episode. Enjoy!

You may have seen this, it's mjade19's crocheted AT-AT, and it's awesome.

It's time for one of those posts where we alert you to possible cool gew-gaws in the geek world.

Have you seen Geek Crafts? It's basically this entry, but all the time. I found lots of cool things surfing through the Geek Crafts blog the other day, including Nathan's Etsy store, where he's got bottled Zelda fairies for sale.

Dear David,

I owe you an apology for misjudging The Twelfth Enchantment before I even opened it. I received a galley copy a couple of weeks before the publication date and tossed the book on the kitchen table, making a horrid face, dreading actually getting around to reading it.

Hello! Welcome to Friday links. I am your Mr. Rourke of links island. That makes the other Geektresses Tattoo. Mmmmm... I am not sure about that one. Anyway, here we go.

The first two Marvel anime shows, Iron Man and Wolverine, premiered on G4 on Friday, July 29th. I think my disappointment with them began when I went to set my DVR to record them and I realized that neither of them were the X-Men anime that I had thought would be premiering that night. Iron Man and Wolverine are OK, but I've been looking forward to the X-Men one since I saw the character art for Cyclops. What I ended up seeing instead was two shows that I didn't really have any prior interest in, and didn't really know what to make of them. I've watched two episodes of each now, and I'm left thinking that maybe I just don't get it.

Over the weekend, I read Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm. It's a quick read - only 254 pages. But damn. Those are a powerful 254 pages. This novel won the Hugo in 1977, but went out of print for a while. It had a second run in 1996. I read it this weekend because I joined a sci-fi/fantasy book club here in Peoria. I'm kind of hoping that this club will help me find and engage with some sci-fi/fantasy classics that I haven't picked up before. I feel like I'm missing out on the great stuff that helped shape the (sometimes good and often questionable) genre fiction I love today.

The first two episodes of the ThunderCats reboot aired just over a week ago on Cartoon Network, and you know what? It was really good. Then the third episode aired this past Friday, and it was also really good. I wasn't expecting it to be bad or anything, but I was still really surprised by just how immediately engaging it was. Normally cartoons, and even live action shows intended for adults, take a little time to get going and build up a mythology. Thundercats managed to lay all that out in a pretty exciting way, and do it in a way that made it a much better show than the original. Third episode showed that it could still be entertaining while having a more standalone episode. It was so good I didn't even hate Snarf, probably because this Snarf doesn't talk. See what I mean about being better than the original?

I took 20 days to finish A Dance With Dragons, 10 days less than The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss. I swear, I am done with books over 700 pages for the next several months because my reading list is backed up worse than the tunnel at Castle Black when a giant tried to scootch his way through that one time in A Feast For Crows.

I won't divulge any major spoilers for this review, so if you want to talk details, feel free to drop me a line. However, there will be some spoilers - I can't really avoid them if I want to give a decent review. Stuff happens, and stuff - stop reading now if you want your ADWD reading experience to be virginal like Margaery Tyrell.

Yes, I know that headline was completely cornball.

The Vault is a three issue miniseries from Image, written by Sam Sarkar and drawn by Garrie Gastonny. (Sakti Yuwono and Bagus Hutomo did the colors and cover for Issue #1, respectively.) The first installment was released last Wednesday, and it did not disappoint. I admit, I'm a little biased because I had no idea what the comic was going in to it, but on the first page, there's an intro talking about the Oak Island Treasure Pit.

...by incredible, I mean "I cannot believe this sh*t."

I swear at some point we all discussed how it would be hilarious to do a sequel to 300, and it takes place in the afterlife, and all the same characters just have to fight their way out of hell in tiny loincloths. But they'd be sweaty.

I can't find that podcast, but there is apparently a real sequel to 300 called 300: Battle of Artemisia.

There are a lot of things going on out there in the infosphere, and we're here to confuse the situation some more. After the jump we have a list of contests and projects you should probably take a gander at. But first up, let's talk about free movie screenings!

Epix, in conjunction with Vios, is having a "Movie Free-for-All" this summer. Tonight at Coney Island, they'll be screening Iron Man 2 for free. They are also running a Twitter contest called Sweet Seats. Fans can enter to win VIP seats to select screenings by following @EpixHD on Twitter. EPIX will announce on their Twitter handle when the contest begins for each movie, then all you have to do is tweet to @EpixHD with the hashtag #EPIXFFA as instructed to become eligible to win. All the rules and details are here. The prizes for the Iron Man 2 screening are free Iron Man 2 DVDs.

Summer is eating my brain. I love my kids, but we are in the home stretch of fighting and "I am bored."

I love the blog Filth Wizardry for making crafts with and for kids. Some tips are good for grown ups, too.

*I'm pretty sure this is how the new call will go.

The new ThunderCats cartoon premieres tonight at 8pm Eastern on Cartoon Network. There will be a solid hour containing two back-to-back episodes, "The Sword of Omens" and "Ancient Spirits of Evil." It's been a while since we last talked about this reboot. A lot of people were wondering what things would change with the show, and when we last talked with producer Michael Jelnic, he had this to say about the storytelling:

Oh, right.

When I saw the promos for Falling Skies, like a lot of you, I thought: "FINALLY! Those librarian action hero tv movies I didn't bother to watch were NOT ENOUGH! MOAR NOAH WYLE!"

I'd heard the show was overly clichéd, but I didn't let that deter me, as I am the one who not only watched Smallville, but wrote a comic strip about watching Smallville. I can put up with terrible as long as it's entertaining for a while. Unfortunately, as you will learn through the following review which will include numerous references to Jericho, and why Jericho was superior, and why the hell couldn't we just cast Noah Wyle on Jericho for chrissakes, TNT could've just picked up Jericho, Jericho Jericho, where was I? Oh yeah, so being overly clichéd doesn't necessarily make for entertainingly bad television.

(Warning, I get spoilery when I get ranty. If you haven't seen the show yet -- all of which is available on TNT's website -- maybe skip this review.)

Available at TopatoCo.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows came out a couple of weeks ago so I know I'm a little slow on the Harry Potter uptake. But really, the whole Wizarding era ended for me when the last book came out in 2007. The movies were fun, but more often than not I felt like there were crappy abridged versions of the books. I actually kind of feel sorry for anyone whose only experience with Harry Potter comes from the movies, because the books are so rich and full. If the books are like a delicious steak dinner, the movies are like a scratch and sniff sticker of a hamburger with googly eyes.

We all knew Zach Morris was gonna grow up to be a lawyer, so Mark-Paul Gosselaar has launched a thousand lawyers shows recently. But you know Screech went on to become a robotics engineer, so where is Dustin Diamond's Real Genius-like sitcom? Why isn't he on the Big Bang Theory, at the very least? Because Hollywood is nerd-litist, that's why. And they love lawyers.

At San Diego Comic Con last Friday, "Toy Masters," the first-ever documentary about the creation of the He-Man toy and its subsequent Filmation cartoon, debuted at Robert Meyer Burnett's "At The Drive In" panel in Hall H. Soon after, the filmmakers put this eight minute preview up on YouTube for everyone else to enjoy. You might spy J. Michael Straczynski in there, discussing what it was like to try and write a kid's show with a bunch of toymakers trying to scare the crap out of children on a daily basis.

Photo by Pamela Schreckengost.

The International Comic Book Convention in San Diego was this weekend, for those of you who forgot. We put together what we thought was the most interesting news to come out of the con, for those of you who weren't there (like us.)

Happy Friday!

I have to see The Captains. Who is the best Starfleet Captain is a major debate in our house, but we all agree, Janeway was the worst. The first woman, and she gets everyone lost?

Today's Wednesday, my day off. It's also the day before International Comic Con, which means our Geektress Twitter feed looks like this today:

"Hey, what hotel are you at? Are you at the Hyatt?" "I'm at the same hotel as you!" "Where is your balcony?" "Where are you having dinner?" "Hey! I'm not there yet! My plane leaves later today!" "My plane is stuck on the runway!" "My plane just landed!" "Oh good, my book shipment made it!" "My book shipment is late!" "I love books!" and on and on. I'm not jealous, as some have speculated. I actually loathe crowds, and that is 80% of the reason I'm not going back to NYCC this year. Anyway, to take a break from comic-con related madness, I have been listening to the Nyan Cat song.

If you're unfamiliar with Nyan Cat, first of all, I don't know where you've been this year. Second, it's not unlike Hamster Dance, only the internet is a much different place than it was 10 years ago. So brush up on your meme and check out the video after the jump.

"Oh! Your helmet is so... big..."

Halloween Costumes.com is having an Art Contest. Submit your name, a sample of your work, and/or a portfolio link, and they will pick 25 artists to "create an original art piece using an authentic replica Darth Vader helmet." Not only are there cash prizes for first, second, and third place, all 25 artists picked get a $150 credit at HalloweenCostumes.com just for participating. Plus, the 25 finished helmets will be auctioned off for Midwest Art Catalyst (a program that supports local artists and musicians) and The Miracle League (which helps disabled kids participate in softball.)

More info after the jump!

PROFESSIONAL AWESOME. DO NOT ATTEMPT.

Way back in May, comic book creator Renae De Liz tweeted and asked if anyone in the infosphere would be willing to take part in an all-volunteer, all-female comic book anthology for charity. I didn't actually see this tweet, but Geektress Francene did, and urged me to sign up.

"My stuff is more cartoony than comic booky," I said. "I bet she's not looking for people like me. She's a comic book artist. A real one," I said.

"I suck," I didn't say.

"Well, it was recommended to Kate or Die. And she has a lot of things she posts like yours. Besides, you rock, so there."

Happy Friday! I know, no more Potter movies. Please do not cry, I am not good with that sort of thing. Here, these links will make you feel better!

Grant Morrison is one of those writers you love to hate or hate to love. He can also see into the fifth dimension, which is how I keep him straight from all the other sassy, bald comics writers out there like Bendis (Powers guy who hates cats), Brad Meltzer (guy with the terrible television show), and BK Vaughan (guy who wrote the best episodes of Lost). Oh yeah, and Mark Millar is “the one with hair.”

Torchwood: Miracle Day premiered this past Friday on Starz, and since it was on a new channel in a different country, I thought it would most likely be new viewer friendly and the perfect time to start watching. Considering I have so many friends who regularly sing the series' praises, my expectations were pretty high. I hoped to fall in love with a whole new television series. Instead, I fell asleep about halfway through it. After that my enthusiasm was way down, but I decided to give it another shot on Sunday. After the jump I will let you in on what I thought of the episode as a whole, which turned out to be slightly less sleep inducing in the second half. If you want to avoid any spoilers at all, you might want to stop reading now. I try not to give away more than I have to though.

(It's a baconga line.)

Let me explain to you Ba-Con in this way: I was an exhibitor -- Geektress had their first ever Geektress Booth -- and at one point on the first day I said "Gosh, the hospitality suite with the free bacon is so far away, they should really just bring us food. Like a bacon butler."

AND THEN THEY DID.

I was pretty desperate to get to this convention. Since I couldn't get the time off of work, I bartered to be allowed to show up a few hours late and actually spent the whole weekend either behind our table or at my actual job. But I was not disappointed. Ba-Con 2011 was so, so worth it.

(From Kate Beaton.)

I like adding OF DOOM to random things. It makes them seem more important. And deadly.

So, anyway, these are things what I saw, matey:

A Dance With Dragons comes out on July 12th. This is probably the most anticipated fantasy book since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I’ve stayed away from all things Westeros for the last week or so because I want to delve into Dance with all the wonder and surprise of the last four books. And holy crap, the first four books are nothing but wonder and surprise. George R.R. Martin has a no holds barred attitude about storytelling. Two major characters died at the end of A Game of Thrones, and that was just the beginning.

Choosing a recommendation for the Summer Reading List was a struggle for me, because I don't really have favorite books. I don't really have favorite anything, for that matter. If you ask me my favorite movie, I will rattle off a list of dozens of titles. However, the reason I don't really consider any book a favorite is because I so rarely re-read them, whereas I will re-watch movies (in some cases dozens of times). I did have favorites as a child though. Specifically, my favorite book was Millicent the Monster, and I would very much like to recommend it to anyone who has a moody little girl. Sadly, it is out of print, but there are some used copies for sale on Amazon.

What better way to celebrate America's independence than by reading our website?

This weekend I had a painting in the art show entitled "America: F#ck Yeah!". It was at Junctionview Studios, presented by ARTillery. The theme, as you can guess, was "over the top Americana."

As a friend once put it, it's ZOMGAmerica weekend, and what's more patriotic than shameless self promotion?

Francene has the week off to wrangle young children for Vacation Bible School, and technically this is my first day back to work after a long two week vacation. I hope you enjoy your fireworks and meat cooked outdoors this weekend, and maybe if you live in Columbus, stop by ARTillery Ohio's "America: Fuck Yeah" show. I will be exhibiting above referenced Colbert Pie painting.

Last week, I talked about a book I picked up at C2E2, shown above. It's a vintage Star Wars kid's book that's "all about robots", supposedly written by C3PO. (Though, anyone over five understands this pretext because they understand that Star Wars isn't real.) (It's real in my heart, of course.)

We left off talking about a super special "office mail sorter" robot that apparently exists in businesses EVERYWHERE! It runs along the floor on special chemicals and everyone uses them because THIS IS THE FUTURE!

I was intrigued by this movie's press release back in the day, but not intrigued enough to pay for it On Demand.

However, it's now on Netflix's Watch Instantly, so I had no reason NOT to watch it. I mean, I'm on vacation and becoming one with nature and all that jazz... but honestly Netflix is something even antelope would agree is terrific, if antelope could talk.

Beware, the following review contains plenty of spoilers...

Back in February, the Sundance Channel did a four part series to help kick off Fashion Week. It explored the history of things like the bikini and the little black dress. They called it "Love Lust," and decided to do another six part series starting this June. If you've missed it so far, they've covered topics like Street Eats and Social Networking. But this Tuesday, they'll be exploring "the undead."

Here's a sneak peek:

Last week we brought you Carey's picks for the best Summer reads. This week we talked to our friend Aly Renee about which books she counts as her most favorites, and thinks you should try out if you haven't already.

I heart Frank Herbert's Dune with a fiery passion. It's a big awesome political ecological religious sci-fi soap opera and it gets better every time I read it.

More of Aly's picks after the jump!

Happy Friday! Exclamation points make it seem like I am so perky. I love it! I found a great site for all those who are too busy to actually watch movies, Movies in a Minute. Now you don't have to waste all that time.

Last week, when Marvel announced the new series Avenging Spider-Man, for me and probably most long time comic readers, it immediately brought to mind the classic Marvel Team-Up, which featured Spider-Man teaming up with a different character every issue. It was great, and I couldn't help but think that the new series could never live up to it. Superhero comics just aren't nearly as much fun anymore. However, when I made a joke on twitter specifically referencing two of my favorite team ups, Red Sonja and Frog-Man, I got absolutely no response. Either people just don't know what they are missing, or I'm insane. I'm going with the former.

While at C2E2 this year, we happened upon one of those exhibitor booths where some guy is selling "vintage" toys. You know the type I'm talking about -- there are any number of disassembled G.I. Joes, a few He-Man toys, and undoubtedly a WWF action figure, all in one big pile. This particular exhibitor had "C3PO's Book About Robots," which you can see from the cover retailed in 1983 for $1.25. (It cost more than that to buy at a comic book convention.) After flipping through it briefly and seeing some of the illustrations that I'm about to share with you, I knew immediately I had to buy it.

Star Trek comics are nothing new. Since almost the beginning of the original series, many different companies have produced Star Trek comics -- including DC and Marvel -- with the very first comics being written by creators like Len Wein. There have been comic strips, and an animated series. In fact, the only Star Trek variation that hasn't had a comic book spinoff is Enterprise. Poor Enterprise. So misunderstood. So Bakula.

Anyway, the newest version of Trek in the funny books is going to start in September from IDW Publishing, and is going to feature the new, young, alternate timeline cast from the J.J. Abrams film. Abrams' producing partner Robert Orci will be in charge of the series, which will:

We're already in to Summer, we realize. But it's never too late to add to your list of beach reads. So we asked some of our friends to help us compile a list of good books that should definitely hold a spot on your to-read agenda, even if Summer turns to Fall before you've gotten through them.

First up, though, Carey went beyond the one book suggestion and compiled an entire list herself. The following are some Fantasy novels you should try and check out before our Twitter conversations get any more spoilery for you:

Yeah! Friday again, so that means it's time for some linkage:

In March, we told you about the launch of Double Feature Comics. Since April, Four Star Studios have been launching a double feature, downloadable digital comic book for $0.99.

This month's feature is "Science Fiction," featuring a story by Four Star's Joshua Emmons (with art by Joe Song,) and one from Robbi Rodriguez.

(Click to embiggen.)

On June 4th, the BBC aired the seventh episode of Doctor Who series six, "A Good Man Goes to War." It was part one of a two parter, the last episode before the show goes on a mid-season hiatus. The second half of the two parter (and series six) is set to air in September. (And that episode is entitled "Let's Kill Hitler," so it's bound to be full of laughs.)

After the jump, Francene has some thoughts on the "A Good Man Goes to War." Obviously it is spoilery if you haven't seen the episode.

(Very nice Eugene Mirman photo by Chaunté Vaughn.)

If you don't know, I'm a hardcore stand-up comedy geek / fan. This means a couple of things. One: I like to laugh, and two: I can't knit.

This also means that I sometimes obsessively study stand-up routines, watching someone do the same set night after night to see how it changes, and how the audience's response to a joke changes. For some reason word choice and language in relation to comedy fascinates me. It's why I was delighted that Patton Oswalt included two different versions of the "KFC Sadness Bowl" bit on his Werewolves & Lollipops album. It's why I liked watching the Comedians of Comedy tv show, but more so I liked watching that Dane Cook Tourgasm show at the same time. Not because I particularly find Dane Cook entertaining, but it was amazing watching Jay Davis try and fail and try and fail to make the phrase "killing with kindness" in to a joke.

This week was fraught with crazy, and the only news was about some guy tweeting pictures of his naughty bits. But enough about E3. *rim shot*

I spent too much time going through the Reddit link I posted last week, but trust me that Marble Hornets is scary. I also spent many minutes looking at Tumblr, and found some great stuff:

Good news, horror fans / comedy fans / movie fans / Alan Tudyk fans / fans of fans!

After a long struggle with distribution here in the States, Tucker & Dale vs Evil will soon be available (legally) to you! Details and a movie clip after the jump.

I have a very small local comic shop that doesn't carry indie comics, but will order anything you want if you tell them about it. They actually started ordering extra copies of iZombie because I asked for it and they hadn't heard of it, but liked the covers, and thought it'd be fun to stock. So when I saw the preview images for Sweets in the back of another comic, I knew I had to request it. Even though I wasn't entirely sure what sort of story it was going to be, the art was intriguing, and that's half the reason I read a comic at all, so I needed to roll the dice.

When I read the first issue of Sweets, I liked it a lot, but I realized it may be the sort of comic that would be easier for me to read all at once. So I patiently waited until I had all five issues of the mini-series in my possession before I continued reading. Each month I got a Sweets comic in my pull was like knowing I was getting another Christmas present that I had to wait to open.

(Snorg Tee.)

We often get emails informing us of new things on the horizon, and while these press releases are vaguely informative, we usually don't have much to say about them, and thus don't post them on the site. However, if you wait long enough, you have a collection of tidbits about a lot of stuff. That's what this is -- the donut holes of blog posts.

(Interesting instructional to turn Timbits in to Cake Pops is right here.)

Starting tomorrow, Green Lantern: Emerald Knights will be out on Blu-Ray and DVD. Like Batman: Gotham Knights, the WB Animated release is a series of vignettes. This time they're about Hal Jordan and the Lantern Corps, and are designed to lead up to Warner Bros.'s release of Green Lantern next Friday.

However, you can download the movie right now at on-demand sites, or via your cable provider. You can also check out a buttload of special online features via the "I Am Green Lantern" site. You can create custom profile banners and pictures for Facebook, and unlock an exclusive video clip and downloads.

The animated feature stars Nathan Fillion as Hal, and through flashback shorts, tells the story of the Lantern Corps. After the jump we have a clip with Kilowog (played by Henry Rollins,) and an interview with Rollins and Nathan Fillion. (Plus, more photos!)

Ok, that is a lie, but I can dream, can't I? Since we missed a week, I have loads of linky goodness to share.

I am a woman with few strongly held beliefs: Monkeys make everything funnier; a good skirt can be infinitely more comfortable than a pair of pants; and Superman should be messed with as little as possible. I'm also not the kind of comic book fan to get all worked up by rumor and speculation. (I used to be, but it didn't do anyone any good, me least of all.) I like to keep a nice wait-and-see attitude, enjoying what I am currently reading, and worrying about whether I will enjoy what comes next when it actually sees print. Can you see how these things come in conflict when it comes to the announced reboot of the DC Universe? Wonder Woman is already wearing pants, Superman is clearly being messed with, and there's not a monkey in sight to make me smile.

I love comic books, but hoo boy is it a trip being part of the comic book community, y'all. Some times it's a lot of fun, going to conventions and discussing Smallville and drinking. A lot of the time, though, there is drama. VRY SRS MELLOWDRAMAZ. Things can get out of hand very quickly, and over very little.

For instance, a few weeks ago a friend of mine blogged that he found it kind of disgusting that PR people and talk show handlers are obviously forcing young actresses to "play up the geek angle" when they make appearances to plug their superhero-related movies. Somehow this got interpreted across the Twitterverse as "ZOMG THAT DUDE SAID GIRLS CAN'T LIKE COMICS!!1!!".

So, last night, when DC announced their new publicity stunt, the whole geek world exploded. While half of my friends were debating whether Hangover 2 or Bridesmaids was better, the other half was consumed with mad confusion.

It didn't occur to me, when I read the press release for this movie "Trollhunter," that it would be a film centered around one man, an actual troll hunter. You'd think I'd take better cues from titles by now, but then again you'd figure by now I'd think about a lot of things that I don't.

However, I watched the trailer and was immediately interested. The Norwegian film, originally titled Trolljegeren ("Troll" in Norwegian is pronounced: "troll." That info is free gratis, you're welcome) was released last year in its native Norway. A bidding frenzy began, and Magnolia Pictures, producers of Centurion and Black Death, won the rights to distribute the film overseas.

It is as good a time as any on this this Memorial Day to remind you our next Comic Book Care Package is set to ship out in June. If you don't know what that is, every other month we collect gently used comics and paperback books, and we pick a military unit (at random) serving overseas to send them to. They usually need other items like snacks and toiletries, and we try to accommodate some of those requests, as well.

(Found here.)

To many, summer means beer and bbqs, pools, sun, and tanning of epic proportions. To me, summer means a new book by Jacqueline Carey and hours on the couch in an air conditioned environment or begrudgingly out on the deck if my husband manages to toss me out there and lock the door.

(Click to embiggen, cover for Issue 3)

A few weeks ago as we were podcasting, I remarked to Laura that more people should read iZombie, because of all the cute outfits.

"There are a lot of cute outfits," she replied.

"Yes," I said. "It's probably the most stylish comic book out there on shelves."

This season of Torchwood returns to BBC1 and Starz simultaneously, as both networks were responsible for financing the ten episode fourth series. The show goes international, as some American actors are added to the cast, and the locales switch from their previously Wales-based settings to those that are set in the U.S. (Series creator Russell T Davies is still show-running.)

One thing that will stay the same is Captain Jack. But he won't be wearing exactly the same thing as before:

Well, we picked on the good guys -- now it's time to pick on the baddies. Instead of voting this time around (that's way too democratic for villains) we simply nominated our picks in each category and then argued about it.

Domo dressed for MARcon Toga Party, by Nate Davis.

This year for the first time, I will be attending MARcon, or Multiple Alternate Realities convention, or March con, whichever you prefer. I'd never heard of it before this year when some Twitter followers mentioned it on their feed. What I found is a sci-fi and fantasy convention that has been fan run since 1966. So I decided to participate in the art show, to start.

I still don't know much about it, so when I emailed their Art Show chair, I had to ask if Star Wars, Discworld, Star Trek, Lord of the Rings, Dr. Who and Bill & Ted were the sorts of things that MARcon included. (Those are all in my wheelhouse, so if they're compatible with MARcon, then I felt I was on the right track.) I was told that all those things and more fit in with the convention's all-encompassing theme, which from what I can tell is "Everyone is welcome." If you have a thing, then that thing is right.

