by Damon Martin
During the holiday season, atheists in America and Canada are letting everyone know they are still good without God. The message has been spread across buses and billboards throughout North America to send an alternative message during this normally oversaturated time of religious rejoice.
Groups like Secular Samaritan, American Humanist Association, and the Centre for Inquiry are responsible for the Christmas time ad buys. The gospel they’re trying to spread with these billboards is that goodness and morality are not in the exclusive domain of those that believe in a higher power.
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by Damon Martin
Remember the name GFAJ-1 because it may be the organism that changes how we perceive and define life on Earth and eventually in space.
Today, NASA held a press conference announcing the findings of a team led by Felisa Wolfe-Simon, an astrobiologist at the U.S. Geological Survey. The researchers discovered a bacteria originally found at Mono Lake, CA that is able to sustain, grow and reproduce using the element arsenic.
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by Damon Martin
Star Wars without George Lucas?
The Godfather without Al Pacino?
Jay and Silent Bob without Kevin Smith?
Any of those scenarios would just seem wrong wouldn’t they? Well, that brings us to Monday’s announcement from Warner Bros. that they will be reviving Buffy the Vampire Slayer in a new film that will have no direct connection with the previous movie or television show – and also no connection whatsoever with character creator and long time Buffy writer Joss Whedon.
You read that correctly: The man who created and guided the Buffy-verse will have nothing to do with the latest incarnation set to hit the big screen as soon as 2011.
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by Damon Martin
In a real world context, Benjamin Franklin may have very well been right, but those rules don’t apply when talking about the comic book universe. Like a bad soap opera where the lead character is bound to find out that his wife – whom has just made a full recovery from a terminal illness – is also his long lost sister, comic books are notorious for never letting any character stay dead for too long.
That leads us to the February 2011 Marvel Previews in which they tease us with the “Death of Spider-Man.” Sure, the sticky guy has flatlined a time or two in his day, but this will be the first major run where the character is billed as meeting his ultimate demise. While Marvel is apparently being very hush-hush about the events surrounding the eventual “death” of Spider-Man, the big goal of course is to raise sales for the Spider-Man titles before they rub him out.
Comic book deaths however are a cautionary tale because the concept is rarely very final in the land of the superhero. The genre has exploited this device for years, and many fans tire of the ubiquitous “dead hero/miraculous resurrection” storylines. With Peter Parker apparently the next hero on the chopping block, let’s look at some famous comic book deaths and how the heroes came back to life:
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by Damon Martin
After a stunning debut that drew in over 5 million viewers last week, AMC’s new series The Walking Dead has been picked up for a second season with a 13 episode run already approved by the network. Indeed, the zombie filled show, based on Robert Kirkman’s comics of the same name, has broken cable records for viewership among adults 18-49.
Now that The Walking Dead can be called a legitimate hit, television networks will likely mine the comic book world vein, looking for more material that can be turned into TV gold. Shows like NBC’s Heroes and ABC’s No Ordinary Family have drawn upon the superhero myth, but weren’t actually based on any established work. So as The Walking Dead continues on AMC, let’s take a look at five series comic book series that have the potential to make it big in TV land.
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by Damon Martin
On Sunday night, the The Walking Dead came to life on AMC bringing with it masses of the undead to stalk Sheriff Rick Grimes and his happy band of wanderers. The show, based on Robert Kirkman’s longstanding, Eisner Award-winning comic book series of the same name, was optioned for TV in late 2009 and made its television debut on Halloween night, 2010.
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by Damon Martin
Alone in the Universe? Still Not Sure
A few weeks ago, scientists discovered what was thought to be a habitable planet called Gliese 581-g, which had all the characteristics of a world that could create and contain life as we know it on Earth anyways. The “Goldilocks” planet was found to be in a zone not too close to its sun (ie. not too hot) and not too far away (ie. too cold), in the sweet spot in between where an atmosphere could form and life could grow.
Not so fast.
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