I just posted a batch of new original art in the store. If it doesn’t enhance your love life, I will personally come to your home and enhance it for you. Methods used? That’s a secret!

Is J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek film even remotely finished? It may be in some kind of shape right now, since Kevin Smith was just interviewed about it:

Smith: I saw a movie last night that I cannot talk about.

Host: Was it good?

Smith: It was phenomenal.

Host: Any stars, any break out stars, and do they trek?

Smith: The stars absolutely trek in this film. It is fantastic. Anybody who was worried doesn’t need to be worried–about this film I cannot talk about…It was in very capable hands. The director did a phenomenal job–the director and his crew. Top notch cast and the guy that plays the lead is an instant star. That dude is going to be so famous. He is so wonderful. He picked up a role that I would say is pretty challenging for someone to step into the shoes of, because it is a role that has been played before many times by the same guy.

Host: How do you out Shatner, Shatner?

Smith: I don’t know what you are talking about.

Host: I was just saying that as an expression.

Smith: Yes, absolutely, in a world of expressions, I would agree with that…I am so not good with this game, you are going to bury me man.

I gotta say… TOS was never a big draw for me. I’m a huge Trekkie (er? ie? I prefer Treksman, let’s start that) and Kirk, Spock and Bones just didn’t grab me in that series. I loved the movies as a kid, but the ’60s show always felt too dated for me to enjoy. A few too many zam clams for my taste. But now, maybe I’ll get to see that story in a light that’ll let me get in on it.

Does anyone remember Rick Berman’s trilogy concept? It was so bad it didn’t even have Romulans in it. If I remember correctly, it would have been set in the First Contact period, and the first movie would have been about the rise of fusion power, and the second would have been about switching from a supply-demand economy to one where replicators were in use — seriously. It was like A History of the Federation before anything interesting happened. Khan was on the Botany Bay and Earth was a wasteland. I guess someone in a basement cooked up a replicator and had to advertise it? What the hell? Thank you, Mr. Abrams! Sorry I hated Alias and Lost.

http://trekmovie.com/2008/08/22/kevin-smith-sort-of-reviews-star-trek/

http://io9.com/5038827/meet-the-superman-you-almost-knew

So apparently an early version of Superman (conceived by Siegel with another artist) came to our time from Earth’s doomed future. I feel like that’s almost a better origin! But as Chainsawsuit today shows, it might not have worked out the best.

Here’s all the proof you need from The Smoking Gun. If this guy had been wearing aviators like me, he would have looked like a badass. There might have even been some hot women in the frame with him, who knows? We never will, because he’s wearing… well, I don’t know what those are exactly. They may be even BluBlockers. He was pretty much asking to be arrested.

I’m just saying this, guys. Scott, his brother and I went to see Step Brothers last night. It was ultra-quotable and I liked it a lot. It was basically 90 minutes of Dr. Steve Brule.

But there was also a trailer for Disaster Movie, which is one of those awful post-post-post-Airplane movies crammed with self-aware jokes. There wasn’t a single laugh in the theater. I’ve never seen a comedy trailer where the whole audience was disinterested. Usually at least one dumb guy laughs despite himself — and we were at Step Brothers, not There Will Be Blood. It’s like… we’ve all seen these movies before, so we know how the jokes work. There were at least three different versions of this in the trailer alone:

1. Familiar character is standing in the street, like a guy supposed to look like Iron Man or some other celebrity or pop culture icon.
2. Character says “I am _______________.”
3. Something big falls on the character or hits the character.

Literally, that was it. There weren’t any jokes in the trailer. It was just “hey, who was in the news at the time of filming three months ago? Hannah Montana? Okay, she goes in.”

I guess the benefit of those crappy movies is that you could go watch Disaster Movie, and you’d get to see iterations of the exact same jokes used in fifty other crappy movies that Disaster Movie is parodying. Then you only have to waste two hours of your life instead of ninety.

Leonard, I may buy you the DVD of this film just so you can have it on your shelf. We can melt the case shut so you don’t accidentally watch it.

Thinking about our next T-shirt — I want your comments on some designs that we’re playing with. These all debuted as buttons at San Diego Comic-Con this year!

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post’s poll.

It keeps rolling in! Three pieces have sold already, so here’s a new one featuring Holiday in her element:

Check them all out, even the ones that sold!

There’s some new original art in the store, and these are large pieces! Three of them are on 11×15″ sheets of watercolor paper. Erica got me a set of gray markers to do some shading with, and they’d look great on your wall. Vanderbeam would like you better. And I think I saw Holiday checking you out. Dude, you should talk to her.

Here’s a sampling:

Check them out!

I was so disappointed by Star Wars Galaxies. I don’t play MMOs anymore and most of the reason is money, but the rest of it is, I don’t want to spend my time memorizing stats tables and figuring out the most effective way to build my class. If I want to look at spreadsheets, I’ll become an accountant. I don’t want to be a Star Wars accountant either.

Someone mentioned that they were making a KOTOR MMO. If you haven’t played Knights of the Old Republic, the BioWare RPG, you missed something great. The sequel was all right, but it was obviously rushed. I’m intrigued by a SW MMO set in that era — it makes sense, right? Everyone can be a Jedi, and the technology is pretty much the same. Plus, there’s no worries about screwing up Lucas’ now-ruined canon. That’s where Galaxies was such a failure, besides it sharing more in common with Harvest Moon than a Star Wars game — you were basically paying monthly for the THRILL of being able to take a screencap of your character standing next to Han Solo, who in the game was inexplicably 4′1″.

But see, then again, I’m pretty much over Star Wars. I’m not hearing good things about Clone Wars, and I have pretty much no desire to see it. It’s kind of like Star Trek lately, and the Romulans. Why do the writers have such hard-ons for the Romulans? They were Vulcan ripoffs! Weren’t they just a cost-cutting measure? “Oh, there’s this other race too, but they look just like the Vulcans. And everything is Rome-related.” Ugh, I couldn’t care less about the Romulans but apparently they’ve been installed as the Real Enemy of the Federation. Look out! They might give you a bowl cut. Boring.

I was going to write a thing about the upcoming KOTOR MMO and how Galaxies was garbage, but then I realized — I was making an argument that I can’t afford to subscribe to an MMO. And that’s true — but I do subscribe to XBox Live, and you know what? I barely get any use out of it. I barely take advantage of that arena to talk and play games with you guys. And some people have sent me some nice messages there. If I’m not using it, I’m going to just cancel it. So listen — what games are you playing on XBox Live? My handle is Vanderbeam:

In the comments, let’s talk about what we’re playing and set something up. Here’s a partial list of what I have: Halo 3, Gears of War, Bionic Commando Rearmed (no MP, I know), Burnout Paradise, GTA IV, Dead Rising, The Orange Box, Lego Star Wars, Call of Duty 4 (not a huge fan). Wow, is that really all I have?