A few weeks ago, we saw some sketches going around on Tumblr of the Gotham City Sirens looking like they were stepping off the pages of Vogue in 1955. It was the fabulous work of Egle Marcogliese, a student fashion designer in Southern California. She studies illustration and is a fan of Harley Quinn, and was more than willing to answer a few questions we had about her costume designs for Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn.

A few weeks ago I went a little off the rails talking about why people shouldn't be concerned with how Wonder Woman is dressed, they should be more concerned with how she's being written. Plus, there are plenty of other superheroes in the comic book world that we can pick on (or praise) for their fashion choices, instead.

While they can't all be Katy Keene or Millie the Model and change their look every issue, the following group of nominees (some of whom YOU suggested via Twitter and Facebook) top the list of who should find a stylist, and who should keep on keepin' on:

Photo by Chanh Tang.

While we were at C2E2 this year, we saw a woman who had fashioned a snazzy straight-line skirt out of DC superhero fabric. We thought it was a clever way to dress for a convention without having to invest time and money in gobs of face paint or painstakingly handcrafted props.

I never realized that using superhero print fabric -- usually bed sheets -- could make such an interesting departure from traditional cosplay. But Francene brought to my attention Meagan Marie's website, where fashion really met comic con for a day last summer.

First off, I would like to introduce my co linker, Artoo the wonder dog. He will be snuggling as I write, he is excellent at it. And now, the links!

When we heard there was a new Charlie's Angels tv show reboot, our first question was "Why?" and then our second question was "Aw, crap, Drew Barrymore's not producing it, is she? Does this mean no guns?"

As cool as it was to have women kung-fu-ing their way through the bad guys, you sort of need the big phallic symbols the original Angels had to complete the badassery. Unfortunately this was left out of the movies, which were ok and godawful, in that order.

In January, it was announced that Star Wars, the original trilogy and the prequels, would be released on Blu-Ray, and I lost my mind. Not only did we have a new house with a new giant tv, but we also had just purchased a Blu-Ray player and it made everything ever filmed awesome in ways you cannot imagine. Even comedies like StepBrothers were better in Blu-Ray. Outback Steakhouse commercials are better in high definition, so Star Wars IV-VI was gonna be amothafrakkinmaze-balls.

When I was a kid, I remember reading novelizations of movies. In particular, I loved the novelization of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because there was a lot of stuff explained that I never realized were plot holes (sort of) in the movie. Like when Indy is wading through that crypt, how does the grail diary in his pocket stay dry? Because his pockets were leather lined.

Okay, so that's not a perfect explanation.

But, if there had been an Indiana Jones magazine, you can be sure I would have subscribed to it. Even if it was a one-time, 100 page deal.

Time for our final Game of Thrones read along post… where George R.R. Martin really breaks it down and sets the stage for the whole rest of this story in the history of forever. If the last 100 or so pages of this book don’t make you want to pick up the next one, then you must love everything that sucks.

Oooooh, it's Friday the 13th. I am wearing a hockey mask for this post, dont be alarmed.

If you were awesome enough to buy one of our Team Geektress t-shirts, maybe you'll consider something else: Sending us a photo of you in your shirt! This Saturday is our Race for the Cure. We'll be posting a podcast from the day and as many photos of the event as possible, but right now we'd like to see you in that shirt!

(Robots painting by the very talented robot painter Eric Joyner.)

Real Steel is the story of a plucky robot found in a junkyard, and the estranged father and son who rebuild their relationship by making that robot a champion. It's like your favorite Stallone movies had a baby, and then that baby had a baby with Short Circuit. Then that second baby was raised by Tony Scott. I can tell that it is probably supposed to take place in the not-too-distant future, because it has robots, but I'm pretty sure it comes from some alternate reality where it is still 1988. That alternate reality is much better than ours.

Graphic from Hirsute History.

At age 15, "Rowdy" Roddy Piper was the youngest professional wrestler to ever enter the squared circle – and he would proceed to hold more than 38 titles while eclipsing 7,000 victories in professional matches. Wherever he goes, somebody asks Piper if he has any bubblegum. He wrote an autobiography called "In the Pit with Piper," and has a one-man show called "An Evening With Roddy Piper" where he relates "stories of Bear wrestling, Andre The Giant's drinking and Ric Flair's enormous schlong."

On June 7, Roddy Piper has his very first voiceover role for animation as the barbaric Bolphunga in Green Lantern: Emerald Knights.

Last week, we left off at a pretty significant turning point in the narrative. Catelyn Stark had kidnapped Tyrion Lannister, after accusing him of trying to murder Bran, and run off with him to the Eyrie. The Eyrie was the domain of Jon Arryn, but now Catelyn’s sister Lysa rules there until her and Jon Arryn’s son comes of age. Upon reaching the Eyrie, Lysa accuses Tyrion of also killing her husband Jon, and since Tyrion can’t stop his own special brand of snark, he gets thrown in the “dungeon.”

On Wednesday as I picked up my regular pull list, I said to my local comic book store owner that if he was able to hold anything for me on Saturday, I'd most of all like the Archaia free comic, as it had a preview of A Tale of Sand, the comic Laura told us about last month.

"Why not take one now?" he said, and pulled a copy out of a box in the back room. Apparently his wife had just been flipping through the same thing, because one of the covers featured "Mouse Guard." (The Archaia comic is one of those double previews, with two stories printed upside down from the back.)

I'm very happy to show you a peek at the free one-shot I received on Wednesday, in the hopes that some of you who aren't normally comic book readers will head to your local store (here's a handy locator) and try to at least get a copy of this for yourself. Go on, it's free all day tomorrow, Saturday May 7th.

Today Nova Larsen Katrowski was born at 3:46 pm, 21 inches long, 10 pounds 14 ounces. To quote Rania, "I sure can fuckin' grow 'em!"

Funnily enough, she was born via c-section, making the following birth announcement we wrote, moot.

This month on Brave And The Bold, Batman teams up with Green Lantern to help him kick the snot out of some robo-babes.

Haha, not really. Well, sort of. The Zamarons sort of look like pink cyborg Amazons to me, though. So this episode will apparently tell the story of Star Sapphire, who I'm not actually that familiar with because I'm not much of a Green Lantern fan. But after the jump, Hal Jordan is going to tell you all about it, and then Batman is going to beat the crap out of a bunch of Zamarons while Star Sapphire yells at Green Lantern to be less of a wussy. Also, Wonder Woman for some reason (the press release did not explain.)

Today is Star Wars Day, because the internet just cannot pass up a good punning. I can do it too: Sithin' Ain't Easy. Sith back and relax. It sith what it sith.

Because I'm the Star Wars Geek, and more specifically because I'm the Star Wars Food Geek, I figured you guys would expect something from me today. So if you're interested in non-food related Star Wars nerdery from me, and you missed it last week, you can check out my latest Star Wars wish list. If you're interested in the instructions for Darth Cream Sundae Sandwiches (above) or other related sundries, click the jump link and continue reading.

I can't even bring myself to write this up. From the press release:

After 10 incredible seasons, Smallville: The Complete Series will arrive on DVD this fall. This ultimate collector’s set for the ultimate fan features over 192 hours of content – including all 218 episodes, over five hours of newly added special features such as an unaired, never-before- seen Superboy pilot from 1961, a 90-minute series retrospective with all new interviews, the 2010 final Comic-Con panel and more!

An email exchange and more info, after the jump:

So, we left off last week’s read along with Catelyn running off to King’s Landing, Jon arriving at The Wall and Daenerys being sold into marriage. Pretty much all of you missed the amazing chat where the term “bitchface” was bandied about in regard to both Catelyn Stark and Cersei Lannister. You also missed out on the hotness of Khal Drogo, Neil Gaiman’s blog entry on why George R.R. Martin is no one’s bitch, and rape/not-rape at Dany’s wedding after which BK decided to form a band called Dothraki Suffragettes.

In this week’s segment probably one of the most pivotal events of the entire series happens.

So, Monday was my birthday, that made it a little more interesting.

I refuse to believe that this is true. Puppets are notoriously unreliable.

On November 11th, a movie I never heard of until today is releasing to theaters called Immortals. It's another sword-n-sandals half-naked-slow-mo-beheadings movie that I would rudely dismiss if not for two things: 1) the last movie I dismissed like that, Centurion, was actually awesome. 2) Tarsem Singh. (If you have Netflix, skip this post and use the Watch Instantly feature to watch The Fall. Immediately. I am not even joking.)

Wikipedia provides this summary:

Years after the Titanomachy, the Titan Hyperion (Mickey Rourke) declares war on humanity. He searches for the Epirus Bow, a legendary weapon created by the war god Ares, which will allow him to free the rest of the Titans from Tartarus and take revenge on the Olympians who brought about their downfall. In accordance with ancient laws, the gods are unable to take a side in the war between Hyperion and humanity. It is left to a peasant named Theseus (Henry Cavill), chosen by Zeus (Luke Evans) to protect his homeland and save the gods.

After the jump we have pictures and a classic email exchange.

Alternate title: Nerds Be Shoppin'!!

I just went through my Amazon Wish List last night, because I was adding a couple of Star Wars things to the list and noticed my list has quite a few Star Wars things. It's almost embarrassing how skewed my geek preferences are. Top of the list is obviously the Original Trilogy Blu-Ray, which is on sale for pre-order at $44.99. I, uh, might be buying that right this second actually, that's $25 off the list price. (You can watch the preview trailer here.)

Okay, so here's the backstory: This review has taken months and months to write. Last year, Senario -- the company that makes Zibits -- offered us their newest toy for review on the site. We jumped at the chance because we were so happy with the personal remote controlled robots, we thought we'd love their game Battle Bands, too.

Sadly this is not the case. They sent us a big pack of stuff in November, all part of their Battle Bands line, so Laura and I could cart it to Mid-Ohio Con and maybe find some kids who wanted to try it out. Battle Bands appeared to be taking advantage of children who liked Silly Bandz and also Fantasy adventures (because it involved rubbery bracelets shaped like mythical creatures.) It seemed straightforward enough, but when we opened the box and started reading the directions, we became hopelessly confused.

Here's an example:

All screencaps from Fanpop user Invisible Tears.

In Shakespeare’s tragedies, there’s always this major turning point where someone has killed someone else and then events have to play themselves out, usually with everyone dead at the end. The turning point of A Game of Thrones happens before the book even starts. Jon Arryn, Hand of the King, dies, and as Eddard Stark comes to find out, his death was really murder.

The first 200 pages of A Game of Thrones sets this murder theory up. We also get a lot of introductions and character development in these pages. A lot of what happens in these first pages shape the characters into who they become several books down the line.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can manage to not bite their heads off, then maybe you can hire... The Peep-Team.

Starting Monday, April 25th, if you are on Twitter and are following along with our bits of brain confetti, you have the option to retweet our tweets and then win fun prizes. (In particular, retweeting our tweets about the site and our Race for the Cure team.)

If you choose to RT us (either via the New Twitter fancy retweet button, or good old fashioned copy and paste,) you'll be entered in our Retweet Contest. Depending on how many tweets you retweet, your name will be thrown in to a hat and a winner will be picked at random each day to win a grab bag of goodies from us.

You can only win once, but you can enter (by retweeting) as many times as you want. If you win on Monday, we encourage you to keep retweeting us, because that is the point of the whole contest -- to spread the word about Geektress!

Hello, and welcome to my fangirl Who links. I am so excited about the premiere this weekend! Wooo. However,we must deal with the sad. The 4th Doctor was the one I remember from my childhood, and she was the first companion. I also enjoyed the Sarah Jane Chronicles. She will be missed.

This Saturday on BBC America, the sixth season of Doctor Who will kick off with a two-part premiere. Starting at 9pm, you can watch along with fellow Who fans in the UK for the first time since the series re-launch in 2005. No more torrenting!

There has been some speculation as to whether the newest Doctor (#11), as played by Matt Smith, is a bit too young for the role. Steven Moffat was prepared to pick another middle-aged actor for the role when Smith blew them away at auditions. Smith was also key in choosing the current doctor's look, with the signature bow tie. After the jump, we have some cosplayers (some we saw at C2E2, and some that are just cream of the Eleventh crop,) who would agree that bow ties really are cool. (And, actually, fezzes as well!)

When The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan came out in 2009, I was so pumped. I thought this was a kick ass zombie YA novel I could get behind. The premise is fascinating. I can’t fault Ryan for the idea. This is a novel about life post zombie apocalypse. A few hundred people live in a colony surrounded by heavy duty fences which have kept them safe from “the Unconsecrated” for multiple generations.

This colony has reverted back to farming and gathering. There are no cars, no guns, no telephones or radios or even electricity. The central building in the colony is the cathedral and the Sisters live there and control the colony through the words of the Scripture – which may or may not be the Bible. Guardians scout the perimeters, secure the fence, and kill the zombies. The people who live in this colony believe they are the last people on earth. Until one night, someone from Outside shows up at the gates and hijinx ensue.

Tuesday is a time for keeping your nose to the grindstone. It is a time for contemplation. Often there are donuts, and perhaps also, a slow news day.

Which can only mean: Twitter Tuesday.

We went through some of our favorite tweets from the past, oh, ever. Here are a few that we hope you will enjoy as much as we did, and also as much as two Batmen having a tea party.

Winter is here!

I think the whole damn world has gone Game of Thrones crazy. Would it be too hipster of me to scoff for having read these books six years ago? Hipster Carey even has a signed first edition of A Game of Thrones with a limited edition shiny silver cover. Here's a picture of me with the man himself at C2E2 in 2010. George is a crusty, yet charming bastard. I wish he were my grandpa.

We will start off with some strange and wonderful video clips, one of Sam Rockwell, and the other a strange interview with Jim Henson.

A couple of days ago I posted this story from the A.V. Club on our Facebook page. I was certain that people would want to see what the CGI apes in the new Rise of the Planet of the Apes were going to look like. I know I was. After all, it is still a movie about apes overthrowing humanity, and if the apes looked like crap, then, no matter what else it had going for it, the movie would be crap. Not a single person replied to the post though. Nobody even "liked" it. There was not a single iota of interest. So I have to ask, what the hell is wrong with you people?

I will probably be hexed by any Hitch-hiker's fans reading this, but when I think Douglas Adams, I think Dirk Gently. I really do. Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, and even the unfinished Salmon of Doubt are some of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. Hitch-hiker's Guide to the Galaxy always got sort of depressing for me after The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but it seemed like, when Adams was writing Dirk stories, he was having the most fun.

I would not consider myself the biggest fan of Jim Henson's non-Muppets, Sesame Street, or Fraggle Rock work. I love Labyrinth, and remember being enthralled by The Storyteller in the late 1980s, but I have never even seen The Dark Crystal. However, the fact that I am not very knowledgeable about his wider body of work does not mean that I am not aware of it, or that I don't recognize him as a visionary creator. That is why I was excited to attended the panel presented by Archaia Comics and The Jim Henson Company at C2E2. In attendance were Henson archivist Karen Falk and Archaia Comics editor-in-chief Stephen Christy, as well as artist Ramón Perez. They presented some of Henson's early film work from the archive and held a discussion about the upcoming A Tale of Sand original graphic novel, with Perez as the artist, which was described as one of the biggest undertakings Archaia Comics has ever done. They also debuted art from the graphic novel, which can be seen below.

Cartoon from Rothfuss' Blog

I finally finished The Wise Man’s Fear by Patrick Rothfuss nearly a month after getting it in the mail. Granted, the book is almost 1,000 pages long, but I’m generally a little quicker. Part of my pokey-ness was deliberate. Books like this one are meant to be savored. When an author like Patrick Rothfuss, or George R.R. Martin, or David Anthony Durham, or even Jacqueline Carey (who is actually a pretty quick writer in comparison) puts years of time and effort into a thing, when they have perhaps agonized over every word or turn of phrase in an effort to get things right not just for their characters but for their readers, you don’t read the finished product in one sitting. That’s like going to a gourmet restaurant and shoveling the food into your face hole with your bare hands. After you’ve asked for ketchup.

Even though I only read The Name of the Wind last fall, and I hadn’t waited nearly as long as most of Rothfuss’ fans, I wanted to absorb this novel. And so I did.

Yesterday we posted the recap thus far of one reader's adventures chasing down the Game of Thrones food truck. There were a ton of photos and what sounded like a great time enjoying free food and the company of other George R.R. Martin fans. It made us all a little sad that the Food Truck wasn't going to be visiting anywhere other than Los Angeles and New York City. I think we all could benefit from free lemon cakes and dragon printed napkins.

Here is what happened yesterday at the truck, and it doesn't disappoint. Take it away, Chanel:

Last week, the Game of Thrones food truck traveled through New York City, handing out free Westeros-themed food to the first 300 people to show up and partake. This week, it headed out to California, and Geektress reader Chanel Chadock was there every day, trying out every dish.

She graciously agreed to take photos and review the food for us every day. She did not disappoint: there are a ton of photos and more from her adventure. (Quest? Food quest?) FYI, we decided on a on-the-fly one-to-ten rating system of "Dragon Eggs." So hold on to your butts, you're going to get a geek food explosion, after the jump.

Wolverine Vs Shark by Ryan Valle

Francene's feeling a little under the weather today (which is why you should send her a get well tweet), but she still forwarded me her links for today. So click on!

"The Coming of Arthur," (heh) Part 2 premieres Friday, April 8 at 10:00 p.m. on Syfy. Syfy will also run an all-day marathon of the third season of Merlin on Friday, starting at 8:00 a.m.

The episode presents the first glimpses of many iconic characters, moments and items in the centuries-old legend. From an appearance of the Lady of the Lake, the return of Lancelot and the introduction of Percival to the first appearance of the Round Table and the initial wielding of Excalibur, fans will be thrilled with this all-encompassing episode that ties together loose strings for the season, and leaves open the door for seasons to come.

More pictures and behind the scenes stuff (including clips!) after the jump.

(click to embiggen)

Starting last week with issue #13, Scott Snyder and Rafael Albuquerque are taking their tales of Skinner Sweet, Pearl Jones and her hubby Henry Preston in to the forties, with a story set during World War II. If you haven't been reading the series, first of all: It's pretty much the only thing we talk about on the podcast other than Wonder Woman, why the heck aren't you listening to us? Second of all: It's worth it to start now. Go now. We'll wait. Here's a handy locator.

The Suvudu Cage Matches have come to their final bout of 2011 and holy upset! Well, upset to some, anyway. Vin from Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn trilogy defeated Jon Snow from George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series. And Quick Ben from Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen series pretty soundly beat Perrin Aybarra from Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.

© AKM Images / Splash News

We were at C2E2 the weekend the first photos of the new Wonder Woman tv costume hit the webs. We thought it looked kind of cheap and tacky, but weren't too worried about how it would look on film (the PR photos always look terrible.) Then the other pictures were released, and the costume was less shiny and the boots were red and goody hooray, Wonder Woman with stars and spangles and a lasso!

However, the point isn't really what she's wearing, it never really is. The point is: Is the story good? Is the character written honestly?

From what we'd seen and heard about the original pilot script: No. In it, Diana had not one, but TWO alter-egos (confusing!). She spent most of her time pining over a guy (ew! We've already seen Sex And The City.) She liked to sing along to pop songs (cute), all the friggin' time (unless this is Glee... honey no.) She was only going to appear on-screen in the costume for a few minutes total in the entire first episode (we later found out why: Prostitute Princess.)

This weekend I was able to test drive a Motorola 3G "XOOM."

Okay, kids, it's official: Momma doesn't understand your obsession with touch-y whatchamacallits.

Let me sum up: No, wait. There is too much. Let me explain:

If you missed Superman's first guest starring role on Batman: Brave And The Bold last week, I hope you remembered to set your DVRs for this week. Bat-Mite hosts a series of Batman's most bizarre adventures including the Mad Magazine-inspired Batboy and Rubin, a Japanese-influenced Bat-Manga and a guest starring role from the Scooby Gang and Weird Al Yankovic. "Bat-Mite Presents: Batman’s Strangest Cases!" airs tonight, Friday, April 1 at 6:30 p.m. EST on Cartoon Network.

Hit the jump link for more downloadable pictures (and make sure you clicked on the links above to get some sooper sekrit clips of the show.)

[Prints of Bill & Ted & Who available soon! ~BK]

I have never been much of an April Fooler. I think of good stuff on the 8th, and try to remember for the next year. This warmed my little black heart of DOOM. I also recommend following @Jhonenv, loves him.

DC Comics revealed today that they will soon be transitioning all their titles to include the Batman family. Since Batman Confidential and Batman: Streets of Gotham concluded last month, DC only has Detective Comics, Batman, Superman / Batman, Batman and Robin, Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman, Inc., and Batman: The Brave and the Bold -- plus the Batfamily and Bat-related books like Batman Beyond, Super Friends, Justice League of America, The Outsiders, Gotham City Sirens, Red Robin, Batgirl, Birds of Prey, Azrael, and the soon to be released Batwoman. That's only seventeen titles down from nineteen, clearly DC has realized there is a desperate need to include Batman in all their storylines.

"Batman is our top selling character," revealed DC Editor Jay Diddilo. "We really would like to take advantage of his popularity by pushing him out there, really getting him in to the mix of things."

This is why DVRs were invented. Yesterday we posted a review of Starz channel's Camelot, which officially premieres Friday night at 10pm (EST). Today we post about its older, equally good and much more fun cousin, which also airs tomorrow night at 10PM, on SyFy. "The Coming of Arthur, Part 1" is the first episode of Merlin's two part season finale, and if you've been keeping up with the series, or are even a casual fan, you do not want to miss either part. Just don't get confused. I'm pretty sure there is some British porn out there with the same exact title. There's got to be, right?

(Click to Embiggen)

In the behind the scenes promo Starz has been showing for its new series Camelot, Joseph Fiennes says, "I think people should watch this show because it's not a musical." If you have followed me at all here on the blog or through the podcast, you know that I don't consider not being a musical to ever be a good thing. But I watched the sneak peak of the premiere that aired on February 25th anyway.

A panel from "Cursed Blade," from Marshall Dillon and Matt Cossin

While at C2E2, we ran across the booth for Four Star Studios, and creator Josh Emmons provided us with a preview of their newest offering to the world of digital comics: The $0.99 Double Feature Comic. If you don't know, Four Star is a collective comprised of Tim Seeley, Mike Norton, Emmons, and Sean Dove. These four, including other talented creators like Phil Hester, B. Clay Moore, and Chris Burnham, are putting together two short stories (8 pages each) in a different genre each month, and releasing them to the web only.

[You can buy prints of this at my store. ~BK]

Doo-doo doo, doooo... doo-doo-doot doot doooo....

Suvudu's March Madness showdown between characters in the fantasy fiction world has reached its Final Four.

Jon Snow (George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series) whomped Alvin Maker (Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series) to become the champion of the Rama Division. Cue Final Fantasy leveling up music here. This really came as no surprise, but I wonder at the logistics. I haven't read A Song of Ice and Fire since Feast for Crows came out, so I need a refresher. Maybe Jon Snow is more powerful than I remember? But he struck me as a kind of angry kid who wasn't quite sure of himself there until the fourth book.

It's Nimoy's turn to celebrate eight decades, and to be celebrated in turn with some of my favorite pictures of him. There’s a reason that, over on Tumblr, I tag anything he’s in with: “I love this man”. The following are some of the reasons why. (Warning: I'm an unabashed fangirl.)

Laugh-Out-Loud Owl sent in by Chino

There were a lot of fun Star Wars things this week. First of all, there was the Luke Skywalker Twincest Theme over at the YouTubes. College Humor had some really funny Star Wars-related Public Service Announcement Photos.

Hey, everyone! What are you planning on doing tonight? WELL YOU CAN JUST FORGET IT.

Or, you can set your DVRs to record Cartoon Network tonight at 6:30, because Superman will be making his first appearance on Batman: The Brave and The Bold.

Mark Sheppard photo by RavenU

Last weekend at C2E2, we covered a lot of panels for the web site, most of them comic book related. ReedPop's Chicago convention is still mostly about the funny pages, though this year they had a few more entertainment panels than last. Still, if I could only make it to see one media guest star, I wanted to check out Mark Sheppard. He had key roles in Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, and yes, Firefly. (The room was filled mostly with Firefly fans, who quickly pointed out when the moderator forgot to mention the show during his intro.) Mark Sheppard covers almost all of my non-comic-book-related interests.

The following are my notes from the panel. They are mostly paraphrased, but I tried to be as accurate as possible while typing on a tiny laptop. Sheppard has a long history of acting in some pretty popular science fiction television shows (including The X Files, and recently, Dr. Who,) so he has a lot of anecdotes and quotes about fellow actors, directors, and writers.

