Comics

When "Transformers: Dark of the Moon" posted a casting call for "Hardcore Eddie," every muscleman-actor on the way up in Hollywood went out for the part. They knew the character would be on-screen during crucial, cataclysmic action, right alongside Shia LaBeouf and Tyrese Gibson, who plays Epps, the leader of Eddie's good-guy mercenary crew. Baltimore-born Lester Speight walked into the audition and knew he'd nail it. "A lot of times, guys make jokes — they see you walk in and they say, 'Well, we might as well go home now.' For this one, I thought to myself — yeah, you might as well go home.' " He was right.

Sharp and svelte but also funny, Nicole Ari Parker typically hits the screen as put-together characters like Eddie Murphy's ex-wife in "Imagine This. " So she leapt at the chance to play Zenobia, the comically confused sportscaster heroine of "35 and Ticking. " Parker was born in Washington and raised in Baltimore from age 2. She also lived for six years as an adult in Atlanta. "35 and Ticking" opens Friday in Atlanta, D.C., and in Baltimore at the AMC Owings Mills and the AMC Security Square.

Tucked between Mosaic and Maryland Art Place , No. 6 at Power Plant Live might as well be called the place where comedy goes to die. Slapstix quietly premiered it almost a decade ago, when the area was still called the Brokerage. The Improv followed, drawing top-shelf talent, comedians who had actually gotten sitcom deals. But that closed too, done in by expensive overhead. Rascals did some time in the space, but it was so negligible it barely registered with area comics. For the past four years, 6 Market Place, the comedy destination in the downtown entertainment complex, has sat empty, its sprawling interior gathering dust.

It's the ultimate extension of homophobic predictions of societal destruction if same-sex relationships are sanctioned: a boy-shark romance. That unlikely combination provides the oddest component in Adam Bock's refreshingly quirky comedy "Swimming in the Shallows," the latest offering from the Iron Crow Theatre Company. The boy in question, Nick, has more hookups than a crooked towing service, but a meaningful relationship, let alone a phone call, never seems to follow the easy sex on the first date.

To borrow from "A Hard Day's Night," Russell Brand is a mod, a rocker and a mocker. He's got an edgy version of elfin charm — if you can call a 6-foot-1 man elfin. Lately he's had a mocker's version of a Midas touch. He gave voice to the Easter Bunny's teenage heir in "Hop" — and the film ruled the box-office last weekend. The Russell Brand brand should get another boost Friday when he opens in his first star vehicle, "Arthur. " Credit goes to Jason Winer, his Pikesville-bred director.

On weekday mornings, I'll post the most controversial, shocking and (of course) ridiculous stories for your reading pleasure. That way, when you walk into work, you'll be the master of witty conversation. National • Obama gains favor with young voters . (Politico)  • Bruce Springsteen writes a letter to the editor of his hometown newspape r. (Asbury Park Press)  • Why Michele Bachmann needs a photo-op manager . (Liberaland)  • Schwarzenegger gets a comic book . (EW)

Baltimore-born Donna A. Lewis is a lawyer for the Department of Homeland Security who moonlights as a stripper. A comic stripper. Her semi-autobiographical strip, "Reply All," about a successful career woman struggling with self-doubt, has just been syndicated by The Washington Post Writers Group. It debuts Monday in about a dozen newspapers nationwide, including The Post, Boston Globe and Charlotte Observer. While the strip is based loosely on Lewis' life, you won't see any "Dilbert"-style references to her day job. And not just because, as her bio on http://www.

Digital entertainment has shaken the retail industry, shuttering your local brick-and-mortar record store, bookseller and video rental outlets. Could the neighborhood comic book shop be next? Diamond Comic Distributors Inc. hopes not. The Timonium company is the country's largest distributor of comics to about 2,700 small retailers. It has been fighting the same forces — online sales, changing consumer habits and even digital piracy — that are pushing other retailers to the brink.

The national publicity for "Tiny Furniture" focused on this brainy, zany and engaging youth comedy as a veiled autobiography. Like her heroine, Aura, 24-year-old writer-director Lena Dunham graduated from Oberlin. Her mother and Aura's are New York artists who specialize in photographing miniatures. Dunham's sister, like Aura's, is a prize-winning student poet. To make the art-life symmetry perfect: Dunham plays Aura; her mother, Laurie Simmons, plays Siri, Aura's mother; and her sister, Grace Dunham, plays Nadine, Aura's sister.