We ring out the new year as only we can (because who else would want to?): talking about comic books. Oh, and making inappropriate comments to Josie, who was foolish enough to join us again. Titles we spoil this week: 52 AFTERMATH THE FOUR HORSEMEN #5, ACTION COMICS #860, BATMAN #672, FREDDY VS JASON VS ASH #3, GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #3, GREEN LANTERN #26, TEEN TITANS #54, AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #545, AVENGERS INITIATIVE #8, CAPTAIN AMERICA #33, DAREDEVIL #103, GIANT SIZE AVENGERS SPECIAL #1, MARVEL ZOMBIES 2 #3, NEW WARRIORS #7, THOR #5, X-MEN #206.

This is the closing show for 2007, so we’re going to discuss the best things to come out of 2007 and our predictions, hopes and fears for 2008. We’ll attempt to have Becker call into the studio to explain why he got us all excited about Killing Pickman #2 showing up this week - only to leave us weeping like children when we learned it’s late.

Soooo…One More Day is here. Needless to say, nobody in N3RD HQ is very happy. It’s amazing how badly Marvel managed to screw the pooch on this. Honestly, they probably couldn’t have screwed this up more had they set out to do so. But it’s okay, because Joe Q is awfully proud of himself.

My cousin’s one of the guys behind PBC Productions, and I’m delighted I learned of them. The Captain S videos alone make it worthwhile - I could sit through him kicking “pigs� for hours on end. I already bitched about them not having shirts fat enough for my moobs, because I really need to sport that “Everything Gets the Kick!� Tshirt. Maybe I’ll just get a baby-girl sized shirt and really freak people out… I’m sure they’d appreciate that kind of exposure!

We were happy to have Becker call in, that guy’s always a riot to talk to. Apart from being crazier than a bowel of hell, he’s a brilliant writer and created one of my favorite books that came out this year.

I can’t believe 2007 is over. Our favorite moments, of course, were drunken adventures at cons. When it comes to 2008, I think the biggest thing on our radar is the KN3EFest. We’re pretty damn excited about that, and as the insanity of the holidays starts to die down, we’re going to be gearing up for that a lot more.

That’s not even counting Team N3RD’s involvement in the MS Walk, of course. The MS Walk is the chance for all of us to earn some great karma - which we’ll desperately need, considering the very next week is the KN3EFest. Works out on a karmic level, you see?

You’re not going to believe this, but the show actually went off without a hitch. I know! I was amazed, too! Remember how the past few weeks I stayed up ridiculously late working on the show and stressing over everything? Well, last night I tried a few things out, then went to bed! None of that dedication to the show on my part! So of COURSE it went well…

Christmas has put us in a generous mood. And by “us,� I mean “me,� and by “generous� I mean “miserable bastich.� I think I figured out a number of the technical difficulties with the show and hopefully this recording’s a bit cleaner than the abomination that was last week. However, I was a tired panda and that made me grumpier than normal, so tune in to hear me completely freak out and attempt to bite everyone’s head off. God Bless us, every one indeed!

We’re joined on this show by Bruce and Steve from Dutchy Digest. When it comes to anything dealing with comic history, those guys are pretty much mandatory, because they both have a great background in comics and vast knowledge to draw from. Plus, they’re just fun to have around. Which is NOT why we brought Zach - he’s here just to be abused (again) because with the holidays, we can’t JUST abuse Rusty - we’ve got to spread that love around!

To top off our guest list, John from Glint of Hope calls in to talk about his obsession with the Hulk. When you’re talking comic love, John should be the first example you think of because that guy’s love of the Hulk is a fiery pyre that everything else can be sacrificed upon - money, housing, random people on the street - nothing is as important as the Hulk! It’s a love that’s both amazing in it’s depth and a little scary… Kind of like Sarah McLachlan and I…

We’re all fans of Calvin and Hobbes, but we’re all kind of puzzled by the extremes that Bill Watterson goes to when it comes to his art. With that in mind, I’m very curious what this movie  will be like.

The new writer of Moon Knight is saying the right things to give Dr. Sexy a stiffy, but can he deliver?

The stare is what makes videos like this completely awesome.

We only mentioned this to get HappyJack foaming. As someone that’s listening to Les Mis right now (the Complete Symphonic Recording, thank you very much), I’m interested, but I’m also very scared about Bono being involved.

Jeff Smith has a new project coming out. We had mixed feelings on Monster Society, but we’ll still have to check it out.

I’m probably crazy, but I have always been of the belief that if someone can escape your prison using a method portrayed in a movie, you’re not doing a very good job.

