This news hits a little close to home. A global labor rights group has published a PDF declaring that Jet Fair, a manufacturing company in China, has been running a factory remarkably below standard work conditions. The group that has released the PDF is called the Institute for Global Labour and Human Rights. Some of the accusations levied against the Jet Fair factory include, but are not limited to: excessively long work hours, rat-infested and bed bug-ridden dormitories, overly restrictive rules regarding behaviour, sub-standard food, safety violations and poor pay. This particular factory is the location where the new Transformers Prime figures are being assembled.

Hasbro is a company that works very hard to maintain its reputation as responsible corporate citizen and a globally conscience company. This report clearly aims to tarnish that reputation, true or not, and you can expect swift reaction from the company to right it’s course. The report definitely seems to finger Hasbro as the responsible party for this instead of blaming Jet Fair, which seems more than a little unfair.

The PDF laying aim at the Hasbro partner can be seen here: PDF

Many have debated the origin of the term “Cool Story Bro”. While specific usage of those words seems to be restricted to the past 5 or so years, the first usage of the quote is often attributed to the 2001 movie Zoolander, as a character says “Cool story, Hansel”. Here we have Bill Murray’s character Frank Cross saying “Beautiful story. Tell Reader’s Digest, will ya?” to a man who’s objecting to the idea of stapling antlers to a mouse, played by Ralph Gervais.

Download an mp3 of Bill Murray saying “Beautiful story. Tell Reader’s Digest, will ya?” in Scrooged.

One might be tempted to attribute the quote to the film’s writers Mitch Glazer and Michael O’Donoghue, but a quick look over the script indicates that it may have been an ad lib, as the original quote is just “Go tell Reader’s Digest!”. An earlier version of the script doesn’t have that part of the exchange at all (see page 43). Of course we can’t discount the possibility of further script rewrites or improper transcription for the online copy.

[Read the rest of this entry…]

There’s a Japanese live action Rurouni Kenshin film in the works. It’s set to be released on August 25th 2012. Rurouni Kenshin is a popular manga turned anime series about a samurai with a dark past who fights with a backwards sword and hangs around with women and children to be a nice non threatening guy. When Kenshin holds his sword backwards, you know he means business!

The trailer looks pretty good, and not totally crappy like other manga turned anime turned live action movies like Death Note which sucked more than most movies could ever dream of sucking. With a solid story as source material there’s no good reason for this movie to suck, but it still might, like Death Note, which sucked really bad. I didn’t see Shishio in the credits so that’s promising.

With a slow shift to digital-only content, and the inability to share such content like you would lend a book or a disc, and publishers deliberately devaluing their game content through the use of activation codes and central server authenticaion, will there ever come a time when used games become a thing of the past? Sean and Vinnk explore why console games cost so much, why iOS games cost so little, and the ruin that would be visited upon the gaming industry if no one could lend out their games or buy used ones ever again.

[Listen to the episode after the jump…!]

See the gallery of images after the jump.
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Legendary comic creator Joe Simon has passed away at the age of 98, according to a post by his son on facebook.

Simon is most famous for creating Captain America with his frequent collaborator Jack Kirby. Working with Kirby he revolutionized superhero, horror, and romance comics, and his influence on comics as a whole is undeniable.

Our condolences to his friends and family. Let us know your favorite work or memories of Simon in the comments.

Photo via.

A reminder to all collectors, today is MattyCollector Day for December 2011.

The following items will be on sale on MattyCollector.com at Noon Eastern Standard Time:
MOTUC Demo-Man
MOTUC Wind Raider
MOTUC Battleground Evil-Lyn
DCU Legion of Super Heroes 12 Pack (reissue with burst*)
DCUC Wave 19 Sandman I
DCUC Wave 19 The Atom I
DCUC Wave 19 Modern Kobra
DCUC Wave 19 Hawkman Classic
DCUC Wave 19 Magog
DCUC Wave 19 Star Girl
JLU 3-Pack: Goldface / Evil Star / Kyle Rayner
JLU 3-Pack: Angleman / Firestorm / Killer Frost
JLU 3-Pack: Heatwave / The Flash / Mirror Master
Ghostbusters™ 6″ Vigo with painting (included with 2011 Club Ecto-1 subscriptions)
Ghostbusters™ II 12″ Winston Zeddemore and Peter Venkman Set
Ghostbusters™ II 12″ Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler Set
8″ Guy Gardner
8″ John Stewart
8″ Kyle Rayner
8″ Sinestro

Only 350 days overdue! Enjoy.