If you weren’t at SPX this weekend, then maybe you were parked in front of the tube watching either the baseball playoffs or the Elite XC show on CBS last night. And you could only be left asking one question after the night was over.

Who had a worse night: The Cubs or Kimbo Slice?

The heavily-favored Cubbies had the best record in the National League and were expected to perhaps end their century-long championship drought. Instead, the Dodgers, led by ex-Yankee skipper Joe Torre and former Red Sox slugger Manny Ramirez, swept the Cubs and sent a whole region of the country into despair.

Meanwhile, Slice, MMA’s most notorious fighter, had his night and aura and future ended after fourteen seconds, losing to a replacement fighter with blotches of pink hair. Seth Petruzelli, a one-time participant in the Beat’s favorite TV show The Ultimate Fighter, was supposed to fight on the show’s undercard, but was vaulted into the main event after Ken Shamrock was injured the day before the fight and ruled ineligible by the commission.

The one highlight of the EXC show was the peformance of the promotion’s other star, Gina Carano (aka Crush from American Gladiators). Carano managed to make weight for this show (although not before having to strip naked behind a towel to get light enough) and dispatched her opponent, setting up a fight with Cristiane “Cyborg” Santos, who also won last night.

Of course, the big question today is whether there even will be another event on CBS. EC has been hemorrhaging money and if last night’s rating wasn’t to CBS’s liking, there will probably not be any more shows. Did Shamrock’s scratch from the lineup hurt viewership? Numbers are not in yet, but there have been arguments made today that the number could go either way. So we’ll just have to see on this one.

Oh, and if you’re a Dodgers fan today, you’re far from melancholy. You should just be getting ready to play the Phillies and hoping for a repeat of when the teams met 30 years ago in the playoffs. Is Danny Ozark still around anywhere?

Posted by Mark Coale

McG and SMALLVILLE producers Kelly Souders and Brian Peterson are cooking up a new show for the CW called THE GRAYSONS, all about the youth of Dick “DJ” Grayson. Only a pilot has been ordered at this time, but the show is seen as a replacement for the long-running SMALLVILLE.

CW insiders said they also see the “Graysons” development as a validating gesture by Warner Bros. that the company is still behind its 50% investment in the netlet, particularly following this fall’s strong openings for “Gossip Girl” and newbie “90210.” They believe the studio wouldn’t risk bringing one of its prized franchises to CW if it believed the net was in dire straits.

In the one-hour “Graysons,” which will be set in modern times, young DJ will face challenges involving first loves, young rivals and his family as he grows up. Souders and Peterson have come up with an original take on the character.

What…no acrobat? We’d watch a show about a traveling circus family going around solving crimes! In TIGHTS.

Following in the tradition of Uncle Floyd and the ORIGINAL cast of Saturday Night Live, Spider-Man is teaming up with late-night personality Stephen Colbert:

Marvel is proud to reveal that Spider-Man and acclaimed television
personality Stephen Colbert will
join forces in an all new eight-page story featured in the extra-sized Amazing Spider-Man #573! Acclaimed writer
Mark Waid and fan favorite artist Patrick Olliffe present Stephen Colbert, a
candidate for the US Presidency in the Marvel Universe, teaming up with
Marvel’s most iconic crime fighter. What could bring these two together?
And what will it mean for both their futures? This issue also features a
special Colbert variant by Marvel EiC and industry superstar Joe Quesada! Plus,
don’t miss the stunning conclusion to the sold out “New Ways To
Die” from the dream team of Dan Slott & John Romita Jr!

Colbert has never been ashamed to show his nerdish streak, and previously teamed up with Marvel by having EiC Quesada as a guest on the show, and by “inheriting” Captain America’s shield after Cap’s “death.” He was also the subject of a much-delayed Tek Jansen comic for Oni, based on the egotistical pulp hero Colbert’s show occasionally features.

HEROES returns for its third season tonight, and after what almost everyone agrees was a sloppy sophomore session, the reviews are pretty good for the “VILLAINS” themed season, or at least different, says the LA Times:

A supersonic hit when it premiered two seasons ago, “ Heroes” fell into disarray last season, going on an incomprehensible world tour and spending too much time in ancient Japan. In such a hero-saturated market, how could they rebound with Season 3?
Apparently, by focusing on villains, or at least that’s the subtitle — “Volume Three: Villains” and presumably that’s the plan. NBC made only the first of tonight’s two-hour premiere available to critics, but it was short on heroics and long on dark foreshadowing.

