Showing posts with label Dark Horse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dark Horse. Show all posts

This Week in Geekdom

It feels so good to be back on a regular publication schedule. Rolling out our new look for the site has been pretty awesome too. Thanks to you guys, the site has been growing pretty much week over week. Given all this goodness, we thought that the interface and overall design could do with an upgrade. Most of what you see now is the handiwork of Kay Luxe Design. We're very happy with Kay's work and hope that you enjoy the new site. We may or may not be having too much fun rolling perpetual nat-20s on our 'Got a Game' dice widget. 

And, for once in what seems like far too long, it's not snowing! <> Ok, ok. Enough dancing and more This Week in Geekdom!

Comics

That yawp of joy you may have heard earlier this week was likely from fans of the animated TV series Invader Zim as they learned that their favorite characters will get new life in the form of a new comic series. The series is being published by Oni Press and the first issue will be available in July of this year. Certain authors here at the Care and Feeding of Nerds are doing a happy dance of their own.

Fight Club is getting a sequel, but not on the big screen. The story will continue as a comic. The comic run will be published by Dark Horse and will be available beginning in May of this year.

Games

File this one under: Why would anyone do that? It's a paid app for your phone that plays an RPG by itself, with no input from actual players.

New streaming platform D!ingIt.tv is trying to give Twitch a run for its money so far as broadcasting eSports is concerned? What's D!ingIt? It's this.

On Wednesday a group of Civilization V fanatics deployed their mod that would allow the game to play itself (via 42 different civs).

The long and storied history of one of the first major PC sports titles: Football Manager.

Paradox wants more Goat Simulator, less Call of Duty.

Movies/TV

Cartoon Network has confirmed that it will be rebooting the animated series the Powerpuff Girls. The reboot is slated to launch sometime in 2016.

Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice is still over a year away, but we got another glimpse into the new DC movieverse this week with this promotional shot of Jason Mamoa as Aquaman.

Speaking of movies we won't be seeing for quite some time, 20th Century Fox has confirmed that it will be working with director Neil Blomkamp (Distrinct 9, Chappie) to develop a new sequel to Aliens. Bonus: this project is completely separate from Prometheus 2.

Science/Technology

Toyota seems to be taking emissions control for its cars very seriously. The automaker has apparently been reviewing research into catalytic converters that have the ability to control car-formed pollutants at the quantum level.

Snow has been the source of more than a few complaints on here during the past month. It turns out that accurately forecasting snowfall is one of the most difficult things meteorologists can do. Here's why.

Real Life Superhero

Our proverbial hats go off to the University of Toronto, whose researchers have set up and provided a 3D printer in order to make cheap, but effective, prosthetics for Ugandans in need.

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

We will be getting a new Dr. Seuss book on July 28th. The posthumous title comes to us via a manuscript recently discovered by the author's widow and his secretary.

Though fans of Hellboy won't be getting another movie featuring their favorite character anytime soon, they can console themselves with this Hellboy-inspired beer.

Did you miss Toy Fair 2015 last weekend? No worries, Topless Robot put together this helpful highlight reel of all the best new toys.

For reasons we're still not clear on, the Canadian army has decided to build a real-life version of the Assault Rifle from Halo.

If the real-life Assault Rife isn't available to you, you can get yourself one of these street-legal Master Chief motorcycle helmets.

Well that's certainly one way to make it so. Star Trek fan ThePlanetMike went and built this warp core table lamp. Check it out in action:
Crowdfundables For Your Consideration

On Friday, we got a chance to talk with Dominic of Medieval Lords Games about the innovative secret roles assassination game Hitman Holiday. The campaign for the game is still open if you're up for a bout of sunshine and death.

Another of the active campaigns associated with projects from our Developer Dialogues series is the Kickstarter for Amino. You have 13 more days to get in on the molecule-building fun.

As always, best wishes for an excellent week ahead!
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Upcoming Awesomeness in 2015!

Happy 2015! Wow, it seems like we were just marveling in the new shininess of 2014 (or 2013 for that matter) and somehow we're already in Back to the Future territory. I don't know about you guys, but I get a kick out of comparing the cinematic predictions of the late 80s-early 90s once the dates featured in the films actually roll around. And hey, we may actually get hoverboards!
While we wait for this potentially excellent way to commute, we can distract ourselves with other goodness that's a bit more likely to make an appearance this year. As in previous years, all of the forecasted awesome presented below is divided by media type. Projects and titles are included in this post only if they have at least a specified month for their release. There's none of this vague "sometime in late 2015 business." So if you look below and don't see a certain game or movie, it may be because that project doesn't have a release date yet.

