Hot Toys, perhaps one of my favorite Hollywood toy manufacturers next to Sideshow Collectibles, has managed to secure some of the hottest licenses this summer. Some of those titles include Silvester Stallone’s upcoming film The Expendables, Spider-Man 3, Tron Legacy and Resident Evil: Afterlife — you know that strange looking 3D Resident Evil film that they’re working on. I really wish they already had some of these figures to show off, but one look at their current offerings, and you can pretty much know what to expect in terms of quality. In fact, I’ve had some people mistake some of the high resolution photos of their Joker figure for Heath Ledger himself. Not too bad if you ask me. The only draw back is that these figures can be a bit pricey. We’re talking in the upwards of $150 or more — on the 0ther hand, the quality honestly justifies the price. Check out their official website for more of their current products and keep an eye out for these new lines in the months ahead. Read more…
HBO’s True Blood has been a huge success, no doubt due in part to the Vampire craze that’s plagued the nation since Twilight hit the scene. It might be slightly more overplayed than mixing zombies with our favorite Sci-Fi series, but that certainly won’t stop anyone from watching the show — or, reading the comic. That’s right, IDW has picked up the license to the hit show and will now be publishing the True Blood comics. The first issue should be available in stores now, but a special edition is available at San Diego Comic Con with a limited edition wrap-around cover. The comic should continue the on-going adventures of Sookie Stackhouse and her lover Bill. No word on if the series will actually feature any cannon storylines, but I imagine it won’t unless the producers get involved.
Improv Everywhere is a group located in New York City that puts together flash mobs and other public improv events (or “missions”) conducted by volunteers (“agents”). Some of these missions are more infamous than others– the Slo-Mo Home Depot mission, for example –but quite a few of them are astonishingly geeky. Here are the ten best, organized by geek type. Read more…
Posted by Tim Sheehy on Jul 21, 2010 in Videogames
When I first heard that the upcoming Bond film would be delayed indefinitely while MGM executives attempt to sell the studio, I was terribly disappointed. Not only was MGM shelving their upcoming reboot of Robocop, and a remake of the 80’s classic Red Dawn, Eon was forced to halt production to a series of what I’ve considered some of the best Bond films in recent years. Thankfully, not all was lost. Rather than sit around and do nothing, they’ve decided to work with Activision on the next Bond video game — 007: Blood Stone. Read more…
If you’re like me, odds are that you never get around to collecting comics. It’s not that we don’t want to read them, but with so many being released, sometimes we just can’t make it to the store in a timely manner. Thankfully IDW’s already thought of a solution to all our problems — the almighty omnibus. Their latest, entitled Star Trek: The Original Series Omnibus, combines a number of Original Series comics such as Year Four, the Enterprise Experiment, Alien Spotlights and more.
I’m sure a lot of you probably don’t know the company very well, but I’m almost positive that all of you have probably seen their work. Weta, believe it or not, is responsible for a significant portion of the props, conceptual designs and effects that you’ve seen in so many recent blockbusters like Avatar, Lord of the Rings, District 9, and more. So, when I received an e-mail about their upcoming presence at San Diego’s Comic Con International, my it perked my interest. Read more…
San Diego Comic Con is happening this week, and each year, like clockwork, I end up catching some form of illness from interacting with the masses who attend the event. I haven’t quite turned into a zombie just yet, but it’s certainly a possibility — or so this novel would like me to believe. Night of the Living Trekkies, from the publishers of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, tells the story of some uniform-clad, prosthetic-eared fanboys who happen to be attending their annual Star Trek convention when suddenly aliens decide to unleash a zombie plague. Needless to say, their pseudo-Starfleet training suddenly comes in handy. The book is supposedly littered with countless references to the show, and fanboy culture, making it a must buy for people like you and me. Best of all, the book goes on sale just in time for the con. It’s scheduled for release on July 22nd.
Posted by Christian Liendo on Jul 19, 2010 in Animation, Fandom
Mechacon was held this past weekend in New Orleans and we captured some of the best cosplay going down in the big easy! While there were many sexy cosplayers (see above) this young lady below in the Lucky Star outfit wins our award for cutest cosplayer: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 19, 2010 in Animation
The above video is from the 80s British television series Spitting Image which ran from 1984 to 1996: The show never made it over to America however the characters did get some exposure with the Genesis music video Land of Confusion. What amazed me about this segment (aside from the parody of Madness) is how much the 80s are like today — I knew there was a serious unemployment crisis in England at the time but I don’t recall hearing much about a collapse in the housing market.
