When he paints the Creature from the Black Lagoon, you can feel the wattles. When he paints Godzilla, you can smell his breath. An amazing commitment to detail, along with an understanding or empathy for his subject matter, seems to fuel this ability. For Eggleton, though, this approach didn’t come easy.

He said:

For years I did this airbrushed stuff...ick...what was I thinking? Nothing in life looks airbrushed. So I dropped that for health reasons (the fumes) and my lungs and breathing got back to normal and I started real painting as in showing more brushwork and not being shy of it. I used to work in acrylics and basically it was like painting with plastic. I decided to make the jump back into oils. And it looks better, and I veered into fantasy heavily and then came back and applied this romantic vision to the SF work. Who wants to see things as they are? We want to see them as we dream them to be.

Use of space is also important to Eggleton:

My paintings deal with scale. It's why I can paint a colossal space-scape and then, Godzilla or something like that. It's all about scale and size. Think about it. I like big things next to little things. The human race is a speck in the universe. But an ant colony is small next to us. Everything is relative to scale. I tend to like to try something different with each job I do.

As for technology, Eggleton’s relationship with the modern world is a complicated one:

The American fascination with technology as fashion statement scares the bejeezus out of me. To be honest, not the devices themselves but this need for people to had said devices because they have to feel "up" on things-consumerism. And they have no clue about it...And thanks to technology we have the problems that go with it. People sit at computers and don't get out, they gain weight and have health problems—why actually walk to a store when you can have something delivered after ordering it online? The recent film Wall-E is just fantastic and, eerie in it's ballsy comment about what happens when we leave earth a junkpile, thanks to the Big Box Mart consumerisms, and go off into space and then with technology waiting on us hand and foot, we become fat,couch-bound,calcium deficient blobs!!! If anyone has not seen this film it makes a frightening comment on what is to come, if we don't look out. And you gotta love Pixar for having the cahoonies to put out a kids’ dystopian SF film!

Keeping it “old school,” Eggleton contributed to a film by Norman England called Invasia. Several of his creature designs (exclusively showcased in the gallery) were created by the same people who “made the suits for several of the last Godzilla films.” The idea behind Invasia is to create a 1950s-style film with parasitic creatures invading Japan “via these kind of evil ‘grey’ guys and their servant aliens. I was floored when I saw what a cool job Shinichi's shop did with the drawings.”

Upcoming for Eggleton is a kids’ book called If Dinosaurs Lived in Our Town. He explained:

[It's] written by my wife, and I worked with Cortney Skinner on the art. It's half traditional, half digital aimed at the four-to-eight year-old set. The result of the pieces looks spectacular. This'll be a BIG book next Spring from Sterling/Hollan Publishing and Barnes and Noble. I also have a few other things I am working on that you'll hear about soon. The idea is to keep re-inventing and not falling into a rut or people being able to say ‘Oh he just does...’

See more Eggleton in his online gallery.

[My City Screams]

. . . while little Venice plays with his moron ball.

Watch the whole crazy thing here.

Released to give the fact-obsessed yet comic-phobic fans of The Dark Knight their batfacts fix, Greenberger's newly updated and rewritten collection of Batman trivia is both exhaustive and exhausting, tracing multiple fictional histories of almost everyone who's ever had any contact with Bruce Wayne whatsoever (It even explains the origins of "Zur-Eh-Arrh," the phrase at the center of the current Batman RIP storyline, but be warned; it's probably not what you expect) alongside a wealth of art from various Batman comics of the last 69 years. It's very much a book to dip in and out of rather than sit down and read, although you'll find yourself getting sucked in to the differences between Earth-1, Earth-2, Post-Crisis and New Earth versions of history (Earth-2's Batman was probably the luckiest, apart from that whole death thing). Greenberger - a former editor for not only DC Comics, but Marvel and the Weekly World News - manages to condense everything into a format that's not only easy to understand, but easy to read, as well; no mean feat when explaining just how Jason Todd managed to be blown up and murdered until Superboy Prime punched the walls of reality.

If the book has a flaw, it's that it's almost too much information; Greenberger has talked about the difficulties of creating entries for minor characters from the 50s, and you can understand why; while every character may be someone's favorite, that doesn't mean that all of them have to be bulking up an already impressive project like this one.

