I want to emphasize that when you lay eyes on the entity in today's strip, really take him in, that he is a real person and we are not making him up. This is a documentary! This is like Mutual of Omaha, but with polyhedrons.
I've already suggested that it's my intention to hand my money directly to an organism who can make use of it. There's a Games Workshop store near my office that is easily the best of its kind, its owner even took the time (with a full shop!) to instruct me in the use of washes. I sold my monstrous Necrons a long time ago, I don't even play that game. But when I need paints, supplies, or expertise, I make sure that this is where I get it.
But if what I'm trying to do is support the people who created the games I play, shouldn't I be ordering directly from them online? Now we've reversed polarities again, back to the online ordering side of things, and it starts to make less sense. I played a demo game of Warmachine five years ago, just after my son was born, and when the game was done I put my wallet on the table next to the miniatures and told them to start bringing out merchandise and I would tell them when to stop. They refused. They have a store, but they don't sell their entire catalogue - on purpose - precisely because they value this ecosystem. They know that the hobby lives in those places, that the hobby is (as much as anything else) a social endeavor. That requires that we come in contact with one another. Shops are the place where this happens.
Three crucial items:
- There is new Penny Arcade Television today, entitled The Takeover, which implies that the break's over. It would be especially hard to encapsulate this program, but years hence, it will probably be described as The Scott And Kris Episode.
- There are only two more days to put in your application for the Child's Play Job, which sounds like a heist, but whatever. It's a real job, and we need somebody incredible, and every other time we've hired out of the readership via Robert's nefarious process we get to know some incredible people. Is that you? Then Goddammit, send us your shit.
- Reading about the problems Jim Ward is having was incredibly heartbreaking for me. If the name doesn't ring a bell, his output - truly legendary artifacts of the table like Gamma World, Deities & Demigods, and The Pool Of Radiance - is probably familiar to anyone who has ever rolled a twenty-sided dice. His family is being buried under the co-pays associated with a long-term illness, and if his work meant something to you, please spend some time at the site.
(CW)TB out.
