Charles Brownstein introduces us to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and we discuss cultural differences in fandom. Sean digs into Deus Ex: Human Revolution. And we run down the week in geek, including GameStop’s broken seal game modifications, new news on Underworld 4, Superman’s new outfit (or lack thereof), and Jurassic Park-themed sex roleplay.
Wow, I’m the first poster. Hope I don’t screw this up. Correct me if I’m wrong since I do not watch the BBC shows, don’t they only have small episode seasons, like 10 per season?
boom chicka wah wah.
Yep, although they call them ‘series’ instead of ‘seasons.’
Ahhh Underworld. I must admit, as bad as those movies are, I do enjoy watching them as the universe created for the series Is definitely well thought out. I only wish the writing and direction was better. Still the series is one of my guilty pleasures, though when will they stop having all these vamps dressing like they were going to a local goth club?
Thank you Pike. That’s probably why they last, the US programers want at least double.
Aw yea, you liked the martian boobs!
Here you go Sean (.Y.Y.)
Both approaches have their pluses and minuses. The Brits tend to have good, but short shows (they probably have crappy short shows, but we don’t see them.) US shows tend to overstay their welcome, but when done right they become institutions.
Un/Fortunately, the US model seems to be converging with the UK model lately.
Made a Deus Ex cartoon to illustrate my love of the henching arts. The guys in Deus Ex: Human Rev. are just classic.
Hench for life!
Oh yeah, … you know you want some of this!!! 
Guys you…really mischaracterized the Deus Ex thing so badly. Square-Enix isn’t pissed, Square APOLOGIZED for not telling GameStop that the coupon was going to be in that game. What Square-Enix SHOULD have done is done a different SKU for Gamestop. The reason Gamestop is pissed about it being in the game is that they have a competing Download Service/Cloud Service/Streaming Thing like Onlive. They are totally in the right about not wanting to have that included in a product they sell, not how they handled it
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/gamestop-pulling-deus-ex-human-revolution-pc-off-shelves-updated/3618/
Also if you bought Dues Ex for PC from Gamestop and didn’t get the onlive coupon you get a $50 dollar gift card to GS and a Buy 2 Get 1 Free Used Game coupon.
http://www.giantbomb.com/news/gamestop-offers-up-a-sort-of-apology-for-the-whole-deus-ex-thing/3625/
Also I thought it was common knowledge but maybe not: Gamestop sells TONS of opened games as new. If you get the last game in the store you’re getting the box off the wall and a disc in a sleeve behind the counter. Beyond that employees borrow new games, play them, and return them to the store where it’s likewise sold as new. This is nothing new. Gamestop is definitely in the wrong with On Live but so is Square-Enix.
The CBDLF has been around for a long time. I first learned of it via Neil Gaiman’s blog. Every time he is hired for a speaking gig he donates at least a part of his fee to them (if not all).
There was a dust up here in the Twin Cities when a library program hired him to speak. He sets his fee ridiculously high because he feels it really has to be worth it to take him away from his writing and then he turns around and gives it ALL away. Nonetheless, folks who typically respond to anything they dislike with a knee-jerk reaction went after him and the library system about it. Neil defended himself and the library and took all the BS dished out with respect and dignity even after some state representative called him a pencil necked geek. It was embarrassing.
BBC Shows:
The reason the BBC can get away with edgy and/or counter culture programing is because they are not susceptible to boycotts or having sponsors knuckling under to pressure from special interest groups. They are funded very different from American Broadcasting companies.
The principal means of funding the BBC is through the television license, costing £145.50 per year per household (as of April 2010). Such a license is required to receive broadcast television within the UK, however no license is required to own a television used for other means, or for sound only radio sets (though a separate license for these was also required for non-TV households until 1971). The cost of a television license is set by the government and enforced by the criminal law. A discount is available for households with only black-and-white television sets. A 50% discount is also offered to registered blind.The revenue is collected privately and is paid into the central government Consolidated Fund, a process defined in the Communications Act 2003. This TV Licensing collection is currently carried out by Capita, an outside agency. Funds are then allocated by the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the Treasury and approved by Parliament via legislation. Additional revenues are paid by the Department for Work and Pensions to compensate for subsidized licenses for eligible over 75 year-olds.
Income from commercial enterprises and from overseas sales of its catalog of programmes has substantially increased over recent years,with BBC Worldwide contributing some £145 million to the BBC’s core public service business.
According to the BBC’s 2009–2010 Annual Report its income can be broken down, as follows:
[ul]
[li]£3,446.8 million in license fees collected from householders;[/li][li]£888.3 million from BBC Commercial Businesses;[/li][li]£293 million from government grants;[/li][li]£112.9 million from other income, such as providing content to overseas broadcasters and concert ticket sales[/li][/ul]What they are under pressure from however is the government, as you can see above they receive a large amount of government grants per year, which is why they are notoriously weak on reporting problems of a political or governmental nature. And why they can never be objective or impartial.
[u][b]Grimlock want Poohn-Tang!
[/b][/u]The boys over at Stan Winston Studios http://www.stanwinstonstudio.com/home.html must be shooting off emails to that woman who posted that personal ad. If anyone can deliver on her fantasy it is them!
[u][b]Banned Comics:
[/b][/u]Believe it or not Japan has been having problems with this as well, the last place you would think of it. The people who brought us Hentai and Tentacle Sex, are under assault by their own politicians. The Mayor of Tokyo has spoken out for a long time about trying to ban Manga that depict incest, Yaoi, under age sex and so forth, or at the very least making it unavailable for children under a certain age. He has come under a lot of fire for this and seems to be taking a different and more moderate tack now. See below-
http://www.japanprobe.com/2010/12/12/tokyo-tries-to-ban-harmful-anime-manga/
The bottom line always seems to come down to this: What is harmful? What is Obscene? How do you categorize it? Where do you put the threshold?
And shouldn’t this be up to the businesses that sell them? If there were no market for this they would not sell it, let them decide whether or not to stock their shelves with it, or where to place them. The others that should decide about this is of course the parents. These are decisions that should be made in home, not in the capitol. I always get nervous when the Government claims they know what is best for me… IYKWIM :groucho:
Dude, we recorded that segment before Square released a statement (as I said in the cast) or the issue had been resolved. Beware, this next cast was recorded over a week and change ago so the news there won’t be up to date either.
Also, taking the highroad and looking like the good guy to gamers by apologizing and trying to make it better doesn’t mean they weren’t pissed that both they were getting stripped and that GS caught them. What happened afterward was a very carefully crafted lawyer/PR response on both sides.
Square apologized on the Wednesday the 24th duder.
Yeah duder, as I said, and the news segment we did was done before that so we could make scheduling for the cast.
So, to change the subject . . ., I noticed you mentioned David Tennant in your cast again. I learned something recently . . . David Tennant plays Peter Vincent in the current iteration of Fright Night. I am interested to see how that turns out. You can verify this info on IMDB.
