Yesterday in the Nerd Verse… Jan 07, 2015

Agent Carter premiered two nights ago, and boy was it good!  We now feel we should learn how to climb an electrical fence without being electrocuted and jump on top of a moving car without dying.  The numbers were decent, too.  Congrats on the 6 million viewers and the new heroine of TV, Marvel!  Source: TV by the Numbers

The Agent Carter episode also featured the full-length Ant-Man trailer.  Check it out below:

The Netflix release date for Daredevil will be April 10th, 2015.  It’s a Friday, so you should be able to binge watch and not have to call in sick to work before gossiping at the water cooler on Monday morning. Congratulations.  Source: Marvel

Dysentary is just a click away! The Internet Archive just released a ton of MS-DOS games for free. Including Oregon Trail.  Source: Internet Archives

The People’s Choice Awards happened.  Needless to say, the people got it wrong.  Source: People’s Choice

Everyone’s favorite scientist, Neil deGrasse Tyson, will be getting his own late night talk show, Star Talk, to air on the National Geographic Channel.  Set to air later this year, the series will be based off his current popular podcast of the same name.  Source: The Wrap

Did you know that Vince Gilligan, the brain behind Breaking Bad, and David Shore, the brain behind House, are creating a cop show for CBS called Battle Creek? Well now you do.  And here is the trailer:

Are you craving a little pizza and Turtle Power?  Well you are in luck, because Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season 3 continues this Sunday. Source: TV Guide

Liam McIntyre (Spartacus) has been cast in The Flash.  Surprise!  The Weather Wizard is coming… and it wasn’t the guy from the first episode.  Source: EW

Rocksteady games may have just ruined the Arkham Knight for gamers everywhere.  A picture surfaced of the limited edition statue, implying a major plot point of the game. We won’t spoil it here, but you can check it out at the link.  Source: IGN

 

Denver Comic Con 2014 – Kevin Conroy

Click on the link to take you to all of our Denver Comic Con 2014 articles

 

Panel Name: Batman 75th Anniversary: Kevin Conroy

Topic: Kevin Conroy spoke about his experiences being a voice actor on the highly acclaimed television series Batman: The Animated Series along with other Batman franchises since then.

Featured Guest: The one, the only, Kevin Conroy.

 

Going to the famed voice actor Kevin Conroy’s panel, I expected certain things.  Namely, that he would talk in his famous Batman voice for the entire hour, and while he didn’t do exactly that, he surely didn’t disappoint either.  He came out on stage and exclaimed in his gravelly voice, “I am vengeance!  I am the knight!  I AM BATMAN!”

I don’t know who was more excited, Kevin Conroy, or all his adoring fans.

For about the first 20 minutes, Conroy spoke extensively about his how he got “the job” (it’s the voice of Batman if you haven’t caught on yet), his time on the show and other Batman franchises, and what he learned along the way.  Conroy had gone to Juilliard and done theater acting in New York.  He also had some experience in L.A. on TV.  With the combination of the two experiences, he had done some voice over work before.  His agent sent him to meet Bruce Timm and Paul Dini at Warner Brothers.  He initially told them the only thing he new about Batman was the campy 60’s TV show starring Adam West (let’s hope Adam West didn’t hear this panel).  Timm and Dini immediately let Conroy know that The Animated Series was very noir and had a much darker tone because it was about a man avenging the murder of his parents.  He said using his imagination and (in full Batman voice) “going into a deeper and darker place” both Timm and Dini stopped him to tell him he got the role.

His piece of advice about Hollywood and getting a job was more about luck.  He said that anybody can get a job who has talent, but it is about “the right person that day making the right choices who gets the job.”  Over 20 years later, Conroy is still here and he is still the voice of Batman.  He never planned on the path his career has taken him, but he is happy where is career has gone.  He also spoke on the difference between voice acting on the shows or movies vs. the video games.  On the show, he and the other actors were all together and were able to interact with one another, specifically Mark Hamill (The Joker), Richard Moll (Harvey Dent), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Alfred).  Ice-T was even a guest voice once.  When Conroy asked what he was doing there, Ice-T replied “Are you kidding?  My kids love Batman.”  The games are much different because the every line has to be perfectly clean.  There is no interaction with the other actors.  In addition, the different plays of the game lead to different outcomes, and therefore, different lines of dialogue.  Conroy said there are “zillions and zillions of lines.”  He does say that the result for the audience is well worth the tediousness of that kind of voice acting work.  And as a little teaser of excitement for the audience he said “The new Arkham Knight is…” then he just looked down and shook his head.

