Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

Contents of Episode 175, brought to you by Heroes Landing, the Orlando Ghostbusters, and the Ghostbusters: Infestation party, Saturday, March 12th from 3-7pm: (CORRECTION: During the podcast I erroneously announced the DAY of the event as Wednesday, rather than Saturday. Apologies!)

• Thoughts on the iPad 2: does having a camera (two cameras, actually) make all the difference?
• Philip K. Dick stories in film: from “The Adjustment Bureau” to “Total Recall“, we look at how these stories have fared when brought to the big screen and ask, “Which is your favorite?”
• DC Comics‘ upcoming “War of the Green Lanterns”, and our odds-on favorite to be the Green Lantern of Earth who doesn’t survive this latest cosmic saga from writer Geoff Johns.

And here’s the video recording of the episode (w/ raw audio). Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

NOTE: The original first segment in this hour of PTG went unrecorded on Saturday due to “operator error” (translation: I forgot to hit “record.”) and thus had to rerecorded Sunday morning. Apologies for the difference in sound quality between that portion of the episode and the rest. It stands as a testament to why I continue to produce this program at SomaCow rather than on my own.

PTG Episode 106 is brought to you by the Orange County Regional History Center. I spent a good part of last Saturday morning at the “Cosmic Comic Connection” put on by the folks at the History Center, and it was a lot of fun. I could only stay until just after noon, and the event ran until 4PM, so I hope the rest of the afternoon went well for them, and I hope some of you PTG fans local to Orlando got out there to enjoy the festivities. We’ve posted our pictures from the event over at our Facebook Fan Page, so check them out! One last round of thanks to Paul Wenglowsky, Curator of Education for the History Center and the organizer of event, and to Jennifer Cipolla, Marketing Manager for the History Center, for their time and generosity over the past week. We look forward to helping promote the next big event coming up for the History Center, “Galactic Encounter Day”, coming up in May.

Lots of good stuff in this hour: first and foremost, CONGRATULATIONS to Betty Walker, the winner of the $10 gift certificate to Heroes Landing as part of our Facebook Fan Page promotion that ran the past two weeks! We drew Betty’s name from the pool of fans #92-106 during this hour, and we hope she enjoys her prize. Keep downloading and listening to PTG as we hope to have other drawings and giveaways in the near future–this one was definitely a success for us, as the number of fans continued to grow even once we’d hit our goal of 106 fans before the April 10th show. If you’re not a fan yet, head over to our page and become one now!

Also in this hour, we cover the comic book retail industry’s braced reaction to Apple’s release of the iPad, which at last brings to gadget geeks and tech aficionados a way to download and read digital comics in a way that approximates reading a print comic book, i.e., full pages of illustration and text all displayed vertically and all at once. Many in the industry fear that it’s the beginning of the end for the specialty comic book store, but some, like Comixology CEO David Sternberger and Coliseum of Comics owner Phil Boyle, believe quite the opposite. We focus on the positives in this episode, the possibilities for comic book retailers to increase traffic thanks to the iPad and iPad apps, provided that comic book publishers do their part to create incentive for digital readers to WANT to head over to their local store once they finish reading a book they just downloaded. How do they do that, you ask? Well, that’s the big question, isn’t it?

We wrap up this episode by discussing the version of “Clash of the Titans” fans may never see, as described in an article by Chud.com’s Devin Faraci. Plus, the “Smallville Smackdown” returns as we review last Friday’s new episode “Checkmate.” Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 89 is brought to you by Super Bowl XLIV. Oh, how I wish that were really true and that the NFL had paid to sponsor this particular episode. I don’t think I’d have to work for at least a year with the kind of money the league probably is willing to pay to advertise anywhere. Anyway, it is Super Bowl Sunday, and shortly after posting this episode I’ll be off to partake in that most American of traditions, the Super Bowl party, where folks gather in one another’s homes, consume mass quantities of food and drink, and plop down in front of (hopefully) a big-screen TV either to actually watch the game or watch all the pre-game and halftime performances and the commercials. This year’s batch of commercials should be chock-full of good movie trailers for films coming this summer, and you can bet PTG will be keeping score on which were the best and the worst of the movie trailers and the commercials in general. Don’t forget: next week we welcome back “The Man” from Slacker and the Man, and no doubt he’ll have opinions to share on the Super Bowl commercials, as well. Should be a great way to kick off (pardon the pun) next week’s show, so don’t miss it.

