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Bionic Woman Fans Take What They Can Get, Even Mistakes

The incredibly optimistic Bionic Woman forum on the official NBC website celebrates the fact that the show still hasn’t been cancelled – it was officially announced as not cancelled in December, in an unusual PR move – with the only new footage they’ll see of Michelle Ryan anytime soon: fan-shot bloopers. The fan goodwill goes…

When Galaxies Collide! And Then Eat Each Other!

There are moments when I think that science exists purely to blow my puny human mind. Take galaxy NGC 4622, for example. For years now, astronomers have wondered about the fact that it seemed to be moving in reverse, spinning towards the direction of its spiral arms instead of away from them. Now a new…

Martha Jones Goes Up In The World, Apparently

The latest issue of British TV Guide magazine, Radio Times, contained an interview with Torchwood’s John Barrowman that seemed to make old school fans of the current Doctor Who series very very happy indeed. From the keyboard-mashing of fans: “In the new Radio Times John Barrowman says of Martha [Jones, former-Who companion who’s appearing in…

Sunspot Announces New Cycle, End of the World

Mark your calendars – It may not feel like it, but last Friday was potentially the start of the end of the world. Friday, you see, saw the identification that a new 11-year solar cycle has started (as Charlie pointed out) and according to many, when solar cycles peak, so does societal and cultural revolution…

Monsters, Hotpants and Horrors Dominate January’s Second Week in Comics

Welcome back to New Comics We Crave, a weekly column about what comics to buy on Wednesday, written by our resident Comics Czar, Graeme McMillan. Way to go, Marvel. Not even a week after I go and say that January is a graveyard for interesting comic releases, and you put out two big-name books in…

Modify Your Body But Also Worry About the Planet

Warren Ellis has created a new biopunk blog called Grinding, spun out of his Doktor Sleepless comic. Mostly it’s about body modification, but is also sprinkled with Ellis’s traditional techno-urbanism and pretty picture obsessions. The best part is Ellis’ introduction to the site, where he talks about a new breed of body-hacking humans. Ellis writes:…

Season 2 of Torchwood: Better, More Danger?

Is it just the same old hype, or does this comment from actor Kai “Gwen’s boyfriend” Owen about Doctor Who spinoff Torchwood’s second season bode well for things to come? Here’s what he says . . . “I think it’s got better [since the first season]. There’s a lot more humor in it. When I’m…

You Really Might Be Hearing Voices In Your Head

All those people who wear tin-foil hats to stop the government messing with their minds? Turns out that they’ve been right all along. Daniel Pinchbeck explains how in an article about remote emotion-control via “electromagnetic energy” in the work of Dr. Nick Begich. https://gizmodo.com/signs-teaches-what-to-wear-in-case-of-alien-attack-324967 Dr. Begich isolates a spooky trend in military thought that sees…

Bring Back BBC Show “Dark Season”

What do the career of Kate Winslet, the current Doctor Who series, Blakes 7’s dominatrix villain Servalan, and children’s television have in common? Unless you happened to be a teenager in the UK during the early ’90s it’s unlikely that you’ll know the answer, but what’s a blog like this for if not to educate,…

2000AD Comes to the Internet via 1993

Living up to its outdated title, British cult comic 2000AD is heading into 2008 by adopting technology equally un-new: The Adobe PDF. That’s what you’ll be getting if you sign up to the new downloadable version of the weekly anthology, which is like Japanese weekly comic anthology Shonen Jump except with storylines about Judge Dredd…

Wachowski Bros Now Backed By Information Theory?

More proof that scientists need to open the windows a little more and inhale the fumes a little less comes with the news that New Zealand scientist Brian Whitworth is planning to explore whether or not the world is, as Lawrence Fishburne tried to tell us, just an elaborate virtual reality simulation after all. Such…

A Drinking Game for New Issue of “Ultimate Human”

Welcome to New Comics We Crave, a weekly column from io9’s comics czar Graeme McMillan, a rather shy young Scottish lad whom you may know from Newsarama or Fanboy Rampage. Ordinarily published on Tuesdays (in time for you to prepare for Wednesday, the Sacred Day of New Comics), this week it’s coming at you late…

This Time, The Doctor Faces Giant Wasps, Red Nail Polish and Girls

Following on from the season 4 trailer tacked onto the end of last week’s Christmas Special, Doctor Who fans are fairly sure they know what to expect when the series returns in March: another villain from the original series. One fan gushes ungrammatically on a Doctor Who message board: I am more convinced then ever…

Marvel Comics Renounces Marriage, Embraces Satanism

Eager to start the year off with a clean slate for their biggest franchise, Marvel Comics last week released Amazing Spider-Man #545, the final chapter of the “One More Day” storyline. It was a comic that saw Peter Parker make a deal with the Devil that rewrote history, helpfully getting rid of his marriage, the…

Propaganda Not Truth Shocker

The problem with this poster is, of course, the fact that Jamie Bamber may be cute, but he has never been the very best at anything other than wearing convincing fat suits. BSG Propaganda Gallery [QuantumMechanix.com]

Sci-fi author Jo Walton writes about the value, from her point of view, of science fiction: “SF lets you talk about the human condition more widely and from different angles by contrasting it with the alien condition and the AI condition and the android condition . . . In SF, you get books like Spin…

Thanks to Eels, The Universe Is Full of Multiple Yous

One of science fiction’s favorite concepts, the idea of a “multiverse” of possible worlds, is now potentially scientific fact. It’s all due to an accidental discovery made by the lead singer of a one-hit-wonder rock band from the ’90s. Sounds like the plot of a crappy novel, but according to Jim Al-Khalili, winner of this…

Countdown to Doctor Who Christmas Special

Never mind Advent Calendars, December has become the time of year for the Doctor Who Adventure Calendar. Now in its third year, this twenty-five part countdown to the Doctor Who Christmas Special (this year, guest-starring tiny Australian pop songstress Kylie Minogue as Tardis-anagram Astrid) offers up daily new web content dedicated to the world’s favorite…

Black Dossier: Better If You Don’t Read The Words

With the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: The Black Dossier, writer Alan Moore continues his one man mission to make comics full of sex and violence into extraordinarily boring lectures about classic literature and the importance thereof. It wasn’t always like this, of course; Moore’s earlier work demonstrated not only a command of…

What To Do With That Spare $400 Burning A Hole In Your Pocket

Yes, that really is a lifesized, wearable, brass-plated replica of Iron Man’s helmet. And if gold doesn’t work with your winter color scheme, it’s okay; it comes in silver as well. Iron Man Gold Helmet [Windlass Studios]