As you all of course remember, “Mal” is a nickname, and in fact is short for a slightly longer nickname (and while we’re on the subject, the fact that he’s got the same name as the main character in Joss Whedon’s Firefly is entirely a coincidence, although naturally I’m a big fan of the show :-) ). Given that information, it’s probably not too much of a mental leap to conclude that  “Meg” and “Con” are not their real names, either. So the question is… what are “Meg” and “Con” short for? I guess what we need is a…

CONTEST!

…please see the blog post below for more details!

Finally, a small but nerdy response to something a fellow webcomicker whom I respect posted in passing last week. She said (and geek cred to those of you who know who I mean), “It has to be ‘Farscape’ specifically. ‘Star Trek’ or even ‘Babylon 5′ would be too classy.” (This is in reference to a calendar that one of her characters presents to another.) Having just re-watched the entire run of Babylon 5 on DVD and currently working my way through all of Farscape, I must take firm exception to this! I declare that Farscape is superior to B5 in almost all respects– the stories are more interesting, the ship more unusual, the characters more compelling, the funny stuff funnier, and the cast superior actors. And yes, I would even count the muppets in that last category. Some of the muppets are better actors than a few of those guys we got on B5. In the end I think it’s the fact that there are any muppets at all in the show which lowers folks’ opinions of the show. I don’t see why, frankly. It’s just another kind of special effect. Nobody had a problem with Yoda, right? I much preferred muppet Yoda in the original trilogy to the CGI one we got in the later movies. Or maybe it’s a generational thing– I grew up with the Muppet Show and Sesame Street and similar TV programs, the Age of Henson you might say, where puppets and humans interacted all the time and there was nothing odd about it. So having them on a sci-fi show seemed perfectly natural to me (although I swear those were Skeksis in that one episode).

I know, I know, this is about as ridiculous as arguing Superman vs. Spiderman. But I just couldn’t let this go unchallenged! ;-)