It is with no small sadness that I announce that Episode 183, which will be recorded and broadcast from Heroes Landing in Clermont, Florida on Free Comic Book Day 2011, Saturday, May 7th, starting at 2pm, will be the final broadcast and recording of the show.

Thank you, to our regular contributors/colleagues Slacker and the Man, Talk Nerdy Show, and A.A.A. (Anime Addicts Anonymous) Podcast; to our sponsors/supporters Jeff Melvin of Comic Connection, and Stu Cohen and Todd Merrick of Heroes Landing; to our friends at MegaCon, Florida Supercon, and Anime Festival Orlando for allowing PTG to be a small part of promoting your events year after year; to Geoff and Jennifer Peace, without use of whose studio PTG would have never come to be or lasted this long, and of course to everyone who’s come to our live webcasts or downloaded our podcasts. Thank you for listening and for supporting the show in every way you have these past two-and-a-half years. It’s been a great ride, and I’m looking forward to going out with a great couple of hours this weekend, so come on out for Free Comic Book Day, grab your free books, meet the guest artists coming in, and if you’re so inclined, stop and say “Hello” to the guy in the back corner of the store with all the laptops and microphones. That would be me.

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 112 is brought to you by Heroes Landing, this time, quite literally. As they’ve done for every remote broadcast I’ve done at their store, Todd and Stu went out of their way on Saturday to help me put together a great show, and so once again, thanks, guys! If the amount of traffic through the store throughout the day is any indication, their first Free Comic Book Day was a huge success. Head over to their Facebook Fan Page to check out all the pictures from the event, and I’ve uploaded a few of my own to our Fan Page, so as long as you’re on Facebook, you may want to look at those, too. It was a lot of fun.

During this episode we talk to Stu for a bit about what everyone was picking out from the free books available, as well as chat about some upcoming books and goings-on in DC’s Superman titles as the long-running New Krypton story arc draws to its close with this month’s “War of the Supermen“. The highlight of the hour, however, is our interview with Marvel Comics’ Fred Van Lente, who takes a bit of time away from the “Guest of Honor” table to chat with me about his current work on Iron Man: Legacy, Prince of Power: Amadeus Cho, Amazing Spider-Man, and Marvel Zombies 5. Fred’s a very gracious and enthusiastic guest, so you’re going to enjoy what he has to say about his craft and his projects. Enjoy!

[NOTE: Sincere apologies for the distortion in the sound in this episode and in Episode 113. Though the sound quality of the live broadcast suffered no such problems, apparently recording levels in the software I was using to record the broadcast were too high, resulting in lots of "clipping." Yet more evidence that I could really use a producer or an engineer when I go out for these remotes ...]

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 48 is brought to you by the art of comic book artist Ed Benes. Now, before I lose any of my female listeners upon sight of the image accompanying this article, there is a point to this, and it IS related to this hour’s content. Benes is the artist currently working on Blackest Night Titans, one of two Blackest Night tie-in titles to hit stores during the week ending 8-28-09 that we cover in this week’s ‘Blackest Night Spotlight.’ Though normally I’m a fan of Benes’ comic book work, I think his particular style works against him and the story being told in Blackest Night Titans. In the course of describing that style and why it doesn’t quite work for this book, it was necessary to talk a bit about Benes’ recurring … ahem … artistic focus. I certainly admit that Benes seems to show a preoccupation with a particular portion of the female anatomy, but I don’t think he deserves all the “hating-on” he seems to get from a great portion of comic fandom. I just wish he’d work on making his women look a tad more distinct from one another. Aside from hair color, hair style, and uniform/costume, his female characters attributes seem at times to be interchangeable. More on that during the episode.

In this installment we also talk a little bit about Fan Expo Canada 2009, the largest comic book, sci-fi, and pop culture convention in Canada, and one bit of news that was announced at FEC 2009 that we didn’t get to during the broadcast was Marvel’s announcement of its upcoming Hulk family crossover event … (wait for it) … WORLD WAR HULKS!