On the subject of escaping, Rick Marshall escaped Wizard with his sanity (mostly) intact. More impressively, he came away with his morals intact (or at least no darker than they were going in), and that’s certainly reason to be impressed. He gives a pretty interesting interview over on Comics Reporter that’s worth reading.

I wish the lovely Virginia was with us again this week. She’s a big fan of all things Serenity, so it would have been nice to have someone present that got as excited as me at the news of a Sheperds Tale comic.

We took a stroll down memory lane this show to talk about our early loves in comics. And when I say “stroll,� this is more of a “hike.� Up the side of a mountain… This is our longest show to date, and we actually cut it off early because we easily could have kept talking for at least another hour (I didn’t even bother bringing up Conan or Thor). There’s a lot of fond memories about comics when you scratch the surface of your average comic n3rd (and we’re anything but average). It was really interesting to hear some of the memories and stories about various comic titles, arcs and characters that meant a lot to all of us.

This is a long one, though. If you’ve got the better part of a day to kill, RIGHT CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE SHOW!

My apologies for the delay in posting this. I had to wedge my fat ass into an incredibly filthy, cramped crawlspace to install a ceiling fan brace. It took a day or two for the fire company to show up and cut a hole in the wall to free me.

Isn’t that how EVERYONE celebrates the holidays?

This was our sexiest show to date because we featured four of the incredibly gorgeous Renn Faire actresses (well, five, counting Steve) retelling stories of creepy stalkers at Faire. The stories are disturbing, although I think I know most of those stalkers. So sad. I think even creepier than their stories was my behavior while they were here, though. I suppose it comes from deep-seated jealousy of the other shows on Cringe Humor - when they get hot girls on their shows, the girls make out or at least spank each other (we’re looking at you, Heide). On our show? The hawtness of the girls is completely obscured by my mouth-breathing and inappropriate comments. It’s a shame, really - these were really incredibly hot girls AND geeks! Absolutely my two favoritest things in the world. If they would’ve shown up with Ben & Jerrys, I could have died a happy N3RD.

Gail is such a great writer and we respect the Hell out of her and love her dearly - but there’s a line that you just can’t cross with HappyJack and I’m afraid Gail didn’t just cross it, she drove a backhoe over it, dug it up, and planted a rose garden on it’s corpse. But it’s damn hilarious. Still doesn’t make up for my comic store making me wait for Wonder Women this week, but I take what I can get.

Blizzard was in the news a lot this week. First, because they’ve finally confirmed what everyone’s been talking about for YEARS: they’re working on a new MOG. I’m hoping for World of Starcraft myself (done as a FPS MOG a la Planetside, but better). Of course, it’ll probably be Diablo. Expect more exploding cow comics. But more shocking to some of us is the price tag that Dell put on their new custom WoW XPS laptops (and accouterments!). Personally, judging by what The Instance says is in there, it’s probably worth it. To some players. With money. Ie, not me. Although tax returns ARE coming up soon…

My buddy Chris is one of those creative comic geniuses that is always involved in cool shit so I try and pimp his stuff whenever I can. But I think I screwed this one up - I talked about the great things Rifftrax.com is doing, but I didn’t mention the awesome RiffRaff Theater project he’s doing now. Sigh. Great friend I am, right? Next I’ll talk about how much I want to jump his wife. No, wait, I already did that to someone else.

Yeah, Justin needs to get back to his comics. Just saying. Uh, and not just the Team N3 ones, either…

Goblin Bloggin’ is damn funny. I don’t think I need to say more than that, because I obviously can’t do it justice. And if I’m going to plug that, I have to plug After Hours #7 and The Dark Knight Before Christmas, they’re also good comic fun.

Jamie gets upset at Double Deuce. VIOLENTLY. So it was only natural that we all found someone to identify with in this video about Game Rage-aholicism.

I don’t know if I should be proud that I know more curse words than Stuckey and Murray or horribly ashamed that I could never do as great a job at putting them to music as they did.

Picking on Rob Liefeld might seem like beating a dead horse at this point, but obviously it needs to continue because there are STILL PEOPLE PAYING FOR HIS SHIT.

Coming into the holiday season, take a moment to throw a few dollars to Hero Initiative if you can.

Of COURSE we needed another X-Force! Because it’s always been done SOOOO well!

I was absolutely crushed to hear Molly Ringwald being a bitch. But that disappointment was counteracted by how enjoyable the Queers are to listen to, so that’s okay.

