• On Wednesday, my fellow Palantir-peer Tim O’Leary told you that Buffy alum Amber Benson was questioning the originality of the new SyFy comedy Human Relations, and was wondering if she was going to have to call Dark Willow on them. Syfy has broken their silence, and said “Poppycock!” Not literally, but they may as well have said it.

• Yesterday, Beauty and the Beast 3D disappeared from the release schedule at Disney. At the same time, Pixar saw Twilight: Breaking Dawn Pt. 2 releasing on November 16, 2012, with Monsters, Inc. 2, and promptly moved Monsters, Inc. 2 to November 2.

• Alan Ball confirmed he’s planning to bring witches into the mix on True Blood in season four, right in line with the books. Since that also coincided with Hurricane Katrina in the books, I’m not sure how he’s going to resolve it, but I do remember it means Sookie gets a cat.

• Pacey from Dawson’s Creek is probably going to guest star on Vampire Diaries for his old boss Kevin Williamson. No idea what character he’ll play, but I’m hoping he’s just a supernatural version of Pacey, because Pacey was already otherworldly.

• This is somewhat random, but a family was packing up their home in preparation for eviction, and found ten comics in the basement. One was an Action Comics #1, and that basically paid off their mortgage since it’s worth at least $1 million dollars. Why do I only find dead mice in my basement?

• I made our vampire-hating editor Brent cry when I told him that NBC bought a script for Zombies vs. Vampires, which is described as a “procedural buddy cop show.” Zombies in this reality are normal and part of society, just medicated. And the cop’s partner is a secret vampire. McG is going to produce it. Can we drive a stake through this craze yet?

• It turns out that men cry a lot at genre movies. Topping the list of movies that make men cry is Lord of the Rings: Return of the King. Bridge to Terabithia also made the top twenty, but the one that truly puzzles me is The Night Before Christmas (Tom & Jerry). Is that a typo?
  

• As long as we’re talking about things that Tom & Jerry have played, here’s an interview with Paul W.S. Anderson, who wrote the Three Musketeers 3D that’s underway. Probably not going to see that, just stay home and watch reruns of Tom & Jerry’s version on Cartoon Network.

• Twilight has invaded Riverdale in the new Archie comic, and MTV has a preview of the first eleven pages of the special edition spoof. Just at a glance, I had a hard time telling if it was spoofing Twilight or Vampire Diaries.

• The producer of Watchmen has licensed the rights to Mage: The Hero Discovered. I’m not sure if it’s a superhero thing or a magic thing – I just can’t get past the fact that he carries a “magic baseball bat.” If A.Rod had that, it wouldn’t have taken him so long to get to 600 homeruns.

• The list of guest stars for the 22^nd season of The Simpsons is endless, but the most notable is using Daniel Radcliffe to voice a Twilight spoof in “Treehouse of Horror XXI.” When franchises collide!

• Here are some blurry photos of the mechanics that make The Forbidden Journey ride at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter work. At least it looks like sturdy metal.

• The Guardian is a respected newspaper, so I was amused they created a list showing Ten of the Best Dragons in Literature. But it’s still respectable because they called it “literature” – see how that works? Which one is your favorite?

• Here’s a fairly detailed character description for Jerrik Dace, the elite veteran featured in the upcoming “Golems of Amgarrak DLC” for Dragon Age: Origins. He’s royalty – dwarven royalty.

• And apropos of nothing, here’s the trailer for Venture Bros. 4.5. There are people with magic in it, right? Oh, who cares – Venture Bros. is just awesome!

• I’m down with Sam Raimi, as he’s given us a plethora of geeky delights over the course of his career, from Evil Dead to Xena to Spider-Man. Not sure how I feel about his upcoming Oz prequel project, but the idea of him doing an apocalyptic scifi western is pretty darn cool.

• Jerry Bruckheimer recently tweeted a new still of Jack Sparrow in the latest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and it … well, it’s really boring.

• So by now we’ve all seen this image …

• But here’s a new shot of Thor as he apparently is on trial and about to be banished to the human world. Notable in this pic is it’s the first shot of Loki with his iconic horned helmet, which you can see if you reeeealllly squint and look at said God of Mischief all the way to the right.

• If you’ve got some time to kill, check out the 5 Gaping Plot Holes Hollywood Knows You Won’t Notice.

• I will never, ever, ever forgive the creators of Lost for how they wasted six years of my life. But if you can overlook that the show was ultimately directionless and devoid of any meaning, sense, or plan, there’s apparently a twelve-minute-long prequel on the DVD of the sixth season.

