Oh how I love the Fall — the changing of the leaves, jacket weather, Halloween, my birthday (!). And on my birthday wish list is typically a slew of books by my favorite authors and publishers released from early September through November. Anne Rice’s The Vampire Armand, Clive Barker’s Abarat, Max Brooks’s World War Z all came out during this season, and nearly every Fall Neil Gaiman (Coraline, The Graveyard Book) offers up something new.

For 2009, here are some of this Fall’s coolest literary offerings of vampires, zombies, monsters, mysteries, and more. Note, I’ve kept the list to just novels (meaning, no graphic novels), and remember, these are just items that I’m interested in. If you have more suggestions, we’d love to know ‘em!

Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter
By A E Moorat
Hodder | Eos
October 15, 2009 (UK) | January 5, 2010 (U.S.)

A few weeks ago, I received a publicist’s email asking me if I’d like a copy of Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter for review. I didn’t read any further before I hit Reply with an “Absolutely” as my response. Serious, Queen Victoria as a demon hunter, that’s really all I needed to know. When the book arrived, I figured I’d leaf through it and take a few seconds to familiarize myself with it; next thing I knew I was a third of the way through the book. Yes, it was that good.

I’m a big fan of historical fiction, so even if various types of demon folk weren’t involved, I think I’d have enjoyed the story of a young Victoria coming of age as the Queen of England and falling in love with Prince Albert nevertheless. But add in the Queen’s inherit ability to battle demons, along with demons, zombies, reanimators, and two-headed creatures, and damn if that’s not good stuff. It’s an historical fiction/horror mash-up sprinkled with humor in all the right places. One of my favorite characters is a manservant who becomes zombie lunch only to return to life … to continue being a manservant! Seriously, I love this guy, and you will too [...]

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan
Director: Edward James Olmos
Starring: Dean Stockwell, Rick Worthy, Tricia Helfer, Grace Park, Edward James Olmos, Michael Trucco, Kate Vernon, Callum Keith Rennie, Aaron Douglas, Michael Hogan, Rekha Sharma, Katee Sackhoff, James Callis
Universal Studios
Release Date: October 27, 2009

I don’t want to be human! I want to see gamma rays. I want to hear x-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me. I’m a machine, and I could know much more.

Battlestar Galactica: The Plan is the third prequel movie that has been made within the realms of the brilliant Ronald D. Moore and David Eick re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica. The others were Razor and Caprica (which is more of a spinoff and setup for its own new series set to begin in 2010), and they offer us a deeper look into the many stories that we never saw as we journeyed through the wonderful five-season run. While Razor concentrated on another Battlestar ship and added many details to one of the stories we briefly saw in the series, The Plan is a unique and even odd kind of animal that takes us to many different points from the show.

To be completely honest, there’s not really a firm story here, but more of a completely alternative perspective to the intense and familiar events of the series. Do not think that that means that there is no story at all, though — there certainly is, and the more you think about the new things that you see within the film, the more you related them to the overall story, and this is where this movie really works well. The Plan actually plays out almost like the deleted scenes in your DVD special features section, which is kind of strange, but again, unique in its own little way. [...]

We at Geeks of Doom love Halloween. The smell in the air, the leaves changing color to mark the occasion, and all of the old edited horror movies playing over and over on your TV make it one of the most entertaining and exciting times of year.

Back in 2006, we compiled a list of some of the best geek costumes on the market for those of you who do not yet have an idea as to what you want to be. It’s already been three years now, so we thought it was about time to compile another epic list of costume options for the undecided (which includes myself).

While checking these costumes out, keep some things in mind — most importantly: pretty much every costume that you see will have multiple styles of varying price and quality. The majority of the ones we have here are in the $30-$50 range, but you can find really high-quality “Deluxe” versions of the costume that will run you in the $100-$200 dollar range. These are for the folks who have money to spare and love authenticity. If you’re out of your freakin’ mind, there’s even Batman and Darth Vader costumes that will run you $700+ dollars. If you don’t like the one we’ve linked to, just search the character and check out all of the others that exist. Most costumes have children’s versions available, too. We’ve included some great kids’ costumes, but if you find an adult one you’d like for the little ones, just search it out! [...]

The sonic fury of a film’s soundtrack is integral to its lasting presence. The soundtrack to Drew Barrymore’s Whip It is a furiously beautiful compliment to this potent and rousing coming of age film. Barrymore understands the importance of a film’s soundtrack. She understands how vital the musical component is to the film. All one has to do is read her note that she wrote for the soundtrack album:

“Music is the soundtrack to our lives, and when you put music and film together, it is a powerful combination.”

“This soundtrack is my mix tape for you.”