Before we tackle individual titles, there'll be some (hopefully) fun new goodness right here on the Care and Feeding of Nerds in 2015.

New Site Stuff in 2015 (and some old, but still exciting stuff)!

First up, there will be at least 2 contests between now and March. We won't disclose the details of the contests just yet, but the prizes for these will be a copy of XCOM: the Board Game and Star Wars: Armada respectively. Stay tuned for these!

Speaking of board games, we're very pleased to announce that we've become the official media partner of the Game Makers Guild. This should translate into more reviews and more Developer Dialogues among other things. All the board games! (Important Note: you definitely don't have to be a member of the Guild to take advantage of our Playtesting Lab!)

We're in the very early stages of this, but we're in the process of building what we hope will become a video channel on YouTube. We're hoping to feature gameplay of various board games, tutorials on costume components and recipes, and, just maybe, some fantastically snarky video game play from the GIR and Elder Gias. This whole process is very new to the three of us, so we'll see how this goes.

The Care and Feeding of Nerds will have a presence at at least three different conventions in 2015: PAX East, Gen Con, and Boston FIG. At the very least, we'll be giving you live coverage from the floor of each of these. More details for each convention will be forthcoming!

There'll also be plenty of new reviews, recipes, tutorials and general musing. As always, feel free to give us a shout if there's something you'd like to see or if you have any other feedback about what we're doing.

Comics
Image Credit: DC Entertainment

2014 was chock full of gargantuan changes for a number of major comic franchises and, if all goes accordingly, we should continue to see plenty of new comic material as a result of these changes.

Thor #4 is slated to hit shelves on January 28 and promises some serious Thor versus Thor action!

Marvel took over the licenses for all Star Wars related titles today and their first act of publishing business is to release the remastered graphic novel versions of the screenplays for the original trilogy. A New Hope is already at your local comic shop and Empire will be available in March.

DC, still trying to play catch-up, is banking heavily on the success of the all-digital Batman prequel series, Batman: Arkham Knight. The comic will be available for purchase in February and a companion video game by Rocksteady Studios and Interactive Entertainment will go on sale on June 2.  

TV

Most regular series make their mid-season return in January after ceding their timeslots to various holiday specials. A handful of new shows are slated to premiere at the cusp of the new year as well. The release dates listed below are guaranteed only for U.S. audiences. Dates and times may vary based on your utility provider.

Agent Carter - Tuesday, January 6.
Archer - Thursday, January 8.
12 Monkeys - Friday, January 16.
The Musketeers - Saturday, January 17.
The Walking Dead - Sunday, February 8.
Better Call Saul - Sunday, February 8.
Vikings - Thursday, February 19.
Once Upon A Time - Sunday, March 1.
Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - Tuesday, March 3.
Outlander- Saturday, April 4.

Season 6 of the Venture Bros. can't be included in the above because it still has no definite release date but, if last year's teaser trailer is to be believed, we should be getting this as well sometime this year. <>

Movies

2015 will follow in the footsteps of the past few years and have its fair share of sequels, prequels, and reboots, but those will take on a slightly different format this year. We're slated to get quite a few very-long-haul sequels (set in real-time decades after their predecessor films), as well as installations of established franchises that aim to present alternate vantages and timelines. Also, STAR WARS!

