Pedro...

I LOVE YOU LET'S REMARRY

Reasons "Blackest Night" Will Be Bad

The first issue of "The Blackest Night" goes on sale next week, and I have to say I'm looking forward to it. I plan to actually collect this crossover so I might join in some online discussion as it goes for once and finally have something to test out a nice 30-issue bind on. Now, there are a lot of reasons that this will be a good book: it's a superhero/zombie/space opera epic that one of DC's big names has been working towards for years (and not in a bullshit Secret Invasion way).

However, there are lots of reasons why it might be really, really bad as well. Remember, Geoff Johns wrote the trainwreck that was Infinite Crisis, in which he symbolically and literally tried to kill all sense of whimsy in the DC universe. Furthermore, "Green Lantern: Rebirth" was a six issue retcon explanation no matter how hard the writing tried to pound it into a coherent narrative or how much the content introduced has been used since. However, he's gotten better since then. His old Flash and JSA were good, and "Legion of 3 Worlds" has been FANTASTIC (if a huge wank-off to HIS version of the Legion no others count goddamit). In the end, he's definitely got more hits than misses.

But for now, let's focus on his other seminal work, the second part of his "Green Lantern trilogy", "The Sinestro Corps War." Pretty much everyone loved it, while I found it fairly good. It does have a solid narrative base, but there are a lot of little problems that add up to drag it down for me. By far my biggest pet peeve is, well... try to guess for yourself:



Now, I get it. The classic GL mythos has Hal Jordan being "honest and fearless" and "one who can overcome great fear" but good god man, that doesn't preclude you from using synonyms!



Gah! It really makes the dialogue feel stilted and forced. They just have to slam home that they're fighting FEAR. Their enemies wield the power of FEAR. They need to overcome their collective FEAR. We get it! It's even more jarring when you get to exchanges like this:



That's one of like three times that he doesn't resort to his old standby. I want to believe that some editor decided to risk alienating their big money-maker when he wanted to write "fear-motivated mini riot."

And while we're on the subject, as I was slicing up that fear montage (for hours, to entertain one person, hope you're happy) I remembered the second thing about the storyline that irked me: the moments that stood out in their ridiculousness in the series about alien space cops with magic rings fighting counterpart-Supermen-cyborg parasites that run on the power of being scary. These are just the things I gleaned from the first THREE issues mind you; if I had taken every fear reference from the whole series that montage would be six times as large.

"There were rumored acts of fascism, excessive violence and, worse yet, instilling across his own planet."

Now, the fear thing is bad. But I'd worry more about the fascist government and the excessive violence. That's just me. I think I'd focus on those two first, and in the meantime I'd DEAL with being scared.

"I never believed in fear. Not before I came face-to-face with Parallax."

Waitwaitwaitwaitwait. Hal Jordan never believed in fear? As in "I don't believe in leprechauns" believe? What the... how does that work? Did he not get when he saw people react to scary things, which he would see quite often in his job of space cop superhero? Is he literally missing the flight or fight response? That's not courageous, dude; that's a mental illness.



I think it'd be "AHHH! AHHHH! AHHHHHH! I'm being strangled by a space monster! Oh my god! Shoot it! Shoot it! AHHHHHH!"

Now here's where I get worried about Blackest Night. Recently it's been revealed that there's an entire "emotional electromagnetic spectrum" that will be harnessed by seven corps, wielding the lights of red rage, orange avarice, yellow fear, green willpower, blue hope, indigo compassion, and violet love. You know what the means? I hope you like reading the words "rage," "avarice," "fear," "willpower," "hope," "compassion," and "love." I expect the "war of light" to look something like this:



...I might have gone of on a tangent with some of those bubbles, but you get the general idea. Hopefully Johns will be able to hold back and just give me a good goddamn zombie/cape story. Guess we'll find out on Wednesday.

EGM's Top 100

Here's the list of EGM's 100 best games from their (well-worn) 150th issue. Games were cut off at October 31, 2001, so there are very few PS2 games and no Xbox and Gamecube; it pretty much covers the entire library from Dreamcast down, which is the gaming generation I grew up with and am most fond of, which may be why I like it so much. Here we go:

* = I own this in the original format
** = I own this in some kind of other format
*** = We can get some version of this (not neccesarily original format) for ten bucks or less

100. Decathlete* (Saturn)
99. Wipeout XL (Playstation)
98. Quake III Arena* (Dreamcast)
97. Mario Golf*** (Game Boy Color)
96. Phantasy Star (Master System)
95. Zelda II: The Adventure of Link (NES)
94. Baseball Stars (NES)
93. Super Smash Bros.*** (N64)
92. Ice Hockey* (NES)
91. Final Fantasy VII (Playstation)
90. Resident Evil (Playstation)
89. Dragon Warrior IV (NES)
88. Virtua Tennis* (Dreamcast)
87. Sega Rally 2* (Dreamcast)
86. Actraiser*** (SNES)
85. F-Zero X* (N64)
84. Samurai Shodown II*** (Neo Geo)
83. Daytona USA* (Dreamcast)
82. Kirby's Avalanche / Dr. Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine* (SNES/Genny)
81. Ape Escape (Playstation)
80. Skies of Arcadia (Dreamcast)
79. Mario Kart 64*** (N64)
78. Star Fox* (SNES)
77. Metal Gear Solid (GBC)
76. Sonic the Hedgehog 2* (Genesis)
75. Lunar: Silver Star Story Complete (Playstation)
74. Shining Force III (Saturn)
73. The Revenge of Shinobi* (Genesis)
72. Advance Wars (GBA)
71. Phantasy Star II** (Genesis)
70. Ninja Gaiden II: The Dark Sword of Chaos*** (NES)
69. (Dude) Metroid* (NES)
68. Super Ghouls 'N Ghosts** (SNES)
67. Street Fighter Alpha 3 (Playstation/Dreamcast)
66. Donkey Kong* (Gameboy)
65. Perfect Dark* (N64)
64. Mega Man II** (NES)
63. R-Type (R-Types version) (Playstation)
62. Resident Evil 2 (Playstation)
61. NiGHTS* (Saturn)
60. Super Mario RPG (SNES) Should be no. 1 amirite
59. Virtua Fighter 2* (Saturn)
58. Sonic the Hedgehog* (Genesis)
57. Final Fantasy IX (Playstation)
56. Landstalker*** (Genesis)
55. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX* (GBC)
54. Devil's Crush*** (TG-16)
53. Super Punch-Out!!* (SNES)
54. Herzog Zwei* (Genesis)
51. Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse*** (NES)
50. Guardian Heroes (Saturn)
49. Contra* (NES)
48. Paper Mario*** (N64)
47. Panzer Dragoon II: Zwei* (Saturn)
46. Pokemon Gold/Silver*/Crystal (GBC)
45. Phantasy Star Online Ver. 2 (Dreamcast)
44. Super Mario Kart (SNES)
43. Final Fantasy Tactics (Playstation)
42. Contra III: The Alien Wars*** (SNES)
41. Ms. Pac-Man
40. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Seasons (GBC)
39. The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages (GBC)
38. R-Type Delta (Playstation)
37. Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (PS2)
36. Chrono Cross (Playstation)
35. Castlevania: Circle of the Moon*** (GBA)
34. Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!* (NES)
33. Saturn Bomberman (Saturn)
32. NCAA Football 2002*** (PS2)
31. Madden NFL 2002*** (PS2)
30. Street Fighter III: Third Strike* (Dreamcast)
29. Super Mario Bros. 2 (All-Stars Edition)* (SNES)
28. Hot Shots Golf 2 (Playstation)
27. Sonic CD*** (Sega CD)
26. Chrono Trigger** (SNES)
25. The Legend of Zelda* (NES)
24. Super Castlevania IV*** (SNES)
23. Gunstar Heroes* (Genesis)
22. Super Mario Bros. (All-Stars Edition)* (SNES)
21. Dragon Force (Saturn)
20. Galaga
19. Panzer Dragoon Saga (Saturn)
18. Pokemon Puzzle League* (N64)
17. Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (Playstation)
16. Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island** (SNES)
15. Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec* (PS2)
14. Metal Gear Solid* (Playstation)
13. Street Fighter II: Hyper Fighting (SNES)
12. Final Fantasy V (FF Anthology Edition) (Playstation)
11. Super Mario Bros. 3 (All-Stars Edition)* (SNES)
10. Super Mario World* (SNES)
9. Final Fantasy III (SNES)
8. The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time* (N64)
7. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask* (N64)
6. Soul Calibur* (Dreamcast)
5. Super Mario 64* (N64)
4. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (Playstation)
3. The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past* (SNES)
2. Tetris
1. Super Metroid*** (SNES)