Severus Snape (Harry Potter) defeated Lestat (Anne Rice's Vampire books) and Quick Ben (Malazan Book of the Fallen) beat Pug (Riftworld) to duke it out over champion of the New Crobuzon division. I have a lot of faith in Snape here. The man is ruthless and dispassionate. He's a survivor. Then again, I know next to nothing aout Quick Ben.

My Pick: Snape, due to his sheer tenacity. He won't go down easy.

When Laura and I started looking for some theater to take in while we were at C2E2 in Chicago, we stumbled across a listing for Nefarious!. It's a small production of an original musical comedy about superheroes, and the theater is called the "Cornservatory," what's not to love?

So, we took the train from our hotel in the south loop up to the show, and forked over $10 apiece for tickets. (Little did we know it was a BYOB venue, FYI for you, LOL.) We also dragged Stevie D with us, because if it was bad, we wanted independent witnesses to confirm that fact for us.

This is my first time ever reviewing a play or musical, so bear with me here.

Today William Shatner turns 80. The man has had an extraordinarily varied career in showbiz, spanning science fiction, popular music (ah, "music" rather), Shakespeare, game shows, writing fiction, charity fundraising, and participating in that dearly missed chestnut, "Battle of the Network Stars."

Last month, we held a contest where we had people write in about their worst convention experiences. The winners would receive original art from Dave MacDowell, and a $25 gift certificate from Neatorama. This weekend at C2E2, Laura and I went over all the entrants with some of our associates, and decided upon two clear winners.

First, there is Sarah, who wrote in about a tornado that struck during a convention she was attending. (Unanimously it was decided that tornadoes are frakking terrifying.) We also liked Alex's story about the Pasadena Comic Con, "Los Angeles Rock'n Comic Con." Whereas we meant for contestants to share a terrible experience at a convention, Alex had an experience with a convention that was terrible. We enjoyed how he turned the concept on its head.

Congratulations to our winners, and all the entries will be read on our next podcast, so stay tuned!

In a move that might go down as one of the stupidest nerdery-related decisions ever, I literally drove from the airport this afternoon in to work. Yes, I got up at 6am, took a flight out of Chicago, and then turned around and worked a 10 hour shift. I quite possibly am out of my mind.

The next thing you're absolutely not going to be shocked about, especially if you know me, is the complete lack of cooperation I got from technology this weekend. When my camera wasn't randomly shutting down during interviews, my lapel microphone's battery was dying. There was also a rampant case of SD Card Corruption preventing me from taking many photos or recording our normal convention roundup podcast. Thus, we have very few new photos after the jump that you didn't already see on Twitter.

[Yes, this is still the old picture. A new picture will arrive soon, I promise. In the meantime, you can now buy prints of this at my store. ~BK]

In the Suvudu cage match, we have a few more results.

Vin (Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series) defeated Eric Northman (True Blood). Zeddicus Z'ul Zorander (Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth series) defeated Severian (Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun series). Vin and Zed will now face each other for championship of the Minas Tirith Division. Vin is strong, but Zed has her beat in experience and skill... and popularity.

My pick: Zed will take this one easily.

Alvin Maker (Orson Scott Card's Tales of Alvin Maker series) beat Milly Millions (William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy) and much to my own chagrin, Jon Snow and his goofy dire wolf (George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire) beat Beowulf. This is a popularity contest first, but the idea of Beowulf going down to Jon Snow is kind of upsetting. Both of these characters have huge fan bases, but I think Jon Snow's is bigger. Again, if people voted based on logic as opposed to favoritism, Alvin would win.

My Pick: Jon Snow will take the Rama Division.

Voting for Jon vs. Alvin (and Vin vs Zeddicus) ends this Thursday, March 24th.

We live-blogged the DC Icons panel at C2E2! I typed until my laptop battery died.

Action Comics #900 finishes the Lex Luthor story and starts Doomsday. It's a 50 page story and Paul Cornell said it was "terrifying" to write. Plus, totally independently, he and Chris Roberson both brought back Superman's thought bubbles.

Bill Willingham does an awesome job of embarrassing Dan Didio by insisting on serving him water and bringing beverages to the rest of the panel. They still refuse to talk about what the bet was that Willingham lost (in order to have to be Didio's Butler for a day), but the gag is very entertaining.

(Click to embiggen.)

If you haven't been reading Paul Cornell and Pete Woods' excellent run on Action Comics, you are missing quite a lot. However, in a storyline that features a robot Lois Lane and some of the best villains in the DC Universe, my absolute favorite thing had to be in issue #893 when Lex Luthor faced off against Gorilla Grodd. My friends can atest to the fact that I would not stop talking about how awesome Grodd's giant combat spoon was. I mean, it's a giant spoon he uses to eat brains. That's just brilliant!

Usually the problem with open question and answer sessions at comic book conventions is that (and this is being extremely generous) about one in five questions from the audience is actually any good. Apparently an open mic can really make geeks nervous, and people get ridiculous and silly. It's why, most of the time, we'll leave a panel during the Q&A (unless you're Bruce Campbell and the whole thing is Q&A and he's making fun of you.)

So last night at the DC Nation panel, it was kind of shocking that 99% of the audience questions were really interesting and it was Dan Didio that was being goofy. It was all very Freaky Friday / role reversal.

Whoo hooo! I dont have a Saint Patty's hangover, but spring break with the elementary school set is making up for it. Although, I wish I could have sent them to Jedi School for the week. Wait, then they would want to fight me.

Over the weekend, I became a renegade nerd journalist. The husband and I went to see Lakeview Museum’s “Jim Henson’s Fantastic World” exhibit, and despite many signs telling us not to take pictures, we did anyway with a kind of crappy camera phone. Because I love Geektress.

Anyway, a lot of you reading this probably grew up on Sesame Street and Fraggle Rock. I did. Sesame Street was my life when I was really little. Big Bird was real to me. My mom paid for HBO when I was a kid partially so my brother and I could watch Fraggle Rock. I also remember being allowed to watch The Muppet Show, despite being far too young to even care about any of the jokes. The highlight of my very young life was going on vacation to Sesame Place when I was about 5. I don’t remember peeing my pants in glee, but I’m pretty positive I did.

As little kids, we all appreciated Jim Henson’s work, even if we didn’t know his name or realize that Bert and Ernie were puppets and not reality. But as an adult, I developed a completely new appreciation for Jim Henson after visiting this exhibit and listening to his wife, Jane Henson, speak a couple of weeks ago.

I'm not even going to try and pretend I'm not biased towards things that are Star Wars or cookie related. I can't hide it; I am Star Wars Cookie Lady. That's why I get asked all the time: "Do you own the Star Wars Cookbook"? The answer is, of course, yes I do, and I'll tell you the truth: It was sort of disappointing.

(Photo by Dania, click to embiggen.)

Today is Tuesday, and we thought since we like alliteration, we'd talk about Twitter. I asked around the Geektress office to see who everyone's favorite sorta-geeky Tweeters were. One of the most popular Twitters is actually a work of creative fiction, Drunk Hulk. Sample tweet:

SCHIZOPHRENIA! MENTAL RETARDATION! AUTISM! CONGRATULATION STAMMER! YOU NOW OSCAR WORTHY DISORDER TO EXPLOIT IN FUTURE!

Drunk Hulk is the work of (SPOILER!) Christian A. Dumais, who teaches literature and pop culture to students in Poland.

But we each had our own picks for favorite Twitters:

In comic book news, if you follow the blog Comic Booked, on Sunday they had a selection process for a comic book March Madness-style playoff, and their bracket matchups were posted on Monday. Unfortunately, unlike basketball, where the teams that advance to the next round go on because of skill, this game is going to be run like Suvudu's game, with the winners in each matchup determined by popular vote.

So, as we all know, Superman beats everything, and should just be skipped ahead to the final round, but maybe Batman makes it out of the Sweet Sixteen because everyone frakkin' loves Batman and will probably vote the crap out of him. It's like Laura observed: "It's the whole rebel alliance versus one Green Lantern? Obviously they win!" Yes, obviously they would, until the surge of Green Lantern fans that vote him (or her, it just says "The Green Lantern,") in to the next stage turn up.

In Sci/Fi and Fantasy news, we continue with the Suvudu matchups we posted about yesterday:

[Yes, this is an old picture. A new picture will arrive shortly. In the meantime, you can now buy prints of this at my store. ~BK]

We’ve all played that game where you ask: Who would win in a fight? So-and-so, or so-and-so? And then you discuss all of the advantages and flaws of each person involved.

The folks at Suvudu, a most excellent blog dedicated to the fantasy/sci-fi/paranormal works that come out of DelRey and Spectra, are playing this game interactively with some of sci-fi and fantasy’s greatest heroes and villains. This is their second annual cage match series, and round one brackets are now open for voting.

UPDATE: We posted round one just a little late for voting, but that's okay - it's still good to know who is involved from the get-go. Like last year, I had a few weeks to be angry that Harry Dresden was taken out by Conan the Barbarian in round 1. You have until March 17th at 5pm to vote in Round 2. Be sure to check Suvudu for a breakdown of the matches and predicted outcomes for Round 2.

Last year, Rand al’Thor from The Wheel of Time series won. I stopped reading that series after about book 4, but from what I understand, Rand is an invincible demigod. I don’t agree with the way the matches played out last year, mostly since Cthulhu was involved and he should have just made everyone insane, but this is a popularity contest more than anything else, so whatevs. Suvudu has lengthy match scenarios attached to each pairing. These are my picks – vote early and vote often!

Since this is my first post, be gentle. This has been a slow news week, but we can all take comfort in never having to hear about Carlos Estevez again. I am so thankful for that.

Click to embiggen obscenely.

In 2007, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez held a Grindhouse faux trailer competition at the South By Southwest festival. The winner of that contest, as you probably know by now, was "Hobo With A Shotgun." Things have come full circle, and the finished full-length film starring Rutger Hauer will play SXSW on Tuesday, March 15 and Wednesday, March 16. The filmmakers of Hobo With A Shotgun are now holding their own trailer making contest, which you can submit to right now until March 31st, 2011 at 11:59PM EST. More explanation from director and Canadian Jason Eisener, after the jump:

Shortly before The Dark Knight premiered in theaters, DC Animation released Gotham Knight, a collection of young Batman stories designed to carry on the story from Batman Begins up to the story being told in Dark Knight. There was also the experiment to draw Batman using several prominent anime illustrators, something that had never been done before (officially.)

This year on June 7, ten days before the live-action Green Lantern movie is released in theaters, DC will be doing it again.

A while back, we complained about DC's new "75th Anniversary" logo, and how it lacked Wonder Woman. It was clear that for 2011, DC was planning on licensing its major characters as much as possible. Not only was the anniversary approaching, but a Green Lantern movie is due as their big summer blockbuster project, and attention must be paid. (Although, maybe we could've done without Hal Jordan's tasty glowing balls.)

Picture via Jambot; more on Flickr.

On Sunday afternoon, the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus made its debut on the streets of New Orleans. They are an official krewe, and describe themselves as "Bacchanalian Revelry + Sci Fi = BacchanALIENS". They even received special permission to march uptown on St. Charles Avenue, which is backwards from the way every other Mardi Gras parade travels. They're fellow "Star Wars Freaks, Trekkies, Whovians, Mega-Geeks, Circuit Benders, Cryptozooligists, UFO Conspiracy Theorists, and Mad Scientists", of course they gotta do things different.

After the jump, celebrate Fat Tuesday with a list of our favorite mixed drinks.

Awesome design via He Who Cannot Be Named

A few months ago, I bitched about my Droid2D2, which refused to hold a charge (or to charge at all) and was constantly, constantly, freezing up (the fix for which was the battery being removed and the device being completely restarted.) Since that post, I asked Verizon to replace my phone because it was still under warranty. The replacement phone works much, much better -- though, it does occasionally lock up, but that is usually in the mornings after it's been on the charger cradle all night. Since we all have trouble functioning at 100% after just waking up, I give my new Droid2D2 a pass on that one.

So, now that I have a Droid that won't crap out on me, I've been exploring my "app" options.

How soon will making fun of that title get boring? None. None soon.

If you've been doing as you've been told, you've been reading our friend RoboPanda's posts over at Gamma Squad, and you know about the other Spidey musical that's opening slightly-to-the-left of Broadway, The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility.

The Spidey Project: With Great Power Comes Great Responsibility is a guerilla theatre project to write, rehearse, and perform a fully-realized musical based on the character Spider-Man in under 30 days with a budget of $0. It is set to open and close with two performances one day before the $65 million Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark. Justin Moran’s musical will be the first Spider-Man musical to officially open in New York City.

The sale for tickets to the one show they were offering (tickets are free, by the way,) was three days ago and sold out in under a minute, so they added a second performance the same night and tickets went on sale about 45 minutes ago. Those sold out in under a minute, too. (Though, their Facebook page is encouraging people who missed out on internet tickets to show up at the door.)

(Photo via Kryptonsite)

Laura: So, I turned on Smallville late, because while I couldn't bring myself to watch a full episode without Chloe or Oliver, I did commit to watching this final season, and I'm going to do it. Anyway, Conner Kent is on Red K and choking Lois and she's telling him that Clark on Red K never did anything like that. CLARK WOULD CHOKE PEOPLE NOT ON RED K!!!! I'm sorry, I just had to vent frustration about what an asshole Clark is. Feel free to ignore.

Jabba eyes... Are watching you... They see your Twi'leks dance...

I'm very excited to announce the addition of my friend Francene to Geektress. She's a mom to two adorable kids who may or may not actually be anthropomorphic Cabbage Patch Dolls, lives in the Dallas Texas area, and (much to Dania's delight) is "a fellow Whovian." When she's not posting at FilmDrunk or the Sharon Stone Twitter, she's finding hilarious things to put on her Tumblr. So we thought we'd ask her if she wants to be our official Link Roundup Geektress. She said yes! A thousand times yes!

So, when I get a chance to actually teach her how to use the site, she'll be posting this herself. Until then, she found the funny and I'm regurgitating it here.

I was just complaining yesterday about there not being a Willow sequel, and today I find out Warwick Davis is guest starring in tonight's episode of Merlin. If you haven't been watching the show, we're now on season three on SyFy (Fridays at 10pm EST,) and, to quote our CBQ BFFE, PattyBoom, "shit just got real." After the jump, we have a clip from tonight's episode, "The Eye of the Phoenix", and an interview with Wicket himself, Mr. Warwick Davis.

(On a semi-related note, as a kid it always messed me up that Brad, the dickhead from Superman III, was the dickhead soldier in Willow. Asshats can transcend universes? FREAKY.)

Last week it was reported that IDW Publishing has partnered with Sony and Michael Bay's production company, Platinum Dunes, to turn the comic series Zombies Vs. Robots in to a movie. Videogame writer and filmmaker J.T. Petty has used the comic as the basis for a spec script called "Inherit The Earth." I have never heard of Zombies Vs. Robots before but the description sounds awesome. Robots are protecting a baby from zombies? And hilarity ensues? How could we have we missed such a thing! Judging just by the art alone, it looks spectacular.

We asked Sarah at Hold Onto Yr Genre to explain it for us, since she's read the comics and has Opinions about Film. We wanted to know what she thought about the series translating to the silver screen, whether the result may be too campy, and if there is going to be enough gore, because there can never really be enough gore. Her response after the jump.

Brenda: Did I mention I saw Toy Story 3? In blu-ray! ...I cried a lot. In hi-def.

Laura: I cried a lot when I saw it, too. On the plus side, I learned that I am still capable of human emotion outside of sleep deprived delirium, though I'm not sure that's worth the new paranoia and guilt. I mean, I already had a lot of paranoia and guilt. Fuck you, Pixar!

UPDATE: CONTEST EXTENDED. You have until Friday to submit to us your story and make yourself eligible for a couple of cool prizes!

Recently at Geektress we've come across a wealth of awesome things we could give away. For instance, I happen to have an extra signed copy of this Dave MacDowell painting that is pretty awesome. Also, Alex at Neatorama has offered to supply a prize up to $25 in value from The Neatoshop. So, obviously, a contest is in order!

Just recently someone took the initiative to record off of Cartoon Network a promotional bit for the upcoming ThunderCats remake. While there's no official trailer yet, you can take a look at the YouTube snippet after the jump and try and form an opinion about this new, "anime" version of the beloved 80s cartoon. Laura watched it and weighed in:

It's really hard to make a judgment call on this trailer for a lot of reasons. For one thing, the video quality is poor. For another, it jumps around a lot, only allowing quick glimpses of things. Also, it looks like all of it takes place on Thundera, before they escape to Third Earth, which makes it hard to get a feel for what the series will be like, since, presumably, that will take place on Third Earth, like the original series.

"Hey, Brenda. What do you do in your downtime at work?"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...."

Carey wrote up a review of Peter S. Beagle's new short stories collection, Sleight of Hand, at Drunken Zombie. If you don't know, that's Carey's hubby's podcast, you should check it out after you listen to this week's Geektress podcast (where I tear everyone who ever thought about Wonder Woman a new hole.)

Registration for Detroit Fanfare is live. They announced their first media guest this week, none other than Adam Baldwin. (I'm still mad at him for calling Gail Simone a bigot, but maybe she'll show up to kick him in the shins and everything will even out?)

"Stay out of my weed, mortal!"

(You know I'm running out of title ideas when I wear out the "something two electric boogaloo" joke.)

If you’re a fan of the old King's Quest adventure games, you might be happy to know that AGD Interactive, a fan group who remade the first two King’s Quest games with VGA graphics and a point and click interface, is releasing their final version of the game today. AGD Interactive has been covertly developing King's Quest III Redux: To Heir Is Human for the past eight years. Their aim has always been to modernize the original game while maintaining its retro charm:

"We're very excited to finally release this game after developing it in secret for so long," says Chris Warren, who co-founded AGD Interactive as well as its sister company, Himalaya Studios. "We've poured a lot of love into this particular project and I think King's Quest fans will be very pleased at the results, even though reaching the end may be bittersweet."

Those of you who are making it a regular habit to check the website for new updates, first of all: Thank you. You may have noticed that instead of updating once a month, we're making a concerted effort to post once a day now. Second of all, you'll note that up until last week, we had maybe one, possibly two comic book reviews written here in a three year span. This is certainly not because we don't read comic books, but more because we devote a good portion of the podcast every week to reviewing comics. After that, we don't have much to write about.

However, I'm trying to change that. A lot of the stuff on my pull list isn't read by either Laura or Rania, particularly Gotham City Sirens. They just don't have much interest in Bat books, or Catwoman, Poison Ivy, and Harley Quinn. To quote Laura "I like the way Zatanna looks more than I actually like the character, which is how I feel about most DC characters."

So, for the past three months I haven't been reading Gotham City Sirens. (Don't judge me, at least I still buy it. And since it's confession time, I haven't read Birds of Prey since issue 5, I think, which is a far greater crime to some people.) I actually have no good reason why, I was enjoying the storyline and I love all three characters. I'm not blaming Laura or Rania, I've just been largely indifferent to a lot of things lately.

The guys at the Gotham Central Podcast heard tale of this the other day on our Twitter, and their surprise guilted me in to catching up. So, if you don't listen to the podcast, I'll recap a little bit of 16 here (even though I reviewed it months ago, I re-read it for this story arc.) For those of you that do listen to the podcast, you probably barely remember anything not having to do with gold lamé bitch fights anyway, so you should be okay.

But lets start with this:

(From Ask Axe Cop #24)

Stop what you're doing! Have you ever read Axe Cop? It's probably one of my most favorite webcomics about a dinosaur and an axe-wielding cop. It's also my favorite webcomic written by a six year old and illustrated by his Eisner-Award not-winning 30 year old older brother. It might be the only comic in either of those categories, but the point is why are you reading about it if you're just now hearing about it? Go and read all 80-some episodes, I'll sit here and wait.

Okay... now that the Johnny-come-latelies are all out of here, check it out: Dark Horse put together a collection of the comic in December. I like how free the freeness of the free webcomic is, so I didn't mess with that, but now they're getting ready to start publishing the cartoon in comic form in the spring. It appears to take over where The Dark Knight left off, so maybe you don't need to care about Jonathan Lipnicki playing King Tut or whatever (let's make that a new rumor, ^TMGeektress):

If you're a fan of DC's direct-to-DVD animated movies, you've noticed that there is a puzzling and wide variety of actors used in each ensemble cast. Sometimes a more familiar set of voices is used (actors from the original Batman, Superman, and Justice League animated television series often reprise their roles), and sometimes... Billy Baldwin. At New York Comic Con we got a chance to ask Bruce Timm what was up with that:

When we bring Kevin [Conroy] and Tim [Daly] in to do voices, our publicity people weigh in and say "We love Kevin and Tim but we need some stunt casting to get publicity and media exposure." So we always like to look at some of the major supporting characters as parts that we can stunt cast with higher profile actors. I would have been perfectly happy to use Nicole Tom and Michael Ironside. At the same time, I was delighted to work with Summer Glau and Andre Braugher.

For the upcoming All-Star Superman movie (out tomorrow), voiceover director Andrea Romano has rounded up an intriguing lineup of stars: James Denton, Christina Hendricks, Anthony LaPaglia, Ed Asner as Perry White, Frances Conroy, and Linda Cardellini. There's also veterans Michael Gough and John DiMaggio. So she answered a few questions about what it's like to "stunt cast" for certain selections from Warner Home Video.

It's Friday! Go out and have yourself a cupcake!

This post is devoid of any content other than pictures of cupcakes. Have a great day, maybe consider joining or donating to our Race For the Cure Team (check out this video of last year's race!), don't forget about our essay contest, and make sure and call our hotline (724.484.3355) or email us (comments@geektress.com) with your questions or topic ideas, because we're podcasting tomorrow!

Or check out Robo's post about the Thor Trailer over at Gamma Squad, maybe catch up on Nerds in Babeland, or read Laura's recap of a Memorable Marvel Moment at Girls Read Comics.

And now, pictures of cupcakes:

Back in December, we talked a little about the upcoming medieval horror movie "Black Death," and speculated on its using the bubonic plague as a setting for zombies. Mostly because we think that would be cool, but also because of all the veiled references to necromancers. The official press release isn't being much of a help, though:

The year is 1348. Europe has fallen under the shadow of the Black Death. As the plague decimates all in its path, fear and superstition are rife. In this apocalyptic environment, the church is losing its grip on the people. There are rumors of a village, hidden in marshland, that the plague cannot reach. There is even talk of a necromancer who leads the village and is able to bring the dead back to life. Ulric (Sean Bean), a fearsome knight, is charged by the church to investigate these rumors.

Cover by Chrissie Zullo, click to embiggen

(Again, apologies for the title, I know, I'm terrible.)

The version of Cinderella that Bill Willingham re-invented for his Fables comics is probably one of our favorite characters here at Geektress. She wasn't often featured in the main title, though, and last year she was given her own spinoff mini-series, Cinderella: From Fabletown With Love. I'll admit that I was critical of that series. I was unfamiliar with Chris Roberson's work at the time, and felt the voice he gave to Cindy didn't necessarily feel "right." (I'm still unsure how to describe what was off about it, perhaps that she was too flippant?) I did like the artwork, the introduction of Aladdin, and the story and plot, so it wasn't as though the entire thing was a waste of my time.

Now we have a second mini-series, Cinderella: Fables Are Forever, which re-teams Chris Roberson with artist Shawn McManus. In the interim I managed to fall completely in love with Roberson's new series for Vertigo, iZombie. It's funny, it's highly stylized, and it has a grumpy talking monkey. I really don't know what more I could possibly ask for except perhaps a second attempt at telling a super secret Cinderella spy story. In other words, I was very happy last Wednesday.

(If you aren't caught up on Fables and don't want to be spoilered, you should stop reading now.)

Previously on the site, I reviewed my capacitive stylus, and mentioned the "Aglove" in passing when referring to option B, as far as the wintry weather and your touch-screen device is concerned. Well, Aglove decided to send me a Valentine's Day present. They ran a special where you could get a pair of their gloves, some Belgian chocolate, and a little love note all packaged up in a red organza bag for your sweetheart.

The best news is, I got to review the gloves for you guys to decide whether or not you want to get a stylus, fancy gloves, or just try and stick it out the rest of this winter without being able to use your phone out in the elements.

I love head wounds, so it was pretty much a given that I would enjoy a movie about a guy who kills people with a pick axe. I also enjoy Jensen Ackles, which is why it is kind of odd that the 2009 remake of My Bloody Valentine has been sitting in my Netflix DVD queue for so long. However, seeing as how it is Valentine's Day, and this is Geektress, it was the perfect time to check it out.

