Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 98 is brought to you by MegaCon. We’re now less than a week away from the big show here in Orlando, and PTG will be there all three days this weekend to get as much coverage of the show as we can before our next broadcast, which will be Sunday, March 14th, from 6-8PM. The Man from Slacker and the Man will be in studio with me to help break down the weekend’s events, including the Wolf Pack Elite’s MegaCon Attendees After-Party, from which there are sure to be some good stories! It’s been a while since we’ve done a Sunday show, so for those folks who are regulars to our Saturday night live broadcasts, be sure to remember the change!

In this episode, in addition to our usual headlines and top comic picks segments, Mad Mario, our Highlord of Gaming, calls in to bring us up to speed on the games he’s been binging on lately. He reviews Mass Effect 2 for XBox 360 and Heavy Rain, Dante’s Inferno, and God of War: Collection for PS3. His reviews incorporate a new rating system for games that we hope to include in his future visits, the 1-5 “Pants Tightness” scale. What more could you ask for in terms of a quality scale? Yes, I thought so. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 66 is brought to you by the art and craft of creative writing. Once upon a time, in really what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a writer, or at least I aspired to be one. I went to school to learn how to write well, successfully obtained degrees in Creative Writing, and have even taught others what I learned in terms of the craft of Creative Writing. But I longer consider myself a “writer” for the simple fact that writers WRITE. They can’t help themselves but to write. They feel compelled at some point, at some moment during each and every day to put their thoughts, imaginings, ravings, and wild flights of fancy to print (or, in our technological day and age, to pixel). There’s a hunger, a need, to produce the written word that consumes writers and drives them to spend a great deal of time alone, away from the distractions of the outside world, hunched over a computer screen that slowly causing them to go blind, hashing away at stories, poems, essays, or if they are truly ambitious, novels. Alas, never once in my scholarly pursuit of writing did I feel this compulsion my mentors and friends often described–to be honest, I chose writing as my scholarly track because people said I was good at it, and it came rather naturally to me. I wrote for the approval of my peers, my teachers, and my mentors. When I finished the final drafts of stories, there was very little sense of accomplishment or joy, but rather a profound sense of relief that an assignment was out of the way and I could focus on something else. I’ve often thought that perhaps later in life, when I’ve lived and experienced more, and had something of value to say about it all that I might feel that compulsion, and that I might return to writing and do it for the RIGHT reasons. But until then, if indeed that time ever comes, I can only stand up, cheer for, and admire those lionhearted souls who, regardless of skill or talent, face the emotional abyss that is the blank page at the start of every single writing day and conquer it by filling it with words, words, words. They are truly heroic in their own way–in my mind, they’re as heroic as the characters they write about, if they are so inclined to write in genres featuring heroes and villains. Their praises can never be sung enough, especially if they toil in anonymity because their work has yet to see the light of mass print.

Why am I talking about this? Well, because during Episode 66 we spent quite a bit of time talking about National Novel Writing Month, or “NaNoWriMo”, as it is now known all over the world. NaNoWriMo is the ultimate challenge for writers of all levels of skill, no matter where in their careers they might be: Produce 50,000 words within the month of November, roughly 1,600 words per day. Those words can be the sum total of a complete novel, or the first 50,000 words of a longer piece. Spend the entire year planning, plotting, strategizing how your novel will fall into place if you wish, but put no words to paper or screen until 12:01AM November 1st. It requires the utmost discipline to keep a steady pace, for not only must you produce, but you must turn off your “inner editor”, the voice in your head that causes you to backspace and rewrite the same sentence half a dozen times until you’re happy with the utterance, only to repeat the same procedure with the next sentence. Time management is just as important as inspiration when it comes to NaNoWriMo, and it’s a constraint that cause many who undertake the challenge to not reach the finish line when the end of the month rolls around. Having known several people who have successfully risen to the task of NaNoWriMo, I know its rigors, its headaches, its tremendous potential for that sense of achievement that comes from knowing you’ve succeeded where so many others have failed, and I always tip my cap to those who go for it year after year. The competition itself continues to grow year after year, and is in itself an amazing story. To learn more about it, head over to nanowrimo.org, and to those of you who are already underway with this year’s competition, best of luck!

