ComicRelated

Today in stores across the country, Spaced will be available on DVD for the first time (legally).

The British show, which stars Simon Pegg and Nick Frost—the principal players of the hit movies Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz—along with Jessica Hynes, is currently being remade for American television featuring Mad TV alum Will Sasso.  The show was created by Edgar Wright, who also directed the aforementioned cult-hit films starring Pegg and Frost.  Its wide popularity in the United Kingdom has led many to wonder why it was never available in the States until now, although The Office followed much the same formula, not releasing mainstream American releases until the American TV remake was on the horizon.  The future of the American version—which was developed for Fox and does not appear on the fall schedule—is in doubt, but the BBC version of the show is rolling out to Region 1 video today.

The BBC and local cinemas are hosting a series of events in July called “The Spaced Invasion,” wherein Wright, Pegg, Hynes and others appear at movie theaters for free, special screenings of three episodes of the show, followed by a Q&A session.  Such a session was held at the Village East Cinema on Second Avenue in New York yesterday, where the line began two hours before the screening and wrapped around the block.  Hundreds of fans packed the theater and about another 150 were turned away once the auditorium hit capacity.

In the show, Simon Pegg plays a struggling cartoonist who, while he appears to do no actual work, has a day job at a comic book store and is seen in many episodes to be wearing comics t-shirts; while this is a fairly minimal aspect of his character, it combines with the comic-audience appeal of Shaun of the Dead (it was adapted into a miniseries by IDW) to offer a good enough reason for me to mention this here.  I’ll write a real story tomorrow when I’ve spoken with one of the BBC reps to get exact numbers and the like on the day, but in the meantime enjoy the photos and go buy a copy of the Spaced DVD.  God knows I’m too broke to do it, so someone ought to buy one for me, too!

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