OR this, from the Chicago Trib:

The third season kicks off Monday with an hourlong chat with the cast followed by two new episodes. The first episode, “The Second Coming,” is aptly titled. It succeeds in resurrecting the show. At times, the show’s liberal use of time jumping makes it hard to follow. On “Heroes,” things are seldom plotted in a linear fashion, and “The Second Coming” is no exception. The first scene, already shown in commercials, opens four years in the future with a dark-haired Claire Bennet (Hayden Panettiere) pointing a gun at Peter Petrelli (Milo Ventimiglia).

We’re very lacking in HEROES-fu, so we will rely on our faithful readers to tell us thumbs up or down.

..and God Len at Japanator has the obit…

Cartoon Network has sadly broke the news that as of today, the 20th of September, Toonami will end all scheduled programming, and die. This, in actuality, isn’t so sad seeing as the only anime to appear on this block currently is Naruto. What is sad is that this once great weekday block, which used to hold all of our favorite anime (at that time) was shoved into a Saturday evening retirement home to live out the rest of its life to entertain drunks, and grounded children.

…and a video tribute.

Spike TV has announced the nominees for its yearly Scream Awards, which fete the best in “horror, sci-fi, fantasy and comic genres” — you know, the loud but amusing stuff. The Awards are notable for honoring comic books right alongside movies. As you might expect, this year ’s picks should just be dubbed “the best in comic book movies”–DARK KNIGHT alone has 21 nominations, followed by IRON MAN and HELLBOY II. Comics nominees include Y: THE LAST MAN, UMBRELLA ACADEMY, BLACK DOSSIER, HACK/SLASH and so on.

The nominations were chosen by an advisory committee including Wes Craven, Neil Gaiman, Geoff Johns, Stephen King, Tim Kring, Stephenie Meyer, Frank Miller, Eli Roth, Kevin Smith, Paula Wagner and Guillermo Del Toro — the usual suspects! Winners will be chosen via online voting, so get out there and vote. A complete list of nominees in the jump:
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NO HEROICS is a new British sitcom about a bar where out of costume superheroes hang out. It’s written by a fellow named Drew Pearce who knows a LOT about comics. The trailer is above.

On his blog, Graham Linehan, creator of THE IT CROWD and co-creator of FATHER TED, explains that’s he’s too busy to dress the set of the next season of THE IT CROWD, so he’s taking suggestions:

That said, they still need work. So I won’t have enough time to contribute as much as I would like to the look of the show. Normally, when I’m finished the scripts, I lovingly pore over T-shirt sites and visit comic shops as ‘research’. This time, that’s just out of the question. Which is what brings me to you guys…

How would you like to help in designing the look of series 3? Specifically, you’d be helping us choose the stuff that litters the main set. I’m talking about posters, comics, fanzines, T-shirts… anything you’ve seen in the last few months that you think is pretty cool or captures the spirit of the show or a particular character. By now, most of you know the kind of things I like…weird toys, indie comics, sci-fi, geek references, internet memes, boardgames…normally I’d delight in tracking down the stuff myself, but as I say, it’s just not going to happen this time round.

Contact info in the link. And make sure to read the comments for the latest in Linux humor.

§ Just for the record. Everyone — but everyone — sent us these links to Triumph the Insult Comic Dog at SDCC. Part 1 and Part 2.

§ Charlie Chu’s photo set of cartoonist portraits is totally excellent. Above, Ivan Brandon.

§ Have you always wanted to go to the Eisners but not been able to? Now you can listen to this year’s ceremony!

§ We have TOTALLY been using the word “totally” way too much today!

Apparently there was some kind of viral game for AMC’S PRISONER remake going on at Comic-Con, and they were responsible for the skywriting:

AMC played their own little marketing game (Fox also did this with Fringe) at Comic Con to create buzz for their remake of the 1960’s cult classic The Prisoner.

Attendees were provided with cryptic puzzle cards, which when decoded drove participants to SeekTheSix.com where they were told to ‘seek the six’ in order to reveal the secret behind the campaign.