That aside, it's a strange book to recommend; curiously addictive, yet at the same time, utterly unnecessary, it's the kind of book that you should tell people not to get you for your birthday, but secretly covet at the same time. How else, after all, can you easily find out the entire history of Ted Grant?

The Essential Batman Encyclopedia [Random House]

Meet Piella Bakewell, Wallace's new (gasp!) girlfriend. She looks sort of cute, in a bleach-blonde Marge Simpson way. And I bet she's pretty good at baking pies. Here's the plot synopsis for the new W+G, which returns to the half-hour format that launched our heroes:

Wallace and Gromit have a brand new business. The conversion of 62 West Wallaby Street is complete and impressive, the whole house is now a granary with ovens and robotic kneading arms. Huge mixing bowls are all over the place and everything is covered with a layer of flour. On the roof is a ‘Wallace patent-pending’ old-fashioned windmill. The transformation is perfect.

Although business is booming, Gromit is concerned by the news that 12 local bakers have ‘disappeared’ this year – but Wallace isn’t worried. He’s too distracted and ‘dough-eyed’ in love with local beauty and bread enthusiast, Piella Bakewell, to be of much help.

While they enjoy being the ‘Toast of the Town’, Gromit, with his master’s life in jeopardy, must be the sleuth and solve the escalating murder mystery - in what quickly becomes a ‘Matter of Loaf and Death’.

Once again, the new Wallace and Gromit is co-written by Bob Baker, who wrote many of the weirdest Doctor Who episodes in the 1970s (and created K-9 the robot dog.) I wonder what scifi elements, besides those robot arms, we'll see this time around. Past installments have included cyber-pants, a moon rocket, a bizarre rabbit-capturing device... and the dreaded Were-Rabbit! [Wallace And Gromit, via Cinema Gaslight]

Even though the movie's plot sounds slightly silly — and reminiscent of that Bruce Willis movie where everybody only interacts through cyber-avatars — I like Robert Rini's concept art a lot. The movie only has a budget of $96,000 and stars Bethany Clear and Brian Saltzman. Plus "an anonymous voice over narration that I'm sure everyone will love," says the movie's blurb. And here's a synopsis:

Set in an alternate history America of the year 2000, it tells the story of love in the most unusual and possibly grim circumstance. Lucky, the protagonist, is a "relationship representative," who saves prospective couples the time and drudgery of courtship by professionally standing in for one of the parties in a first-date situation, and evaluating the level of likely interest in the other party on behalf of her client. Of course, in the year 2000, the use of relationship representatives has become so widespread, it is a near-certainty both parties are representatives standing in for their respective clients, going through the motions, making mental notes to prepare reports the next morning. And so it is, shortly after the film begins, that Lucky finds herself in an unusual predicament (and a role for which she never rehearsed), when she is assigned to meet with Lena Nigari, a young woman doing something unheard of — going on a date herself.

Bassist and techie journalist geek Greg Huang writes in to say that Honest Bob is playing a rare one-night show in New York City at Sullivan Hall. You can buy tickets from the Sullivan Hall website. Or if you're like me and you can't fly 3,000 miles to NYC even to bask in the tunes of Honest Bob, you can feel the surf-nerd vibe of their new single, Soy Bomb, on their MySpace page. Soy Bomb is featured in Guitar Hero II, by the way, if it sounds familiar.

If you haven't ever gotten into Honest Bob before, I recommend you start with the album Second and Eighteen, if only because it includes the world's most awesome song ever: Time Cube.

Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives [official site]

This claymation short aired in 1996 on Nickelodeon's Kablam segment (you may also remember Action League Now). All of the shorts have Prometheus teaching Bob to do the simplest things such as, dress, use the restroom, build a shelter and survive. Every episode usually ends with Prometheus getting hit in the head with something. But it's Bob's sweet nature and Prometheus' never-tiring patience (especially when Bob knocks him unconscious and he and the monkey take Prometheus' clothes) that makes these shorts truly memorable.

Check out the Prometheus and Bob fan site for all 39 episodes.