• Ouch. Some reporter totally smacktalked M. Night Shyamalan to his face.

• Well, we’ve finally found a movie that looks like it sucks more than Twilight, and it’s … a spoof of Twilight.

Okay, I know that Buffy didn’t invent the wheel.

I know that Joss Whedon liberally borrowed from Anne Rice when creating his epic vampire series, and that Rice herself had taken a cue from plenty of other authors, Bram Stoker being one of the big ones.

But I think we can all agree that when a certain valley girl staked her way into our hearts in 1997, something special happened.

Sure, the 1992 Buffy movie was a silly camp-fest. But thankfully, the stars aligned for Whedon when the then-fledgling WB network wanted to turn the film into a series, and the rest is history. Buffy the Vampire Slayer became one of the most influential television shows of the past two decades, made stars of its young cast, and basically invented the TV genre of urban fantasy.

So isn’t it crazy how everyone is ripping it off and not giving it credit?

Does anyone remember that genius episode of South Park entitled “Simpsons Already Did It,” in which Butters realized anything that could possibly happen in the town of South Park had already been covered by The Simpsons?

That’s sort of the case with vampire shows these days, only in this case, The Simpsons is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and South Park is, well, everything else.

The biggest vampire properties these days are True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries. All of them, interestingly, based on book series, and two of those three series were written after Buffy had gone on the air.

In all fairness, the Vampire Diaries book series, which featured a high school girl who fell in love with a vampire, was published in 1991, six years before the Buffy series aired. Therefore, they get a pass.

The other guys? Not so much.

Like The Twilight Zone before it, Buffy changed the game and influenced a huge amount of projects that came after it.

Let’s break it down:

Twilight, which was published in 2005 (2 years after Buffy wrapped), featured a high school girl who falls in love with a vampire. Their love is angsty and forbidden, and the vampire lover, Edward, resists having sex with her lest he lose control. Not a far cry from the situation with Buffy and her undead beau, Angel, in the beginning of the series.

Twilight also features Jacob, a werewolf with a gigantic crush, not unlike Oz, played by Seth Green, who premiered in the second season of Buffy.

Dead Until Dark, the novel which became the inspiration for the entire first season of True Blood, centers around Sookie, a perky blond waitress with telepathic abilities, who begins a steamy romance with a vampire named Bill. Sookie is tormented by her ability to read minds, and finds it refreshing that she can’t hear the thoughts of a vampire.

Great plot, right? It was even better when it appeared in the “Earshot” episode of Buffy, which aired in 1999, two years before Dead Until Dark was published.

And the influence extends beyond just these shows. Daybreakers, which came out earlier this year, took place in a world overrun by vampires, in which they harvest human blood with advanced machinery. Of course, this idea was already explored in the third season Buffy episode “The Wish.”

Blade: Trinity, which featured the extremely Buffyish Abigail (Jessica Biel), had a plot which took a known vampire slayer — Blade — and put him up against Dracula … a la the fifth season opener, “Buffy vs. Dracula.”

Even the campy, low-budget soap Dante’s Cove had a character named Van, a lesbian witch who became intoxicated by her own power, leading to tragedy. Sound familiar? It should, as that was pulled right from Willow’s arc in Buffy’s sixth season.

As stated earlier, I’m well aware that Buffy itself pulled from a lot of different sources, but there’s no question that, whether consciously or not, many authors are directly influenced by the plots of the ground-breaking show. I actually believe that most authors are unaware if their stories may seem a little too similar to Buffy, as the show has become so much a part of the cultural fabric — particularly among fantasy fans — that the influence may very well be entirely subliminal.

So, who knows? Maybe the future will bring us genre stories that feel less derivative. But until someone massively reimagines the vampire mythos, chances are they’ll still bare a passing resemblance to our Sunnydale cheerleader and her adventures.

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Another spring is giving way to summer, and you know what that means: Love is no longer in the air.

Oh, it’s easy to fall in love in March and April when the cold, harsh winter is melting away and the sun is shining on your face and the birds are singing and the trees are flourishing and the bumble bees are all exhausted from all their pollen-gathering and bee-copulating.

But summer is stifling and the kids are out of school and, if you’re me, you’ve been crawling around in your attic trying to fix your air conditioner eight out of the last ten days. Summer makes for grumps, and that means it’s far less likely that you’ll feel the delicious bite of cupid’s arrow — unless you take your cue from the world of fantasy.