The basic plot of the movie is that this is a cave in at a Pennsylvania coal mine, accidentally caused by Jensen Ackles' character Tom Hanniger, in which six miners are trapped. One of those miners, Harry Warden, killed the other miners to preserve air, then goes into a coma (I wasn't really clear on how). A year later to the day, he wakes up from that coma and goes on a huge killing spree, as one does. He supposedly dies in another cave in while the police try to apprehend him. Ten years later, when Tom returns to the Pennsylvania mining community from which he came, someone dressed like Harry Warden in his cool mining outfit and mask has started killing people again. Hijinx, and a lot of blood splatter, ensue.

What follows is a somewhat spoilery review and a very NSFW video. You are warned.

I love Superboy! Let me clarify. I love the Superboy on the Young Justice cartoon. I've always been indifferent towards the Superboy in the comics. He was introduced during "Reign of the Supermen," which was when I opted out of Superman comics in the '90s. (As a huge Spider-Man fan, I'd just had enough of clones and event comic storylines that never came to an end.) On top of that, he was crazy stupid looking, like a Backstreet Boy. Eventually he got an updated character design, but that only proved to be more irritating to me. Jeans and a t-shirt are not a superhero costume. I did thoroughly enjoy the run of Adventure Comics by Geoff Johns and Francis Manapul, from a year or so ago, that featured him. That was mostly due to Manapul's gorgeous art and Krypto, who really should have his own comic.

On February 22nd, All-Star Superman becomes available on DVD. It is based on the Grant Morrison / Frank Quietly miniseries of the same name. It stars James Denton (Desperate Housewives) as Superman, Christina Hendricks (Firefly) as Lois Lane and Anthony LaPaglia (Without a Trace, though I will always remember him as Barry the Blade in The Client) as Lex Luthor. There's a trailer and more pictures after the jump.

Bruce Timm was so kind as to have his birthday during our All-Star Superman week, so we talked to him about the film:

Tell us a little bit about the movie.

It was the toughest adaptation job we've done because, to me, a big part of the charm of the comic was the way it looked. I just love [Frank Quietly's] artwork. We knew going in that it would be difficult because he has a really different, almost a European kind of style. It doesn't look like typical American superhero comics. So it was tough. It took quite a lot of R&D before we came up with a design we felt reflected the comic but was still animate-able.

Last week when it was announced that British thespian Henry Cavill was going to be cast as Superman in the next Superman reboot, most of us went "Hunh? Who?" Then we Googled, and some of us became angry. He's got a beard! He's not cornfed Americana enough! So we've decided to put our responses down here on the blog, along with many, many, many photos of Cavill. Some with his shirt off.

Laura: The first time I ever saw Henry Cavill in a movie, I thought he looked like Superman. Well, maybe Superboy. It was The Count of Monte Cristo. He was still pretty young. The point is, there is something distinctly Curt Swan-esque about his face. And those bright blue eyes? Straight out of the pages of a comic book.

Photo courtesy Josh Anderson / The New York Times

On January 21st, I went out to the Cornstock Theatre’s Winter Theatre Lab to see a play. As a Geektress, the title of the play intrigued me: Metropolis Has No Superman. But, I had to do some research because maybe this was just a clever metaphor for a person or a place without a savior. My MFA is in playwriting and I love the thee-ate-er, but I don’t do trite.

The author of Metropolis Has No Superman is one Mr. G. William Zorn (badass name but it should really be spelled with an X). Mr. Zorn is from East Peoria -- hey, cool! a play by a local playwright -- and he’s in the PhD program over at Western Michigan University. Wait a minute… that’s where I went to grad school.

This play is a big frigging deal. Zorn won the Mark Twain Prize for Comic Playwriting at the Kennedy Center's American College Theatre Festival in 2010, the same year Tina Fey won the grand poobah Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Damn.

(Click to embiggen)

Disney animator Robb Pratt decided to create his own traditionally-animated Superman super short and post it on Youtube. It takes elements of Superman throughout the ages, from the old Saturday matinee shorts (in the soundtrack) to a character design that combines all the actors who've played Supes over the years. Interestingly enough, Pratt even used the work of Hugh Ferriss as a basis for the backgrounds. (Hugh Ferriss is an architect / artist whose work is credited for inspiring the look of Gotham City.)

(From the upcoming All-Star Superman, click to embiggen.)

Warner Brothers has found their Superman in Henry Cavill, and once people got done arguing about whether or not it was OK for a Brit to play an alien raised in Kansas (only I seemed concerned with whether it was suitable for someone so sexy to play an icon of wholesomeness), people naturally turned to the next burning question. Who should play Lois Lane? Understandable. She's usually the second most important character in a Superman movie. Except now there is all sorts of talk that Lois Lane may not be the female lead in the Man of Steel, or that she might not even be in it at all.

I'm just going to ignore all that, because it's stupid. So we're just going to go ahead with the speculation. After what happened the last time, people are rightfully nervous. (Superman Returns had many problems, but I am certain I am not alone in my belief that Kate Bosworth was among its biggest.) Now, everyone is going to have different ideas about who should play Lois Lane, because, as with any character that has been around so long and been interpreted so many ways, everyone has different ideas about who Lois Lane is.

Photo from a Box of Botan Rice Candy. Check out The BRC Gallery for others.

It's Engrish Wednesday again! I honestly don't come across much Engrish in my daily travels, so I figured this themed entry wouldn't last past the first one.

But I was wrong!

This past weekend, Wellington high school in Upper Arlington, Ohio decided to host a "Tech Challenge." The purpose was for other middle and high schools in the area that build robots to get some practice competition in before iSpace, a non-profit science organization in Cincinnati Ohio, hosts a robotics building tournament in February.

What really struck me as cool is that most of the members on one of the Wellington teams, Trash Torque, are female. Senior Jessie Fuller talked to us and explained a little bit about the scrimmage she helped host on Saturday. Video (with robots!) after the jump.

For Christmas, I received the second set of Star Wars cookie cutters from Williams Sonoma, this one called the "vehicles" set. It includes the Death Star (which I think of less as a "vehicle" and more as a "holy shit killer space station!",) the Aluminium Millennium Falcon, a T.I.E. fighter, and an X-Wing with its wings sort of... un-exed.

Our last comics & cookies care packages went out in December, and I think it may have even arrived in Afghanistan in time for Christmas, because I got the following thank you card in response:

Dear Brenda:

I recently got your package and I wanted to write you to tell you thank you. It really means a lot to me. Your Geektress website sounds great. I didn't know there were places or groups for females who were in to comic books and things. I can't wait to check it out. I've always enjoyed SciFi and other things considered "geeky" and being a female a lot of times I felt like I didn't fit in. So I think the website is really cool. I don't really have the means to listen to the podcast out here, but I'll have to check that out when I get back from my deployment.

Thanks again, God Bless,

SPC Heather VanHoose

No real news today, just a reminder that The CW is not airing a new Smallville or Supernatural tonight, due to the State of the Union basketball and a mayoral debate pre-empting their other shows in some markets earlier in the week. Unless you'd really like to live-watch the repeat of the new Nikita episode, you are free to go out and have fun tonight.

By the by, have any of you seen this Supernatural Fan Art Site? It's actually way less frightening than I anticipated. Also, in our lost podcast from last week ("File Corruption Error: Technology Hates Us edition 4"), Rania noted that she's really looking forward to the return of Supernatural to see what happens with Sam and the great Soul-Re-Attachening. I was indifferent. How about you? Discuss.

Sorry, I assumed it was because of the State of the Union because I work for a grown-up network that carries such things

Roller derby is so badass. I know this instinctually and personally. A bunch of ladies with skate skillz, alter-egos, and the ability to take a punch here and there. Yes. I would like to be a derby girl when I grow up, please.

Unfortunately, I’ve broken my right ankle three times in my life and my doctor has said no to an adamantium cyborg leg. No skates for me. However, when Peoria, IL got together a roller derby team of its own, The Peoria Push, I wanted to get involved, so I did as a non-skating official. So far, my job has been to work the outside penalty whiteboard. That means when the outside skating refs see a derby girl do something illegal, they tell me, I write it on the board and hold it up like a bikini clad ring girl in boxing so the inside penalty trackers can see it. Then they make a note of it on the official penalty board.

Confused? I was too for a while. If you go into a derby match knowing nothing about derby, it just looks like a pack of weirdly dressed girls all fighting each other at fast speeds around a track. And sometimes there’s falling, and sometimes one girl with a star on her helmet breaks out and everyone cheers. What the hell is going on?

Last summer we had news that MAC was going to be developing a Wonder Woman branded line of cosmetics. They occasionally put out licensed makeup sets, and it's always kind of pricey, but usually a lot of fun. Since Wonder Woman turns 75 this year, it only makes sense that DC would find creative ways to try and market the Amazon Princess for the occasion.

Last week, pictures and projected pricing information were released for the line, which is to premiere this Spring. The awesome part is that Mike Allred was commissioned to do several promo images for the line, and also the artwork that will adorn the outer packaging. Unfortunately, the press release leaves much to be desired. It appears a bunch of makeup executives copy and pasted words from comic book Wikipedia entries and randomly inserted said phrases in to their statement:

Just when the fate of the world is careening toward disaster, cue theme music! It’s Wonder Woman! She Kicks Sass! Her mission: Collaborate with M∙A∙C to fight the supervillains of the world – criminally outdated colour, evil, un-dimensional skin finish, the disasters that drain drama – with that famous spin, a double-cuff of her wicked wrist bracelets and shazam! M∙A∙C Spring Colour 2011 is the feminine force (with a dash of comic fun) that saves the day!

You can expect more pearl clutching and wailing after the jump.

I have a sort of bizarre relationship with Orson Welles. It's one of those things that probably shouldn't be talked about too much, but I will just say this: In highschool I had a friend who was obsessed with James Dean, a young man who only made a handful of films and died thirty years before she was born. Post-graduation she made a trip to Indiana to visit his birthplace and his grave. And I understood.

Some times you have a connection with someone you've never met, and it's not necessarily sexual or idol worship. With Welles, his spectacular insecurity in his post-production -- the anxiety he always seemed to have when editing a movie -- is what mostly fascinates me about him. When I walked in to film school, I thought I was going to be a director! Or a producer! I was going to be on set and make things happen!

When I walked out of film school, it was with a loathing for most actors, and an appreciation of the magic that can happen to a movie in the cutting room. I guess the real reason I became an editor is because I wanted to make things happen. I wanted to make the storytelling happen. I think perhaps Welles realized that, too: that a large part of how you tell your story happens in the editing.

*(I apologize for this title. It's all I could come up with. ~BK)

I often refer to myself as a techtard. My laptop is ancient, my phone only calls people and takes pictures, my television is not flat. But when both Barnes and Noble came out with the Nook… I knew I needed to own one, now.

And lo and behold, the greatest in-laws who ever lived got me one for Christmas after I threatened to go to B&N and lick the display one all, over so the store had to give it to me.

Tech specs are not my strong point, but here is why I give this device the highest rating I possibly can:

At the end of his introduction for The Hollow Planet, Scott Thompson writes, “I hope you like it, but just remember that if you don’t you must hate life and love cancer.” This isn’t arbitrary silliness on his part. Thompson fought stomach cancer through much of the creation of this book and used the imaginary world of Danny Husk as a way to escape the pain and suffering of reality. Holy crap, the pressure was on.

While this is Thompson’s first foray into the world of comic books and graphic novels, the character of Danny Husk has been around for a couple of decades now. Remember The Kids in the Hall? Thompson was one of them – the openly gay one who regularly mocked homosexuality on the show with sketches like “Homo Alone” and monologues by his fabulously slutty alter ego Buddy Cole. I met Thompson in 2008 when the KITH went on tour. I’m not even kidding when I say I can put that night in the top three of my life. I’d been watching KITH since before I was old enough to understand the jokes. I mean, look at that picture – I look like I just wet myself from excitement.

(Click to embiggen)

If you live in the Philadelphia area, you may know a little something about the Toynbee tiles. Containing messages that may refer to either a David Mamet play called 4 A.M. or 2001: A Space Odyssey (or, both,) the mysterious mosiac tiles have appeared on roadways around Pennsylvania and as far south as Santiago, Chile since the 1980s. Filmmaker Jon Foy and Philadelphia-based artist and musician Justin Duerr decided to make a documentary about the phenomenon, and after 11 years, it's debuting at Sundance next Monday:

Strangeness is afoot. Most people don't notice the hundreds of cryptic tiled messages about resurrecting the dead that have been appearing in city streets over the past three decades. But Justin Duerr does. For years, finding an answer to this long-standing urban mystery has been his obsession. He has been collecting clues that the tiler has embedded in the streets of major cities across the U.S. and South America. But as Justin starts piecing together key events of the past he finds a story that is more surreal than he imagined, and one that hits disturbingly close to home.

You may have noticed that this week, Fringe is on Friday. That's because as it returns from hiatus, it takes up residency in a new spot, the "Friday Night Death Slot", at 9pm. (Give that link a good read after you're done here, it's fascinating.) Fridays are usually bad news for any television show, with the notable exception of The X-Files, which also aired on FOX. By contrast, The Sarah Connor Chronicles, The Good Guys, Boston Public, The Bernie Mac Show, Malcom in the Middle, Fastlane, The Lone Gunmen, Dark Angel, Prison Break, Standoff... do I have to name any more?... are some of the shows that moved to Fridays on FOX and were almost immediately canceled. (This doesn't include the number of shows -- like Dollhouse and Firefly -- that debuted on Fridays and were canceled.)

I'm interested in tablet pcs, but not necessarily in the price tag (or the iPad, so don't suggest it.) Mostly I'd like a reader with e-ink, like a Nook or a Kindle, but in color, so that I can digitally buy indie comics on a whim. An electronic comic book reader would be my main reason for getting a tablet-like computer, but I'd prefer not having to stare at an LCD screen in my free time, as I spend 10 to 11 hours a day staring at various LCD monitors at work.

However, I've lately come to realize that the color e-ink reader probably isn't going to happen. Since the iPad's debut, there have been a number of non-Apple tablets that have come on to the market to compete. Recently I had the chance to try out a Samsung Galaxy Tab.

One of our favorite people in the world is Michelle at Michelle Doll Cakes. She's fun and goofy, and likes it when we force her young son to dress in Star Wars clothing, so she could be all right. You may know her from her multiple Cake Challenge appearances on Food Network, including one she probably won't want me to remind you of when her Sex & The City cake fell over. If you attended our 100th episode party in New York last year, she was the one in the back competing with Rich in the informal beer drinking contest.

Today for Marshmallow Friday she actually made us some peeps from scratch! An interview and instructions after the jump.

Lil' Batman inspired Calamity Jon. Click to embiggen.

Yesterday everyone had the news that Jeff Thomas and Celeste Green had pitched an idea for a young Batman series. Much like Smallville, it would feature a teenaged Bruce Wayne growing up among the people who would later become his friends and enemies. Unlike Smallville, it'd be animated and have a sense of humor about itself.

The graphics they did for their spec series are really fun. DC liked the idea but it apparently got lost in a sea of other Batman-related ideas last year, and wasn't produced. But still, it's fun to pretend "What if?" After the jump, a classic email exchange discussion and some of the artwork for "Gotham High."

(All images and video courtesy Danielle.)

In 1996, Rolling Stone named Weezer’s album Pinkerton the second worst album of the year after Razorblade Suitcase by Bush (which totally deserved it). This past Saturday, I went out to the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago to see Weezer play Pinkerton in its entirety as part of a two night concert on their Memories Tour. The place was packed - disgustingly so. I haven’t been smashed into so many other people since the last time I saw Metallica.

But everyone was there for Pinkerton. Everyone sang along and danced to the whole frigging concert. There were people there who were no way old enough to have listened to Pinkerton in ’96 (hell, I didn’t listen to Pinkerton in ’96 and I was extra angsty 17 back then). Two of the people I was with were respectively 8 and 10 when the album came out but they knew every word just like I did and we all sang and shouted and danced with everyone around us in a great big sweaty pile of Weezer fandom that knew no bounds of age or gender. It was awesome.

The fictional character of Sherlock Holmes is over a hundred and twenty years old. There are a total of 56 short stories and 4 novels dedicated to Holmes; 75 actors have played Holmes in over 200 movie adaptations (including one with a t-rex and cyborg Mycroft); and there are at least 5 television series dedicated to the character.

Then, there is House, which is an admitted Holmes adaptation where our antisocial genius is a doctor instead of a detective, and he pals around with Wilson instead of Watson. And, I think we owe a bit to Holmes in regard to the eleventy billion procedural cop dramas that have been on television for the last 20 years. Just this past year alone has seen a Guy Ritchie interpretation of the character, the above mentioned low-budget, monster movie version (streaming on Netflix), and, most recently, a BBC tv series set in modern-day London starring Benedict Cumberbatch.

What exactly is it that makes this man so pervasively popular in Western culture? The only detective I can think of that has maintained this level of prominence is Batman, and Sherlock has a good fifty years on the caped crusader. So I asked two of our resident Sherlock enthusiasts to try and explain the character, and their love for him. After the jump, Carey and Dania take a stab at what it is that makes Holmes have that certain... je ne sais quoi. (There, I resorted to French for this intro. You may flog me now.)

If you're like me and you're constantly injuring yourself (mostly your hands), or you live in the midwest or northeast, you know how frakkin' hard it is to use your touch-screen phone in the winter... or, at all. I'll admit, even without my bandaged fingertips, I've had a lot of problems navigating the menus on my Droid 2. (Though, a lot of the "freezing up" issues have been corrected since this post, because my replacement phone is working loads better.)

There are several new solutions to this problem. The latest invention is a special set of gloves that work with your capacitive screened-phone. Recently I tried "e-gloves" like these from the North Face, which are kind of silly looking. They do work nicely, though... the only problem is that most stores, even online, don't have the gloves in stock.

They keeping calling it "The Node," instead of "Node" and therefore I can't stop thinking I'm logging in to steal pizza. If you're wondering what, exactly, The Node is, you're pretty much where I was the other day. I had to get an invite from Stephanie at Nerds In Babeland to sign up and peruse for myself. Since having to sign up for things just to see what it's all about is supremely annoying, I've included some screenshots and my thoughts after the link. Meanwhile, here's a blurb from their "about" page:

The Node is a collaboration network for creators to make stuff together, share knowledge, and inspire each other. Our goal is to provide a platform for constructively nerding-out with rich creative resources and opportunities...

I had never heard of "crowdsourcing" until Tuesday. As far as I can tell, it's the generalized term for something like open-source software or programming. You put your work or your task out there for lots of people to undertake themselves. It makes me think of "apps"... most of the applications you download from your phone aren't released by Apple or Verizon or whatever, they're created by users who are also programmers.

Anyway...

STAR WARS ON BLU-RAY! STAR WARS ON BLU-RAY! STAR WARS ON BLU-RAY!

In an interesting turn of events, Starz has decided to produce an Arthur show of its own: Camelot. It stars Joseph Fiennes as a bare-headed Merlin, and Eva Green as Morgan. (It also has Claire Forlani in it but let's pretend it doesn't.)

In the following "Behind the Making Of" clip, I draw the conclusion that it's the less funny, more dirty version of Merlin. Merlin for cable television, I guess. Although technically Merlin airs on cable tv in the U.S. (SyFy,) it doesn't really have a whole lot that would tip the scales to an "R" rating. I mean other than beetles that eat your brains and people exploding and unicorn murder and decapitations and stuff. Other than that, Merlin is a pretty tame show. There's not even any incest.

Camelot, on the other hand, gives me the feeling it's trying to play off the success of The Tudors, a show I still can't manage to stay awake through. (I'm still stuck on the third episode.) On the plus side, there's an actual sword in a stone and there is also plenty of pretty things to look at. On the down side, Claire Forlani no Bradley James.

Speaking of Bradley James, he had this to say about the possibility of a second Arthur moving in on his territory:

I’m quite looking forward to it actually. I’d quite like to see what they do with it because I think it sounds like it’s sort of something that is going to be very different from what we’ve done.

Clips to compare and contrast:

Well, last week, we brought you nine nerdy knitting projects. It's only fair that this week, we bring you an unspecified amount of the other kind of needlecraft. Myself, I have no idea what it takes to do this sort of thing. But I do know quality geek craftwork when I see it, and Sherezada Windham-Kent's hokey religions cross stitch project has always been my favorite. The Star Wars Blog even interviewed her about it, and she had thus to say:

I had an image in my head of this being something Grandma and Grandpa Solo would have on their Kashyyyk cabin wall, while they rocked in hand-whittled chairs with blaster rifles over their knees. It’s pretty silly, but it’s true!

For more fun projects, hit the link.

(I referenced this comic to Paul Tobin's Twitter earlier this month and couldn't find it then, but here it is now. From Medium Large.)

I don't even know how to gracefully segue in to this post. I am just mad as hell about the following things, and I think you should have to experience a slice of my hatred. There are two things I got this year -- two geeky little electronic doo-dads that should have filled me with joy -- that I absolutely wound up regretting like you wouldn't believe.

The Wacom Intuos4: The second most infuriating purchase wasn't even made by me. My husband, being a good kind man, went out last-minute and bought me the Intuos4 from Wacom, even though he'd already spend a lot of money on other Christmas presents for me. You see, the Intuos3 he bought me a few years ago has seen better days. The cord looks like it's been through a war zone, with the cord casing worn away in spots, exposing the bare wires. This is a result of the computer chair rolling over it repeatedly and tiny puppy teeth going through an "EAT CORDS NOW!" phase. The pen nib I like to use (the felt tip one) was completely worn down. That could've all been fixed with a replacement nib set and some electrical tape.

The real problem was that for no reason, at complete random, the tablet would stop cooperating with Photoshop. The pen would lose the eraser setting or its pressure sensitivity. The drivers would have to be reinstalled, or Photoshop restarted, or a complete system restart would be needed to get everything working correctly. This became a huge annoyance, and as a result, I got the Intuos4 for Christmas.

But GUESS WHAT? The Intuos4 has the exact same "bug", for which there is no fix. Worse, the 4 didn't start working correctly again with a driver re-install or a computer restart. After two hours of internet research, I found out that it's a problem lots of people have with their tablets, and Wacom still hasn't addressed the issue. Since my Intuos4 wasn't any bigger than my Intuos3, and it clearly wasn't better, I had my husband return it. I broke out the electrical tape and bought a replacement nib set for $25 on Amazon.

What was the #1 worst purchase?

The other day, Geektress Francene pointed me at Nerd Jerk, an Etsy store with freakin' adorable knit toys based off of Super Mario Bros. characters. I like the little bomb that you see above, but since my favorite is Kirby, I gotta give it up for the Om Nom Nom Kirby toy.

There are plenty of knitty, nerdy projects on the internet, and whether you want to buy one immediately or you're looking for ideas to do a project on your own, we have a list of nine knitty things that make us laugh, swoon, and wish we were better at knitting. Most of the following things involve a free pattern you can download, if so inclined.

I don't have Oprah money, so I can't say at the end of this post you're going to find a rocket ship or a pony under your seat. What I can say is, this year was filled with awesome things, some of which we bought for ourselves, and are about to share with you... in the informational sense only. I wish I could give everyone reading this a set of Star Wars cookie cutters. Heck, I even tried to give everyone commenting here Star Wars cookies! But at the end of the day, you'll just have to look over what we have to say and then find yourself a sugar daddy or cougar to get you this stuff, if you're so inclined.

It's probably too late to buy any of the following for Christmas, because there's no way it'll arrive in time. There's still plenty of time to buy art prints for yourself, though, because they are a sound investment in making your apartment or your cubicle way less dreary.

Take, for instance, the above photograph from Chris McVeigh. Chris is an author and illustrator from Nova Scotia who specializes in Legos, Star Wars toys, and chipmunks (real, live ones,) interestingly enough. So clearly, he's a man after my own heart. You can see all his work at his Flickr, or order prints of some of his more popular photos (and t-shirts, too!) at his Red Bubble store.

If you're not in to Lego play, maybe click the "more" link to see what else we have behind the curtain:

It's the time of year when you reflect on the things you have, the things you need to change, and the people you love.

It could be a crappy Christmas, considering my husband almost blew up our house, and as a result I've been without an oven or a stove for a week. Laura hit a patch of ice and skittered backwards up a hill in her car. Because in her dojo you never say brake, she smashed the trunk in to a tree and now gets to pick out a new car. But we're both unharmed, and aside from having to pay a considerable amount of our own money, we get new toys. We can't complain too much, since so many this year are going to have to go without.