In addition to all the NaNoWriMo talk, in this, our LONGEST hour ever (no joke-1 hour 12 mins … yes, I know an hour can only ever be 60 mins. You know what I mean, smartass.), we bring you Flash reviews of last week’s Heroes and FlashForward episodes, as well as a Top Comic Picks segment focused on DC Entertainment’s “Big Three”, Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman, who were all featured in new books last week. Hope you enjoy, and while you’re listening, don’t forget to head over to the Orlando Sentinel’s Orbbies competition page and get in your daily vote for PTG! We need every vote we can get to win this thing!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com

PTG Episode 61 is brought to you by role-playing games. Amazingly, considering the many hours we here at PTG have spent in our lives throwing dice and imagining ourselves as warriors or mages in fantasy settings, adding up THAC0 or to-hit numbers in order to slay monsters or foil the plans of fiendish villains, we’ve spent VERY little time actually talking about table-top role-playing games. Video games? Check. Live-Action Role-Playing Games? Yup (and we’ve mocked them more than we should). Collectible Card Games? Absolutely. But Dungeons & Dragons didn’t come up in any meaningful context on this show until last week, when we were talking Jones Soda’s D&D-themed selection. Craziness.

In order to correct this nigh-unforgivable oversight, in this episode, Episode 61, we start the hour by talking about a classic RPG that’s recently gotten an update thanks to Redbrick Limited Publishing: Earthdawn. Just to add to the glowing praise I personally heap on this game during the show, I have to say that this game, if you haven’t already tried it, is definitely worth your time to explore. The time is especially right because of the wonderful job Redbrick has done with its 3rd Edition of the game, both in terms of the elegant presentation of the main game books and supplements and the choices they’ve made to somewhat streamline the sometimes-complicated game mechanics. Fans of previous editions of Earthdawn, fear not–all the really important elements of the game are present and intact. Just a few changes here and there, some talents and disciplines reworked, but more or less, this is the game and the setting that we’ve come to love. Check it out by ordering a copy of the Player’s Guide or the Gamemaster’s Guide through Amazon–remember, any purchases you make through these links help to support Prime Time Geek, so thank you in advance!

In addition to geeking out over Earthdawn, in this episode we spotlight the latest Blackest Night titles from DC Entertainment, including Green Lantern Corps #41 and Blackest Night Batman #3, the concluding issue in that series. We wrap the episode with the Smallville Smackdown, covering last week’s new episode, “Echo”, which features more Justin Hartley brooding and boozing, Clark having his own What Women Want experience, and the return of Winslow Schott, a.k.a. The Toyman. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 57 is brought to you by Heroes Landing in Clermont, FL. Their grand opening on Saturday was, by all accounts, a HUGE success, and we at PTG are very happy that we could be a part of the festivities. We could not have asked for more gracious and accommodating hosts than Todd and Stu, who made sure we had everything we needed throughout the afternoon and kept the store open just a bit longer so that we could finish the second hour of our broadcast at about 7:15PM. Check out the pictures below to see more from the day’s events–thanks to Rob Trotman from the 501st Legion (you’ll see him in the photos wearing the Imperial Guard uniform) for providing links to the pictures they took throughout the day, and for their help with a rather troublesome microphone stand that we were trying to get to behave during our setup process!

In this episode we talk to Stu from Heroes Landing about his long friendship with his business partner, Todd Merrick, and how they came to decide they were going to follow their dreams and do something related to something they both loved: comic books. We also review Superman/Batman: Public Enemies, the latest episode of Smallville, entitled “Metallo”, and spotlight the two latest Blackest Night titles, Green Lantern #46 and Blackest Night Titans #2. It’s a pretty darned good episode, I think–hope you think so, too. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com

PTG Episode 51 is brought to you by She-Ra – Princess of Power. Without anything even close to a decent Wonder Woman animated series on television in the 1980s, this spin-off of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was THE “girl power” show of its time, the one show where most of the heroes were women, they took care of business (and the villains) without needing to be bailed out by men, and the one significant heroic character that was a guy, Bow, was … well, he was kind of a wimp. Trivia I just discovered while retrieving this link from Amazon.com–J. Michael Stracynzski actually wrote NINE episodes of the She-Ra series, as well as fifteen episodes of the He-Man series. Turns out I’ve been a fan of JMS a LOT longer than I realized!

