So, two of us robots have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a book. I’ve written it, and Bizarrobot herself, Erin Kubinek, drew it. I’d appreciate deeply your support for this project. The manuscript is done and most of the illustrations are as well. This is really just a preorder campaign. The book documents the attempted assassinations of Presidents as well as those who were actually killed in a way that’s interesting and engaging to kids and adults. And the illustrations just put it over the top. It’s a labor of love I put together for my daughter, and I think most geek kids and adults would really dig it. Consider ordering a copy. And there are tons of cool addons and extra bits to make it doubly worth your while. And you can get a copy of the completed eBook version for as little as $5. Check it out: A Children’s Illustrated History of Presidential Assassination on Kickstarter.

Hot on the heels of learning that the Paul Bettany rumor was just that, we learned that Marvel announced Emmy winner James Spader will play the Avengers’ newest and biggest cinematic foe, Ultron.

Well this is just awesome.

James Spader is one of those quiet badasses who gained recent recognition after his stint on surprise hit “Boston Legal.” Some called it a “comeback” for the actor, but he never really disappeared. His career is one that in a pinch is unremarkable, but when you think on it for just a couple seconds you realize what an amazing actor this guy is. “Two Days in the Valley” is a cult hit that you should probably watch immediately if you haven’t seen it. “Less Than Zero” – ultimate “The Brat Pack is Growing Up” movie (RDJ is a bisexual coke addict prostitute!), “Stargate” is awesome (whatever don’t even hate) and… can we just talk about “Secretary”? Yeah.

So there have been more than a couple great villains in his resume, but my all time favorite?

Blaine, king of the scumbags. Molly Ringwald will have none of your sass, Blaine!!

What are your thoughts, friends? Sound off in the comments and make sure you stayed tuned – Citizenbot hopes to get a quote from none other than Denny Crane (SHATNER!) this afternoon.

You know him and love him from Mythbusters but he’s a huge fan of Star Wars. Adam Savage talked with me about his convention experiences, Dragon Con, the power of fandom, the trajectory of his career, and his first experience with Star Wars. We also talked about the importance of digging deeper in things and what makes passionate fan communities important.

Perhaps the biggest news to drop?

Adam Savage wants his R2-D2 to be in Star Wars: Episode VII:

After a long discussion about the meaning of building and how important the Artoo unit that Adam built is to him and to his growth and development, I asked him the following:

Bryan Young: So it’s really hip for journalists to ask people if they want to be in the new Star Wars movie, but I’m going to ask a builder, would you want your Artoo unit in the new Star Wars movie?

Adam Savage: I would love my Artoo unit in the new Star Wars movie. It hadn’t occured to reach out to JJ and ask, but shit, now that you mention it, I totally will. That would be awesome.

Adam will appear at Dragon Con in Atlanta this week, where he’ll be performing his Mythbusters live show. You can get more details about that here.

You can listen to the whole interview on the Full of Sith podcast.

Back at San Diego Comic Con, it was announced that the big Avengers sequel baddie would be Ultron – hence, Marvel’s The Avengers: Age of Ultron. It wasn’t long after that that it was revealed that Ultron’s origin would be modified for the movie universe and Hank Pym, Ant Man, would not be Ultron’s creators but instead Tony Stark.

This immediately got my gears turning with theories. The one that always made sense to me is this:

In Iron Man 3 we are introduced to an Iron Man suit that doesn’t need Tony in it to operate – Tony can operate it remotely. Already established in the Iron Man movie universe is the artificial intelligence that serves as Tony’s assistant known as JARVIS, who we already know can take control of the Iron Man suits. So perhaps Tony builds a suit specifically for JARVIS to inhabit? Perhaps JARVIS just decides to take control of a suit for other reasons? Or maybe JARVIS makes his own “suit” (ala Ultron form) to gain a physical presence to pursue his own goals?

These were my immediate thoughts on how Ultron would come about in the Avengers sequel, and according to UnleashTheFanboy.com, this just might be the case.

Well, that’s what we’ve theorized . . . but we couldn’t get anyone involved in the project to confirm it… not until our usually tight lipped friend at Disney decided to chime in.

When we asked if JARVIS, or a form of the AI software, would become Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, our source said:

“That’s the plan so far from what I’ve heard. Obvious, isn’t it?”

And since Paul Bettany has portrayed JARVIS in every Marvel Studios film since the cinematic universe’s creation, we asked our source if the thespian would return for a proper physical role, instead of just the voiceover:

“He’s returning, but I’m not sure if they’re doing motion capture with him, or if they’ll use someone else. Since he’s only done voiceovers, the contract is new.”

