firehose

Putting Michael Showalter’s name on a movie doesn’t give it the same cultural cachet as Steven Spielberg’s or Spike Lee’s, but that’s only because there’s no justice in this cruel, cruel world. Still, though, Showalter hasn’t directed a film since 2005’s romantic-comedy-with-a-twist The Baxter (though he did write David Wain’s upcoming Paul Rudd and Amy Poehler comedy, They Came Together) so it’s worth celebrating that he’s working on a new film. 

Also worth celebrating is that Oscar-winner Sally Field has signed on to star in said film, Hello My Name Is Doris. Showalter also co-wrote the movie, along with newcomer Laura Terruso, who adapted it from a short film she created called Doris And The Intern. As reported by Deadline, Field will play Doris, a woman who becomes involved in “the local hipster social scene” after getting romantically involved ...

By Alice O'Connor on May 28th, 2014 at 4:00 pm.

Oh splendid here comes another conventional publisher announcing a new free-to-play game, let’s all look forward to pushing some lanes and levelling up some wizar- hang on. Bethesda’s BattleCry isn’t a Dote ‘em up. No, it’s not even a FPS or TBS or RPG or CCG Dote ‘em up hybrid. BattleCry’s a melee-focused third-person multiplayer game, with up to 32 stylish soldiers murdering each other. And they are quite stylish, as the art direction is by Dishonored visual designer Viktor Antonov.

Developed by Bethesda’s own BattleCry Studios, no, it’s definitely not a Dote ‘em up. Sorry, I’m still processing that surprise. What a novelty in this day and age. The website explains:

Responsive, smooth controls unleash violent, high-impact, and stunning combo attacks previously reserved for modern brawlers. Dynamic movement allows you to seamlessly grapple, evade and mantle to quickly cover distances and evade the other team. Engage in combat and use the game’s Adrenaline system to unlock special powers for a short time or conserve Adrenaline to unleash your lethal Ultimate ability when the time is right. In BattleCry, your skill, timing, and teamwork create a diverse gameplay experience.

It’s class-based, with the likes of cybernetic Brawlers, arrow-flinging Archers, and high-tech Gadgeteers. Well, high-tech-ish. Like Dishonored, it goes down in an alternate history sort of setting, one where gunpowder was banned by treaty so everyone now plays around with perfectly harmless zappy energy.

BattleCry will have a touch of persistent progression, with skill trees and perks and all that. Shacknews say the same ‘Iron’ virtual currency used for those also buys cosmetic items, so one imagines monetisation will lie in buying that in bulk.

IGN have played a little and report back that players can salute their enemies and give them a medal at the end of rounds, which all sounds very friendly. Multiplayer-only games, and especially free-to-play ones, are prone to being ruined by toxic communities so it’s nice that BattleCry Studios are thinking about this from the start. Sensible, that.

Here, have a peek at some swords-and-zapguns action in the cinematic announcement trailer:

Tickets for PAX Prime 2014 are now on sale, the convention's organizers announced on the official PAX Twitter account.

The ticketing site, which is run by ShowClix, automatically places people into a queue for buying badges and then gives them eight minutes to make a purchase.

Hotel booking for PAX Prime is also available now through OnPeak.

PAX Prime 2014 runs for four days, like PAX Prime 2013 did, from Aug. 29 through Sept. 1 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle. Polygon will be on hand to bring you coverage from the four-day show.

Update: Tickets went on sale shortly after 1:10 p.m. ET today, and within 20 minutes, all four-day badges were sold out.

Writer Alan Moore of Watchmen, V For Vendetta, Top 10, From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen acclaim is teaming up with a team of researchers and an app developer to create “Electricomics,” a new platform that a press release claims will enable ”digital comics to be made by anyone.”

The release isn’t entirely clear about just what Electricomics is or what the app does. In some places, the release refers to Electricomics as a 32-page digital comic book with four new stories by Moore and other creators, while other spots refer to it as a digital-comic-making tool. Presumably it’s both, though how it will work as both things (and whether it will serve as a distribution platform) isn’t really spelled out.

Here’s what the release says about it:

As a publicly funded research and development project, Electricomics will be free to explore the possibilities of the comic medium, without the constraints of the industry.

So it’s pretty vague. Moore himself added this:

Rather than simply transferring comic narrative from the page to the screen, we intend to craft stories expressly devised to test the storytelling limits of this unprecedented technology. To this end we are assembling teams of the most cutting edge creators in the industry and then allowing them input into the technical processes in order to create a new capacity for telling comic book stories.

According to the release, the four new stories in the 32-page comic will be Big Nemo, in which Moore will “revisit Winsor McKay’s most popular hero,” Little Nemo; Cabaret Amygdala, a “modernist horror” by writer Peter Hogan; Red Horse, a World War I comic by Garth Ennis and Peter Snejbjerg, and Sway, a time-travel story by Leah Moore and John Reppion.

Moore’s daughter Leah, who is writing Sway, will serve as editor.

The app will be developed by Ocasta Studios, which has made apps for brands including Virgin Media and Vodafone. Researchers on the project include a Lecturer in media arts at the London Knowledge Lab, Institute of Education and a senior lecturer at The University of Hertfordshire.

Clearly more details will come to light as the app gets closer to launch, but for now the upshot is: New digital comics by Alan Moore, Peter Hogan, Garth Ennis, Peter Snejbjerg, Leah Moore and John Reppion, with the possibility of some digital comics creating tools added in. It’ll be interesting to see what happens with it at the very least.

To see the full release, head over to the Electricomics website.

The Expert’s Guide To HBO’s ‘True Detective’ And Weird Comic Book Fiction

Some of the most horrifying things I have ever seen in my life are those baby dolls that people buy and then paint to be ultra-realistic so that they can sell them on Etsy to people who, I assume, have truly horrible homes. Today, however, I have learned that crafting horrifying babies out of plastic is something best left to the professionals, because I have seen Mattel’s new Baby Skeletor doll.

So, you know, if you’ve ever wondered what Eternia’s greatest villain looked like as a child, or, more disturbingly, if you’ve ever wondered what a baby would look like with a bright yellow skull for a face, you can find out now for only $35 at MattyCollector.

Now, when I saw Baby Skeletor, I had a lot of questions. Outside of the amazing Christmas special, I’m pretty unfamiliar with He-Man mythology (my preferred childhood sagas were M.A.S.K. and Destro vs. The Army Chumps), so I had no idea if this was something that actually came up in the show. Like, was Skeletor a baby at one point, with a skull for a head and a fashionable hood? Is his lack of face-skin something that has affected him since birth, or were his parents also skeleton people? Was one of them a skeleton and one a regular (super buff) person, explaining why he is only a skeleton from the neck up? Also why would you do this it is horrifying.

Turns out, it’s actually loosely based on a bit from Robot Chicken. Here’s the segment in question, wherein Skeletor turns himself into a baby who derives sexual pleasure from being spanked. Could that be why this toy is for collectors 18 and older?

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Stan Lee’s ‘Masters Of The Universe’ Action Figure Gets It All Wrong