In this episode we talk about She-Ra and other girl-targeted animated series of the 1980s in the course of tracing the rise of the “fangirl”, a development in western civilization that I thank my lucky stars for every single day, and the growing influence of fandom’s changing demographic on Hollywood and media at large. Inspiration for the discussion came in part from an ongoing series of articles published by Newsarama by writer Vaneta Rogers, and we look forward to seeing more articles in the series in the future. We also cover top comic pick from the “Big Two” from last week, and EricathePimp reviews two novels from Lois McMaster Bujold, Ethan of Athos and Cetaganda, two books from her Vorkosigan series. Enjoy this, THEN be sure to join us tomorrow night, Saturday, Sept. 12th, at 8PM as we broadcast LIVE from A Comic Shop in Winter Park. Their owners, Jason and Aaron, are both celebrating birthdays this week, so they decided to have a HUGE party at their store and to invite a special guest, Marvel and Vertigo comics writer … JASON AARON!

If you’re local to Orlando or Winter Park and you’re in the area Saturday, stop on by and say hello! Jason Aaron will be signing and meeting fans at the store from 3-8PM, and hopefully he’ll be willing to sit in with us for a segment to talk about his work on Ghost Rider, Wolverine: Weapon X, and his independent series, Scalped. There will also be a live concert in the parking lot outside ACS starting at around 9:30PM, hence our early sign-off time. It’s going to be one very interesting night–hope you can join us!

PTG Episode 35 is brought to you by SomaCow’s Cure for the Run. As a part of the SomaCow Media Network, Prime Time Geek will be taking part in this event with supreme geekly gusto! If you’re local to Orlando and you wish to be a part of the event, come down to Wall Street at 4PM to register for the run on Saturday, August 22nd. A form for recording sponsors/donations can be found in the message thread linked above, or you can donate directly, probably the best option for the out of town listeners. All donations will benefit Rock for Hunger. And if you’re worried about actually “running”, not to worry–you run, jog, trot, skip, walk, or crawl the .05k distance (that’s about 164 ft!)

In this episode, I fume for a bit about DC Comics‘ replacing current Batman scribe Judd Winick and artist Mark Bagley with Battle For the Cowl writer Tony Daniel after just four issues, the latest in a seemingly-interminable string of blunders in regards to restarting mainstay titles, while also professing complete and utter mea culpa over “Wednesday Comics“, which is turning out to be lots of fun and worth the $3.99 each week. Funny thing, though–not sure what to do with 16 pages of newspaper-quality paper once I’m done reading it. Bagging it won’t protect it from turning yellow, but throwing it away or recycling it like regular newspaper just seems … wrong. Current favorite strips running in Wednesday Comics: Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner’s “Supergirl”, Brian Azzarello’s “Batman”, and Kurt Busiek’s “Green Lantern.” I want to like the “Superman” strip from John Arcudi and Lee Bermejo, but so far I’m digging Arcudi’s characterization of Clark, and Bermejo’s art and colors, while pitch perfect for stories like Lex Luthor: Man of Steel and Joker, is a bit too subdued for a Superman story. Watch for more reviews of “Wednesday Comics” in the weeks to come–I have a feeling it’s going to end up in PTG’s Top 3 more often than not.

Oh, and special guest co-hosts Loubowski (Lou Ornstein) and Glakk (Howard Herbst) help me break down Domino’s new line of “American Legends” pizzas in the “Eat More Geek” segment. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say we imagine how tasty they might be if someone ELSE besides Domino’s made them. It’s a fun segment, definitely–we enjoyed recording it, so I hope you enjoy listening.

Prime Time Geek Episode 29 is brought to you by the (still) most addicting CCG out there, Magic: the Gathering. It doesn’t matter one bit if you’ve been out of the game for months or years; it’s still just as fun, just as engrossing, just as addicting in terms of wanting to keep playing and get more cards to improve your decks to be ready for the next battle. The new Alara Reborn expansion is every bit as fun as the folks over at Cool Stuff Games told us it would be, but there’s something even more exciting coming next month.

M10, the latest core set and rules revision for MTG, is coming to stores the weekend of July 18th, with pre-release events going on all over the country the weekend prior. Keep checking back with Prime Time Geek over the coming weeks as we gear up to cover the pre-release event going on at Cool Stuff Games over in Winter Park, Florida. There’s even a chance we’ll be doing a special live broadcast of PTG from Cool Stuff Games, so we’ll keep you posted on that. Stop by their store, or if you don’t live in the Orlando/Winter Park area, check out their online store at www.coolstuffinc.com!

