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Free Online Gaming

Free Online Gaming

The San Jose Mercury News website reports that GameTap, a subscription online game service, will offer free games starting May 31. 

The site currently offers more than 850 games to people who pay fees ($9.95 a month, or $6.95 a month if one buys a year in advance).  The free games will be in addition to the games available to subscribers.  Among the subscription games are Sam and Max (based on the Steve Purcell comic) and Myst Online: Uru.

How will they make money by giving away games?  Advertising.  According to Stu Snyder, senior vice president, "We view this is as the next evolution of GameTap. Clearly, the Internet is a growing force as an advertising medium. Our heritage at Turner is we always aggregate content, re-popularize it, and make it available in different ways to consumers.”

Interesting idea, that.

DENNIS O’NEIL: Tribute to a true master

DENNIS O’NEIL: Tribute to a true master

Kurt Vonnegut is gone.

I’d like to say that I was a bit ahead of the crowd in discovering that, while he was a science fiction writer, he was also much more, but by the publication of Cat’s Cradle in 1963 a lot of people had found this wise, sad, funny man – particularly disaffected young people.

He was often likened to Mark Twain and the comparison’s apt. But while I unstintingly admire Mr. Twain (maybe such admiration is in every Missouri-born writer’s DNA), I think Vonnegut’s quality average may be a bit higher. True, he did not write as much as his predecessor – Twain was astonishingly prolific – but he always seemed to be at or near his best. I can’t remember reading any Vonnegut piece that I thought was second-rate.

He was pessimistic without being sour, famous without egotism, and he had compassion completely devoid of sentimentality. Like Mark Twain, he could voice unpopular opinions without offending those who disagreed with him.

(more…)

Doctor Who episodes online…

Stringer Lisa Sullivan notes: "Doctor Who is scheduled to be among the programs to be made available on demand via the BBC’s iPlayer service. BBC News says the service will be launched later this year.

People will be able to watch selected shows online for seven days after their first broadcast. Episodes will also be able to be downloaded and stored for up to 30 days. The iPlayer has been given the go-ahead by the BBC Trust after consultations with the public. Initially, the iPlayer application is only available for people with Windows PCs but the trust wants the application to run on different systems within "a reasonable time frame."

It is unclear at present whether access will be limited to UK users, but based on their previous actions with the interactive comic, it’s sure looking like they’re going to try.

Comics soon in a theater near you

Comics soon in a theater near you

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

As a contrast to all the Spider-Man stories this week, Alan Kistler sends us a quick update on other movies in the pipeline:

"This is an interesting week in terms of comic book movies and the like.

Iron Man director Jon Favreau has confirmed that Jeff Bridges will be shaving his head to play the role of Obadiah Stane, who in the comics was a wealthy, sociopathic industrialist who took Tony Stark’s company and manipulated the recovering alcoholic into drinking again.

Rumors are flying that Sarah Michelle Gellar is up for the role of Harley Quinn in the upcoming Batman sequel The Dark Knight, but this has yet to be confirmed by anyone.

And "Moriarty" at Ain’tItCoolNews has posted up a review of an advanced screening of The Transformers. The review is full of spoilers concerning plot, so if you want the gist without having the story ruined for you, here are the highlights:

  • The plot will involve the Allspark cube, analogous to the "Autobot Matrix of leadership" from the original cartoon series.
  • The characters in the film are said to be very accurate to how they were portrayed in the Generation One cartoon series.
  • Optimus Prime is said to have amazing action scenes and is showcased as an incredible warrior.
  • To the satisfaction of older fans, Megatron and Starscream do indeed argue quite a bit.
  • The supporting cast of John Turturro, John Voight and Josh Duhmel are said to give a solid performance.
  • The special effects are supposed to be very good, though it is said that a couple of the robots look odd when speaking with robot lips.
  • There is a criticism that certain characters are not shown enough or given enough to do, as screentime must be focused on explaining the origin and nature of the Transformers.
  • There are supposed to be several references to the old cartoon for fans to enjoy, including lines by Optimus that were lifted from the original series.

Sounds like a great report to me. Here’s hoping the movie lives up to the hype."