Drew Barrymore gets it. She understands the relationship between music and film. While watching the film, I would crack a smile as songs by The Breeders, Tilly And The Wall, The Ramones, The Chordettes, Dolly Parton, Peaches, and many others would blare out during the film’s many magical and cathartic moments. A good soundtrack is essentially an awesome mix tape. Drew Barrymore understands this all too well for her directorial debut.

The Whip It soundtrack is not the only great mix tape this year; the soundtracks for (500) Days Of Summer and Inglourious Basterds are incredible mix tapes as well. As far as Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds goes, his choices of music from Ennio Morricone scores and other film scores is never to be messed with under any conditions. I doubt I will ever be able to listen Nick Perito’s “The Green Leaves Of Summer” without thinking of the opening credits of the Tarantino film. The other tracks on the album are just as powerful. It’s Tarantino’s magical energy to take another film’s music and make it his own. His soundtracks for all of his films are the perfect mix tapes for cinephiles — not only do we want to discover where the music comes from, we want to discover the actual films. Marc Webb’s (500) Days Of Summer may be the finest mix tape since Zach Braff’s Garden State and every Cameron Crowe film, especially the soundtracks to Almost Famous and Singles [...]

Fucking ecstatic does not begin to adequately describe how happy I am that the dark period of music socialization is over. And in case you aren’t sure the time frame I’m speaking of, it’s the period in which people had to really work in order to discover and share new music by listening to FM radio, buying overpriced albums at a retail store or my *least* favorite, speaking to a group of self important douchebag music snobs. None of those options were ideal for the sake of discovery, but they were even worse for the sake of sharing.

Technology has ushered in so many new (legal) ways to socialize about music, none of which involve an abundance of black t-shirts or $5 covers at the door.

Blip.fm

If you’ve ever had the urge to communicate solely through notes and lyrics, then blip.fm will become an addiction. It’s by far my favorite new way to socialize about music. Blip.fm is a service that allows you to listen to virtually any song by “blipping” it to your own personal stream — similar to Twitter. Also like Twitter, each song you blip is accompanied by an optional 150-character message. Users “listen” or “follow” other people’s blips, which are aggregated in real time to a custom feed that acts as a playlist. However, if you get tired of this playlist you can always navigate to someone else’s [...]

Until the emergence of Adult Swim’s Squidbillies, never had there been an animated program that so eloquently embodied the life of an alcoholic talking squid and his illegitimate son in the rural foothills of Georgia.

Such is true of the voice acting for Squidbillies’s hillbilly squid Early Cuyler, who routinely provides a plethora of thought provoking philosophical quotes such as his dinner table prayer:

“Dear lord… please allow this dangerous combination of hair spray, bat slobber, and D.O.T. four automatic transmission fluid to excite my mind, occupy my spirits, and enrage my body, provoking me to kick any man or woman in the back of the head regardless of what he or she has or has not done unto me.”

Lines of dialog like that can only be delivered effectively by one man, Stuart Daniel Baker a.k.a. the legendary Unknown Hinson. And long before becoming the voice of Early Cuyler, Hinson made a name for himself as a Rockabilly musician who is still touring. His songs are exactly how you’d imagine them to be (ridiculous and offensive). Actually, the amount of ridiculous shit that comes out of this man’s mouth is pretty much exactly like his Squidbillies character.

For proof I’ve provided videos of Unknown Hinson’s performance at the Dragon*Con 2009 Squidbillies panel…

Remember the actor who did the voice work for World of Warcraft’s Death Knight Gnome, Dino Andrade? [Read: Conversations with GoD: World of Warcraft’s Death Knight Gnome Speaks] It turns out he’s also lent his voice talents to another dark, evil, and more menacing video game character — The Scarecrow in the new Batman game Arkham Asylum.

Andrade is no stranger to the video game world as his voice has also appeared in Call of Duty (PSP), Guitar Hero (DS), and Skull from Scott Kurtz’s PVP animated series.

Below is the Arkham Asylum trailer, which ends with flashes of the Scarecrow saying “Poor Little Bat” along with some convincing cackling…

As you may have noticed, our video team on the scene (I just made that up — gold star for me), Doug E. Karate and Rob E. Danger did a fantastic job of finding interesting things and people at Dragon*Con ‘09 and showcasing them for all who didn’t attend to see.

This time around we have three pretty epic videos for you to enjoy — two interviews, and even an in-depth lesson in the Gothic culture. The first chat is with a woman talks about how she fell in love with The Green Lantern while watching the cartoons in Spanish growing up, and who even attended the convention dressed as a Lantern herself. Next up, you’ll meet a real, live inventor who brought along one of his creations. I can’t honestly tell you what it is or what it does, but it does throws a bunch of random phrases at you. The contraption is rather big and hangs around our new friend’s neck as he strolls. It actually kind of looks like an ’80s computer and a calculator had a romantic romp inside Jeff Goldblum’s The Fly machine, and then was teleported via the ship from Galaxy Quest, resulting in some form of inside-out electronic device. [...]

