I mentioned that Steven Brust was the sort of man who would be well received at an event like Readiation - a fictional convention for fiction enthusiasts - and had such a high opinion of his work that I brought some in and attempted to "sell" Gabe on it.  It's about an assassin who runs an increasingly large area of town, in a place where teleportation, telepathic communication, and even resurrection are an everyday occurrence.  You've got some "local color" language in there, but compared to most fantasy it isn't about fancy, vernacular diction.   The delivery is very modern.

We wanted to do one more strip with that guy - Guy, I guess - and we have done so. I would be surprised if it continued, really surprised, but I'm not able to simulate the entire universe mentally. There may be some confluence of events that necessitates it. Since the DS Lite is now in retail release, there's no reason to endure those torments unless the struggle itself created, via some serendipitous mechanism, the bonds of fraternal affection.

Last year when I sat down to make the previous laser cell I figured I’d do something with Gabe and Tycho in it. When I posted the image I came up with the response I got was that it was cool but didn’t really seem like “laser cell” material. I guess it felt more like a poster and so that’s what we ended up using it for. I talked to people about it and it seems like since you see Gabe and Tycho pretty much every day any thing they are in just feels sort of common or at the very least not really really special which is the whole point of the laser cells. Since I did Twisp and Catsby the first year, and the CTS last year I tried to think of another side character that I could give some extra attention to via a print. After going through the archives for a while I landed on Dr Raven Darktalon Blood and he just felt right to me. Some people have expressed an interest in seeing how I arrive at a print like this and I’m happy to share some of my process with you.

Before we claimed the High Seat, assuming the jewelled diadem that marked us as Internet Demagogues and merging into a single, irascible entity, Gabriel still managed to torment people - just in a more localized capacity. In his role as "computer specialist" (ahem) for Circuit City, he and his dark cabal would often invent functionality that did not, as such, actually exist in the machine, technology so sophisticated it could dismantle the strange forces that maintain our universe. He said he might arrive on the site later today, no doubt with his characteristic flourish and splendor, and relate for your edification a full accounting of his despicable acts.

I managed to get a drawing done yesterday that I’m really happy with. Everyone else here in the office seems to like it as well so I think this will be our next laser cell. I believe the plan is to have this print ready for sale around the middle of July. This one is the same size as the CTS print we did last year, 18" x 12". What do you guys think?

We’ve been on the Nintendo PR list for a couple years now and they always try to make their packages fun. They never just ship you a game they have to go the extra mile. Things like the original DS coming with a fake mannequin hand because “touching is good”. Or the DS version of Animal Crossing coming with a bunch of cleaning supplies as a “house warming” gift. So we got a package from them today and it turned out to be the new DS Lite. We took a little video of this one because you really have to see it.

So I’m in the office today as long as it takes to create the next limited edition laser cell. I’m expecting a long night. I’ve been wracking my brain trying to come up with a design for this one and so far all I’ve got is about fifty pages of sketches that I hate. As of right now it looks like it will probably be a Dr. Raven Darktalon Blood piece but the way things are going that could easily change.

I listened to Gabriel with increasing disbelief. I'd heard, as I think everyone did, that the original - by which I mean the original original - Star Wars trilogy was coming to DVD. What I had not heard, and what Gabriel intimated to me with his eyes wide was that these would not be from the scrubbed, manicured footage they used to make the re-imaginings, they would, in fact, be anamorphic rips from old laserdiscs. What's more, they can't even be purchased separately. They can only be purchased with the newer versions, together, for ninety dollars! Ha!

Utilizing an undiscovered cortex, Gabriel and I always subconsciously assess a room's ping-pong potential.

Kiko sometimes gets a call to make radical designs for this and that, and here is the most recent one:

We got the 2500 surveys we needed, thanks to everybody who helped out. 

(CW)TB

Your Local News Affiliate is rarely a bastion of reasoned discourse, exposés on "the dangers of improper lettuce washing" related by manicured corpses really are the norm. We couldn't resist this bit over at Kotaku, though: St. Paul's Fox 9 dropped the science on the PlayStation "Pornable" and its ability to condense erotic materials out of thin air, in much the way a cold glass of lemonade sweats on a warm afternoon.

If you’re looking for a fun/cheap way to get yourself to PAX this year you might want to consider one of the Supertrips. These are essentially massive geek caravans and this year you’ve got two to choose from. If you are west side for life you can hit up the site for the west coast supertrip. If you’re on the east coast or pretty much anyplace in between you should check out the cross country supertrip. These crazy muther fuckers are actually planning to drive from NYC to Bellevue and back.

I am really excited to finally be able to tell you guys about one of the biggest projects we've ever done. Last year the ESRB came to us and asked if we could create a new advertising campaign for them. They'd been to multiple agencies and none of them were able to communicate the message the ESRB was trying to get out. See until now their advertising has been focused on trying to educate adults about the ESRB. That's obviously an important task but they wanted this new message to be directed at gamers, that is to say directed at us. They wanted a campaign that would communicate to gamers why the ESRB is important even if they don't think it directly affects them.

Real quick I wanted to apologize for the way the site has been acting lately. I appreciate the mail you guys have been sending me and trust me when I say people are working on it as I type this. I think Tycho mentioned a while ago that we had to invest in a bunch of new hardware. When it comes to computer stuff I’m hardly an expert. I use mine to play WOW and draw. I can tell you what I was told though. We actually purchased five brand new servers and last week they were integrated into our cluster. That made things sort of wonky for a few days and when I suggested they reverse the polarity of the main deflector dish and flash wipe all our DNS proxys they said I was not helping. I know it seems like we have a lot of trouble with the site and your right. I know having a fuck ton of readers is no excuse but we do go through about 400 gigs of traffic every day. We’re creeping up on 2 million page views a day now and that sort of traffic really beat the shit out of our old equipment. Hopefully once this new gear is in place and all the bugs are worked out you’ll see an improvement in the sites performance. Fingers crossed.