A young man asked us if we were planning on doing a sketch for this year’s convention, as is our sometime tradition. I don’t believe that was the original plan, but his enthusiasm won out in the end. I hope that this comic does not keep a person from relating their fantasy conquests, as I actually enjoy them - but when every fantasy story we hear over two days is concatenated into a single epic, the resultant product cannot fail to amuse.

I'm starting to understand that the "Seattle Area" is silly with developers, and it's only getting more dense. We've already got some massive players, and I'm just fine with that, but you might have caught the news about a Sony Online Entertainment Seattle branch. This is a development I hope we can transform into a series of free lunches disguised as editorial work sometime in the future.

We get a lot of mail about the fact that we don’t have a shirt with Gabe on it or a shirt with Tycho on it. This is something I plan to remedy as soon as possible. My idea is that we make a nice shirt with a picture of Gabe on the front and some crazy quote of his on the back. I’d like to do the same thing for Tycho, only I can’t decide on what quotes to use. So I’m turning to you guys for help. I’d love to know what your favorite quote is from each character, the one you’d like to sport on the back of a shirt devoted to that character.

Someone told us once that comics about words were not, I repeat, not funny, and I really have to stress that such comments only serve to exacerbate the problem.

I just wanted to remind everyone about Emerald City Comic Con this weekend. We’ll have all our shirts and posters including the new stuff like the “Jesus is Metal” shirt. We’ll also have the last of the Twisp and Catsby prints, numbers 2 through 49. We’ll be selling half of them on Saturday and half on Sunday with a limit of two per person. I recommend getting there early. As usual I’ll be doing sketches and we’ll be signing whatever you bring us…so long as it does not burn sting or bite.

The thermometer just kept going up when I put it in my mouth, I took it out at 102.1 and didn't look back. I don't know exactly what is happening - you know, within - but for the last several hours I have been privy to the most startling visions. Visions of extraordinary power and clarity.

As might have just become apparent, we're thinking about trying something different for this year's E3 strips. And also, it's kind of hard to like earnest young Ann, who herself seems to like The Merch. But that's not outside the statistical tolerance of her demographic.

Speaking of Legal prickwaving I have a funny story that I forgot to share with you guys. You might remember a while back I mentioned that there was an issue between me and a local radio program called the BJ Shea show. You can read all my posts from that day right here if you'd like. Essentially one of the companies doing PR for Child's Play set up an interview with this guy and then forgot to tell me about it until it was too late. I called up and apologized but the guy was a real jerk to me.Then he said a bunch of bullshit about me on his show and eventually I called up and we yelled at each other, which I thought was super fun. Kara said you could hear me screaming like three rooms away "YOU'RE NOT EVEN DRIVE TIME!"

This is an actual fight we get in every time something irritates his nasal mucous membrane. I've tried to tell him that Jehovah and I are kind of on the outs, and that I probably can't act as a conduit for holy favor. You know what I mean? I'm not really what you'd call sanctified. The contents of my bookmarks alone will keep me from those golden shores.

Penny Arcade, working out exclusivity deals with (the admittedly dwindling number of) videogame publishers? Are you guys out of your minds?

Galactic Civilizations was an extremely satisfying star empires game that did pretty much everything I wanted from the genre, and converted many from the Master of Orion III camp. That it was essentially an independent game I could purchase directly from developer Stardock is also something I appreciated.

One can hardly keep up with the level of consolidation and treachery in the industry anymore. My interest lies more in what these companies produce, so by and large I'm content just let them slink around in the dark and kill each other. Product, not production. To cite just one example, I'm interested in fruit - but not botany or agriculture. So there you have it.

I mentioned last week that we sent a fairly terse set of questions over to Blizzard. They're a lot more direct than developers are used to receiving. The crazy thing is, the answers we got back were a lot more direct than the interviews out there usually receive. Funny, that.

Last night in my guild chat window, I referred to the Fantastic Four trailer as grotesque - which I believe puts me in the running for biggest Goddamn nerd ever. It's a post whose rigors I plan to take very seriously. One of the responsibilities I've inherited is the creation of smart-alecky comic strips, which impugn the motives of potentially noble people.

Today's product covers many subjects of interest and import to our demographic, not the least of which is the latest salvo in the Marvel vs City of Heroes thing.