Okay, I did the liney-things, and the things with the colors, and the stuff with the text. This is now an official comic.

I think what really pulls me in, when it comes to NBC’s popular TV show Grimm, is the cast. They picked some interesting actors.

So, I made a comic about it!

Looking back at the Pokemon series, I notice that Pokemon Black and White, perhaps the highest-rated of the series, is also the fugliest game in recent years. Leaving out the original trilogy, and the second series, because they were severely limited by the hardware, there is a significant difference in the beauty of the worlds.

Here’s a screenshot from Pokemon Black and White, showing the anti-hero standing next to some to some greasy garbage cans and a rusty dumpster.

(unless specified otherwise, screenshots from IGN)

Not very pretty, is it? Even the sky is dark and depressing. Well this is just a disgusting alley- that doesn’t say much about the entire game. So here we have another, showing the industrialized world of the games. There’s little beauty to be found in these bland, colorless, intimidating buildings.

The game is littered with abandoned factories with barrels of waste scattered haphazardly about the premises. One part sends you through this disgusting area, forcing you to navigate a child through the dangerous, unstable, deadly structures surrounding them.

How about these scenic filthy railroad tracks?

Not for you? Well not for me, either. The lazy, reckless way the crooked wooden boards can’t even barely support their part of the structure makes me wonder why a train hasn’t been derailed, leveling all the trees, houses, and people in the area. Although, if the quality of the tracks extends beyond just this screen, the landscape elsewhere is probably ravaged by the devastating effects of train derailment, stopping the train ride far before it reaches this town.

You might be wondering about the other games. “It’s not like the previous games were that great, anyway, right?” WRONG. Check out this screen from HeartGold and SoulSilver.

A beautiful Autumn landscape, with assorted colors in the trees, and even in piles of leaves on the ground, as compared to standing next to somebody else’s garbage seems pretty appealing, right? They put colors in leaves on the ground! Extra effort went into making something you walk on look nice.

How about this screenshot from the same game? Lush green trees, clear, clean, blue water, detailed architecture, with an appropriately colorful palette, put next to a the broken, abandoned world of Pokemon Black and White, accents the latter’s darker premise.

(image from gamespy)

Going back even further, to FireRed and LeafGreen, we see the beauty extends beyond recent titles. This scene shows so much, but implies even more. An old man takes time out of his day, kindly offering to teach a young, ignorant Pokemon trainer the basics of the profession. A bright, inviting home represents the tone of the town. Hedges, carefully planted evenly along the color-coordinated stone path, show the intimate touch of a person who not only knows how to do decorative gardening, but also that they would probably be settling down in that town. If you aren’t going to be somewhere for a while, do you plant things? No. And if the small town was anything less than great, why would it inspire somebody to settle down, and plant hedges?

(screenshot from Gamespot)

And then this screenshot, from Ruby and Sapphire, shows a similar town, if not a bit more relaxed. The hospital has a hot bath right next to it, and decorative flowers on the opposite side. Keep in mind that this is a small town, not a big city- maybe five houses are contained within its walls. So, unlike the world of Pokemon Black and White, it is not fueled only by big business, and the promise of revenue; most likely, somebody saved up their hard-earned money to get those flowers. Perhaps the whole town pitched in for that hot bath, saving collectively for months.

And so, the buildup to, and presentation of Pokemon Black and White reveal the dark truth about it. While the Pokemon series takes place, mostly, in a world of colorful beauty, Pokemon Black and White throw us into the harsh reality of the over-industrialized, crumbling society that is falling apart from generations of power abuse. The Pokemon series follows the same formula: a young kid aspires to become the greatest Pokemon trainer ever, overcomes obstacles, defeats his enemies, and eventually achieves that dream. Pokemon Black and White, however, tell a different, but similar story. The child rises, against the usual obstacles, but this time, his enemy speaks a truth. He questions the morality of capturing Pokemon, and forcing them to attack each other. The child brushes this idea aside, and once again takes out the person blocking his way to his goal, as the game shows us the futility of standing up for what you believe in, and the triumph over the naive, and selfish, over the outspoken minority, in a corrupted, ugly world, that is crumbling around them.

Who will save this dying world? Perhaps we will find out upon the release of Pokemon Black 2 and White 2

Flame on!

(image from nintendo.com)

For those who don’t know, Nintendo is releasing Mario Tennis Open for the Nintendo 3DS, sometime this month. In fact, they are pushing it pretty hard, with videos, screenshots, ads, etc.

Mario Tennis Open has a lot of promise. Unfortunately, an ever-occurring Nintendo-related problem presents itself with the game. The hundreds of screenshots, the hundreds of minutes of gameplay footage, they all show the same shit, over and over. For all the audience knows, the game could randomize characters, and the entire experience could just be immediate match-after-match of tennis (or something equally shitty).

It’s the same reason I didn’t pick up The World Ends With You! Lack of information variety almost led me to miss out on one of my favorite DS games of all time! From what I saw, the game looked to be an overrated arcade fighter with anime graphics. But I still ended up buying it, right?

There’s more to it. I worry about this game not only because it might be bad, but because it probably will be. Looking at the history of Mario sports titles, they reveal a history of underachieving, mediocrity, and wasting resources. Mario Sports Mix, Mario Super Sluggers, Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games, to name just a few titles which get 5s and 6s out of 10. People don’t seem to like them. And who could blame them? Mario and Sonic was a series of shitty mini-games, Mario Super Sluggers was like the same mini game over and over, Mario Sports Mix sacrificed quality for quantity to the extreme!

But then there’s the Mario Tennis series. The Mario Tennis games seem to consistently be praised for their impressive gameplay. Perhaps it’s the creative RPG aspects integrated with the handheld ones- in fact, the actual tennis matches were the most shallow part of those ones. Most of the game is an RPG-esque story-driven game. But perhaps Camelot, also the makers of the Golden Sun series, simply know how to make a great game. Well Camelot is back with Mario Tennis Open, teasing us with the possibility of deeper than on-the-surface gameplay offered in most mediocre Mario sports games.

But then… perhaps the shitty indifference usually put to Mario sports games has seeped into the open wounds of the series, infecting them. Maybe the shitty treatment of the 3DS as a gaming platform is in there, too. Only time will tell, I suppose. I will have to wait until some thirteen year old kid does a video review on YouTube, so I can finally see what the non-combat aspects of the game are like, if there even are any.

Okay, so I want to say this was a month ago? But explosm.net did a contest wherein the participants would have to take an existing comic, and then give it new text. I entered said contest with two comics.

One of which was this:

Pretty clever, right? Well, I thought so. Unfortunately, it wasn’t clever enough to win the top 7 slots in their comic contest. But it was clever enough to be copied by one of the comic’s own creators! Yesterday, Matt M. (previously noted comicker) graciously posted this homage to my comic rewrite, as he is clearly a fan of my works. Yes, my beautiful, perfect comic fit exactly with their type of humor, and seemed like a proper candidate for winner of the comic rewrite contest. I was on the right track for winning.

But then, an ugly greed reared its head. Matt soon realized my comic was too perfect. The setup, the punchline, the believable characters gracefully dancing you through a beautiful narrative- it was the most perfect comic ever. So, little Matt hatched a devious plan- he would hide the comic, keeping it far away from his comicking brothers, never letting them know of his discovery. All he had to do then was wait, posting it after the contest had died down, and he could post it as his own! Yes, it was a flawless plan! Except for one thing.

He didn’t account for the fact that somebody who participated in their comic rewrite contest might actually read the comic regularly! And so now I’ve caught him, red handed!

Here is Matt’s suspiciously similar comic, seen below:

Is it just a coincidence that this happened within a stone’s throw of the comic rewrite contest? I think not!

(Note: This is all done for the sake of humor. I don’t care that Matt M. may have obviously stolen my comic. If it was that important a joke to me, I’d have put it on my own comic. Blah blah blah, don’t sue.)

lampton:

gelatomoon:

hauseofmause:

The first 25 copies of Gorge just arrived today from Ka-blam! Contains the first two chapters, 38 pages of sexy ink and screentones all wrapped in a magazine sized glossy cover.

If you happen to be in NYC on the weekend of April 28th and the 29th, be sure to swing into the Lexington Armory for the MoCCA fest! I’ll be reporting table information shortly.

Reblogging this here, despite it being non-UTAU/music.
As you know, this is one of the other projects I work with outside the UTAU community. Hakailer and I have been working on this comic since March of last year, and now I’ll be promoting this comic at the end of April.

Please feel free to reblog this and spread the word, especially if you have any guys or gals that will be/are in the NYC area for this special weekend coming up!

 WE HAVE WORKED SOOO HARD TO GET TO THIS STAGE. Agh, thank you so much, Emily…..I hope you will do well at MoCCA!

Oh lovely, you have a book now!

You are halfway to famous!