Yes, the brain trust behind the current assortment of Hulk comic book titles (Hulk, Incredible Hulk, Incredible Hercules, Savage She-Hulk) are bringing all their storylines together in this mega-event that finds all the various Hulks (Banner Hulk, Red Hulk, Skaar, son of Hulk, original She-Hulk (we think), “new” Savage She-Hulk (from the future!!), Red She-Hulk (WTF?!?), and who knows who else) facing off against a conglomeration of the world’s greatest evil geniuses, including The Leader, MODOK, Dr. Doom, Egghead, Mad Thinker, and probably a few more would-be world conquerors calling themselves “The Intelligencia.” Sound like silly, crazy, Hulk-Smash fun? YOU BET! Honestly, I don’t read the Hulk books, and Jeph Loeb’s work on “Hulk” was offensive enough to my comic book reading sensibilities that I wanted to fight ANYBODY who willingly shelled out money for the title on a monthly basis. But just for the sake having all the mysteries behind the Red Hulk and who’s who and what’s what in that messed up gamma-irradiated family, I might be tempted to give this a try and report on it for PTG. Don’t hold your breath, though–I passed on the entire World War Hulk storyline from a few years back, David Finch and John Romita Jr. artwork and all, just because, well, I’m not a Hulk fan. End of story. I may have to overcome my distaste, however, for the sake of covering the “news.”

Who says I’m not devoted to my craft? Watch out for World War Hulks coming to comic book stores starting in December. Yay.

PTG Episode 47 is brought to you by Smallville Season 8 on DVD. Yup, this past season, which turned out to be a LOT better than I expected it to be going into the season, came out on home video yesterday, which means the new season of Smallville will be starting up very soon, on Friday, September 25th, to be exact. What THAT means is that the “Smallville Smackdown” segment of PTG will be making its return that weekend, so if you’re a Smallville watcher and you don’t like spoilers, be sure and watch each new episode BEFORE downloading or listening to PTG’s live broadcasts! Despite how silly the end of last season got, I am STILL looking forward to the start of Season 9 and what the show runners, including new producer Tom Welling (Clark Kent), have in store for us this year. What can I say, I’m an addict.

In this episode Ericathepimp and I review Inglourious Basterds, the latest film offering from Quentin Tarantino, which dominated the box office last weekend with a $37.6 million dollar haul, over $12 million better than Tarantino’s previous opening weekend best, Kill Bill Vol. 2 back in 2004. Not sure what word of mouth is going to do for ‘Basterds’ this weekend–I’ve heard just as many people say they hated it as liked it, and I can understand that because the movie is definitely not for everyone. One thing I will say for the film in addition to what’s said in the podcast is that Tarantino has once again created two unforgettable characters in Lt. Aldo “The Apache” Raines (Brad Pitt) and Colonel Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa (Christoph Waltz). Waltz won a “Best Supporting Actor” award at Cannes for the role, and Pitt … well, sometimes with all the tabloid crap you can forget how talented the man is as an actor. As over the top and ridiculous as Raines is as a character, Pitt breathes so much zany life into him that you’re simply riveted whenever Raines is on-screen. He owns every laugh-out-loud moment in this movie without question. Yeah, the movie is too long and he’s not in enough of it, but it’s still worth seeing JUST for him, no joke.

One last note about Cure for the Run: Check out this interview shot by Michael Poley of OETV (and often the camera operator and video editor of PTG’s videos) highlighting last Saturday’s wildly-successful charity event benefiting Rock for Hunger. Can’t give enough kudos to Michael for the job he does on these video segments, even the ones that don’t have me in them. OETV(Orlando Event TV) is Michael’s independent arts preview program/website, and we wish him the best of luck with his future projects.

PTG Episode 46 is brought to you, one last time, by Cure for the Run. The final tally of donations is still not complete, but you’ll have to agree, over $3,100.00 for the hungry and homeless of Orlando in the first year of the event AIN’T TOO SHABBY. Congratulations to those incredible people at SomaCow who lead the effort: Mickey, who came up with the idea; Jen, who worked the hardest of anyone to get local businesses involved; Ross, who promoted the hell out of the event by flexing his infinite Twitter reach and getting people out to the event; Geoff, who wouldn’t shut up about the darned event; and J, who … well, he showed up and ran. We here at PTG like to think we did our part to bring attention and donations to the effort, but we got nothing on SomaCow. Kudos, you guys–next year will be even better. Here are a few choice pics from the event–to see all the pictures from the event, search for the event on Facebook or head over to http://www.peglegpug.com, as many of the images on the Facebook page are courtesy of that site.

