The Anti-Gravity Room – Season 2 – Episode 11 -The Global Village

SFFaudio News

The Anti-Gravity RoomHere’s a complete episode of YTV’s The Anti-Gravity Room from the second season (episode 11 of season 2), titled The Global Village.

This episode includes a discussion of what anime is, a substantial look at the then new “anime sensation” called Ghost in the Shell as well as interviews with Carl Macek, a pair of South African cartoonists, and a young Garth Ennis in Belfast!

Ennis’s comments about the internet, near the end of part 2, probably still reflect his attitude today.

Part 1 of 3:

Part 2 of 3:

Part 3 of 3:

Posted by Jesse Willis

Comic Book Men is a TV reality show centered around a podcast

SFFaudio News

Comic Book Men is a new reality show produced for AMC. I watched the first episode. Sadly, I don’t imagine I’ll need to watch another.

The main problem is that for a show with COMICS in the title it just isn’t focused enough on comics themselves. There are too many toys, there’s too much character flavouring, and there’s just way too little substance to care about. It takes the recipe of fake drama that other “reality” shows use and sets it in a comicbook store. There’s the strange customer coming in to pawn something for the guys to talk about. There’s the fake competition over nothing. It’s like the producers told the directors to stay as far away from comics as possible. And the camerapeople were told that if they stopped moving the camera they’d be fired. There’s cute banter, a bit of comics nostalgia, but not enough about comics. The guys themselves, they seem like perfectly fine dudes. that’s cool, but the reason I go to a comic book store is to get comics – to hear about new comics. I don’t got to comic book stores for drama or for the jokes. The focus is just wrong.

I wouldn’t mention the show at all except there is one fairly interesting aspect to Comic Book Men that’s worth sharing. That is that the core of Comic Book Men is based around a podcast (or rather a fake podcast based on real podcasts).

Now I’ve seen podcasts mentioned in dramas (Numb3rs had an episode in which a criminal had a podcast), and The Ricky Gervais Show podcast was turned into an animated HBO show, but this is the first show intended for television, at least that I’ve seen, that incorporated a podcast as part of the actual show itself.

The moving cameras, the reaction shots, the bed music under ever line spoken, all that stuff doesn’t make the show better, it just makes it slicker. Below you’ll find that most interesting part of the show – the podcast. I just wish they were talking about some comics I could buy in a comic book store.

Posted by Jesse Willis

George Kashdan’s account of the 1938 Mercury Theatre’s War Of The Worlds broadcast

SFFaudio News

This is the story of the story of the story of The War Of the Worlds.

From House Of Mystery issue #50 (May 1956) George Kashdan tells the legend of the October 30th 1938 Mercury Theatre’s broadcast adaptation of The War Of The Worlds.

Marauders From Mars

Marauders From Mars

Here’s Orson Welles’ apology:

Posted by Jesse Willis

The Influence of RADIO DRAMA on comics and vice versa

SFFaudio News

EC ComicsThere’s a fascinating article by Kurt Kuersteiner HERE titled “OTR: The Evil Influence Behind EC.” In it Kuersteiner maps some of the many stories swiped from radio drama series and turned into EC Comics.

It came to me at the perfect time too. I’ve just been getting into EC comics over the last few months. Having grown up under the censorship of the Comics Code Authority I didn’t really know what I was missing. Now though, reading these pre-code comics, I can now see that my intellectual growth had been greatly stunted.

I’d have been a far smarter person if I’d been able to buy and read comics like these as a kid.

My favourite such tale so far was published in the July/August 1953 issue of Weird Fantasy (issue number 20). It’s called The Automaton. At first it seemed to me like a mashup of a Philip K. Dick’s The Electric Ant, Alfred Bester’s Fondly Fahrenheit and George Orwell’s 1984. But looking at the chronology that can’t be what it is. First off Philip K. Dick was just getting started around then. And while he was a comics reader The Electric Ant wasn’t published until 1969.

And while by 1953 Bester had already been working in comics – he hadn’t yet written Fondly Fahrenheit. So the story is definitely Orwellian and very cool, and certainly like a couple of Dick and Bester tales that were yet to be written. But then again, maybe it was inspired by a radio drama that I’ve not heard yet. Anybody know of one like this?

As it stands The Automaton is set in the futuristic dystopian world of Los Angeles in 2009. Our protagonist is XT-751, a man recounting his story of being sent to a northern labour camp after a suicide attempt. Suicide is illegal in this world because the state owns every person from the cradle to the grave.

I actually have been thinking about The Automaton for months now. And after reading Kuersteiner’s article it somehow gelled into a post. It’s just been something I could’t quite shake. The story is not only extremely thought provoking, and still timely, but also extremely frightening. And maybe a lot of the rest of it is that it is about as far away from superhero comics as you can possibly get. Best of all it’s told in just seven pages – that’s a highly distilled story.

The only credit for The Automaton is for the artist, Joe Orlando, but maybe he wrote it too?

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 1

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 2

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 3

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 4

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 5

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 6

From EC Comics - Weird Fantasy #020 - The Automaton Page 7

Posted by Jesse Willis

The SFFaudio Podcast #143 – NEW RELEASES/RECENT ARRIVALS

Podcast

The SFFaudio PodcastThe SFFaudio Podcast #143 – Scott, Jesse, Tamahome, and Kristin (A.K.A Terpkristin) talk about recently arrived audiobooks, new releases and more.