Not impressed.

Meeting Al Jaffee; breakfast with Pia Guerra; getting a copy of Comic Book Tattoo; and nattering at this man at the EW/Sci-Fi party!!!

That’s right, Dr. Lucien Sanchez, aka Matt Berry from GARTH MARENGHI’S DARKPLACE, no less. Simon Pegg overheard us lauding the rather bemused Berry for his epic portrayal, but indicated that he agreed with us. Hooray for Comic-Con! We love celebrities after all.

We’re sitting through the CHUCK panel right now. These TV casts are so funny and banter-y. Someone just asked if the two male leads would demonstrate a position between 68 and 70. They declined. We have never watched CHUCK and this panel will not persuade us to do so, but the actors all seem quite personable. They keep referring to the Nerd Herd…is that what we are?

Coming up next JJ Abrams will show some FRINGE footage…and maybe answer some “Star Trek” questions.

Luckily, we were able to amble right into Ballroom H on this occasion, but we’ve been hearing complaints from reporters at outlets such as Variety, the LA Times, and TV Guide about not being able to get into panels they were assigned to cover. We thought it was just us, but as we were told, “If there’s a secret password, I’d know it.”

The press list for the show numbers some 5000 outlets, so managing them is definitely no picnic, but the studios and networks that control access to their presentations may need to get a little more inclusive about certain things. Granted, press whining happens each and every year, but since it’s so clear that the entire show is now just a means to get publicity for every show on TV, with the increasing hubbub of the press scrum, perhaps it is time for a reevaluation.

In the meantime, although Tom told us not to live blog about how big the show is, with all the security and access issues, not to mention 100k people…this is bigger than the Super Bowl.

We received the following in our inbox and present without comment:

ATTENTION ALL RECRUITS
DHARMA HEAD OF RECRUITING TO ATTEND LAUNCH

Octagon Global Recruiting, on behalf of the Dharma Initiative, is pleased to announce that Dharma’s Head of Recruiting, Mr. Hans Van Eeghen, has confirmed his availability for the launch of our latest recruiting drive at Comic-Con 2008.

“My colleagues at Octagon Global Recruiting assure me that Comic-con hosts some of the brightest minds in the country,” said Mr. Van Eeghen. “As Head of Recruiting it is my intention to personally assess the very best of this talent in the hope that they may join us.”

The Dharma Initiative will be conducting eligibility assessments at Booth 3529 at Comic-Con, San Diego between July 24th - 27th.

If you are attending Comic-Con and would like to submit your name for a randomly selected drawing to secure one of ten (10) pre-release appointments with one of our recruiting officers, please click here.

The volunteer eligibility assessment will be available online from July 28th for a limited time at www.dharmawantsyou.com

The Dharma Initiative hopes you will spread the word. Invite your friends to join the team at www.octagonglobalrecruiting.com

THIS IS AN OFFICIAL COMMUNICATION OF THE DHARMA INITIATIVE:
This message and its attachments are confidential and may contain information which is protected by copyright. It is intended solely for the named addressee. If you are not the authorized recipient (or responsible for delivery of the message to the authorized recipient), you must not use, disclose, print, copy or deliver this message or its attachments to anyone. If you receive this email in error, please contact the sender immediately and permanently delete this message and its attachments from your system. Any content of this message and its attachments that does not relate to the official business of the Dharma Initiative or its subsidiaries must be taken not to have been sent or endorsed by any of them. No representation is made that this email or its attachments are without defect or that the contents express views other than those of the sender.

The creator of ICE ROAD TRUCKERS is now making comics. Frankly we’d be more impressed with an ICE ROAD TRUCKERS comic along the lines of CMP’s epic PROJECT X series…bu you take what you can get, in this case CHOPPER ZOMBIE from Devil’s Due.

Thom Beers, best known for his television success with prime time mega hits “Ice Road Truckers,” “The Deadliest Catch” and “Monster Garage” has sped into the fast lane by announcing active development of his first feature based on his graphic novel “Chopper Zombie.” Created by Beers, the “Chopper Zombie” movie is anticipated to go into production early spring 2009, and will be produced by Beers and Original Productions’ President Philip Segal.

The graphic novel “Chopper Zombie” (www.chopperzombie.com) will be released at Comic-Con International next week (July 24-27, San Diego Convention Center, SDCC) by Devil’s Due Publishing and was penned by Beers and Todd Livingston (”The Black Forest”) with cover artist Scott Keating. According to the publisher, advance sales from major booksellers such as Barnes & Noble and Amazon.com have been brisk. Limited edition copies will be available at Comic-Con with “Chopper Zombie” landing in stores on July 30, 2008.

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The entire list is the length of a small novel but here are some noms of interest to our crew:

Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour)
Creature Comforts America • Don’t Choke To Death, Please
King Of The Hill • Death Picks Cotton
Robot Chicken • Robot Chicken: Star Wars
The Simpsons • Eternal Moonshine of the Simpson Mind
SpongeBob SquarePants • Inmates of Summer / Two Faces of Squidward

Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming One Hour Or More)
Blue Harvest (Family Guy)
Imaginationland (South Park)
Justice League: The New Frontier

In other news, MAD MEN led the pack with 16 noms (including Outstanding Hairstyling For A Single-Camera Series, which must be one of those categories they don’t ever talk about in public)– LOST got a Outstanding Drama nom, and Michael Emerson, Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama. And most important of all, DEADLIEST CATCH got nominated in Outstanding Nonfiction Series! Congratulations to all.

DEXTER just got first-time Emmy noms for Drama and Best Actor and the show will also be at Comic-Con. We’re informed that Showtime has commissioned Shepard Fairey (OBEY) to create original art for DEXTER. You’ll be able to buy your own artwork based on the lovable serial killer at the Showtime site.

The DEXTER panel takes place Thursday July 24, 2008 -5:45-6:45 Room 6CDE with Kristin Dos Santos (E!) interviewing stars Michael C. Hall and Julie Benz with show producers Clyde Phillips and John Goldwyn plus a special guest.

Julie Benz will be also making an appearance before the panel at the Entertainment Earth booth on the convention floor right before the panel (3-5 pm July 24 ).

This story on Simon Oliver and Tony Moore’s Vertigo series EXTERMINATORS getting picked up by Showtime for possible TV development, by DEXTER’s Sara Colleton, is ironic because Oliver had originally developed the tale of a colorful team of bug-fighters as a TV pitch.

The deal with Showtime marks a full circle for “Exterminators,” which has been described as “Six Feet Under” in the world of pest control. The project, now in development at the pay cable network, is said to have been originally conceived by writer Oliver as a TV pitch.

In its Showtime incarnation, “Exterminators” will revolve around the Bug-Be-Gone crew, an extended dysfunctional family of exterminators whose greatest enemies aren’t the insects and rodents they meet and kill on a daily basis but rather their own self doubts, vices and inner demons.

This brings up yet again the entire foofaraw over “What is mainstream?” Was the EXTERMINATORS, which currently sells in the neighborhood of 6-7k, ever truly mainstream? Would comics shop retailers consider it MORE mainstream if it was a Showtime TV show? Would a licensed comic have sold more copies or less, if it was published by, say, BOOM! or someone else? Or even Vertigo?

Well, it’s official: Ian McKellen has completed the ultimate nerd trifecta, playing Gandalf, Magneto and now Number Two:

AMC announced today that acclaimed film actors Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ, The Thin Red Line) and Ian McKellen (Lord of the Rings, The Da Vinci Code) have signed on for the network’s reinterpretation of the highly influential 1960s cult classic, The Prisoner. AMC is co-producing the six-part mini-series with ITV Productions and Granada International, with a worldwide premiere slated for 2009. The Prisoner, AMC’s second original mini-series, combines a wide range of genres, including espionage, thriller and scifi, into a unique and compelling drama, and expands upon the network’s distinctive cinematic approach to creating high-quality programming.

Setting aside the fact that this is just dumb, we’ll still watch McKellen in the role originated by Leo McKern, because we’ll watch Sir Ian in anything. We’re a bit dissappointed that Cavaziel was cast as The Prisoner, though, because early reports had Christopher Eccleston in the role, and then the show could have been about an actor who is taken to a remote location to be questioned on why he resigned from a popular SF show. That would have been great!

EDIT TO ADD: Yes yes, we know there was a different Number Two in almost every episode, but it’s OBVIOUS that McKellen is going to play the McKern Number Two, now isn’t it?

