Austin-based animator Brad Neely has had Warner Bros. on his back (for screening Harry Potter with his own fast-and-loose-with-the-facts narration) and the viral masses at his feet (for his giddily nonsensical Founding Father rap, "Cox & Combes' Washington": "he had a pocketful of horses/ fucked the shit out of bears"). So what's he gonna do next? Own the entire month of May, that's what. Every Monday in May, Superdeluxe.com will premiere a new installment of Neely's new opus China, IL, and all four episodes put together will premiere TV-side on the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block on Sunday, May 25 at 10:45pm. The first episode, titled "Romeo + Romeo," started streaming yesterday. It's three minutes of high-speed, ejaculate-obsessed nutterness that turns weirdly tender when man/child Baby Cakes makes up a song about a dead women he's besotted with: "Boom boom yeah / got so much in common / except that I'm a person still." He says boom boom yeah, I say boom boom yeah.

John Pierson was clearly delighted. It took three years but now the guest he had most wanted to book was finally in the house. Since beginning his Master Class at UT three years ago, Pierson has tried to get South Park's co-creator Matt Stone to visit with his Austin students. But the timing has never been right due to the congruence of UT's spring semester and Comedy Central's spring season. The stars aligned, however, in 2008 and Stone was able to hop on a flight right after completing work on the 12th season of South Park and make an appearance in Pierson's final class of the semester. Stone and his creative partner in South Park, Trey Parker, never work more than a week ahead on each episode of the show. This is part of what makes it impossible for the two to get away from L.A. while the season is in progress. Stone confesses they "get bored" pretty quickly, and that's part of why they like having only a week to produce a show. Mostly, though, it's "procrastination" that takes them down to the wire.

Did you catch the shoutout to our favorite local music and film and techie extravaganza on 30 Rock last night? When the writing room schlubs try to get some respect from the Teamsters (headed by Brian Dennehy, looking rather slimmed, no?), Lutz (John Lutz) blows their case with the wincingly on-point: "I know what driving the long haul is like! After my junior year at Oberlin, we road-tripped to South by Southwest!" Even 30 Rock's throwaway lines feel perfectly crafted. If you aren't watching this show yet, you should really start. Second best line of the night? "I was hit by lightning as a child. They made a movie about me." Watch the whole episode now on NBC.com or check it out soon on Hulu.com.

The ballroom at the Omni Downtown is a small room to contain a lot of genre-defining authors, but this weekend the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America held their annual Nebula Awards there. From a cinematic view, the big win was Guillermo del Toro for his script for Pan's Labyrinth. Even though he couldn't be there, he thanked those he called “Not my peers but my mentors (…) from the bottom of my cholesterol-clogged heart." For the geek-out crowd, the big guest was new SFWA grand master Michael Moorcock (even novel of the year winner Michael Chabon seemed pretty overwhelmed when he found himself between Moorcock and SXSW regular Bruce Sterling). Moorcock's speech concentrated on how often science fiction and fantasy novels, even though they are regularly pillaged for the screen, are regarded as second-tier literature by the critical establishment. As if to prove the point Chabon, whose novel Wonderboys has been adapted for the screen and has another (The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay) on the way, thanked his editors for not realizing that his last novel was "at its dreaming, counterfactual core a work of science fiction." The absence of del Toro possibly meant that one possible argument was avoided: it would have been interesting to see what the ever-feisty Moorcock, possibly the most vociferous critic of J.R.R. Tolkien, would have had to say to the newly-announced director of The Hobbit. Full 2008 Nebula winners' list below the fold

Never let it be said that Tim League is one to fear signing off on reams of liability insurance forms. He's already overtaken the late, great William Castle in the Ballyhoo Department by orders of magnitude (you'll remember his Amityville Horror stunt, the "House of One Million Flies," or, as we like to recall it, the "Ohmygodgetitoffmegetitoffmegetitoffme Shack"), but for yesterday's sold-out local premiere of Jon Favreau's Iron Man, the Alamo Kingpin topped not only himself but also the roof of his theater, literally, when he hired Eric Scott of Denver-based GoFast! Sports and Jet Pack International to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that a) mad genius Robert Downey, Jr. isn't the only (formerly) high guy associated with the newly forged Marvel Studios comic book franchise, and b) Motorhead is relatively quiet when compared to a guy in a jet pack hovering 20 feet over your head.

The 11th Annual Cine las Americas International Film Festival (my, that's a mouthful) has wrapped another year – by all accounts a rollicking success. Normally we'd say see you next year, but Cine Las Americas has been transitioning into a year-round presence. So... see you next month, maybe? And get some rest. In what is presumably their last bit of official fest business, Cine just released this year's jury and audience award winners. The full list after the jump.

There's a critic bitchslap going on in the blogosphere, and Austinite Jeff Nichols is caught in the crossfire. It kicked off when NY Press film critic Armond White – who's (in)famous for strong opinions, fighting words, and the occasional certifiableness – umbrella'ed Nichols' widely praised but mostly unseen film Shotgun Stories into a larger screed about the state of film criticism today. White is entirely complimentary of Shotgun Stories (which premiered at last year's Austin Film Festival); in fact, he argues it "should have rocked film culture." He continues: "Being a non-hipster film meant that Shotgun Stories was off established critics’ radar screens. Even I, shamefacedly, only caught up after it had opened; but it’s been the most resonant American movie so far this year." Would he kept it at that.

Femme Film Texas' mission statement reads "teaching filmmaking and media literacy to young women and girls in Austin, Texas," and who can't get behind that? The real question is, how much can you get behind that? They're currently seeking donations for their summer film camps for girls, and every little bit counts. Hey big spender: $975 provides full tuition and housing for one girl at the overnight camp. A bit rich for your blood? Even 10 bucks makes a difference. A handy donation site here details exactly where your contribution will go.

Don't let anybody tell you we don't do important work here at the Chronicle... which is why I spent a good chunk of my morning on a fact-finding mission to resolve the Great Lyric Debate of "Try a Little Tenderness" (check out tomorrow's review of My Blueberry Nights to understand why). Specifically, I needed to know if Otis was talking about a shaggy or a shabby dress. Tim Robbins already memorably mangled the lyrics in Bull Durham, so he was no help, and I clicked off Michael Bublé's singing-automaton version right after he humorlessly changed "young girls" to "women." Eventually, I decided to go straight to the source – archival Otis Redding. Come for the "shaggy," stay for the awesome performance. The overeager snare somewhat defuses the delicious tension of the song, but nonetheless – damn, that man was sexy.