So, at Geektress, we have a lot to be thankful for, and many people who make our days a lot brighter. Here are just a few:

SyFy announced last Thursday that they're canceling Stargate Universe to focus more on the projects they're already producing. I didn't quite understand their press release, actually, but it unleashed a flurry of angry tweets. People are angry that SyFy is less Sci-Fi and more "Smackdown." People are annoyed that SyFy produces more reality shows about ghostbusters than scripted programming. People are just annoyed that their show has been canceled, and that Caprica was canceled, and, to be honest, I think people are still pissed at the re-branding to "SyFy."

By far the most amusing tweet was from the Death Star's PR department:

Yes, TV "isn't real", Stargate Universe "got cancelled" & we "definitely didn't" kill the Destiny's crew. UNRELATED: We have a Stargate now!

After the link there's some more info about Syfy's upcoming shows still in the creative stages.

As far as I know, I am the only person in North America who watches Merlin. Objectively, I know this is not the case, since SyFy boasted some significant ratings for the show, but I have no idea who those people are. I think they might all be on Tumblr. Is it just me and a bunch of teenage girls? In all likelihood, yes.

This does not stop my enthusiasm for the show, or the fact that I was pleased to see that this side of the pond will not have to wait until the Summer for the latest series. Series 3 of Merlin only ended a few weeks ago in the UK, but it has already been announced that it will air in January on SyFy. The premiere episode, "Tears of Uther Pendragon, Part 1," will air January 7th at 10 PM. If you want to catch up on the series, SyFy has already begun re-airing series 1 on December 13th, and will have a marathon of series 2 during the day on January 7th. (For those interested in catching up or rewatching to get in the mood, I would also point out that series one is streaming on Netflix and both series are on Hulu.)

Here's what the press release had to say about what is coming up:

David Ancell's wife came up with a way to make Darth Vader, Boba Fett, and Clone trooper snowflakes. The instructions are here, along with templates. When I saw these I got so excited I forgot what I was doing. I dropped everything to use my Christmas Stormtrooper spatula (which my mother got for me but didn't bother wrapping, just stuck in my tree) to make classic Star Wars decorations.

  
(These are Mrs. Ancell's snowflakes.)

UPDATE: My Stormtrooper template is after the jump, but completely new Wampas and Princess Leias are in there, too.

Previously, on this website:

[From the press release] Centurion is a gripping survival thriller set against a background of conquest and invasion; a pursuit movie in the vein of Deliverance, Last of the Mohicans and Apocalypto.

After watching the trailer, I get the impression this is a lot more like Saving Private Ryan mixed with Braveheart.

300 was great the first couple of times around, but I don't really need to see it -- or a watered down version of it -- again.

...when did the memo go out letting everyone know that historical England had no white balance?

Brenda: ...Okay, so I was totally wrong. It wasn't anything much like 300, or Braveheart, or Gladiator. And it wasn't all desaturated, either. It was beautifully shot, and thank God they didn't use filters on everything. The landscape just looked like it looked -- bleak -- because it was winter in Scotland. But mostly sunrises looked like sunrises and grassy meadows looked like grassy meadows, there wasn't a constant blue tint to everything just because it was a "historical" film.

Laura: I was expecting something more along the lines of 300 as well, but it's really a much better film from a historical perspective, though possibly not from a graphic violence perspective, and certainly not from a shirtless perspective. (In fairness, nothing could possibly top 300 in that regard.) Basically, Centurion tells the tale of what could have happened to the 9th Legion. It's actually more than a hot guys with swords movie, and that sort of threw me at first. I wasn't expecting all the plot.

A "Best of" list means we also need a worst of list. And here it is – my worst nerd book picks of 2010. These books generally fall into one of two categories. They are either poorly written or simply not to my taste. But I try to avoid listing books that I personally don’t like, because there’s lots of great stuff out there that just isn’t for me, and just because I don’t like it doesn’t mean it’s bad. Like mixing fruit with cottage cheese, the word “panties”, bees, and the neti-pot. Feel free to disagree, but know that I stick to my hatred like snot on a toddler.

If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can manage to not bite their heads off, then maybe you can hire... The Peep-Team.

So, you may have seen my friend Eib kicking around on our Facebook page or the Tweeterses. (She may or may not have started SharonAStone, I dunno, depends on whether you don't understand fake Twitters or not.) She's pretty funny, and best of all, she has young children I can exploit. Recently I sent their family a marshmallow gun to try out.

Brenda: How did the marshmallow gun work out?

Eibmoz: It was great. But you really have to let the marshmallows dry out or they get all stuck and gunky. We found out the hard way, because ours weren't dry enough. But, it is all washable, so no biggie.

Brenda: Haha! So it didn't gum up the gun, it gummed up clothing?

Eibmoz: No, that was fine. It helps to have little dogs who like sweets. The mallows were gone before we could find one. It gummed the gun up.

Brenda: How many can you load at one time?

Eibmoz: You can load quite a few dry ones, less smooshy ones. Like ten.

So, there you go. Make Christmas truly weird, buy some marshmallow weaponry for your children. (Stay tuned for Eib's children's review of Battle Bands.) For more marshmallow-related relaxation, hit the jump link.

Dear US Veterans:

Very exciting news! From now until January 6th, you can sign up for a year of free Marvel digital comics. It's a value of $60 and it's only good for one subscription for one year, but hey.... free comics. You worked hard for it! Click here to request a subscription.

To peruse the titles that Marvel has available for digital download, click here. They have over 9,000 comics available and over 400 completed series. They don't, however, appear to have Thor: The Mighty Avenger.

Unfortunately, this offer is only open to veterans of Afghanistan or Iraq. Fortunately (but more unfortunately) those wars have been ongoing since 2001, so there are probably a lot of OEF and OIF veterans out there. So pass it along!

(Also, if you'd like to send comics, books, DVDs, snacks, or really anything to a soldier currently serving overseas, check out our past drives page to get involved!)

Absolutely stunning Hunger Games fan art by Brigid

The end of the year means best of and worst of lists – yay! I’m a big time reader of sci-fi and fantasy and YA sci-fi and fantasy. I will read the trashiest shit I can find simply because it has a sword or a wizard on the front. Once, I found this book with elephant sized otters on the front with swords and horns and a woman in a fur bikini – I didn’t care what it was about. I just knew I wanted to be that when I grew up. Anyway, here are my top 5 picks of the year – keep an eye out for my top 5 most god awful steaming piles of otter shit later this month.

(Click to embiggen a LOT)

The above is the new poster for Black Death, releasing to Xbox, Playstation, Amazon.com and iTunes on February 4, and in theaters starting March 11. It stars Sean Bean and... two other guys. According to the press release, Black Death is about exactly what you think:

Set during the time of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England, a young monk is tasked with learning the truth about reports of people being brought back to life in a small village.

Okay, so you probably didn't think it was about zombies. But then again, with the recent dearth of zombie-related things, maybe you did? There aren't any clips of the movie until next week, so real judgement can't be passed until then.

Hey, kids! Remember Newsies? No? You suck. But seriously, Christian Bale starred in the greatest musical of my then-14 year old-life, Newsies. He apparently had been cajoled in to doing it by his manager and was unhappy the entire time. Which is fine, because for some reason (Spaceballs) I was watching Newsies mostly for Bill Pullman.

Have you guys heard of Botan Rice Candy? My husband just introduced it to me. It's the first candy I've had from Japan that wasn't like, squid, or prawn flavored. The outside is a "wrapper" of rice paper, which looks waxy but when you put it in your mouth, it dissolves. The candy itself is chewy and sweet, just like candy should be.

The best part, though, is that each box of five or six candies comes with a sticker. (Apparently they used to have prizes but stopped that a while back, probably during that lead toy scare.) As you can see by the two stickers above, you can either FROZE! or ENLIVEN A CARTOON! Oh Japan, I love you. Keep making freaky robots.

Last month I was browsing around Amazon and noticed someone complaining about how her young daughter loves Marvel heroes, but she doesn't know what to buy that's appropriate for her. I suggested Girl Comics, the collected trade of a three issue miniseries that Marvel put out earlier this year. We mentioned it on the podcast a few times. It's a great combination of female artists and writers, all of whom were tasked with creating two-or-three page stories about female Marvel characters. There are even articles in-between, talking about female Marvel authors and illustrators from days gone by.

That got me thinking, though. What are some good comics to gift for Christmas? Whether you're looking for a series to draw someone in to the world of graphic novels, or you have a small child that loves Batman or Spider-Man, hit the jump link for our list of books you might want to consider as gifts this year.

(Image from LA Times.)

Well, like Lena Headey is demonstrating here, I'd rather poke my eyes out and replace them with apples than watch The Real Housewives of Anything. Unfortunately, the Housewives are popular and apparently killer robots never were, which led to the cancellation of FOX's Sarah Connor Chronicles last year. I'm still not over it. And it must really be something chemical, because I appear to unconsciously rant about it every year at this time.

If you've listened to the latest podcast, (and you should,) you know that this week is all about that show or that comic book series that got cancelled before its time and PISSED YOU RIGHT OFF. We're encouraging everyone to write in to comments @ geektress.com, or (preferably), to call our voicemail 724-484-3355, and leave an angry message about the thing with which you were forced to live without.

So far we've received an awesome Arrested Development rant, Laura is forming a long list of injustices, and I obviously am planning on complaining about a lack of killer robots again. Call in, write in, say your piece, and we'll feature it on Podcast #105. (The all ranting, all raving spectacular.)

Some of you may want to actually go see The Warrior's Way when it comes out this Friday. I can't blame you if Tangled is sold out. Or Harry Potter. Or Black Swan. My point is, Kate Bosworth appears to be taking up screen time in yet another film, and we can only hope that she's portraying a mute barmaid or prostitute here. Because I think we can agree that talking is not exactly her strong suit.

That's why the clip after the jump is so great -- no dialog! If you're in to ninjas fighting it out in the Old West with the curious appearance of what I can only assume is Girl Pirate, then yay! Click the link! And just because I'm feeling generous, I'll include a picture of Geoffrey Rush as a cowboy, and Jang Dong Gun as a ninja cowboy. And... Danny Huston.

Sunday night, "60 Minutes" aired a behind the scenes look at "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark," which also began previews this past weekend. You can see a preview of the "60 Minutes" piece behind the cut, or click here to see the whole thing. Important things to note after seeing this:

• Swarm is in fact really in this, and that still cracks me up.
• Reeve Carney wears a leather jacket at one point that is clearly meant as a stand in for the Spider-Man Costume, and I want it.
• I don't care. I think Swiss Miss looks cool.
• Lesley Stahl likes kissing Bono’s ass.
• Flying costs an extra $35 million.

Everyone has been very generous with their comics and money in helping us send care packages to soldiers serving in Afghanistan (and Iraq!) But one thing I think our servicemen and women really appreciate are the notes from you. And, we don't get many of those.

If you haven't been able to donate comics, books, dvds, or cash, this is one thing you can do for free that would mean a lot. If you're having a hard time figuring out what to say, start off by saying thank you. Then just write about yourself. Thanksgiving just passed, you could talk about what you did for the holiday, and what your plans for the upcoming holidays are. You may think it's weird to talk about yourself to someone you don't know, but honestly, the news of something real "back home" are the best gifts of all.

Please send any and all messages, even if they're short ones, to comments@geektress.com. I'll be sending out the latest shipment of cookies and comics (and paperbacks and dvds) this week. I'd like to include lots of email printouts. Don't let the men and women of B Company down!

Kojak artwork by Tom Whalen

We couldn't possibly send you in to a turkey-and-dressing stuffed mini vacation without some of our new favorite things! Tomorrow in the U.S. is Thanksgiving, and if you're not American and don't care, that's cool, too. Just so you know, food-based non-religious holidays are the best kind, though, so even if you're not Stateside, have a big and satisfying meal anyway, and remember, who loves ya, baby?

(Click the jump link for some awesome things we discovered this week.)

(Click to Embiggen)

Yes. That is Red Skull as Captain America. Yes, it's pretty awesome. Yes, you get to see it if you buy Marvel Super Hero Squad: The Infinity Gauntlet. The game goes on sale November 16th (tomorrow.) It's available for Wii, XBox, Playstation, and Nintendo DS. We got a chance to play it at New York Comic Con this year, and by we I mean Rania (the only one of us that has any real "gaming" experience.) Since she plays Xbox, that's the platform she tried out.

I should note here that I shot video of this event, as well as a cool interview with one of the game's creators, but I'm an idiot and didn't have the microphone on or my filter to the right setting. So everything was blurry and silent. HOWEVER, I will state that not only is it hilarious to hear a tiny cute Hulk scream "SMASH!" every thirty seconds, it was also extremely amusing to watch Rania try and figure out how to make Iron Man fly. That is... when she remembers that Iron Man can fly. (First, he had to fall down a hole about 10 times before she was gently reminded by one of the "game handlers" that Iron Man can fly.)

But enough picking on Rania. If you'd like to see the trailer for the game (which is actually kind of funny, too,) more stills, and a brief review of game play, hit the jump link. And make sure to check out the game yourself.

Halloween is near! October is my favorite month, not just because it's my birthday (which these days means a trip home to see my family and friends and go to the cider mill,) but because Halloween, the greatest holiday in the history of dressing up and getting free candy celebrations, is near. Run on sentence.

I haven't hosted a Halloween party (or attended one) in a few years, but my favorite treat this time of year to make are my Rice Krispie Ghosts. After the jump I have the recipe, plus a few other marshmallow items that caught my fancy.

(Click to embiggen)

I think Etsy's sole purpose is to bankrupt me. There are so many cool things there that are usually one-of-a-kind, so if I don't buy it ZOMG SOMEONE ELSE WILL, and I can never buy it again. This also means these things are usually pretty expensive.

Take, for instance, #1 on my list, the USB Typewriter. I have no real need for a USB typewriter. I have a perfectly functional keyboard. In fact, at work, I have two keyboards. But I feel, since I work in a newsroom bullpen, that one of these keyboards should go CLACKITY CLACK CLACK-A, like the newsrooms of yester-yore. Price: $599 - $699

After the jump, check out the nine other things you never knew you needed until you saw them on Etsy.

(Click to Embiggen)

A while back, Brenda posted a rant on our Facebook page about sexy costumes that were sort of redundant and pretty creepy. For those who don't have Facebook, let me sum up:

Because the metal snake bikini wasn't sexy enough: Whore Leia. Because we need to ruin your childhood: Whorebow Brite. I have to stop now to go hate the world more openly, but if you want to continue in that vein, there is Whoreberry Shortcake, and my favorite: Whore White.

Then, last week, Laura pointed out the "Sexy" Wonder Woman costume (pictured above) that also seems sort of pointless, "because normally Wonder Woman looks like such a prude."

After the jump I list my top 5 most wrong sexy time nerd costumes that make me puke in my mouth a little.

Art by Dave Hoover. Click to Embiggen

Today is not only my birthday, it's the fifth annual Wonder Woman Day! It's celebrated in Oregon and New Jersey, but lately it's also been celebrated all over the interwebs. For instance, just check out the various auctions up at eBay to benefit Bradley Angle, an organization that helps victims of domestic violence.

In the last four years, $89,000 has been raised. This year they're trying to break the $100k mark. So, check out some of the things that are open for bids, like the custom Wonder Woman My Little Pony. If you're in the Portland area, stop by Excalibur Comics for various signings and the silent auction of even more artwork, or stop by Comic Fusion in Flemington New Jersey.

New York Comic Con's Marvel Television panel was just one big screening of the two part pilot for "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes." That was pretty awesome, especially since panelists Jeph Loeb, Joe Quesada and Arune Singh stated right at the top of the panel that they had nothing to announce on the live action front, but that "fingers crossed" they would within the year. They were taking it slowly to get it right, like they did with the films. (I will ignore the fact that before I even got home from NYC, news hit about Hulk and Cloak and Dagger series, for now.)

I don't think I'm qualified to offer a review of the episodes, mostly because there was some guy's giant head in my way, so I missed some stuff. I will, however, give you the mostly non-spoilery notes I took while watching, in preparation for the premier this Wednesday, October 20th, at 8:30 PM EST on Disney XD. Click below to check them out.

Mimobot started selling their "designer" USB flash drives at San Diego Comic Con five years ago. Any convention they think is cool, they bring their show on the road. But if you have never seen them at a con, or can't make it to any of the major conventions, you can always check out their online store, or, check out MimoZine, their digital magazine that looks at pop culture, the environment, technology, and anything else they think is cool.

While at New York Comic Con, I got to talk to Alec Gross, who's a content producer for MimoZine. He showed me some of their more popular drives, and introduced me to The Original Villain Network -- friends of theirs who were spinning at the Mimobot booth all weekend. Among the licensed characters like Star Wars and Hello Kitty, there were original artist designed drives -- from Super Suck Lord of the Villains Network to illustrators like Gary Baseman and Dino Alberto.

After the jump check out my interview with Alec, a little of the Villain Network, and some of the Mimobots offered at NYCC. (I got a C3PO to match my new Droid2D2.)

With the spoils from our Burgers & Cupcakes donations, we are sending out our first shipment to Afghanistan. There's an Army unit from Kentucky that's asking for "Anything. Anything at all." With no PX and not much but their laptops to entertain them, we're sending them a box full of your donated trades (Some of you really stepped up -- check out the hardcover Akira, awesome), plus some Girl Scout cookies, paperback novels, and DVDs (I assume everyone loves Caddyshack, right?)

If you weren't at our party and would still like to help out, here's our donate button. The first 12 people to donate $20 or more will get a grab bag from our shindig (which contains goodies from Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab plus some Geektress swag,) and a few other surprises. Thanks to everyone who donated today and helped rid me of all the extra BPAL grab bags! My house was starting to smell like Hellboy. :)

Also, because someone asked, our privacy policy is that if you give us any of your information, we do not give that out to anyone else without your permission. Partly because we have no idea how that works, but mostly because that's annoying.

Hey, it's been a week since NYCC, you think it's time we update with some con-related stuff?

Even though I have the expensive HD handheld digital whatsit, it made all my videos out of focus or green. Hooray, technology! I can fit a tiny crappy camcorder in my purse! However, I love this even though it looks like shit.

1. The question was, "Why weren't you in Drag Me to Hell?" And the "Unlike" in "Unlike Ted Raimi..." got a little cut off there, but it's still funny.
2. He's wearing a tux.
3. At the end when some girl is clearly pandering to him by saying her favorite character of his is his Burn Notice character, you see me put the camera down and hear me say to Laura "CLEARLY THE ANSWER TO THAT IS BRISCO."
4. It's BRUCE CAMPBELL.

Enjoy.

"Superman/Batman: Apocalypse" came out on DVD this past Tuesday, and I have finally been able to purchase it and watch it. Like 2009's "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies" this movie is based on a comic by Jeph Loeb, this time with art by Michael Turner instead of Ed McGuinnes. Like the previous movie it also features the voices of Tim Daly and Kevin Conroy, with Summer Glau as Supergirl and Andre Braugher as Darkseid. Bruce Timm and Lauren Montgomery, respectively, produced and directed it. Am I done with the credits now? I think so. Let's get on with the reviewing.

I like these movies because I generally don't have much interest in reading a Jeph Loeb comic, but they lend themselves perfectly to the 70 minute animated movie adaptation since they are so heavy on action. Jeph Loeb knows from action movies. He wrote "Commando." However, to be blunt, I didn't enjoy this one nearly as much as "Superman/Batman: Public Enemies." I suspect this was at least partially because of my own biases, but there were several other factors as well. For example, I don't really get Kara's immediate obsession with skimpy clothing and high heels in the face of a destroyed planet and no memory, but then I also never understood why little girls always make themselves look like hookers when they play dress up, myself included. This movie does get major points for featuring Wonder Woman and Big Barda though.

Hey guys, did you know that we're only six two ONE episode of the podcast away from 100 episodes? And in September our website turned 3 years old? (Don't do the math with the site and the podcast. If you already did, yeah, we know, we're lazy.)

In order to celebrate, we're going to combine some of our favorite things. Firstly, our love of New York Comic Con. Thing the second: Burgers & Cupcakes.

On Friday, October 8th, (2010), we'll be at New York Comic Con in New York City. On Friday night, we'll be at 458 9th Avenue, between 35th and 36th streets. That's where Burgers & Cupcakes is, and that's what we'll be having. If you're interested in joining the party, bring some new (or gently used) comics with you to donate to our Comics Care Package project.

(Here is our party flyer! Click to embiggen / Print out / Share!)

We'll be enjoying burgers & cupcakes (and the cash bar) from 8pm until midnight. It's just down the street from the convention, so even if you have other plans, maybe stop on by and buy some raffle tickets. The proceeds will help with the cost of shipping all the comics and extra supplies we send to our troops overseas. Want to know what kind of prizes we've got for the raffle? Hit the jump link to find out.

Click for the full picture!

Being the crazy cat lady that I am, I meant to write about MRVLCATS last week, but my day job (which is sadly not comics related at all) has kept me busy ‘round the clock. I would say “The Man” has been keeping me down, except I work for a non-profit.

At any rate, last week, MRVLCATS took over Twitter in a glorious costumed feline revolution that made me delirious with teh cute every time a new one popped up. Eisner Award winner Chris Eliopoulos and Geektress favorite Katie Cook started the whole thing and many other famous names in comics took part, including David Peterson (Mouseguard), and Skottie Young (Wizard of Oz).

Well, now you have.

It was apparently nominated for an Oscar this year, and is out on Blu-Ray and DVD next Tuesday, October 5th. What I find amazing is I have this bizarre Brendan Gleeson crush, and he does a voice in this movie, yet I've never even heard of it until today. But the stills are gorgeous (more after the jump link), and the few clips we have are visually appealing, too. The styling is a bit Genndy Tartakovsky, but it takes place in Medieval Ireland and features the real-life "Book of Kells".

Trivia tidbit:

Although the characters, fantasy elements, and plot specifics of this movie are fictional, there is a real "Book of Kells", an illuminated, heavily illustrated rendering of the Four Gospels of the Christian bible, that dates from the Early Medieval period (probably the early Eighth Century) in Ireland. The best historical and archaeological evidence suggests that, starting shortly after it was finished, the book was moved several times (including, as depicted in the movie, during an Viking invasion) and lost for various periods. It has been housed at the library of Trinity College, Dublin, since the Seventeenth Century, and is considered perhaps the single most valuable cultural artifact of Irish History that has ever been discovered. Some of the design concepts for the movie echo aspects of the original Book of Kells; for instance, the shapes of the repeated tree patterns as Brendan enters the forest are quite similar to the arrangement and shapes of the columns and arches in the "Eusebian Canons, Folio 5R" page of the real book.

Superman / Batman: Apocalypse, based on “Superman / Batman: Supergirl” by Jeph Loeb, Michael Turner & Peter Steigerwald, drops on DVD tomorrow, people. And, unlike Crisis on Two Earths which was the worst case of Wrong Sounding Muppets ever, Kevin Conroy and Tim Daly are back in the correct roles. Summer Glau plays Supergirl and I guess craziness happens in a volcano or something. At least that's what all the publicity stills lead me to believe. I didn't read the book.

Anyway, there is this awesome clip of Krypto growling at Supergirl because he knows she's really a Terminator:

A while back, I was feeling upcheered by a bunch of marshmallow-related items, and realized that marshmallows are totally my comfort food. Which led me to create Marshmellow Friday, where I share all the stuff that makes me happy.

For instance: My Mr. Sta-Puft pencil sharpener. Which just makes me think of the Stay Puft Caffeinated Gourmet Marshmallows at ThinkGeek. Mmmm.... alert mellow... Anyway, they're actual marshmallows, square shaped, and full of caffeine for some reason. (I've seen non-caffeinated versions.) Plus the box is a keepsake. I gotta be honest, I'd buy them just for the box.

SciFi (SyFy) airs new or original monster movies pretty much every weekend. This Saturday (September 25th), they're airing Sharktopus (it desperately needs an exclamation point at the end). It stars Eric Roberts (awesome) and is produced by the legendary Roger Corman (honorary Oscar.) So we're planning on liveblogging the event, which starts at 9pm EST (Eastern Standard Time.)

Sharktopus is about a research scientist (Eric Roberts) and his talented daughter who develop a secret military weapon – a hybrid shark/octopus that can be controlled by electrical implants. But when the controls break down, the monster goes on a killing rampage at the resort beaches of Mexico.

Do you need any more incentive to stay in this Saturday and chat with us about it? Then after the link, check out the trailer and some more stills of the Sharktopus eating a tourist.

As you may know, Geektress likes to do little charity projects to try and justify our lazy, geeky lifestyle. We've auctioned off signed posters for the Hero Initiative and run several donation drives for US troops serving overseas who want comics.