And yeah, in case anyone is wondering from the title of this episode, I’m a Queen fan and a Highlander fan, so I’ve had those songs in my head all day. “So here we are … we’re the princes of the universe …”

Prime Time Geek Episode 28 is brought to you by Custom Design & Printed, where we’re creating our NEW online swag store! Printfection was cool for a while, and that store is still up, but if you take a minute to check out Custom Design & Printed, I think you’ll notice right away a LOT more product for a WHOLE lot cheaper. How about a PTG T-shirt for $16 instead of $25? How about mugs, keychains, hip flasks, and tons more aside from apparel? How about you take a look for yourself and check it out. Remember, any purchase you make supports Prime Time Geek, and your support is GREATLY appreciated, so keep checking here at primetimegeek.com for updates on when the new store will be open for business!

It’s been a while since we’ve had an Ed Brubaker lovefest on PTG, so here’s one to make up for lost time. In our minds, its completely justifiable: Captain America, which has been steered with unswerving ability by Brubaker for several years now, led off the week by making headlines in the mainstream media (although not in the way Marvel might have preferred–see below), and on Wednesday the latest issue of Incognito, Brubaker’s latest not-for-the-kiddies collaboration with artist Sean Phillips (Sleeper, Criminal) for Marvel’s Icon imprint, hit store shelves. Incognito has been nothing but fun, and Steve Rogers, it turns out, is only “mostly dead.” Brubaker is responsible for both, so he gets pretty much a whole hour of PTG. End of story.

And just one final thought to follow up on this episode’s lead segment: don’t hold the whole “Captain America #600 in stores on Monday” fiasco against your local store. IF you knew that Cap #600 was supposed to be in stores on Monday (a BIG ‘if’) and you went to get it, chances are your favorite comic shop didn’t have it yet because a) UPS hadn’t arrived yet to deliver it; or b) the store refused to pay extra shipping to get it there early, predicting (accurately) that there wouldn’t be enough increased traffic on the Monday to justify the expense. But it’s much more likely you didn’t even KNOW the issue would be available on Monday, you went by your local comic store on Wednesday, as usual, and there were plenty of copies left since no one came in on Monday because the media hyped Cap’s return but rarely mentioned anything about Cap #600, the issue that kicks off the story of his return, being in stores that day. In this economy, the smart play was to NOT pay the extra money to Diamond in order to get the issues early–the stores that did definitely did NOT get enough traffic on Monday to justify the expense. Said it during the show, it’s been said many times, many ways, I’ll say it one more time: Blame Marvel-they screwed the pooch big-time on that one. Doesn’t happen often–they scored big with the Spidey-Obama promotion back in January, and when Cap’s death made headlines 2 1/2 years ago, the mainstream media ran with it, resulting in big bucks for the House of M. Chalk it up to risking big to win big, as Marvel often does, and this time coming up a loser. It happens to the best, and I wouldn’t bet against them coming up on the winning end next time they roll the dice.

Prime Time Geek Episode 26 is brought to you by Tate’s Comics in Lauderhill, Florida. Well, not exactly brought to you by Tate’s, since they’re not a sponsor, but they are REALLY cool. We here at PTG wholeheartedly recommend you check out their website, and if you’re in South Florida and love comics, toys, anime, gaming, or just about anything pop-culture related and you haven’t been up to Tate’s, shame on you. Get in your car, Google the directions, and go. Right now. Put the podcast on your iPod and take us with you, ’cause we’d love a return trip over there.

[NOTE: The correct address of Tate's Comics is 4566 N. University Dr. Lauderhill, FL 33351--during the podcast I erroneously located the store at 4555 N. University. I apologize for any confusion.]