Using the sci-fi canon as a guide, we’ve made a list of five ways to make someone fall in love with you, even in the sweltering heat.

1) Become a fighter pilot — 30 Rock has taught us a very important lesson about humor: Things are funny when they’re true. And so Liz Lemon’s series-long fascination with her imaginary boyfriend, Astronaut Mike Dexter, never gets old because we’ve all been there. Who hasn’t been in love with a fighter pilot at some point? (Seriously, show of hands. I don’t believe you.)

Han Solo, Lt. Colonel John Sheppard, Starbuck, Apollo, Buck Rogers, Maverick, Ice Man. It takes a perfect storm of athleticism, arrogance and cockpit know-how to become a top pilot, and when you master it, it’s like making the perfect mix CD. You can get anyone to fall for you at any time in any place on any planet.

2) Give a gift from the heart, preferably one that’s charmed — It’s not just the inexplicably gullible Uther from BBC’s Merlin that has been hoodwinked into love by donning an enchanted pendant (although we can’t remember anything as disgusting as him shagging a troll).

Since the beginning of time, women and men have been using enchanted gifts to woo one another. And it always works because humans are the most narcissistic creatures in the galaxy! We think we deserve gifts! Everyone of us is Snow White: we would all take apples from bitches because … who would want to poison us? No one! We’re lovely!

3) Trap the object of your affection in a confined space, become emotionally unavailable — This technique can work on a spaceship (see, again: Han Solo), but it works equally well with something as ordinary as a police box. Say you are a centuries-old, always-dangerous, occasionally-curmudgeonly, slightly-unhinged bloke with a Messiah complex and a bizarre fetish for being called “Doctor.” Do you think any woman in her right mind would fall in love with you? Absolutely not. Especially if you made clear at the very beginning of your relationship that you’re always being called to sacrifice those closest to you for the good of humanity.

But then, why do all of Doctor Who’s companions fall hopelessly in love with him? And even more bizarre, why do we — who have had the advantage watching eleven doctors over 40 years — fall hopelessly in love with him? We’re not sure. We just know that small spaces and emotional distance is a foolproof recipe for love.

4) Brew or purchase a love potion — No, we’re not talking about tequila. We’re talking that special witches brew that was explored so thoroughly in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It can be administered directly from a cauldron, concealed in confectionery, even diluted in a beverage.

The effects of love potion are immediate and they are potent. It is a powerful aphrodisiac, as evidenced by the fact that the wealthy, handsome Tom Riddle shagged the disfigured pauper Merope Gaunt. (And that Ron Weasley thought he was in love with Romilda Vane when, well, have you met Hermione Granger?) The benefit of a love potion is that if you fall out of love, you can stop giving it. The danger of a love potion is that it can spawn the most evil wizard of all time.

5) Die — No, we’re serious. Accept the fact that you’re never going to snag the man or woman of your dreams and give yourself over to a vampire. In a few centuries, gorgeous women 200 years your junior will not be able to resist you. You can try to murder her. You can verbally abuse her. You can cause her families to be slain. You can hate her friends. You can invite her to a party where your family will try to suck her blood. You can even almost (accidentally) kill her while having sex with her, and it won’t matter. She will love you FOREVER.

You don’t need to be funny or smart or charming. You don’t even need to be handsome. All you need to be is dead. Also, you might want to think about growing your hair out.

Do you have any other sure-fire ways to make someone fall in love with you? Share them in the comments!

Bill Condon

Bill Condon, the director of the upcoming movie The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn (which could possibly be divided into two movies), has posted an open letter on The Twilight Saga facebook page.

Here’s the letter:

Greetings Twihards, Twifans, Twilight Moms, Team Edward, Team Jacob and Team Switzerland,

I just want to say hello to all of you and let you know that I’m stoked to be getting underway on the adventure of making BREAKING DAWN. As you’ve probably heard, I’ve been given a very warm welcome by Stephenie and Team Summit - who are super-focused, as you know, on getting these movies right.

I’m pretty busy bringing myself up to speed on what you already know by heart: I’ve read BREAKING DAWN twice, rewatched Catherine’s and Chris’s movies 2-3 times each, have all four CDs playing in my car, and have Catherine’s notebook, Mark Cotta Vaz’s companion books, and even Volume 1 of the graphic novel here on my desk - a corner of my office is starting to look like Hot Topic. I realize that this barely qualifies me for “newborn” status in the universe you’ve been living inside for a few years now, but a guy’s gotta start somewhere.