The plus side to having everyone dress in elaborate costumes for an extended weekend is that it gives the fairer of the genders a reason to adopt the likenesses of their favorite fictional characters — even if that means causing them to go half naked and/or require the application of mass body paint.
I’m not going [...]

So this was the beginning of our weekend adventure at Dragon*Con 2009 in Atlanta. A weekend with many highs and just as many lows. Sure, some of the costumes Rob and I saw were nothing short of incredible. But for every group of “Time Travelers” (who had the most artistic costumes I’ve ever seen at one of these things) we encountered roaming the halls, there was some absurd things I should never have had to see under any circumstance, i.e the four-hundred pound woman wearing a leaf-shaped thong. Poison Ivy indeed.

Before you watch our videos, know that we had a great time. Overall, the panels were wonderful, and the convention was run brilliantly. I’m proud to say that I walked away from that Con with some pretty cool memories. I loved exchanging wits with Dirk Benedict (Face from The A-Team, Starbuck on the original BSG). That man is hilarious. And I will never forget Rob and I begging James Marsters to march across the hall with us so we could all beat up the kid from Twilight. Marsters and his manager both thought that was pretty hilarious. But all of those moments closely compete with the smell in some of the hallways (The Nerdmosphere if you will), as well as the horrific image of a quite plump and defeated woman wearing patent-leather Catwoman suit.

Check out the video here below of Rob and me roaming the halls at Dragon*Con 2009 [...]

Leave it up to the Mighty Tide of Justice guys, Doug and Rob, to contract the Swine Flu while down at in Atlanta this weekend at Dragon*Con 2009.

While roaming the convention floor, our guys on the prowl happened upon a teenage girl wearing a very clever costume of the H1N1 virus, known more commonly as the Swine Flu.

What’s even more curious is that they found a teenage girl that wasn’t into Twilight.

Check out the highly contagious video [...]

The Mighty Tide of Justice boys, Doug E. Karate and Rob E. Danger, were on the scene at Dragon*Con 2009 for Geeks of Doom this weekend with camera in hand and once they found out there was a Twilight panel, they went right for it.

Apparently, the line to get into the panel was quite long, so they decided to stick around and interview some of the fans to learn more about the Twilight phenomenon and how the fans feel the series compares to other vampire stories.

Check out some of the video interviews here below with some of the Twilight fans. Note, the first video interview has spoilers for the later Twilight books [...]

Plenty of people have heard about Dragon*Con, the fan-centric geek convention that doesn’t get nearly as much attention as Comic-Con. With a stacked guest list and decades of culture, it’s more than worth the price of admission.

But if you still need convincing the Geeks of Doom have provided a list of reasons why you should attend Dragon*Con, which starts today in Atlanta, GA.

Once you read the list, be sure to check back here at Geeks of Doom, as a bunch of us rowdy geeks are down here and we’ll be providing coverage of Dragon*Con 2009 all this weekend [...]

The first experience most people will have with reading comics on their smart phone will probably be a preexisting story adapted from a printed comic book. And so it almost goes without saying that a lot of people are going to F#%^& hate reading comics on an iPhone (and/or competing hand held devices for the Apple haters out there).

There will be excess flicking, pinching and tapping to fully consume what would have taken mere moments on a 17 x 26 cm page. The fonts will be too small, the word bubbles will take up the entire screen to legibly read and you’ll chuckle in frustration at the thought of paying $0.99 for an entire issue. But in all honesty, comic book pages should never have been adapted to your phone anyhow… not without proper tweaks and re-proportioning.

However, if by chance your first experience reading a mobile comic was anything like Super Kaiju Hero Force, then it’s likely you were pleasantly entertained without feeling overwhelmed by the size limitation of the device. This is because Super Kaiju was created specifically for a smart phone — not a printed & stapled comic book. Even if the style of art isn’t your cup of tea and you loath anything having to do with a super-hero plot line, you have to give credit to the creators for formulating a thoughtful, multi-part story that utilizes the mobile technology.

I spoke to Casey Lau, Super Kaiju co-creator and founder of Crispy Comics, about his efforts and how creators have barely scratched the surface of this new medium [...]

Many rock bands have appeared on the big screen: KISS rocked in Detroit Rock City and even saved the day in the awesome KISS Meets The Phantom Of The Park. Aerosmith actually showed up to Waynestock in Wayne’s World 2 and Tenacious D put aside their pizzas, successfully completed a cock push-up, and power-slided into cinemas in Pick of Destiny. More bands still have been given the rock biopic treatment, like The Doors, Def Leppard, and the Rolling Stones, while others are featured in rockumentaries, like Metallica embarrassing themselves in Some Kind Of Monster, the Sex Pistols swearing their way through The Filth and the Fury, and Anvil in one of the most heartfelt, completing documentaries of all time, Anvil: The Story of Anvil.

But their plenty of big rock stars who make it onto the big screen who aren’t real rock stars at all. Because the world can never get enough of the excesses and legend of rock bands, there are many that have been created just for the cinema. Some are immediately forgetful, like…um…you know, the band in that thing. There are, thankfully, many more fictional rock bands in film that are unforgettable, who look and sound believable, and, sometimes, their influence is even felt in pop culture.

This weekend sees the release Bandslam, a music comedy about the ultimate battle of the bands. Will any of the fictional bands in Bandslam leave a mark on pop culture? We’ll see, but for now, we’re going all the way to 11 with this list of some of the best fictional rock bands ever seen — and heard — in the film. [...]

District 9, the new film from director Neill Blomkamp and produced by Peter Jackson, is being released this Friday, August 14, 2009. With a nice little R-rating, there’s sure to be some heavy human/alien violence going down. In District 9, the aliens supposedly come in peace, but with most alien science fiction movies, that’s usually not the case. Quite the opposite, in fact.

So, in celebration of this new first-contact humans-meet-aliens film that’s getting rave reviews from all who’ve see it so far, we’ve decided to concoct a list of some of the most awesome scenes of aliens killing humans in film. Obviously, there’s been thousands of instances where an alien takes out a human in movies, so finding some of the more outstanding examples was not an easy task. Basically, the movies selected took a death and went a step further…or sometimes, a couple of steps further.

Whether the kill is just ultra-violent, or if it’s completely and disgustingly unique, if it makes viewers cringe when it happens, then it’s worthy of this list. Hopefully we’ve managed to feature some of the elite members of this category.

So without further delay, if you’re not one of the squeamish, click on over and check out our 7 Awesome Alien Kills In Film! [...]

It’s still Tuesday somewhere right now and I said I’d finish up my Comic-Con coverage by today, so here it is! My San Diego Comic-Con 2009 SWAG round up.

In Hall H, which is the biggest auditorium at the convention center, there’s typically volunteers handing out items at the very beginning of the day. Sometimes it’s freebies, while other times it’s a ticket you can use to redeem a bag of swag from one of the exhibit floor booths. Thursday was a Tron coin, which led to a scavenger hunt that resulted in a trip to Flynn’s Arcade; Friday was a ticket to redeem a bag of Warner Bros. freebies at the WB booth; and Saturday was a poster and pencil for Lost and I found out that those entering the Hall later in the day got a ticket to get Iron Man 2 items (I was there bright and early, so I missed out on this last ticket).

I feel like I snagged a lot more swag last year, but there were still a few goodies to be had this year [...]

Clifton Collins Jr. is one of Hollywood’s truly unheralded talents. He has appeared in an impressive amount different movies, from summer blockbusters like J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek to comedies like Sunshine Cleaning; action movies like Crank 2: High Voltage to Oscar-winning dramas like Traffic, Babel, and Capote. He’s even done popular video games like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.

Acting is in Clifton’s blood: his grandfather Pedro Gonzalez Gonzalez has a huge resume, appearing in movies like Rio Bravo with John Wayne and Dean Martin; as well as many TV appearances on classic shows like Gunsmoke, I Dream of Jeannie, and Perry Mason. For a while, Collins Jr. went by the name of Clifton Gonzalez Gonzalez in honor of his grandfather.

Mr. Collins Jr. was gracious enough to answer some questions for Geeks of Doom about his work on the highly-anticipated sequel Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and Mike Judge’s new movie Extract, as well as some other areas of his great career. [...]

If Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) has his way, the future of great science fiction programming will be user generated, not studio produced.

In an interview with Geeks of Doom, the actor/writer/director says he plans to launch an online network (first reported last year) comprised of original web based series that would not only unleash the creativity and talent in the sci-fi/fantasy community, but also cultivate it.

“So often sci-fi shows are run by people who, I don’t really think, understand Science Fiction. Too many great shows go down way too soon,” says Hatch, who listed Firefly, Babylon 5, and others involving spaceships as just some of the casualties. “They’ve all gone off the air because those networks aren’t set up to serve the sci-fi community.” [...]

In the new crime biopic Public Enemies, Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber who became Public Enemy #1 in 1930s in the United States in the beginning years of the J. Edgar Hoover-led FBI. During the Great Depression, the real-life Dillinger was a two-time escaped convict who not only pulled two [...]