Conroy talked about his belief about why Batman has lasted so long.  For one, he isn’t a superhero.  Everyone can relate to a guy, which Batman is.  He makes the choice to do the things he does because he makes all his weapons and goes out and fights crime.  He also has high morals.  Instead of killing the criminals, he puts them in Arkham Asylum… “which means you get a great game!”  But the psychology of Batman is interesting to Conroy and to the fans because of his baggage and childhood.  It is what Batman does with it, trying to help people, that people connect with because everyone has an inner hero.  “Batman is the personification of that.”  As far as difference in Conroy’s voice when playing Bruce Wayne rather than Batman is based on how everyone has a double life.  But for Batman, the costume is Bruce Wayne.  “Batman in the cave is his naked self.  That is where he being the most honest.”  Bruce Wayne though is the business man, the show.  Conroy says we all have a face that we put on.

He also talked a bit about how production on an animated series works.  The voice actors record months before anything is aired because the animators match the mouth movements to what is being said.  He had no idea what anything was going to look like.  He and Mark Hamill were together when the first animations came back and watched it on a huge screen.  He said he looked at Mark and said, “Did you have a CLUE that this is what we were doing?!”  It was then that they both realized what they had been working on was pretty special.

Conroy spoke on the anonymity of voice acting.  However, this has changed more recently.  Then he told this amazing story about getting recognized in Hollywood:

Conroy took many questions, where answers ranged from an embarrassing story about shaking a bosses hand after he had coughed a loogie into his own hand, and working with voice actors who weren’t cut out for the business.  The last request from a fan was to sing a verse of any song as Batman.  What happened after was totally unexpected, but absolutely made my weekend.  Here is Kevin Conroy singing, “Softly, As I Leave You.”

 

 

So Far This Week…May 28, 2014

Oh my stars and garters, Hushsters! We’ve skipped an entire week of news. In our defense, we were a little busy. We took a trip to Houston to visit Taylor Lowe, where we went to Comicpalooza. Not only was it a great time, but it was also kind of a milestone moment for us. We went as press for the first time, interviewed Batman artist Greg Capullo (also a first), met Stan “The Man” Lee, geeked out at the Buffy panel, and lots more. Check back on the site, or here for more of our Comicpalooza stuff, including a James Marsters panel and an in-depth synopsis of the weekend.

 

LeVar Burton is Kickstarting to relaunch Reading Rainbow. Will it work? Hell yeah it will; the campaign is “flying twice as high,” already shattering it’s $1,000,000 goal in less than 24 hours. “Take a look; it’s in a book. Reading Raaaainbow!”

X-Men: Days of Future Past was released this past weekend. It was “cool,” but we weren’t really that impressed. Here is my full review (SPOILER FREE) of the movie. On the bright side, they’ve released what the special edition Blu-Ray set will look like (August release?) and we will definitely be picking that up.

Sad times, as we lost one of the world’s greatest poets and civil rights’ activists in Maya Angelou.

A bunch of peeps are being cast for Season 5 of Game of Thrones. If you’re a book noob like me, then you probably don’t know who any of these guys are.

James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender are better at acting than you are.

The Hateful Eight will start filming in November. The Quentin Tarantino film was canned previously when the script was leaked, but the director has since had a change of heart.

There goes more of that #SixSeasonsAndAMovie Community talk, with Hulu being the newest candidate to pick up the freshly canceled show.

Don’t say Denzel is an too old to kick ass… speaking of, when did Hit-Girl start looking like that?

My most anticipated game of the summer came out yesterday. Watch Dogs promises to be an open world adventure of hacking goodness – the game has already broken the company’s record for single-day sales (the same company that owns Assassin’s Creed, mind you). The release hasn’t been smooth sailing, though, as bomb threats and crippling glitches have slowed it down. Hopefully we can sit down and murder this game to have a review to you in the next couple weeks.

If you’re already over hacking, then check out this extended trailer for Arkham Knight, complete with gameplay.