Don’t forget, people: Set those DVRs for an extra hour (or two). Tonight’s season finale starts at 9 ET. And they are replaying the part of the finale at 8 ET, which contains extra footage from the press conference.

We’re supposed to get some answers to some big questions tonight (like who’s in the coffin from last season’s final episode), so here is a place for you to throw out your crazy Doc Jensen-like theories before the show actually airs this evening. Also, check out this LA Times story about how the LOST scripts aren’t quite what we see on the tube.

Be warned: There COULD be people posting spoilers in the comments, so read at your own peril.

Look for a LOST recap sometime tomorrow. As always, The Helper Monkey’s work schedule means not knowing whether he will get to see the broadcast live or have to wait until the wee hours of the morning.

Let the nerd countdown begin.

Posted by Mark Coale

Chris Ware has returned with another animated opening for THIS AMERICAN LIFE.

DATELINE covered the Michael George case on Friday and a complete transcript and video excerpt are up.

Lenora Ward: She knew our names. Immediately when we would walk in, she would light up with a smile. Many times, she would actually come around the counter to greet us.

But not on this early evening, just after 6 p.m. Tom and Lenora had thumbed through the bins and found their comic, but no one was there to take their money, not Barb or her husband Michael, the co-owner. Some teenagers in the shop weren’t being waited on either.

In addition to the expected lurid graphics, there are also some old photos of the store as it looked in the 90s.

Were the 90s really so long ago that that car looks like an LeSabre or something?

Your humble Helper Monkey had to stay up past his bedtime to watch tonight’s spooky episode, so let’s get right to it.

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Sadly, this week centered around everyone’s least-favorite castaway. Let’s see if we can find some stuff to talk about anyway.
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• Quick Stop has the Season 3 teaser we’ve been hearing about. Does anyone know what that music at the start is?

• Gawker yells: Stop Adapting The Wrong Comics and has this idea for a LOVE AND ROCKETS movie:

Who should star and direct? Even the visual style of the Hernandez brothers fits King of the Hill creator Mike Judge, and instead he is wasting years of his life on movies like the Luke Wilson-Maya Rudolph comedy Idiocracy. Judge is laboring on another television show in the interim, and when he decides to come back to the big screen L & R should be the reason. Casting a bunch of total unknowns for this would be a stroke of genius. My office will bill your office, Mike.

• Vulture, however asks a different question: Which Superhero Movie Will Suck?:

Why Hellboy 2 might suck:
We’re a huge fan of Guillermo del Toro, but Hellboy creator Mike Mignola’s comments last week that the new movie represents Del Toro’s vision more than his own didn’t inspire a huge amount of confidence. Neither did the trailer, which is so overstuffed with Pan’s Labyrinthine creepy-crawlies that Hellboy’s trademark wit gets lost in the shuffle. Most of all, this is the superhero movie we’re most looking forward to this summer — which makes us all the more nervous that, in the tradition of past so-called sure things Hulk and Spider-Man 3, it’ll be lousy.
Odds it won’t be super? 3:1.

• What is it like inside the LOST writer’s room? Noted fan magazine Popular Mechanics tells us:

CC: The writer’s room is a very lively place where every story point is debated and kicked around. We break the stories in their totality in the writer’s room down to really the very very kind of minute details of scenes, so, you know, you’re kind of harnessing the brain power of eight people in there, and that mind hive is very helpful in problem solving. And different people know more about various subjects, so, you know, one of our favorite pastimes in the room is we play this game…ah, what’s the actual title…? It’s Geek versus Jock.
DL: We have one writer, Brian K. Vaughn, who writes comic books, and then another writer, Adam Horowitz, who’s like a die-hard sports fan.
CC: Yankees fan. He used to sell hot dogs at Yankees Stadium.
DL: We’ll ask Vaughn an easy sports question, like how many innings are there in a baseball game…
CC: Or what is the color of the Carolina Panthers or what sport do the Carolina Panthers play…
DL: And then we’ll ask Horowitz to name two of the Avengers. And they will face off, and it’s fun to watch them, you know, try to answer questions outside of their specific area of expertise.

Well, that was quite the one hour of serialized episodic television.

Let’s just put the jump here and get on with it.

SPOILERS THERE BE
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