Like many of you, I’ve always been slightly obsessed with vampires, dating back to the prime-time series DARK SHADOWS, which I followed avidly as a kid. But that alone hadn’t been enough to get me interested in making a vampire movie, even though my early screenwriting and directing efforts grew out of a great love for horror movies and thrillers. Since making GODS AND MONSTERS thirteen years ago, however, I’ve been yearning for a return to a story with Gothic overtones.

The wonderful world that Stephenie has created has obviously struck a chord with you, and I don’t think it’s difficult to see why. For me, her characters are simultaneously timeless, yet very modern. Rooted in a beautiful, real landscape with a great sense of place, Bella, Edward, Jacob, and the rest of the Forks/La Push menagerie, experience emotions that are primal, and universal: desire, despair, jealousy - and it all comes to fruition in BREAKING DAWN. This is a final chapter in the best sense; not just wide in scope and scale, but emotionally charged and intense throughout.

I’m a huge admirer of the already-iconic Kristen, Robert, and Taylor, and wanted to be the one to work with them as they face the challenges of bringing your beloved characters to the end of their journeys. Really, what could be more fun than that?

Please feel free to ask questions in the comments section below, and I’ll do my best to answer them. I hope that this will be the first of many occasions I’ll get to check in with you as we set to work bringing BREAKING DAWN to the screen. I am excited and grateful to have all of you alongside me for my TWILIGHT journey.

All best,

Bill Condon

P.S. Answer #1: No, there won’t be any musical numbers

The letter already has almost three thousand comments.

Read the letter and comments here.

• The zombie-light film The Crazies came in third place at the box office with a respectable $16.5 million opening, behind the freak-out thriller Shutter Island and the dumb buddy cop movie Cop Out. I call it zombie-light because the zombies aren’t really undead, precisely. I’m a traditionalist.

• Speaking of fake zombies, they evidently have First Amendment rights to protest against the blind materialism of American life by preaching in a mall. At least according to an “activist” judge – we’re sure Rush Limbaugh will pipe up that hating consumerism is un-American.

• A dozen years after the first film, Todd McFarlane has a plan for his Spawn 2 film, and the plan is if you want something done right, do it yourself. He’s got most of a script, plans on directing, and possibly financing the film all by his lonesome. Seems fitting for a servant of the underworld.

• The very first teaser trailer for Tangled is out. This is supposed to be a slightly, well, tangled retelling of Rapunzel story, complete with magic, towers and princes. The Disney film comes out November 24^th, just in time for you to fight the Thanksgiving shopping crowds.

• Combining the musical with the fantastic, Andrew Lloyd Weber is set to risk everything on his Phantom of the Opera sequel (he calls it a continuation), Love Never Dies. If you ask me, gambling the legacy of a musical that has grossed more than Titanic and Avatar combined is either a sign of amazing bravery, or proof he’s so rich he doesn’t have to care anymore.

• The rumor mill says that DC Entertainment is moving full steam ahead with new films. The latest says they’ve found a director for The Flash – Greg Berlanti, who produces a lot of television including Brothers & Sisters on ABC. What do you think – can switch successfully from a sudser to a super hero? Does knowing he wrote most of Green Lantern help?

• In other DC Entertainment rumors, the reason Chris Nolan is consulting on the new Superman movie is that his brother Jonah wants to switch from writing to directing, and DC wouldn’t sign off unless Chris was involved. I don’t know what they’re worried about, at this point Superman couldn’t get any worse, unless they try and make it dark, like The Dark Knight.

• In still more collisions of Batman and Superman, that record sale price for a comic book set last week by Action Comic #1 with Superman has been eclipsed by Detective Comics #27, where Batman first appeared. The Caped Crusader fetched $1.075 million.

• io9.com takes a rather sarcastic look at Beastly, the new take on Beauty and the Beast starring Alex Pettyfer, Neil Patrick Harris and Vanessa Hudgens. While reimaging a fairy tale as a cross between Mean Girls and Gossip Girl should be a kryptonite for me, something intrigues me about this film, and it can’t just be the thought of Mary-Kate Olsen as a witch. If you don’t want snark, just watch the trailer/featurette.

• You know what else seems over-the-top at io9.com? Their look at the Marvel-branded television sets, which are evidently a real thing. When the new Disney division showed Marvel-framed televisions on the Disney-produced Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, I assumed it was a one-off, not a synergy thing. Silly me – Mickey Mouse televisions have been around for years, so it makes sense the House of Mouse would exploit Wolverine.