We like to think our Game of Thrones reviews are decent, but let’s be honest: if we could watch Seth Rogan and Snoop Dogg get high and then review GoT every week, we probably wouldn’t write them anymore.

Boardwalk Empire alumnus Charlie Cox will be playing lead Matt Murdock in the Netflix original Marvel series, Daredevil. I loved his work on Boardwalk, so I think this is a great pick-up.

DC Comics has gone through quite the transformation since they launched 52 new books in 2011… but here we are in 2014, and they’re close to canceling 52 books in three years. Yikes.

The guy who played Barry Allen in the 1991 series has been cast as Barry Allen’s father in the new Flash TV Series.

Comic book legend Alan Moore is launching a mobile app called Electricomics, designed to help self-publish independent creators. This could be the answer to what creators do after ComiXology was acquired by Amazon earlier in the year.

Ben Templesmith is releasing his Kickstarter-backed The Squidder, a four issue series post-apocalyptic tale.

Here are this year’s Television Critics Award nominations. Orange is the New Black getting a nomination is HUGE. Could online streaming television really be the future of how we watch shows?

Marvel is looking to do something superhero-ey, but not what you’d expect. Grab your 3D printer and get ready to recharge your imagination with Big Hero 6.

Ooh! That reminds me, ComiXology is giving away a free comic book each day for 20 days. We are currently on day three, where you can pick up My Little Pony: Pony Tales Vol. 1. Check back each day; they occasionally have cool stuff, too (if My Little Pony isn’t your thang).

That Street Fighter: Assassin’s Fist webseries we were talking about a while ago? Yeah, well it’s out. And it’s the shit. Devour it all right now.

Here’s Johnny! Depp plays Whitey in next month’s documentary, WHITEY: America vs. James Bulgar.

Jaden Smith wore a Batman costume to Kim K.’s wedding. And it was white. Who wears white on the brides day? Really?

The Mad Men mid-season finale involved a very odd musical number.

The Batman vs. Superman film finally got a full title, Dawn of Justice.

BATMAN… IN SPACE!!! LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham was announced. We’re just add that to the list of things we’re going to go broke for.

 

Written by Sherif Elkhatib and Adrian Puryear

 

So Far This Week… May 7th, 2014

Two more episodes of Arrow left this season. There’s a war afoot in Starling City and there aren’t enough expletives to iterate just how great this show has become. Even Laurel is getting her hands dirty! Check out “Streets of Fire on CW tonight.

I know a lot of people (including myself) were skeptical of the upcoming Gotham series, but when the full-length trailer for the series was released, I couldn’t help but get giddy!

The first chapter of the next saga in The Walking Dead novels, Descent, has been released for our reading pleasure. Considering the way the Governor series fizzled out and died, I’m not sold that this will reanimate the series.

Another alum from HBO’s The Wire has joined the cast for Season 5 of The Walking Dead. The lucky newcomer is Seth Gilliam, who played Sergeant Ellis Carver in The Wire AKA Literally, The Best Show Ever. It hasn’t been announced who he will play, but my guess is that Pastor Gabriel Stokes will be making his way into the series soon…

Speaking of The Walking Dead, two of our all-time favorite patriarchs are facing off in a stand-off of the ages. Rick Grimes meets Walter White in this hilarious edition of Epic Rap Battle. We’re taking Heisenberg all the way.

Yeah, Mr. White! Science! A new horrifying species of wasp with the power to reanimate cockroaches has been successfully named the Dementor Wasp after its Harry Potter counterparts.

If you haven’t seen Amazing Spider-Man 2 yet, you gotta check it out! If for some reason you don’t want to, though, here are the post-credit scenes, which are for the upcoming X-Men movie (the Fox and Sony studios aren’t collaborating; this is more of a Marc Webb contractual agreement thing).

It’s Morphin’ Time! All the build up from celebrating the Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers‘ 20th anniversary has culminated into a full-blown live-action reboot. Uh… Yay?

There’s no way you’ve had too much Batman in your life, right? With Son of Batman being released today, there’s already a sneak peek at the next DC Animated film, Batman: Assault on Arkham, coming out this August.

I know there’s been tons of news circulating about Batman’s 75th anniversary, but did you know this is also Marvel Comics’ 75th year in business? In November, Marvel will be releasing an omnibus in celebration. And they want YOUR input for what goes into it.

