While we languished in the terminal awaiting news of our delayed flight, we devoured any kind of stimuli - including expensive airport magazines. I believe the advertisement we present you with today is from Wired originally, but there were many such magazines, and after six days engaged in various kinds of labor I must say they ran together.

We're about to send out the passes to everybody who pre-registered, but if you have moved or something, we are afraid you won't receive the pass.  We are so worried that sometimes we can't sleep. 

Have you moved?  Please let Mike Fehlauer, our resident lorekeeper, know what your new address is so that it may be entered into the codex.  Drop him a line with the subject line "PAX Address Change."  If you click that link there, I have already filled that shit out. 

Have you pre-registered, but are not unable to come for some reason?  First, know that I will pour out a small portion of Bawls upon the baking sidewalk in your fond remembrance.  Next, please mail refunds@acteva.com so that you can get your moneys back.

We talked a little bit about PAX and other stuff when GameTrailers came by the booth at San Diego.  I was having a hard time at the beginning because I had only eaten lemonade and cookies all morning, and when she kept asking how things were going, each time I used the opportunity to hatch some new plot.  I am sorry!  Sometimes I do not take things seriously.

(CW)TB

I've checked out virtually every "Blank Label Comics" product at one time or another, but after watching them interact - secretly, and with some curiosity this year - I began to move through their considerable holdings again when I returned from that strange place. 

I'd gotten to Ugly Hill when, looking down at  Paul's post, I saw Mike Mignola's unmistakable art.  I had heard from our own editor at Dark horse that Mike was doing something completely unexpected, something called The Amazing Screw on Head, and it's apparently leapt from comics to animation.  Let me echo Ugly Hill's own desperate plea:  watch this pilot.  Fill out their survey.  I wonder if getting the type of television we want is actually as easy as telling them. 

(CW)TB

Having arrived home during the darkest hour of the night, this update is not exactly timely. I hope that one more bout of self-indulgence - heaped, as it is, upon the others, piled above shoulder-height - will not mar the union we have so long cherished.

I have some bad news for those of you hoping to get your hands on our new book “Epic Legends of the Magic Sword Kings” this weekend at Comic Con. We found out late this afternoon that the books would not be making it to the convention. This is the last uppercut in a “killer combo” that started Wednesday when we arrived at the show.

Most people aren't aware, and why would they be, but by the end of a convention our table is usually covered with sketches of various kinds. Often these sketches will include snips of dialogue (or simply just dialogue itself, on my side of the table) that sometimes becomes actual comics - it seemed like we could make that nascent product available to a wider audience. The "actual" sketch is on the upper left, the one about shaking scary hands, which is sort of an occupational hazard I suppose. Other weird ideas (such as Punisher Guy at the bottom and "George Lucas as an Ewok" in the lower left) are not included in their entirety. Simply know that it is sketches, sketches everywhere that the table is not covered by glossies for startlingly good webcomics or some crude instrument of our retail operation.

Most of the recent flights we've taken, I've turned to prescription anti-anxiety medication in order to make those experiences something less than psyche-shredding death jaunts. I meant to discuss it, but it never came up, because the time that I would usually employ describing a harrowing flight in soporific detail was spent thinking, man, about how each human civilization really is like a lighthouse.

Comic Con starts this week and I wanted to give you all a look at what you’ll find should you swing by our booth.

Reading over some Transformers set reports from Ain't It Cool, we began to feel concerns about the film very deeply. Not that I can actually see movies these days, my clambering heir's domination of my life being absolutely complete. But for you, dear reader. For you. We are concerned that you will not enjoy yourselves. It is this fraternal bond that makes us lash out, quick and searing, like a solar flare.

It's eight pages, including the cover - you can find it here, on the left side of the page.  I had a chance to play what would eventually become the demo a couple months ago, and what I saw made me feel pretty confident about doing a project for it.  In case you're wondering why we haven't mentioned it, there you go - we'd already written seven pages worth of text, it was just top secret.   Until today, I suppose.  It's a pretty strange project, I hope you enjoy it.

We bought a couple of Nate's Blambot Fonts for a different look, and they look great as always.

(CW)TB

SquareEnix is developing this strange but fun take on "stylus basketball," so cameos were virtually assured. 

I'd heard about Moogle already, but until I hit 4cr today I didn't know about the others - Ninja, White Mage, Black Mage, and that little cactus fucker.  The art for the cameos is uniformly excellent - Square Fans should definitely take a look.

(CW)TB

I say this so you can see for yourself if it's worth your time slash money, i.e. if you're willing to pay twenty dollars more for a version that works with less elegance.  At the very least, it should communicate the game with more eloquence than I did.  It may be that if you haven't already played and enjoyed it on the PC, the console version of the game rolls on dub plates (or whatever the authentic street terminology is now).

(CW)TB

We saw something over at Game Politics that was too good to leave alone - the mayor of Las Vegas is angry because the next Rainbow Six game nestles its geopolitical storyline in his city. If you haven't seen how, I really recommend that you get your hands on the full version of the E3 trailer (in HD preferably, in convenient mov or wmv formats). It's pretty horrifying. I sort of understand why he wouldn't want someone to see that, even though he hasn't seen it himself, so he doesn't actually know what he's talking about.  When they've spent so much money giving the impression that the town is primarily a haven for frequent and anonymous sexing, you don't want to get that signal crossed with "seething cauldron of anti-American terror."

The Ship just dropped on Steam, and if it wasn't something you were already keeping an eye on I wanted to make mention of it.  It's sort of like an Agatha Christie book come to life in videogame form:  the players have all been invited to a cruise liner by the mysterious Mr. X, free of charge, only to find that the vessel itself is a kind of human hunting ground for his amusement. 

How that plays out in game form, how your targets are chosen and how you stalk them, all of that is covered here.  Anyway, it's out, twenty bucks, I'm grabbing it now.

(CW)TB

As is often the case for our kind, some derelict account on some forgotten website had suddenly become critical information, and Gabriel's long forgotten password forced him into a temporary crisis. It did not help that the "secret question" he had configured was an almost useless wisp of enigmatic text.

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we were going to start cleaning out the store. We retired a few of the older t-shirt designs and now we’re blowing out the old 8x10 Laser Cels. The price on these prints has been knocked down to $19.99 and just like the old shirts once they’re gone, they’re gone.