Nerdy Noms Part 1 – Batman Cupcakes

I like junk food. I particularly like junk food that comes to me in a packet that I can rip open and stick my face in. I’m lazy with cooking. If it’s not essential, I’m not cooking it. I would live off Coco Pops and Marmite on toast if I could. So what the devil am I doing in the kitchen making cupcakes? I have no idea. It could be something to do with the Ace of Cakes binge I’ve been on, sitting in front of the telly for months on end drooling at the sight of cakes that look like ships and castles and hamburgers and WHAT THE CRAP THERE’S FIRE COMING OUT OF THAT CAKE. Or perhaps it’s something to do with wanting to be a mad scientist, and not being allowed anywhere near real chemicals. So I’m baking. And I’m starting with my one true love… Batman. LET’S MAKE BAT CAKES.

Alternative Cuts – Danny Wiessner – The World is Saved.

The World is Saved is the new epic song and anthem for video game fans. This collaborative effort from IGN’s Podcast Beyond community came about when IGN’s own Ryan Clements pulled together a small team of volunteers to animate a video to go along with Danny Wiessner’s latest single for Podcast Beyond Episode 200 in which the video made it’s debut.

The song tells the journey of gaming and everything that goes along with it, that can be summed up with the awesome line:

At the end of it all
gamers play what we play
not for GAME OVER
but rather for what we take away!

The World is Saved single is available for purchase on iTunes.

BEYOND!

You can follow myself at Twitter at: @ObviousPrime

You can follow the blog on Twitter at: @Alt_Spotlight

You can follow Danny Wiessner of Twitter at: @Tuanews

Ultimate Spider-Man battles with Ignorance.

After a long while of all Ultimate Spider-Man comics being branded with a  “The Death of Spider-Man” banner, in issue 160 we finally got to see how this mysterious enigma of  a storyline ended. SPOILERS Completely unknown to everyone reading the comic series at the time, with the previously stated huge, contrasting “The Death of Spider-Man” banners across the top, it came as a huge shocker when Spider-Man kicked the alternative universe bucket.

"Don't worry Aunt May, I'm sure Peter will be back in time for issue 200"

However rather than doing the typical stylings of the ‘Actual’ Marvel universe, Earth-616,  in which the killing of a character is generally a temporary measure to create the closure of a poorly selling series, Ultimate Spider-Man is marching forward, leaving Peter Parker’s cold corpse behind, and relaunching with a new series in September with a brand new Spider-Man.

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Marvel movies that we want Pixar to make.

Since Disney bought out Marvel and Pixar some time ago, the colossal fanboy in me has been dying for some sort of announcement of these two behemoths of popular entertainment doing a team up project of visual spectacle. But alas, every word of Pixar studios picking up a spandex wearing superhero movie has been down played, Pixar have gone on record to say that “they’ve done superheroes” and have not got any Marvel character projects in the works. So things look grim on the superhero front. But this doesn’t stop the want for a Marvel/Pixar combo at all, if anything it makes me want it even more, because I am fundamentally a child, and I want what I can’t have. (I also tend to want something if it’s mine anyways, I haven’t played with it for a while and then you, of all people, show interest in it, then I want it again, that’s just how I roll)

So after much thought I created a set of guidelines to think of even remotely possible projects. This way all my picks don’t sound like complete random fanboy-ism and it has structure, it also makes me feel a bit better about myself, but that’s not the point.

RULES

The rules are pretty simple and state:

• A movie cannot be made if the character’s licence belongs to a production company that is not Disney. (So Spidey, X-Men and The Fantastic Four are out the hypothetical window)
• As Pixar are, at heart, a family friendly studio, movies with content that would require anything more than a 12A (PG13) won’t happen. (So no Punisher or Moon Knight then)

Them the rules, nothing too restrictive and easy to work around. Let’s get to the picks.

Doctor Strange

As of yet, Pixar has yet to focus the main theme of its movies on magic and what better introduction to a mainstream audience could the very own Sorcerer Supreme receive. Starting with his origin and the car crash, that would probably be changed for a Disney audience, but then to have Strange search for his mentor, the Ancient One, in the Himalayas, his training and eventual understanding of the mystic arts. Build it up to the final battle with the Lord of the Dark Dimension Dormammu and you have a movie, one that stands up to the live action universe and offers something not yet seen. Every step stands to have an excellent story telling and visual premise that’s on a huge scale.  As story goes, Doctor Strange is very Pixar, a story about a once selfish man, not caring for anyone but himself, having everything taken away from him, being re-built as a decent person and then into a hero.

Alternative Cuts – Menomena – “Evil Bee”

This is a video that I love so very much and one that really speaks for itself.

Menomena are one of a billion indie bands out of Portland, Oregon, and whilst I never got on with all their music, this is just a perfect mix of sound and vision. Over the past 3 or so years I’ve found myself coming back to it time and time and time again. I’ve searched high and low for a true HD version of it but to no avail, so sadly this is the best we have for now.

