Car bloggers Jalopnik have snapped several shots of Transformers in LA this week.
To the left you’ll see the big honkin’ pickup purported to be Ironhide. Its a GMC Sierra, which is a big truck to start, but its been tricked out with a lift kit and some heavy duty after market tires. The photographer also mentions the front end has some cool changes too and points out the added smoke stacks. Oh yeah, and the metal embossed Autobot logo on the back bay door. Perfect.

They also saw a Crane, but who knows what that has to do with anything.

MTV News sat down with former Ultra Game Players and Xbox Magazine writer and current Bungie content manager Frank O’Conner about his ability to bait and tease fanboys.
Frank also turns in a great photo-filled journal of ComiCon. I should really call this column “This Week In Frankie”
Rumor time!!! SPoNG says a New Bungie Title that isn’t Halo will be revealed at X06, certifying that Halo 3 will in fact be the last in the series. It is said the game will still take place in the Halo universe, not unlike their Mac classic, Marathon.
Joystiq stupidly spit out A Bungie with business sense would make Halo 4 and 5 and… and made me literally sneer. Who are you kidding man? They’re going to finish the fight with Halo 3 and then move on. This is the same kind of mindset that makes terrible sequels commonplace. A Halo 4 would be horribly tacked on. Bungie has clearly mapped out this universe and history to include many, many events that may never make it into games. Not unlike Star Wars or Star Trek, they’ll find new places to set new stories with new characters without leaving the world we know. Theres a vast history of the Spartan program the Covenant and the Forerunners that we haven’t… hey… wait a minute… Forerunners… Yeah, that could easily be where the rumour came from. We’ll have to wait and see.

Wave 1 is right around the corner (and you can see the bios here!), and as excited as everyone I’ve talked to has been for the first batch, our eyes are quickly darted toward wave 2!
TFW2005‘s Kickback and his awesome inside sources have come through with some pictures of Voyager Jetfire, and deluxe Grimlock and Mirage. Since their site has been slammed with traffic lately, I’ve taken the liberty of posting mirrors of the images.

Mattel is obviously aware by now that the toy line to Superman Returns is little more than a couple thousand variations of Superman himself and 1 Luthor figure. I don’t blame them for not rushing to make plastic representations of Parker Posey and Kal Penn, but some variation is needed to keep the line from becoming worth of an ET/Atari2600-style landfill burial.

Thankfully, new toys are on the way!

Allegedly based off EA’s video game of Superman Returns, new figures include Mongul, Metallo, a NEW Luthor, and an even SHINIER Superman! Wow!

Thanks to Joey O.

Update: No longer requires quicktime.

Wow, I got so excited over this one over the weekend, I completely forgot to post it here.
The short story is this: Peter Cullen, the voice behind the original Optimus Prime in the 1984-88 Transformers animated series, has been cast as Optimus Prime once again in the forthcoming movie from Dreamworks.
The long story from producer Don Murphy:

the Cullen thing. As you all know when we started this grand experiment two years ago, Cullen and Welker were the ONLY Thing you gave me any consensus on. I’m serious, because I read everything you write, no matter how shitty. And if someone suggested something, half of you would shout it down. And the ONLY thing you overwhelmingly agreed on was that Prime should sound like Prime and Megatron should sound like Megatron. Which makes sense, especially since both actors are alive and well.

So I pushed your agenda. As some of you know, that was not an easy one. My own partner advocated celebrity voices. Then I showed him the results of your guys’ input and he immediately joined the bandwagon. Ian Bryce came to the show well in to the process and saw the results and supported immediately. John Rogers needed no prodding god bless his pointed head. One or two Dreamworks executives also supported from relatively early on. The interesting thing is that the director never gave an opinion any way. He had a lot of us telling him that there was no choice, really, the fans had spoken. But he had Skorponok and a lot of people at Dreamworks and Paramount FIGHTING actively not to do it. The forces of Cullen kept the push going.

Several weeks he came in and auditioned, which was all anyone could ask the director to do. Then he came back for a meeting. And now, Optimus Prime has his voice back. And there is much rejoicing. I now have people that really don’t like me because of this. But as we learned in this week’s sudden purge at Disney, it is the movie that counts. I have never cared if I was liked- all that anyone remembers is the film. And 14 years later I am still making movies… before you negativists start asking wotup with Welker, hey we are all working on it. Fact is I was told he was harder to arrange audition time with and his schedule— hell I don’t know. No one wants Cullen without Welker. I will not say that the director has made the decision because he hasn’t.

But you see this particular director is one of the most amazing I’ve ever seen work. One day he was shooting on a big city street- five cameras going at once. He set every shot up. He set the extras, hell he OPERATED one of the cameras. My gut tells me that Michael Bay weighs every decision QUITE STRONGLY. You have to remember that. HE finally okayed Cullen once HE was convinced. And should Welker happen, as I know everyone hopes, it will happen when he can make the decision. Which, quite frankly, is not an urgent decision to make at this moment. Hang tight….

Encouraging words.

Finally, hear Cullen voice Prime for the first time in many years at ComicCon from a panel with Producer Lorenzo Di Bonaventura:
“I am Optimus Prime… Transformers, roll out!”

In one of the more bizarre licensing deal announced at SDCC, Oni Press has announced it will be publishing a monthly comic based on the NBC show My Name Is Earl.

In the show, Jason Lee plays a criminal who wins the lottery and sets about righting the wrongs he’d done in his life in order to enhance his karma.

The comic book will focus on Earl and Randy crossing off items on the list that can’t be done on the show, or fit better in the comic medium. The first issue will featuring Earl replacing comic books (of course!) from someone he stole from at a comic convention. From there, future Earl stories include him flying a plane, destroying the Hoover Dam, and repairing it. Hunter Covington, scriptwriter for the Earl TV series, is set to write the comic, but no artist has been mentioned.

Link: BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS FROM ONI PRESS AT COMIC-CON 2006!

Confession: I like Phil Collins and Genesis. They did some pretty cool shit back in the 80s and 70s before they evolved into adult contemporary band in the 90s and disbanded.

One of their best songs was the politically themed “Land Of Confusion” and this morning I heard the new single by Disturbed, which is a cover of this song.

While I love the Cold War symbolism in the original, its resonates today. The vision for the song is assisted in both cases by the music video, where Genesis and political figures of the day are presented as puppets resembling political cartoons. The Disturbed update is directed by Todd MacFarlane, and bears a stylistic similarity to a previous video he’s done, but its much more confrontational with its message, calling out the war mongering and greed of many nations far more directly.

Presented for your enjoyment, the original Genesis video and Disturbed version, after the jump.
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