You've got a modded PSX, $35 can mod my Saturn, and Dreamcast can play burned as well. The rest we don't own we can buy or emulate, but I think we should try to stick to the original format as much as humanly possible. And we definitely need the GB Player disc.

Whatchu got?

Dude

Not cool.

Pointless Nostalgia

Today I found a website devoted to scanning and preserving old game magazines, and downloaded a copy of the fifth issue of EGM2.

Now, my first thought: there was an EGM2? God, but for the golden age of gaming magazines. This thing is roughly 250 pages, and this is all the stuff they couldn't fit into the 250 page issue of EGM1. Last game magazine I picked up had roughly 40 pages of content in it. Ugh, I will miss the gaming mags when they inevitably die out, but if they were still publishing 250 page monsters chock full of content and mini strategy guides and features for six bucks a pop I would buy them! And I'm the only market that matters. Cater to me.

This issue was published in... god, I could go back and look, I could, but yeah... I believe 1994. The 32X is about to come out, and the cover proudly boasts coverage of Jaguar, 3DO, and CD-I games. Now, I wasn't really cognizant of the industry in 1994, being 7 and all; I just bought what the ads told me to. It's fascinating to look back. The Jag, 3DO, and CD-I were all relegated to the ash heap of gaming history, but this must have been them in their (for lack of a better term) heyday, being treated as serious contenders, with reviews, previews, strategy, and advertising galore. There's talk of Sony and Sega's 32-bit consoles, but they won't be out for a year. It's just... wow, really interesting. I've always said I want to write a book (series) on the industry, and it's clear that I could do a volume on 1994 alone if I had a stack of these things.

Now, combining the topics of young me re: the gospel truth of game advertising and the sorta-3D-halfway-between-generations 3D0, Jaguar, CD-I, and 32X, I came across this WONDERFUL Nintendo public service announcement about the dangers of buying new hardware (unless you don't own an SNES, in which case buy that).

Check it out, Pedro, THUMBNAILS:



Holy hell. You know, at E3 '09 the crowd "ooooohed" at some remark the Natal guys made about their mini-astronomicon's real gameplay as opposed to the Wii's canned motions, but christ, back in the day these companies ran fucking smear campaigns. This is a goddamn political smear campaign! So put on your best Karl Rove smugly pointing out the obvious flaws in Sega's national security agenda inner voice and let's read this thing:

First of all, what's with the NEW HARDWARE NOT NECESSARY and 16 BITS IS ENOUGH? They're like newspaper headlines but don't quite fit for me... maybe I'm just weird, but make your ad look like a newspaper or use complete sentences, goons.

Oh, and also, it's very clearly designed to look like any other article in the magazine, and I don't know if it's just a design thing or if they actually thought children would say "the editors of EGM2 make a good point!" You see this crap in real newspapers too, something like CAR DEALERSHIP HAS GREATEST DEAL EVER, and while you're thinking god, the wall street journal's not even trying anymore you see the giant ADVERTISEMENT labels undoubtedly required by law plastered all over the thing. Why didn't you see them immediately? Shut up, my example uses dream logic okay?

Now, we begin with a lot of talking about "The Next Level," saying that all of these half-breeds have promised but not delivered. Now, Jag, 3D0, fine, but they say that the Genesis promised to be the next level, and I guess wasn't? When it was released in 1989? Put Sonic 3 next to Mario 3; that's the next fucking level! That's like at least seven levels of graphics and four levels of sound more. They totally raised the level there! I don't know how they can say that that level was not the next level over their then current level when that level was clearly several levels beyond the highest level they could have obtained.

No no, Nintendo had a different strategy than to release a new console two years in that would be slaughtered by upcoming consoles that could do 3D that didn't look like Star Fox with fewer chromosomal disorders: they signed a deal with Sony, realized they didn't read their contract, and made an enemy for life that ended up beating the shit out of them for the next decade; I mean the 32X may have cost Sega $100 billion, but that's (astoundingly) nothing compared to Nintendo's blunder there. But I digress, I was going to do a tangent, thing then it went on too long... anyhow, Nintendo apparently decided to "improve today's games through new software development techniques." Of course! All the corporate heads were sitting around the table and came to that unanimous decision, "let's continue to make our SNES games look and play better." Thanks guy, there's a reason the stockholders pay you such a high salary!

Nintendo (and I realize that a guy probably wrote this, not the whole of Nintendo, shut up) goes on to say that CD-ROM games never live up to the hype, a position they would cling to for the next half decade despite all sales evidence to the contrary. It's pointed out that even with 500mb of memory you're limited to a very small amount of fmv to make crappy games out of, so instead, why not use 3D polygonal characters that can be viewed from any angle? Thus sorting out the dilemma of the superiority of cartridges forever.



Now Nintendo just really rips into these pricks. "In fact, the most impressive numbers are the high end retail price tags of the systems" WHOOAA kitten's got claws. Then they point out that none of the systems have sold well, "it seems that game players aren't convinced the 3D0 and Jaguar represent the next level any more than the slow-selling Sega CD" DAMN Nintendo what won't you say? As a sidenote, ever notice how douchey the word "seems" makes you? It SEEMS like this guy did this hurm hurph hurm I'm so cool and calm and right hurm harm. Okay okay, moving on, here we fucking go: "as for Sega's 32X adaptor, how many games do you suppose will be made for a tacked-on system with a life expectancy of maybe a year?" Sure they turned out to be right, but at that point they had no way of knowing.

"It's simple. The Super NES has the best games in the world and it won't bankrupt you." You know, this is an awesome advertisement in its sheer jerkassitude (that Sega started by the way, I ain't playing favorites), but god that is easily the best line. Hey assholes, we cost less and check out our bitching game that looks better than everything those douchebags are doing. This is the one point where if you were buying one of those consoles over a Super NES Nintendo was allowed to call you out as a fucking idiot, and history completely vindicated them.

Ah well. I need to get more of these magazines, I love this crap. Yeup, DKC was a huge market crusher and Nintendo had two sequels made, crushing the 16-bit market with huge profits for the next and last two years of 16-bit profitability before moving to the N64, while every other console on the market at the time died. Everything in this ad turned out to be 100% true. I wish they had the balls to produce more smear campaign ads in this day and age, though as they wouldn't work as pop-ups I doubt they ever will.

Oh and also, apparently Star Control 2 came out for the 3D0. I wonder how much they run for on ebay...

Clone Saga Musings

I think about 90s comics megaevents far more than is healthy, and today, spurred on by this amazingly hilarious article, I got to thinking about the infamous late 90s Spider-book super event, the Clone Saga. For those of you who don't know (Pedro), the Clone Saga centered around the return of Ben Reilly, a clone of Spider-Man that Spidey had fought with back in the early 80s and thought was dead. With him came the original perpetrator of the clone saga, the Jackal (the one who had died in the 80s was a clone) and a bunch of crappy new villians, most of them also clones of Spider-Man. I know you're already sick of clones just from this paragraph, as they're about as boring a plot device as magical mind-wipes.

Thanks to a total lack of editorial control and orders from marketing to keep the surprisingly profitable storyline running for as long as possible, the thing took two years to finally finish with four or five aborted endings, eventually revealing that it was all the most elaborate practical joke in history perpetrated by the surprisingly not dead original Green Goblin Norman Osborn, who decided to kind of passive-aggresively dick around with Spidey with angsty clones instead of flying through his window and shoving a pumpkin bomb up his ass.

The main (well, one of the main) points of contention comes roughly a fourth of the way through, where the Spiders finally get an extensive battery of tests done and it is revealed that Ben Reilly is the original, and the Peter Parker we'd been reading about for 15 years was the clone. Naturally, fans HATED it, for reasons that should be obvious. The clone's Spider-adventures didn't count, they were just essentially reading about some guy who had dressed up as Spidey.