This October we'll be having our biggest fundraiser yet, at our anniversary party in New York City. Several great companies have made contributions to our event's raffle, and they're all places we here at Geektress love to spend our money. So, if you're interested in learning a little more about Geektress podcasters and writers, keep reading. If you're just in the mood to window shop... keep reading, too, we've got some fantastic stuff for you to covet.

Apparently everyone knew about this on Tuesday, but I didn't find out about the Hostess / DC teamup until I picked up my issue of Birds of Prey on Wednesday.

I'm talking about this:

The above graphic is fake. Well, not fake. I mean, it exists. I know it exists -- I made it. But it's not "official," which is why the "DC 75" part looks like ass -- I don't actually have DC's trademarked logo.

DC / Warner Brothers had a 75th anniversary graphic made up for their Zazzle store, so people could put it on hats and skateboards and underwear. It features the Flash, Superman, Batman, and Green Lantern in silhouette. It's okay, but it's pissing off some Wonder Woman fans. The DC Women Kicking Ass blog already has 460 signatures on a petition, for instance.

As Laura has pointed out, you can't make a lot of noise about there being a DC "Trinity," and say Wonder Woman is "iconic," and say the trinity of Wonder Woman, Batman, and Superman is "iconic", and then leave her off your logo celebrating your iconicness. Is she not really as important as you want to pretend when you're trying to sell comics? Or did it look weird to have a superheroine that's taller than all your dudes?

Is DC ashamed of their boobs?

(Click to embiggen.)

Hi, my name is Carey and I’m the new geek on the block. I am a total whore for YA and adult sci-fi and fantasy novels (hold the Twilight). I have had two great television loves in my life: The X-Files and Lost. After both of their losses, I feel like I may not be ready to date again for a while. I wish I could get paid to read comic books all day, because then I would work nights, weekends, holidays, and OT. My favorite comic book is ElfQuest (shut it) and I spend way too much money tracking down each and every one of them from 1977 to 2008.

I’m a pretty benevolent nerd most of the time, but I do enjoy my ultra violence, and that’s why for date night last week, me and the guy I married went out to see Machete. I love Tarantino, and by default must also love Rodriguez, and then must also love the Rodriguez Players.

First, let me get out of the way all the superficial reasons I love this movie:

1. It was a mini Lost reunion. Ana Lucia, LaPedis, and Hurley’s Dad – all in one movie!
2. It was also a Nash Bridges reunion, even though Nash and Bridges had no screen time together.
3. Steven Seagal. Steven mother effing Seagal. I grew up on his movies because my aunt wanted a piece of him in the worst way. Also, Lawman is a beautiful trainwreck.
4. Lots of projectile vomiting – there are few things funnier.
5. Danny Trejo’s hot torso tattoo.
   • Without even trying, Danny Trejo bangs every single chick in this movie. All of the women want him and all of the men know that if they were women, they would want him too.
   • That dude I married has hung out with both Danny Trejo and Tom Savini and claims they are personally two of the nicest guys ever. Surprisingly, dude’s contacts with the Rodriguez Players are not why I married him.

We mentioned this before. Now allow us to present you with a totally not safe for work so it's a good thing you have Monday off unrated trailer for HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN.

A few thoughts about this trailer.

1. Making your first full-length trailer 75% Rutger Hauer soliloquy and 25% maiming is a pretty good formula for success.
2. Am I the only one who was hoping Rutger Hauer would eat a baby?
3. Casting the re-animated corpse of Corey Haim (around the 00:58 mark): daring, bold. I've always believed zombie movies should be similar to a good barbeque sauce.

The Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog reported yesterday that Art Marcum and Matt Holloway, the writers of "Iron Man," have been hired to write the script for the live action "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" film being produced by Michael Bay. I'm just going to say this is a good thing. "Iron Man" is great. I mostly tend to attribute this to the awesomeness of Robert Downey, Jr. and how cool looking all the action sequences are, but someone had to come up with all that cool stuff for Robert Downey, Jr. to do. Now, I don't know for a fact that they came up with all of it, but someone said "and then all the flight attendants ARE ALSO STRIPPERS!" That could very well be these two men, and, if so, they are brilliant. They also wrote "Punisher: War Zone," which I've heard is the best of the Punisher movies. Of course, this is like saying "it was the least painful spleen rupture," but I can't judge. I haven't seen it. Did it have strippers?

(Katie Cook sketch card from SDCC. Charlie Ramirez is a lucky guy.)

Some days I'm like "Yeah, America is obnoxious and fat." Other days I'm like "Holy crap, we just invented a video game that simulates life in Medieval Times."

So far this week, there's been a lot to get excited about in the good ol' US of A. For instance, yesterday saw the dawn of a new "food specific" store in the vein of M&M's World and the Hershey Store: Pop Tart World. You can get limited edition flavors of Pop Tarts, make a mix-n-match box of flavors with an automated vending machine, get customized t-shirts, print your picture on a box, or try Pop Tart sushi.

Pop. Tart. Sushi.

"We did an internal tasting here at the building, and it was the winner," said Etienne Patout, senior director.

It's actually just crushed up Pop Tarts wrapped in a fruit roll up, but hey -- sugar is sugar. There's a lot more -- obviously you'll be able to buy Pop Tart tchotchkes and sample various pastries. But, just like LeVar Burton says: You don't have to take my word for it. Hit the jump link for video of the store, plus a lot of other kick-ass things.

Click to Embiggen

First Lieutenant John Black got in touch with us after our last soldier care package drive to let us know that his unit can out-geek any other in Afghanistan. He proved it by including photos of the above golf cart, tricked out with Batman flair. They use it to get everywhere on their Forward Operating Base.

They specifically requested Return of Bruce Wayne, Batman & Robin, and Thin Mints. We couldn't possibly deny them, so due to generous donations of comics from the last drive and our friend Lynnda at the Ohio Girl Scout Council, we once again need some help paying for shipping. For example, the last round of Girl Scout cookies cost over $130 to ship. (Cookies be heavy, yo.)

If you missed out contributing last time and would like to help out this time, please donate what you can through our PayPal. If you can't help this time around but are interested in helping in the future, let us know at comments@geektress.com. We're trying to organize another drive for our anniversary party in October.

If you'd like to see more photos from Afghanistan, click the link to continue reading.

If you're like me, the very mention of Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim makes you go "....mmmmehhhhhhh."

Maybe a combination of the original artwork talking with Cera's voice will help!

Apparently Universal films approached Cartoon Network / Adult Swim about promoting the live action movie (set to be released this Friday), and Adult Swim's idea was to animate some scenes from the series that were cut from the film. Edgar Wright and Bryan Lee O’Malley got on board with this idea, so the flashback scene in Volume Two where Scott meets Kim has been turned in to a four minute animated short, featuring the voices of the movie actors.

"Scott Pilgrim vs the Animation" airs Thursday, August 12th between 12 and 12:30 am on Adult Swim. It will also be available on Friday in full on Adult Swim's website, and on the Scott Pilgrim Facebook page.

SlashFilm had the "exclusive first look" (though I think it technically premiered at Comic Con.) Hit that link to see more footage, if you're in to that kind of thing.

For the month of July, we were keeping track of who commented here on the blog, and at the podcast. The votes are in, and due to a three-way tie for fifth place, only four of you will be getting cookies. (There is only so much of me to go around, and it can't all go to baking Star Wars cookies.)

Yes, that's right. It should be no surprise who our top four commenters are, as they are also the four most frequent emailers and voicemail-leavers. BUT FIRST! You must click through for cookie-related frippery.

So, apparently, as some sort of stunt at SDCC this year, Hot Wheels was selling empty boxes of Invisible Jet for $5 apiece. It's a cute gag and I can understand why people lined up for it. But now those folks are selling them on eBay at ridiculous prices only nerds could dream up. $5 for a gag, okay maybe. $25? Yeah, pass.

There is, however, someone selling the Invisible Jet plus a Wonder Woman iPhone case for $40. And it's a nice iPhone case. Unfortunately, I don't have an iPhone.

Anyway, after the jump, Laura put together some of our favorite quotes that came out of Comic-Con. We don't often remember to quote the panels we actually go to, so it's nice that someone else out there with a press pass takes notes.

The biggest news that everyone already knew to come out of San Diego Comic Con was that Joss Whedon would be directing The Avengers, and Mark Ruffalo and Jeremy Renner are joining the cast as Bruce Banner and Hawkeye respectively. (Also in completely unsurprising news, Nathan Fillion will not be playing Ant-Man, and nerds can't tell when people are joking.) Still, it must have been a pretty exciting moment to see the cast assembled on stage at the end of the Marvel Film Panel, especially with Robert Downey, Jr. completely channeling Tony Stark live and in person. And it is nice to have things official, if only because Whedon can finally comment on his plans for the movie, which he does, and I like what he has to say.

As a huge Whedon fan, I'm naturally excited that he will be helming a movie that I was already pretty excited about, but it's what he says about the film that really encourages me, particularly in this io9 interview. The part I liked the best:

Are you tempted to pin [play with] the Civil War with Captain American and Iron Man against each other?

You know Civil War comes from what's great about the dynamic between them. And so does The Avengers, they definitely are at odds. But it's not a Civil War thing because it existed before that, at least in my mind. They are two very different definitions of a person. One is a self-made man, a modern man, a rockstar. The other is a World War 2 grunt, just trying to do his part. They couldn't have more different views of the world. That will just end up in fun. It ended up in Civil War in the comics, in my movie it will be witty banter.

Witty banter is so much better than ham-fisted and trite political commentary.

As you can see, you done good.

If you're just tuning in, Geektress had a fundraiser this weekend to send comic books and assorted sundries to four female soldiers stationed in Iraq. Thanks to the kind contributions of our readers and my co-workers, I was able to put all this together. In total for this shipment, we had:

• Two identical boxes containing: Shampoo / Conditioners, Body wash, Tampons, Deodorant, Pulsar Toothbrushes, ponytail holders, Lysol antiseptic wipes
• A food box containing: Waffle Crisp cereal (requested by the whole unit), FiberOne cereal, Fruit & Nut snack bars, Cereal bars, Blueberry snack bars, Clif bars
• A wish list box containing: One mega ball ice cream maker, 20 pounds of rock salt, vanilla/chocolate ice cream mix, a 25-song gift card to Karaoke MP3 Downloads, letters, cards, and emails
• A box containing 12 pounds of comic books - including Morrison's entire Batman & Robin run to-date
• Ten cases of Girl Scout Cookies. (The non-melty in the desert kind.)**

In total we raised over $250 and there are still more comics on the way from people contributing back issues out of their personal stash (thanks, John Wiswell and Janelle Siegel!) As a result, we're taking all the surplus and putting it in a shipment to 30 Marines in Afghanistan who requested "toothpaste, socks, and lots of comic books." If you're interested in sending comics or supplies for that drive, email Laura@geektress.com.

This was so much fun and wouldn't have been possible without lots of support from you. Especially awesome was the help of PackRat Comics* and Bimmer Tools, for helping find missing back issues and covering the expense of shipping. Also we can't thank Lynnda at The Ohio Girl Scout Council enough for the cookies, and FilmDrunk & Gamma Squad for helping spread the word so quickly.

*(PackRat Comics also sends a monthly care package overseas, so if you're ever in Columbus, Ohio, make sure to check them out because they are awesome.)

** As it turns out, the Girl Scout Cookies are going to be expensive to ship. If you haven't contributed yet and are interested in sending Cookies to Soldiers, donate here. (I may also get more cookies for some soldiers in Afghanistan.)

Geektyrant.com, whom I read in my head as "Geekty Rant", has possible insider news about the new Superman movie.

According to their "inside the lot" sources, Christopher Nolan's brother, Jonathan, is the dude who is actually hired to direct the film:

This would be Jonathan Nolan's first directing gig. At the time I didn't think the WB would give a first time director the $150 - $200 million dollar budgeted movie. But if his big brother is there to guide him, and teach him the ways of the force then maybe the studio would let him do it. After all, they're all about keeping Christopher Nolan happy.

As you may remember, the last rumor was that Chris Columbus was directing the Man of Steel reboot, which of course filled everyone over the age of 15 with a certain amount of dread. I mean, sure, if you want a Superman movie with pacing that stops dead in its tracks for twenty minutes to explain exactly who this Superman fella is with details from every Superman comic book ever written, because your mildly informed audience will not be able to infer such things from plot, than sure, hire Chris Columbus. We all know how difficult is is to translate the written word on to the silver screen in the most literal way possible. It takes a certain lack of finesse.

In other news, Alfonso Cuarón's Wonder Woman movie... is still not a real thing. Haha, you just peed your pants a little, didn't you? I know I did. Christ on a cracker, why don't I run Hollywood.

More Superman news after the jump.

Batman: Under the Red Hood is out on home video July 27th, but will premiere at Comic-Con International on Friday, July 23 at 8:00 p.m. in Ballroom 20 of the San Diego Convention Center.

The film has a star-studded cast (which we've raved about before), and the DVD will include the Jonah Hex bonus short. We won't be at SDCC this year, so we'll just have to wait for the DVD release. But, if you want to check out some more clips (which are always up first at our Facebook page), hit the jump link.

Jim Lee from Superman 211. Click to embiggen.

Did you know there are soldiers stationed overseas that are missing out on weekly comics? And you can help get them the stories they're missing, plus a lot more? Kelly Sue DeConnick posted a guide in her blog to finding a soldier that wishes they had comic books to keep them company.

Using her guide, I found an Army unit in Iraq that has at least one female soldier looking for Batman and Robin comics. I plan to send that and a whole lot more! There are four women in the Broadcast Journalism unit. They need certain female toiletries, morale-boosting items, and reading material to pass the time (like comics). So I'm dipping in to my stash of back issues for Girl Comics, Gotham City Sirens, The Return of Bruce Wayne, Birds of Prey, and Batman & Robin, and I plan to buy anything that's missing and ship it out next week. There will be at least four boxes, one for each female soldier. If there's enough donations, I will try to do a fifth package for the male requests in the unit.

USPS Priority Mail flat rate shipping for the largest box is $11.95. So far I've received enough to ship two boxes. UPDATE!: Ken at Bimmer Tools just volunteered to pay all the shipping! Thanks Ken!

All that's left is to send letters / emails along with the shipments. If you'd like to send a good word along, just comment here or, if you'd rather keep it private, send an email to comments@geektress.com, and printouts will ship with each box.

Thanks to all who have already offered to help. If there's anyone else who still wants to donate, Laura is putting together a shipment of comics and supplies for a group of marines in Afghanistan, and if there's any extra left over, I hope to get my group something groovy from their wish list: an ice cream maker.

It's no secret that I love superheroes. I also really love dance movies. (I imagine it has something to do with the fact that I lack both super powers and rhythm, but really wish I had both.) So imagine my utter delight when I discovered the new web series "The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers," or "LXD" as they call it (via Spinoff Online). It's like "Step Up" meets "Heroes," or maybe "Harry Potter." I'm not really sure, but it is fantastic. It's even directed by the same director as "Step Up 2 the Streets" and the upcoming "Step Up 3D." Even better, it features and is co-choreographed by Mike "the Other Asian" from "Glee," also known as Harry Shum, Jr. Do yourself a favor and go to the above link and watch the trailer. Then go to Hulu.com and watch the first episode. It's only 13 minutes, so you have no real excuse not to do as I say.

(Washington Fighting A Tiger via Jason Heuser)
(Click to embiggen)

For all of our U.S. readers, thanks for reading. This post is to add even more awesome to a holiday that not only celebrates outdoor cooking and gunpowder, but the anniversary of our restraining order against King George III.

For all of our everywhere-else-in-the-world readers, thanks for reading. This post is to add even more awesome to your Sunday.

I hope all of you gaze upon the following artworks and are uplifted. Perhaps you should all grill some meat outdoors, weather permitting. It will only add to your general feeling of kick-assery.

Gallery of Patriots after the jump.

About a week and a half ago, the trailer for Disney's "Tangled" was released. Ever since, I've been trying to figure out why it pisses me off, even though the animation is a lot better than I expected it to look. After the cut, watch the trailer (via EW's PopWatch), and then read what I have to say about it. After, you can tell me if I'm crazy or not.

Williams Sonoma has a set of $20 cookie cutters. These particular cookie cutters make Star Wars shapes. I didn't even hesitate before I bought them. I'd heard tale of them from a friend, and as soon as they went up on the W-S website, I bought them.

I have not been disappointed.

As you can see from this tasty product shot (via the W-S site), the set comes with a Yoda, a Darth Vader, a Boba Fett, and a Stormtrooper. "Why put Yoda together with the greatest Sith lord ever, his minions, and a bounty hunter?"

Because Yoda is a badass, that's why.

More pictures and review after the jump.

Ever watch the old Universal horror movies and think, "this is good, but it could use more teen angst...and maybe a dash of Busby Berkeley"? Well, then Universal and Mattel are making the movie "Monster High" just for you. According to The Hollywood Reporter, "The monster musical is set at 'frighteningly fashionable' Monster High and features the spawn of famous monsters including Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman undergoing the trials and tribulations of high school." As Brenda pointed out, at least this toy line inspired movie is more creative than Hasbro's "Magic 8 Ball, the Movie."

(Click to embiggen)

For some reason I can't find out much about this animated short that will appear as a bonus feature on the Special Edition Blu-Ray and 2-Disc Special Edition DVD release of "Batman: Under the Red Hood" (July 27th). What I can gather is that Jonah will be voiced by Thomas Jane, but it also stars Linda Hamilton, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Michael Rooker in unspecified roles.

In the DC Showcase story, the tough-as-nails bounty hunter Jonah Hex always gets his man - until someone else gets to him first - in this case a murderous madam who wants to steal more than just her bounty from Jonah Hex.

More pictures after the jump.

You may have heard us mention Michael Fassbender on the podcast before. He was Lt. Archie Hicox in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Recently, he is rumored to have been offered both the roles of Magneto, and the villain in the new Spider-Man movie. But, as Laura has pointed out -- mostly, he is very attractive.

Which leads me to our segue... Centurion. When I originally got the press release, the only name I recognized was Dominic West's. Also, it looked like yet another sword-and-sandals in the woods flick that had little to hold my interest. I mean, 300 was great the first couple of times around, but I don't really need to see it -- or a watered down version of it -- again. (Centurion stars two actors from 300, which is how I jumped to the conclusion.) And I avoided Baskin & Robin Hood at all costs.

Then I did some digging and found out there are lot of hot guys in this movie, and I hope to hell they get half naked, but from the looks of the trailer: No. Not even a decent beheading (but a lot of slit throats.) So if you're in the mood for some desaturated yelling and stabbing, hit the jump link for a synopsis, the trailer, and a neat little photo gallery I put together of attractive people.

I love cartoons. I also love desperately clinging to my youth through nostalgia for the things I enjoyed as a child, so it should come as absolutely no surprise that news of new "Voltron" and "ThunderCats" cartoons would be of interest to me. According to Variety, "The reintroduction of 'Voltron: Defender of the Universe' will begin with an animated series on Nicktoons and a new toy line from Mattel rather than leap straight onto the bigscreen." The article also notes that "Warner Bros.' animation aims to produce an anime-influenced version of 'ThunderCats' for Cartoon Network to revive the '80s property, which has had a feature treatment stuck in development." I'm going to ignore the fact that the new "Voltron" cartoon is being timed to coincide with the property's 25th anniversary, because it is in direct conflict with the aforementioned "clinging to my youth."

Since they've finally seen fit to send us some pretty pictures, I figured I could at least post them. Above is not-yet-king Arthur and some girl. Sadly, Arthur is not shirtless, but we make do with what we've been given. This is to promote this Friday night's episode, which is all wacky with love potions and stuff. After the jump, you can find another picture of Arthur and the executive producer talking about the episode and having fun with romantic comedy devices. There's also some information and a link at the end about a sweepstakes to win that hideous red scarf Merlin wears all the time. One can only hope that giving it away means it won't be adorning his neck in series 3.

(She-Ra and friends sketch from Lauren Montgomery's blog.) (Click to embiggen.)

For those of you who had a day off today due to the American holiday: How's that going? Good? Well, it's about to get better.

Back in 2006, the animated cartoon She-Ra (Princess of Power!) started being released on DVD. Unfortunately, due to the production company falling on hard times, I don't think the full show run was ever put out on home video. FORTUNATELY, that is about to change. Vivendi Entertainment is releasing the entire series in one spectacular box set, available September 7th. It will include all 93 episodes on 10 discs, an iron-on t-shirt decal, a mini comic, "and much, much more!" (Which usually means: not much more.)

This is supposed to coincide with She-Ra's 25th anniversary, so in addition to the DVD collection, Mattel is going to have a special She-Ra action figure at their booth during San Diego Comic Con next month. No word on what's happening with Princess Adora's brother, Whassisface Guy, and his movie or whatever.

Source: TV Shows On DVD

Click to embiggen!

The eighth direct-to-home-video DC animated movie Batman: Under the Red Hood is being released on July 27th. Last month we posted the teaser trailer and then drooled about Jensen Ackles and Neil Patrick Harris. Today it's time to talk to John DiMaggio, voice of Bender B. Bending Rodriguez on the soon-to-return-to-cable-tv (June 24th on Comedy Central) Futurama.

I was shocked when I got the role, shocked when I came in to record, and shocked when I saw the finished product during ADR. I just wanted to honor the real true lunacy of the character. I didn’t want to make him campy, but I wanted to pay a little bit of tribute to the past Jokers – and yet keep it original at the same time. That’s walking a fine line, if there ever was one.

More pictures and interview after the jump.

James Franco is awesome and kind of weird, which is why it really shouldn't have been too much of a surprise to learn that he had signed on to star in FOX's "Planet of the Apes" prequel, "Rise of the Apes." I mean, it seems like it's a bad career move, because there is no way this movie could possibly be good. It's a remake of a decades old movie that was the subject of one of the suckier remakes in recent memory. Franco's involvement forces me to completely reevaluate all my preconceived notions about the project though. After all, not only did he manage to make his scenes in "Spider-Man 3" thoroughly entertaining, but he was savvy enough to know that playing the role of an "artist whose canvas is murder" on a daytime soap opera was at least 50/50 on the batshit crazy to brilliant scale.

I've had next to no sleep in the past two days and have the attention span of a goldfish, making any real thought impossible. Fortunately, random thoughts on various bits of pop culture news are much more entertaining. Above is a picture that has absolutely nothing to do with anything in this post, but is indisputable photographic evidence of the coming robot apocalypse. This is even more chilling than that chimp riding a segway.

Evangeline Lilly has signed on to costar in "Real Steel," Hugh Jackman's upcoming robot boxing movie. Now, I've really been looking forward to this movie. Sure it's not the Rock 'Em Sock 'Em Robots movie we've all been dying to see, and the father/son drama aspect kind of makes me think of "Over the Top," but it's still about robots boxing and the director has promised Hugh Jackman will be shirtless. Those two things are pretty much guaranteed to get me in a theater, and I don't need Evangeline Lilly getting her Kate-cooties all over this thing. I friggin' hate Kate.

I can understand why phonagnosia would be a problem, but if I absolutely had to choose only one voice to recognize in my whole life, it would, without a doubt, be the voice of Sean Connery.

Click to Embiggen

When I was a young adult, I consistently read books by a man named Kevin McFadden, who goes by the pen name Christopher Pike. (I assume this is because he's a huge Star Trek nerd, since he also likes to reference the show in his books.) I remember being blown away by the way he could build suspense and bring fantasy elements like ghosts and zombies to a high school setting, and make it consistently believable. My most favorite of his works were Monster, about how bacterium in the town's water supply makes most of the football team into flesh-eating jerks (a premise heavily "borrowed" for the film "The Faculty"), and The Last Vampire series.

So you're me, and you've got 20 or so Christopher Pike paperbacks in the basement that you don't really want to let go of. You're wandering through the library on your day off, and you see a book prominently displayed on a shelf: "Alosha." As it happens, Alosha is both the main character and the first book of a new fantasy series that Pike is working on. (It being published in 2004, the most recent of the series being published in 2007, the next volume not even finished yet, I count it as "recent.") Of course you're going to pick it up and see if it's any good -- which is just what I did.

Now, I know you can argue that it's rated at a sixth grade reading level, and so I shouldn't expect too much, and for that I call bullshit. Harry Potter books start out at a younger reading level, so to speak, but by the fourth and fifth books, it becomes obvious they were meant for a maturing audience (because Harry and the series were growing up.) I just finished Philip Pullman's sublime His Dark Materials series, and Rania can attest to its definitely being "general fiction," as that's where they used to file it during her bookstore clerk days. So being a "kid's book" means it should suck about as much as a film being in black & white means it's not as good as say, Mansquito, because the latter is in color and Citizen Kane isn't.