Unleash the Fanboy also has some interesting ideas about Paul Bettany portaying Ultron and Vision that I don’t believe are completely out of the realm of possibilities and worth considering.

As always, take this as just a rumor until we hear it straight from the proverbial horse’s mouth. But I know I’m not the only one who theorized this right out of the gate, and to me it seems like the logical origin for the Marvel Movie Universe version of Ultron. We’ll just have to wait and see.

You can follow Arse-bot and all the pointless thoughts he puts out into the interwebs on Twitter @Arse_bot

A night of action, sizzle reels, and a Q&A featuring special guests from design, production and voice acting – Sunday’s presentation of Cowboy Bebop – The Movie at the Aero Theater was not to be missed!

The Presentation

As part of their Summer movie series, the Art Directors Guild Film Society and American Cinematheque (sponsored by The Hollywood Reporter), brought Cowboy Bebop – The Movie to The Aero Theater in Santa Monica, California. It was a special occasion for a lot of reasons, among them that Cowboy Bebop had originally been only briefly shown in theaters in 2001 in the United States, and had barely made a little over $1 million in that run. As John Muto (Production Designer and moderator) mentioned during the introduction, Bebop may be an animated film, but it is practically indiscernible from a classic, live action film noir (albeit on Mars and with future tech). It really deserved more attention than it got in its original run. It’s wonderful and exciting and “really in a category of its own.”

The Aero is a special theater to me. Ever since I moved to Los Angeles I’ve had the chance to see three films with special presentations / Q&A’s attached (the Ray Harryhausen event stood out in particular) and each one has been a really fun time. Though it’s a bit on the older side, the theater itself is well-preserved and I have gotten to enjoy several of this summer’s events hosted by the Art Directors Guild Film Society and American Cinematheque (who also host events at The Egyptian, sister theater to The Aero).

If you haven’t watched Cowboy Bebop – The Movie yet, let me assure you that you should add it to your must-watch list somewhere near the top. My friend Luke reminded me how solid this movie was after it finished when he said, “You know, compared to most action films out right now, this is a whole lot better in many ways.” And he’s right – Bebop has such a well crafted narrative and pacing, and it really manages to pull off part-noir, part-spaghetti western, part-HK action film better than most of its live action counterparts!

The Q&A

The Q&A with Steve Blum (the acclaimed actor who voices “Spike Spiegel,” Bebop’s lead character, as well Wolverine, The Avengers, and Transformers, among many others) and Peter Ramsey (ADG Illustrator who advanced to feature Director on the award winning Rise of the Guardians) was a nice, intimate experience compared to most Q&As I’ve attended at conventions and other events. Since the theater is on the small side, you get a nice atmosphere with about a hundred devoted folks who have stayed till the end of the film and each get the opportunity to ask a question. Here are a few highlights I enjoyed:

“I saw it  (Bebop) in a little theater all by myself in Pasedena,” said one visitor.  To which Blum replied, “Well thank you sir. You bought me a bag of french fries.”

Blum (on voice acting for Bebop) “Most of the time I don’t get to see it (the scene) prior to the performance. There’s no real preparation for that, so, most of it’s either gut or Mary setting context for me, or whoever my director is at the time…For me that works because I started in anime. I didn’t have a classic acting background so I came in just matching lip flaps and matching characters to the best of my ability and it’s all instinct…”

Ramsey – “How many takes do you usually get to do to get the lip sync right, cause that’s hard!”

Blum – “We did probably more takes on this than we did in the series but generally if you can’t do it in three takes they’ll look for another actor because they’re on a time schedule, and for anime and tv shows particularly they want you to do about 40 lines an hour so.

Ramsey – “and you dont see the script before?”

Blum – “You don’t see the script beforehand and sometimes you don’t even get a preview of the scene beforehand. Basically you’re at 3 beeps and you’re going and you need to match and look at the page and look at the screen at the same time. It’s a juggling act. It’s a skill set you need to have when you’re doing this work.”

Guest – “What are all your favorite anime?”

Ramsey – “Akira, just about anything by, obviously, Miyazaki – and then I reach all the way back to childhood cause that’s where I was first exposed to it. You know… Kimba the White Lion, Ape Man, Gigantor…  all those that have the same hallmarks that I feel that most animated features do. So Miyazaki is kind of like refined to the Nth degree but yeah, I’m a huge fan of Akira and there’s a lot of similarities in the story with it and Bebop.”