• Big Guy: If you haven't read Frank Miller and Geof Darrow's Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot oversized graphic extravaganza, then you need to go out and pick it up right now. We'll wait. Ready? Okay. Big Guy is an over-armed, over-achieving battletank complete with his own boy scout do-gooder companion, Rusty. Now, the secret is that Big Guy is actually pilot by Lieutenant Dwayne Hunter, so he's not really a sentient robot. However, the world at large doesn't know this, and if you assemble a robot army, you're going to want to fight in it, right? Well, here's your e-ticket. We'd take him over Voltron or the Power Rangers megabot any day.
• Maxmillian from Disney's The Black Hole: This blood red robot could hover and had whirling blades at the ends of his arms... what's not to love? Sure he had good old laser blasters, but when he could turn your guts into a blended smoothie, who cared about guns? His ominous, scary head terrified me as a kid, and he'll do the same to human ground troops. Just keep him away from circular saws and other cutting tools.Oh, he also serves as a handy storage device for deposed megalomaniacs as well, in case you find yourself needing that sort of thing.
• Nixon from Hard Boiled: Geof and Frank also collaborated on the amazing Hard Boiled, which features more destruction and mayhem than a Michael Bay movie, all in intricately drawn in Geof Darrow's "obsessive attention to detail" style. Armed with just a handgun and his bare (later robotic) fists, Nixon cleaves his way through just about everything you can imagine, including giant barreling cars and a dog with laser beams for eyes.
• The Iron Giant in KickAss Mode: Have you seen The Iron Giant? This sadly unappreciated film was directed by Brad Bird for Warner Bros. animation, and really deserved a larger audience. The quirky 1950s retro-setting was perfect for this story about a lost alien robot superweapon who winds up on Earth and wants to be Superman. Of course, when he went haywire and turned into a giant gun that could take out anything, that's when he was at his most awesome. Of course, the movie wanted you to think that was bad, but we think it's incredible. Bring on the big guns!
• The Robot from Lost in Space: He may not have had a name (although his crate said ONE General Utility Non-Theorizing Environmental ROBOT, so he might have been GUNTER), but he was loyal, always at the ready, and able to shout "Danger!" whenever something alarming was about to happen. Plus he was a perfect foil for that nebbishy Doctor Smith. Now, the Lost in Space movie might not have thrilled everyone (I actually enjoyed it), but the updated Robot in that (with the same voice) was a badass with plasma blasters attached. Both versions had treads, waving arms, and a giant round head. What more can you ask for? Well, step one would be to order him to destroy Matt LeBlanc.
• The Terminator from The Terminator: You can't really make a list of badass robots without including the Terminator, but which model do you pick? All of them? Only one? The T-1000? The Arnie models? The Summer Glau-bot? We have to go with the original from the first movie, because he was much grittier, to the point, and without a sense of humor. Plus he could growl out "Fuck you, asshole" better than any of the other models, who apparently had their language sanitized.
• Soundwave from The Transformers: Screw Optimus Prime and Megatron, even though either one would be a more powerful, logical choice. No, we like Soundwave because of his awesome voice. Who didn't want to talk like an old-school Cylon? Plus he could transform into a Walkman and fool all of your friends. Plus the cassettes became his recon sidekicks. The toy was a lot more heavily armed than the version in the cartoon, and a lot more badass. He had a microphone that could turn into a missile launcher. What more do you need? "RAVAGE, EJECT. OPERATION: ASS-KICKING."
• The Gunslinger from WestWorld: There is probably nothing scarier than a relentless Yul Brynner-bot without a face chasing after you relentlessly. Except maybe two of them. Just like the Terminator he never got tired, had a fast-walking pace that never faltered, and was always ready to blow your head off. Yul Brynner's own face was steely enough to be frightening, but once his own face popped off exposing the transistors and wires beneath he was nightmare-inducing.
• The Killbots from Chopping Mall: Originally released as Killbots, this Roger Corman produced film features three security robots going haywire in a mall in California and chopping everyone into shreds. Plus they had those creepy Cylon-esque red eyes which just meant they were up to no good. Strangely, it'd didn't do too well as Killbots, but they released it again as Chopping Mall, and it brought in some bucks. Not a blockbuster, to be sure, but check out what a gory name change can do. These are the guys you'd want on the front lines, cutting through the infantry so the big guns can sit back and wait.
• Ultron from Marvel Comics: Not only is Ultron one of the most ultimate killing robots ever devised, he also has a grinning visage that will scare the crap out of you just by seeing it. Granted, he was a bit unstable and the Avengers seemed to have no problem taking him down again and again, and he was even created by one of their own. However, if you can get past his epithet shouting, revenge driven programming, he'd make a good asset to have if you ever need to talk someone to death.
• Mechagodzilla: You've got to have one giant weapon you keep in reserve, ready to bust out and make everyone pee their pants just when the time is right. Who better than Mechagodzilla to do that? In fact, trot him out in his Godzilla disguise first, and then you have people thinking "Oh crap, it's Godzilla!" Then once they think they've defeated him, but actually just destroyed his fake Godzilla skin, you've got people thinking "Oh crap, it's Mechagodzilla! Screw it, we surrender." Built by aliens, he's a badass robo-copy of Japan's mightiest protector.
• Major Motoko from Ghost in the Shell: If you ever want to see a woman take on a tank all by herself with nothing more than an automatic rifle, then look no further. Sure, she's a cyborg with some cloaking technology, but that hardly makes her any less badass. As a field commander on the ground, Motoko could issue commands and kick ass at the same time. Of course, she'll also obsessively leave the field to follow up on Puppetmaster clues and hints, but that might be a small price to pay for her skills.
• HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey: You'd need someone to run the numbers and come up with strategies while all the fighting was going on, and who better than good old, red-eyed HAL back at the base crunching scenarios? Of course, the downside is that is things start looking like they might threaten HAL at all, he'll pull the plug on everyone else to save himself. However, he'd explain it to you in that calm, easy cadence, so you probably wouldn't mind at all.

