Pop Culture Roundup Feb. 1, 2007

Young Fred Hembeck meets Marvel Comics' Roy Thomas.

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"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," the seventh and last book in the series is due out July 21 . (corrected from the June 21 posted here earlier)

UPDATE: You can pre-order the book now for $18.99 (regularly $34.99) now from Amazon.



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Joss Whedon talks to MTV about his upcoming "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" comic, which picks up where the series ended.

"The show was very mundane, deliberately mundane," Whedon said. "A comic has got to work on a grander, epic scale. We can really take the characters wherever we want, and of course, that means I can kill them. That's where the fun is, in revisiting these characters. It's like being with my old friends, but in actuality, not being with my old friends, because the actors aren't there to play them. It's a little different. This is bigger variations. It's a symphony based on the little tune we played."

The comic hits stand March 7.

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Speaking of Joss: Despite Whedon working on a script to an upcoming Wonder Woman film he's set to direct, Warner Brothers is acquiring a spec script by newcomers Matthew Jennison and Brent Strickland.

Sources told the Hollywood Reporter that the purchase is a pre-emptive measure intended to keep the script off the market and to protect itself against any legal action prompted by similarities between the two scripts. The Jennison-Strickland script is reportedly set against the backdrop of World War II, while Whedon's script is set in the present day.

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Mezco Toyz has a line of Underdog figures coming out to tie in with the CGI flick based on the character coming this summer.



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From Variety: Carl Reiner remembers his work on "The Dick Van Dyke Show."

Daily Variety: So it was because of the censors that they were in twin beds?

Reiner: Absolutely. I fought and I said, "Dick sleeps in a queen-sized bed." They said, "No, no, what would it suggest?" I said, "Where did the kid come from? Did they jump from the next bed to do it?"

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"Star Trek: Klingons: Blood Will Tell," a five-part miniseries from IDW Publishing beginning in April will also be available in a special 40-page Klingon-language edition.