1. Give them makeovers.

As the educational film Earth Girls Are Easy makes clear, the easiest way to get an alien to go on an Earth-bound date is to offer him a makeover first. No alien wants to feel like he doesn't fit in at the disco, so have your cute friend (ideally, as cute as Julie Brown) give them a nice depilation treatment and wardrobe upgrade. Then you're ready for a night on the town. And if the ending of this movie is any indication, you'll have your de-furred, long-tongued alien purring in bed with you before the night is through.

2. Tell your alien a sob story about your last boyfriend.

This is really an advanced technique in alien seduction, but it seemed to work wonders for Karen Allen in the movie Starman. A friendly alien has come to Earth and used genetic material from her dead husband to craft a body for himself (that's why she didn't need to offer him a makeover).

When alien hottie asks her to "define love," Karen gives him the whole "when someone you love dies [sob]" number and it totally works! Later on, she takes a tumble with the alien out in nature — and that was back in the day when Jeff Bridges had a really hot body, so score one for Karen.

3. Have a warm body.

Sometimes you don't need a fancy makeover or tale of woe to get an alien babe's attention. The hot alien in Species just wants a warm body, and all you need to do is stand next to her when she strips off her top and shows off her bra. So if you're looking for a Species-style hookup, always remember to hang out in giant nightclubs that are near highly-classified research facilities. Just remember, if she decides not to have sex with you after assessing your genetic material, don't insist on it.

4. Make your alien feel like she owes you something.

Don't let anyone tell you that guilt isn't a good way to get some hot alien action. Look what happens in videogame Mass Effect when you put the old "you owe me something" attitude on. What I'm saying is that if an alien babe wants to thank you, always ask for more. Don't be satisfied with just a few wise words about your leadership or whatever crap. Keep pushing for the old you-know-what.

5. Join a secret organization whose job is to guard an ambiguous "rift" between Earth and vaguely-defined alien stuff.

This is one of those pickup artist tips that almost goes without saying. Obviously the very first thing you should do if you want to meet hot aliens is join a secret organization like Torchwood, from the eponymous TV series that spun off from Doctor Who. In this clip you can see the kinds of things that aliens do with our intrepid agents. The fact is, most aliens are on Earth looking for orgasmic energy and you just have to be in the right place at the right time to give it to them. But if that's too hard for you, well then obviously you'll want to go back to the makeover and sob story options. Or guilt. Aliens just love guilt.

WARNING: Do not, under any circumstances, expect your alien to act like this or like this.

Boom! Studios - now home to official friend of io9, Ian Brill - has our first new title of the week, Zombie Tales; Sensibly realizing that there's no long-term story potential in zombies unless you're Robert Kirkman (a conclusion obvious to anyone who's seen 28 Weeks Later), Zombie Tales is a new short story anthology series, letting various creators get their favorite zombie fantasies out of their heads before moving on to healthier things.

Alternatively, if zombies are played out for you, you may want to pick up the first volume of Roswell, Texas, which mixes alternate history (What if Texas didn't join the United States, but remained independent?) with a flying saucer crash and all manner of hell breaking loose as a result, courtesy of SF novelist and Lando Calrissian fanboy L. Neil Smith. Now, if only we could put alternate history zombies into a comic, we'd probably be rich. Or ignored.

The big comics from the Big Two publishers are an interesting bag this week. Marvel has the final issue of Joss Whedon's X-Men, called Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men for subtlety's sake, and the much more fascinating Marvel 1985, in which Wanted and Civil War's Mark Millar works out his childhood issues by bringing the Marvel villains from the comics page into "our world," with only one comic nerd recognizing what's going on. Despite the beautiful artwork from Tommy Lee Edwards, is this just another stage of Mark's "comic nerds will save us all" schtick (see Kick-Ass), or something more sinister?

(Marvel's also putting out the second collection of Kung-Fu actioneer The Immortal Iron Fist, subtitled The Seven Capital Cities of Heaven. Pick it up and find yourself falling in love with a super-sumo wrestler called "Fat Cobra". No, really.)

