Attempting to experience as broad a swath of the medium as I can - to maximize my usefulness to you, but also, you know, video games - it's still entirely possible for me to miss things. The worst part is that if I actually like any of the games I'm playing, which is a nice outcome, another game must inexorably lose. That's how it was with the original Mafia, considered something of a holy text by many PC enthusiasts, and something I skimmed at best. I don't intend to miss it on the second go 'round.

What surprised me most about some of the reactions to our Dickwolf joke was not that people were offended. But that this was the comic that offended them. In each case the emails I got started with something like “I’ve been a long time fan” or “Been reading the comic for years...” and then they go into how this particular comic really bothered them.

Reaction to Wednesday's comic fell, conveniently for my purpose, into two camps: those who found a phrase like "raped by dickwolves" a stunning return to form, and those who felt that we were somehow advocating the actual rape of human beings.  It sounds as though we've already satisfied the first camp, but an effort should certainly be made to assuage the latter.

Something that is discussed with some frequency around here is how the quickly an MMO reverts to its default state, ready for the next bus-full of level appropriate tourists to do whatever that zone desperately requires. Whenever something happens outside this cycle - like WoW's phasing (which gets fairly elaborate by the time Cataclysm rolls around) or a dynamic party matching up against a tough public quest in WAR - it's exhilarating. And then you go collect your hooves.

Episode 3 starts NOW.

There are multiple ways to watch Inception, just as there are multiple ways to see it. It has that "movie-as-game" process of narrative detangling that you get with Memento (also by Nolan) or Primer. Gabriel resisted investigating the ideas of the film initially, and while that isn't necessarily courageous Inception is a movie that can work under those conditions. It didn't last long: soon, my inbox was playing host to links of a spoilerian nature and lowercase treatises commingling lucid dreaming, Zoroastrian prophecy, and the secret menu from In-N-Out Burger.

Gabriel finished his last book during the San Diego trip, and so he's been on the prowl for a new one, which is always a dangerous time. The last one managed to combine:

Did you know that there was a time when our website played host to comics of a "humorous" nature, japes of a merry sort, which dealt with popular culture in general and electronic games in particular? Return with me, friends, to those ancient times. The truth is even more savage, and brutal, and savage: we're considering a bump to a single medium opponent. I have written a will.

And it can be found here.

We decided to get our own warehouse up here in Seattle, for lots of reasons, but primarily to have after-hours shootouts with The Triads.  Brian and Robert are heading down to Austin next week to pick up all the stuff and move it up, but while they are in transit, you can take advantage of INCREDIBLE SAVINGS!  The store closes down on the 6th - yes, in like four days - but if you enter the code mov1ng when you check out, you'll get ten percent off everything you buy.  I didn't mean for that second part to be bolded, that just happened in the editor somehow, but I might as well leave it because that's important information.  

The Blood and Oil have finally run out in this, the fifth chapter. What a tremendous amount of fun that was, and we must all thank Ben Caldwell for drawing it and Gary Whitta for writing it.

Child's Play is incredibly vast, so vast that - even though Gabriel and I ostensibly created it - it extends far beyond our influence. That's how it had to be: in order for it to endure, it needs its own strength. But it's still surprising for me to realize the extent of its autonomy sometimes. The toy drive used to be the focus, but Child's Play is a banner now for a broad array of charitable impulses. For example.

Blood And Oil. Part Four. One more to go.

I've got more blood for you, and also more oil, in the ongoing series we're calling Blood And Oil - here's part three. This is a guest work; we did not draw or write this. I'm not entirely certain we could.

The new Episode of PATV went up on Friday, but I forgot to link it, because my mind body connection had been severed.  It is good, and funny, and good!  Please to enjoy.  Also, strip's up as well.  It's fucking incredible.   

It may be wise if, going forward, you think of the ongoing Blood & Oil series as something which needs to slow roast; the strip will be here, but the RSS feed will be your best friend regarding updates to the site. Once again: Blood & Oil is an Automata story written by Gary Whitta and powerfully realized by Ben Caldwell. It's in five parts, running all this week and into next Monday. Buckle up.