TrueGentleman

AMYIs it something people can eat?
(to Doctor)
Shouldn’t you scan it with your screwdriver or something?

THE DOCTOR

Why would I scan food with my screwdriver?

AMY

See if it’s safe?

The Doctor leans over, dips his finger into his bowl, tastes it.

THE DOCTOR

Some unusual trace elements, smidge too much background radiation, but, yeah, very yummy.

Amy is about to try some of his food... he stops her.

THE DOCTOR (cont’d)

No. Don’t put it in your mouth.

AMY

Not for humans?

THE DOCTOR

Not for you. Tastes like Marmite on socks.

The episode, which originally had the working title "The House of Nothing", is scheduled to be the third in series 5 to air next year. Between Gaiman's blog, twitter feed, and MSM interviews, he's clearly going to maintain a constant level of anticipation until then.

I also noticed this news on Wired, and once again, we have a topic about gaming culture that requires a significant workaround before it can be discussed here.

Whether or not the game in question intentionally was designed to exploit addictive behavior, there are broader legal issues at work here, e.g. are click-through EULAs valid in court, and is a legal decision against a gambling casino relevant to the way a game company allegedly conducts its business? Unfortunately, the mods have deleted entire threads for containing violations against the "any videogame (aside from City of Heroes)" rule, so there's a precedent of a different kind set here.

The number of forum members who don't know Watchmen approaches zero, so spoilers ought not to be a concern.

That said, My vote also goes to Watchmen's would-be ubermensch and world savior Adrian Veidt for his Antarctic retreat, Karnak. The locale evokes the Fortress of Solitude of Superman/Doc Savage, but the design advertises "supervillain inside". It's that element of ambiguity that makes Watchmen - the comic, I mean - a masterpiece.

and Melissa Bianco:
(Apple had previously featured City of Heroes when the game was launched for OS X.)

Going from humanized ice queen Betty Draper to the villainous White Queen may not be much of a stretch for Jones, but she has the potential to expand on the role. At the very least, she's an improvement on the nonentity Tahyna Tozzi who played the part in the Wolverine movie.

Neil Gaiman has shifted most of his energies to writing novels and has gained far more mainstream credibility as a consequence; Alan Moore has essentially retired from comics to pursue his eclectic multimedia muse; and Frank Miller, well, Frank's producing precisely the kind of long underwear power fantasies that most people still think of first when they think of comic books.
No doubt she enjoyed this and other graphic novels too, but anecdata is insufficient here. I can assure you that although the publishing industry finally took notice of graphic novels after some fifteen or twenty years, it still resists publishing them on the same level as regular commercial fiction, much less literary fiction. Bookstores still relegate them to their own section instead of mixing them with "regular" books. And lagging farthest behind, book reviewers and editors still haven't picked up the vocabulary to write a decent review (the much-missed Harvey Pekar certainly could). It's going to take at least another generation of hard work and creativity to achieve anything approaching level literary playing field.

Mostly because he got ripped off from profiting for his best work once it hit the mainstream, such as the movie version of Fritz the Cat, the Keep on Truckin' image, or the cover to Janis Joplin's Cheap Thrills. None of which brought him mainstream respectability.

Not so - the black-and-white independent comics scene was bursting creatively and selling profitably at the time but has yet to regain that level of success. Daniel Clowes, for example, was selling more copies of Lloyd Llewellyn back in the day than he does now of his critically acclaimed Eightball - and it took a movie adaptation to break out Ghostworld.

"Plenty" (your mileage may vary) doesn't make much of a difference in mainstream opinion.

A separate section in B&N/Borders over by Sci-Fi/Fantasy (invariably) does not equal mainstream acceptance by any significant measure. As I said above, until bookstores learn to mix graphic novels with regular books, they're in a literary ghetto. And when we start discussing "motion comics", we're in a niche of a niche.

The videogame industry has yet to produce its Contract with God, Fires, American Flagg, Jimmy Corrigan, Love & Rockets, Julius Knipl, Ice Haven, etc. - none of which can be considered mainstream, incidentally - and instead gives us players principally space marines and barbarians. Despite the richness of the examples from both sides of our argument, the average reader thinks of superheroes, first and foremost, when he or she thinks of comics, if he or she thinks of comics at all. The best that can be said for videogames at this time is that aren't dominated by just a single genre. Spector's admonitions are for teh win.

Comics/comix/graphic novels are still in the process of penetrating the mainstream in the US, and it will be some time before they overcome the stigma that still lingers from 50s Seduction of the Innocent anti-comics crusade and resurges in the latest psychological criticisms of superheroes. Art Speigelman - who detests superhero comics - has moved to young adult books, and Robert Crumb - who detests them even more - has moved to France. Neither of them has been on the bestseller lists for a while, and they're the most prominent and recognizable comics figures as far as mainstream success goes (notwithstanding the Simpsons' Comic Book Guy). National comics distribution is a niche market dominated by long underwear types. Trade publishing remains reluctant to acquire graphic novels. Manga translations from Japan - where comics are read regularly among all ages if we're looking for an example of real mainstream success - have been the biggest growth sector in bookselling for the category. While there are some independent comics exceptions to mainstream generic offerings, it's nothing like their heydey in the 80s. And when one compares the range of popular comics' genres in the 50s to the contemporary titles', there's no question the field has contracted. Ultimately, the problem is that people don't think twice about going to the cinema or a bookstore but would never set foot in a comic book shop.

But Spector's point wasn't to deny the artistic merits of comics but to cite the industry's niche status as a warning to videogame publishers who will fund only established models of proven hits, such as brawny spacemarines and brawny barbarians - which undeniably are the immediate images of videogame heroes for the mainstream.

When Spector talks about choice, he doesn't mean open-ended sandbox games or sims. He's absolutely committed to strong narrative in videogames over free-for-alls. The distinction in his game design philosophy is that he wants players to be able to interact with the story through their choices so that the narrative can unfold in numerous different ways.

Here's his bio:
He has one of the broadest backgrounds in the videogame industry and a polymathic approach to game design.

The Awl's website has been irregular today. The article in question is a comparison of the comic and the film, rating how well the latter adapted the former.

No, the Coke ads aired in the US after Headroom's first appearance in 1984 on UK television in a talk show reminiscent of Space Ghost Coast to Coast crossed with MTV, which led to the UK pilot "20 Minutes into the Future" the next year. It's rather complicated.

That's taking into account only the US box office. The Dark Knight's total revenue was roughly split between foreign and domestic but came down on the latter side. On the other hand, Edgar Wright's previous movies have made more money overseas, especially in the UK (70/30 in the case of his previous movie, Hot Fuzz). The British box office is going to make or break SPvtW the way things are going.