DC, meanwhile, is really going after your money this week, however: Never mind the long-awaited first issue of Grant Morrison's Final Crisis epic — as beautiful and grand in scale as it will undoubtedly be — or even the second-to-last issue of Morrison's note-perfect All Star Superman series. It's all about the collections this week.

Want to catch up on the critically-acclaimed Starman series by James Robinson and Tony Harris? A new hardcover series of collections starts this week. Want to learn more about Superman's home planet? Pick up the Superman: World of Krypton collection (with early art by Hellboy's Mike Mignola). Prefer 1970s SF weirdness? Jack Kirby's OMAC: One Man Army Corps will prepare you for the world that's coming. Looking for some four-color masturbatory material for the costume fetishist in your life? Comic Book Cover Portfolio: Women of The DC Universe will... um... satisfy you? It's literally all coming from DC's wheelhouse this week, friends.

And it's literally all going to your local comic book store, which you can find here. And if you need to know exactly what you'll find in those stores tomorrow, why not look at the complete list?

• It's a formula. Any storytelling formula is going to be lame. Any. Of course, Campbell didn't think he was prescribing a formula. He thought he was describing the pattern that's inherent in all the great stories. But over time, lazy writers like George Lucas have used it as a checklist. It's just as boring as the video game where you have the level bosses and then you have the big boss at the end. Except in the "Journey," it's the guardians of adventure, followed by the "dragon," followed by the final battle.
• It discourages originality. By the same token, if you claim that every great story is really just the same great story with surface changes, you're encouraging people to plagiarize the hell out of old stories. Instead of championing stories that are different, like say, Firefly/Serenity or James Robinson's Starman, you're tempted to call a schlock-fest like the original Star Wars "mythic" because it's about a hero who's singled out.
• Why is one hero so special anyway? The hero doesn't just get the "call to adventure" because everyone's getting it. He gets it because he's the most important person alive, with the most special skillz or the biggest brain. Everybody who's not him sucks and should go away. It plays into people's fantasies that they're secretly amazing, without having to work for it. But for those of us who aren't Ender Wiggin or Luke Skywalker, it's just pointless. What about a hero who's the greatest because she decides not to put up with the shit that everybody else is putting up with? What about a group of people who decide to work together to change the crappy status quo?
• The "hero" is always a d00d. Why does the hero encounter the goddess halfway through? Because she's hawt and he's a guy. If the hero was a chick, would the goddess be a dude? Somehow we doubt it.
• It's cheesy as hell. Here are some choice New Age-y quotes from Campbell. Sample quote: "Your sacred space is where you can find yourself again and again." Woah, dude. I just felt my crystals vibrate a little. Campbell also appears to be the inventor of the phrase "follow your bliss."
• He shoehorned a lot of myths into his theory. Campbell himself writes, in Thousand Faces, that he's not interested in exploring the differences between myths, just the similarities. In other words, he looked for whatever similarities he could find and overlooked any differences as "variations" in his monomyth. He also ignored countries outside the Indo-European tradition, like East Asia and Africa.
• It confuses personal growth with solving problems. Sometimes in order to defeat a great evil, you have to learn an important personal lesson and grow as a person. But often, you don't. Oftentimes, defeating a great evil just requires fighting like hell and doing what has to be done, and there's no time to meet the goddess or touch your magic wand or any of that stuff. Campbell's monomyth is unrealistic and spreads the idea that war is therapy.

1. RoboCop: The Series (1994).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? In England, but not in the U.S.
How many episodes? 22
What went wrong: In an effort to make a kid-friendly RoboCop show, the producers toned down the violence and had RoboCop explore "non-violent" alternatives to killing criminals. Recurring bad guys included Boppo the Clown, Dr. Cray Z. Mallardo and "Pud Face." No, really. Here's the opening credits.