• Johnny Five from Short Circuit: This guy couldn't kick any ass, so make him zip back and forth in a shooting gallery style and let your 'bots with distance weapons take shots at him.
• David from A.I.: If you want to train your bots on how to capture kids and hold them for ransom, use good old David-bot and his Teddy for some games of hide and seek in urban settings. Just be gentle, because the kid could hardly eat spinach, let alone take a pulse-rifle blast to the spine.
• V.I.N.C.E.N.T. from The Black Hole: Okay, I'll say it here, I have a true soft spot for this movie, and for V.I.N.C.E.N.T. However, he wouldn't have been too effective as a soldier (unless you had just offed his buddy B.O.B... continually), so if you put him out to pasture for target practice, at least he'd be doing some good. Sorry, little buddy *sniff*.
• C3P0 from Star Wars: R2D2 may be useful enough to keep around in an engineering or repair bay somewhere, but C3P0 was useless. No speed, no weapons, and a mouth that wouldn't quit? Use him for hand-to-hand combat training and see how many languages he can say "Not in the face!" in.
• Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation: Come on, how annoying did this guy get? Surround him in an open field and let the whole crew go to town. Keep spare parts around so you can repeat this over and over.

Right before this clip, the town has managed to fight off a wave of bikers with crazy hair and makeup. But they rejoice too soon — the bikers call in their corporate security guard brothers, who shred the town's defenses so the bikers can build a giant ramp and jump in.

I really can't possibly do 2020 Texas Gladiators as much justice as the master, Joe-Bob Briggs, in his write-up. (In a nutshell, it starts with zombies attacking nuns in a Texas monastery, only to be rescued by rednecks, then it leads to bikers attacking the plucky little town, with the help of the guys in jumpsuits. Fight fight fight fight fight. The end.) But here are a couple of observations:

• The brief scene, between the zombie-monastery attack and the biker/riot cop attack, where the bearded guy keeps the town's refinery from blowing up and then gives a little speech, totally reminded me of Jericho. For about 30 seconds, you think this might actually turn into a post-apocalyptic survival movie, instead of just a big spaghetti Mad Max kung-fu battle in Texas.
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• How awesome is it that the riot shields are basically just a flimsy frame with a giant hole in them? And then there's a "force field" effect added in post. The movie ends with the bald guy walking down the street, alone, with one of those riot shields. Everybody's shooting at him, to no effect. And then one guy tosses a hatchet from a rooftop. And somehow, that gets through. Why? We'll never know.

Scifi music began with filking, and the less said about that the better. But did you know that mega-popular band Blue Oyster Cult sang songs written by British scifi author Michael Moorcock? (One of those songs, "Black Blade," was a minor hit in the UK.) That's true scifi music for ya. And then there is the totally underground Massachusetts band Honest Bob and the Factory to Dealer Incentives, who sing about time cubes and Tatooine with feeling. Plus, one member of Honest Bob is an editor at New Scientist, which is serious cred.

And let us not forget that Judas Priest's song "Electric Eye" from way back in the 1980s is a brilliant dystopian vision of a world controlled by surveillance. OK, maybe not brilliant. But prescient! And very scifi.