Most people aren't aware, and why would they be, but by the end of a convention our table is usually covered with sketches of various kinds. Often these sketches will include snips of dialogue (or simply just dialogue itself, on my side of the table) that sometimes becomes actual comics - it seemed like we could make that nascent product available to a wider audience. The "actual" sketch is on the upper left, the one about shaking scary hands, which is sort of an occupational hazard I suppose. Other weird ideas (such as Punisher Guy at the bottom and "George Lucas as an Ewok" in the lower left) are not included in their entirety. Simply know that it is sketches, sketches everywhere that the table is not covered by glossies for startlingly good webcomics or some crude instrument of our retail operation.

Most of the recent flights we've taken, I've turned to prescription anti-anxiety medication in order to make those experiences something less than psyche-shredding death jaunts. I meant to discuss it, but it never came up, because the time that I would usually employ describing a harrowing flight in soporific detail was spent thinking, man, about how each human civilization really is like a lighthouse.

Comic Con starts this week and I wanted to give you all a look at what you’ll find should you swing by our booth.

Reading over some Transformers set reports from Ain't It Cool, we began to feel concerns about the film very deeply. Not that I can actually see movies these days, my clambering heir's domination of my life being absolutely complete. But for you, dear reader. For you. We are concerned that you will not enjoy yourselves. It is this fraternal bond that makes us lash out, quick and searing, like a solar flare.

It's eight pages, including the cover - you can find it here, on the left side of the page.  I had a chance to play what would eventually become the demo a couple months ago, and what I saw made me feel pretty confident about doing a project for it.  In case you're wondering why we haven't mentioned it, there you go - we'd already written seven pages worth of text, it was just top secret.   Until today, I suppose.  It's a pretty strange project, I hope you enjoy it.

We bought a couple of Nate's Blambot Fonts for a different look, and they look great as always.

(CW)TB

SquareEnix is developing this strange but fun take on "stylus basketball," so cameos were virtually assured. 

I'd heard about Moogle already, but until I hit 4cr today I didn't know about the others - Ninja, White Mage, Black Mage, and that little cactus fucker.  The art for the cameos is uniformly excellent - Square Fans should definitely take a look.

(CW)TB

I say this so you can see for yourself if it's worth your time slash money, i.e. if you're willing to pay twenty dollars more for a version that works with less elegance.  At the very least, it should communicate the game with more eloquence than I did.  It may be that if you haven't already played and enjoyed it on the PC, the console version of the game rolls on dub plates (or whatever the authentic street terminology is now).

(CW)TB

We saw something over at Game Politics that was too good to leave alone - the mayor of Las Vegas is angry because the next Rainbow Six game nestles its geopolitical storyline in his city. If you haven't seen how, I really recommend that you get your hands on the full version of the E3 trailer (in HD preferably, in convenient mov or wmv formats). It's pretty horrifying. I sort of understand why he wouldn't want someone to see that, even though he hasn't seen it himself, so he doesn't actually know what he's talking about.  When they've spent so much money giving the impression that the town is primarily a haven for frequent and anonymous sexing, you don't want to get that signal crossed with "seething cauldron of anti-American terror."

The Ship just dropped on Steam, and if it wasn't something you were already keeping an eye on I wanted to make mention of it.  It's sort of like an Agatha Christie book come to life in videogame form:  the players have all been invited to a cruise liner by the mysterious Mr. X, free of charge, only to find that the vessel itself is a kind of human hunting ground for his amusement. 

How that plays out in game form, how your targets are chosen and how you stalk them, all of that is covered here.  Anyway, it's out, twenty bucks, I'm grabbing it now.

(CW)TB

As is often the case for our kind, some derelict account on some forgotten website had suddenly become critical information, and Gabriel's long forgotten password forced him into a temporary crisis. It did not help that the "secret question" he had configured was an almost useless wisp of enigmatic text.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going to start cleaning out the store. We retired a few of the older t-shirt designs and now we’re blowing out the old 8x10 Laser Cels. The price on these prints has been knocked down to $19.99 and just like the old shirts once they’re gone, they’re gone.

I haven't discovered a way to tell this story that is not highly uncomfortable, which is why I haven't told it. But when I saw that Too Human wasn't just my greatest disappointment of this year's E3 but actually a direct obstacle to new Eternal Darkness games like some kind of intestinal blockage I managed to find the strength.

The author's intent with this comic is something like this: 

The next two strips are from our adopted third grade class, in whom we endeavored to invest our most potent comic creation skills.  Today's comic was made as a gift for us by one of the students after we left, and we found the contest it presents hilarious.

Against my will, against my reason, and even against my character I agreed to be partner to (what was described as) A True Road Event, on the condition that it be

I go into why your terrestrial "road tripz" are not a natural state for me, on account of my painful history with the practice, which on more that one occasion involved pain that was not purely figurative or otherwise augmented for the tellin'.