Here's what I can say that's positive about the Alosha series: The cover artwork by Daniel Dos Santos is consistently fantastic. Surprisingly my favorite illustration (the one above) is on the cover of my least favorite entry in to the series, The Yanti. But let's get to the parts I don't like...

Next week, Grant Morrison's six part comic, "The Return of Bruce Wayne," hits shelves. CBR has a preview. We're very excited to see shirtless Batman. It so rarely happens these days. I mean, you don't get to gaze lovingly on Dick Grayson's posterior anymore due to his now wearing a cape.

Laura: I am disappointed in this, since all the cavemen appear to be fairly attractive.

Brenda: That head caveman reminds me of Ted Neeley.

Click for to embiggen trollery

Undoubtedly due to my glowing recommendation of the series (or the fact that we were already on their mailing list), we have received promotional material for the latest episode of Merlin, part two of "Beauty and the Beast," airing this Friday at 10 on SyFy. Mostly, I'm just amused by trolls, and the fact that Anthony Stewart Head, who will always be Giles (or the guy from the coffee commercials) to me, is in love with a particularly ugly one. Honestly, part one wasn't that great, probably due to minimal Arthur, but I think this week should have more of him and an appearance by the dragon with John Hurt's voice, the one unequivocally cool thing about the series, not to mention Giles staring lovingly at a troll. (It just makes me giggle.)

After the jump is what the PR material had to say.

Today I remembered that I had a Tumblr account, and then I read my Tumblr account, and realized I used to be full of jokes and now I'm just full of neglect. Anyway, this is from February 2008.

Laura: When I create a superheroine, she will have a hint of tragedy in her origin, her purpose will be easily described in a sentence, and she will have a logo.

Brenda: Vaccination Gal. By day she's a registered nurse. By night, she cuts down criminals with her deadly syringe throwing skills. Also that logo will be real easy to create.

Laura: Do not make fun of my plans. I seriously want to create a superheroine.

Brenda: Her ally could be Trojan Man. Her enemy could be Dr. Germ. And then we could have They Might Be Giants re-record their song Dr. Worm to Dr. Germ.

Laura: I'm ignoring you now.

I wish it really was spelled marshmellow because they totally are my comfort food.

While at C2E2, I kept passing the Squibbles booth, because it was strategically positioned near the main entrance. There was a complete display of marshmallow-headed characters that I had trouble resisting. They were all painted differently, and together as a group it was an awesome sight. Unfortunately they were packaged "surprise!" style -- you didn't know which character you were going to get.

I solved this problem by examining the booth further on Saturday afternoon. Turns out, these little guys are all named Marshall Mashumaro -- a little boy who ate so many marshmallows he turned in to one! You can even friend him on Facebook, which of course I did. Right after I shelled out $15 for the special "toasty" version of Marshall (pictures after the jump.)

Okay, so this year for the first annual Chicago Comic and Entertainment Expo, Laura and I decided that -- instead of awkwardly handing over random single-issue comics, or mumbling and shuffling our feet trying to figure out how to tell our favorite creators that we love them -- we would show the writers and artists that make our lives enjoyable that we love them by having them sign an exclusive piece of artwork we'd made ourselves (with help from Tony Miello in the actual art making department.)

It gave us something to talk about other than "ZOMG I LOVE BIGBY WOLF." It would be a way for us to advertise the site, too. And most importantly, it was something we could give to someone who wasn't able to attend. The best part is, we decided to auction off the posters we got signed, and donate the profits to the Hero Initiative. Turns out, this idea worked out great. The posters look fantastic, and we got to meet a LOT of our favorite creators.

After the jump is a list of who all we got to sign, plus links to the auction pages on eBay.

We're having trouble thinking about anything other than a HOBO.... WITH A SHOTGUN... these days. The fake trailer in the style of the Grindhouse bumpers spun off like so many Machete movies, and is currently shooting in Canada with RUTGER AWESOME HAUER as the Hobo. It's only a week in to production, but the above compilation of BITCHIN FOOTAGE was put together to show THE POWER OF SHOTGUNS AND HOBOS.

Recognize.

While we were at C2E2, we had the pleasure of talking with Bryan Katzel from Senario Toys. He showed us their newest line of remote controlled figures: Little two inch robots called "Zibits." Currently the first wave of Zibits, 12 different models of robot, are available at Toys-R-Us. They plan to roll out Zibits version 1.5 by the Fall, and hopefully to stores like Walmart and Target.

Each robot has his own name, personality, and backstory, and runs on a combo of three button (watch-style) batteries in the bot, and two AAA batteries in the remote control. (The button batteries are included but you have to add your own AAA's.) They have led lights for eyes that glow and flash, and the remote control has a speaker on the back where you can hear a variety of different robot-like noises. They retail for $9.99 apiece, and playsets for the robots are coming soon.

Of course Laura and I found these things fascinating and were delighted to take home a pair. Review and videos after the jump.

(Click to Embiggen)

Jensen Ackles as the voice of Red Hood.

Oh, you wanted more to this post? Okay. Bruce Greenwood -- who, if you are to believe his own website, is THE GREATEST LIVING ACTOR -- as Batman. (Thank you Baby Jesus for not letting a Baldwin get cast in this role again. Or ever again.)

You want more? Neil Patrick Harris. As Nightwing, for God's sake. It shouldn't even be a real requirement that a voiceover actor have an ass resembling the comic book character he's portraying, but there you have it. NPH. In a Batman cartoon.

Before I explain more, click the link and see the trailer for this thing.

Series 2 of BBC’s “Merlin” premiers in the U.S. tonight on SyFy at 10:00 PM EST. You probably didn’t see series 1 when it aired on NBC this past summer, since only about 5 of us actually tuned in. That shouldn’t stop you from jumping into this “Smallville” inspired version of Arthurian legend now though. (Series 2 is way better anyway.) I’ll help you out. I can recap pretty much every episode of the first series right now. Some evil wizard tries to kill Arthur and Merlin has to save him without letting anyone know that he can use magic, because it is forbidden in Camelot. Occasionally, Morgana (the story’s future bad guy) or Guinevere (the story’s future fickle queen) will do something relatively unimportant, and towards the end of the season the writers seemed to catch on that Arthur was their most attractive interesting character and had more episodes focusing on him not playing the damsel in distress. Other stuff you might need to know: BBC totally chickened out on an Arthur and Morgana romance even though they’re not biologically related in this show; Merlin’s like twelve years old or thereabouts; Guinevere is a maid; Mordred is no longer the product of incest but some randomly evil Druid child; and Uther Pendragon is a huge douche, who will execute people with little provocation. (For those of you who never saw the John Boorman classic “Excalibur,” and shame on you if you haven’t, that last one’s a departure from the legend only in that in the legend, Uther was more of a huge douche who liked to rape women by impersonating their husbands.)

However, if you dig Arthurian legend, but formulaic plots, British hey-its-that-guys, and really cheesy special effects aren’t your thing, it looks like there’s plenty other Arthurian adaptations coming up.

It was reported yesterday that Sofia Vergara, of "Modern Family" fame, has joined the cast of Columbia Pictures' live action adaptation of "The Smurfs." The Hollywood reporter states that:

Vergara will portray Odile, a powerful executive at a high-end French cosmetics company who is the boss of the live-action character played by Neil Patrick Harris.

Jayma Mays and Hank Azaria also are cast in the movie, which begins shooting in New York in the next week.

So, I just gotta ask, what's the deal with all these humans in a movie about Smurfs? Hank Azaria I get, because he's playing Gargamel, I think. All those other people have to go though. I mean, how are they even going to interact with creatures that are only three apples high?

Click Photo to Embiggen

The caption lady said I should say this: Two-time Emmy Award-winning actor James Woods, pictured at the World Premiere in New York City on February 16, is the voice of Owlman in Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths, the next DC Universe animated original movie. The film is now available on Blu-ray, DVD, OnDemand and for Download from Warner Home Video.

When did James Woods win two Emmys?

Wait, no. That's not the point. The point is, JL:COTE, as I call it, was released a damn month ago and I still haven't seen it because Warner Brothers is conspiring against Red Box to keep me unhappy.

Anyway: Far be it from me to mock any of Bruce Timm's direct-to-DVD animated adventures. I think the ones I own or have rented are all terrific, and I really would like to see this one, too. But in the following interview with James Woods, he compares Owlman to a lot of stuff that I just wouldn't normally associate a parallel Earth villain with, maybe because he's James Woods and his sanity ain't rightly screwed down all the way.

I thought, this is like The Remains Of The Day with Anthony Hopkins -- it's that kind of character. He's a character speaking with such a loss of any ability to dream for anything good. It was all about a dark, empty void of the meaningless existence.

....sure. Okay. *nods*

(Zombie Viking art by Jesse Turner)

As you may have gathered, we are having extreme technical difficulties on the podcast end of things lately. We've recorded three full hours of Geektress-ness, only to have it turn up "file missing or corrupted" when we try to deliver it to you, the listener.

Aside from this being a major bummer, we are losing valuable ideas in these non-casts. Take, for instance, our recent discussion of the fifty or so headless Viking corpses discovered in England. At first it was just "Wow, look at all those beheaded Vikings," but after about five minutes we'd almost entirely written the first Headless Zombie Viking movie. You see, zombies are usually stopped by destroying or damaging the brain. But what if a hoarde of headless Viking corpses were resurrected? How would you stop them then? COULD YOU STOP THEM? And so on, we theorized.

You shouldn't miss out on that kind of genius in action. So, after the jump, we've provided a handy crib sheet to zombies with no heads, followed by a lengthy email exchange between Laura and myself.

Today, while you're in the lovin' mood, why not share your big geek heart with others?

Geek Girls Network™ & Geeky Clean have created a fundraiser to support the Haiti Relief called Geeks With Heart.

Through Mercy Corp, Geeks With Heart has a fundraising goal of $2500 and there’s no minimum for donations. If you can spare just one special cup of coffee, an iTunes download, or a crispy chicken sandwich, donate to Haiti instead. Show Haiti why geeks have heart!

As extra incentive, and not that you need any, once Geeks With Heart reaches $2500, all who donated will have the chance to win a prize from an amazing grab bag of geek prizes!

So donate, tweet it up, put a badge on your website, and tell all your friends and family. Thanks!

Geeks With Heart: http://www.mercycorps.org/fundraising/geekgirls

This past Friday was the two hour event "Smallville: Absolute Justice," that had superhero fans talking. Viewer reactions were pretty mixed, so I thought I would get the opinions of two of the episode's stars, or, at least, the opinions of their action figures.

So, what did you both think of “Absolute Justice”?

Green Arrow: It was pretty good. I think I nodded off for a bit during the second half though.

Hawkman: The parts with the JSA were good, but I was confused as to when the past events of our careers were supposed to take place. It was very anachronistic.

Green Arrow: I have no idea. I wasn’t paying attention.

Remember this, sweetness? This is back when you were still kinda blond. We could call this: Your Fun Period.

The Hollywood Reporter is confirming posts elsewhere on the web saying Universal, in a fit of stupidity, wants to produce a film called "Dracula Year Zero," "rebooting" the "Dracula myth", with Sam Worthington starring. (If I wanted to get really bitchy with the sarcastic quotations, I could write "starring," but I'm taking advice from Coco this week and trying to be less cynical. Sorta.)

In other words, Laura called it a couple of weeks ago: Sam Worthington is becoming Gerard Butler, which means soon he'll be in a romantic comedy playing a New Zealander with a peculiarly high-pitched version of his native accent, because his interpretation of a Kiwi accent means stepping on your own nuts. Or, he'll play Mr. Mistoffelees in the film version of Cats, which will star everyone else who can sing except him.

...I can't be the only one who sat through Dracula 2000, seriously. SPOILER DRACULA WAS JUDAS SPOILER. That was seriously a spoiler.

Ridiculous rant after the jump.

The other day it was reported that the Spider-Man film franchise would be rebooted, and I, huge Spidey geek that I am, blogged about it and tried to remain optimistic. I knew that a rant was forming though, not specifically because of the news itself, but because of how the whole thing is just another example of a film studio completely missing the point. My annoyance was further fueled by reading this post at EW.com, which stated:

This time around, the series will place Peter Parker in a more contemporary setting, as a teenager battling today’s issues. The decision to go with an origin story stemmed from Sony developing two Spidey projects simultaneously. According to studio insiders, Sony was working on both Raimi’s Spider-Man 4 and the new origin story from James Vanderbilt, who wrote Zodiac. The original plan was to keep the Spider-Man gang together for one last film in 2011 before rebooting the series in 2012. When it became clear that Raimi would not be able to make the summer 2011 release date planned for Spider-Man 4, the studio opted to scrap Spider-Man 4 altogether, and focus solely on the series reboot.

Furthermore, according to EW, "the studio [is] interested in a more gritty, contemporary redo of the series." Did I not just say in my last post that I didn't want to see a gritty Spider-Man movie? And did I miss something where Sam Raimi's movies were some sort of period piece? Do kids today not live in crappy New York City apartments and have bosses who are jerks? Have teenage boys stopped having crushes on pretty girls? Are we going to get to see Gwen Stacy die? Is the new movie going to be all about terrorists and bomb threats in the high school? I'd just like to get an idea of what exactly is meant by contemporary.

After a lot of drama in the past few weeks, it was reported today that director Sam Raimi would be walking away from the Spider-Man franchise, and taking Tobey Maguire with him, leading to a decision by Sony to reboot the franchise with a script by original Spider-Man 4 scribe, Jamie Vanderbilt, and a director to be named later. Hopefully, this means I no longer have to fear seeing Anne Hathaway in a bad, platinum blond wig. Sadly, it also means I won't get to see John Malkovich, the scariest actor alive, fly around with goofy green wings and a feathery, white collar. It definitely means no more of Kirsten Dunst's annoyingly dreary Mary Jane Watson, which should, at least, be the one thing we can all agree is reason to rejoice. Maybe now Maguire and Dunst can join James Franco in the cast of General Hospital.

Hey, guess what happens when there's no podcast for a while? You folks get chat transcripts. It's like the low-fi version of the podcast.

Brenda
So, I am watching Bootmen on my iPod now. (Bootmen is available on iTunes for $5.99)

Laura
Yeah, I doubt I'd actually want to pay for that though.

Brenda
I will of course force you to watch it the next time I see you, much like I did Rogue. You don't know what's good for you. Only I know. I have the cure, and the prescription is: more attractive Australian men.

(more chat after the jump)

This one time, there was a robot show. It was a robot show that I liked very much. It was a robot show I wrote about on this very site. It was a robot show that never had the chance to disappoint me with some bullshit about angels, because this robot show was cancelled before that could happen.

It was a show with hot robots, like that other show, but more importantly, it was a show with Garret Dillahunt as a robot, and also that girl from Garbage with the hair and the accent.

In short, it was an awesome show, and lately I've come to resent its being cancelled. Again. Yes, it's time for my quarterly "FOX is the devil and they took away my robots" rant. Here we go:

If you're fretting over what to get that certain weirdo someone for the holidays this year -- don't. Geektress has got you covered. Take, for instance, Brandon Bird's Nic Cage Adventure Set. I don't know if you ever played with Colorforms as a kid, but you sure as hell never played with them like this. Nine vinyl stickers on two re-usable backdrops -- ALL NICOLAS CAGE.

You see, although Nic Cage is sort of scary and bizarre, I like to think we can move past Ghost Rider and learn to appreciate Cage in the abstract. Like justice, or Cheetohs. And for just $10 (plus shipping), you can appreciate him... anywhere! In the car, in the bathroom, on an international treasure hunt for historic-type objects. You never know.

(Thanks to Jack for the tip.)

For more gift ideas, check out the full entry.

Click to Embiggen

Someone who loves us, or just loves to confuse us, gave us the hot tip that a P.A. for Lost (presumably for the writer's production office, since the show shoots in Hawaii) has been buying up old Nick Fury comics, and having them mailed to an address on the Disney lot.

This may cause some of you to jump to the conclusion that J.J. Abrams is writing the Nick Fury movie. That's because you don't have our superior intellect. (Unless you turn out to be right, in which case, we told you so all along.) Logic says that it's probably nothing, and there is no cause for alarm, especially since J.J. has booked his waking life with movie sequels through 2012.

So, since we can't get anyone on the phone to confirm or deny said purchases (and possibly explain what they're actually for), this lead to a lot of discussion between Laura and myself whether we should run this story at all. Which leads to classic email exchange material, after the jump.

By the way, you should all be thanking me for not using a Hasselhoff photo on this post. It was damned tempting.

Click to embiggen

For some reason we can't post more than two video clips in one post, which probably makes your browsers happy. In that case, here is another photo from Superman Batman: Public Enemies, and more pictures, plus a clip, after the jump.

So, here's a free clip from Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, which is available today on DVD and Blu Ray and On Demand and Pay Per View and beamable directly to your subconscious.

Okay, maybe not the last one.

After the jump we have a few more clips, plus more photos from the film, and an interview with Tim Daly (the voice of Superman.) Apparently he does some sort of television show now. That's nice for him. What a nice young man.

(Click to embiggen, for downloadable, wallpapery goodness)

Superman/Batman: Public Enemies is available for purchase on DVD (and On Demand) tomorrow. We haven't seen it yet, so we can only infer from the following interview with The Voice Of Batman, Kevin Conroy, just how much sexual tension there is between Bats and Supes. (We hope it's A Lot.)

Click through to get more photos and an interview with Conroy from this year's San Diego Comic Con.

Do you like Airheads brand taffy? Do you like Batman?

Well have I GOT THE CROSSOVER FOR YOU!

In some sort of promotional blitz (I assume) for the Batman: The Brave And The Bold cartoon, you can get a six pack of airheads, each flavor with its own hero, for $0.99.*

Red Tornado is cherry, Blue Beetle is blue raspberry, Aquaman is tangerine, Plastic Man is watermelon, Green Arrow is green apple, and Batman is grape.

I never though of Batman as grape flavored, but then again his costume is often purple-ish. Heh. Is Batman the grape drank of superheroes?

(More pictures after the jump.)

*UPDATE: I bought more today (11/14/09) and they are in fact $0.99 for a pack with all six flavors. BARGAIN.

Yay! Wonder Pig! Remember the episode of Justice League Unlimited where Circe turns Diana into a pig, and the pig has little piglet wristlets and Batman is trying to save her from the slaughterhouse and it was awesome? Well, to everyone's shock and delight, DC actually released the above JLU action figure version of Batman, complete with Wonder Pig. Target had the exclusive deal to sell this particular line of action figures, and quick-thinking Laura snatched up the two she saw at her local Target.

Since then, the both of us have been checking every Target we see to try and find a third for Rania. I haven't even taken mine out of the box, because I don't want anything to happen to it and then I no longer have a Wonder Pig. Even my Puptress loves this thing:

However. If you have any kind of free time and crafting skills and want to make your OWN unlicensed Wonder Pig, you don't have to worry. I've done it in order to help you do it yourself -- and here is the step by step guide.

(Image by Gre3g)

Did you know? This week on our Twitter and our Facebook page, we let you know about our friends that are cooler than us because they decided to organize and write music. It was Bands We Know! week, and four rock groups were linked from our various social networks. If you missed out, there's a recap after the jump.

In all honesty, I initially intended to write a post making fun of something tonight. Then I thought about it, and a fangirl cannot live by ridicule alone. On occasion, she must live up to the stereotype and let out her inner "SQUEE!" That's where the Supernatural panel at the 2009 San Diego Comic Con International comes in. Unfortunately, I couldn't go to SDCCI (I didn't want to go anyway...I swear...no jealousy here), so I've been reduced to scouring the interwebs for other people's accounts, the most detailed of which being at Zap2It, and by detailed I mean it lays out exactly what happens in the five minutes of the premier shown at the panel, with io9's coverage filling in some more details on the panel discussion. Spoiler-phobes beware!

See that? That's the

blood orange flavored soda [that's] slightly tart, lightly sweet and subtly carbonated. Designed to taste great while matching the appearance of Bill’s favorite drink, the drink pours like a regular soda, but with the standing appearance in a glass is stormy and mysterious.

TruBeverage. Yark. Yours for the low, low price of $96 a case. Show creator Alan Ball quipped that the ingredients were “Cabernet, the blood of European hemophiliac royalty, vodka, Viagra, and ecstasy. Unfortunately, it’s highly illegal.” Yeah. So, when can I get the one with the drugs in it, again?

As Laura has said, "at least it's carbonated and not thick like blood."

Remember how TruBlood, the actual synthetic blood drink, is the catalyst for the entire show? Let's hope the marketing will remind you. If fake orange soda blood is not enough to test your gag reflexes, you should check out the True Blood Comic-Con coverage after the jump...

Firstly, Great White Snark, a man after our own heart, puts his priorities in place by producing two great posts full of candid costumed comic-con attendee photos: Gallery One, Gallery Two.

I could really just spend all day sitting in one corner of a major Con, costume-watching. Awesome pictures.

Gary Oldman Loves Spoilers - remember when he didn't shut up about how The Riddler was in Dark Knight? If they're not asking him to reveal these tidbits, then they should probably not let him out in to public... with a shirt on. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't pay attention to anything he has to say if he was half naked.

The Mad Hatter's Tea Party Twitter - This might only be useful for people at the Con, but it would be neat if there were regular updates leading up to the new Alice In Wonderland movie.

By the way, if you haven't heard yet, Marvel Officially Owns Marvelman now. Which is great, because my (probably very illegal) scanned copy of Moore's run on the title is not exactly in what you would call numerical order by page, so I really have a very bad concept of the character. I'm guessing a Moore-Gaiman team-up for new issues would cause heads to explode, though.

Someone had the idea to team up the bouncer from Knocked Up, the funny kid from Sex Drive, Rob Corddry and John Cusack. They're an unlikely group, but nonetheless, the trailer for Hot Tub Time Machine made me laugh. Click through for moving pictures...

As if we needed reminders to why we don't watch Smallville anymore, TV Guide breaks some Zod news:

"But this a different incarnation of Zod,” Peterson says of the new series regular, played by British actor Callum Blue (The Tudors). “We’re introducing him as Major Zod—this is before he became General Zod.” Adds Souders: “Over the course of the season, the venomous side of Zod rises because he experiences a few key betrayals with our beloved characters.”

Another gem in the article sparked a classic email exchange, posted in full after the jump.

First of all, look at those kicks. Are you looking at them?

Are you still looking? Are your eyes bleeding? Those are the new Nike Wolverine Airs (or something. I'm not a shoe girl.) They are frakkin' hideous. When you get a chance you can check out the Air Sabretooth shoes, too, which are slightly less eye-rapey than what you see above.

Now that I've freaked you out, you might notice that our podcast voicemail number has changed, because I'm an ass and let the account expire. The new digits are 206-202-5117.

I realize that no one calls the voicemail. So I took a cue from my own newscast and decided it would be a lot more fun to have a Geektress Twitter. Yes, indeedy. We have a MySpace that we don't update, a Facebook we rarely update, and now we have a Twitter account that we can thoroughly neglect.

HOWEVER! You can make it a success! If you have a Twitter account, friend us (or follow us, whatever.) Tomorrow we'll be podcasting at noon, as we do every Sunday. And during that podcast, we'll try and post tidbits to the Twitter in real time. If you @reply us, we'll try to work your comments in to the end of the podcast. IMMEDIATE FEEDBACK! I LOVE IT! It validates both my laziness and my need for affirmation.

I was planning on plugging Free Comic Book Day (Saturday, May 2nd) on here soon, but The Beat had this cool PSA, naturally accompanied by an "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" trailer. Why should you listen to me when you can listen to Hugh Jackman? He's got that sexy Aussie accent. To make things extra easy for you, here's a link to the Free Comic Book Day website, where, in addition to finding a comic shop near you, you can see the comics that will be available.

Thanks to some intrepid reporters sneaking into this week's closed-to-the-press "Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark" presentation for ticket brokers and group-sales agents, we have new info on the Spidey musical, including sets and villains. The New York Post's Michael Riedel reports that the $40 million production "features gigantic, perspective-skewing sets, 3-D projections, more aerial acrobatics than Cirque du Soleil, a cast of heroes and villains from Marvel comic books." According to him, "Broadway musical" doesn't seem like an appropriate description, and Julie Taymor herself prefers to describe it as a "circus rock 'n' roll drama." I'm not really sure what that means, other than that Spider-Man apparently won't being singing and dancing in tights, which still disappoints me. There's a lot of praise in this article though, and it certainly sounds like it's going to be quite the spectacle. I'm more excited now than ever.

