I ran a panel about superheroes at the Tribeca Film Festival yesterday. On hand were: Zak Penn, screenwriter of the latter two X-Men movies, plus the upcoming Incredible Hulk; Andrew Cooke, who directed a documentary about comics pioneer Will Eisner; Joe Quesada, editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics; and Thomas Haden Church, who is famous, …
Apps & Web
“I’m a Marvel.” “And I’m a DC!”
A well-done comics-themed parody of the Mac/PC ads. Contents: one joke. But I like the second-order geekness of this.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av6fWfmugds]
Superheroes 2007: The Paneling
Next week I’m running a panel at the Tribeca Film Festival. The topic — I’m told, I didn’t write it — is as follows:
Here I come to save the… oh, just forget it. For a genre of entertainment originally devised with children in mind, superhero movies have found real success among bigger babies—adults, to be specific. We unleash
…
News Flash: School Principals Really Don’t Get MySpace
They don’t. They just really, really don’t. (Both via Slashdot.)
OK, I’m not a school administrator, and it hardly needs to be said, but treating a satirical MySpace page like a seriously disruptive, threatening act is just bizarre and counter-productive. Nobody who’s likely to read said MySpace page actually cares about it very …
Erfworld: It’s a Boopin’ Good Webcomic!
It began as a side-dish, practically a condiment, to one of my favorite webcomics, The Order of the Stick. But it’s become so much more. I’ll admit it: I have an Erfworld thing.
The setup’s like this: depressed, pudgy strategy gamer gets zapped into a fantasy world. It turns out he’s actually been summoned there by a king (probably …
The Potter Ultimatum
Just a note to point Potteristas to a very useful post at the Leaky Cauldron summarizing some of the speculation (500+ posts as of this morning) going on over there about the Deathly Hallows covers.
Much chatter about the so-called “love room” at the Ministry of Magic, which I basically have only the dimmest memory of what that is. I …
Hugo Nominees Announced
I’ll paste in the Novels and the Short Stories below, since those are the categories that usually get the most interest:
Novel
Michael F. Flynn, Eifelheim (Tor)
Naomi Novik, His Majesty’s Dragon (Del Rey; also, Voyager, 1/06, as Temeraire)
Charles Stross, Glasshouse (Ace)
Vernor Vinge, Rainbows End (Tor)
Peter Watts, Blindsight …
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Cover Art!
I won’t insult you by compressing it down to the width of this column: click here for the full experience.
From the press release:
“The front cover of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows features a dramatic sky of oranges and golds. It depicts 17-year-old Harry with arm outstretched, reaching upward. The structures around Harry
…
A Little Nerd Music: The All-Time Top 10 Nerd Songs
In the absence of any serious nerd news, I was going to post about how I’ve been blissing out on mc chris’s latest album “dungeon master of ceremonies.” But then I recalled a dream I had in which Joan of Arc told me I’d never be one of the Elect if I didn’t post more top 10 lists. So I’ma go that way instead.
Herewith: the top 10 …
The Year of Nerd Cinema?
Earlier this year I was lamenting the pathetic state of nerd movies in 2006, and wondering why we weren’t getting more of a bounce out of the runaway box office successes of LOTR, Spider-Man, the Matrix, etc., in terms of studios greenlighting geek flix. Now I’m thinking maybe we’re seeing that bounce. This morning we have:
— that …
Just Got My Copy of Wired
This Weekend in Geek Cinema
A regular roundup of geek-flick openings, judged irresponsibly by their trailers alone:
The Last Mimzy: Little kids find toys from the future that grant them wondrous powers. Said toys have a secret agenda of wonderment and wondrosity. Watching the trailer (linked above), you can see the totally awesome horror flick this might have …