Blum – “Uh, Bebop (joking). I actually haven’t watched that much anime. Like I said, I only watched Bebop about two years ago. Probably the only other anime that I watched end to end was Digimon because I was a writer for it.”

Blum – (on bad projects) – “Probably the only one I ever walked out on turned out to be Hentai… I was hired onto a thing called Project X” and I started recording and I’m this creature with all these tentacles and I’m like ‘wow this is a cool looking creature.’ All of a sudden, they show this little girl… it was really awful. I lasted maybe 10 minutes. I walked out and didn’t finish that session. I let them keep their money *laughs.*

Me – Bebop was one of the first shows to come over to get really solid localization. Was there ever a show you worked on where you got a hold of the script and realized that the adaptation dialogue was not that well written (localized)?

Blum – “Yes, several shows as a matter of fact. Probably the worst being a show called GTO. Basically we had the Japanese translation and it was not adapted for American voice actors so I walk into the room and I’m seeing a million flaps and four words and I basically wrote my part on the fly, and ad-libbed a lot of it. I haven’t watched it because I thought ‘This cannot possibly be any good,’ but the fans actually said it came out pretty good…” It was really a challenge.

Guest – “I’m just curious, what do you think in general of the ability for American animation and Japanese animation to cross over and meet somewhere in the middle?”

Ramsey – “I think there’s plenty. All we did really was a lot of us were really big fans of anime and wanted to bring some of that design sensibility into our characters and the way we were telling the story because it was a weird hybrid kind of movie that we were trying to make so anime seemed like the right fit for a fantasy/magical adventure. I think there’s a lot that’s kind of crept into American movies anyways. Pixar has a lot of influence from Miyazaki…. some of their better storytelling comes from anime and Japanese tradition. I think it’s one of those undercurrents that’s always going to be there… a lot of people are really resistant to it in America (you’re either in one camp or the other). It’s strange but I think the cross pollination is just gonna happen naturally.”

Fun trivia I learned from the Q&A – Blum has a tattoo on his arm that’s the recorded sound wave of the word “Bang” (in particular, the final line Spike says in the last episode of Bebop).

After leaving the event, I started thinking a bit more about how much I would have loved the chance to see Bebop in theaters when it originally aired in 2001. In general, it would be nice if we could get more opportunities to see anime like Bebop on the big screen. I’m always excited to see when anime films are getting a bit more exposure, and especially when they’re included in an art or design series along with major motion pictures hailed as classics and must-see movies.

My question to you – if there was one anime film you could see on the big screen, what would it be? For me, I’d love to get the chance to see Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind show up at one of my local theaters someday. As for Sunday’s event, it inspired me to look into finding more anime screen events.

Want to know more about Steve Blum? Check out the interview we did with him in 2011. 

If ever you’re in the mood for a book in the Star Wars Expanded Universe that gives you something you’ve never seen before, fills in a vital mystery in the Star Wars mythos, and is so well written it’s disgusting, Kenobi might just be your book.

Set in the weeks after the events of Revenge of the Sith, Kenobi sees our favorite Jedi master delivering an infant Luke Skywalker to the Lars’ and his struggles finding his place in this new life as protector, wizard, and crazy old man.

Surprisingly, Kenobi is more of a supporting character in his own book, playing the Byronic western hero in the middle of a dispute between the settlers (in this case moisture farmers) and the bad guys (in this case Tusken Raiders.) But John Jackson Miller takes the dilemma a step further: should Ben be helping the moisture farmers of Tatooine?

He’s there to protect Luke Skywalker and that is his only mission.

Would playing Jedi to settle local disputes attract unwanted Imperial attention to his secret exile?

There’s a transition between General Kenobi and Ben Kenobi that we haven’t seen in any medium, neither books and comics nor cinemas and television, and it’s long overdue.

The book reads like a western and plays heavily on knowledge that just about anyone getting into Star Wars would be able to appreciate it. But that doesn’t mean it ignores all of the best continuity from The Clone Wars and other bits of the Expanded Universe. In fact, some of the most poignant moments in the novel occur when Miller makes subtle mentions of characters like the Duchess Satine, whose fate played out before Kenobi’s eyes in the fifth season of The Clone Wars. Mentions to other places in continuity are relevant and placed in a context that anyone can understand.