Magneto Returns To Hollywood

Magneto Returns To Hollywood

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

Sometime following the release of the next X-Men movie – a solo Wolverine feature starring Hugh Jackson – noted comics writer (JSA) and movie producer / director / writer (Batman Begins, Blade, Ghost Rider, The Crow: City of Angels, Nick Fury, The Dark Knight, plus last week’s The Invisible) David Goyer will be directing the second X-Men spin-off, Magneto.

The movie will focus on Magneto’s "origin" – the time he spent in a Nazi concentration camp (as seen in both comics and the X-Men movies) and the years following his liberation. Whereas Sir Ian McKellen has gone on record saying he wanted to star in the movie and that they could "de-age" him with the sort of CGI effects used in X-Men III, it is expected he will only appear in framing sequences and another actor will play the younger character.

Perhaps Christopher Eccleston would do?

(Photo copyright Variety; All Rights Reserved)

Chuck Jones at the OC

Chuck Jones at the OC

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

ComicMix friend (and my first husband) Steve Chaput reports that the Orange Public Library & History Center (in Orange California) where he works, has just opened its doors featuring an art exhibition called Read To Succeed®, sponsored by the Chuck Jones Center for Creativity and Orange Public Library.

The exhibition includes original, hand‑painted animation cels which have never before been available for public viewing, and will be on display through mid-September.

The press release mentions of Jones, "A voracious reader himself, Chuck relished the opportunity to sketch and paint a variety of colorful works showing Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd, Wile E. Coyote, Road Runner, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety, Pepé Le Pew, and other characters finding knowledge, fun, and adventure in the pages of books."

Bloggers respond to cartoon hate

Bloggers respond to cartoon hate

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

One of my favorite bloggers, Jon Swift, stepped out of satirical mode for a post to excoriate Chris Muir, a radical reactionary strip cartoonist who recently drew Hillary Clinton in blackface to mock a recent speech given by the Senator in which she quoted a Negro spiritual by affecting a cadence that didn’t sound quite right coming from a white upper-class woman.  (Lots of folks from all ends of the political spectrum were able to mock that same speech snippet without adding insult to injury.)

Swift noted, "If Chris Muir drew Charles Schulz’s Peanuts, for example, he wouldn’t have bothered drawing a panel showing Lucy pulling the football away at the last minute when Charlie Brown tries to kick it. That would be too Old School for him. Instead, Muir would just have Lucy say, ‘Democrats always pull the football away at the last minute when you are trying to kick it, Charlie Brown.’ Lucy and Charlie Brown would also probably be in their underwear."  His commenters responded by issuing a challenge to bloggers to "Show us how Chris Muir would do your favourite newspaper, comic book or web comic!"

Lots of popular liberal bloggers have already responded, including Chris Clark (For Better or For Muir), skippy the bush kangaroo (who riffs on Muir with Mutts) and Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon, who I think captures Muir’s zeitgeit perfectly with this apology to Aaron McGruder:

Can the liberal comics blogosphere rise to the occasion as well?  Stay tuned!

Make your own Dr. Who comic

Make your own Dr. Who comic

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

Via Lisa at Sequentially Speaking, the BBC has launched an interactive Comic Maker section of its ever-growing Dr. Who website.  If you’re not from England, however, don’t bother clicking here, because rights restrictions will prevent you from using the site’s Flash portion.

Nothing like proprietary software rights to take the fun out of things.

Apparently the site "offers fans the chance to create and star in their very own Doctor Who comic using scenes, characters and devices from the show itself. There is a writer’s room which features a step-by-step video guide to making the comic with Executive Producer Russell T. Davies. In coming weeks there will be a top ten gallery as well as the chance to search through previous entries." Here in the US we’ll just have to take Doctor Who Online‘s word for it.

Lulu throws awards open

Lulu throws awards open

  • News
  • April 30, 2007

When I was in Friends of Lulu, one of the main incentives to keep up membership was the opportunity to vote in the annual Lulu Awards, given to women of distinction whose contributions to comics kept getting ignored year after year by the major comics awards.

Now an era appears to have come to an end, as the organization has decided, for the first time ever, to open the award nominations and voting to non-members.

Details can be found on Adalisa Zarate’s blog.  The nomination form is here, and the deadline for nominations is May 7.  Here’s your chance to help recognize all the women who are still getting passed over by the boys’ club mentality of so many other awards processes, as well as celebrate those who are finally being noticed elsewhere.

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