Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

This episode features the contributions of some wonderfully talented and insightful podcasters, bloggers, and writers, and it’s been an honor to have the opportunity to work with them. In particular, in this episode you’ll find clips from previous episodes featuring:

• “The Man” from Slacker and the Man
• Stu Cohen from Heroes Landing
• Sci-Fried
• Mitsugi and Chiaki from the A.A.A. (Anime Addicts Anonymous) Podcast
• James Greene Jr. of the JGTwo Land Blog
• “Mad” Mario Marsicovetere, once and future Highlord of Home Theater
• Peter Stolmeier, a.k.a. Wheldon Smiley, and Wacko Media
• Tony Oliver, voice actor, writer, and director
• Maggie Bridger of Legendary Chloe
• and John Booth, blogger and author of Collect All 21! Memoirs of a Star Wars Geek – The First 30 Years.

In addition, I want to give special thanks to Ryan Macdonald of the Talk Nerdy Show for his multiple appearances on PTG, and to Alex Teston of Ghost Shadow Studio for his contributions and his unflagging support and promotion of PTG and its mission. Also, many thanks to Todd Merrick of Heroes Landing, Jeff Melvin of Comic Connection, Juan Carlos Martinez-Sifre of Podnosticast, Terry Cronin of Students of the Unusual and Adventure Chefs, Kent Ward of the Propeller Anime Club, Ryan Scott and the Orlando Ghostbusters, Joseph Carbonell, Joshua Urbanowski, Mark Brown, Lisa Corrao, and perhaps most of all to Geoff and Jennifer Peace of SomaCow, without whose constant support, encouragement, and counsel there’s simply no way the show would have continued this long.

Due to financial constraints, PTG will not air or record again until Sunday, January 23rd. This is a recent and unfortunate development that resulted from poor planning on my part, and for I apologize to our listeners and supporters. We will be back. It’s a promise.

Originally posted at PrimeTimeGeek.com.

PTG Episode 137 is brought to you by Vindictus, the eagerly-anticipated upcoming fantasy MMORPG from Nexon nominated for “Best MMO” at this year’s E3. Once again, we want to thank Assistant Producer Chris Gyselinck for spending some time talking to us about Vindictus and all it has in store for the avid online role-player and gamer. The interview has lots of great information about the game if you weren’t aware of it before now, so if you’re into MMORPGs or action-adventure games do give it a listen, because Vindictus sounds like quite a different gaming experience compared to other games in this genre. We’ve posted the trailer for the game below, which shows extensive scenes of actual game play, so check that out, too! We also wish to thank Joanne Sibug, Public Relations Associate for Nexon, for making this interview with Chris possible. We hope to hear more about the game as it gets closer to its 4th quarter 2010 release.

In this episode, our second with Mitsugi and Chiaki of the Anime Addicts Anonymous Podcast, we focus almost exclusively on video games. In addition to our interview with Chris, Mitsugi weighs in the brand-new Starcraft II: Wings of Liberty from Blizzard Entertainment, which StarCraft fans have been waiting for now for a decade, and has much to live up to in terms of the fun its predecessor brought. Chiaki brings her own review of Final Fantasy XIII from Square Enix, measuring it up against its predecessors as well as assessing its strengths and weaknesses in its own right. And me? Well, I just listen, comment, and note the names of yet MORE games I hope to try out soon. Hey, I’m still playing Bioshock 2 and God of War III, so I’m a bit behind the times, I know, but at least they’re good games!

We wrap up the hour with reviews of new comics last week: Wonder Woman #601 (Stracynszki, Kramer) begins the new Diana-in-Pants Era of the Amazon Princess’ comic with a tale of legendary bravery and sacrifice, as Diana sees with her own eyes the destruction of Paradise Island and sets out in search of those responsible; while over in Marvel, Thor continues his battle with the soul-eating Disir (think Zombie Valkyries!) threatening Hela and the Asgardian dead in Thor #612 (Gillen, Braithwaite). Enjoy the show!

PTG Episode 82 is brought to you by Pirate Rap. Specifically, we want to direct your attention to those guys with the hooks you see in the image above, Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew, who along with Marc with a C, Emergency Pizza Party, Krondor Krew, and Sci-Fried rocked Club 57 West back on January 2nd for New Year’s Geek. We spend some time in this episode reporting on those proceedings and what we witnessed (while we were lucid, at any rate), and during the broadcast I mentioned that we’d be posting links to where you could download Captain Dan and the Scurvy Crew’s stuff. Well, you can find them on MySpace by clicking HERE and also you can preview their tracks on iLike by clicking HERE. Do beware though, me hearties: Explicit lyrics ahoy!