The novel plays out in many of the same ways the classic western Shane does, right down to a brilliant, action filled climax with an emotional core to it that leaves you reading faster and faster.

The writing, however, is so good that you’ll want to take it slow and savor it for every moment you can.

It captures the feel of a Star Wars movie. It’s funny, it’s emotional, it’s action packed, it’s paced quickly, and when it’s all over, you feel like you’ve been some place. It’s just perfect down to the last letter.

At the center of the book is an incredibly strong female character who takes an interest in Kenobi, but things are interfering with her business, the lives of her children, and the Settler’s Call, a warning system designed to protect the settlers from the Tuskens. Often, it’s little more than a lynch mob.

We also get into the heads of the Tuskens, and I don’t want to spoil anything there, so I’ll simply shut up about it.

This book is top tier Star Wars writing and what the Expanded Universe should look like. It’s written with a passion and excitement for the source material, shows us something we haven’t seen before, and is wholly competent.

This book is, to my mind, instantly a classic of Star Wars fiction. It’s going up there with the likes of The Heir to the Empire Trilogy, Darth Plagueis, Shatterpoint, and the like. This is Star Wars fiction at its absolute best. It’s a Star Wars book that explores stories from the movies and television series, fleshes them out and adds further dimension to what we know or think we know.

Do yourself a favor and order the book now.

Read it. Quickly. You’re going to love it.

Geoff Johns and Jeff Lemire spoke to me last week week about the goings-on in the Trinity War and what we can expect looking forward on the books.

As part of this interview, The Huffington Post will also be unveiling an exclusive look at some pages from the final issue of the Trinity War.

So, without further ado, here’s my conversation with these two titans of comics:

Bryan Young: What was the process between you guys in collaborating on this book?

Jeff Lemire:  It was kind of natural. I would write Dark, and Geoff would write Justice League and since he plotted the story, we’d split JLA, so it was a pretty easy division of labor there.

Geoff Johns: The funny thing is when Jeff and I got together to do Trinity War, I think we both, when we started putting things up on the board and got to talking about Justice League, our instincts on the storytelling overlap a lot, and it was very seamless how we plotted it. We’d go over a bunch of different ideas and have it come together, but it felt like we had worked together before. When Jeff would throw out an idea, I knew exactly why he threw out that idea and what he was going for, and vice versa. It plotted together very easily. Once we figured out the main structure of it and the through line and what we wanted to accomplish, it flowed very smoothly. And writing JLA with Jeff was a breeze. It was writing scenes, putting them together and it was a natural bridge between Justice League and Justice League Dark. And because this story isn’t broken up in chapters where it’s solely focused on Justice League Dark, or Justice League or JLA, the characters all got mixed up, so we were writing all sorts of sub teams made up of the different leagues and it became one big story, and I like that because having it out almost every week, the momentum is really fun to watch; it’s fun to have a story this big just go every single week.

BY: The first part of this came out right before Man of Steel, and there was a lot of controversy about Zach Snyder’s Superman killing someone, and there was sort of this small but loud contingent of people saying the only reason you had Superman killing someone at the beginning of this was in a response to that to show people that yes, it can happen. But I don’t think that’s the case. How did it all happen?

Jeff: When Geoff and I were plotting this it was months before, like January or February, and I had never seen Man of Steel and knew nothing about the plot. I think it was coincidence.

BY: I don’t think it had anything to do with it, but how did you come up with Superman is going to kill somebody in this context?

Geoff: In this context, we wanted the three Justice Leagues to really be taken down, the very first thing you’re going to do, the most powerful thing in my mind that the DC Universe has as a whole is inspiration in Superman. And the inspiration in Superman, the villains behind this really wanted the first casualty has to be facing Superman. And facing Superman means, they planned and took this opportunity to take an already untrusting group of superheroes, and they targeted Superman himself, so when he seemingly kills a fellow hero, this isn’t killing somebody, the heat vision goes off and kills Dr. Light, who’s a member of the JLA, and that, for us, if you’re going to do a story about taking down the Justice Leagues and trust is going to break even further, they’re all going to be focused on one thing “can they rely on Superman,” I think that’s a huge, you take that chip away, and a lot of characters in the Justice League start to collapse and a lot of them stand up for him and say he would never do that, but there’s still that voice in the back of their mind saying “what happened?” And that became a big focal point for us.

BY: I read the first 5, and it doesn’t feel until the end moment of this penultimate issue that this is launching something bigger; it feels so self contained and epic in its own right, that it never once feels like a prelude to something bigger. How did you work on managing that?