We didn’t catch this on time Sunday, but a full trailer for Star Wars: Rebels was released on the 4th. I’m super excited for this series and can’t wait to see Kanan in action. This looks even more promising than Clone Wars – and that’s saying a lot.

Star Wars Day might be over, but Vans keeps the force in their heart with a limited Star Wars line. Be a rebel and head over to Journeys to pick yourself up a pair.

I can’t put into words how excited I am for the next gen Batman game, Arkham Knight. Kevin Conroy comes along and makes it even worse by releasing this teaser. There’s gonna be big news at E3 this year.

Ew… Jimmy Fallon’s sleepover skits on The Tonight Show has become a household favorite of ours. This time, it was The Neighbors stars, Seth Rogan and Zac Efron. Ew.

The first issue of Burn the Orphanage: Reign of Terror dropped today. The over-the-top 80’s and 90’s video-game references helped me fall in love with Born to Lose, but the news of auctioning off original art towards cancer research is the real gem.

Weekend Wrap-Up…March 23, 2014

March Madness is in full effect right now! The Quicken Loans $1B challenge for the perfect got eliminated before the first round was even over. How busted are your brackets?

So, The Boondocks are coming back for Season 4 – starting on April 21st. There’s a catch though – the show will be without creator Aaron McGruder. This will be the final season, and likely the last time we’ll get to see Huey, Riley and Grand-dad in this medium. McGruder seems to have been supportive of the new season via social media, but will the magic be lost without him? We think not.

This is no penny stock scam; The Wolf of Wall Street is being released on Blu-Ray and DVD on Tuesday, March 25th. If you’re still having doubts, check out our review here.

Far Cry 4 sits at number three on my most wanted video-game list (right after Arkham Knight and Watch Dogs). More announcements have been made; the game will take place in the Himalayan Mountains, complete with rideable elephants and Yeti hunting! It will be released next year.

Set your DVRs to record, people! Bryan Cranston AKA Walter White AKA “Heisenberg. You’re god-damn right” is going to be on The Colbert Report on Monday night.

Community‘s Alison Brie will be producing a TV Land show Teachers, based off the web-series of the same name. Watch a couple of them and you will be sold, especially if you’ve worked in the education industry.

The man, the legend, Chris Claremont will return to X-Men writing duties with Nightcrawler #1. The book debuts April 9th.

Turtles in Time is back, this time, as a mini-series by IDW Comics. A common Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles theme has been sending them back in a certain time period to tackle new problems. The mini-series will be drawn by Ross Campbell, who drew the recent Northampton arc. So excited!

Keep an eye out for our The Walking Dead “Us” review later tonight. We’re all one step closer to Terminus.

Weekend Wrap-Up…March 16, 2014

This week is a little thin on big nerd news this weekend, so we’ll lay it out for ya:

DC Comics is releasing variants based on the pin-up style Bombshell line in June. I can’t guarantee Catwoman will get any more bearable in writing, but the cover will look awesome.

Rocksteady has released new screenshots of their next-gen finale to the Arkham series, Arkham Knight. Prepare to ogle.

Johnny Blaze has been replaced, as Robbie Reyes will be taking up the mantle of Ghost Rider in All-New Ghost Rider, debuting this Wednesday.

All you Moonies can jump for joy; in July, an all new adaptation of Sailor Moon will make its way to the Niconico, the online streaming service.

Action figure models of the Michael Bay Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have surfaced. What do you guys think? I think they have quite a Jim Lee vibe.

JK Simmons, also known as the Farmers Insurance guy and Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man  flicks a decade ago, will be playing a “weary and alcoholic detective who has followed a bizarre case involving Sarah Connor and robots for more than three decades” in Terminator: Genesis.

Be sure to grab Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes (out Tuesday) and inFamous: Second Son (out Friday). It will be very hard to get anything done through the next couple weeks with these amazing games coming out.

Madness? No, THIS IS… SPARTA!!! Be sure to put in a March Madness bracket with Quicken Loans. It’s free, and if you fill yours out perfectly, you’ll be looking at $1 Billion in winnings.

So Far this Week… March 12, 2014

With the expansion of Hush Comics, we have decided to give bi-weekly news updates.  Anything we find news-worthy will be posted here bi-weekly.  Have anything to add?  Post it in the comments!