January
Spare Parts - A motley crew of high school tinkerers form a robotics club and attempt to compete against engineering powerhouse MIT.
February
Jupiter Ascending - After months of intense editing, we'll finally get a glimpse of this sci-fi epic  wherein a destitute human woman comes to grips with her unimaginable destiny as would-be Queen of the Universe.
Seventh Son - Game of Thrones' Kit Harrington attempts to assume the mantle of Protector Against the Supernatural and, specifically, evil in the form of Julianne Moore.
What We Do In The Shadows  - A macabre comedy about roommates who also happen to be immortal, bloodthirsty vampires. 
March
Chappie - Chappie is the first instance of the Singularity. The film, starring Dev Patel, Hugh Jackman and Sigourney Weaver, details humanity's response to the first fully sentient AI.
Insurgent - In the sequel to Divergent, Tris Prior must navigate the political and military tensions set in motion on her initiation day that now threaten to rent human society asunder.
Home - Dreamworks presents this unconventional road trip featuring a human girl and a member of the overconfident alien race that has taken over the Earth.
April
Selfless - A man of extraordinary wealth lies dying and chooses to undergo a radical procedure that transfers his consciousness into the body of a young man. 
May
Avengers: Age of Ultron - Tony Stark attempts to bolster the ranks of those attempting to keep peace on the planet when his efforts go horribly awry.
Mad Max: Fury Road - The title says it all.
Tomorrowland - A precocious teenager and a former child prodigy inventor embark on a perilous journey to the titular locale.
June
B.O.O.: Bureau of Otherworldly Operations - Dreamworks' second entry on the year details the goings on at the paranormal agency dedicated to protecting humans from mischievous spirits.
Jurassic World - It has been 22 years since the events of Jurassic Park and the lush island is now a fully functional dinosaur-themed park. All seems well until someone gets the bright idea to start splicing dinosaur genes and creating new species. What could go wrong? 
July
Terminator Genisys - Following the events of the rest of the Terminator franchise, Kyle Reese finds himself in an alternate timeline. He teams up with Sarah Connor in an attempt to prevent Judgement Day.
Minions - Everyone's favorite yellow pill-shaped sidekicks are back and again working beside the would-be evil masters of the world.
Ant-Man - Dr. Hank Pym is brought into the Marvel cinematic fold (without his wife).
Pixels - 80s era video game characters have come to life and are now rampaging in New York City. A handful of classic arcade game champions may be humanity's only hope.
August
The Fantastic Four - Their comic may be getting shut down, but that doesn't mean The Fantastic Four won't get their cinematic reboot.
Hitman: Agent 47 - Based on the Hitman game franchise, a professional assassin joins forces with a woman seeking to shed light on the mysteries of her family's past.
September
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials - The heroes of  last year's the Maze Runner believed that their strife was at an end. Little did they know it was only the beginning.
October
Victor Frankenstein - A recounting of the life of the infamous doctor from the perspective of Igor.
The Last Witch Hunter - Vin Diesel is the titular hunter of occult forces on the loose in the city of New York.
Gem and the Holograms - It's a veritable 80s bonanza as former Brat Packers take up the live-action mantle of the classic cartoon.
November
Peanuts - Charlie Brown, Snoopy and the gang make their big screen debut.
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 2 - The final installment of the Hunger Games quadrilogy will pit Katniss and her erstwhile allies in District 13 in the ultimate battle against President Snow and the status quo.
The Martian - The cinematic version of the excellent book will give us the account of Mark Watney, an astronaut stranded on Mars.
Midnight Special - A father journeys with his son upon learning that the child has unique powers.
December
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens - Trying to temper expectations since we're still the better part of a year away. But...NEW STAR WARS!!!

Board Games/RPGs

Most board games publish with quarterly guidance (i.e. 'sometime in 1Q15'), and releases usually coincide with the major board game conventions. However, we are slated to get a not-insignificant number of games that we first laid our eyes on during Gen Con 2014 in the next few months. Also, quite a few games do have finite release dates. A comprehensive list of the latter can be found here. 

PC/Video Games

Game Informer has put together this excellent listing of those video games with confirmed release dates that we'll be seeing in 2015.

Looks like we're in for all sorts of awesome! Here's to a happy and healthy 2015!

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This Week in Geekdom

Hi everyone! The countdown to Gen Con now stands in the single digits. Single digits! That fact alone is making me do a little anticipatory dance in my chair as I type this. Alternatively, remembering that the Best Four Days in Gaming begins just over one week from now invariably results in this feeling:


If all goes according to plan, next week should feature at least the tutorial for how to make the Dr. Mrs. the Monarch costume, but there's a decent chance that there will be bonus entries on top of that. Fingers crossed that all the last minute preparations go reasonably well! In the meantime, let's get down to the Week in Geekdom!

Comics

Marvel is trucking along with their campaign of inclusion with the latest edition of Hawkeye which features the titular hero struggling with hearing loss and learning American Sign Language.

The end of this year will also be the end of custody of the Star Wars licenses for long-time publisher Dark Horse. Marvel is already hard at work planning the release of its Star Wars related titles, including this forthcoming Vader-centric release. 


Do you love Batman? Do you also happen to have a couple hundred thousand USD lying around? If you answered yes to both of those, feel free to participate in this auction of original file copies of the origins of the Dark Knight owned by Batman creator Bob Kane.

The Walking Dead is one of the most popular graphic novels on the market right now, but did the series have a medieval predecessor? The British Library believes it has found the forerunner of Kirkman's blockbuster property.

Hot off the success of last weekend, San Diego Comic Con has declared that there shall be no others to bear that suffix. The mega-convention has served its Rocky Mountain Rival, Salt Lake City Comic Con, with this cease and desist letter.

On a final comic-based note, Happy 40th birthday to Wolverine!

Books

The most recent edition of the Journal of Applied Social Psychology contains this study detailing that participants in said experiment who read the Harry Potter series exhibited reduced levels of hostility and prejudice against historically marginalized groups when compared to their peers who had not read the books. In short, reading Harry Potter apparently makes you a better person.

Movies/TV

This is Tom Hiddleston's email to Joss Whedon immediately after the former read the script for the Avengers for the first time.

There has been a fair amount of buzz surrounding the still-in-production Ant-Man movie. The latest rumor: that Ant-Man's wife, Janet (a.k.a. the Wasp) will not be included in the new Marvel cinematic canon.

While we're on a Marvel movies kick, this is a the Lego-ized version of the trailer for Guardians of the Galaxy.

Games

All 30 playable characters in Mario Kart 8, reviewed.

Industry insiders concede that PC games are 'decimating' their console competition. PC gamers are too engrossed to feign surprise.

Science/Technology

The concept of manufacturing a microwave-based drive for spacecraft has long been dismissed by NASA as an impossibility. On Friday, they recanted that stance and confirmed exactly what a microwave drive can potentially do.

What a microwave drive could look like
On Thursday, NASA provided a detailed list of exactly what will be headed up to Mars on the forthcoming Mars 2020 mission. This list gives us public viewers a reasonably good idea of what the priorities are for this next sojourn to the Red Planet.

Tuesday was the 99th birthday of Charles Townes, inventor of the laser. This is what the University of California at Berkeley and the town of Greenville, South Carolina did to honor their Nobel laureate progeny.

Chemical engineers at the University of Tsinghua may have a new offering in the push for renewable energy sources with their lithium-sulfur powered batteries.

Quantum Cheshire cats. Yes, they are real and here they are explained.

From Nature Communications
General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

Some parents build treehouses for their children; other parents build fully interactive space modules in their kids' bedrooms.

Forget tents. Check out these portable shelters inspired by origami.

This intrepid graphic designer has re-imagined the logos of all 30 Major League Baseball teams as Star Wars insignia.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!
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This Week in Geekdom



A little bit of fun news before we kick off This Week in Geekdom: The Care and Feeding of Nerds family got a little bit bigger today with the addition of Serenity. The GIR and I have been considering pet ownership for the past few years and earlier today Serenity selected us as her new owners. We look forward to many cat-assisted rolls in future gaming sessions.

Our new Calico-class cat-ship
Science/Technology

Interstellar space travel just got a little bit closer to reality thanks to a 19-year-old Egyptian physics student. The student, Aisha Mustafa, has patented this quantum propulsion system. 

Microsoft has confirmed that they will be publicly discussing the next generation operating system, currently known only by its codename 'Threshold', during its 2014 BUILD conference in April. 

 Ok, it's 2014 and we don't yet have a hoverboard. But, we're reasonably close with this. 

Mmmm...delicious batteries
Cheap renewable energy. At present, the best you can feasibly get is a combination of two of those three things. This team of Harvard researchers aims to change that with their quionone-powered organic battery.

A lot of interesting, eyebrow-raising things came out of this year's CES. We had Michael Bay having a full-on meltdown, we had insanely gorgeous gaming rigs, and we had renewed claims that the death of the PC is at hand. Do you agree?

Comics

Sometimes playing around with narratives to create alternate timelines is a fun, interesting way to expand a franchise. For Dark Horse, there are definite limits to this sort of recombination when you're working with something as weighty as Star Wars. Read here for a description of the graphic novels that almost were, featuring a Sith Leia and Luke ruling the galaxy together.

Movies

This past week was chock-full of news (or as close as we can get to news during this early developmental stage) concerning the upcoming Star Wars films. Leland Chee, the so-called Keeper of the Holocron for all things LucasFilm, confirmed that a 'story group' had been formed to determine once and for all what pieces of the Star Wars universe will be canon, and which will be shunted out the proverbial airlock.

Speaking of Star Wars movies, it is official: there will be an all Boba Fett spinoff movie. 

Is the upcoming Superman vs. Batman movie going to wreak even more havoc with comic canon? Actually, it seems like the response on that is probably not.

TV (Special all Dr. Who Edition)

As Whovians prepare to move on to the 12th incarnation of the Doctor, Den of Geek drew up this list of questions that have gone unanswered during the reign of Matt Smith.

A double-dose of fun for Whovians this week. Here are all 50 years of space-time travel in one handy, interactive infographic. 

And last, but not least, here are the first production stills and notes from the set of Dr. Who and our first glimpse of Peter Capaldi in the title role.

Games

Were you one of those burned by the recent rash of technical bruhaha maligning the game CONSORTIUM? Well, Inspirational Games and Steam would like to apologize for that with this, one of the most sincere mea culpas to have graced the internet to date.

