For the love of games.
It’s not often I feel the need to defend games, whether it be individual titles or the medium as a whole. However, after a week that saw Eurogamer lose Robert Florence and face the threat of libel charges after voicing some pretty blatant truths about the games industry, it seems only fitting that games, and the culture surrounding them, should be studied and scrutinized more often.
With that in mind, perhaps we should consider what makes the medium so great, so worthy of our passion and just what it is that we should strive to preserve. In this case, I want to talk about who makes it so great.
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John Hodgman on why COMICS CONTINUITY sucks. (He’s correct.)
Fuck continuity. It serves, more often than not, only to incite fanboy rage and nit-picking. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most of my favorite comic tales are Elseworlds or tales that take place in the future. They’re liberated from constrains that serve more to jerk off history than to give the world a richness. I’m feeling you, John Hodgman!
‘COMMUNITY’ season four starts in Canada first. Wonky Canucks!
Canada has it figured out, man. Bears that can ice skate and cook waffles. Medicine for everyone. Community actually hitting the airwaves. We live in the underbelly, jealous of their talking trees who dispense maple syrup and pleasantries.
SATURN’S SIZE will make you feel like the mite you are. Relativity ++
Our fat brains can’t really process things. Consider Saturn’s sheer enormity in comparison to us. Then try and comprehend how small in relation to the sun. Then appreciate how fucking small the Sun is in the grand scheme. Nosebleed incoming!
Tarantino: ‘DJANGO UNCHAINED’ and ‘INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS’ are two-thirds of loose trilogy. Maybe.
Buried in dope movies this fall? I know I am. I’ve been cutting through them with my money-saber, splaying wants and desires across my bank account. If you’ve been so buried that you’ve forgotten that Django Unchained is dropping on the Day of Some People’s Lord, here is a neat reminder.
‘CALL OF DUTY: BLACK OPS II: COMMERCIAL: Tony Stark, Guy Ritchie, and ‘Splosions.
Big-named Hollywood actors don’t give no fucks anymore. Used to be television was the death knell, now it saved careers. Used to be wonky commercials happened overseas. Now Guy Ritchie is directing RDJ in a Black Ops II advertisement. I liked it. Shut up.
Monday Morning Commute: Frankenstorm’s Monster
Hello there! If you’re reading this it means that Frankenstorm hasn’t totally rocked you. Not yet, anyways. Or, if you took the proper precautions as I did, you’re safe in a bunker, leisurely tapping away on a hard-shelled laptop produced in 1995 and powered by a Soviet-surplus generator.
Mother Nature is a powerful woman of antiquity, but I’m a crafty miscreant in the digital age.
Anyways, welcome to the Monday Morning Commute, the weekly meeting at which we confess our darkest entertainment secrets. Can’t tell your boyfriend about that comic book you bought? Come to the MMC! None of your coworkers will appreciate the Japanese import you just got in the mail? Come to the MMC! Pretty sure your wife doesn’t give two buttery squirrel shits about the fact that you’re going to beat Super Mario Bros. 3 without the use of a single warp or whistle? Come to the MMC!
I’m going to get things started. But then it’s up to you to share what you’ll be doing this week. C’mon, it’s electronic show and tell!
Press Start: Dew n’ Dorito Nightmare
All week I’ve been vividly imagining the symbiotic relationship between Mountain Dew and Doritos whilst trying to figure out just how video games fit into it. Cross-promotion is a bizarre concept to me; I keep trying to see the links, the patterns and then I get scared and frustrated when it doesn’t all piece together. I’ve been having fevered nightmares about neon, corn-peppered shit slurry: really vivid, nasty stuff. I need to write this to exorcise them demons.
All You Need Is One in the Chamber!
When I interviewed writer Steven Walters back in June, he told us that an 8-page AKA prequel was in the works. I immediately began foaming at the mouth and had to seek medical attention. Unfortunately, my brother had me committed to a macabre asylum. It was a truly trying time, with the only silver lining being that my roommate was a loon-bag named Renfield who liked to eat birds.
Fortunately, my case of spontaneous mad-dog has subsided just in time for me to tell you about AKA: One in the Chamber!
Not only is this comic going to give readers some back-story to the crime’n’blood, babes’n’bullets wonder that is AKA, it’s also going to help creators Steven Walters and Rob Reilly spread the word to retailers. In their words:
THE MISSION:
Being an independent comic creator and publisher is difficult. In this market projects like our’s, despite having a previous successful Kickstarter campaign to pay our colorist and letterer, tend to get buried under the popularity of mainstream & established superhero books.
It is our hope to raise the necessary funds to produce 10,000 FREE promotional comics with a story that predates our graphic novel, AKA, in order to increase our readership.
The plan is to have this 8 page prequel, along with an advert for the trade, be distributed to indie-friendly retailers and given out to potential comic readers.
However, we are offering (among other things) exclusive variant covers for our backers by such great talents as Mike Hawthorne, Mike Oeming and Taki Soma.
Do you like comic books? Awesome action scenes? 1970s exploitation flicks? Supporting the underdog? Unless you’re a total butthead, you’ve answered “Yes” at least once, so there’s only one thing to do. That’s right, head over to Kickstarter and help get AKA: One in the Chamber made! I know money’s tight for everyone these days, but I promise you that you’ll enjoy AKA: One in the Chamber much more than thatRed She-Hulk vs. Fathom variant cover you were planning on buying.
Seriously.
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KICKSTARTER / STEVEN WALTERS / ROB REILLY
WEEKEND OPEN BAR: Revealing costumes and party fouls!
[WEEKEND OPEN BAR: The one-stop ramble-about-anything weekend post at OL. Comment on the topic at hand. Tell us how drunk you are. Describe a comic you bought. This is your chance to bring the party.]
What’s up, fools! I’m not going to lie to you all. Despite it being nearly 10:30 on a Friday evening, I’m staring into the void of a Word document trying to churn out my thesis for graduate school. None the less, I figured it was worth barfing up some sort of Weekend Open Bar. The site’s been quiet all day, and dammit I miss you guys and gals. So I had to come up with something. Something! Anything. Mindless, I panicked. Nothing was coming to mind.
