In a slap to the face of all comic fans in the New England area, Wizard World Boston has been cancelled.

CANCELLATION NOTICE
Wizard World Boston 2006 cancelled

After speaking to our exhibitors and partners, all of whom shared our concerns about the outside costs of doing business at this time, Wizard World Boston has been cancelled. This is an industry decision, and we want to do what’s best for the industry.

We are thankful to the 8,800 fans that attended last year’s event and hope to return to Boston in the near future. We’re now focused on making sure that our other scheduled 2006 events in L.A., Philly, Chicago and Texas are the best Wizard World shows ever.

The East coast has once again received the shaft from the Comic Cons. As a resident of the area, I am ready to get all my friends and start a good old fashioned Red Sox riot.

Slashdot.org is currently linking to a story on Mainichi going over the past 10 years since Neon Genesis Evangelion turned the manga and anime markets on their side. Its covers Hideako Anno’s past projects to his development of Evangelion and then delves into the show itself headfirst. A good read for any fan of the series.

Activision has revealed their official website for the upcoming game for X3, the third movie installment of the X-Men saga. The game features 3 playable characters in the form of Wolverine, Iceman and Nightcrawler. It also supposedly explains Nightcrawler’s absense from the third movie. Check it out.

Fox has unveiled the site for the third chapter in the X-Men movie series. While some say its the last movie in the series, I would be disappointed if that were true. 3 new stills from the movie have been revealed along with a number of extras on the new site. One of the new stills appears to feature Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man!

Less than a month to go!

Club Skill has uncovered a few of the songs to be included on the sequels to what is arguably the best music game ever.

Guitar Hero 2 has nailed down several artists missing from the first game and grabbing some more cult favorites as well.

“Psychobilly Freakout” by Reverend Horton Heat, “Strutter” by KISS,  “Who Was in My Room Last Night” by Butthole Surfers, “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen “War Pigs” by Black Sabbath, “YYZ” by Rush, and “Arterial Black” by Drist.

All of these will be playable at E3.

on a personal note:  Dude, “War Pigs” by Sabbath is one of the most awesome songs ever. 

I posted about this in the forums and it got a decent response so I wanted to make sure it got some front page mention.

LyricWiki is exactly what it sounds like. Its a wiki full of music lyrics. There are a couple of important things about this site. The most important thing about this site is that it has no ads. This might not mean much to most people, but the RIAA in their haste to sue the world has been cracking down on music lyric sites, but not just any music lyric sites. Only those that have ads on them that they could conceivably earn money on. The lack of ads on this wiki makes LyricWiki legit and free from copyright persecution. Also, because this is a wiki, its community driven so people are always adding to the collective. So, while there are gaps there, they are being filled in slowly but surely.

This is really a great application of a wiki. I’m glad to see someone thought of this and implemented it for everyone’s benefit. Its been harder and harder to find accurate song lyrics lately.

In a turn of events that frankly shocks me, Lucasfilm has decided to release a completely unmolested DVD release of the original Star Wars Trilogy: episodes IV, V, and VI.

You’ll recall slight edits being made to the THX remaster released on VHS in the 90s, and massive CG insertion to the 1997 theatrical re-release in the special editions.  The most recent release in 2004 on dvd added even more CG work, and even went to far as to replace some performances with prequel actors.

Needless to say not a lot of fans were happy, but since George Lucas had complete control, we had to wait until he changed his mind.

NOW HE HAS.

Celebrate, my friends.  Let us put our overplayed Bootlegs of CBS/FOX VHS tapes and LaserDiscs to rest and enjoy not what was intended by the creator, but what was delivered, and what we fell in love with.

Scott Kurtz is best known for PvP, but I’ve quite enjoyed his new side project, co written with Aaron Williams..

“Truth, Justin, and the American Way” is a new hero comic with deep, deep roots in classics like Spider-Man and TV shows like Family Ties. Sound weird? It kind of is.

Justin is the ‘average guy’ who skips out of work early to help plan his wedding with his fiance and then go on to his bachelor party.  It gets kinda messed up when some weirdo Russian switches Justin’s change of clothes with an alien supersuit.  Suddenly he can lift an entire keg of beer with one hand!
The entire concept front to back seems to be molded toward being an 80s sitcom more than anything else. And since thats where his roots are, thats just fine. The book has jokes, and its pretty funny. Its actually really refreshing if you’re like me and rarely pick up a comic that doesn’t feature one epic ‘serious’ struggle after another. I gotta browse the indie-rack more often.

The real star of this book is the pen of Guiseppe Ferrario, who turns in honestly some of the most impressive comic art I’ve seen in years.  Every character is oozing with life and personality, and though the images are as static as any comic page, its not too hard to imagine the entire affair being animated.  I’ll likely be buying every book this guy pencils from now on.
The books been out for 2 weeks, but I read on Kurtz blog that the first printing has sold out, so if your comic shop doesn’t have any left, you’re out of luck until they do a second run. Luckily, you can read the entire book cover to cover online for free!  I can’t wait to see more, myself.