I apologize if you are sick and or tired of hearing about our fabulous wares but it must me done. You will find many people online questioning the “give the things you make away for free” business model. I admit it is a tricky thing to make work but a big part of it is merchandise sales and there is no bigger time of year for selling stuff than the holidays. I’ve seen more than one syndicated cartoonist say that web-cartoonists are just a bunch of T-Shirt sales men. To that I say “bullshit...we also sell prints.”

Every year at the Child's Play Dinner (sold out, or I'd make that text a link) we auction an appearance in the strip that sometimes culminates in "Charity Brawls," so intense is the desire to be rendered in Gabriel's hand. Last year, it was Popcap's John Vechey. I'll let you know who gets it this time, so that you may be tantalized preemptively.

You're on it.  

We have a store which has things in it - things you may buy. Limited edition Jim Darkmagic Portraits and Book Six Hard Covers, for example.  Dickwolves Pennants.  Terrifying argyle cats on T-shirts und Hoodies.  Move Minor Standard shirts in Ladies' sizes.  And so very much more.

Gabriel is under the weather, slipping in and out of consciousness, and his condition has given him terrifying glimpses into the after-now - but he managed to produce today's strip, even in this prophetic state. I should have asked him to tell me what this Wednesday's comic was, while he was still suffused with future-stuff. That would have saved me a lot of time.

As a young man I worked a series of retail jobs at Toys R Us and then Circuit City. With out a doubt the worst day to work was Black Friday. I used to dread having to come in and deal with the insane people who showed up for all the deals. I remember one year at Circuit City we were offering a “free” computer. It was a shitty Compaq and you had to sign up for like four years of AOL to get all the rebates. You’d be surprised how many people don’t read the fine print. When they found out about the AOL bit I got yelled at as if this was my fucking policy. I sat there taking the abuse and trying to imagine the world that these people lived in. A world where computers are just given away for free on every street corner. It must be wonderful to be that stupid.

It being Friday, there is new episode of Penny Arcade: The Series. Specifically, The Proposal.  Also called "Erika: The Series." 

There were a few more jinks in reserve. These are aged jinks, comparable to a smoky Gouda.

Poker Night At The Inventory is out, and I've read some really nice things about it sur le web.  I wrote a few lines, but mostly looked after tone, which they seemed to have a strong handle on already.  I snuck a few lines in for other characters as well, because when am I gonna have an opportunity like that again?  Fun project, though.  A+++, would work with again, etc.

These jinks are so hi, you'll need an altimeter.

Is now available.  Has been for a little while, actually.  Good Lord writing these is fun.

There's been a rash of new OnLive reviews, based now on the MicroConsole - the standalone bit that hooks directly into a television. You already know what we think of the service itself: impressive technology, but not well suited to every genre. The device itself is beyond compact, very Astro in its profile, dense with capability without feeling crowded. When we were using the service on our Macs at work, though, the novelty was amplified considerably. Batman: Arkham Asylum isn't something we can play in OSX, and it's easy to be forgiving of an experience that is wholly enabled by their technology. When you've got it on a television, though, and you try to jump and you guy does it when he's Goddamn good and ready, it mostly makes you wonder why you aren't playing on a regular console.

I just got a mail from Eitan over at Fire Hose Games, who was kind enough to teach me how to play their game Slam Bolt Scrappers at the last PAX.  It's a game full of bizarre dudes, and they're auctioning off the rights to name said dudes, which I thought was pretty cool.

Welcome to Season Two.  

Have you seen the multiplayer for Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood? You really, really should. Yeah, sometimes it ends in a pigpile. This is what happens when you trap eight sociopaths in a murder simulator. For every pile-up like the one depicted though, every exacting period clusterfuck, the natural motion of the players in the space will provide ten utterly unique moments. At least.

With the kind of pressure I exert in the post for others to donate, I feel a strong compulsion to strike with decisive force.  Here's this year's Haul, then, now en route to Newfoundland and Labrador's Janeway Children's Hospital Foundation: