Imagine that there exists a great machine.

And so it begins: The Pilgrimage, Part One. There are (as intimated earlier) The Pilgrimages parts one through four. I will grant you that this is an odd genesis, but if you just strap yourself in and sign this sheaf of carefully crafted legal waivers, we will expose you to comic rays of unknown and perhaps unknowable power.

Gabriel will be gone for the week, having earned given a brief respite from his toils here at the Arcade. In addition to truly massive amounts of storyboarding and character design for Precipice, he just did the cover for the new MC Frontalot album, and then wrestled a bison. Immediately afterward! He's exhausted.

Despite the savageries I have borne for purchasing a Zune, I did buy it for a reason, and I held this reason tight in my palm like a mystic amulet.  The strip focuses on Gabriel's growing zealotry, its dark seeds bursting into clutching vines. The credit card was out, he was ready to buy, and I'll be God damned if I wasn't right there with him.

MC Frontalot just sent me a mail and let me know that a trailer is now avaliable for the Nerdcore Rising Documentary. There’s a lot of footage from PAX in the trailer so you may see yourself. Tycho and I make a very brief appearance as well.

It's been made abundantly clear that Ten O'Clock is time for Rainbow Six. It is not time for other games! You might think that it is, but it isn't. Don't show up at 10:05! That's not when it is.

Tech writer Dean Takahashi - that would be Dean "Opening The Xbox/The Xbox 360 Uncloaked" Takahashi - mentioned an upcoming documentary on his blog. Entitled "Moral Kombat," the trailer for it is mostly a sensationalist sort of hook whose urgent piano strains to convey the unrelenting danger of the coming Cyber Game War. I sincerely doubt the tone of the piece matches this trailer, given some of the participants - for example, I don't think that Henry Jenkins would be party to a hysterical dialogue, even in an attempt to tame it.

Sorry - I sort of have Zune on the brain at the moment. Also, we (and apparently Bill Gates) are addicted to that Cascada song. For some reason science cannot explain.

We actually found ourselves at the mercy of the Y2k7 bug - a lesser known bug, I'll grant you.  I think we got 'er squared away now.

(CW)TB
 

I've used a lot of wiggle language and grim turns of phrase, but I am not actually unhappy with my purchase. As the only person outside of Microsoft's blogger phalanx to appreciate the device, it feels very much like I should be. It presents interesting "scenarios", but opportunities to use them are (for me) so rare that they never factored into my decision making process. I would say that there are three key reasons I own one, which might help you make sense of it.

In the stillness after the Wii launch, owners of the odd console may have slipped into lethargy in advance of the next official Nintendo release. Their Wiimotes, bolstered by robust new straps, rest in cases of velvet. Now would be a great time to get them out.

Following “The Feast of Afterwinter” we waited a full nine months before doing “As Spring Dawns”. One of the things I try and do with the CTS strips is force myself to draw things that I don’t normally draw. If you look back through them you’ll see that they almost all start with some sort of nature scene. Obviously that sort of imagery is super important to the whole Samurai theme. But also I have a hard time drawing that sort of thing so it’s a good exercise.

It is here - the final page of The Hawk And The Hare. Why is is called that? Well, now you know.

After the Wandering Age 2 it was another six months before the CTS popped up again. This time it was in a three part storyline called "Last Rights". Finally we realized that each Wandering Age comic should have its own subtitle instead of a number. This one told the story of the CTS and his friend Tobun. It was originally just going to be a one page comic. Just this single page depicting the CTS leaving a body in the snow. We have always liked the idea of readers creating their own stories when it comes to the CTS and this seemed like a really interesting scene. It proved to be so interesting that people demanded we finish it. Many of you wanted to know who this guy was and why the CTS killed him so we made the other two parts. These ended up being Last Rights Part one and part two.

If it had been made clear to me that my accomplice would append each comic I uploaded with a fabulous treatise, I might have nipped off with some mysterious bottle, claiming to have been "laid low" by a vaguely defined pox. However, I understand that you may (from time to time) appreciate a host who can spell the word "palette." Ladies and gentlemen, it is my great pleasure to present this, the third page of our Cardboard Tube Samurai Event, entitled The Hawk And The Hare.

In my last post I had talked about the Cardboard and Steel storyline. Taking the character of the CTS and trying to make a more serious comic out of him bothered some people who preferred Gabe running around hitting people with the tube. I can completely understand that, our CTS comics are weird. We're constantly trying new things with the art as well as the story telling. Some times it works and some times it doesn't. About four months after the Cardboard and Steel storyline in which we introduced the concept of "The Wandering Age" we did the first WA strip. It's a pretty good example of one that I don't think worked.