2. Alien Nation (1989-91).
Original cast? No.
Out on DVD? Yes.
How many episodes? 22, plus a few TV movies
What went wrong: The TV version lost the noir tone of the movie about aliens living among us. In its place came good-natured humor with lots of banter. The cynical human cop teams up with an alien policeman and they tackle social issues. Watch them save an alien hooker from her pimp:

3. Honey, I Shrunk The Kids (1997-2000)
Original cast? No.
How many episodes? 66.
Out on DVD? No.
What went wrong: Every week, another experiment gone bendy. Plus obligatory subplots about the kids having crushes on other kids, and learning lessons, yadda yadda. Every episode title starts with "Honey." Including: "Honey, We've Been Swallowed by Grandpa." "Honey, I'm Streakin'." "Honey, The Garbage Is Taking Us Out." And my favorite: "Honey, I'm Wrestling With A Problem... And The Chief." Huh? Here's the first five minutes of the pilot. Note the goofy dog covering its face when disaster strikes:

4. Beyond Westworld (CBS: 1980)
Original cast? No.
# of episodes? five, but only three aired.
Out on DVD? Nope.
What went wrong: Westworld hit big with a robot theme-park turned homicidal. A sequel, Futureworld, bombed, so writer/director Michael Crichton decided to try again on television. Every week, Simon Quaid tries to take over the world using android nuclear-sub crewmen and android rock stars. The good guy: John Moore, who spends most of his time watching cheerleaders with his binoculars. Just like in this clip, where Quaid sends a robot duplicate of Connie Sellecca to kill Moore:

5. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures (1992)
Original cast? No, and in fact Alex Winter denounced the show on Arsenio Hall.
# of episodes? Eight, including unaired pilot.
Out on DVD? Hell no.
What went wrong: The producers "took liberties" with the movie's time-travel format, having Bill and Ted travel inside cable TV and into alternate dimensions. In one episode, Rufus (the George Carlin character) has a bad dream about Ted being sent to military school, and travels back to prevent it coming true. But instead, he causes that disaster, by engraving "Chicken Kiev" instead of Ted's father's name on an award. (Huh?) This enrages Ted's dad, who hates chicken kiev. Ted, off to military school, blames Bill for the mix-up and they become enemies. In another episode, Bill and Ted's boss becomes King Arthur:

6. Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (1979-81)
Original cast: Yes
# of episodes: 31
On DVD: Yes
What went wrong: The movie was a glorified TV pilot, but it did run in theaters. And like other movies-turned-shows, the series lost most of the themes of the pilot, such as the post-apocalyptic devastation outside of the dome of New Chicago. Instead, it was all about Buck strutting around settings like "Vegas in Space," wearing a skin-tight white jumpsuit with a rainbow armband. And then in the second season, with Hawkman and Dr. Goodfellow, it got really campy:

7. Starman (ABC: 1986-87)
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 22
On DVD: No.
What went wrong: Instead of husband-wife bonding like in the movie, this time our visiting alien (Robert Hays) bonds with the son who never knew him. They travel around together righting wrongs and learning important lessons. It's a Hulk/Fugitive riff except with a kid in tow. Here's the opening credits, plus Hays dealing with some pushy cops:

8. Logan's Run
Original cast: No.
# of episodes: 14
On DVD: No, but you can download episodes on Amazon Unboxed.
What went wrong: Yet another road-trip show. Logan escapes the city where they kill you when you reach 30. And then he travels around the post-apocalyptic world with his friend Jessica and an android named Rem. They encounter various other societies, including some robots and aliens. William Nolan, author of the original Logan's Run novel, actually worked on this show, and so did Star Trek alums Harlan Ellison, David Gerrold and D.C. Fontana. Here are the opening credits. Check out the furry alien costumes:

Famous names: John Carpenter, Jeff Bridges, Karen Allen

Crunchy goodness: 3

Sight you'll never unsee: Jeff Bridges' naked ass. Really, that's a super long shot of his ass, using only the flimsy excuse that aliens don't understand nudity.

Stunt casting: It was something of a stunt to put horror maven John Carpenter at the helm of what is essentially a quiet love story with a couple of aliens and a chase scene. The man who created Snake Plisskin and Michael Meyers manages to get it right, though, giving us an alien who is both recognizably lovable and impenetrably strange.

Copycat: In Contact, the aliens take the form of Jodie Foster's dead father in order to gain her trust and help her "understand" them.

In Depth Starman Review by Caroline & Gene O'Regon