The dream, as related here, is completely accurate. But I would like to emphasize that we know absolutely nothing about playing the game, and indeed, we are not actively playing it. We are not intrigued by the unprecedented crafting options, nor do we find the rich palette of social options titillating. We certainly haven't signed some sort of Non-Disclosure Agreement related to it, if that's what you mean.

I can't possibly respond to this much mail, I'm simply not capable of it.

There is a pretty big thread over at Slashdot regarding our current situation with American Greetings. There is lots of interesting stuff being discussed over there as usual. Also there is a petition (a poorly spelled one) to Boycott everything American Greetings makes. Like any mega corporation though AG actually makes quite a bit of shit besides greeting cards. Trying to avoid their every product would actually I think prove rather difficult. Someone at Slashdot suggested not purchasing American Greetings cards for Mother's day and I think that is pretty smart. Between the two geek powerhouses that are PA and /. I think this would actually have some effect. I mean we are talking about hundreds of thousands of geeks not purchasing cards from them on one of their biggest days. Something to think about.

I assume by now you have all seen the screen shots from Rogue Squadron III over at Gamers.com.

Gabriel has an affection with older characters we've made that, to me at least, smacks of a fascination with continuity. Clearly, events like the recent Cardboard and Steel show that continuity can be trained and mastered - acceptable, under controlled laboratory conditions. If it were up to him, it would be Charles this, Frank that, etc. In short, it would be the anarchy which is his stock and trade.

We are, of course, talking to our lawyer about all this stuff. Readers have referred us to many sources in an effort to clarify our position legally, sites like Chilling Effects act as clearing houses for data useful in situations such as this. Also, interesting cases have been brought to our attention - for example, Aqua's song "Barbie Girl" was contested by Mattel, and Aqua still came out on top (as it were). In darker news, Matt from MacHall send this interesting bit - check page 3, "Dr. Seuss Enterprises Vs. Penguin Books." To my mind, that precedent doesn't mean anything good for us.

An industrious reader already has a petition up and ready for you to sign. If you would like to voice your support you can find the petition here.

If you have any questions about why, feel free to raise them with Rinda E. Vas, Corporate Counsel for the American Greetings Corporation.

I thought I would post a sneak peek at page 7 of Over Easy. Don’t forget Club PA members this month will get pages 7 and 8 of OE. These pages will wrap up the first chapter.

We've already played the hell out of the game, but regular humans who do not import games can now play Ikaruga on their domestic GameCubes. if old school shooting (like some of the games mentioned above) are the sort of thing that turn your crank, Ikaruga is a must play.

After that initial day at the SakuraCon, we tried to imagine an event that could possibly feel more hostile to us. Of course, that con turned out alright, so who knows. We have provided the flyer in the strip in case you want to publicize an event which is not real.

If you don’t want it that’s fine. I’ll just keep it at my house. Your house smells anyway and I wouldn't want our award to get all smelly…you smell.

Man, somebody just suggested in my e-mail that we try for a Webby, and I had this whole speech about why seeking accolades completely misses the point, and we're only doing it for the kids, like DMX. I sounded really smart, and now I come back to the front page and it's like a Goddamn Public Television Pledge Drive around here.

Reading those posts on there about PA is enough to make a guy feel real good about himself. Making comic strips, I can see how a feller’d derive a whole lot a pleasure and satisfaction out of it.

A few people have suggested that Humor might be a better category for us to win a Webby in. We would be up against the Onion though which would be a tough fight. I think we can do it though. So tell all your friends to vote for us in the Humor category. Remember if we win Tycho will buy you all new cars!

We played Soul Calibur 2 yesterday for about six hours. I would like to play it for another six hours today but I told myself I'd work on Over Easy today. I have two pages I need to finish for our beloved Club PA members and by God I'm going to get at least one of them done today.