Edit: Here's more from Modern Fabulousity (via The Beat).

I have a fondness for any character that appeared on the old "Defenders of the Earth" (Defenders!) cartoon back in the '80s. Yes, even Mandrake the Magician is beloved by me. I'm also one of possibly 5 people who enjoyed the 1996 "Phantom" movie starring Billy Zane. That's why I was happy to read the Hollywood Reporter announcement that the Sci Fi Channel (soon to be renamed Sy Fy - it's cool because it's misspelled) has green lit a pilot for the Phantom. It will be a four-hour movie, with further episodes being contingent upon it drawing a large enough audience, following the "Battlestar Galactica" program model. They have also green lit similar productions of "Alice," an update of "Alice in Wonderland" in the vein of the channel's "Tin Man," and "Riverworld," based on the books by Philip Jose Farmer. (via MTV's Splash Page)

Apparently it was reported back in December that an Australian company was planning on bringing The Phantom to the big screen again in a film titled "The Phantom Legacy," written by Tim Boyle. Somehow, I get the sense that this is not likely to happen now. I love the Ghost Who Walks as much as the next girl who had an inexplicable crush on Billy Zane in the early to mid '90s, but I just don't see the world being able to sustain two live action Phantom adaptations. That's just me though.

Last week, IO9 did a story about a "Splash" sequel, and we haven't been able to stop thinking about it since. According to Variety:

Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment have acquired "Merman," a romantic comedy script by Jennifer Abu Hollander.

Pic will be produced by Imagine's Brian Grazer, his first fish foray since "Splash," the breakout hit that forged his partnership with Ron Howard.

Story follows a merman who comes to land so he can win back his mermaid fiancee, who has left him for a real man. The story was hatched by the screenwriter and Jeff Moskowitz.

Nevermind that there's already a script by someone you've never heard of, we've got better ideas after the jump. (Naturally.)

Andrew is a nice young man who lives in Toronto and loves Wall-E. So he decided to take a cue from Zack Snyder and do a verrry verrry serious trailer for Wall-E, using Watchmen's audio and camera techniques. I usually don't post mashup stuff like this on the site (and I'm telling you, I could -- Quantum of Bonds very nearly cured a hangover for me), but this involves both robots and comic book movies. A+, sir.

(Originally seen over at Robo's site.)

It's been rumored for a while, but DC has finally announced "Wednesday Comics" as their next weekly series. Debuting this summer, this 12-part series will be in the 14" x 20" broadstreet format and have to be unfolded to be read. From the Newsarama article:

“The concept is that we are trying to recapture the spirit, format, and sense of enjoyment that people had form reading the Sunday comics that arrive in newspapers every week,” DC Sr VP and Executive Editor Dan DiDio explained to Newsarama. “So, for this 12 week period, we’re creating 16 weekly strips that will be presented in newspaper format, which will feature some of our primary characters, as well as some of the premiere creators in the business.”

Apparently we have DC Art Director Mark Chiarello to thank for this, frankly, awesome project, which will include creators like Kyle Baker, whose Hawkman is pictured above (via The Pulse), Joe Kubert, Neil Gaiman, Paul Pope, Walt Simonson...there are a lot and they are pretty much all awesome. The cherry on top is that the series is completely divorced from regular DC continuity, and the stories specifically being written with first time readers in mind. There really is no excuse not to pick this series up.

Let's start this review out the right way -- by pretentiously reminding you that I, at one time, had a webcomic, and can therefore refer to myself as "a web cartoonist."

As a web cartoonist, I find myself to be a big fan of comic strips in general, and web comic strips more specifically, because I was a web cartoonist with a web comic, web. My list of favorite web arts is lengthy, but there is one that holds a special place in my heart, and that's Adam Koford's "Hobotopia." I was first introduced to these hobo LOL cats through the comic you see displayed above, which was forwarded to me by occasional Geektress contributer Golfwidow.

When asked to review the book "The LOLCats Sell Out", it was with this in mind: it's probably just a collection of comics I've already seen, know, and love; gimme gimme free stuff. So, as you can guess, my thoughts on the project are biased. If I didn't already like the comic (and I do,) I probably would've liked it anyway due to its freeness. That didn't stop me from doing some thorough research in to the matter. (Or, reading the press release. It all depends on how you define "thorough research.") (I define it as "reading stuff people send me.")

Review and statistical analysis after the jump.

Lots of big announcements coming out lately regarding superhero adaptations, probably the biggest being the announcement that Samuel L. Jackson has signed a nine picture deal with Marvel, ensuring that he will be playing Nick Fury to our geek hearts' content, or at least three years, given Marvel's current production schedule of two movies a year. I guess all that complaining about Marvel being cheap worked for him. I mean, it's not like Mickey Rourke has a deal to play the villain in "Iron Man 2" yet, despite principle photography beginning in April.

In the world of "well, that's just freaking cool," it has also been reported that Michel Gondry will be the new director for "The Green Hornet," after Stephen Chow dropped out a while back. Sure this clearly represents that Gondry is selling out, but at least we're going to get a movie that is going to be directed by Michel Gondry and feature Stephen Chow as Kato. That alone is more interesting than the old television series ever was.

Then there's the news that Warner Bros. may actually be ready to make and release a superhero movie that isn't Batman or "The Watchmen." At least, that's what the announced December 17, 2010 release date for the Green Lantern movie would seem to indicate. Personally, I'll believe it when I see it. Fortunately, Warner Bros. has a lot of movies planned for 2010 and 2011, with at least a few of them being a sure bet for release. Particularly interesting is the planned 2011 grudge match between Harry Potter and The Avengers, and I'm looking forward to Christopher Nolan's "Inception," since I don't think he's made a movie I haven't liked. (via Comingsoon.net, with plenty more release dates at the link.)

No one is more surprised at how much I love "Batman: the Brave and the Bold," Cartoon Network's super fun cartoon series that currently airs on Friday nights, than I am. To me, Batman cartoons begin and end with "Batman: the Animated Series," and Kevin Conroy is the one true Batman. But my first Batman was Adam West, and I will always have a soft spot for the old 60s TV show. Plus, I'm a sucker for cute, funny superhero stories. That must be why I have so quickly come to adore the series, not to mention the fact that it is extremely excellent.

That's why it was such a treat to go to the "Batman: Brave and the Bold" panel at New York Comic Con. In attendance were producers James Tucker and Michael Jelenic, who also wrote the script for the Wonder Woman animated feature, DC Comics Creative Director Ivan Cohen, actor Phil Morris, who voiced both Jonah Hex and Fox in episode 11, and writer and story editor Todd Casey. It was a fun group, with many interesting things to say about the development of the show. It's clear that they are enthusiastic about the show and having as good a time making it as we are watching it. They also premiered the penultimate episode of the season, which airs this Friday, February 27th, and is completely awesome.

Following the episode was a Q&A with the audience, where they gave out comics in exchange for questions (not that the audience really needed an incentive). promised more female characters next season, specifically appearances by Black Canary and Huntress. They also said that next season we would see the Outsiders become more like their comic book versions, and there would be great exploration of Batman as a character, building on what we saw in the Red Tornado and Terrible Trio episodes. Finally, in response to a question about what kind of villains we could expect to see in the future, we were assured that "[Batman] has no villain too lame for us to use."

After the jump is a transcript of the moderated portion of the panel, as well as a brief review of the episode.

I am not exaggerating when I say that this movie will probably be the best film I see all year, animated or not. I'm taking my chances and betting that Watchmen will probably disappoint me just a tad. Fortunately, there is nothing about this new Wonder Woman that isn't terrific -- from the script and story by Michael Jelenic and Gail Simone (respectively) to the wonderful direction of Lauren Montgomery. It doesn't hurt that Andrea Romano also works her magic here with a perfect voice cast, including a turn by Oliver Platt that threatened to steal Nathan Fillion (Steve Trevor's) thunder.

It comes out on DVD and BluRay March 3rd. I implore anyone who is a fan of stuff in general to purchase the movie, if not at the very least rent it (if you have OnDemand.) If you have young kids in the house, especially young girls, it will not disappoint. (It'll be a cartoon you won't mind watching over and over, too, so you might thank me if your kids like it.)

I had a chance to sit down with Bruce Timm before the early screening at New York Comic Con this year. He had a lot to say about the character, and seem genuinely delighted by how this film turned out. Interview and trailer for Wonder Woman after the jump.

At the 2009 New York Comic Con, I had the pleasure of interviewing Roddenberry Productions COO, Trevor Roth. Not only was Trevor a cutie, he was a delight to talk to. For those unaware, Roddenberry Productions is the company of Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene and Majel. They are involved with a number of projects right now, all of them very cool, and one in particular is quite exciting.

It's a documentary called Trek Nation, and a preview is available after the jump, as well as the transcript of my interview with Trevor.

So I know y'all are like: What the hell, people? Where is our Comic Con coverage? And I'm here to tell you that I'm just now getting over some sort of Alien Death Flu. In fact, this week's podcast is getting scrapped because it's 90% me coughing, hacking, and oozing mucus.

SEXY.

Finally I was able to go through the hours and hours of footage we shot at Comic Con, and after the jump I've embedded assorted fun moments from the various panels we attended.

Hey people, Laura and Brenda here. We just got shut down at the Robot Chicken panel, so no exciting Seth Green news for you this year. But we're awaiting Venture Brothers later tonight, and just finished witnessing Joseph "McG" Nichols trying to appease a crowd of comic book fans who already like robots and don't need much convincing that robot movies are awesome. (Although he may have lost the crowd at some point.)

That's all on tape, but Facebook is being a doucher and won't let us upload the footage here. So stay tuned for all of that plus J-Pads being adorable during the Friday the 13th panel, and much more, as soon as we possibly can.

For now, check the jump to get a look at Brenda's panel notes:

It was brought to my attention by my husband that on the internal company blog (at my day job) there was a link to a new website called Gender Analyzer. They claim to use "artificial intelligence" to determine whether a website is written by a man or a woman. The reason my husband found this bot fascinating was because no matter how many times he took their "survey" to correct them, the robots insisted that Geektress was 99% male-written.

We here at Geektress generally find this more entertaining than insulting, though a quick survey of our favorite websites revealed mysterious results. Email exchange / Geektress Investigative Report after the jump.

Last year, a Greatest American Hero movie was rumored to be in the works. And Stephen Herek, director of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and Don't Tell Mom The Babysitter's Dead (shut up, I love that movie) was rumored to be directing. In September, Stephen J. Cannell, the tv show's creator, confirmed a script had been written and a director had been hired at a SAG event, but didn't say whether or not that director would be Herek. (For the record, it should be, because that would be an uncharacteristically brilliant move for Hollywood.)

So now comes the problem of casting the movie. (Our solution below the cut.)

Awesome Twilight art is by the talented Amanda Bussell

So, if you listen to the podcast, you've already heard that this weekend, Laura and I discovered the horror that is Twilight. After reading through Cleo Linda's hilarious recaps, I felt it was totally necessary to compile a list of things I didn't realize I didn't know about vampires and werewolves. Full list after the jump (and a bit of email exchange classic™).

Brenda: Fair warning, Laura. I'm reading a recap of Twilight book four. I'm gathering a list of terrible things about it.
Laura: It gets worse than vampires that sparkle?
Brenda: Yes. Pick one: Incestuous thoughts. Baby-lusting. Performing a cesarean with your fangs. Discussing a time-share situation for your wife's vagina. I mean, seriously. There is no way this book is ever being made into a movie.
Laura: EW! EW! EWWWW! ...And yet, now I kind of want to read it, 'cause I'm sick like that.
Brenda: As Cleolinda has observed: "...was it like fucking a popsicle? These are the questions I find myself asking."
Laura: I thought of that when I saw the trailer. I couldn't imagine why anyone would want to touch someone whose skin was that cold.
Brenda: Well, she is clumsy. Perhaps she needs an ice pack all the time to cover her sprains.

Rumors first started circulating about this months ago, and Variety is now reporting that Josh Schwartz, creator of "The O.C.," "Chuck" and "Gossip Girl," will be scripting "X-Men: First Class" for FOX. The studio declined to confirm any details about the project, but the article notes that FOX has been leaning towards using the younger characters from the previous films in future installments.

Resulting film would likely draw from elements of the Marvel comic of the same name, launched in 2006, and enlist such characters as Iceman, Rogue, Angel, Colossus, Jubilee and Shadowcat, who have appeared prominently or made cameos in prior pics.

Given Hollywood's penchant for reboots with new actors playing familiar roles, pic could also reintroduce characters. Comicbook revolves around the Cyclops, Marvel Girl, Beast, Iceman, Angel and Professor X.

The new "Star Trek" trailer, which premiered before "Quantum of Solace" on Friday, is up at Apple.com. I have to admit, I was not expecting it to open with a car chase.

It's been a while, and there's been a lot of interesting news, so it's time to play "Good News/Bad News," and by "play" I mean I'm just going to list some news items and provide some light commentary. Let's get started. Shall we?

GOOD NEWS: The Hollywood Reporter broke the news that Joe Johnston will be directing "First Avenger: Captain America." This is clearly awesome, because he directed "The Rocketeer," which is one of the best superhero movies ever. Hopefully, his first act as director will be to get the movie a new title.

BAD NEWS: McG is rumored to be a possible director for Wonder Woman. Normally I wouldn't comment on this sort of story (like that other Wonder Woman story that's been going on), but this rumor is so troubling I cannot stay quiet. McG directing Wonder Woman is the WORST. THING. EVER.

The Mid-Ohio Comic Book Convention was last weekend and I got a couple of sketches that I thought would be fun to share. Check out the cuteness from Mini Marvel's Chris Giarusso and Tiny Titans' Art Baltazar after the jump.

Last Wednesday, a lot of terrible ideas were kicked around by Hollywood. First, a "Robin prequel" television series by the new showrunners of Smallville. Then, the Hollywood Reporter announced that NBC would pick up the script for a new version of "The Partridge Family."

The Peacock has picked up a contemporary single-camera take on the classic ABC sitcom to be written by Jeff Rake.... A fan of the 1970s series, Rake plans to "turn the premise on its head."

"In the original, the kids actually recruited their mom to front the band, which I can't see happening in any family on this planet," he said. "The new version will reflect what seems to me to be the more realistic family band scenario these days: a struggling, sort of well-meaning mom pimping her kids in order to create a wholesome-slash-sexy cash cow."

(More about "The Graysons" and Ten Inch Hero after the jump.)

So, this week, as with last week: no podcast. (We're running in to some major scheduling errors and it's starting to suck.) To take the place of our regular phone discussions, I'm posting a chat transcript. I know you guys just love those. In it, Laura and I discuss some of the new shows we're watching, and the season premiere of Heroes. Enjoy.

It's still hard for me to believe that this is real, but someone got a look at the designs for Julie Taymor's upcoming Spider-Man Broadway musical and wrote about it on her livejournal (via The Beat). She also heard some of the songs from Bono and The Edge's score, which she describes as "undeniably U2 in the very best way." I'm not really sure what that means, but as long as Peter Parker's not walking down the street looking emo and doing pelvic thrusts, I'm cool with it. Personally though, I always thought of Spider-Man was more Weezer than U2, but they're probably not as Broadway-friendly.

In his latest column, Rich Johnston leaked news and art of an upcoming, though currently unscheduled, all ages comic from DC entitled "DCU Elementary." In it, all the heroes and villains of the DC Universe will be going to school together, and it looks adorable. Follow the link for more unbearable cuteness. Unfortunately, Johnston doesn't doesn't name the artist, which is a shame, because that person deserves a lot of love.

Last week, Justin Marks talked to MTV's Movie Blog about the upcoming adaptation of "He-Man" that he is writing. Some interesting stuff is talked about, like the fact that the movie is going to be called "Grayskull." Here's an excerpt:

“I grew up on the ‘He-Man’ cartoon and watched ‘He-Man’ six days a week. The notion that I think we most took from the cartoon are the characters, and trying to find a way that is true to them,” he said of his planned adaptation, which is currently in development at Warner Brothers. “Now, at the same time, we had to come up with why that is the way it is. I mean you’re talking about sword-and-sandal meets science fiction meets fantasy meets everything, and how does that all kind of blend into the same world? And so we had to come up with very specific rules that explained why Trapjaw looks the way he looks, and why Cyclops — who is awesome — looks the way he looks.”

When I first watched the featurette for Gotham Knight on the New Frontier DVD, I wasn't sure what to expect. Bruce Timm was doing his best to assure me that it was a new, exciting take on Batman -- using several different prominent Japanese animators to bring together six vignettes about the Dark Knight -- and that anime + Gotham made more sense than, say, anime + Metropolis. Shortly before renting the film after its release, I'd read a few things stating that the movie was set in the same "world" as Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, and essentially would be a bridge between the two movies, a la Clone Wars (bridging Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith.) (The problem with that analogy is that Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars was much better than either movie it was connected to.)

For those of you that listen to our podcast, you've heard us mention the direct-to-DVD Wonder Woman movie that is set for release next year. It stars Keri Russell and Nathan Fillion as Diana and Steve Trevor (respectively). As I just saw the two in Waitress and can attest to their smokin' on-screen chemistry, I'm going to bet that their cartoon counterparts will be delightful to watch, as well.

If you rented / purchased the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD, there was a preview on it (much like the Gotham Knight preview on The New Frontier) for the Wonder Woman movie. There was not much by way of completed scenes, or even colored-in frames. It was mostly interviews with the stars/producers/director set against a few animatics and sketches. Since it clocked in at ten minutes, and roughly half of that was explaining who Wonder Woman is (yawn), I cut it down quite a bit to feature all the bits with drawings. Available after the jump.

ONE WEEK ONLY! AN INTERNET MINISERIES EVENT!

"Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog" will be streamed, LIVE (that part’s not true), FREE (sadly, that part is) right on Drhorrible.com, in mid-July. Specifically:

ACT ONE (Wheee!) will go up Tuesday July 15th.

ACT TWO (OMG!) will go up Thursday July 17th.

ACT THREE (Denouement!) will go up Saturday July 19th.

All acts will stay up until midnight Sunday July 20th. Then they will vanish into the night, like a phantom (but not THE Phantom – that’s still playing. Like, everywhere.)

Other information revealed in the post included the fact that, following July 20th, the musical would be available for download at a "nominal fee," to be followed by a DVD at some point, with, what Whedon describes as, "the finest and bravest extras in all the land." More details about those will be revealed at San Diego Comic Con. If you can't wait that long, TV Guide's Matt Roush has some information about them in an article that I will not be reading because it also contains spoilers about the plot. (OK...fine...I skimmed, and the one DVD extra I saw mentioned sounded AWESOME!)

If, in February of this year, you had told me that I'd not only go to see Wall-E on opening day, but that I would be anxiously awaiting its release -- up to the point of counting down the hours till I could catch the first midnight showing -- I would not have only laughed in your face, I probably would have pushed you.

Of course, you would've been right, and I would've been wrong (and kind of a dickhead.)

Courtesy of the official fansite, here's the teaser for Joss Whedon's "Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog," starring Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, and Felicia Day. I have so got to get me a pair of goggles like that.

Last month, Netflix released a set-top box to accompany the "Watch Instantly" section of their website. It's called Netflix Roku... and it's awesome.

At first, I thought maybe the IO9 editors were having an off-day when they suggested that Cillian Murphy would make a better Spider-Man than Tobey Maguire. Now, let me be honest: Do I like Cillian more than Tobey? Yes. Do I care much about Spider-Man or Spider-Man movies? No. (That's Laura's department.) But do I think Cillian Murphy would be a good replacement as Peter Parker for the Spidey 4 movie?

Uh, no. Because I don't smoke crack for a living.

Some pretty awesome news coming from Marvel Entertainment today. First of all, it has been announced that "Runaways," which started in 2002, is being developed for a feature film. The script is being written by the comic's co-creator, Brian K. Vaughn. (via The Hollywood Reporter) For those who don't know, "Runaways" is about a group of teens in LA who find out their parents are a group of supervillains called The Pride, and proceed to do exactly what the what the name implies. Among others, the team includes a lesbian alien, a dinosaur, a goth-gil who has to cut herself in order to access her magical staff, and the cutest little mutant girl you ever did see.

The second bit of news is that Marvel Entertainment exec Kevin Feige has spoken to sever sources, including IESB, and has revealed the Captain America movie set for 2011 release will be a period piece set, obviously, during World War II. He also put to rest that horrid casting rumor from a couple of weeks ago, but confirmed that the film will in fact have the very unfortunate title of "The First Avenger: Captain America."

We have news on yet more remakes of 80s cult classics. First up, according to The Hollywood Reporter, Summit Entertainment has acquired the rights to remake "Highlander" with a script from "Iron Man" writers Art Marcum and Matt Holloway. The article points out that "Highlander" is a franchise recognized worldwide, having spawned 4 sequels and three (three? really?) television series. "There can be only one" my ass!

Next up, Variety reports that Sony has won a bidding war over the rights to "Flash Gordon," which will be directed by "Sahara" helmer, Breck Eisner. The article does not mention whether the film will remain faithful to the 1980s classic, but one can only hope it recreates the classic football fight. What is clear is that the soundtracks of both films will be significantly less awesome than the originals.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, MGM is looking to remake "Red Dawn" and "RoboCop." True fact: About halfway through "Iron Man," I started getting this strange desire to watch "RoboCop." Maybe the MGM executives aren't as dumb as they seem...except for the whole remaking "Red Dawn" thing. There's no way to make that a good idea.

Just a reminder to everyone that this Saturday, May 3rd, is Free Comic Book Day. How awesome is that? If you follow the link, you will find a store locator for participating shops. Unfortunately, it is for the U.S. and Canada only, but Free Comic Book Day is international. There's also a list of the comics that will be available, several of which I would buy if they weren't free. I'm most excited about getting my hands on Tiny Titans #1, since I missed out on it when it first came out, and the Hellboy/B.P.R.D. comic. The Marvel Adventures Iron Man issue is written by Jeff Parker and Paul Tobin, so that one is definitely going to be good. If you didn't buy All Star Superman #1 when it came out, you really want to get that one. Trust me. There's a lot to be excited about this year, so go check it out. Get free stuff. Bring the kids. If you don't have kids, pick one or two up at the local playground. They won't mind. They're getting free comics. Unless you reach your limit on the free comics you can get, but there are others you want. Then you might want to take the kids' comics.

Apparently, some movie with a lot of hype starring some famous former drug addict comes out this week. People seem to like it, and are excited about it. Whatever. I'm not disappointed at all that I'm not going to get to see it until next week. I don't like the Fascist douchebag anyway. I'll just watch this Incredible Hulk trailer over at the Apple website. Then maybe get a better glimpse of how awful Hulk and Abomination look in the trailer images at Blog@Newsarama. Aside from the fact that I think Edward Norton is absolutely perfect casting for Bruce Banner, this reboot seems like more of a downgrade from the 2003 film. The trailer barely even utilizes the theme music from the TV show, which is the only thing to be really excited about in this adaptation.

Finally, Quick Stop Entertainment brings you the non-shakey-cam version of the Venture Brothers Season Three preview, making it okay that we had seats right in front of the screen, but couldn't get our camera to work.

More exciting video after the jump.

On Saturday, Rania and myself had the joy of sitting through a few major panels in the New York Comic Con screening theater. One of the showings was Disney related, and thus had many clips of Wall-E and the new Prince Caspian / Narnia flick. Wall-E didn't really capture my imagination before, but after seeing the previews of it, I'm definitely going to try and catch it when it opens in theaters. (On June 27th.)

The other panel was Battlestar Galactica related, and as you can see, I could actually be bothered to dig my camera out of my bag to snap some pictures. Originally, the panel description was to have stars Tahmoh Penikett and Grace Park, but to the surprise of everyone, convention virgins Rekha Sharma (Tory, Roslin's Aide) and Michael Hogan (Colonel Tigh) appeared with Michael Trucco (Sam Anders). They didn't have much to say by way of spoilers for the final season, but they did have some interesting comments about discovering they were Cylons (video after the jump.)

Geektress is still recovering from the New York Comic Con, and despite the fact that three of us were there, we have to catch up on all the news and announcements just like everyone else. (What can I say? We just don't care all that much about Skrull invasions, the umpteenth DC Crisis, or movies directed by Frank Miller.) However, this little piece of news begged our immediate attention. In the vein of Marvel Zombies, Marvel Comics has now announced Marvel Apes to be written by Karl Kesel with Ramon Bachs on art.