(Also, apologies to Emergency Pizza Party for not mentioning them during the broadcast–I missed their portion of the show, plus quite a bit of the night is a blur at this point …)

Gonna keep this blog entry short–also in this episode we review Daybreakers, the new vampirism-takes-over-the-world movie in theaters starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill, and spotlight two great DC Comics books from last week: Blackest Night: Wonder Woman #2 by Greg Rucka and Nicola Scott and Superman: World of New Krypton #11 by Rucka, James Robinson, and Pete Woods. Hope you enjoy, and don’t forget, on this week’s show we’re happy to welcome “the man” pictured with me below, The Man from Slacker and the Man as special guest co-host for both hours! Should be a GREAT show, so be there Saturday night to catch it live!

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 58 is brought to you once again by Heroes Landing in Clermont, Florida. This is the second hour that we originally broadcast and recorded at their store, and we hope that by now you’ve checked out their website and, if you live in the area, that you’ve been by their store and seen all that they have to offer over there for you “inner geek.” Todd and Stu are out to make a splash in the Central Florida comic book store scene, and I daresay they’re off to a great start. Thanks again to them both for inviting us out there to be part of their grand opening festivities, and we hope they’ll have us out there again very soon!

Speaking of Heroes Landing, they were kind enough to provide us with two vouchers for this weekend’s Ultimate Horror Weekend, put on by the folks at Spooky Empire, Inc. The vouchers are good for one-day admission for you AND a guest–that’s either a $50 or $60 value depending on the day you choose to go (Friday & Sunday admission=$25 per person, Saturday admission=$30). We’ve had a trivia contest going on since Monday morning to give away the vouchers along with an Ultimate Horror Weekend XL t-shirt, but so far, believe it or not, no takers! The contest runs until tomorrow morning–head over to somacow.net/forum, go to the Prime Time Geek message board, and look for the “Prize Give Away” thread. You’ll find the three questions you have to answer in order to win the passes. Seriously, folks, this is a great value and we’d hate to see the passes go to waste. Jump on this quick–remember, we only have two to give away and Ultimate Horror Weekend starts tomorrow!

So in this episode we talk about zombies. Yep, ain’t gonna lie, they freak me out. In fact, the episode image you see in this article, in the bottom right corner, that image of zombies? Well, let’s just say that as I was putting the collage together, I couldn’t look at that part of the image for very long–it made me nervous. Yeah, that’s how bad it is for me. It’s as bad as it is for those people who have the pathological fear of clowns; coulrophobia, I believe it is called. Well, maybe not that bad–I don’t break down in tears and curl up in the fetal position when I see zombies, for example, the way that serious coulrophobia sufferers do. But they give me nightmares, that’s for damn sure. Which is why their ever-growing presence in all forms of contemporary media both fascinates and terrifies me. It’s something I simply do not GET, which makes it great fodder for conversation. Also in this episode, we blitz through PTG’s Top Comic picks for last week, reviews of the latest episodes of Heroes, Fringe, and Dollhouse, and quite possibly the LAST review of Stephanie Meyer’s Breaking Dawn, the last book in “The Twilight Saga”, provided by EricathePimp. Erica has now read the entire Twilight Saga and she shares her VERY strong feelings for the series as a whole along with her review. 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 41 is brought to you by the Cure for the Run. SomaCow is putting its pig-kicking leg to better use by kicking its donation-collecting efforts into high gear for its upcoming charity event, taking place on Saturday, August 22nd. If you own a business and you’d like to make a donation, go to http://curefortherun.com and hit the PayPal button. If you are local to Orlando and would like to participate in the event, download a sponsor form from the site and get started collecting to fight hunger in our community. All monies collected go to Rock for Hunger-for more information about them, head over to their website, http://rockforhunger.org.

Speaking of events, just want to throw one last shout-out to everyone who came out for the PTG/SomaCow/theExperience.fm Karaoke Tweetup last Friday night. Gave props during the podcast, but I want to take the opportunity in this space to provide some links to the other great folks that came out and had a good time with us …well, I certainly hope they had a good time!

First, give some love to The Experience: Tail, Nos, and Jamie have become big supporters of SomaCow, and Nos brought his best to the karaoke showdown with me … only to have us both utterly crushed by Mickey and Ross of SomaCow. Oy.

Next, check out DJ John and his show, the Dorknation, which broadcasts out of St. Cloud, FL. John definitely has dork chops–he truly impressed me when, during a lull in the karaoke activities he happened to spot of the TVs in the bar showing “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and identified which episode it was within the first two minutes of watching, with no sound, mind you! Of course, I knew which one it was also, but it’s always very gratifying to know that someone ELSE out there has that particular useless skill. They’re on every Tuesday and Thursday from 8-10PM on ustream.tv.