I don’t know where we stand on the Michael Turner issue as a collective, and that Power Girl cover certainly didn’t help his reputation. However, I’d still rather this guy not rant against ANY artist while Rob Leifeld’s still getting work (take THAT horsie!).

This show was a lot of fun to record, and not just because of hot girls visiting (nor the hot boys, Steve & Eli, just so I’m not accused of favoritism). I managed to get the multiple we cameras working pretty well for the live chat room stream. Granted, it’s still relatively low-quality, but you could make out the videos we were talking about (especially Dr. Sexy’s negotiating with Jamesons, my favorite of the lot). And being able to jump the cameras between who was talking was neat, even if it was a bit slow and not nearly anything CLOSELY regarding professional (I have the habit of switching to people that have been finished talking for five minutes - but being that it was usually the girls, I think that was okay with our viewing audience).

I’m going to try and NOT be the creepy fat guy next time the girls come back (and they’ve all said they wish to come back, so here’s hoping!), and I’m definitely interested in having each of them return. Ashley was very cute and is a huge Heroes/Buffy fan. Virginia is also very cute and not just into comics but also a HUGE Serenity/Firefly N3RD (now how am I NOT going to breath heavy when she’s around?). The adorable Josie is into anime AND Nintendo games. And, worst of all, Caitlyn is not only extremely cute but ALSO willing to embrace N3RDism so much she MARRIED ONE!

Seriously, I’m not sure how badly we killed the bell curve having these four collected in the same location, but alarms were no doubt going off SOMEwhere.

So you know how sometimes we have little problems with the show? THEY WERE NOTHING! This week we had more problems than I could recount in this limited space. But it seems that most of those problems were related to Stickam. Not the fault of Stickam, of course - it’s pretty obvious that it was my fault. I mean, that’s a given with our show, right? Titles we spoil this week: JUSTICE LEAGUE OF AMERICA #15, JUSTICE LEAGUE UNLIMITED #40, JUSTICE SOCIETY OF AMERICA #11, HERO BY NIGHT VOL 1 HC, INFINITE HORIZON #1 (OF 6), INVINCIBLE #47, AVENGERS INITIATIVE ANNUAL #1 SII, HOWARD THE DUCK #3 (OF 4), MARVEL ADVENTURES SPIDER-MAN #34, THE ORDER #5, TWELVE #0, ULTIMATES 3 #1 (OF 5) WHITE VAR , INFINITE HORIZON #1, RESURRECTION #1, YOU’LL HAVE THAT Vol 1, LIFE MAXX, VENICE IS SINKING, BOOMTOWN SCABS, GENERAL JACK COSMOS, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER #9, SHORTPACKED. When we’re not busy failing to broadcast on stickam, we recap all the books that Rusty picked up at the Mid-Ohio Comic Con. We also discuss comic pirates, gay Thor tributes, JMS thinks One More Day sucks, Rucka leaves, Slott stays, jerking off into tornados, shunning monster moms, hope for Shadowrun again, and the Swamp Thing lives - in Indonesia.

We’ve always liked BOOM! and thought they were pretty classy guys, and throwing a party for your fans definitely proves it.

Nobody but me cared, but hope for Shadowrun has been rekindled now that the IP has found a new home in an old face.

I think we need to go back to shunning. The Amish practice it and it works for them, so how can that be bad, right? And if you can’t give this mother the ass-kicking she obviously deserves, shunning’s not a bad alternative.

You could tell me a lot of things about the SciFi channel and I’d believe them without question. I love the *concept* of a Sci-Fi channel, but the execution is - well, it’s bad. They make ridiculous choices, produce Gord-awful movies, and seem completely retarded at times. But do I believe they’d lie about viewer stats? I’m afraid so. It’s the only way I can explain this.

The X-Files movie sucked. Sorry, but it did. I hate the alien conspiracy storyline because it went all over the place but didn’t advance the story in the slightest. It was much more fascinating when you didn’t know what was going on. When they set out to actually answer questions, it turned to complete shit. So it’s not exactly like I have high hopes for any future movies. But I do like Xzibit. And it’s not like he could make the movie any WORSE. So long as they get Gillian to make out with another hot chick (thus the tie-in with Amanda Peet), I’m fine.

If I could have gotten the mics working correctly, I would have shown everyone the new GTA IV trailer. I like the GTA series; they’re very fun and a superb useage of open-ended gameplay. I just wouldn’t let my kids play them.

I used to enjoy the movie Twister. Never again.

