Superman versus Goro? Really?
Apr 18Once again, it kind of feels like DC is running around, trying to copy Marvel’s hits – in this case, Marvel’s extended and highly successful cross-overs into Capcom’s Street Fighter series. However, with the DC and MK characters being so, oh I don’t know, opposite to one another in terms of violence levels, how’s this going to work? Well, word is they’ll be dropping the MK fatalities. So, yeah, the fun part of MK is gone. This plan is awesome.
Mind you, if the designer pops up in the corner and yells “Toast-eeee!” when Superman uses his heat-vision, I’m sold.
Check out the trailer here – kick his ass, Bats!
Grok #1: An Alert Nerd Zine
Apr 15
Gentle nerdly readers, we know there are many things that make you sad. Darth Weinstein’s claw-like grip on Fanboys. Lawsuits from Big Meanie George Lucas. The fact that you can’t take Alert Nerd with you and read it while you’re riding the bus or sitting on the can or experiencing a company-mandated corporate training retreat.
But wait! We’ve found the solution to at least one of these perplexing dilemmas! And so we present to you our latest brainchild: a zine. But instead of time-warping back to our college days and busting out the staplers and Xerox machines, we’re presenting it to you as a shiny PDF. You can read it on your computer screen or print it out and tote it wherever you so desire.
Within, you will find essays, fiction and general silliness exploring geek culture and the nerd experience. The pieces are a bit longer than what you will generally find on the site (in some cases, spanning an unnecessary, er, epic amount of pages) and they all center on a theme chosen by the editors. For our inaugural issue, we’ve chosen…pon farr. Delicious.
Grok #1: Spring ‘08, Pon Farr (PDF)
Highlights include…
Scintillating fiction from Matt Springer and Sarah Kuhn!
Thrilling explorations of the mixed geek marriage by Jeff Stolarcyk!
Slashy musings, mused by Chris Stewart!
Amazingcrazy words on the online love life of a semi-geek, downloaded by semi-geek Ken Simon!
Brilliant breakdowns of why pon farr is the best geek pick-up strategy evAR, as tested by Sarah McKinley Oakes!
Mind-blowing insights on con hook-ups!
Possibly tasteless nerd pick-up lines!
And much, much more! So read on, print out and/or share with your friends! And we’ll be doing this quarterly, so come back this summer for more!
LOADS-A-MONEY!
Apr 14I’m kind of wondering if io9’s throw-up-everything-see-what-sticks approach to my various, beloved pastimes and nerd predilections isn’t the start of a nerdier-than-thou reference war. With me, mostly. A lot of the stuff they celebrate on the site always comes off with an air of “Look what we found in the trash! Isn’t it amazing what they used to like in prehistory?”, leaving me standing to the sides going “Hey, I owned that!”
For example, I give to you the post-JAMs, pre-KLF, Timelords, and their novelty hit, Doctorin’ the Tardis. You have no idea what this song meant to someone growing up in a Western Canadian town in the late-80s, early-90s. Parched for any electronic music out of the UK and desperate for anything related to Dr. Who, the Timelord’s CD EP was critical to me not packing it in and wearing a tie.
Fans on Trial! Phleghm at 11!
Apr 14First, it was Lucasfilm laying the legal smack down on a rogue element in the UK churning out plastic Stormtrooper outfits.
Now another ginormous figure in modern geek entertainment, J.K. Rowling, is taking a fan to court over sticky copyright wickets.
The suit, filed late last year against RDR Books, an independent publishing house in Michigan, alleges that RDR’s plans to publish a print edition of the Harry Potter Lexicon, a Web site that serves as a rather daunting compendium of all things Harry, violates Warner and Rowling’s copyright and takes away the future market for a similar compendium that Rowling plans to write.
The Rowling case is more interesting and “grey” than the Lucas case, frankly.
It Was a Metaphor! For Strangling!
Apr 10Oh, John Cho, you card! You didn’t really try to strangle Zachary Quinto, right? Although there is something sort of awesomely old skool about that image, vaguely reminiscent of all the drama that once went down amongst the original TOS cast, no? Anyway, I couldn’t help but remember my friend Sue’s own strange encounter with Sylar/Spock, which didn’t lead to any violence, but was still slightly terrifying.
It was a metaphor.