It was Marvel's intent to move Peter and his pregnant wife out of the books so they could have the REAL Peter Parker go back to being single and silver-agey without 20 years of crappy late 80s/90s baggage pulling him down, and I must say it makes a little more sense than changing reality by selling your pregnant supermodel wife to the devil. It didn't work out, they pulled Peter back as the original out of their asses and spent half a decade weighed down with the baggage, and now we're roughly back on track and never ever EVER mention it.

But think of it this way. What if Marvel had planned in advance for the massive fan backlash at Peter being a clone? This could have been some of the most meta shit in HISTORY.

Peter's a clone. Fans are unhappy. His adventures, accomplishments, his life didn't count because he's not the real guy. Well guess what? THAT'S HOW PETER FUCKING FEELS RIGHT NOW. It could have been an AMAZING way to get readers to identify with what Peter was going through. And, if they kept it going for awhile (like, say, two years) with good writers (yeah, the 90s) then slowly but surely Peter could have come to terms with his clone blues and become someone who liked himself and cared about himself again, regardless of his origins or what he was made for or all those other cliche clone dillemas, and at the same time the fans would come to accept him too. The writing would have to be really good though, surprisingly better than expected, "bring Bucky back from the dead as a cyborg soviet killer and make it awesome" level good. In the end, readers could identify with Peter getting back on his feet because they too would have accepted him.

Now let's look at his wife, Mary Jane. At this point, she was pregnant with Peter's child (don't ask how that turned out), but she has to know, as much as she loves Peter... he's NOT the same guy who was with her for the first 20 years of Spidey continuity. In the future, one of them is going to bring up a "remember that time" and then get really uncomfortably silent, because at that time Peter didn't exist, it was Ben. As caring and accepting and awesome as MJ is, there's some little part of her that's not going to accept it and taint the relationship. And this is ANOTHER GREAT WAY TO IDENTIFY WITH THE READER. Because as good as Peter as a clone is written, as many fans who have grown to love and accept the new status quo, there's still going to be that tainted feeling of getting screwed.

And finally, we have Ben. He's going to be picking up his life after Peter leaves with his wife for a happily ever after. But he's missed five in-universe years of experiences. He can't just walk in and have it be the silver age again. His friends are going to say "Hey Peter, where's your pregnant wife?" and be pissed off and suspicious when he can't remember relatively recent events. And Ben himself isn't just silver age Peter. He's spent five years on the road having god knows how many kinds of new experiences. He's still technically married to Mary Jane. The point is, if done intentionally, it goes to show that you can't just go back to the past. Things have changed, the world has changed, the characters have changed, and have to work with that.

These three characters could form an amazing meta-textual examination over the reality of ficional characters and change, which would be cool as christ.

Unfortunately, in the real world it would never happen because:
1. No writer is that good.
2. Marvel would much rather go back to status quo with Spidey as opposed to accepting that 50 goddamned years of stuff has happened to him that might change him a bit.
3. Their entire premise would rest on fans being utterly disgusted with a major plot development, which isn't good from a sales standpoint.

Still, I think it could have been interesting, given a decade and a half of retrospect.

Microsoft's Terrifying Vision of the Future, Part Two

I know, I know, I know... it's been a few days, and I admit I've calmed down some. But good GOD, this Natal thing is still terrifying as hell.

First of all, the kid with the skateboard. Stealing Clobert's joke, there's finally a game for people who own a skateboard, and know how to skateboard, but do not want to actually go outside and skateboard. And, just from a non-terrifying marketing perspective (well, I'm sure it's terrifying to Microsoft's sales team), it just seems like an idea that wouldn't really work. DDR's fun, but it's not something you want to play all the time, or even most of the time. I'm the biggest light-gun fanatic in the world, but one two-hour Gameworks run through a majority of the greats and I was willing to hang it up for a month or so. And I'm betting this will be the same thing.

Now, look at the bit of the video (it's in the first post, scroll down some ya lazy bastards) about the girls discussing clothing options for the upcoming "big dance." The scrolling through with a frenchman's wave to pick out a random dress (that of course has no labels or... is anything close to a real dress you can buy) virtually while talking on the video phone reminds me of the future everyone thought we would have in the 80s until we realized that it was stupid and we didn't want it.

