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Tycho

The longer I stay away from home, the greater the possibility of a psychotic break.  I have lost my mind on three separate occasions, so I am fairly well acquainted with the sensation.  I do not doubt that another day out would have landed me an extended stay at Chez Crazy.

We have fashioned from spare pixels a comic strip that we hope you will enjoy.  The first thing you will notice is that I haven’t drawn it, I’ll handle Friday’s strip instead, but I thought that you might need more time to preemptively blind yourselves.  The “Cell” chip that will potentially run the PS3 is not all that mystifying just to think of it, but it does raise some weird questions.  I’d already heard about possible plans to hook up all Playstation 3 consoles online and let them collectively process my Tony Hawk, or whatever.  The article linked above suggests that your television might have a Cell in it as well, so you’d select a certain brand of television and your games would run better.  I thought that was crafty, and sort of strange, but I think a lot of stuff is strange.  Just by way of example, I think that Comic Con is strange. 

Let’s talk about that for a bit.  I recognize that this will be perilously close to (if not out and out) navel gazing, but you’re stuck with it and I don’t know what else to tell you.  What’s more, my navel is fabulous, so you might enjoy it.  Let’s see. 

When I go to events where more than (let’s say) ten people are going to meet me, it always makes me vaguely uncomfortable.  Chief among my fears is that someone will catch on to the fact that we don’t have any idea what we’re doing.  They’ll see a frayed edge at the corner and be like “What’s this?” and I’ll be like “Fuck!” and they’ll tug the whole operation into oblivion.  The guy who does Bob the Angry Flower (his name is actually Bob Flower, it’s weird) stopped by, and he was actually wearing a sort of headdress that made him look as though he were himself a flower.  I guess he reads this, Penny Arcade I mean, and that completely blew me away.  I told him so, and he said “Why?  It’s pretty clear that it’s a hit.”

In my mind, I cried out.  Don’t jinx it!  You’re jinxing!

I think of what we do here as balancing an ostrich egg on an unabridged dictionary which is then itself balanced on a slate-grey cone.  We’re supposedly a “gaming comic,” but we’re just as likely to relate a tale about specious crustaceans or tiny machines that violate citrus.  You might come here one day and be like “Yeah, I can see myself reading that again” because we were on task, and then the next time you stop by I’ll be talking about carrot cake soup or some new codec I think is really efficient.  I don’t have any idea how it works.  I don’t know what makes you come back. 

So many people came by our part of Kiko‘s booth.  I’d been scratching my right knee a lot, and it was red as a winesap.  Did they look at my red knee?  I met genuine heroes of web comicry (Like Robert Wigu, who does “When I Grow Up”), upon whom I lavished affection.  Did it sound genuine?  You are not a genuine person.  I don’t think that sane people have a mental commentary track that dismantles their life while they are living it.  Luckily, sanity is no prerequisite for writing.     

Every photograph I’ve seen of me from the con, I’m either closing my eyes or in the middle of a long vowel.  Charming. 

I appreciate your tolerating this stuff, if indeed you did tolerate it.  I honestly didn’t know who else to tell these things to.

On Friday, I will collate a list of web work I was exposed to at the Con, with introductions and so forth.  I can practically guarantee that you’ll be adding a few of them to your regimen. 

On Friday, I’ll talk about games - I promise.  I did peek in at news from time to time while I was gone, and the only thing that caught my eye was the Black Hawk Down demo, which I tried to play last night but fell unconscious.  There was also some interesting Tribes related news - I guess they aren’t making Tribes: Fast Attack after all, which is mystifying, but whatever.  They did announce that an unnamed third-party is already at work on a sequel, which is positive, though it will be interesting to see through what lens they view the Tribes experience.  I’ll tell you how tired I am right now:  I can’t even find a way to turn that comment into barb at TribalWar.  I’m slipping. 

(CW)TB out.

if you want to make math

Tycho

Bioware‘s David Chan delivered his second article for our Industry section, which discusses some of the tribulations unique to the audio profession.  I thought it was excellent.

(CW)TB  

Gabe

I can’t say I recommend driving from San Diego to Seattle in one shot. We left at around 9:00 am on Monday and got home around 7:00 am on Tuesday. It’s great to be home but I’m still pretty out of it. The things that I can remember about the Comic Con are really cool though.

Thank you to everyone who stopped by our little corner of the Gameskins booth. I am always nervous when people actually meet us. I’ll never forget, once we had a friend from Sony Europe come to visit us while he was in Seattle on business. The first thing he said was “you guys are even bigger geeks in real life.” I think he’s absolutely right. I’m sorry if some of you have gotten the impression through the website that either of us is cool or interesting. I assure you nothing could be further from the truth. It turns out I was worried for nothing though. It was my first Con and so maybe I didn’t know what to expect. But it was more like some kind of geek pride parade than a convention. It was someplace that you could feel okay about the fact that you have a bookcase full of Star Wars books because right next to you is some guy who’s actually dressed as a Stormtrooper. No matter how big a geek you are you can look around and say “well shit, at least I’m not as bad as that guy.” I saw young kids there with their super hero t-shirts and arms full of comics. I just wanted to hug them and say “it’ll be okay kid, some day you’ll have a high paying job in the technology industry and those fuckers on the football team will be living in trailers and beating their wives.”

I also learned that apparently reading PA is some kind of pre-requisite for working in the game industry. We had people from Blizzard, Angel Studios, Blackbox, Lucas Arts, Fox Interactive, THQ and Capcom all stop by. When I found out I was talking to two of the guys responsible for the work of genius that is Soccer Slam I almost fell out of my chair. I guess they are making some kind of super soccer Slam for the Xbox and the PS2. They have added a bunch more teams for this version. It was all I could do not to kiss them. I actually did have to hug one of the Blizzard guys though. I am sure you have all drooled over the box art for Warcraft 3 just like I have. Well when the artist responsible for those images stopped by the booth I got all weak in the knees. He had two posters for us and since Monkey and I are the biggest WC3 fans in the crew he gave them to us. They just happened to be posters for the two races we play. So monkey got his undead poster and I got my Night Elf poster, signed by the artist himself. It was one of the high points of the show for me, and Monkey and I couldn’t resist actually hugging the poor man. Another emotional moment came when a friend from Angel Studios came by. Apparently famed Capcom artist Akiman is working with them on a new game called Red Dead Revolver. Well they showed him Penny Arcade and he liked it enough to send me a little note with a sketch. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t get a little misty eyed when looking at the picture. Here in my hands was an original drawing by the artist responsible for creating Street Fighter, and it was made out to me personally. The Madman himself translated the note for me. Apparently it reads:

“Hello Gabe san
Thank you for always supporting Capcom’s games.
I hope you keep supporting us in the future as well.
Yasuda Akira”

Oh Christ, here come the water works. Don’t look at me. I just have something in my eye. Damn Allergies you know.

-Gabe out

Tycho

Gabe was gone at the time, but a guy from Quicksilver came by - Quicksilver, you know.  Master of Orion III.  We had just set a guy up with a poster, and as he was leaving he asked us if we were looking forward to Master of Orion III.  What a stupid question, I thought.  That’s like asking if you’re looking forward to a blowjob.

Then, I looked at his badge. 

It’s a convention thing.  You see it at E3 as well, people staring at your chest, gazing at it with a hungry look.  I’d imagine many women are not unfamiliar with this strange chest fixation people seem to have, but it’s always new for me

His badge said Somebody Somebody Somebody, from Quicksilver Software.

Monkey and I mobbed him, olympic shit, leapt over the table and got a grip on him.  My pants were off and Monkey was unzipping in mid-air, soaring and massive, like a perverse carnival float.

(CW)TB