This HUGE FUCKING SANDWICH had another half! I DESTROYED IT WITH MY TEETH.

“So, what happens when a previously exclusive game goes multiplatform? Well, if you’re a real gamer who gives a shit about a quality game series, you’ll be happy that the game is going to be enjoyed by a potentially wider audience. If you’re a Sony fanboy, however, you’ll form a petition and get incredibly upset like a little bitch.”

-Jim Sterling (Not the character on Leverage) http://www.destructoid.com/fact-ps3-fanboys-are-the-worst-149259.phtml

Why do I love this quote so? It is not inherently because of my mild Nintendo-fanboyism. It is because, with one small paragraph, this guy has captured the essence of what my blog is about.

It’s got abuse, video gaming references, reason, and humor. I say humor under the assumption that the article was made in jest, to poke fun at issues in gaming relations, rather than more unnecessary hate-spreading on the internet. We get enough hate from the faggot little Xbox Live users.

Like racists, this guy has managed to do something I haven’t- target a group of individuals. I have not taken this leap yet, mostly because I have too much journalistic integrity to be less than general about what I write. But everything I have read in this jackoff’s article has satisfied me. He offends without being overtly illogical. When he says something, he explains. He gives you his point of view, states logical reasoning, while still being a humorous asswipe about it.

I love it!

In the article, Mister Sterling pulls out his dick, and wipes it across the faces of a row of unsuspecting Sony fanboys, each one tied to a chair, all lined up in a row. He gives off a sense of “what the fuck- why do they do this” throughout, while simultaneously retaliating by shitting in their respective laps. He dissects fanboyism, pulling out and labeling each part. Then he has gross, sweaty, bloody sex with the pile of corpse parts. He uses reasonable references, citing popular online petitions, and comparisons to the general behavior of Xbox and Nintendo fanboys, and then he goes back and, again, has sex with the dissected remains. The (assumably) faux-elitism, and ball-sac-slappery is as entertaining as my shit-sexing adjectives are disgusting.

Though he singles out Sony fanboys, the article resonates with what I see fanboys doing wherever they are. In fact, Kotaku recently posted this:

http://kotaku.com/5901533/hes-incredibly-reasonable-for-a-nintendo-fanboy

It made me consider my thoughts on fanboys and fanboyism, and what it means to me. Sure, Microsoft fanboys are the least intimidating, but they still seem to be able to use the most logic. Nintendo fanboys are fuck-tarded, and they don’t use the significant aspects of their console to their advantage in debates. Sony fanboys are the most aggressive, most sensitive, and use probably the least logic of the three, fueling themselves more with rage than anything.

But then I remember that 2%. That beautiful, wonderful 2% that actually knows what the fuck they are talking about, that 2% that doesn’t just go to game site comments for a battle dick-rubbing and petty one-upsmanship, that 2% that doesn’t make me ashamed to call myself a gamer.

Those dudes kick ass.

They are the people who make it worthwhile to comment on things, even with the slight chance that they will be there.

But I have several rules when posting, to optimize my comment’s attractiveness to the same crowd.

Rule #1

Don’t be a faggot. This is rule number 1. If you go to an article about a 3DS game, and you are a Sony fanboy, and your comment only says that it sucks, go fuck yourself. You are not that 2%. You in are the 98% of faeces-bathing dick-tits that make it difficult for the rest of us to intelligently discuss the state of gaming.

Rule #2

Use good grammar. Proper understanding of grammar and sentence structure are what separates those 2% of people with the masturbating-at-the-zoo commenters who don’t think before they post.

“FUCK THIS GAME SUCK”

See how horrible it sounds when you read this jackoff’s comment? When they read your comment, it sets a tone. When that tone is your entire special education class yelling at the same time, you should already expect for people to treat you like you are retarded.

Rule #3

Be reasonable. It is fine to say you don’t like a game (or part of a game), as long as you are intelligent about your words, and you explain why, rather than just being a Negative Nancy. Of course, as with all fanboys (especially Magnavox Odyssey fanboys), there are going to be a lot of people who just see any sort of negativity, and begin thrashing about, trying to injure anything nearby. Luckily, they are dissuaded by logic. Idiot fanboys, the 98%, are fucking stupid, and are much more likely to read short, small, under-detailed comments than a paragraph of reason. Alternatively, intelligent 2%-ers flock to intelligent comments.

Rule #4

Don’t be a faggot. This is also rule number 4.

Well there it is. Good luck in your fanboying and game-commenting, and various readery!