Over the past two decades, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett’s Good Omens has almost been made into a movie several times. Monty Python alum Terry Gilliam tried for years to put the comic fantasy on film, but the infamously unlucky auteur (see the wonderful doc Lost in La Mancha) could never make it happen.

There has been talk lately of a possible TV miniseries, but many of the book’s fans still hold out hope for a feature. But who could bring Good Omens‘s outrageous characters to life?

Take a look at our picks after the jump.

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“Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back?”

-Idris

Doctor Who is a quintessential piece of British culture, and it has been for nearly a half century. A more recent contributor to that lexicon is Neil Gaiman, the mastermind behind Sandman, Stardust and Coraline. Well last year the ‘Grand Moff’ worked his magic again and secured Gaiman to write a season six episode of Doctor Who. Uniting two of the giants in British fantasy into one perfect, condensed episode of TV. Or is it?

Of course it is, I won’t even try to fool you. ‘The Doctor’s Wife’ is one of, if not the, best episode of Moffat and Smith’s run up to this point The tone is fabulous, the writing is perfect, the acting is spectacular and the monster is every bit as threatening as he should be considering the stakes. As far as stand alone stories go, I predict this will be at or near the top of many Whovian’s top lists for years to come.

So we have reached the spoiler warning portion of my review, I cannot implore you enough to see the episode first. You do yourself a disservice by not heeding that warning! More after the jump.

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Remember the early 90′s, before “emo” was a lifestyle and kids were just dressing up like Neil Gaiman’s Death or Dream and rock out to The Cure? Well, it looks like Warner Bros. TV is a little more nostalgic, as they’re in the planning stages of turning Gaiman’s classic fantasy comic into a new dramatic series.

It may be 15 years after the initial book stopped getting published, but the executives at WB feel that fans of a new, vampire-loving generation will take a liking to this dark and dreary world. Heat Vision spells it out.

Warner Bros. TV is in the midst of acquiring television rights from sister company DC Entertainment and in talks with several writer-producers about adapting the 1990s comic. At the top of the list is Eric Kripke, creator of the CW’s horror-tinged “Supernatural.”

“Sandman” told the tale of Morpheus, the Lord of the Dreaming, a deity who personifies dreams. The book began in the horror realm but quickly made its mark in fantasy and mythology as Gaiman introduced the Endless, a group of powerful brothers and sisters named Destiny, Death, Destruction, Despair, Desire and Delirium (as well as Dream).

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I’ve always loved history. Discovering what happened in the past is always a great way to make sure things go smoothly in the present and in the future. I also love comics. So, when these two things meet, you can imagine how happy that makes me.

Case in point is the new documentary about the history of DC comics called Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics. In it you get to see a whole bunch of great current and former DC artists and writers discuss the formation and history of one of the greatest media companies ever. Narrated by Ryan Reynolds, the documentary features interviews and commentary by Neal Adams, Karen Berger, Dan DiDio, Neil Gaiman, Geoff Johns, Jim Lee, Dwayne McDuffie, Grant Morrison, Dennis O’Neil, Paul Pope, Louise Simonson, Mark Waid, Len Wein, and Marv Wolfman. Yes, that’s lot of amazing people.

“From the bans to the breakthroughs, from humble pulp beginnings to the literary rise of the graphic novel, the story of DC Comics holds a mirror to an ever-evolving enterprise and the society reflected in its comic book pages,” said Diane Nelson, President, DC Entertainment. “It’s a true American story – Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics is a riveting, exciting, surprising revelation of that fascinating history and the men and women who forged it.”

I’ll bet money that that’s completely true. In fact, no bet necessary, I’ll be buying this when it comes out because I know it’s going to be fascinating.

Check out the trailer for the documentary after the jump. Secret Origin arrives on DVD November 9th.

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With 2009 coming to a close, the challenge was to pick and rank the 10 best comics from the entire year. I’ve estimated reading approximately 1,500+ issues over that time frame, so obviously it wasn’t the easiest task to complete. Still, after much deliberation, these are my picks for the 10 best comics of 2009.

1. Jonah Hex #50
DC Comics
Writers: Justin Gray, Jimmy Palmiotti
Artist: Darwyn Cooke
Originally reviewed on December 3, 2009

Perfection. Defined as the highest degree of proficiency, skill or excellence, perfection is near impossible to achieve, especially when every comic ever printed is subjective in nature. You know, “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” and all that jazz. Still, when I thought about all the comics I’ve read this past year, this issue of Jonah Hex kept coming back to me. While not perfect (frankly, what is?), it’s pretty close.

A wonderful done-in-one tale following our “hero” as he diligently goes about his day job, in this specific case while hunting down 50 various bad guys who had it coming to them. A fine story on it’s own. Now add a dash of romance – or the bounty hunter’s version of it – to the mix, sprinkle in a little personal vengeance, and top it off with a jolting reminder of how cruel life can be, and you’re left with a portrait of a man who makes no excuses for who he is or what he does, life expectations be damned.

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For the past four years, Spike TV has been on the map of cable TV award shows with their annual Scream Awards, giving notice to genres and categories that all other award shows overlook. From comic books to horror films, the Scream Awards have made basic cable award shows fun for the rest of us.

The network just released their list of nominees for this year’s show, which have been chosen by their Advisory Board of Hollywood and Genre Leaders. On the board are known genre names such as Tim Burton, Wes Craven, Roland Emmerich, Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Eli Roth, Zack Snyder, and more.

The voting begins today at Scream.Spike.com so check out the list after the jump. Be sure to tune into Spike TV on Tuesday, October 27 (10 PM-Midnight ET/PT) for the 2009 Scream Awards.

THE ULTIMATE SCREAM
-“Drag Me to Hell”
-“Let the Right One In”
-“Star Trek”
-“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen”
-“Twilight”
-“Up”

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The colossal and beautiful Wednesday Comics hits stands this week for its first installment of twelve weekly issues. I shouldn’t really explain to you why you should buy this comic, but does Paul Pope doing an Adam Strange story do it for you? No? How about the 100 Bullets team of Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso doing Batman? Or Neil Gaiman and Mike Allred doing Metamorpho? I’ll stop.  For $3.99 you’ll get a newspaper sized issue full of great comics.

We’re big fans of Chuck here at The Flickcast. Especially me, I’ve been waiting for this collection for what seems like months. Written by series writers Peter Johnson and Zev Borow, it seems like this series was the first phase of trying out TV series as comics if that series would end up getting canceled. Thankfully, Chuck was not canceled and we still have this fun comic.

My final recommendation is Jeff Lemire’s The Nobody, published by Vertigo Comics and inspired by H.G. Wells’ The Invisible Man. I hear nothing but wonderful things about his Essex County trilogy and just as many wonderful things about this book.

As always we here at The Flickcast care about what you read, and if these don’t get you going, Midtown Comics has an excellent list of this week’s listings.  So, tell us what you liked this week in the comments section. Happy reading!