We love Dan. Someday, when he joins in wedded bliss with Gail Simone and they adopt us as their illegitimate love children and read us bedtime stories every night before tucking us in to bed, all will be right with the world. But that can’t happen until Slott takes over Marvel, of course. Which really needs to happen soon. The guy is just too full of good ideas, and every time he talks it’s gold.

Rucka to DC: How ’bout go fuck yerself?

If you aren’t reading Initiative this is a good place to jump on and start enjoying the awesomeness that is Initiative.

Chris Eliopoulos is one of the deities in the N3RD Panth3on. They need to stop screwing around and get Franklin Richards out every month. At LEAST.

Poor JMS. I don’t know what sort of pressure was applied to him to force him to keep his name on the Gord-awful One More Day project, but I’m going to assume it involves his loved ones and hungry dogs. JMS thinks One More Day is fucking stupid, too!

The childhood trauma continues. Laugh now, because that little girl’s going to rule the world someday, mark my words.

You know, when the guys at GlintOfHope tell you they’ve found the gayest Thor tribute ever, they’re not kidding.

Now we know where inspiration for the Swamp Thing came from. And I think I’ll never sleep soundly again.

The comic book pirating debate continues. I don’t think there’s any way the pirates will ever win and I think they’re fighting a losing battle, but I’ll watch from the sidelines.

As always, there’s a lot of problems with the show this week. This time they mostly stem from the chatroom so the podcast isn’t horribly affected. The show does get boosted about 22 minutes in as I attempt to correct problems in the chatroom, so brace yourself (and your ears). I gave Dr. Sexy control over his levels this show, so don’t complain to me if you can’t hear him! I will say that we’ve found some new things to do with the chatroom webcams and although it’s not perfect, it does make for some interesting viewing. So if you get a chance, get into the chat room with us Saturday afternoons from 12-3.

In this episode Rusty gives us his recap of the Mid-Ohio Comic Con. It sounds like a fantastic time, and not just because of all the incredible creators he got to hang out with. And as long as we’re talking about comic books, I should mention this week we spoil: ALL STAR BATMAN AND ROBIN THE BOY WONDER #8, BATMAN #671, GOTHAM UNDERGROUND #2, JACK OF FABLES #17, TEEN TITANS #53, TEEN TITANS GO #49, PROOF #2, DAREDEVIL #102, FOOLKILLER #2, MOON KNIGHT ANNUAL #1, SENSATIONAL SPIDER-MAN #41, HOPE FALLS #1, FREDDY VS JASON VS ASH #2.

CBQ should absolutely be on the payroll for Austin Grossman. Their Everything Else podcast completely inspired me to buy Soon I Will Be Invincible. Give it a listen, see if it tweaks your nips.

I can understand recognizing phantom penii after you’ve lost it, but I don’t really understand how you could differentiate between phantom va-jay-jays and your shenis once that’s in place. Obviously, I’ll leave this mystery in the capable hands of Dr. Sexy, as this is far behind mere mortals’ comprehension.

Joker news abounds today. First, I’m sure you’ve heard the image was leaked. That’s gotta be pretty disappointing to die-hard fans. Not to mention annoying as hell. On another note, the threatening police message is interesting. Have I mentioned lately I love ARGs? Oh, right, I have.

We’re all pretty big Dresden fans around here, so we’ve got mixed feelings about this comic.

I haven’t been following any of the New Frontier news, but it’s got HappyJack and Sexy pretty excited. I’ll wait till they get it and watch theirs! Yaaay, free shows!

Jonnie Allan sent us all a most excellent Thanksgiving greetings. Too bad you’re not signed up on his mailing list or you would’ve seen it, too. Loser.

Just to blow your minds: here’s a cooking wiki. No, seriously (no hidden 2girls linkage in there, I promise). The guy that runs that site is possibly one of the greatest minds in this hemisphere (despite publically admitting to being my friend), and he’s started a cooking site. If you saw some of the other projects he did, you’d be even more baffled. It’s like Einstein taking a sudden interest in Legos. But delicious Legos you could share with your loved ones… I’m actually kind of excited about posting some of our family recipes on there (don’t tell my relatives - if word gets out I’ve made public my grandmother’s secret apple pie recipe, there’s liable to be a lynching).

I had all these wonderful plans for our multi-camera broadcast this week only to have it fail miserably. Crashed the chatroom and everything. However, AFTER we finished the show, we got it running smoothly (and doesn’t THAT just figure) and we even got Rusty’s webcam working (not sure that’s a good thing, but there you go). So next week’s show should have some quality chatroom entertainment, so make sure you join in there.