Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 96 is brought to you by Sci-Fried. Once again, we (and in this case I mean me AND The Man from Slacker and the Man, who co-hosted again with me this week) must thank Mike Jensen a.k.a KSV, Chuck Silver, Christine Evans (K’hetara), and Mike Folk a.k.a Walken of Sci-Fried for joining us and performing in studio during our 2/27/2010 broadcast. It was the first live music performance ever on PTG, and they made it unforgettable. During this hour of PTG they perform an acoustic version of “PX-75309“, their parody of Tommy Tutone’s immortal 80s classic “867-5309/Jenny,” which we hope you enjoy as much as we did. Also, PLEASE check out the video for the song, which features some great special effects and costuming work and truly showcases the geekiness that IS Sci-Fried. For your viewing pleasure, the video is embedded below!

Somehow during this hour packed full of Sci-Fried, we also found time to review the latest DC Universe Animated Movie to hit store shelves last week, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. Our review features some … insightful commentary from “Walken”, who joins the show late in the hour, and I assure you, it’s randomness at its very best. Enjoy!

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 92 is brought to you by the Wolf Pack Elite’s 5th Annual MegaCon Attendees After Party. We were honored during this hour to have Moshi from the WPE call in to the show to talk up the event, and trust me, if you had any plans to attend MegaCon next month, after you hear this interview you won’t want to miss THE party to hit after the Con! Many thanks to Moshi for taking some time out of his night out on the town with a great many other members of the Wolf Pack Elite to spend some time on the phone with us and get us excited about the party. It’s going to be one helluva show!

During the rest of this hour, special guest co-host The Man from Slacker and the Man and I discuss some major Hollywood superhero movie announcements from the past week, including the news that Spider-Man 4 will be shot in 3D and The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan will be “mentoring” the next Superman film as it makes its way out of development hell and into production sometime soon. We wrap the hour with our review of The Wolfman, the 2010 remake of the 1941 classic film starring Lon Cheney, Jr. The new film stars Benicio Del Toro, Sir Anthony Hopkins, and Hugo Weaving, and is directed by Joe Johnston (The Rocketeer, The First Avenger: Captain America). Enjoy!

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.

I just need to say this right now: Dan Didio and DC Comics, just this once, I apologize for doubting you.

Months ago, prior to MegaCon, I complained in this space about DC Comics robbing Blackest Night of some emotional impact by allowing the identities of certain Black Lanterns to surface long before the comics reached the hands of readers. I looked at the revelations of Earth-2 Superman and Martian Manhunter as Black Lanterns as a catastrophic misstep, because what other revelations could they possibly throw at us that could match the heart-rending reveals of Kal-L and J’onn J’onzz to Earth’s heroes as the Blackest Night descended upon the DCU?

Yeah, well, shows what I know.

Unless you’ve somehow had access to Geoff Johns’ scripts or Ivan Reis’s sketches, Blackest Night #1 is certain to leave you in shock. Everything we’ve seen to this point–the emergence of the other Corps, the Sinestro Corps War, even the prophesy of Cosmic Revelations at the end of that story arc that first revealed the coming of ‘the Blackest Night,’–will do NOTHING to lessen the impact of the events that unfold in these first pages. Think back to when you read the Sinestro Corps War Special that kicked off that story, when all the villains, all of the Anti-Monitor’s heralds, stood revealed, and the dread you felt in that moment, the fear you might have felt (along with the need to see what happened next).

I promise you, Blackest Night #1 will top that feeling.

In terms of the art, Ivan Reis is at the top of his game here. Due to the sheer number of DC characters we see in the course of the issue, the fact that everything is coherent and every panel delivers emotional impact, is truly astounding. Add to those pages several double-page splash images that give the proceedings a “widescreen” feel, much like the work of illustrator Bryan Hitch did in his Ultimates work for Marvel. Any one of those splash spreads would make a great poster or gatefold cover, and no doubt at least one of them will when this issue gets into reprints. If he’s able to keep this book on time and it’s his work throughout all eight issues, Reis will have established his claim to succeeding George Perez as THE ‘epic’ artist at DC Comics.

But of course, none of it would matter without Geoff Johns’s seemingly-effortless forays into the minds of his main characters. We as readers experience the events of this issue through the viewpoints of a number of characters, and each of those viewpoints, each of those narrative voices, feels separate and distinct. Of course, its to be expected with Hal Jordan, who Johns has guided in his journey since “Green Lantern: Rebirth.” But the other voices that tell this tale are just as effective and riveting.

Now, seriously, if you’ve been waiting for this as long as most DC fans have been, the chances that you weren’t going to enjoy the story were, in my opinion, quite slim. But so many people picked up Blackest Night #0 on Free Comic Book Day not because they were Green Lantern fans or DC fans, but because it was FREE. It’s to those readers out there who might have been impressed with that issue but still not inclined to grab Blackest Night #1 tomorrow because they’re not fans of Green Lantern or DC that I say this:

Pick this book up. Trust me, you’re going to love it.

PTG Episode 27 is brought to you by Pocky Men’s Bitter Chocolate. It’s not bad. Really. It won’t qualify as your Manly maow maow maow maow Man! thing of the week to eat some, but can’t hurt, either. If I have no idea what I’m talking about, you haven’t been listening to SomaCow, and shame on you. Go listen to some after this episode by clicking HERE–they’re the ones who are REALLY bringing you PTG, after all.

