Some of the Best Moustaches in Science Fiction!

Simply because I love sci-fi and have moustaches on my mind, here’s a collection of some fantastic ‘staches from space!
Continue Reading “Some of the Best Moustaches in Science Fiction!”

Share

Hosting Wizard World Philly’s “Battlestar Galactica” panel: The greatest nerd moment of my life.

This past Saturday at Wizard World Philadelphia, I hosted the “Battlestar Galactica” panel featuring Edward James Olmos (Admiral William Adama), Michael Hogan (Colonel Saul Tigh), Nicki Clyne (Crewman Specialist Cally Henderson) and Luciana Carro (Captain Louanne ‘Kat’ Katraine)—easily the highlight of my entire career at Wizard and the greatest nerd moment of my life.

The panelists.
The panelists.

I’ve been bubbling with excitement over all the little intricacies and amazing moments of the hour I sat on stage with the foursome of Galactica crew members, and figured I’d sit down and write my official documentation of this momentous story. I managed not to completely freak out in a fanboy fit while hosting, so I think I’ve earned the right to gush a little bit here—and gush I shall.

Also, there will be some “BSG” plot spoilers ahead, as we talked about the series finale and the upcoming DVD “The Plan,” so be forewarned.
Continue Reading “Hosting Wizard World Philly’s “Battlestar Galactica” panel: The greatest nerd moment of my life.”

Share

‘Live’ blogging “Caprica”

Thanks to Netflix’s “Long Wait” finally disappearing on the new “Battlestar Galactica” spin-off “Caprica,” I got a chance to check out the DVD version of the pilot episode. After reading a few live blogs over at United Monkee and elsewhere on the web over the past few weeks, I thought I’d try my hand at one while watching “Caprica.” It’s a bit choppy and full of knee-jerk reactions, but that means it’s full of outrageous, off the cuff observations! Huzzah!
Continue Reading “‘Live’ blogging “Caprica””

Share

Journalism

As a writer and editor (as well as an intern, reporter and freelancer), I’ve racked up a load of clips and links across the print and online mediums—once upon a time, that is. Here’s a semi-comprehensive catalog of my ol’ journo work.

A bunch of these links are dead now, but I’m leaving the list intact for posterity’s sake.

Freelance Writer (Late 2009)
Comic Book Resources

  • CARTHAGE IS KING IN “CITIZEN X”
    The new historical fiction webcomic by “Hannibal Goes to Rome” writer Brendan McGinley ruminates on what could have been if Carthage, instead of Rome, had been the ultimate victor in the Punic Wars.
  • SHAMUS AND BIG APPLE GO HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH NYCC
    Early word from the rebranded Big Apple Comic-Con shows that Wizard Entertainment head, Gareb Shamus, plans on running his New York convention against New York Comic Con in 2010. (Article by Kiel Phegley. Photos by me.)

  • Baltimore Comic-Con: THE ACT-I-VATE EXPERIENCE
    A cadre of members from the webcomics collective came together to promote their new print anthology, air a short film about their site and announce a new indy comics creator who is soon coming to ACT-I-VATE.
  • Baltimore Comic-Con: MARVEL: YOUR UNIVERSE PANEL
    Brian Michael Bendis and Matt Fraction headlined the Marvel: Your Universe panel to answer questions about a wide range of topics, from Marvel’s movies, to Tony Stark’s diminishing intelligence, to the Infinity Gems, and more.
  • Baltimore Comic-Con: GEORGE PEREZ SPOTLIGHT PANEL
    The man who drew “New Teen Titans” and “Crisis on Infinite Earths” chatted with fans about his storied comics career, discussing the long-awaited graphic novel “Teen Titans: Games,” which will hit stores within a year.
  • Baltimore Comic-Con: “BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER: SEASON 8” PANEL
    This past Saturday, the artists and editors of the popular series gave eager fans some insight on what happens behind the curtains and teased what’s to come.

Associate Editor of Wizard magazine (February 2009-September 2009)
Editing clips

Writing samples

WizardUniverse.com News Editor (December 2007-February 2009)Due to numerous Web site erasures and relaunches, all of the below links associated with WizardUniverse.com are now dead. Apologies.
Interviews

Reviews

Columns

Beat News

Reporting for the Columbia Missourian (August-November 2007)

Wizard Freelancer (August-November 2007)

My days as a Wizard intern (Summer 2007)

Reporter, Staff Writer and Senior Staff Writer at student newspaper The Maneater, aka “The often embarrassing olden days of Jim’s journalism career.” (2003-2005)
Interviews

Reviews

Sidebars and mini-features

Share

She-Hulk: The Coolest Chick in Comics!

