Is not the same as the EXCALIBUR remake Bryan Singer’s attached to. Hollywood Gang and I were using "Excalibur" as shorthand. But the treatment doc is still currently headed with Untitled Arthurian Project.

Skip week, because Paul’s sick, but we have stuff to show you nonetheless.

I wrote an introductory essay of sorts to SUPERGOD for Previews:

….there’s still that little scratchy voice in the middle of the night: I don’t want to be alone. I want there to be something bigger, something that moves in mysterious ways and wants only the best for us. And I will forgive it, the disgusting state of this world, and all the things in it that want to crush and kill me, and have faith that something incredible and invisible and unknowable will make things better. And so (in SUPERGOD), just to make sure, I will build it and keep it by me. I will pretend it’s a weapon, a defensive capability, a computing object or a construction machine – but really it is a Messiah.

But the Messiah, remember, is a very naughty boy.

And here’s my favourite page from #1:

I warn you. You laugh at me. Then this happens:

A former university professor and his wife were attacked and killed by nearly a dozen starving feral dogs along a rural road in the US state of Georgia.

The Dog does not experience or comprehend remorse.

Look at it. "Send moar tasty humans. I has a hungry. DEATHLOL"

The Dog is the natural enemy of the Human.

You will never believe me. You will laugh at me. And then you will be eaten by dogs.

This guy’s going to be a big deal.

I held off mentioning this until it was over. But this is what Mer was doing last night: playing theremin at a WETA event. And I kind of love this flyer:

Last night, I was at the inauguration of BERG, the company that was Schulze and Webb.

I sort of accidentally named BERG. Because when Matt Jones laughingly asked me for company name suggestions, I said BRITISH EXPERIMENTAL ROCKET GROUP.

And I guess it kind of stuck.

Upon the announcement of the new company name, and the activation of the COMPLIMENTARY RE-ADJUSTMENT SEMINAR video projection, all principals of BERG donned blue lab coats with the BERG logo and their surname embroidered underneath. I like BERG because, if nothing else, they understand Mythic Resonance on their long Science-Factory Floor walk to the Future with mugs of tea in their hands.

Matt Sheret’s account.

(In attendance at the Schulze table: Rachael Gray, Gillen & McKelvie, Sheret, Lee Barnett. We were, I’m afraid, the loud people shouting at the skinny young folks from last.fm. In fact, I think we were just the loud people in general.)

An excellent night last night. Today I am suffering a bit from having discovered an organic ale of my liking available on tap at the Reliance.

Katie West brings the joy.

This is Warren Ellis dot com, broadcasting until 3am UK time. Hello.

I’m off to London in a bit to see Schulze and Webb and Jones and Etc. Will be all quiet here until midnight or so.

(pic via xplanes)

Preview of the new release of KING CITY by the brilliant, inspired and inspirational Brandon Graham.  Just click and go.

For reasons that frankly escape my understanding, Avatar are releasing a hardcover edition of FRANKENSTEIN’S WOMB this week. Apparently it’s seventeen American dollars. It has no extra material I’m aware of. If you want one, you’re probably nuts. One guy on Whitechapel says he’s getting one so he can lend his paperback version out. He’s probably nuts too.

Nice cover by book artist Marek Oleksicki, though.

So my daughter has insisted I buy a subscription to NEW HUMANIST magazine. I bought a copy while shopping at Housmans in London the other week. The July/August issue came with a free gift: half a pack of "God Trumps." And now she must have the other half of the pack, appearing with the next issue. And grudgingly admits that she really liked some of the articles too, and if I could buy a subscription and then just let her have the magazines when they arrive…

Anyway, I’m amused to note that NH has put the God Trumps on their site. Go and have a look.

Three news stories within a couple of days of each other, as captured by Religion News Blog, caught my eye.

Somalia Islamic Militants Behead Four Christian Orphanage Workers. India Hindu Militants Attack Christian Training Meeting. And Rash of Attacks on Christians Reported in Sri Lanka.

The latter headline doesn’t mention the antagonist religion involved. Turns out the attacks in Sri Lanka have probably been orchestrated by… Buddhist monks.

I’m sure it’s just a fluke… or, perhaps, just a topslice of a largely unreported phenomenon that’s only just met my awareness. I mean, we expect missionaries to meet nasty endings and all. But the speculative-fiction writer in my head kind of spins up to speed when greeted by a set of news stories like this: I think you could argue that none of these places have been particularly well-served by Christian forces in the past, and it’s tempting to conceive of a sudden worldwide purge of the Christian disease from all the crevices it invaded. All other religions turning on Christianity at once. I, however, am an atheist, and I think all religions are criminal insanity to start with, though, so…

Anyway. Interesting, I thought.

The techartculture group curation blog spun off from DOKTOR SLEEPLESS is still going, you know.  Go and look.

On Pop Art, Jack Kirby and the formative days of Alan Moore:

That wheezing, groaning noise? It’s the sound of a set of keys being dragged across the strings of a broken piano and processed by the mad science of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. This sound, the sound of the TARDIS, accompanies the manifestation of a weird throne whose surface cycles between metal and stone. It is occupied by a man who is mostly hair, armour rings and eyes that look like they can see into your soul and are fairly disappointed with its number of legs.

God, what a lovely idea.

Scottish Book Trust and Isle of Jura Single Malt Whisky are working together to offer writers the opportunity to spend a month living and writing on the idyllic island of Jura. Each selected writer receives a month’s exclusive use of the luxurious distillery lodge, a bursary and travel expenses.

Is there perhaps some kind of pipe that runs from the distillery into the lodge that dispenses the fine falling-down water that they make there? And if not, DON’T YOU THINK THERE SHOULD BE?

Okay, so my friend the writer Matt Fraction has to drive from Kansas City MO to Portland Oregon. He’s been making noises about having to "prepare" for the drive. I assumed he meant, you know, food, water, beads to trade with the locals on route, a gun with a single bullet in the chamber…

He meant something else. His preparation for this trip is actually, um…

…yeah.

Kelly Sue’s currently shouting DO NOT GET ARRESTED at him on twitter.

From Weds in North America, from Thurs in the UK:

Morgan Murphy:

If you’re weird enough, every store is a sex toy store.