• It’s finally happening – Shout! Factory is releasing the Matt Frewer Max Headroom on DVD this coming August. I haven’t seen it in more than twenty years, and I really can’t imagine it holds up all that well, but I have fond memories of the show.

• Over at New Scientist they have an interview with roboticist Noel Sharkey about Artificial Intelligence, the pros and cons, and the likelihood that we could create it, and whether we should create it. It’s a lot more fun to read than it sounds.

• Fueling his likely undying fear that Edward Cullen is a role he will never escape from, Robert Pattinson was trying to do press for his new slacker film Remember Me and they couldn’t resist asking him about Twilight: Breaking Dawn, 3D, and whether the book becomes two movies. I’d honestly feel sorry for the guy, except for him being impossibly rich and handsome.

• There’s the coolest Lego spaceship I’ve ever seen over at SciFi Wire, and that’s not just because I always had a soft spot for Stargate: Atlantis. Plus, they link you to the 15-year-old artist’s (what do you call a Lego-sculptor?) Flickr site for even more of his starship constructions.

• Over at AfterElton.com, I took a only-slightly queer look at Alice In Wonderland, but mostly that was an excuse to post a mountain of media about the movie. There are trailers, interviews, and my favorite – the character progressions showing how they got the Red Queen’s head to look that big or the motion capture on the Tweedles. It’s really fascinating how much of this movie is CGI.

• Looking to help Legend of the Seeker get a third season? The folks over at HerBlueEyes.com (a Bridget Regan fan site) offer helpful suggestions, and even a sample letter to be sent to local affiliates!

• And finally, this picture may be old, but it tugged at my heart strings. Evoking the signpost from M*A*S*H, we see distances to all our favorite fantasy realms. I wish I knew who created this so I could thank them.

One of the biggest cultural mysteries of our generation is: why would a fully-functioning, adult member of society leave the house wearing a Team Edward t-shirt?

In their new documentary, Explorer: Vampire Forensics, the National Geographic Channel set out to answer that question. Well, not that question, exactly; NatGeo was more concerned with the origin of the vampire, so they employed a little forensic anthropology to a centuries-old myth.

It was sort of Bones meets Anne Rice — an interview with a vampire skeleton, if you will.

Using Mark Jenkins’ book as a springboard, National Geographic trekked back to the Middle Ages to study the legend of the undead.

The vampire wasn’t always a sparkly, tragic emo hipster with bedhead, of course. Or a leather jacket-wearing, strong-jawed Angel. Or even a caped aristocrat with a widow’s peak and a pale face. That’s all 19th century European romanticism. Jenkins believes he traced the legend of the vampire all the way to the Indo-European past.

China’s centuries-old version the vampire is a monster of the undead who spreads disease and discord. Unfortunately, for him, he’s not much of a fly-er. In fact, his only mode of transportation is hopping.

India’s blood-suckers are spirits who weren’t cremated properly. They can reside in the air and are small enough to accidentally swallow. Unlike tasty insect legs in a bar of chocolate, though, India’s vampire spirits feast on intestines.

Greece — Santorini, specifically — is home to lush tales of the undead. But these vampires didn’t always want to destroy people. Some came back to help out in the family business, or steal vegetables from the garden. (Vegetarian vampires! Just like the Cullens!)

Jenkins thinks the legend of the vampire probably sprang up around the time of various plagues. In the 19th century, Europeans were completely clueless about things like bacteria and hygiene. In the face of pandemics, folk tales usually took over. When people dug up mass graves and saw bloated corpses and compared that to the emaciated bodies of their dying relatives, they just assumed that the undead were somehow absorbing life from the living. Similarly, decomposing clothes and bloodstained mouths were thought to have been defiled by vampires.

Also, when villains were put to death, it was easy for mass hysteria to set in, and for people to think they kept seeing the undead baddie wreaking havoc around town.

As far as flying goes, vampires only really became associated with capes and bats during stage productions. If an actor needed to disappear through a trap door, there was nothing like cape flair to distract the audience. (For further proof of the power of cape distraction, see: Elvis, Adam Lambert.)

Much of NatGeo’s documentary focuses on “The Vampire of Venice,” a partial skeleton of a woman that was discovered in 2006, on the Venetian island Lazaretto Nuovo. The jaw of the skull had been opened and a brick was shoved between her teeth, an exorcism technique  Italians used on vampires.

Here’s a clip from Vampire Forensics:

So the origin of the vampire can be traced back to the plagues of the Middle Ages. And the modern vampire can be traced to the plague of the Twilight Saga. Somewhere in between, good people like Bram Stoker and Anne Rice and Joss Whedon made vampires a staple of the fantasy community.