Also we had photography enthusiast Kelly Walker, a.k.a. peglegpug, who as a fan of SomaCow came out to the tweetup and got GREAT video of Ross and Mickey’s song stylings. She has since immortalized that performance by posting it at her website, www.peglegpug.com, but trust me, that’s not the only reason to head over and check out her site. It’s just a very GOOD reason to do so!

And finally, of course, we must give credit where credit is due, to SomaCow. Not only did Geoff, J, and Ross come out this time and not leave Mickey all alone and defenseless among us savages, but Ross, in the ultimate act of producer-ness, stepped up to the challenge of filling Geoff’s shoes and took on the stage with Mickey for a rendition of Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart that will NEVER be forgotten by the SomaCow faithful. Though it may not have been the equal of Geoff and Mickey’s infamous performance of that same song at Devaney’s (as I’ve been told by parties who shall remain anonymous), it was certainly immortal in my mind. I strongly suggest you click HERE to watch the video and feel for yourselves … whatever this performance might inspire you to feel, and to ask yourselves this most solemn question:

What the hell is Ross doing to that microphone stand?!

Episode 41 features a Blackest Night Spotlight focused on Tales of the Corps #3, PTG’s Top Picks for the week ending Aug. 1st, including Wonder Woman #34 from DC Comics, The Lone Ranger #17 from Dynamite Entertainment (not pictured above), and Ultimatum #5 and Ultimate Spider-Man Requiem #2 from Marvel Comics. It also features PTG’s first ever book review, given by our own EricathePimp, focused on Vampire Literature best-sellers Twilight by Stephanie Meyer and Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris. Enjoy!

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.

PTG Episode 31 is brought to you by the now-official PTG/SomaCow Karaoke Challenge/Tweetup, scheduled to take place on Saturday, July 18th, sometime after PTG ends that night at Mugshots Sports Bar and Grill in Altamonte Springs. You fans of PTG that are local to Orlando, please come on out and show your support for the show as I take up the karaoke gauntlet that was thrown down by SomaCow, who insisted on the air during PTG that they (Geoff and Mickey, specifically) would “blow me off the stage.”

As Clint Eastwood once said in a trailer for a movie I didn’t think was all that great except for John Malkovich’s creepy performance (no, they’re not all creepy-example: The Man in the Iron Mask) and Rene Russo in skirt suits, “That’s not going to happen.”

What WILL happen is lots of singing, lots of mingling, lots of laughter, and probably some drinking (it IS a bar, after all.) So please, local fans of PTG, do consider making plans for join PTG, SomaCow, and The Experience for good times, good beer, and probably some lousy singing. For more details and developments check the Events message board at SomaCow.net/forum. It’ll be fun! We’ll bond. You’ll see.

Oh, and if you’re on Twitter, tweet about it. Tweet about it a LOT. Also, if you haven’t already, follow the show on Twitter by clicking HERE.

Have a great Fourth of July weekend, everyone!

Hour 1 of Episode 14 begins with a drop from a movie we never get tired of here at PTG, John Carpenter’s Big Trouble in Little China, featuring Kurt Russell in perhaps his most memorable role, at least among cult classic fans, Jack Burton:

Jack: Not so fast there, gentlemen.
Lo Pan: Is it too much to ask, Thunder, kill him for me!
Jack: What’s that gonna solve, Dave? Too many people around here droppin’ like flies and where’s that gettin’ you? Nowhere, FAST. Ah, you know what ol’ Jack Burton always says at a time like this?
Thunder: Who?!
Jack: Jack Burton! ME!

The highlight of this hour is our interview with Luis Gutierrez, Marketing Director for Bad Apple Comics here in Orlando. Luis chats up Bad Apple’s subscription service, store locations, and upcoming events, including this weekend’s car meet in front of the South Orange Blossom Trail location to promote the new film “Fast and Furious.” We also get his thoughts on how Bad Apple works to stand apart in a market crowded with competition from other comic book stores, how he feels Bad Apple will adjust to the current economic downturn, and the vacation destination he looks forward to the most each year: DragonCon!

Also in this hour, thoughts on DC’s Justice League of America #31, featuring the fallout from the Final Crisis and New Krypton storylines as felt by the League itself, and a review of Smallville’s latest episode, “Hex”, which featured the debut in Smallville continuity of Zatanna Zatara, played by the gorgeous Serinda Swan, ALSO from Vancouver, BC. First, Kristin Kreuk (Vancouver), then Erica Durance (Calgary) and Laura Vandervoort (Toronto), and now Serinda Swan, all Canadians. Seriously, it may be time to move. In any case, enjoy, and stay tuned for Hour 2 being uploaded tomorrow night!