The Great Geek Manual

Art

• Movieline has posted a gallery of Tron Legacy Concept Art from the Comic-Con.

Comics

• A.V. Club names 21 artists who changed mainstream comics.

Film

• August 21st, audiences nationwide can screen 15 minutes of Avatar for Free.
• Manofest has posted a gallery of The 10 Greatest Screaming Lines In Movie History, and surprisingly, “Khaaaaan” doesn’t even come close to number one.
• SciFi Scanner’s Mary Robinette Kowal picks the The Ten Chickiest Fantasy Flicks. I’d like to nominate Meet Joe Black.
• The Shiznit picks out the Top 50 Best Movie Deaths Movie Feature.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Listen to “An Almanac for the Alien Invaders” by by Merrie Haskell at Escape Pod.
• Free Fiction: Read the flash fiction story Uninsurable by Robert C. Eccles.
• Interview: The Dragon Page Podcast interviews David Weber.
• ACLU to Google: Don’t Close the Book on Reader Privacy. They feel that, without a strong privacy policy that protects reader privacy, Google Books could become a one-stop shop for government and third party fishing expeditions into the personal details of your life.
• Amazon’s Bezos Apologizes For The “Stupid” And “Thoughtless” Kindle Incident, but thus far, I’m getting a sense that the apology isn’t impressing anyone.
• SFScope offers a graph of SFWA Grand Masters, by Longevity.
• The StarWars Origins site examines the Origins of the Dune saga in depth.

Music

• Lucasfilm is bringing Star Wars: In Concert to live venues with stunning visuals, a live orchestra, choir and narration (by C-3PO actor Anthony Danials), plus an exclusive exhibit of Star Wars costumes, props and production artwork. Check out the official website of the tour.

Television

• Microsoft and five Japanese animation studios are collaborating on a Halo anime series set to be released on DVD in early 2010. The trailer at Youtube looks dull, but I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Video Games

• Den of Geek suggests 10 videogames that would make great movies.

Writing

• Angela Slatter reflects on magic systems in her article On the Limits of Magic or If Everyone’s Special, then No One’s Special.