Talked about on today’s show:
The origin of the name ‘Terpkristin’, Scott has a pile of audio, (see also the NewAudioBookIn twitter feed), Hominids and Humans from Robert J. Sawyer, evolved Neanderthals, Farseer (the dinosaur book), Flashforward, Kristin’s scientific evaluations, “needs more ego”, Pamela Sargent’s Earthseed (Seed, #1), Greg Bear’s Forge of God, memorable earth destruction, Peter F. Hamilton’s Void Trilogy (‘Hawking m-sink’ weapon), the Star Trek movie, Burning Chrome anthology by William Gibson includes Johnny Mnemonic, when will they list all the short stories on the audiobook package?, precursor to Neuromancer, William Gibson’s non-fiction Distrust That Particular Flavor is out from Tantor (Jesse will establish later), he’s a crossover, who will read Sisterhood Of Dune?, extending a series, Zelazny’s Amber series, Glasslands (Halo, #8) by Karen Traviss (she also did a lot of Star Wars books), “stuff happens fiction”,  Eve Online, “gateway books”, James Blish Star Trek books, Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye, The Thirteen Hallows by Michael Scott and Colette Freedman, I Am Number Four, YA series, “contractual sweatshop”, Infernal Devices by K.W. Jeter, a steampunk pioneer, “quick off the mark”, Little Big by John Crowley narrated by the author, Stephan Rudnicki was denied Aegypt (at 43 min), the legend of the Cottingley Fairies, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle believed it, “the Fairy Gap”, Larry Niven’s The Ringword Engineers and The Ringworld Throne, The Protector, the Security Now science fiction episode, “The Ringworld is unstable!  The Ringworld is unstable!”, A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller Jr., NPR dramatized it, good for Scott and Julie’s A Good Story Is Hard To Find podcast?,  Working For The Devil (Dante Valentine, #1) by Lilith Saintcrow, Dante is a woman?, Neal Stephenson’s Currency (The Baroque Cycle, Book 3, Vol. 7), they broke it down, Kristin read the whole thing!, Tantor has drm-free downloads, A Fall Of Moondust by Arthur C. Clarke, a Poseidon adventure on the moon, BBC Radio drama version, Timecaster by Joe Kimball, sounds like Minority Report, an idea for someone else to write, the Assassin’s Creed game, Brent Weeks’s Night Angel trilogy, hoodies are popular, the comic Chew‘s gruesome premise, Mur Lafferty likes it (5 stars on Goodreads!), Aces High (Wild Cards, #2) edited by George R.R. Martin, Jenny’s special message about A Wrinkle In Time, the 50th anniversary, a parallel world thing, the Pern series, The Greg Mandel trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton, my review of Mindstar Rising (Greg Mandel, #1), psychic powers, Lady And The Tramp, Scott’s box of audio has become infected with a zombie virus, Rise by Gareth Wood, “we’re not desolate or empty!”, entering New Releases territory, Blackstone, Raylan by Elmore Leonard, Justified tv show does a good Leonard, style, Out Of Sight movie and book, it was J-lo’s best, Sixth Column by Heinlein, Jesse can’t remember it, The Voice From The Edge series by Harlan Ellison, he’s got a passion, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream was dramatized on BBC radio too, Robert Sheckley’s Immortality, Inc. (our readalong should be out next week), Bronson Pinchot narrated, (I think this is where I lost my mic because I was trying to say “transplant!” from that audiobook), A Door Into Ocean by Joan Slonczewski, a classic feminist science fiction novel, no men needed, Brilliance audiobooks are cheap!, “Someone explain the point of Audible” (at least I can still text), “What’s the fascination with zombies?”, societal significance or commercial? (I’m starting to think they’re ignoring me), Twilight and their ilk, Night Of The Long Knives by Fritz Leiber, how these subgenres are grouped together, vs the U.K., Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey is fantasy or science fiction?, Star Wars gadgetry, Alan Moore’s Lovecraft salute comic Neonomicon, the Audible app, Tamahome is in the hole

Posted by Tamahome

Panel Borders: Interview with Alan Moore about Neonomicon

SFFaudio Online Audio

Panel Borders with Alex FitchResonance FM, a community based radio station in London, U.K., broadcasts perhaps the smartest comics podcast on the web, Panel Borders. Recently host Alex Fitch has been running a series exploring the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on comics. The first of this series I’ve heard popped up this morning when I went looking for a podcast about Neonomicon, an Alan Moore/Jacen Burrows graphic novel that I picked up late last year and am reading now. HERE‘s the episode.

I’d actually been going off Alan Moore, having been depressed at his continuing with the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen – but this title, Neonomicon, with a Lovecraftian theme, and the wonderful art of Jacen Burrows made me pick it up. And boy am I ever glad I did!

I’m only about 1/3 of the way through Neonomicon – and so far it is delivering exactly what I wanted, a creepily magnificent story with wonderful Jacen Burrows story art. Moore promises, in the interview, that the story delivers an ‘unflinching’ and ‘evasive-less’ quasi-sequel to H.P. Lovecraft’s The Horror At Red Hook.

I’m savoring every panel.

Here’s the official podcast description:

“Continuing our month of shows about H.P. Lovecraft, Alex Fitch talks to Alan Moore about his final graphic novel that isn’t part of the continuing League of Extraordinary Gentlemen narrative – Neonomicon – which has just been published, along with its prequel The Courtyard, as a graphic novel by Avatar Press. Both comics follow on from Lovecraft’s tale ‘The Horror at Red Hook’ and Alan discusses why he chose that story in particular to explore further, plus the origins of The Courtyard in an abandoned short story collection called ‘Yuggoth Cultures’, and examples of Lovecraftian imagery in his League of Extraordinary Gentlemen saga.”

|MP3|

Neonomicon by Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows

Posted by Jesse Willis