For now, in this episode we cover Apple’s big announcement about the upcoming iPad and how people in the comic book industry (well, some people, at any rate) believe it might just be a game-changer. Plus, thoughts on how FOX’s new action/thriller series Human Target stacks up against one of their most popular and enduring entries in the genre, 24, and reviews of two Marvel books from last week, New Avengers #61 and Thor #606. Enjoy!

If you’ve already got the home video covered for the would-be Griffyndor or Slytherin on your Christmas list, then perhaps you might want to check out some of the REALLY cool stuff they have over at Entertainment Earth for Harry Potter fans. Click on the images below for more details–my favorites have to be the wall scrolls with the House heraldry on them-too bad they won’t be available until January, but you can still pre-order one!

• Harry Potter Half-Blood Prince Action Figures Series 1
• Harry Potter Gryffindor Crest Wall Scroll
• Harry Potter Slytherin Necktie
• Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire Lunch Box

Cyber Monday may be gone for 2009, but it’s still a great time for shopping at Entertainment Earth. Their Gift Rush Sale is on now, with almost 500 items marked down for holiday shopping, so be sure and check them out. Remember, using the links in this post or on this site to make your purchases supports PTG, so use ‘em!

Prime Time Geek Episode 25 is brought to you by Bad Apple Comics. Vote for Bad Apple Comics as “Best Comic Store” in this year’s Orlando Weekly “Best Of Orlando 2009″ poll by clicking HERE. They’ll be your best friend, and so will PTG. (Okay, so maybe not your BEST friend, but we’ll both like you a whole lot.)

Lots of time in this episode is spent talking comics – special guest co-host Matthew Ruele spent some time before (and during) the show getting caught up on Marvel’s meltdown of the Ultimates universe, Ultimatum, which could carry the alternate title of “So You Think That’s a Gruesome Death?” Later in the episode, Bad Apple Comics General Manager Shawn Schinault calls in to talk further about Ultimatum, as well as the amazingly well done Old Man Logan story in Wolverine, the aftermath of Batman: Battle for the Cowl, and the new Batman and Robin #1. Shawn gives some interesting insights on the reasoning behind Ultimatum’s brutality, Old Man Logan’s brilliance, Batman: BFTC’s blunders, and Batman and Robin’s bright future. If you’re over at the Bad Apple store on OBT and you need a recommendation on something great to read, you could a lot worse than to ask Shawn to recommend something for you. The man simply KNOWS what’s good in a comic book.

Truthfully, as Matthew pointed out, it is quite sad that so many of Marvel’s heroes in this world have fallen, if for no other reason that these often-brilliant new takes on classic characters were once celebrated as much-needed revitalizing energy for a company that needed a shot in the arm. As Ultimatum rumbles to its final, body-count raising conclusion next month, I can’t escape the growing perception that writer Jeph Loeb’s blood-soaked opus is growing into an exercise in seediness, something akin to Hostel-like torture porn, where we as readers get to see characters we’ve come to care about sacrificed on the altar of crossover-event sensationalism. It’s simply not possible for issue #5 to not kill half the remaining cast, because to do anything less would be a letdown in comparison to what’s come before. We’ve come this far, Jeph–why not simply blow up the entire Ultimates Earth and be done with it?

