With San Diego Comic Con fast approaching, some friends of the Flickcast have sent us advanced looks at their new releases which will be brought to the public for the first time at Comic Con. In this SDCC 11 preview, we are taking a peek at the first issue of Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers. Back at NYCC last year, we previewed issue 0 of the series. Now, Jeff Marsick and Kirk Manley, along with colorist Euan Mactavish, bring the first issue of a five issue miniseries to the floor at San Diego.

The first issue of Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers: Odyssey helps introduce readers to the zombie heroine Z-Girl and her three brothers in arms, the Tigers. Each of the Tigers has mastery over different elements as well as a military role on the team. Currently, Z-Girl and her squad are down a member as they attempt to stop a anthropomorphic ape Tavvus from summoning the spirit of Shiva to destroy the bane of humanity from the world. The second half of the issue revolves around the repercussions of this encounter as well as the Red Tiger’s spirit search for a new host to help round out the team.

Z-Girl and the 4 Tigers is a fun take the combined sci-fi, horror and action genres. Lots of influence can be seen from other successful works such as B.P.R.D. without feeling like a rehash. The combination of sci-fi tech and ancient mythologies leads to a creative and original first issue that leaves readers waiting to see what comes next.

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In a world of constant changing protagonists, there seems to be one winner when it comes to the summer movie blockbuster season. That winner is Michael Bay’s transforming robots known as the Autobots. In its second weekend of release, Transformers 3 still managed to stay strong at #1 with an astounding $47 Million.

The film is staying strong not only in the US, but has pulled in upwards of $645 Million worldwide. Also opening this weekend, Warner’s Horrible Bosses didn’t make much of an impact with an estimated $28 Million.

Finally, and in the #3 spot this weekend, Sony’s The Zookeeper managed to draw something of an audience, with $21 Million over the weekend, and an average of $6,000 per screen. About a fourth of its $80 Million budget, so you can expect Kevin James to cause trouble in yet another occupation in the near future.

Even thought Transformers blew up for the past 2 weeks, and has made over half a billion dollars worldwide, that’s nothing in comparison to what the final Harry Potter film will do next weekend.

Opening in over 4,200 screens across the US, you can expect the film to blow this last Transformers film out of the water in the first weekend, let alone the worldwide net of the film going forward.

It’s Friday so that means it’s time for preview for one of our favorite shows. That’s right, we’ve got three new video previews for Sunday’s all-new episode of True Blood to share with you today.

Sunday’s episode, which is entitled I wanted “If You Love Me, Why Am I Dyin’?”, continues the saga of the denizens of Boin Temps, LA as they deal with the new threat in town, witches. Plus, the old threats are still very much alive, or rather not alive. You get the picture.

The three video clips, which have the titles “Crystal Comforts Jason,” “Tara and Lafayette Discuss Eric,” and “Bill Metes Out Punishment” are pretty self-explanatory and should go a long way to getting you psyched for the episode. Looks like a good one.

As an aside, it’s nice to see Tara not being such a victim this season. Apparently, learning MMA fighting and becoming a lesbian has done her some good. Let’s hope the trend continues.

See all the videos after the jump. True Blood airs Sunday at 9/8C on HBO.

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The score for the first Michael Bay Transformers movie was something of a shock. I wasn’t expecting much from the movie, and I anticipated even less from the movie’s score. In fact, I expected something more like incomprehensible metal percussions and minimalism in the theme department.

What Steve Jablonsky delivered was nothing short of a revelation, I had a perfect  cinematic music moment during the arrival to earth scene. A moment where the music, movie and context of my own life all blended together for one transcendent moment.  This has only happened three other times in my life, and the composers responsible were named Wiliams, Goldsmith and Shore. So believe me when I say I really liked the music of the first film.

Then came Transformers 2, an abomination of truly grand proportions. The score was solid, but unspectacular. It had none of the awe and wonder that made made the first film’s music such a joy. In the absence of that we got instrumental Linkin Park! Whoop!