Geoff: There is a kind of close ended nature to this story and the mystery of Superman and Dr Light, so there is a nice close ended nature to this mystery, but there’s kind of this epic under current coming, like a tremor that’s going to erupt into an earthquake. By design, it’s almost hidden, like we wanted it to kind of hidden from the Justice League and the readers, and it will ultimately explode at the end of Justice League 23. Just because they solve the mystery doesn’t mean they solved the problem.

Jeff: We were also just trying to make it a Justice League event instead of a DC event, so I think that’s why it feels sort of contained to those books at least for the first 2/3 of it.

Geoff: The central focus is a conflict between the Justice League and the JLA and the Justice League Dark coming in to discover exactly what happened, and it’s very specifically a Justice League story and built on the fundamental distrust between the teams and the differences between the teams. Putting these 3 teams together, you get odd reactions and team ups which are a lot of fun to watch. There are a lot of strange members both in the JLA and Justice League Dark and even Justice League to an extent.

BY: Where are you going next?

Geoff: I can tell you the focus is Justice League: Forever Evil and the Crime Syndicate arriving on earth and the whole series is about good and evil and the shades of grey that society is. I don’t think there’s necessarily pure good and evil people in the DC universe or reality, but there are all sorts of shades of grey that people exist on a spectrum of morality. So we see the Crime Syndicate come in and it’s really that Lex Luthor becomes a focal point in Forever Evil as one guy that thinks it’s his job to stop them. There are some really great reveals in Justice League 23 that we’ve been building to since the very first arc of Justice League and JLA and there’s some stuff in Justice League Dark that really pays off. 23 really and into 24, which highlights Ultraman and what he’s here for, what he’s all about and where he’s from, so there’s a lot of fun stuff coming up.

At that point, the interview descended into much praise for Jeff Lemire’s book Trillium. Geoff and I both agreed that everyone needs to race out to buy that book as well.

The final chapter of Trinity War comes out on Wednesday.

Variety just broke the news…

Yup. Ben Affleck. Or as he has already come to be known in my social circles, Batfleck. I gotta tell you, I kind of love it.

A note from Swank-mo-tron: I couldn’t be more delighted about this news. Everyone forgets that Affleck has already turned in a hell of a performance as Superman/George Reeves in Hollywoodland, he’s a fantastic actor and director. They’ve officially made me interested in this movie.

Filming for Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy is well under way in London, but we still are missing people for the roles of two central characters, Groot and Rocket Raccoon. Vin Diesel has been dropping strong hints that he may be the voice for Groot, but we really haven’t heard a ton of chatter on who will voice Rocket Raccoon.

Well, that may have changed now as Latino Review is reporting that their “trusty sources out of England” have informed them that Marvel has made an offer to Bradley Cooper to voice Rocket Raccoon.

As always, file this away under rumor, even with Latino Review being a reputable source for these things, nothing is final until we officially hear something from Marvel/Disney.

I like Bradley Cooper, and after coming upon this news I pulled up a few clips of him and closed my eyes while he was talking. Despite how creepy that sounds, I can actually see this being the voice of a Raccoon with an attitude and arsenal of weapons to match. If this proves to be true, I’ll be quite pleased with this.

I honestly think that Groot and Rocket Raccoon are going to steal the show in Guardians of the Galaxy and is probably now my most anticipated Marvel Movie Phase 2 film because, frankly, I just don’t know what to expect!

Sound off with your thoughts of this rumored casting choice, and let us know who you think should voice Rocket Raccoon in the comments below!

You can follow Arse-bot and all the pointless thoughts he puts out into the interwebs on Twitter @Arse_bot

Telltale Games has released a brand new trailer for LEGO Marvel Super Heroes at Gamescom 2013, and not only is it adorable as all hell, but epic to boot!

These LEGO videogames have become wildly popular, not just because of the “cute-factor” of seeing your favorite franshises “LEGO-ized”, but because they are actually quality, fun games to play for all ages. So the fact that the next one hitting the shelves is bringing all of these Marvel super heroes and super villains together in one game has me incredibly excited.

Though, they might want to reconsider the line from Captain America, “I’m going to spangle you until you see stars!” . . . just sounds . . . weird.

LEGO Marvel Super Heroes will be available this Fall on PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, WiiU, and Nintendo 3DS.

You can follow Arse-bot and all the pointless thoughts he puts out into the interwebs on Twitter @Arse_bot