[pixelation | weekly gaming column every wednesday or uh thursday]

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Sometimes, and this is the truth, the words don’t come. Sometimes, and if you’ll believe me that’d be fantastic, the brain dries up. No matter how many cans of Diet Mountain Dew, no matter how much news has me excited, nothing arises. And like a clenched fist, friends!, the fruits drip, slosh, fall out faster the more I struggle.

Sometimes, god dammit, I just don’t want to write.

A video game column. How fucking hard is it to channel, conjure, find something in the infinite abyss of newsmediasprawl to write about!

I haven’t played video games in a week, and to an extent, I don’t miss them. Sometimes, playing video games is daunting. Sometimes, the cliche that don’t mix work and pleasure makes sense to me. To cast aside a controller or to take my feet out of the pool really means that I have nothing to write about.

To churn, vomit, gag on words.

To puke, shit, scat my way through a column.

I got nothin’, ya’ll.

Sometimes the world doesn’t revolve around blast processing, and magic whistles, and sometimes it does. That’s what I’m finding.

Deadlines for various academic sources have me churning words not into Word Press, but Microsoft Word. Are you interested in theoretical lesson plans for a college class I’ll never teach? Do you want nine-hundred words on the subversive nature of the graphic novel used as a medium for ethnic expression?

Kid, I got you.

Kid! I promise. I got you.

Sometimes, it seems, a labor of love, becomes a labor of labor.

I ain’t whining though. Or maybe I am. Cock, fart, ejaculate. Just filling the quota, guys. Can’t go a sentence without a swear. My tombstone shall read “Fuck shit ass cunt.” A derivative of a derivative.

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Grant Morrison is one of comics’ superwunderminds in the past, god, I don’t know how many years. The Brothers Drinkwater here at Omega Level share a special source of reverence for the guy. And out of that reverence is born an extreme, extreme excitement for an upcoming documentary regarding him. Grant Morrison: Talking With Gods is bound to be ridiculous win. Not only is his writing surreal, essential, and just fucking enjoyable, but the man is a character. Heavy drug use back in the day, claims of communicating with aliens? Yeah bro, he done claimed that.

The trailer dropped for his documentary, and it pivots around an absurd moment that spawned his inspiration for All-Star Superman. Don’t like Superman? A) You’d like his run, B) The story behind the inspiration is amazing.

Hit the jump and check out the trailer.

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Boom! Hell yeah, fuck you Microsoft! That’s essentially what Square Enix president Yoichi Wada is saying. Dude is droppin’ verbal landmines at the feet of all those goofy ass douchebags dancing in the Microsoft Kinect promos:

via destructoid:

“I missed Microsoft’s conference. Having said that, I think that what they have focused on for Kinect is very interesting and I hope they will attract an even wider audience,” Wada states. “I would say it is no different from just the Wii.“

Oh shit! Volleys served! Bombs away! I want to give this dude a bro-hug and a bottle of Diet Mountain Dew. Chilled, of course. We can be tots buddies for life.

[legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word story to win a bar bet — For sale: baby shoes, never worn. leading to the author’s birthday, I’m going to offer a daily post of my own six-word story. readers are encouraged to respond with their own]

Fine cuisine spewed from his mouth.

Perhaps the only thing I am looking forward to as much as Inception in my life is the season four premiere of Mad Men. JULY 25, WHERE ART THOU!?

This weekend I was thinking about dying, and the ridiculousness of contemplating non-existence. Somehow I got to thinking about what will happen when I eventually have hellspawn and they come to me seeking answers.

“Daddy” they’ll say, as I’m shoveling dirt on to the corpse of one of my parents. I ain’t buying no coffin, that shit is a racket.

“Daddy” they’ll inquire again, “Where is Nana gone to?”

And I’ll just keep heaping the dirt onto the body, trying to ignore them.

“Daddy?”, “Daddy!”, Daddy?!” they’ll keep pestering me.

“What happen? Where Papa now?”

And I’ll have to look them deep in the eyes and tell them them the truth:

“I HAVE NO IDEA. Now stop bugging me and grab a fucking shovel! There’s flies!”

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[legend has it that Ernest Hemingway wrote a six-word story to win a bar bet — For sale: baby shoes, never worn. leading to the author’s birthday, I’m going to offer a daily post of my own six-word story. readers are encouraged to respond with their own]

Before leaving, she shot my dog.

And a thousand thunders uttered, welcome to Variant Covers! Your hostel, your refuge from intelligent comic book talk. No sir, here at Variant Covers I pledge to inundate your unsuspecting brainstem with talk of superheroes, superpowers, and super fanboy-boners over things that are exciting me this current week in comic books. Don’t say I didn’t never warn you, ya’lll!

This week is chock full of fucking righteous comic book dalliances awaiting all of my kindred spirits. The sort of week that makes up for every installment of my blathering here which sounds like “Oh golly gee whiz, ain’t nothing droppin’ whine whine whine blah blah.”

Buckle up, I got a chubby for panels and pencils and dialogue boxes this week.

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Casanova #1
If you spend any amount of time loitering within the halls of Variant Covers, you know that one of my most revered writers is Matt Fraction. I think his ability to manipulate serious political issues within the realms of robot suits and billionaire playboys is amazing. In my more fanboyish moments, I am certain he’s doing something special with Tony Stark during a period in which the character’s popularity is unfathomably enormous. Pick up Invincible Iron Man, and you’re getting all the big budget theatrics of the movies interfacing with all the sort of culturally aware political commentary that you wouldn’t expect.

This week, Fraction’s getting his original work, Casanova, reprinted through Marvel’s Icon line. If you didn’t check out Casanova, you’re not alone. Penned back in 2006, it was where Fraction cut his teeth, and was to my understanding, not widely printed. I also understand nothing, so I could be completely incorrect. Whatever! Fraction takes you on a journey with intergalactic superspy Casanova Quinn, and it is absolutely insane. I’ve gotten to read the first couple of issues, and it really rocks out like nothing in Fraction’s Marvel catalog.

The series is getting reprinted in two four-issue arcs and in full color for the first time, and then Fraction is going to tackle the third volume of the series. I’m looking forward to it; it’ll be intriguing to see embryonic Fraction, fumbling through his first moments in comic book crafting. It’s a bit gushy, but the guy is extremely well-spoken, and beyond talented, and this is going to dominate my reading tomorrow.

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Batman: Odyssey #1
This week, we be getting the first issue of Neal Adam’s extravaganza. Adams has been instrumental in crafting the god damn Batman that we’ve come to know and love. His work in the 1970’s, were the “eggs [he] laid all those years ago” that have resulted in what “Batman has finally become”. Adams has returned to the Flying Rodent to examine the “now what” of Batman in this day and age. This meditation is arriving in the form of a six-issue extravaganza, and the man himself will be writing and drawing the entire storyline, as well as inking the first two issues.

I’m stoked.

Whether or not you’ve read Adam’s work on Batman, you’ve felt the repercussions if you’ve dallied in the world of Bruce Wayne. For someone who helped sculpt the character to return and give us a new storyline is pretty stellar. Frank Miller tried to do that with All-Star Batman and Robin, but I have a better chance of actually graduating from my Master’s Degree and entering the real world before it actually wraps up. So I’m going to have to cling Adams to deliver me some interesting new spins by someone who delivered a seminal work.

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I came across this today on Bleeding Cool: a motherfuckin’ X-Men toilet. Do you have nearly $500 to spare? Why not plunk it down on a toilet wrapped up in Jim Lee pencils from his days on the X-Men?

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