General Awesomeness

Earlier this month, seven-year-old Sophie wrote to the researchers at the CSIRO asking why they had not been able to produce any dragons with their efforts. Initially, the scientists sent their apologies at this grievous oversight. On Friday the CSIRO sent her this.

Oh infographics, how we love you. Click here to see such an illustration that captures all zombies across all canons. Want a copy of your own? Visit the artist's Kickstarter page.

Fans have waited over two decades to see this, but the first official Simpsons Lego playset will soon be available for sale.

As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!
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This Week in Geekdom



And 2014 is off and running! It's been a very snowy start to the year, but these Hoth-like conditions have provided ample opportunity to catch up on quite a bit (not least of which being a return to a regular posting schedule). It's not quite a resolution, but I'm determined to not let all the purchases of the recent Steam Winter Sale sit uninstalled and idle in my library and being snowed in is a perfect excuse to game with impunity. Next week will kick off the cosplay posts for 2014 but, for now, This Week in Geekdom!


Happy New Year from Mars! (courtesy of Curiosity)
Comics

To say Wolverine is well-known in the world of comics would be just a bit of an understatement. But, was the concept for this infamous member of the X-Men stolen and the creator left unaccredited for the past 4 decades? Bleeding Cool sought to find out.

2014 is shaping up to be a pretty big year for the Merc with a Mouth. On Thursday Marvel released these teaser images from what appears to be Deadpool's upcoming wedding. Whether this legitimately part of the overarching Deadpool story arc or an elaborate prank on readers (given the character and the non-specific April release date) remains to be seen, but we'll learn the truth soon enough.

It was only a matter of time. The proclamation came down on Friday afternoon from Disney/LucasFilm that the license for Star Wars comics was being withdrawn from long-time publisher Dark Horse and given to the 'in house' producer of graphic novels: Marvel. Marvel will start releasing Star Wars comics beginning in 2015 to coincide with the release of Episode VII.

Science/Technology

Antarctica has gotten quite a bit of press recently, but the frozen continent has yielded up more than ship-entrapping ice in the past week. Technicians associated with the New Zealand Antarctic Heritage Trust have processed and carefully restored an unearthed (or un-iced) set of 100-year-old negatives. Click here to glimpse some of the results.

Speaking of the frozen bookends of Earth, let's transition over to the opposing hemisphere for a moment. The newest edition of the journal Nature describes the work of researchers in Greenland who discovered a colossal aquifer 'lake' within the world's second largest ice sheet. 

The parliament of the United Kingdom is close to enacting legislation that may change the makeup of human DNA forever. The bill in question would essentially allow for a new type of in-vitro fertilization (IVF) that utilizes genetic material from three parents. Read here to see how such a process is even possible.

As mentioned last week, 2013 was a pretty significant year for many scientific fields. Archeology was no exception to this trend and the BBC has compiled this synopsis of the year in excavations.

While it's widely known that, 14 billion years after the Big Bang, the universe is still expanding. However, the fact that this expansion is taking place at an increasing rate has long been a source of consternation to physicists. Researcher Craig Hogan may have solved at least part of this mystery. Read here for his conclusions, which may delineate where quantum physics ends and cosmic physics begins. 

It may not look like any gecko that traipses this planet, but the European Space Agency has adopted the nomenclature for Abigaille, their new horizontal-to-vertical 'gecko-bot'.

Ford made waves in the auto-making world this week with their announcement that they will be engineering and releasing a hybrid concept car that will be at least partially powered by photovoltaic cells. Additional details on this would-be solar car will be released in the next few days during the International CES.

Pancreatic cancer is incredibly challenging both to effectively detect and to treat. However, these difficulties may soon be a thing of the past. The latest edition of the journal PNAS details the potentially groundbreaking findings of scientists at the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute.  

General Awesomeness/Feats of Nerdery

It took DeviantArt user Unrellius 14 months to create this poster-style depiction of every character to ever appear on Futurama. Bonus: the image is 100% free to print!

When it comes time to tender your resignation you could compose  a letter or go outside standard protocol. Avid Trekkie David Waddell chose the latter, announcing his departure from the local legislature of a North Carolina town with an announcement in Klingon. 

Artist Luke Jerram's latest collection is a unique blend of stunning visuals and harrowing pathology. Jerram re-created some of the deadliest and most virulent microorganisms in delicately hand-blown glass. The results are more than a bit surreal.  

The snow on the ground right now is too light and fluffy to make snowmen, but nerds in other cold weather locales are not so afflicted. Check out these 30 snowmen based on characters and scenes from Calvin & Hobbes.

I leave you all with this smile-inducing image of Sirs Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart celebrating the new year together. As always, best wishes for an awesome week ahead!


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