Now I understand a film that is second in a franchise isn’t going to have that same freshness, but I was expecting so much better. So now here we are at Transformers 3, Jablonsky has returned with almost everyone else and I am more than curious to hear what he has to offer.

Last week I gave you a review where I hadn’t seen the movie (well TV show actually), now this week I am giving you a review where I saw the movie first before I listend to the score album. In the movie, the music wasn’t as dominant as it was in the first film, but it was far more enjoyable than the last film’s score.

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There was a lot of excitement when David O. Russell took the reins of the upcoming Uncharted film. A real director taking on one of the most cinematic ready video game franchises seemed like a sure fire hit. Then word came out that frequent O. Russell collaborator Mark Whalberg would play Nathan Drake and  it was all down hill from there.

Eventually, O. Russell decided to leave the project and Uncharted seemed on shaky ground.

Well Variety is now reporting that Neil Burger, director of the film Limitless, has been brought on to direct the cinematic adventures of Nathan Drake. Burger is coming off a mild success in Limitless and hopes to parlay that into bigger things. It is unknown whether or not Whalberg is still interested in starring in the movie, but it is known that Burger will be working off of a re-write of the original script Russell had intended on using.

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If you’ve been following the saga of a group of ragtag survivors agains seemingly overwhelming alien invaders, aka Falling Skies, then you’re going to be happy about this news. TNT has ordered a second season of the show.

Coming from Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks TV, the show premiered last month with 8 Million viewers, making it cable’s top series launch of the year. Since that time the series has averaged 6.4 Million viewers for its first three episodes and is attracting strong ratings overseas as well.

The network has ordered 10 episodes for Season 2, which is slated to air in Summer 2012. Although that may not seem like a lot of episodes, it’s about average for basic cable.

Falling Skies stars Noah Wyle, Mood Bloodgood, Will Patton, Sarah Carter and Drew Roy. It airs Sundays at 10/9C on TNT.

If The New York Times were to break the story that the NEA has been generously funding an ongoing study of manhood and brotherhood among everyday schmoes in contemporary culture, that sure would explain a lot. Surely few phenomena have been as comprehensively documented of late as the dilemma of nondescript modern men (usually lifelong buddies) forced by extreme circumstances beyond their control (roofies, bad bosses) into the type of reckless behavior (murder, breaking-and-entering, walking into a bar in the bad part of town) they would never normally contemplate.

Almost always the upshot involves:

• •  illegal drug usage (usually unintentional)
• •  first-ever encounters with law enforcement (cue bickering recrimination scene in the back seat of a squad car)
• •  uneasy encounters with The Other (usually hip, powerful, sometimes grotesque black men against whom the protagonists’ manhoods are implicitly contrasted and found vastly wanting. In the case of Hangover The Other is represented by both Mike Tyson and Ken Jeong as an Asian Mafioso. Here, it’s a very funny Jamie Foxx.)
• •  flashes of homosexual anxiety
• •  all countered by elaborate vulgarity, gross-out humor and scatological references, as well as
• •  forced interaction with that other Other: frighteningly gorgeous and overtly sexual women who positively demand to be serviced.

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Bear McCreary, best known for his Emmy -nominated TV composing work, has been commissioned by NASA to write an original fanfare commemorating the final Space Shuttle launch. A recent press release unveiled the plans:

“After composing four seasons of music for a television show set in space, creating music inspired by a historic NASA mission was a natural fit. The composition will be played first on Friday morning at the NASA launch TweetUp. People viewing the launch from some of the other locations at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida will also be able to hear the composition.”

Bear is best known for his work on the hit Sci-Fi show Battlestar Galactica, but has written for multiple shows over the last few years. One of his recent highlights include the show Human Target, which earned him his most recent Emmy nomination.

McCreary is an interesting choice for NASA, being a TV composer he is not all that well known and their is a history of people of John Williams-caliber writing music specific for events. That said, being familiar with his work I can assure you all that McCreary is an inspired choice, and I for one can’t wait to hear it.

