It took longer than we’d expected, because we were waiting for one of the winners to respond to us – but we’re finally ready to announce the winners of the HBO Mythic Movie Contest. Swing by the winners page for full details, including downloadable versions of the movies!(Louis Wu 16:04:49 UTC)

Hawty McBloggy was at the Emerald City ComicCon, as well – and she met a CQB Spartan there! Check out her pics.(Louis Wu 14:47:18 UTC)

Kevin Larrabee let us know that a new podcast has kicked off – Part Time Gamers is a group of gamers that simply don’t have the time to play as much as they used to, but they still love games. (How much? Well… several of them are actual game developers from studios like Bungie and Doublefine. Bungie’s Technical Art Designer Seth Gibson is one of the primary ‘casters.) Their first podcast is an hour and a half long, and discusses game development, industry news and trends, and what games they’re playing now. Check ’em out – and be sure to let ’em know what you think! (Louis Wu 14:44:24 UTC)

Just a few new comics this Monday

• Elnea updated Halo Action Figure Theater with Episode 167, Blue Nude – the crew gets help from an unexpected quarter.
• The Catfish let Bungie.net know that 2501 Episode 36 (Intentions) was live.
• TTL Demag0gue dropped in with word of Reclaimer 173 (Matchtwins) – be careful what your Cavalcade members get up to!

Quiet weekend, I suppose…(Louis Wu 14:40:59 UTC)

InnerRayg noticed a post at Spawn.com discussing an exclusive McFarlane figure to be offered at the San Diego ComicCon – a Grifball Spartan! I wonder if Rooster Teeth gets royalties? (Louis Wu 14:39:17 UTC)

Spartanx5 stopped in again with updated pictures of his Recon helmet render – swing by the Threedy forums to see the latest. (Louis Wu 14:38:42 UTC)

There was a Halo panel at the Emerald City Comic Convention yesterday… and Jake, from 8BitJoystick, was there to cover it. Swing by his blog to read all the details. Some of the news was announced earlier (for example, that Greg Bear is writing three new Halo novels focused on the Forerunner) but some is new, or clarified – Frank was pretty clear that the story of John and Cortana is NOT finished, something that’s been hinted at before but not nailed down. Go read! There’s a rather large thread on our forum, if you want to discuss. (Louis Wu 14:30:55 UTC)

Decadence Night stopped in yesterday with a pair of new time-lapse panoramas – awesome! Check ’em out on Decayed Panoramas. (Louis Wu 14:30:17 UTC)

BlueNinja whipped up a few new panoramas recently – check ’em out at Views from the Edge.(Louis Wu 19:39:10 UTC)

ManKitten noticed that the two exclusive McFarlane figures from last year’s San Diego ComicCon are up for sale on eBay – the Hell Spartan is here, and the Active Camo CQB is here. Get to bidding – these end today!(Louis Wu 19:37:21 UTC)

Deadguy, from the 405th, let us know that the Spiker used in the Halo 3 Believe ad campaign would be going onsale soon at Profiles in History. It’s part of the Forry Ackerman estate, and is Lot number 1164 (visible in this PDF version of the catalog – page 313, to save you time). There’s some other incredible stuff for sale, as well (not Halo-related, but amazing stuff for sci-fi fans). It’s expected to go for $2,000 – $3,000. Check it out! (Louis Wu 19:34:00 UTC)

I don’t think I ever would have imagined that this image would have made a decent subject for a high-res render… but Jean-Luc proved me wrong. Check out Unseal the Hushed Casket.(Louis Wu 15:10:17 UTC)

sharpsniper99 was the first to let us know about Arby ‘n’ the Chief S3E09 – the latest in the long-running series. This one’s called ‘Company – Part One’, and Chief wants to build a machinima company. Can you tell why this might be a bad idea?(Louis Wu 15:09:54 UTC)

SPU7N1K ran across a pretty impressive piece of artwork over at DeviantART – Phoenix-06 whipped up a Shield World, under construction. (Jordan 117 figured out where he got some of his source material, as well.) Take a look – it’s great!(Louis Wu 14:59:07 UTC)

Heh – Hawty McBloggy found a Spartan running in a 10k roadrace in Virginia last month. Nice! (Louis Wu 14:58:26 UTC)

We’re getting a lot of email about the HBO Mythic Movie Contest – folks want to know if they’ve won, they want to know if they can see the winners, they want to know if they’ve entered properly. Here’s a quick update. As we said in the rules, we are giving the winners a chance to upload a version of their movie that contains credits – so we need to wait for that to happen. As of the time of this writing, we’ve heard from all winners except one. Hopefully, we’ll have a Winners Gallery to show you by tomorrow or Monday. (We sent emails to winners at the address you registered with when you uploaded your movies.)(Louis Wu 16:23:26 UTC)