A new volume of Kelly Sue DeConnick’s Captain Marvel drops today. If you’re wondering what you’re missing out on, check out our review of her first run in the series here.

The first part of Metal Gear Solid 5, MGS: Ground Zeroes, comes out next week. It’s the first big game for next gen consoles, and sure to impress at only $30

Friend of Hush Comics, Ken Arkind, had his first book, Coyotes, published and released yesterday.  Check it out here.

New Game of Thrones trailer arrived; the dragons are actually coming.

SLAM KICKS- Basketball Sneakers that Changed the Game came out yesterday, too.  Read about it here.

Arkham Knight is not the game that the PS3 deserves… and so it’s not getting it. It will be a next-gen exclusive.

Super-strength spider silk is coming to the market. For reals.

Extreme deviation in the new Ghost Rider series. Love or hate?

Denver Comic Con is celebrating 75 years of Batman with Kevin Conroy, Adam West, Burt Ward and Julie Newmar!

Also at Denver Comic Con, there will be a special Gargoyles 20th anniversary reunion.

Post-credit info for Captain America… but we’re not even spoiling it for ourselves, so here’s the link, if you’re into that sort of thing.

Terry Crews wants to play Luke Cage in a Netflix mini-series.  Here’s to hopin’.

999, an interactive novel coming to iOS next week.  Will you purchase it?

Avatar-like exo-skeletons are being prototyped in Japan.  Yeah, that’s a thing.

written by Sherif Elkhatib and Adrian Puryear

So Far this Week… March 5, 2014

With the expansion of Hush Comics, we have decided to give bi-weekly news updates.  Anything we find news-worthy will be posted here bi-weekly.  Have anything to add?  Post it in the comments!

Those sneaky bastards at Rocksteady took a year off (Arkham Origins was developed by WB Montreal) so they could work on Batman: Arkham Knight, the finale to the Arkham trilogy. Coming out this year for next-gen consoles, my mind is exploding with excitement. I mean, just look at the trailer:

Norman Reedus, Daryl Dixon himself, will be joining Jimmy Fallon on the Tonight Show in just a few hours. I can’t wait to see what kind of shenanigans they pull tonight. Just a couple days ago, Fallon, The Roots and Idina Menzel did a back-stage performance of “Let it Go” from Frozen.

People got legitimately upset when Tony Hawk and Funny or Die duped everybody into thinking hover boards had finally arrived.

The Iron Throne meets the wheelz of steel! HBO has gathered a bunch of rappers to create their very own Game of Thrones mixtape. It should give us enough material for our “Diggin’ Through the Crates” article for months. It’s expected to drop on Friday.

It’s about to go down in Arrow. Ollie may be fancied a hero in Starling City, but he’s made plenty of enemies – namely Suicide Squad and Deathstroke.

It’s been quite some time since Michael Bay has blown some shit up. A full-length trailer of Transformers 4 has been released, and, sad to say, I don’t really care what it’s about; I just wanna see Optimus Prime pimp-slap a Dinobot.

More casting for DC television shows Constantine and Gotham, among them being Harold Perrineau Jr. (one of my favorites on HBO’s Oz), who will play an angel who looks over Constantine.

To promote their upcoming Original Sin event, Marvel will be supplying the retailers willing to put up the big bucks with eyeballs. Awesome…Your move, DC.

As Deadpool has been fighting with and against everything in the Marvel universe, it was only time until he took on one of the symbiotes. Deadpool vs. Carnage comes out within the month.

He might be a nice guy in real life, but Joseph Gordon-Levitt is looking mean in the brand new teaser for Sin City 2.

LeBron James’ 61 point game inspired Marvel to post a drawing of him with a Captain America mask, probably to detract from the Batman comparisons made with the black one.

Lando was one smooth guy in Star Wars, but can Billie Dee Williams still pull off the moves when he joins the cast of Dancing With the Stars?

The Justice League is flying back onto the shelves of your local grocery stores. General Mills cereal boxes with contain comic books starring the DC team of all-stars throughout the month of March.

The conclusion of The Walking Dead: Governor novels is finally here. Released on Tuesday, Fall of the Governor: Part 2 completes a long-winded series of books. We loved the first book, but the rest of them have been so lackluster, we’re debating whether or not to finish it out.