Here’s hoping someone else comes along and puts the smackdown on the sparkle. It’s the modern version of the brick between the teeth.

Vampire Forensics will air various times on National Geographic, including this Saturday at 4 PM.

• Best of both worlds? The Spider-man team met with the Avatar team to discuss filming the next episode of the webslinger saga in 3-D.

• Speaking of Avatar, here’s a fun little story about how the power of love changed the ending of one particular screening of the movie on Valentine’s Day.

• And in case this just wasn’t enough Avatar news for you blue-cat-monkey-people lovers, James Cameron is planning to write a prequel to the blockbuster … in the form of a novel.

• In the never-ending avalanche of both remakes and franchises, this article speaks of the efforts to turn Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein novels into a series of films. Anyone excited about this? Hands?

• I know everyone out there is just dying for more vampire stories, something our culture is almost completely deprived of, so thank the powers that be that The Vampire Diaries has been picked up for another season. The article is informative, but I found calling the CW the “C-Dub” and the show’s performance its “perf” to be just on this side of obnoxious.

• And while we’re on the subject of vampires (don’t you love these segues?), here’s another potential 3-D story for you. Turns out that the masterminds behind the Twilight saga are trying to figure out if they want to project Taylor Lautner’s glorious six-pack abs into the third dimension.

• What’s that, you say? Can’t get enough of Megan Fox’s bust? Well, neither can a lot of people, but fortunately, you can soon own it when these busts are released as a tie-in to the Jonah Hex movie. Horndogs everywhere, you’re welcome.

• I’ll just own this: Lord of the Rings is my favorite fantasy story of all time, and I own all the various incarnations of DVD’s, including the pretty craptastic Ralph Bakshi cartoon. LOTR was the book/movie/video game series that made me a fantasy fanboy, and it will always have a special place in my heart. Therefore, I get majorly psyched when someone with the same love in their hearts busts out the elbow grease and makes a fan film such as Born of Hope. May I suggest a trip to their website? The trailer is below:

• Twilight fans will be mobbing Walmart stores March 20^th, and not just because it’s the release of Twilight: New Moon. MTV is reporting that the Walmart Special Edition DVD will have seven minutes of behind the scenes footage and a clip from the upcoming Twilight: Eclipse film. Sorry, Amazon.com shoppers, this looks exclusive.

• The International Toy Fair has been going on in New York City all weekend, and besides the Disney Toy Story 3 merchandise, Iron Man 2 and Star Wars seem to dominate the floor. io9.com has a great gallery of the toys, but can somebody explain the concept of the Iron Man 2 Mr. Potato Head?  Tangentially related: Twitter tells me that the Barbie folks will be putting out a Collector’s edition Mad Hatter doll for Alice in Wonderland, but no Alice doll.

• Young Adult fantasy author Carrie Ryan did an essay about how through her books, her own mother discovered a love of fantasy stories, and puts forward a rather bold theory that YA fiction is all fantasy. I see her point, but also feel it’s limiting what is one of the most vibrant genres in literature.

• This find I have to credit to io9.com, but the Canadian short film Lost for Words has released a trailer. There really isn’t a summary of the film, but the Sean Wainsteim, the writer/director describes it as an homage to the time he spent in the library as a youth. Visually stunning in this short trailer, it has all sorts of fantastic creatures. Just watch:

• Alien Invasion Week on British channel Watch brings us a brand new Torchwood web comic to commemorate their showing of Torchwood: Children of Earth.

• Legend of the Seeker has a lot more story to tell, and they need your help so that they get the chance to do it. Money is tight for syndication deals right now, and they have instructions on how you can help lobby to get them a third season to tell Richard and Kahlan’s tale.

• Chase Palmer has been hired to work on the Dune script for new director Pierre Morel and Paramount. His credits include Wild Wild East, Number Thirteen, and No Blood, No Guts, No Glory. Maybe now we can finally get some Bene Gesserit creepiness in our lives.

• Universal has signed Vin Diesel up for Riddick, the third installment of The Chronicles of Riddick. No word on plot, but it’s been hinted that it will resemble Pitch Black more than it will the second film.

• reddit has pictures of a tiny Indonesian lizard that’s been found that has wings. And isn’t a lizard with wings basically a dragon by definition? Do we really need the fire breathing and destruction of castles? As tiny as these guys are, they might be able to menace the Smurf Village.