Fun episode this week–talked about how Dave & Buster’s down in Ft. Lauderdale ain’t what it used to be when I lived down there, how Uncanny X-Men might have been better if only …(see below) and that Astronaut Ice Cream Sandwiches are NASTY. Like, throw-up-in-your-mouth NASTY. Go try one and you’ll see what I mean.

So, after recording Episode 27 I went and did some more research on the man who had been, up until the most recent issue #511, the artist on Uncanny X-Men, the much-maligned Greg Land. After doing that research, I realize that my insight on the problem with Greg Land was misinformed, to say the least. I was under the impression that the originality of his work was in question because he copied images he found on the internet or in other media, but it’s definitely a bigger issue than that, and I apologize to the comic book reading community at large who probably have known this about the man for years and I’m the last one to report about it. According to critics, Greg Land actually TRACES images he finds in other media, photos from films, from lingerie catalogs, from porn (allegedly) from anything floating out there built around stereotypical Western images of beauty (male or female) and turns them into comic book panels and covers. In the show image above is one of the more infamous examples that fans have identified, Pamela Anderson on the right, Marvel Comics’ Satana on the left. [For more 'did he or didn't he' examples, click HERE and check out the JimSmash blog, 'cause he presents a compelling case.] Apparently, and with good reason, a good portion of comic book fandom regards Land with a certain amount of derision for this practice, but it can’t be hurting him that badly, reputation-wise, because he still GETS WORK. PLUS he still gets invited to comic conventions–he was, in fact, in attendance at both MegaCon and FX! International here in Orlando this past year–and you don’t hear about the man being lynched at his public appearances. He must have some following, and I can’t imagine he actually traces when he does sketches for fans at these shows, either.

As I said in the show, that really wasn’t my problem with the art in the “Sisterhood” issues I read, anyway–my problem was that Matt Fraction’s narrative wasn’t served well at all by the art, which was confusing at times due to the number of characters involved and the chaos of the battle sequences taking place. As to the tracing issue, I’m not sure what to think. I certainly don’t feel the same righteous indignation that many comic book readers on the internet seem to feel when it comes to Land’s perceived ‘deception.’ I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, and so until I actually see Greg Land at a Con actually whip out a Frederick’s of Hollywood catalog and some tracing paper to do a sketch of Emma Frost, I’m not going to decry the man as a tracer. I will say that I might enjoy his work more on a book with fewer characters and a slower pace of movement.

For now, here’s an interview with Ned and Margie Cox (Flash and Starfire, respectively), who aside from attending comic conventions in AWESOME costumes also work with the Heroes Alliance costuming group doing charity work all over the state of Florida. Visit http://www.southfloridaha.com/ to find out more about these wonderful people, the good work they do and the fun they have doing it.

Both Hour 1 and Hour 2 of PTG Episode 10 kick off with clips from the classic (at least in my mind) Kevin Smith drama Chasing Amy, because in all honesty I couldn’t think of any other movies I’d seen that captured the hilarity often found at comic book conventions quite like Smith did in this film. If you’ve seen it, you know EXACTLY what I mean and you probably recognized the clip anyway. If you haven’t seen the film, treat yourself to it, but be warned–like any other Kevin Smith film, comedy or otherwise, potty-mouths abound.

First segment of the show features my interview with George Pérez, conducted Sunday morning, nice and early before the lines really started forming around MegaCon’s Guest of Honor. It had been quite a weekend for Pérez–in addition to being the convention’s Guest of Honor, Saturday had been named “George Pérez Day” by Orange County, FL Mayor Richard Crotty. As Pérez said during the DC Universe panel the day before and reiterated to me, he had just been growing accustomed to his hold high school naming a day in his honor, and now a whole city was following suit. It was a delightful chat and I felt truly honored and privileged to get as much time with him as I did.

After the first break, talked about Booster Gold and happenings in his book, and who better to comment on developments with ol’ Booster than the man who created him and currently writes his monthly series, Dan Jurgens. Jurgens was also a delight to talk to, very forthcoming in his plans for Booster Gold over the next year as Booster continues to be the timecop nobody knows about. Jurgens’ gregariousness partially stemmed from his being in Florida and not his native Minnesota this time of year, he was quick to say when asked about how he was enjoying MegaCon, so I’m certainly thankful the weather was for the most part good on Friday and Saturday. I also talked a little about “Origins and Omens” and how it’s been affecting the DC books over the past few weeks, both positively and negatively … oh, all right, more negatively.

Finally, I wrap the hour by talking about the MegaCon Indie Film Expo, whose winner was awarded (hopefully) a scholarship to the New York Film Academy. That winner, as determined by ballots from viewers, was “Back to Life”, an animated feature by Mike Salva that presents a comedic look at Frankenstein and his Monster. You can find that video HERE, and believe me, you’ll enjoy it. The Expo also featured a sneak preview of The Graves, the new cinematic vision from Lady Death creator Brian Pulido, who I had the opportunity to interview on camera right after the preview screened. Watch for that interview later this week along with other video stories covering MegaCon 2009, right here at primetimegeek.com!