Now, if you live in and around where Tate’s is located down there in the Lauderhill/Sunrise/Plantation area of Broward County, Florida, the name “Past, Present, and Future” might also be familiar to you, and might seem a strange choice of title for an episode of PTG during which much time is spent going ga-ga over Tate’s. But aside from being a store name held at one time by a store quite close to Tate’s, Crossroad Comics and Games, “past, present, and future” is very much a theme running throughout this entire hour of PTG. In the literal sense, it relates to both of the comics we spotlight in this episode: Batman #687, which ushers in a new era for the Caped Crusader as Dick Grayson takes on the mantle of the Bat; and Buck Rogers #1, which shows the beginning of an exciting new envisioning of one of sci-fi’s most venerable time-traveling heroes. In their own ways, Batman and Buck Rogers are characters whose appeal defies the passage of time, and no consideration of their new adventures can escape some form of comparison or contemplation of what has come before.

But Episode 26 is also very much about memories and change. After all, a trip to South Florida for me is a trip down “Memory Lane”, an opportunity to drive along the streets that my friends and I back in the day cruised upon as we quested for gaming books, for new anime, for Battletech miniatures, for rare toys, and just about anything else that we might have fixed our sights on back in the day. Trips into that area require that I reconcile those memories of past experiences with present circumstances, such as the fact that the store my friends and I referred to as “The Shrine” (the aforementioned Crossroad Comics) due to its sheer size and its vast selection of geekly distractions has since changed ownership twice and is now most certainly the second option for geek shopping in the area. “Going home” means recalling the past, reconciling it with changes in the present, and contemplating the future–it’s simply unavoidable, especially if you have someone with you who is seeing it all with fresh eyes. More often than not, those places that are so special in our memories as childhood haunts and playgrounds lose some of their lustre once they are stripped of the veil of nostalgia and seen under the present’s harsher light. Time is often unkind … often but not always.

Yes, the store in North Miami Beach where I bought my comics all through high school, the store I knew as “Super Heroes Unlimited,” is now known as “Villains” and is a fundamentally different store than it was 20 years ago, before the advent of Collectible Card Games. And yes, “The Shrine” may have been eclipsed in greatness by the awesomeness that is Tate’s Comics. But the very landscape of Geekdom in South Florida is changed beyond belief, simply because it is visible and vibrant, whereas in my day one could argue it was non-existent. This is very good thing in my mind, and though I might look back fondly on the way things were when I was younger, I certainly can’t argue that its a very good time to be a geek in South Florida, and I can’t imagine it changing for anything but the better in the future.

Amazing how things change.

Hour 1 of Prime Time Geek Episode 22 is brought to you by all the movies I pulled sound bytes from in order to create Mad Mario’s intro, which kicks off the podcast. Be the first listener to comment on this episode and list the correct titles of each of the films from which I pulled material to create Mad Mario’s intro in the order they’re used in the intro and WIN two passes to the Florida SuperCon Convention in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida June 6th-8th, courtesy of Bad Apple Comics! Again, the FIRST comment posted on this episode with the correct titles in the correct order will win the passes. Contest ends Saturday, May 30th, at the start of the next show. Good luck!

So Terminator: Salvation dropped into theaters this weekend, only to get dropped in the fight for box office supremacy by another sequel, Night at the Museum 2: Battle for the Smithsonian. According to the Associated Press, Terminator: Salvation took in $51.9 million, while Night at the Museum 2 took in just over $70 million. Salvation’s three-day weekend total, $43 million, is actually LESS than the franchise’s last cinematic outing, the fan-derided Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, made in its opening frame ($44 million in 2003). Having seen the movie, it’s not hard to imagine what the word of mouth effect was on the film from those who might have ventured to midnight showings during the previous week, nor it is hard to foresee a HUGE drop-off in ticket sales going into its second week of release. Of all of this summer’s geek-centric movie releases, only Star Trek has shown the resilience to forestall greater-than-50% decreases in ticket sales over successive weeks. Over Memorial Day weekend, Trek’s third weekend in release, the film brought in another $29 million, good enough to place third behind Night at the Museum 2 and Terminator and bringing its domestic box office gross total to $191 million. Pretty damned impressive for a Star Trek film, I think most everyone would agree.

Special guest co-host Mad Mario, PTG’s Highlord of Home Theater, and I discuss the merits and shortcomings of Terminator: Salvation first thing in Hour 1, then move on to discussing DC Comics’ “Batman: Battle for the Cowl” series in its entirety, and wrap up the hour with Mad Mario’s reviews of Resident Evil 5 for the XBOX 360, Killzone 2 for the PS3, and MadWorld for the Nintendo Wii. Enjoy!