• If you’ve been watching the Winter Olympics, you’ve no doubt seen the special, Olympic-themed spots for How To Train Your Dragon, the new Dreamworks 3D animated feature about dragons and Vikings. This isn’t one of them, so you might actually get something about the plot from it, which I thought was the point of a trailer.

• Also from the Olympics, some people are calling the Opening Ceremony “Tron on Ice” which is one of those things that once you’ve seen, you can’t un-see. Besides, since Tron is a Disney property, I’m really scared it might have given them an idea.

• Starting with Fantastic Four #579, the story will start to synch up Avengers with the Heroic Age comics. Details are a little sparse, but the gist seems to be Reed Richards beginning to understand his mortality and limitations and start planning for a future for his children when he’s passed on.

• Artist Francesco Francavilla has a weird idea that Batman should fight ducks in the comics, and wants you to help convinces DC Comics to do it. If you do nothing else from the column, indulge me and click over to his concept art for the cover and see if it’s not both disturbing and giggle-worthy.

• Stan Lee is tweeting that Edgar Wright might be making an Ant Man movie. It’s been talked about for years, and with Disney needing to start new franchises to justify their billions spent on Marvel, it may finally be moving forward.

• Indulge my love for all things Pixar with a little love for Toy Story 3, OK? Anything where toys come to life is a little bit of fantasy, right? Tons of info has been coming from from new characters of Mr. Lots ‘O Huggin’ Bear (Ned Beatty) to Toy Fair leaks of characters called Stretch, Rag Doll, and Buttercup. See if you can spot them in the new trailer.

• Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief managed a three day take of $31.1 million for a second place finish at the box office behind the celebrity studded Valentine’s Day, but expect the “weekend” numbers to jump after Monday’s holiday. I haven’t seen it myself, but I loved Allan Hyde’s (Godric, True Blood) Twitter review: “Did Percy the lightning thief just steal my money and two hours of my life?”

The end of the year means one thing for magazines: lists. Lists of bests. Lists of worsts. Lists of tops. Lists of bottoms. Lists of lists. Publisher’s Weekly caused an uproar when they released their list of Top 100 books for 2009. Only 29 female authors made the cut, and none of them cracked the top ten.

The Washington Post reacted with an article called “The key to literary success? Be a man — or write like one.” Salon.com responded in kind with “If you want to be a great writer, be a man.” Both articles were written by women, recalling advice from former college professors.

As I was reading both (valid) arguments that women get the shaft in publishing circles, I couldn’t help but compare the experiences of those women to the experiences of women in the fantasy genre. Sure, fantasy is full of epic male authors: Tolkien, Lewis, Jordan, Gaimen, Pratchett, Dahl. But fantasy also has its share of celebrated (and well-paid) female writers: Kurtz, Rice, Rowling, Weis, Bradley.

Is the fantasy genre simply more friendly to female writers?

I think so.

But why?

Let’s start by looking at the biggest bang (and bank account): J.K. Rowling.

By now, her personal journey is as well-known as that of of The Boy Who Lived. For example, that “K” in “J.K.” is not even her real name. When Bloomsbury bought Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, they feared that young boys wouldn’t want to read a fantasy tale by Joanne Rowling, so she adopted an androgynous “K.”

By the time Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire hit shelves, Rowling was the highest-profile author in the world, and everyone knew the “K” was for Kathleen. It didn’t matter that J.K. Rowling was a woman; what mattered was that she hurry back to her office and start writing about Hogwarts, Year Five.

Rowling also did another thing for female writers in the fantasy genre: she blurred the lines between children’s fiction and adult fiction. Women have always been trusted with cooking, cleaning and kids; so, the children’s publishing industry has historically been more accessible to females. During Harry Potter’s off-years, many adults went digging around in the children’s sections at their local bookstores, looking for an equally entrancing fantasy fix. And publishers paid attention.

But Rowling wasn’t the first woman to enjoy monetary success and critical praise for her fantasy writing. Before her, there were vampires — and three women who, er, brought them to life.

Marilyn Ross‘ Barnabas Collins series, Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles and Chelsea Quinn Yarbro’s Saint-German series changed the vampire genre. Under their pens, vampires became brooding, tragic, poetic heroes. And unlike the implicit sexual themes in vampire stories before theirs, Ross, Rice and Yarbro made it overt.

What they did for vampires, Marion Zimmer Bradley did for Arthurian Legend. Her Avalon series boldly turned Camelot on its head and examined it from the perspective of female narrators.

