Legion of Geek

Warner Bros. Studios continues to mine its DC Comics subsidiary for entertainment franchises. Today it was announced that ABC has greenlit a pilot of the comic publisher’s Eisner award winning Fables. Created, written and often illustrated by Bill Willingham, Fables tells the story of characters from fairy tales trying to blend in with the mortals of New York City after being thrown out of their native lands by The Adversary. The ones that can’t pass for human are stationed in the countryside at The Farm.

As with most recent fantasy/sci fi television projects, the network promises that the fantastical elements will be downplayed in favor of the human elements. In other words, they won’t be alienating the viewing public with scary things like, you know, fantasy elements. No wonder Legend of the Seeker is doing so well.

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The Telegraph is reporting on a 19 year old music graduate formerly named George Garratt who changed his name to “Captain Fantastic Faster Than Superman Spiderman Batman Wolverine The Hulk And The Flash Combined!”

Captain Fantastic says that he “…wanted to be unique,” and that he “decided upon a theme of superheroes.”  Apparently he’s just a tad too unique now, his grandmother is reportedly not talking to him anymore.

But really kudos to him for changing his name.  And good luck to him on those college tests where you have to fill out scan-trons.  Hopefully his super powers include something to fix that.

And clearly, he has a better name than you do.

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No matter what your political leanings last night was great for two reasons.

1.  It marked the end of the election season.
2.  America elected its first African American president.

Today’s strip just reminds us what’s on the minds of all those talking heads and mavericks.

via xkcd.com

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Have nothing to do this weekend?  Live in the upper east coast?  Head over to Red Bank, New Jersey for some good Kevin Smith love at his exclusive comic book signing.  Next Wednesday Batman: Cacophony will go on sale around the world, and you can get your hands on an early copy – signed by the man himself and his “sidekick” Walt Flanagan.

Cacophony represents Smith’s return to the comic book scene after some absence.  The three issue series will feature Smith’s creation, the masked killer Onomatopoeia.    If you’re not able to make the signing, as we suspect many of you won’t be able to, you can also order a signed copy from his site.  And at $10 it’s not too expensive.

Snoogins!

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Scantrons.  I love scantrons.  Who hasn’t sat in college course after college course filling out a mind numbing number of small bubbles.  These bubbles have sole power to control your future.  Fill it in right, pass go and collect $200.  Fill it in wrong, land on Boardwalk with a hotel present.

via xkcd.com

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We tore ourselves away from Spore long enough to check out these links for you.

Games

• Video diary: Game producer talks Star Wars: Unleashed on the Wii

TV

• Vampire dating service: “True Blood” continues its ARG tactics
• iTunes in HD: Download free shows while they last
• Whedon writes: “Dollhouse” shuts down for more script doctoring

Books

• Listmania: SciFi/Fantasy best selling books of the week

Comics

• Because good stories never die: “Angel: After the Fall” #12 reviewed

Gear

• Android imminent: Google’s new iPhone competitor may be arriving in weeks

Productivity

• Incoming apps: Top 10 lifehacking programs not yet released

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So you can’t wait to see how or if Aang can defeat the Firelord? Just visit your local Barnes & Noble book store and pick up your copy of the graphic mini-novel Sozin’s Comet. It will take you through the last battle character by character, but don’t worry, it won’t spoil your appetite to see the actual episodes.

Not only do you find out the results of the epic battle, but you will also find out the fates of some other favorite characters as well. (No, I won’t say who other than Aang himself!) The whole thing is broken down by chapter with each chapter dedicated to one character’s P.O.V. on the battle. The book is entirely in first person from the inside of each charachter’s head. This is not LoG’s favorite perspective, and it is not that well done to boot, but you can’t help but be drawn to it to find out what happens to who and why.

So in summary, for a brief run down of the facts for what is to come it is a good choice, but to get the real story, action, humor, and excitement we all expect from an Avatar adventure you will have to wait to see the episodes.

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[UPDATED: Moved the embedded trailer after the break to avoid the nasty auto-play on the front page.]

Having been fortunate enough to catch a scene from the forthcoming badass supervillain assassin flick, Wanted, at WonderCon earlier this year, it’s fairly safe to say we’re looking forward to its upcoming June 27 release. Starring James McAvoy, Angelina Jolie and Morgan Freeman, the film is based on the comic book miniseries of the same name by Mark Millar. io9 has a good writeup of the WonderCon preview.

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If you couldn’t tell by now, we are big fans of chicks who kick ass. And the poster boy of girl power, Buffy Summers, lives on in comic books. Stop rolling your eyes, people, it’s not all a spandexed, teen angst wasteland in the world of comics these days. Since Joss Whedon has moved forward with Season 8 of Buffy in comic form, it’s now well-dressed, young adult angst. With wooden spikes. And lesbian witches. And giant little sisters.

Darkhorse, the publisher of Buffy comics, likes to throw in a few extras on their site to keep the faithful involved. One of the cool offerings they have posted is a flash module that shows how six pages from Issue #8 were made. From script to pencilling to inking to coloring to text bubbles, you can see how an idea gets translated into our favorite vampire slayer doing what she does best. Or, in this case, Willow laying down the mojo. We’re not picky.

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