Episode 24 is, as you can tell from the title, all about the Electronic Entertainment Expo, or “E3″ as it affectionately known. There was simply so much information coming out of this event all week long that I felt I needed not one, but two people to help me break it all down and distill the highlights. For that help I turned to Gary and also to my good friend Matt Ruele, who was kind enough to sit in, provide his insights on the news, and laugh heartily at my attempts at humor. A great deal of the information we talked about, including the many game trailers and demos we discussed for games such as Sony’s God of War III (pictured above), Nintendo’s New Super Mario Brothers Wii, Super Mario Galaxy (pictured above), Microsoft’s Project Natal, Konami’s Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed II, Batman: Arkham Asylum, and The Beatles Rock Band can be found over at the G4 website, http://xplay.com, where every press conference, every announcement, and just about every demo that took place over the breadth of the show is covered in tremendous detail. Check it all out, and you’ll see why we were all so excited about this, E3’s return to form as far as gaming announcements are concerned.

OH, and about that Geek Bet …

So there’s this thing going on that’s kind of a big deal for sports fans called the NBA Finals. Most folks around here, my compatriots at the SomaCow Media Network most especially, have taken slight umbrage at the fact that I’m not, in spite of my current Orlando residential status, pulling for the Orlando Magic in said Finals, but rather cheering mightily for the Los Angeles Lakers of the Western Conference to bring home Championship #15 in their storied history. The story behind my Laker fandom is a simple one: my mom raised me a Lakers fan. This state of affairs inspired ol’ ELROSS of SomaCow to challenge PTG to a friendly little Geek Bet. The terms of this Gentleman’s Wager are thus: Should the Lakers prevail, ELROSS and SomaCow will hand over this delightful item:

Should the Magic take home the goods, however, then I must confer over to ELROSS this Entertainment Earth exclusive item, which ELROSS will seek to fetishize throughout subsequent episodes of SomaCow:

Naturally, a Lakers win would allow me to keep the Ming figure, which is simply too awesome for words.

Hour 2 of Prime Time Geek Episode 23 is brought to you by the Podgnosticast blog, whose creator, J.C. Martinez, would be oh so grateful if you would pop on over and peruse the articles he’s been posting of late. If you’re so inclined after reading, post a comment-it WILL make his day.

J.C.’s feature story on comic books making the transition to a digital form, as the rest of the print publishing industry seems to be doing in order to avoid extinction, is the centerpiece of Hour 2. It’s a subject that’s been touched upon on this program in other interviews with comics luminaries: Dan Didio of DC Comics addressed delivering comics digitally when we spoke to him at MegaCon, and Peter David mentioned comics on the Internet during our chat with him a few weeks back, citing it as what will turn out to be the real determinant in who dominates the industry once print publication breathes its last. As J.C. discovered in his research, it’s going to be a very difficult and awkward transition, and it will be resisted at every turn by true devotees of the art form. Sure, more casual readers who are technophiles and read everything else via gadget or computer may embrace digital comics more readily, but die-hards (like me) will cling to the medium of printed comics and point out the inadequacies of current technology to truly capture the reading experience of reading a comic book. The conversion MAY be inevitable–I think you’d find few who would argue that–but until technology can tackle some of the problems that J.C.’s report discusses, it may not come very soon, and it may never be wholly complete, meaning printed comic books may never fully die out. (Many thanks to Mark Friedman and Josh Bayer of Cosmic Comics in NYC for talking to us for this report!)

[UPDATE: The artwork above has been corrected, as has the text below, but to make sure there's no confusion on the part of listeners, the name of Mtn Dew's new product is Mtn Dew GAME Fuel, not Gamer Fuel, as I erroneously refer to it during the broadcast. Sorry about that.]