Shigeru Mizuki is the master of Japanese horror manga and he’ll be honored with a large scale exhibition in Japan which kicks off on August 11, and runs until August 23, 2010. The exhibit will show off original work from GeGeGe no Kitaro (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎) and Mr. Devil manga series and other personal item associated with the master. Here’s a preview of some of the drawings that will be on display: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 18, 2010 in Animation, Tech
Shocking as it may seem Miffy isn’t Japanese, but in fact is the creation of Dutch artist Dick Bruna who drew the cute little bunny back in 1955. However the graphic cuteness of our bunny friend has always done well in the land of Hello Kitty — and the recent evidence of this is the Miffy Netbook by Onkyo show above. The coolest thing about this netbook is that it features its own Miffy user interface: Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 17, 2010 in Comic Books
Illustrator Shigeyuki Fukumitsu created this hamburger themed manga shopping bag for Village Vanguard, a bookstore chain in Japan. What’s funny about it is that the illustration reminds me a great deal of the character Wimpy from Popeye who unlike his vegan sailor pal loved hamburgers: Read more…
Moguera (モゲラ) made his debut in The Mysterians which was released in 1957 — in the film he’s a mole robot used by the Mysterians to attack humanity with his drills. Revoltech is celebrating this magnificent mole mecha creature in their Sci-Fi Revoltech Series, and he’s available for pre-order now and will then be shipping in September. Read more…
It’s been the long time dream of science fiction to produce a ray gun that won’t kill, well it now looks like that’s now reality according to this BBC article: Read more…
Too often I see fanboys build amazing tributes to the imagination of others — but this rejects the original thing that made science fiction fandom so cool: It’s the idea that the fanboys who grow up reading something become the authors of the next generation of new things. So I was very happy to come across an original Lego creation called Containment which is the handy work of Tyler Clites (Legohaulic) and Nannan Zhang (Nannan Z.). Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 16, 2010 in Dr. Who
The funny thing is that when Dr. Who was being developed in 1963 the iconic police-boxes could be spotted all over London and where very commonplace — however in 21st Century England where cell phones are commonplace there are that many to be found anymore. So ironically the TARDIS itself is as much a celebration of a bygone British era as it is a prop from a well beloved science fiction series. This TARDIS-Soap is a great way to keep the series close to your heart every day while giving you a slight caramel-apple smell — and best of all for this fanboy the soap uses all vegan materials. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2010 in Videogames
Nimble Strong is a new bar-tending themed game for the iPhone which combines the charm of an old school Nintendo role playing game with an otaku-friendly anime art direction style. However unlike so many Nintendo DS games where you’re challenged with a unrelated quiz at every turn (like Professor Layton) what makes the gameplay here so wonderful is that to advance in the game you have to mix a drink. And you’re not just blindly clicking on a tumbler to score points, but actually learning to bartend as you go along: Read more…
It wasn’t programmable but the Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) was one of the first digital computers ever created. Sadly the research surrounding it ended with World War II (the machine dates to 1942), but the computer designed by John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry got its due in 1973 when they awarded patents for their work which pre-dated the ENIAC. This video from 1999 shows a demo of a reconstruction project which cost over $360,000 to create. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 15, 2010 in Animation
I’m not sure what short this footage is from but it shows a recreated animation meeting at Disney for the 1955 film The Lady and the Tramp. While the meeting itself is clearly staged for the camera it gives a very good insight into the classic Disney animation process from that era where music was integral to the production (I also had no idea that Peggy Lee actually wrote lyrics for Disney!). By the way notice that the scoreboards all have animation peg holes on the bottom of the paper: Read more…
Like most of you I’ve been watching in horror as Mel Gibson goes into full self-destruct mode, which is a tragic ending for Mad Max to say the least. And making things worse rumor had it that the beaver film that Mel was working on was suppose to be great (as in Oscar material), but will now be shelved. I think this video by talented puppeteer Loren Feldman sums up this situation the best with an exclusive interview with the beaver!
Sadly Futurama fanboys (and fangurls) unlucky enough to not be at Comic Con will miss out on an opportunity to take home the plus version of Nibbler in Shiny Jumpsuit. Although the good news for us stay at home fans that this is the first item in an entire line of Futurama plush dolls which I hope are equally as cute. Read more…
I know some of you miss having your flip phones for the sole reason of getting to pretend you were Captain Kirk asking to beam up. Who could blame you, though? They looked just like the Star Trek original series communicators, after all. Unfortunately, some of you probably gave that up the moment you purchased your first iPhone. Well, thanks to CBS Interactive, you might not have to. Their recently released Star Trek Communicator app manages to reproduce the look and sounds of the original series handset using your iphone’s interface. In fact, you can even use it to access your contacts and make real phone calls via the app — assuming you’re using an iPhone and not an iPod Touch , of course. The app will cost you $1.99 via the app store, but I’d say that’s a small price to pay for the novelty. Read more…
Posted by Michael Pinto on Jul 14, 2010 in Animation
Right now Old Spice is doing a brilliant job feeding the narcism of the blogosphere — however it made yearn for a more simple time in my life when a splash of Old Spice was that mystery product in dad’s medicine cabinet. This made me do a bit of research and I came across the wonderful animated spot shown above from 1957. Read more…
