Finding Your Line: San Diego Comic-Con Releases Floor Map

The San Diego Comic-Con is coming up quick; it’s in about three weeks (which means I just had my fourteenth panic moment in a series of several hundred when I compulsively check my flight and hotel information to make sure I have the right dates), which means two things: we here at Crisis On Infinite Midlives are starting our annual trips out to research, test and collect equipment for reporting on the convention as quickly and comprehensively as a two-person operation can (particularly when the staff on the ground has a 100% incidence of problem drinking), and they information about the convention is beginning to drip out.

This means two things: we only have a few minutes today before we must head out on an appointment to irritate the shit out of some minimum wage drone at Best Buy (“How many finotles does this camera have? Two, eh? Yeah, can we speak to someone who knows that a finotle is not a thing?”), and that Comic-Con has released the map for the main convention floor.

And if you are attending the convention, you should go check the new map out; apparently they have moved some stuff around in the interest of relieving some floor traffic. The videogame exhibitors have been moved to pretty much the other side of the floor, and the art dealers have been moved even closer to Artists’ Alley. Which is probably a good move and should alleviate the horrible scrums of wretched humanity… right until the moment some top-heavy woman in a Power Girl costume strikes a pose for a photo, warping the orderly streams of timely travel more effectively than a TARDIS with a flamethrower.

You can check out the new map, and search for your target exhibitors here.

Game Of Thrones + BTVS = Awesome

In this Game Of Thrones fan trailer, posted by YouTube user zuziako, scenes from the show are set to the Buffy The Vampire Slayer theme by Nerf Herder. In the role of Buffy? Jon Snow. Because, as zuziako puts it in the comments, “Well, he battles the undead.”

He does indeed.

Best quote from the comment thread is by user Joe Coffey:

You know nothing, Buffy Summers.

Miss Buffy? Then check out this never before released footage from behind the scenes of the series over at The Mary Sue. It’ll help keep you going until you can dig out your old BTVS DVDs, or until winter comes back around again.

Via The Mary Sue.

Just A Couple Of Guys Killing Everyone: Kyle Baker’s Mass Murder of Steel Game

Kyle Baker is a cartoonist, possibly best known to the run-of-the-mill superhero comic geek as the guy who worked on The Shadow with Andy Helfer back in the 80s, and who did the pre-New 52 Plastic Man series back in 2005. But he is also an animator, who has worked on Phineas And Ferb… and who apparently likes to work in Flash animation.

I say this because, in just the ten or so days since Man of Steel opened in American theaters, Baker has put together a little Flash animation game called Mass Murder of Steel.

The mechanics of the game are simple: you click on Superman and General Zod, who are tumbling together in an embrace appropriate for either mortal combat or gay porn, and when you do, they bounce around the screen, and, well, the people of Metropolis get a good look at the battle. Just before they Believe A Man Can Fly… So Long As The Ground Is Never There To Hit.

Make no mistake: Mass Effect 4 it ain’t, but as a nifty little dig at the sheer scope of destruction in Man of Steel, and an examination as to whether that destruction was just eye candy without much of story justification, it’s pretty cool. And you can play it here.

(via Comics Alliance)

Brain Bleach: Clark Gregg, Agent Of Toy

Captain America has the smoothest…shield…

Toy critic, Ninjavitis^*, reviews the new line of action figures from the Marvel Avengers movie by Hot Toys, distributed by Sideshow Collectibles. When he begins his segment on the Agent Coulson doll^**, he is visited by Clark Gregg. While Gregg could take this opportunity to play with himself, he instead begins to play with the other dolls…which is even creepier. Behold:

^* Best internet handle ever, Jason Miyashiro!

^** Life model decoy not included…unless Coulson always was one…

Agent Coulson lives!

Via Topless Robot

Inevitable Porn Parody – Man Of Steel XXX

Yesterday, much of the Crisis On Infinite Midlives staff attended a 10:30 AM matinee for Man Of Steel. Our group’s consensus was generally favorable, some giant plot holes around the inability of the citizens of Krypton to realize that the Phantom Zone could be used to save people from their planet that weren’t genocidal war lords aside. Rob tells me he’s going to have a review up eventually; today he’s mostly been asleep on the couch. Being functional for a 10:30 morning movie takes a lot out of a guy. That, and the Michigan whiskey Trebuchet and Pixiestyx brought back for him from their recent travels to deepest, darkest Flint. Cheers, guys!

In the meantime, enjoy this trailer for the recently released porn parody, Man Of Steel XXX. It looks to be as much a loving fan homage to the Justice League as much as it also appears to be an excuse for Supes to give Wonder Woman his Kryptonian meat. Enjoy!

Via The Mary Sue

Last Chance Pass: Single-Day Tickets For San Diego Comic-Con 2013 Going Up For Sale

Yesterday, we here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives Home Office were out celebrating a birthday – not that I could testify in court that that’s actually what happened, except for the evidence of the calendar and the credit card slip reading only “Jagermeister” with a ridiculous number of digits next to it – so several emails we received went unnoticed until this morning, when I caught up on our correspondence to distract myself from praying for a merciful and quick death to stop the relentless thrumming in my head.

Which is a shame, because one of those emails was definitely noteworthy, at least to those people desperately praying for some ray of hope that they could find a way to attend this year’s San Diego Comic-Con next month.

Well, that ray of hope has blinked on: Comic-Con International has announced that several thousand people have returned a variety of single-day passes for this year’s convention, and that they have yanked some previously-reserved badges held for some professional departments… and that they will be holding a lottery for those laminates that you can be a part of.