Speaking of awkward transitions, in retrospect it seems almost absurd to follow up J.C.’s very serious piece with an ‘Eat More Geek’ segment, and I hope the Podgnosticastor isn’t miffed at all to have his piece immediately precede a taste test of Mtn Dew’s two flavors of ‘Game Fuel’, “Alliance Blue” and “Horde Red.” Pick them up wherever you can find them and try them for yourself, especially if you’re a Mtn Dew devotee. My preference between the flavors was made pretty clear during the broadcast, but keep in mind that I’m not a big artificial-cherry flavor guy, so anything that aspires to taste like cherry through chemical means is almost always bound to rub my palate the wrong way. If you do get a chance to try them and you’d like to share your opinion, please do leave a comment!

Imzadi, by Peter David

On Thursday, May 21st, renowned comics writer/novelist/screenwriter Peter David (The Incredible Hulk, Supergirl, Fallen Angel) appeared at Coliseum of Comics at the Fashion Square Mall to meet with fans and sign autographs, ahead of his scheduled appearance the following weekend at the Orlando Area Science Fiction Society’s OASIS 22 Convention. The Eisner-award winner and bestselling author of numerous novels set in the Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Alien Nation science fiction settings as well as in his own original settings (Sir Apropos of Nothing, Tigerheart) took a few minutes to talk to us at the start of the signing, and in those few minutes he lived up to his reputation of being as outspoken in his views as he is prolific as a writer. During the interview he shared his thoughts on advising aspiring writers, the current plight of the publishing industry in North America, and what he would do to fix the business model currently in use by the comics industry. He also talks about the fan fiction project currently exploding on his personal website, peterdavid.net, a farcical sequel to Twilight entitled “Potato Moon.”

Thanks to Aaron Holland over at Coliseum of Comics for allowing PTG to monopolize Mr. David’s attention for the interview, and to Mr. David himself for granting the interview as well as signing my first edition hardcover copy of the Star Trek: The Next Generation novel Imzadi that will never see the light of eBay or half.com as long as I live.

Hour 2 of Prime Time Geek Episode 21 is brought to you by one of Bill Paxton’s most memorable cinematic turns, playing “Chet” in Weird Science. Yeah, maybe Pvt. Hudson in Aliens (”Game over, man!”) or Simon in True Lies are more readily remembered because those were bigger films (and both James Cameron films), but for those of us who grew up watching ‘Brat Pack’ movies, it was THIS role that forever cemented Paxton as an actor who could play a truly ’serious idiot.’ Semi- interesting bit of trivia: Paxton has the unique distinction of being the only actor to have been ‘killed’ by an Alien (in Aliens), a Predator (in Predator 2), and a Terminator (in the original Terminator film).

You may be wondering what the heck Kenny Rogers is doing in this hour’s episode image, scrunched there in between Bullseye having an identity crisis on the left and a can of Jolt Wild Grape (which tastes GREAT, just so you know–just imagine carbonated Dimetapp, and I mean that as a compliment, no joke!) on the right. The “Rock Band” logo below his face is a clue, but only tells half the story. You see, in addition to this hour’s Marvel Comics Spotlight focusing on Dark Reign: Hawkeye #2 and our second Eat More Geek segment, this one focused on the joy that is Jolt’s selection of caffeine-crazy beverages, there’s also a ‘Felix is Fuming’ segment that talks in part about the recent release of the Kenny Rogers classic “The Gambler” as DLC for Rock Band 2.

Let me be clear, in case it isn’t clear in the episode: I have nothing against Kenny Rogers or the millions of people out there who love his music. He’s a living legend whose appeal and influence transcends the boundaries of country music and will continue to do so for a long time to come. In that sense, perhaps it’s no surprise that one of his songs would make it to the world of music video games. My point is simply that I don’t see the great majority of active Rock Band addicts and would-be virtuosos out there chomping at the bit for the opportunity to download and play “The Gambler”. Maybe it’s me, but I can’t see teens and twenty-somethings sitting around on a Saturday night, scrolling through the song selections, deciding who’s going to play drums and sing, and saying, “Hey, let’s do some Kenny!” Maybe I’m limited that way, but hey, we all have our limits.