Videos

While the mental journey to Comic-Con 2012 started on the very last day of Comic-Con 2011 for some of us, an actual physical journey is kicking off this weekend: The Course of the Force, an Olympic-style charity relay run from the Santa Monica Pier to the gates of Comic-Con — with a Lightsaber as the torch — begins its real-life epic journey this Saturday. To kick off the kick-off, a new short film featuring Nerdist Chris Hardwick shows the origins of the journey— and reveals that the ILM lot is inhabited by real Ewoks, Boba Fett tools around in a van and one particular comics superstar likes to see people on their knees singing "Yub nub."

We've all had some fun picking apart COMIC BOOK MEN, the kinda incredible show that purports to show life in a comic book store; along the way a few people have suggested checking out THE VARIANTS, a web series produced by Zeus Comics in Dallas. When we say "produced" we mean it's set in the store, and is written by and stars the people who run the store. We're not huge YouTube viewers, so we always put off checking it out . But finally having a few moments to check out a couple of episodes, we can now say that while fictional (we hope) it is definitely much more accurate than COMIC BOOK MEN. In fact it's pretty damned funny.

If there were a contest to see how many cool things you could squeeze into one element, this animated video featuring Primus, Lee Van Cleef and zombies, all animated by Greenpoints The Mixtape Club, would be hard to beat. All that it needs is appearances by Bruce Campbell and CM Punk to make it complete.

This is a fun video that shows all kinds of people lining up in the first 20 minutes of FCBD at St Louis's Star Clipper.

Cartoonist Matt Bors sent along this video of his acceptance speech for the Herblock Award, which gets into some truths about the cartoonist's life along the way.

For those who want to go all the way on looking ghastly, a newly announced show on The Nerdist YouTube channel should provide all the fashion tips you need. BLOOD AND GUTS will star Anthrax founder and horror expert Scott Ian on a gruesome journey as he learns the secrets of special FX makeup from masters such as Greg (The Walking Dead) Nicotero. The show is a joint venture between Nerdist and Fangoria, the venerable horror magazine.

Exactly what it sounds like. But so much better than you could possibly imagine.

Videos, links and previews from the nerdly/toonly side of WonderCon.

Not really, but here's a video of the great comics creator, artist and designer Gary Panter‘s recent illustrated Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit (MOCAD) talk on his life and art.

You know how everyone is talking about those new streaming channels on YouTube and elsewhere? Narrowcasting meets broadband. It's all the rage. So are zombies. Thus a zombie Chris Hardwick (via Walking Dead makeup master Greg Nicotero) has announced the Nerdist Channel on YouTube which will feature news on comics, gaming and other nerd-friendly content. So far, you can expect Neil Patrick Harris, Rob Zombie, The Kids in the Hall, and the blog Awkward Family Photos as part of the programming mix.

The entire 1987 documentary MASTERS OF COMIC BOOK ART is now on YouTube with Harlan Ellison interviewing Eisner, Kurtzman, Kirby, Ditko (!), Neal Adams, Wrightson, Moebius, Frank Miller, Sim and Spiegelman. It's a little kludgy and old hairdos always are embarrassing but, whoa, Kirby and Ditko!

Can't wait to see what happens after that last traumatic scene of season 1.0 when Rick shoots Sophia and the rest of the zombies in the barn? The first three minutes of The Walking Dead's February 12th premiere have just been put on line and we'll give you three guesses what happens: