I stayed home today to spend the day with the fam, but I wanted to pop in here real quick and mention the Desert Bus 2: Bus Harder. Watching these kids torture themselves by playing Desert Bus for charity is a real treat. Hit the site now and keep their torment going by making a donation. 

Even as a Rock Band stalwart, ultimately I had to accept that Guitar Hero: World Tour was often an agent of progress. With a reinvigorated affection for the brand still coursing through my ample frame, I thought I'd give the portable version a try. I'm what you might call a Nintendo DS fetishist; I'm a fan of music games in general, but I'll take almost any opportunity to spend time with the system.

Fünde Razor has been running almost as long as Child's Play itself, and like the charity it has grown annually. This year, three cities will feel the heat.  Here's the awesome official poster, and a link to the main site. 

Wil Shipley (of Delicious Monster) has made a habit of purchasing a comic strip at the Child's Play Dinner each year, and with the next dinner hot on our heels he suggested that we complete the last one he bought before he committed to another one. That seemed fair. This is the only time we accept suggestions on strip content, because, well, this is why.

Here's the podcast for Monday's comic.  You should be warned that we talk about World of Warcraft a lot, but it's concentrated in the beginning and easily skipped.  As always, our feed throbs with archived delights - and the promise of podcasts yet to come.  

Word that Eidos PR company "Barrington Harvey" was trying to massage metacritic ratings was not surprising in and of itself, because as we suggest in the strip, that is (strictly speaking) their job. No, what elevated this ordinary act to strip material was that, when contacted for comment, a representative of the company literally said this was their aim.

Valkyria Chronicles has exposed the whirring mechanical core of our relationship, the meshed interests that probably lead to the creation of the site ten years ago. It's a wholly new tactical experience, a gridless affair that manifests artistry from top to bottom. We overlap, here. We overlap, too, on the more lavish cutscenes. Neither of us has any enthusiasm for the banal insights into human nature that many Japanese games traffic in, but even there we have agreement. He has zero interest in upgrading squads, researching ordnance, customizing loadouts, matching personalities, and the other tasks that are required to maintain Squad 7's edge on the battlefield. Bookkeeping is not his heart's delight. Me, you know, I'll keep a book.

This is the sort of post that could quickly get out of hand, especially with me at the rudder.  Don't worry, I'll make it quick.

Hinterland has been out for a little while, but like Eschalon before it, the system I use to determine what goes on Greenhouse next is that:

The Child's Play Charity dinner auction is coming up on December 9th. This is always an amazing night and one I look forward to all year. 

The first two panels were an actual conversation. The third is what we might call an extrapolation.

Here's my latest painting. I really like the way this one came out. It's much larger than anything I've done before. The canvas is actually 19"x30" which was intimidating at first. I really tried to focus my color choices on this one and I think it works. 

A while back I mentioned that I recorded myself making one of the pages for our Prince of Persia project. That video is available now and I'll just go ahead and link it here.

Kiko still jumps on, I think because he saw the comic, and took pity on my diminished station. Now that several days have elapsed, I'm seeing people percolating up into my Steam and Xbox friends lists, blinking rapidly, as though having emerged from a dark cave.