So, last week’s She-Hulk: Cosmic Collision by Peter David and Mahmud A. Asrar solidified the green goddess’s position as the Coolest Chick in Comics!


First, Dan Slott’s semi-recent run with the heroine showed that She-Hulk could hold her own in the courtroom, in a brawl and in a quip-fest with villains and other heroes alike.

Then, Peter David had the jade giantess make a “Battlestar Galactica” reference in his World War Hulk prologue story with artist Gary Frank.

And this past week, ol’ Shulkie laid down a double-whammy of super coolness…


She’s upset she might be dead because that would mean she can’t use her tickets to see MY FAVORITE BAND! Awesome!


And she’s well versed in my favorite action movie franchise of all time! EVEN MORE AWESOME!

Props to PAD on those two rad references. I love when you pick up a one-shot and get great little character moments that make reading it an extremely rewarding experience!

Once more, I declare She-Hulk the Coolest Chick in Comics—and that’s it for now folks!

Share

A Hodg(man)e-Podge post

Ok, I’m here to run down a few things that were all spurred on by this Onion AV Club interview with John Hodgman.

Picture shamelessly stolen from The Onion, so GO READ THE ARTICLE!

Now if you are only familiar with Mr. Hodgman as the PC in those Mac commercials, then you need to get your ass in gear and check out the man’s writing and other hilarious TV appearances including numerous appearances on “The Daily Show,” a sure-to-be-awesome upcoming stint on “Battlestar Galactica” and an episode of one of my favorites, “Flight of the Conchords.”

I loved Hodgman’s first book, the laugh-out-loud compendium of fake trivia The Areas Of My Expertise, and saw his new book(More Information Than You Require) over the weekend and immediately scooped it up. While I haven’t started into More yet, if it promises half the laughs of Areas it’ll be more than worth the investment.

Seriously, go pick both of these books up. You’ll be hard pressed to find a funnier read!

I know I mentioned it above, but I have to say I am super excited to see Hodgman on “BSG.” Think he’ll be the final cylon?!

Lastly, all this info about the frequent “Daily Show” contributor led me to realize I hadn’t given any sort of update on my trip to see a taping of “The Colbert Report,” which I attended this past Thursday (Oct. 23).

If you get the chance to reserve tickets for a taping of “The Report,” do it! Colbert is hilarious in person and even answered questions out of character before the taping, which was both fun and interesting. The guy is spry as heck and just keeps a smile on your face or has you buckling over with laughter the entire time. The comedy is gold when you watch the show on TV, but in person, it definitely reaches a new level of hysterical.

Now, while you can’t see me in any crowd shots of the show I attended, when Colbert ran over to meet his guest (Newsweek senior editor Jonathan Alter) he stopped to right in front of my section of the audience and raised his hands in the air. I stood and applauded, first among my entire audience section. And, if you’re paying attention and looking closly, you can see Colbert’s nod to me, featuring eye contact (which you can’t see on TV), before he sits with his guest.

Ok, that does it for today, folks! Thanks for your continual patronage on this blog that sometimes has a point, and other times (i.e. today) is just ramblings about things that interest me.

Share

Coloring contest entries from the Homefront and/or Denver!

Two more entries just rolled in, and I was super pleased to see that they’re from my brother Dan Gibbons and Lake Forest, IL hometown hero Will Dugan, who goes to college in Denver with my broseph.

Here’s Will’s wonderful entry…

Sidenote: If you ever meet Will, make sure to ask him about any number of stories he has involving strippers. The one he’d told me from Vegas is particularly good…maybe not entirely true—who knows?—but a good story is a good story, dammit!

Here’s my broheim Dan’s hilarious entry (which I should mention, for the record, won’t be up for winning as it’s more of a photoshop job than a coloring)…

I recently got Dan and hooked on BSG via what we’re calling “Jim-Flix,” which is much like Netflix but features me doing the DVD sending. Dan sends me text messages and IMs here and there when stuff pops up on BSG that is crazy and/or mysterious, my favorite one so far referred to Starbuck and went something like, “Crazy and angry blonde pilot chick…are you hot or aren’t you?! I can’t tell?!” Good chuckles all around…but for the record, despite Dan’s questioning, Starbuck is officially extremely hot according to Loudest Monkey mandate.

Ok, asides aside, let’s keep those coloring contest entries rolling in!

Share