You know, provided you meet a certain limited set of conditions.

Comic-Con International’s complete message and instructions are after the jump.

Rory Kinnear – The New Doctor Who?

Bleeding Cool is reporting that UK paper The Telegraph is running a story that the BBC has offered the part of the 12th Doctor to Skyfall‘s Rory Kinnear.

According to the Telegraph article’s author, Richard Eden:

“He has been offered the part and we are waiting to hear if he will accept,” says my man in the Tardis. “He is the perfect choice.”

The 35-year-old alumnus of St Paul’s School, George Osborne’s alma mater, is the son of Roy Kinnear, the celebrated actor.

He played the MI6 officer Bill Tanner in Skyfall and Quantum of Solace, the James Bond films, and won acclaim for his stage performances in productions of Othello, Mary Stuart and Hamlet.

However, tweets Dr. Who producer, Ed Starling:

Don’t believe what you read about the new #doctorwho being announced this weekend. I think it must be Starburst getting a bit over-excited!

— Ed Stradling (@edstradling) June 8, 2013

Steven Moffat says this morning “I haven’t a clue who it is, we’ve barely started.” So no #doctorwho announcement this evening I fear!

— Ed Stradling (@edstradling) June 8, 2013

Hmmm. A vote in Kinnear’s favor, at as far as I’m concerned, is that he’s at least a bit older than Matt Smith. As an old school Doctor Who fan, I worry that the rampant fan growth among the 18-25 set under Smith will lead to a series of increasingly younger casting choices possibly resulting in the eventual casting of Justin Bieber or a fetus.

However, Stradling did have some interesting things to say about how Smith was cast in Doctor Who in the first place.

Bad Days – Have You Checked Out Stan Lee’s World Of Heroes?

Things did not proceed smoothly here at the Crisis On Infinite Midlives home office this morning. Blasted awake at the Crack of Ungodly by well meaning employees of our condo association in the midst of the annual community-wide fire alarm check, Rob and I have been staggering through the remainder of the day in a haze that copious amounts of caffeine and sugar can’t quite seem to cut. We are moments away from breaking out the Jack Daniels, calling the day a wash, and drinking ourselves back to sleep. However, as bad a day as we think we might be having, it’s not as bad as the one Batman is having in this episode of Bad Days, a show that is featured on the YouTube channel for Stan Lee’s World Of Heroes.

I always knew Robin was more trouble than he was worth.

Sayonara, kids. I’m going to crack open this whiskey, settle in for a few Cocktails With Stan, and go back to bed.

Via Geeks Are Sexy

Brain Bleach – Won’t Someone Please Think For Of The Children

Rob and I don’t have children, mostly owing to the fact that we spend much of our time drunk, pantsless, and gibbering like 3 year-olds. However, if we did have kids, we would choose not to send them to Tuny Haven International Early Learning Center. On May 17th, that preschool sent home this letter to its students’ parents

Recently, it has been brought to our attention that the imaginations of our preschool children are becoming dangerously overactive causing injuries within our pre-k community. Although we encourage creative thinking and imaginary play, we do not promote out [sic] children hurting one another. Wrestling, Super Hero play, and Monster games will not be permitted here at Tuny Haven. In addition please monitor the different media that your children may view. The reenactment of televisions [sic] shows/ movies are being done during active paly [sic] times in school.

The safety and well being of your child is our first and foremost concern. Thank you for your cooperation.

The inability of the letter’s authors, site Director of Operations LaTanya Bernard and Executive Director Adrienne McKinney, to proofread their work for spelling and the ability to use is or are correctly in their sentences aside, what kind of monsters dressing themselves up as educators censor their students’ imaginative play? It comes off like they can’t be bothered to monitor their recess time properly to avoid injury. “No, I’m sorry Johnny. You can’t be Superman at recess and you can’t go home and watch Superman, because then you might think about Superman…and then you might want to be him at recess. Here, go play with this rock and this stick. Play ‘baseball players’, because nobody ever gets hurt playing baseball.”

According to Citypaper.net, Bernard and McKinney would not return phone calls for comment.

What absolute losers. See the letter, after the jump.

Video Distractions: Batman: Arkham Origins Teaser Released

Comics aren’t the only thing in my life, you know. I am also somewhat of a home theater enthusiast, to the point where I have built my own home theater PC (Think a TiVo, only with 4.5 terabytes of storage space, that also plays home video, music, and online media, as well as skipping commercials automatically on recorded TV, and all without a byte of digital rights management), run by a small universal infrared sensor to read commands from a standard remote control.

I also just bought and wall-mounted a sick plasma TV to replace my old DLP projection job and – funny story – didja know that plasma TVs, as well as having the best contrast available, also spit out a bunch of infrared noise? Noise that, say, a universal infrared sensor can see? And try to constantly process? Making the PC that’s listening to that sensor as dumb as a brick?

However, being a clever man, I thought of a fix that requires only a small cardboard jewelry box. Really: that’s it. Well, that and about $400 of obscure hobbyist parts that require extensive programming and tweaking to allow a line-of-sight infrared sensor to listen to a remote control while the sensor is crammed into a small cardboard jewelry box.

All of which is a long way to go to explain that I am extremely busy today – trying to turn a bracelet box into an electronic home theater component will do that to you – but I do have one thing for you: Batman: Arkham Origins, the sequel to the excellent Arkham Asylum and Arkham City videogames, is due out this coming October, and the producers have released the first teaser video for the game, featuring Batman kicking the shit out of a low-level bad guy. A low level bad guy named Deathstroke. And you can check it out after the jump