While you were enjoying the first issue of Serenity: Better Days - and damn, was that fun - did you notice the little mention in the back of the letters page from Dark Horse’s Scott Allie?

As for more series — yes. Definitely. Joss and Ron Glass have announced a Shepherd Book series, which we hope to get off the ground by the end of the year.

That is, I believe the first company confirmation of a Book story, and now we know it’s a series and not a one-shot. Woo hoo!

Once again Lisa is doing The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, and once again she’s auctioning off autographed bears to raise money. And that means that once you again you can get bears signed by some Big Damn Heroes. Specifically, Ron Glass and Morena Baccarin. Also, James Marsters, David Boreanaz, Emily Deschanel, Eric Millegan, Kristen Bell, Hayden Panettiere, Jamie Bamber, Kristin Chenoweth, Sara Ramirez, Jennifer Garner, Angela Lansbury, America Ferrera, David Schwimmer, Kim Cattrall, Kevin Christiana, Jack Mackenroth, Tom Cavanagh, John De Lancie, Michael McKean, Pierce Brosnan, Annette O’Toole, David Hyde Pierce and Kathy Griffin. Not a bad set of bears, I’m thinking.

You can find out more about her cause by gpoing to http://www.lisawalks.com/, but the auctions aren’t there yet. Head here to see ‘em all.

It’s here! Go hit your local comics store and pick up Serenity: Better Days #1, the first of a new three-part Serenity comic by Joss Whedon, Brett Matthews, Will Conrad, and Michelle Madsen, with the first of a triptych cover set by Adam Hughes.

Better Days revisits everyone’s favorite space cowboys in this thrilling, action-packed adventure, with Mal and his crew on a heist that promises a big payoff–what’s surprising is that this heist just might make good on that promise.

This takes place after the show, but before the movie and before the first comic book miniseries “Those Left Behind.” If you want to try before you buy you can see some sample pages. (If you want to peek aghead, sample pages from #2 are over here.)

You can also order it from TFAW.com here. 
#2 will be out Apr. 9 (Preorder it here!).
And the 3rd will be out May 14 (Preorder it here!)

As reported previously, all 14 episodes of Firefly are available for free viewing (with forced commercial interruptions) at NBC’s new site Hulu.com, which opens to the public tomorrow. And now that the writers’ strike is over and writers will get at least something for these, you may watch to your hearts’ content.

And not only can you watch them, with surprisingly fast streaming speeds (although that may change as more people start watching), you can e-mail them to friends or even embed excerpts or entire episodes in your own website or blog. Not too shabby, and a great way to spread some Firefly love to them what needs it told. The controls are easy to use, there are options for fullscreen and “lower lights” (which dims the rest of the page to improve your contrast) and more. And room to add reviews, which I expect all of you to do.

Picture quality? Not bad. Not as good as the downloadable episodes from iTunes or Amazon, I don’t think, but your mileage (and graphics card) may vary. Fullscreen version is a little pixelated, but still very watchable. I’ll be curious to see how well it performs on, say, a Friday night.

A side note: I haven’t watched any episodes in a while, but Teresa is working on a Niska Barbie so we needed to review and research. We watched “War Stories,” and I freely admit I fell in love all over again. Every single line, every gesture revealed something about the characters and moved the story forward, packing huge amounts of subtext into every scene. OK, the ExpositionFest of Book, Zoe and Jayne deducing where the boys were taken was a bit much, but there’s so much to love in this show… I’m preaching to the choir. Go watch ‘em all over again.

Remember the cool Zoe maquette Lanin D. Thomasma from ntoonz.com made? He didn’t stop there…

Thomasma sculpts funky little pop culture statues, including several licensed lines for online comics like General Protection Fault and Accidental Centaurs. But he’s also a fan of a familiar-sounding show, and these things happen. Check out his other maquettes and see what else he’s making.

Patches ‘N’ Pins is carrying on with their mighty goal of making every possible Firefly patch available, and the latest ones are from Alliance uniforms and the hospital on Ariel:

We have the 3 Alliance rank patches, and the Ariel Emergency nurse patches. We sell all individually from $6 to $18 (ariel jacket back patch). However the Alliance rank patches can be bought in a set of 3 for $15 and the Ariel ones can be bought in a set of 5 for $40 (set comprises, 1 chest, 3 shoulder/cap and 1 jacket), to replicate the Ariel uniform.

Sizes for Ariel patches are : jacket patch 4×2.1″, shoulder/cap patch 4×3.7″ and jacket patch is 10×5.3″.

Note that patches may not be to scale with each other in the pic above, I combined two shots.

Get an autographed Serenity comic and help kids read!

Nathan Fillion will be signing 250 copies of Dark Horse Comic’s Serenity: Better Days #1 with proceeds benefiting Kids Need to Read. This very special fundraising opportunity began at Phoenix Cactus Comicon and now continues on eBay!

Kids Need to Read has teamed up with SpazDog Comics to make these autographed comics available for pre-sale through SpazDog Comics’ eBay store.

Help promote literacy! Order your autographed copy today.

This pre-sale ends on March 18, 2008 at 8:05 p.m. PDT.

MegaCon in Orlando was this weekend (and is still, technically, going on) and I spent Saturday at it, but I won’t be able to give you much of a report as most of the panels I was interested in were too busy to get near. But I did get to meet Mark (”Badger”) Sheppard who was, as many of you told me, a great guy. He’s pictured here, holding the Badger Barbie made by my wife Teresa.

Some quick hits: attendance (and traffic) was massive. We got off the highway at 9:50 and got in the building, maybe 1/2 mile away, an hour later. There was a garden show at the same convention center, which certainly didn’t help but probably made for some great interactions. The line inside, for those who didn’t pre-order, was huge and extended to, I believe, Tampa. We pre-ordered: we scooted in.

Long lines for Adrian Pasdar (”Nathan” from Heroes) and Erica Durance (”Lois Lane” from Smallville). Not so much for Mark Sheppard, his dad W. Morgan Sheppard (a Klingon in Star Trek VI, among many other roles), Adrian Wilkinson (”Livia/Eve” from Xena), the usual Lost in Space folks, Peter Mayhew (”Chewbacca” from Star Wars), assorted folks from Beastmaster, Kyle XY, some of the Who Wants to Be a Superhero group, etc.  Respectable turnout for Kristy Swanson (the movie Buffy) and Jack O’Halloran (the big Kryptonian from Superman II), but everyone had bursts of traffic here and there, I think.

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Kids Need to Read is auctioning off a Serenity DVD signed by Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk.

All proceeds from this auction go to support Kids Need to Read, the charity project founded by author PJ Haarsma and actor Nathan Fillion, in its ongoing efforts to get books to children who need them.

Auction is already running and ends on March 7. Go!

Right now Adam Hughes, cover artist for “Serenity: Better Days” and the “Those Left Behind” collections, has offered to answer questions over at Whedonesque. Head here and post your questions in the comments!