If you know me then I’ve either spammed this video to you on blogs or IM or email or one social networking site or another, or I’ve made you put it on at that perfect time of the night.

Menomena – Evil Bee. It’s a keeper.

Peter Jackson’s ‘The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey’

There have been a lot of announcements lately about Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and I feel it’s not getting enough attention!

This could be because The Hobbit has been too long in the making. It’s been a good few years, with Peter Jackson dropping out, Del Toro taking the reins and then relinquishing them again. Yet the films are now in full flow and over the past few weeks, exciting images have been released!

The cast was actually announced a few months back, and was exciting at the time, but again, I feel lacked the excitement it deserved. As ever with Jackson, the actors involved are a lot more exciting if you’re British, with some wonderful cult actors like Aidan Turner of Being Human fame featuring heavily. Fancy seeing Aidan as a dwarf? Well now you can.

T-Shirt Spotlight – 28/06/11

I may not be the most fashionable cat around but I do know one thing, if a t-shirt rocks or not.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you today’s t-shirt spotlight…

 

Courtesy of Mighty Fine tees.

The very simply-entitled “Nerd Buffet” is by Liz Acosta, and depicts a whole host of delights that make geeky souls everywhere smile: Rainbows! Sharks! Dragons! Robots! Zombies! Laser-firing unicorn eyeballs! It’s a brain-melting display of awesomeness.

Cost: $25

Purchase: Here

Follow Mighty Fine on Twitter at @welovefinetees

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Tags: T-shirt Spotlight

Campus Series 1 – Review

Okay, I’ll just go ahead and say it. I liked Campus. In fact, I really liked Campus. From the writers behind sketch show Smack The Pony and hospital-sitcom classic Green Wing, Campus had massive shoes to fill. Initial reception of the show was painful, with critics left and right declaring it the immature pubescent little brother of Green Wing, slamming it for both its similarities and differences from the show. Sure, Channel 4’s advertisements in the run-up to the first episode made the Green Wing link its major selling-point and perhaps this hype was a little too much to handle, but is it really necessary to make such comparisons? Okay, so both shows focus on two marvellouly dysfunctional instituions and revolve around the relationships between the people inside of them, but what sitcom doesn’t?

Let’s talk about…the DC reboot.

Come September, DC Comics will press the restart button on the entire DC universe. With the conclusion of Flashpoint, DC will start anew with fifty-two, yes fifty-two, brand new series all starting at issue one and going day and date digital release. Obviously news like this tends to cause a little bit of backlash, so here at Alternative Spotlight we decided to not take to the forums and burn them all down with our flaming fanboy rage, we thought Adam and Simon would have a gentlemanly discussion instead.

But first, let’s see what we are dealing with.

Simon

Currently reading (comic book wise) – Oddly nothing current. Working through some things I’ve missed over the years. Currently reading the reimagining of Neil Gaiman’s ‘Neverwhere’.
Favourite Series – Preacher. Always and forever. The best comic series that was ever written (and mostly likely ever will be!)
Writer that can do no wrong – Neil Gaiman

Adam

Currently reading (comic book wise) – I’m a little bit of a Marvel zombie. The current most notable titles I’m reading right now are Amazing Spider-Man, all the Avengers titles, Avengers Academy, Uncanny X-Force, Deadpool and Uncanny X-Men.
Favourite Series – I am loving Avengers Academy and Uncanny X-Force at the moment but will always go with Amazing Spider-Man.
Writer that can do no wrong – I’m going to be cheap and go with three: Matt Fraction, Christos Gage and Rick Remender.

1. What do you think of the DC reboot at a consumer level?

Simon: On a consumer level it’s obviously going to split people down the middle. I was a MASSIVE fan of Marvel’s ‘reboot’ (though it wasn’t an entire one). The Ultimate comics were an opportunity for me to throw myself into a universe where I knew EVERYTHING that was going on, and that’s a nice feeling. I hope to get the same buzz from the DC reboot. The DC universe has so much history and mythology behind it. Sometimes it can get confusing. This is an obvious way to solve that issue and make the whole lot accessible again. However… 52 titles?!?! What the hell?!?! That’s way too many. They’re trying to solve one issue and failing miserably. Within months, the DC universe is going to be as confusing as it ever was, no-one is going to be able to afford/have the time to keep up with every series, and there will always be crossovers that make you go ‘Huh? Who the hell is that?!’ They should have done what Marvel did and kept it simple. The main characters get their own series (Supes, Wonderwoman, Batman) and done a Justice League one to start. That REALLY would have made the new universe accessible. Then as time went on, GL and co could get their own issues. It’s going to get confusing, and there seems to be an ongoing thing with big events in comics at the moment in that they never stick to their guns. They kill someone off, they always come back, something big happens that changes everything, and they do something to reverse it all. My money? I wouldn’t be surprised if in 12 months time, everything’s gone back to exactly how it was, or at least, we’ll find out that there’s still the original earth floating out there somewhere…