And what Bradley did for Arthurian Legend, Katherine Kurtz did for Medieval fantasy lit. And what Kurtz did for Medieval fantasy lit, Tanith Lee did for sorcery.

I think fantasy is more receptive to women writers because it has a long, proud history of financially successful female authors in nearly every subset of the genre. While most writers will tell you they want to bring fresh, engaging concepts to print, they will also tell you that it is much easier to get published if there’s a record of success with what you’re writing. To that end, it would be disingenuous to tell a female fantasy author that men won’t read her books simply because she is a woman.

Of course, financial success and excitement from publishers isn’t synonymous with critical acclaim. Even with the accomplishments of the women I mentioned — and the dozens I didn’t — last year’s Hugo Awards were awfully slim on female nominees. But I’m still not going to cry sexism.

If you want to be a great fantasy writer, they key isn’t writing like a man; the key is writing rich, textured, deeply-imagined stories. As women continue to do just that, it will only be a matter of time before full parity comes to the genre.

Or you could take a shot at writing your main characters sparkly genitalia.

Stephanie Meyer isn’t exactly celebrated, but she certainly hasn’t gone broke writing about vampires.

Nice, Needy, or Nuisance.

Okay, okay, these aren’t they only ways female heroes are presented in fantasy books and movies.

Just much of the time, especially in the decades before this one. Fantasy isn’t known for character nuance, but it’s especially true for its female characters. Their personalities have traditionally screamed one of these three things.

Let’s look at each in turn, and I’ll grade them on my patented “Goldilocks” scale.

The Needy

There have traditionally been plenty of needy females in fantasy — what is a “damsel in distress,” after all, except a needy female? And while that character type seemed to have fallen out of favor in 1960s, she’s back in full retro force in the form of Bella from Twilight. She’s a weak, dependent girl who exists almost solely to pine for the vampire Edward Cullen. For good measure, there’s also her clingy relationship with the shape-shifter Jacob Black.

Depressingly, angst-hungry teens have hyped these sloppily-written books and movies, turning them into a sensation. Plot wise, they’re a series of scenes that simply ask, again and again: “Should we be together? Maybe we shouldn’t be together!” The drama and fuss Bella makes more than outweighs any chemistry between her and Edward.

For me, the “needy” leading lady is an outdated female stereotype and simply doesn’t cut it in 2010.

Goldilocks Rating: Put this one into deep-freeze.

The Nuisance

What’s the opposite of Bella? Well, she’s the strong-willing, bossy control freak with “masculine” energy who yaps like a terrier whenever someone does something wrong. She is a perfectionist, a leader, a fighter, and every now and then, a bit of a brat.

Basically, she’s Hermione Granger. But she’s also basically every fantasy princess ever: Princess Buttercup in The Princess Bride, Princess Fiona in Shrek, and Princess Eilowny in The Chronicles of Prydain. You might even say she’s Goldilocks herself, who is pickiness personified.

The Nuisance has her place in stories — especially since her willfulness is usually there to provide dramatic conflict with the lead male character, who is often secretly in love with her (and vice-versa).

But let’s face it: this is simply another female stereotype, and it’s often far too one-dimensional.

Goldilocks Rating: Too hot-headed

The Nice

Which brings us to our last category. She’s the classic female in fantasies and adventures, whether it’s games, books, or movies. The Prince of Persia fought alongside her in The Sands of Time, she took a trip to see the Wizard of Oz, she’s the princess who saved Galen in Dragonslayer, and she created the land of Terabithia. For the most part, she’s neither out there stepping on toes nor lying down to be walked over like a doormat.

But she is also usually a selfless, sacrificing saint.

And who’s more selfless than Arwen Evenstar in The Lord of the Rings? She’s willing to give up her very mortality to be with the man she loves!

Goldilocks Rating: Better, but still not quite right.

Looking at these three fantasy heroine types, the question must be asked: why must females still be so one-dimensional? The “real” female is, of course, nice, needy, and a nuisance — at different times.

And sometimes, she is none of these things.

The most likable and memorable characters in fantasy lately — Buffy, Willow, Xena, Gabrielle, Selene, and even Hermione, for the most part — are sometimes “stereotypical” females, but at other times, they shatter these stereotypes completely.

The point is, they’re not always the same. They’re complicated.

Most of all, the one thing they have in common is that they’re more than just the “love interest.” They’re the leading actors in their own stories, sometimes flawed, sometime heroic, just like male characters always have been.

Goldilocks herself would surely agree that these are the sorts of female characters that are “just right.”

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