(cross-posted from the NNN Blog)

A Comicbook Orange is a comic book review show on Pulp Secret by our friends Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan (Galacticast), which I blogged about the other day. Feedback on the first episode so far has been great, and Rudy and Casey have been really building some great word of mouth — you can join an official Facebook group, find A Comicbook Orange on MySpace, and they’ve even built a cool site for the show where people can submit their own reviews.

Check it out below, and if you’re looking for more good comics to read, let us know what you’d like to see more of on A Comicbook Orange.

On a side note, this is also the first time we’ve put out an episode in a widescreen ratio — if you try to view the show fullscreen on the site, or download the iTunes-compatible file, you’ll see what we mean. It’s the little things that sometimes get us pumped.

Smith Mag is currently putting out another online graphic novel (after last year’s astounding Shooting War) called A.D., dealing with the survivors of Katrina and its aftermath. It’s a must-read, and Ana from Pulp Secret went down to talk to everyone involved — here’s the video.

I’ve been a big fan of Jonathan Mann’s videos at GameJew since my friend and co-worker Scott Moschella first showed them to me a few months ago. Jonathan usually does these inventive, totally original videos and songs mostly about video games, but yesterday decided to cover a peaceful immigration reform rally in Los Angeles, and when things turned unbelievably bad, with the police firing rubber bullets into the crowd and chasing them block to block through the city, Jonathan and the person filming with him stuck around and kept the video rolling. What they put together is a damning indictment of a dark direction we’re increasingly going in the United States — it’s breaking my heart, and we need to put a stop to this now.

I haven’t had a response to a videoblog post like this since, well, another of Jonathan’s videos, though that was a very different reaction. Think citizen journalism can’t help keep the fourth estate alive? Watch this. Embedded below, and I hope to see this everywhere — across big media and small — tomorrow.

For more, check out LAist, which is updating pretty regularly on the issue at this point.

Update: some pretty incredible video from LA’s Fox11 is up on YouTube, where Fox reporters with press credentials actually get knocked down by police batons, but what’s really depressing are the comments, both on YouTube and Jonathan’s site. Outright racist, horrible stuff in there. Are we doomed? I think we may be. Jonathan responds.

The new episode of Galacticast (now officially the one I “instantly produced“) is up this morning, and it’s a doozy, a funny mashup of Super Mario Bros and The Sopranos. Since I worked on some The Sopranos mobile games for HBO, I especially dig being connected to this one. If you don’t love this, well, something’s just not right with you. Special thanks to Casey and Rudy for being cool and offering for me put a plug in for our new network (PulpSecret, launching March 8th).

Now I throw the gauntlet to the rest of you: who is going to get them that lunch with Robert Rodriguez in Austin this weekend? We’ll be there and Rae has some tenuous hometown connections to him we might be able to put into play — don’t make me show you all up again.

Rob and Corinne, featured above, were the first people to walk into Next New Networks to meet with us about a show, and I couldn’t be happier that they were the first people to launch on one of our networks. Anchoring ThreadBanger, our network for people who make their own fashion, Rob and Corinne have put up three great episodes of Thread Heads so far, and I really look forward to seeing each new one come in.

(watch the video)

This weekend at Comic Con, we got to fulfill a wish for some really nice and talented people (more on the Galacticast blog). It was a pleasure all the way; Kevin Smith couldn’t be a cooler or nicer guy, and he clearly genuinely appreciates things like this. There’s a very funny second chapter to this story, actually, involving his overzealous volunteer honor guard, but you’ll see that soon enough, when we launch PulpSecret.

update: anyone hearing about Galacticast for the first time, it’s a very funny videoblog made by Casey McKinnon and Rudy Jahchan that features ingenious sci-fi parodies every week, all made at home on shoestring budgets. The excerpt you see in the beginning here is from their soon to be classic Galactifund episode.

Author and comics cult leader Warren Ellis, via his Bad Signal mailing list, opens this morning with:

Y’know, if Ellen Degeneres is presenting the Oscars these days, I figure we’re less than five years away from Ze Frank presenting the Oscars. Which I’d watch.

Be sure to check out Ze when he hosts the SXSW Web Awards Sunday night, and there may be some other places he’ll turn up, too — more on that soon.

Click To Play

I don’t have a videoblog, but here’s an episode anyway. Seen: The many creative people at Next New Networks. A bona-fide ATHF mooninite. The very nice people from Viral. Snow and ice dampen Valentine’s Day in Manhattan. And the art of Tony Matelli. Music, “words,” by Ohler. Download it here: hello mr ohler. Special thanks to Josh Leo.