The Aquabats Super Show (via @brandon_bird)

Intriguing. Via @Brandon_Bird

Waves of Nostalgia

So I watch a lot of TV. I was intrigued buy the upcoming The Walking Dead tv show that AMC has started shooting. So I started reading them all a couple nights ago, and now I'm afraid that I might have ruined hours of tv enjoyment. It's a damn fine comic, don't read it until the show gets canceled. (that's canelled for Ruby)

Hawaii Five-O

Brace Yourself for a LEGO Reality Show

Get ready for some unscripted TV featuring LEGO® Brand Building Bricks.

Robert Kirkman talks about The Walking Dead on AMC

I had heard a little about this, but here's Robert Kirkman himself talking about bringing The Walking Dead to the medium screen.

The Walking Dead is the saddest, most horrific comic I've ever read, but it's very well done and I can't stay away. I think it will work well in a long TV format--I think a three act movie would completely miss the point. The way I see it, the book is about settling into a terrible, terrible life that gets more terrible every single day. My goodness, why do I read this book?!?

Via @mtvsplashpage

SyFy

Regarding our recent time-travel discussion and our less recent Sci-Fi discussion:

Just watched part of A Sound of Thunder, a straight-to-SyFy movie based on the Ray Bradbury short story about people who go back in time and hunt dinosaurs that are about to die anyway using ice bullets. (I don't remember if the ice bullets are in the book. They totally use ice bullets in the movie, though.)

In the movie, the hunters step on a bug or something and go back to the present, which is okay at first but then starts changing in big, visible, effectsy "time-waves". Only one thing changes at a time, and it's very confusing for people. Like, after one time-wave all the trees grew bigger. Everything else stayed the same. People screamed and screamed. In the short story, I think the hunters return to the present to find that everything had changed, all at once, and they were the only ones who were the wiser (which despite being scientifically improbable, made a good deal of goddamned sense). Here, however, the movie's "scientist" knows somehow that the organisms to evolve first will change first. So any changes they made in the past will happen in distinct ripples changing more and more until--dan dan daaaaaaaan--people themselves change! Or maybe they don't exist at all! Or won't! Or will not ever have! You have to wait about seven to ten time-waves, though, and see what happens to life forms that evolved before people, though; because that's how time works. God, whatever!

Way to stretch out a 10 page story into a feature-length movie, guys! Time-waves! Yay! Not only does time organize itself around the perceptions of human beings, but the perceptions of stupid writers! I was really trying to watch the whole thing, but it was such tremendous horseshit that I think I'll just get back to work. I have a lot of email that needs answering.

(Why is this making me so angry? It's not like there are really Wookies, but I like Chewbacca just fine. It's not Sci-Fi that makes me angry, it's this other stuff, this pseudo-sciencey crap that somehow feels more like a lie than warp drive or magic wands. Why are so many movies like this even made? Is Hollywood really that broken? Why are movies that are written by people who know what they are talking about (or have at least thought about it) the exception instead of the rule? Can the newly-christened SyFy channel not find enough infomercials to run? Anyway, my point is this--Shit like this; committee-written senseless pseudo-science fiction, I'm going to refer to from now on, not as "Sci-Fi", but as "SyFy". Congratulations, dummies; you earned it!)

EDIT: I immediately regret posting this uncharitable rant. The Science Fiction Channel has brought us a great many wonderful things, such as Battlestar Galactica, Farscape, and extremely occasional marathons of The Invaders. Still, nothing more shocking than sitting on the edge of my seat watching BSG, only to be slammed at commercial with a face-full of "Mansquito" promo. Nevertheless, poop with diamonds in it is still worth keeping.

Food Party with Thu Tran

Anyone else watching Food Party on IFC or on the Internet? It's kind of like a cooking show, but it's more like if you held your breath for three weeks and then thought real hard about food and mythology and felt. Mrs. Pony found this and we watch it together on television. The puppetry and sets and storylines are dizzying, and Thu Tran is hypnotic.

Episode 4:


A NYTimes article about Ms. Tran, who lives in our old neighborhood, apparently.

Domonation

Classic Domokun interstitials now available at Domonation.com

Speaking of great TV...

This is some fun stuff. Always nice to see "The Body" in action.

Anybody watching Tim & Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job?

Hulk aaaarghhh!

Everything make hulk angry!

ABC picks up "Fables" Comic

Via MTV

Pushing Daisies

Might be too TLDR for some folks (including me), but just in case someone out there isn't watching the show, the punch line is this: Watch this show.

Unlike Heroes and all the other crap on TV these days, I think the fact that it's up-beat (in a tastefully surreal sort of way) is a hell of a bonus. It apparently takes giant kahones these days to have a witty, well written series that isn't tragic and depressing or an over-the-top comedy.

Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog

I know at least one of you out there gets weak in the knees talking about Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris, so I thought I'd mention this, even though you probably already know about it and I'm stupid, stupid, worthless, stupid. Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog is a direct-to-web episodic thing, by one, starring the other. I totally just watched the first episode. It's funny. That one of you I was talking about with the Whedon/Harris thing also hates musicals, so this may be a little bittersweet. Because it's a musical.

Parts two and three come out Thursday and Saturday, and then disappear on Sunday, apparently. Watch episode one here. At this writing, the server is totally jammed, because it's Joss Whedon and this is the Internet. Joss Whedon is the new Star Trek. You can also buy a season pass on iTunes, if any of you feel like helping me get my Apple stock back where it's supposed to be. It downloads right away.

There also seems to be a comic tie-in from Dark Horse. It does seem a little like the sort of comic that comes free with something. I don't mean that in a necessarily pejorative sense--that's just the style it's done in. Comics should come free with everything.

Secret City

I may have learned to draw by tracing comics, but Commander Mark made me the master-drawer I am today.



The guy was actually pretty great. He dealt out a lot of fairly advanced drawing concepts, but he did it a little at a time, so you never got lost. He'd show the occasional art history slide (accompanied here by the music right after the opening cutscene from a Super-Nintendo shooter), along with the occasional weird-ass plot point (4:55).

More here.

New Joss Whedon series

Dollhouse - trailer

The effects of liquid nitrogen on a human body

I'm pretty sure this clip from "V" the original miniseries deserves its own post.

Star Wars Live-Action TV Series

Hey, Fugu, this is for you.

Things That Made David Banner So Mad He Turned Into The Hulk

A coworker sent me an exhaustive, spectacular list of things that made David Banner so mad that he turned into the Hulk. What strikes me first is how bumbling he is. He's always dropping things on his feet, or knocking things over so that they fall on his head, or wandering into dangerous areas that are on fire. Here are some key moments:

25. Grabbing the pipe that is below freezing temperature

32. Getting his jacket caught in the printwheels at the newspaper printing room, and then inexplicably sticking his hand into the rollers

74. Trying to run away from the nasty prison work camp, only to fall through a rotted bridge, and then being bitten by a rattlesnake

99. Accidentally leaving the laser beam on in the chemical lab so that it cuts across the room and into the highly toxic chemicals so that David is enveloped in poisonous fumes

He reminds me one of those hand models in a commercial for some new inventiony product who are trying to use a completely regular product, and making a total mess of things; and hurting themselves in the process. You can see them saying, using only body language, "There's no way I will ever be able to open this damn jar! I give up! Forever! I'm going to totally murder my husband for sticking me with all the housework!"

CUT TO: David's eyes (wearing contacts)
CUE: Hulk music