Reality is the playground of the unimaginative

Tuesday, 17 March 2009

The Week In Geek...

A round-up of geeky news you might have missed...

(1) Keith Herber Passes Away: Well-regarded Call of Cthulhu writer Keith Herber died on Friday.

(2) Year Of The Comic Strip: Belgium, home of Tintin, Asterix and The Smurfs, is hosting The Year Of The Comic Strip events in Brussels throughout 2009.

(3) Flintloque Third Edition: The third edition of the black powder fantasy Napoleonic skirmish game, Flintloque, is avilable for pre-order from Alternative Armies.

(4) Grognardian Guru: Ken Hite interviews 'old school' Dungeons & Dragons expert, and author of the Grognardia blog, James Maliszewski .

(5) Buy The Farm: em4's gorgeous, prepainted, 28mm farm complex will soon be going on sale, for around £85.

(6) Mad Max... The Cartoon: Mad Max could be returning to the big screen in a couple of years, but as an anime-style cartoon.

(7) I Fought The Law...: Warm Acre, the company behind the hugely successful Hour of Glory miniatures game is bringing out, at Salute 09, No-Go-Zone, a game of modern police versus urban criminals. Basically Grand Theft Auto with miniatures!

(8) It's A Nightmare: The first of the "lost stories" of Doctor Who, The Nightmare Fair, has been recorded as an audio play by Big Finish for release in November.

(9) Streaming Spider-Man: Marvel Comics is offering streaming video on its website of a bizarre Japanese Spider-Man TV series about motorcycle racer Takuya Yamashiro who gains the powers of Spider-Man to fight Professor Monster.

(10) Good Dog: The first picture of the new-look K9 has been released online. The futuristic Doctor Who spin-off will air in Australia later this year.

(11) Fantastic Four Film Franchise Reboot: The Fantastic Four films are heading for a make-over and a relaunch of the franchise.

(12) Live Action Casting Begun Has: George Lucas has begun his quest for actors to appear in the forthcoming live-action Star Wars serial, which will be set between Episodes III and IV. The show is unlikely to appear on TV until an entire season has been recorded, so is a long way off yet.

(13) Saturn Nominees Revealed: Lost and The Dark Knight top the nominations charts for the 35th Annual Saturn Awards, with 11 nominations each.

(14) Watchmen Numbers Drastic Drop Off: Watchmen box office figures dropped around 70 per cent in its second week of release in the US.

(15) Sci-Fi Channel Changes Name: And alienates viewers... just read the comments on this PR puff piece!

(16) Doctor Who For Gen Con Indy: Cubicle 7 is aiming to have its Doctor Who RPG ready for release at Gen Con Indy in August (as long as the BBC don't ask for too many changes to the manuscript).

(17) Once More Unto The Breach, Dear Friends: The Tuesday Knights are due to meet again tonight to continue their adventure in The Trollstone Caverns.
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Inscribed by Tim Knight at 3/17/2009 09:00:00 AM
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10 serfs have something to say about this!:

  1. Blimey, 17 little links! This Week In Geek keeps getting longer (not that I'm complaining).

    Re: Watchmen. Yeah - I eventually went to see Watchmen last night (it was very good). There was just one showing per evening, in the smallest screen at the complex, and that was mostly empty. Admittedly, it was Monday night which is hardly the most popular night in the week but I wouldn't be surprised if it was dropped from the schedules this weekend. And it's only been out just over a week.

    I think the 18 certificate didn't help. And it wasn't well advertised (perhaps because of the 18 tag).
    ReplyDelete
  2. (a) Thank you for your kind words about The Week In Geek. To be honest it could be even longer is Blogger lifted its limits of 20 tags or 200 characters per post :)

    (b) I think you're spot on with Watchmen.

    It was well advertised over the Internet... to people who were likely to already know about it, but the general public who (shockingly) have no idea what Watchmen is would have quite possibly been put off by the 18 certificate because they associate "superhero" and "comic book" movies with Spider-Man and Superman.

    I would imagine most fans would rush to see it the first week, then wait for the DVD to come out to see it again (that's what I'm doing, certainly).
    ReplyDelete
  3. You're right.

    My friend who saw it with me doesn't read comicbooks and is not a internet fan and, although he likes similar films to me, he didn't know much about it. In the end he liked it, which shows you didn't have to read the comicbook to enjoy it.

    And my wife mentioned I was going to see Watchmen to her friend and the friend said she'd never even heard of it!

    Pity really. :(
    ReplyDelete
  4. Several weeks ago I was chatting with friends of Rachel's about comic book movies and they seemed suprised that Marvel (and DC) still actually printed comics... they were under the impression that they only made films (and video games) these days :)

    I think we tend to forget sometimes that we geeks live in our own little bubble (like anyone who is really "into" something) and what's common knowledge to us remains a total mystery to the general populace.

    I strongly believe that Zack Snyder made Watchmen for the fans. Anyone else likes it that's a bonus.

    It needed a big budget to pull off properly, therefore had to have the usual studio hoopla attached to it, but it was never going to be a Titanic or Mama Mia style blockbuster.
    ReplyDelete
  5. Hey would you quit using my site to post links to your articles.

    I don't mind if you post a link back or mention my story in your article.

    Just don't do it to get more people to read your blog or get better search engine traffic.

    I'm glad that you like Monster Island News....
    ReplyDelete
  6. Ken, as I explained in my email to you, it's not me doing it - Blogger seems to do it automatically. I've noticed random links to various HeroPress stories on a lot of blogs I visit (e.g. Geek Orthodox) and I don't know why it's doing it or how to stop it.

    If anyone can tell me I gladly would because it's rather embarassing as the links are to stories totally unconnected with the blog posts they have glommed onto! :(
    ReplyDelete
  7. Ken, Flea - Are these Backlinks? If so, Ken can switch them off from his blog (somewhere under settings).

    Flea - Are you "following" Ken's site? If so (and I can give no guarantees here, it's just a hunch), try going to your blogger dashboard and then click on View Profile. Scroll down to the bottom where is says "Manage Blogs I Follow" and click on this.

    Next, scroll down the list of blogs you're following and find Ken's site. Click on settings and this pops up a new window. In this setting window, under the "Basics" category, there's an option that says "Publish my activities to other sites I have joined".

    Is this ticked/selected for you? This sounds like it might add stuff to other people's sites.

    Mind you, I'm not a blogger expert.
    ReplyDelete
  8. I thought you might have cracked it there - but I followed your instructions and the "Publish My Activities..." toggle appeared to already be turned off; and for other sites where my blooming links keep appearing (mostly for the old episode of Demons entitled Saving Grace!)
    ReplyDelete
  9. Another link for you, Mr Flea:

    http://www.flickr.com/photos/82202517@N00/sets/72157614556324850/show/
    ReplyDelete
  10. this is so funny!!
    http://www.dijit.com/dijits/ahs/ahs/
    ReplyDelete

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