Wednesday 13 July 2011

TV

No Ordinary Family
1x10 No Ordinary Sidekick
I'm not sure if this is getting a little bit better or if I'm just becoming a little immune...

Pointless
4x27 (12/7/11 edition)
Today's edition was my favourite kind of quiz show: one where I could have a reasonable go at most rounds. Got the best answer on the Wallace & Gromit one, but the most obscure Kevin Spacey films I could come up with wouldn't've been obscure enough.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

DVD Extras

Easter Egg on Doctor Who: The Dominators
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre do a sketch related to Doctor Who serial production codes. Yes, it's as fan-only as it sounds -- that's why it's an easter egg, I should imagine. But I thought it was very funny, so there.

Trailers

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Trailer
I loved the first Downey Jr/Ritchie Holmes film, this one looks... interesting. Lots of exciting stuff and funny stuff, but will it work as well as a Sherlock Holmes film as the first one did? Could be they've crammed the trailer full of all the film's action and the Holmesian stuff will occur in between it; could be they've gone too far down the blockbuster route. Only time will tell.
That said, maximum points for using the same awesome music as the first film's trailer.

Fiction

Planetary by Warren Ellis & John Cassaday
#0 Nuclear Spring

My first (purchased) digital comic! The complete collection of acclaimed series Planetary is currently available for just £15/$25 from comics-app-of-choice comiXology -- but only until Friday -- and it includes this 8-page introductory tale, which I don't believe is available otherwise. (It doesn't include the three spin-off/tie-in one-shots though, which are available for £1.49/$1.99 each.)

One of the main criticisms of digital comics from Those In The Know is that they're currently sold exclusively in individual issue form -- great for day-and-date new releases, no use for classic stuff newbies might actually want to buy. For one high-profile example, search a comics app for one of the most praised Batman stories of all time, Year One, and you won't find it (see). It's not available as a collection titled Year One, only as Batman issues 404 to 407. Useless.

In this case, buying the omnibus gives you all 27 individual issues (the complete series), which is better than being given one single 633-page file! Buying the same number of issues in collected real-book form would be a lot more expensive, and these can be read online, on iOS devices (iPads, iPhones, etc), and even Android I believe, should you care for that. The one thing that really buys me is that you can't seem to get prices in anything other than dollars on the website. Why? They're in pounds on the iPhone app! But that seems to be temperamental and prone to crash while browsing, making searching to buy stuff on there a real pain.

If you're interested in how it all works in practice ("reading a book online?! what?!", etc), just check out comiXology for full details. They even have hundreds of free comics should you want to give it a go.