Classic actress Claire Bloom will have a role in an upcoming episode of Doctor Who. Spoilers and gossip abound, click at your own risk.

I can’t wait for the first Klingon language Opera.

For Klingons, there’s Kahless, who dices 500 warriors with a sword forged from his own hair and some help from the Lady Lukara. To celebrate their victory, they make love in the ankle-deep blood.

A history of the Klingon language at Slate. This was pretty interesting.

Knowing that fans would be watching closely, Okrand worked out a full grammar. He cribbed from natural languages, borrowing sounds and sentence-building rules, switching sources whenever Klingon started operating too much like any one language in particular. He ended up with something that sounds like an ungodly combination of Hindi, Arabic, Tlingit, and Yiddish and works like a mix of Japanese, Turkish, and Mohawk. The linguistic features of Klingon are not especially unusual (at least to a linguist) when considered independently, but put together, they make for one hell of an alien language.

France passes new net piracy bill. Much rejoicing by some, hand wringing by others. You be the judge.

The new legislation operates under a three-stage system. A new state agency would first send illegal file-sharers a warning e-mail, then a letter, and finally cut off their connection for a year if they were caught a third time.

In Egypt, porn sites are banned from the web.

“Freedoms of expression and public rights should be restricted by maintaining the fundamentals of religion, morality and patriotism.”

I bet he doesn’t donate to the CBLDF.

South Park bad boys are presented with an autographed pic of Saddam Hussein. Hey, I loved Team America: World Police.

During his captivity, US marines forced Saddam, who was executed in 2006, to repeatedly watch the movie South Park: Bigger, Longer And Uncut, which shows him as gay, as well as the boyfriend of Satan. He was also regularly depicted in a similar manner during the TV series.

A short piece on Kenneth Brannagh, director of the upcoming Thor film.

At Playbill, the Addams Family Musical (not based on TV show), starring Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuwirth:

Here’s how the producers characterize the story: “Storm clouds are gathering over the Addams Family manse. Daughter Wednesday, now 18, is experiencing a sensation that surprises and disgusts her — caring about another person. Young Pugsley, jealous of his sister’s attention, begs her to keep torturing him, severely, while mother Morticia, conflicted over her daughter’s lurch into womanhood, fears being upstaged and discarded…like yesterday’s road kill. All the while, father Gomez — master of the revels, mischievous and oblivious as ever — would prefer everything and everyone remain as it is. But when outsiders come to dinner, the events of one night will change forever this famously macabre family — a family so very different from your own…or maybe not.”

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James Owen has written an excellent post about the whole “selling out” thang, and why we don’t spend more time doing our more personal projects, like A Distant Soil and Starchild. I do hope you read it. Click the link he provides and read that, too.

We haven’t sold out by doing work which provides us a living. We’re just focused on different projects right now. The perception that I’ve (largely) moved away from comics is just that – I still love them, I still want to do them. And it’s not as if I’m slacking on the IG novels. One a year, fully illustrated, is a decent pace. That’s a lot of material. And as I said, I’m building a bigger audience to whom I can sell other work.

I love to create these books. I love the stories I’m telling, and I love it when one of the illustrations simply sings from start to finish. I’m thrilled that so many readers all over the world are enjoying them – and perhaps moreso that I have a publisher that does.

As you can see in my previous essays (scroll down), I have sacrificed plenty for A Distant Soil, and as much as I love the book, there is only so much I can reasonably do to keep producing it full time.

Working on A Distant Soil is a joy. I absolutely love it.

Who wouldn’t? Look at those glam guys in their costumes. Somewhere, Michael Jackson is looking down and wondering who pinched his jacket.

I love A Distant Soil so much, I am willing to do the next 200 pages of it with absolutely no guarantees. No guarantee anyone will like it, no guarantee anyone will pay for it. And I am going to have a very, very good time drawing it between the projects that pay me more money. And they are outstanding stories. I hope you will love them, too.

And now, a few posts you may want to read:

Daryl Cagle on the Future of Political Cartooning.

JK Rowling gets sued again by another wannabe. Don’t you wish people would leave that woman alone? How can she possibly have stolen Harry Potter from THAT many people?

This is about a month old, but in case you missed it, here’s a Doctor Who funeral.

I just heard this morning that Tori Amos: Comic Book Tattoo was nominated for Best Anthology in the Harvey Awards. To go along with that Best Anthology Eisner nomination. Go us! And congrats to all the nominees. And I confess I have read almost nothing else on the list, so can’t comment…though I am sure everyone else will.

A bit of an odd story about Louis Vuitton being sued for fraud. The Murakami prints used in gallery exhibits are said to have been culled from Vuitton handbags. Murakami is known to the geekarati for his striking manga-influenced pop art.

Paul Schimmel, admitted that he was “surprised” that Murakami “took the materials that he had printed for various [Vuitton] products . . . and he had them stretched like paintings and made into a very large but numbered edition” of prints to be sold in the boutique. Schimmel had invited the artist and Louis Vuitton to set up the store inside the Geffen exhibition — a rare, if not unprecedented, move for a major art museum.

Just keep telling yourself it’s all about context.

A masquerade ball in LA based on Labyrinth, the Henson film starring David Bowie.

Labyrinth of Jareth Masquerade Ball – 2009 – labyrinthmasquerade.com

Two Enchanting Nights within the Court
July 10th and 11th 2009
The Labyrinth of Jareth Fantasy Masquerade Ball

At the historic Henry Fonda MusicBox Theatre
6126 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028
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Well, there are TWO things I regret about not going to San Diego this year. This is one of them. Then again, I would probably have been at a booth or on a panel.

Will we get more Torchwood, BBC? Please say yes.

BY the way, I know plenty of you are coming here from AfterElton.com, so click HERE to take a look at my webcomic. You’ll like it.

Hat tip: Kacey Camp.

I missed the last season, so am looking forward to catching all on dvd.

Colleen can’t come out today because she’s in mourning. She’ll talk again when she’s taken on the purple. Don’t be sad, she looks so fetching in black.

In the meantime, check out THE MASTER’ S FACEBOOK PAGE!!!

LULZ courtesy the LOVERLY actress Kacey Camp!