This episode starts off with a recap of Cure for the Run, but the bulk of the episode is, of course, devoted to coverage of the first-ever MegaCon Mini-Con 2009, a smaller-scale version of the main MegaCon show that traditionally goes on early in the year. We had a great time at the show Saturday morning, had a chance to reconnect with artists, writers, and creators we’d met earlier in the year and let them know, “Hey, Prime Time Geek is still here!” During the hour we gave shout-outs to just about everyone we spoke to or interviewed that day, including (in no particular order) Tony Bedard, Greg Land, Terry Cronin, Steven Shea, Josh Dyson, Banky Farano, Jimmy Palmiotti, and lots more, but I want to send a special shout-out to the Superhuman Experiment, who continue to fascinate and mystify us.

We met Amanda and Test Subject-X of the Superhuman Experiment at the FX International Show earlier this year, where they were very forthcoming about the comic book detailing their adventures, but declined to be interviewed to promote the book, citing the secrecy their endeavors required. We respected their request at the time while eagerly looking forward to the chance to talk to them on the record about the project. Flash forward to this past weekend: once again, the duo who are the very photogenic faces of the Superhuman Experiment were on hand for “Mini” MegaCon, once again they were eager to show off the comic book representation of their story, and once AGAIN they declined to be interviewed on camera! They are certainly an enigma, but we can say this: the production values behind both their comic book AND their website are top-notch. This is a quality production that comic book fans would be wise to keep their eyes on, and there’s no questioning the enthusiasm and the passion with which both Amanda and Test Subject-X take on promoting the project. We definitely look forward to meeting up with them again and learning more about “Superhuman Experiment” and bringing that knowledge to you. Hopefully, you’ll be as intrigued as we are.

PTG Episode 39 is brought to you by Anime Festival Orlando 10, coming up this Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, July 31st-Aug. 2nd at the Wyndham Orlando Resort. PTG will be there on Saturday morning to cover its first ever anime-themed event, and we’re looking to spread the word about the show while checking out some panels and getting an idea of what’s going on in the anime world. Hoping to run into Gary Holmes from Just Push Play, as he’s actively involved in the Swords of Orlandia role-playing game that has become a signature event at AFO, but Gary’s a busy guy and it wouldn’t be a surprise if he turned up later in the weekend. Anyway, should be good times for anime fans and cosplayers, so I’m looking forward to it!

Speaking of big events, just want to follow up on a few items relating to PTG 38 and the great job that James Wright, a.k.a. “Chuck Spear”, did for us reporting on his unique San Diego Comic-Con experience. During his report, he mentioned that he and some friends had gone to the show equipped with some custom-designed t-shirts that sounded very cool, so after obtaining his blessing I have those designs for you right here–check these out:

The images are linked to Geoffrey’s Comics Shop in Gardena, CA, who provided the shirts and is selling them … for now. There MIGHT be a licensing issue with using Marvel properties in this fashion, but until the cease and desist comes down, no reason why you can have a cool shirt, right? Right! Once again, many thanks to James–there’s a chance he’ll be attending Wonder Con in San Francisco this February, and he’s offered to represent PTG out there at that show, so you can look forward to more Chuck Spear bringing West Coast ‘flava’ to the show in the months to come!

You the Man, “Chuck”!

One last note: Don’t forget, PTG/SomaCow Karaoke Tweetup Part Deux is TOMORROW night at Colonial Lanes in Orlando, off SR 50 (Colonial Dr.) and Primrose Ave. If you’re local to Orlando and you’re a fan of Orlando podcasting in general (not just SomaCow!), come out and join us for a drink and some singing! It all starts at 11PM (though we’re likely to be there “warming up” (drinking) at closer to 10PM. Hope to see you!

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 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?