Welcome to another edition of On the Radar where we delve into all corners of the entertainment, tech and geek Internets for news, views and whatnot that may have escaped our regular coverage during the week. Let is know if we missed something interesting.

Let’s get started!

• Now that Transformers 3 has made some of the most money in theaters this year, a few people are claiming that Michael Bay ripped himself off with re-rendered scenes from The Island.

• Who needs new formulas when we’ve got something as classic and plentiful as the Final Destination franchise. Here’s an example with the newest trailer for #5.

• Ladies, swimsuit season is right around the corner, and with these Monster Bikinis, you’ll definitely be the talk of the geeky town.

• Forbes recently uncovered that Sarah Jessica Parker is the highest paid actress in Hollywood. The weird part is that she’s only payed in sugar cubes and carrots…

• Sad to see a few favorites on this list, but here are the top 10 biggest flops of 2011 so far. (We still have to get through Captain America)

• Jon Hamm is a man of many emotions, and you can see them all in the Jon Hamm Emotions Challenge!

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This year’s Comic-Con International was looking like it would be a bit lame with studios like Marvel, Paramount, Warner Bros, and other big companies dropping out of the festivities entirely. That means we won’t be seeing massive lines for Hall H and a glimpse at Henry Cavill in the Superman suit or footage of Thor and Hulk whomping on each other.

Instead we’re getting some of the lesser known properties in that famous football stadium-sized room known as “Hall H” such as The Knights of Badassdom and Tucker and Dale Vs. Evil. With the very first day of programming for the ‘Con announced, it looks like we’re going to be getting just that, and a truck load of TV.

One good note is that all things Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1 will be in the early half of Thursday, leaving the rest of the weekend vampire free (except for those Southern vamps from True Blood).

Check out the full day’s schedule after the jump, and head to their official Scheduler app, so you can make official the things you want to see that weekend!

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It feels like years since Robert Kirkman and Frank Darabont’s visionary zombie drama The Walking Dead left the air until season two. But that only means that we’re getting closer to the second season, with twice the zombies, and twice the zombie killing!!

In a recent interview with creator and series writer Robert Kirkman, he stated that there will be a much bigger story arch this season, as well as some new and familiar characters returning. One thing we learned from both the comic series and the AMC adaptation is that not a single person is safe, and anyone can die at any time.

With shooting currently underway in Atlanta, GA, there will be lots of footage for us to drool over in the coming weeks (possibly Comic-Con?). But in the meantime, we’ve got the very first teaser trailer for season 2, which has got some good old fashioned slow-motion zombie killing.

Check out the full teaser after the jump, and be sure to keep an eye out in the next few weeks as we bring you more content and scoops from the show, leading up to their season premiere this October on AMC.

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As we inch closer and closer to the release of Peter Jackson’s next trilogy in the world of Lord of the Rings, we’re getting more and more gifts and treats to get us excited for the upcoming films. The first image we saw showed us that this world looks an awful lot like the last one we all visited, and now we’re getting treated to a brand new image showing off some of the film’s cast.

Taken from their official Facebook page, we’ve got the very first image of the three brother Dwarves from the film, Nori (played by Jed Brophy), Ori (Adam Brown) and Ori (Mark Hadlow). Here’s the official description that followed the image.

DORI, NORI & ORI
These three brothers, all sons of the same mother, could not be more different from each other. Dori, the oldest, spends much of his time watching out for Ori, the youngest; making sure he’s not caught a chill or got himself killed by Wargs or Goblins. Nobody quite knows what Nori gets up to most of the time, except that it’s guaranteed to be dodgy and quite probably, illegal. Dori, Nori and Ori are intensely loyal to each other – and whilst they are perfectly happy fighting amongst themselves, woe-betide anyone who means harm to one of these brothers.

Check out the full-sized image after the jump and get ready as Jackson’s Hobbit hits theaters in parts next year.

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