But by far the most terrifying thing is this:



Good God. I'm hoping to God that this isn't real, I really really do. First of all, this kid is right in the center of the uncanny valley, which is creepy enough, but let's face it:

Filthy things are going to happen to this poor, virtual child.

What's the first thing EVERYBODY does when they play Grand Theft Auto? Turn on cheat codes and run people over with a tank. When people get their hands on this incredibly realistic child simulator (and I have to ask... how do they plan to really sell this thing? Is it a game or what?), and see how lifelike it's responses are, they're going to start thinking.

"Does this child really understand everything I say?"

"Will this child recognize that I took off my pants?"

This isn't just child molestors, folks. Everyone is going to do this. If I got a copy of this "game," I am 100% sure that I'd do it sooner rather than later too.

So yeah. It's creepy.

Whew, glad I got that done with. Now I can write some other stuff.

Omnibuses: Where Have You Been All My Life?

Hello, all (well... again, just Pedro). Recently I happened upon the first two Starman omnibuses in my local library, and I have to say, in addition to being a high-quality series (tho unless it picks up later, I can't see myself going completely gaga over it), it has really, really endeared me to the omnibus format. Being able to grab a book and read it for a span of a few hours, as opposed to your standard 30-minute, 6-issue trade, is much more satisfying than I ever imagined it would be. Furthermore, the gutter loss is minimal (although worse in the second, tho it's also because the text seems to have shrunk beween the two), and it's not the heavy-enough-to-be-slightly-uncomfortable you would think a 17-issue hardcover would be.

In short, I love it and I want more.

Browsing around, I see that there are some terrific-looking books out there: the Garth Ennis Punisher omnibus, the Brubaker Daredevil and Iron Fist omnibuses, and the Ultimates omnibus just to name a few. I plan to start buying those over regular trades as soon as I can afford to buy regular trades again, as the dollar to content value seems to be about the same or better, and having it all in one book really makes the reading experience seem more like... well, a book!

Furthermore, there's something that's been brewing in the back of my mind for a long time that my newfound omnilust has really brought back to an obsessive degree. It was spurred on when I found this forum a few months back, which is dedicated to binding comics into hardcovers your own damn self. Check out some of the pictures in the book threads; they make my balls tingle. There's so much I'd love to bind that's either not available as an omnibus (and whose individual issues + binding costs would equal the costs of buying the trades) or which has never been collected:

-A Batman: Cataclysm/Aftershock/Road to No Man's Land omnibus
-A Batman: No Man's Land omnibus (or omnibuses, more likely)
-A Batman: New Gotham/Officer Down omnibus, filled with Rucka/Brubaker stuff
-A Bruce Wanyne: Murderer/Fugitive omnibus
-Christ, everything from the 90s Batbooks from Knightfall on
-An omnibus completely collecting Puckett's Batgirl
-Young Justice omnibuses
-Impulse omnibuses
-A Dan Abnett Legion/Legion Lost omnibus (wouldn't the cover to the first issue be a fantastic dust jacket image?)
-Supergirl omnibuses, the first 3 collecting the first 74+odds and ends of Peter David's run and the last basically containing the last six, Puckett's run on Supergirl, Cosmic Adventures in the 8th Grade, and whatever else really good issues I can find
-A Peter David/Kurt Buseik Aquaman collection
-A Gail Simone Taskmaster/Deadpool/Agent X omnibus
-All 40 issues of Gotham Central + Detective backups
-Other 90's stuff that is awesome and will never be collected
-How about event omnibuses? Civil War, Secret Invasion, and Final Crisis had enough (quality) tie-ins to push the 30-50 issue mark; or even a "main event" omnibus featuring, say, Avengers: Disassembled/House of M/Civil War/World War Hulk/Secret Invasion or Lightning Saga/Superman and the Legion of Superheroes/Legion of 3 Worlds
-Perhaps character omnibuses too; the best of the Batman (Includes Year One, The Cult, vs. Preadator, and Blind Justice no question) or someone like the Riddler or Two Face (dear god those last two would be fantastic).

Okay, see, those are off the top of my head. I get excited about this kind of thing pretty easily. The hard part is actually finding the issues at an affordable price, but with the internet it shouldn't be TOO hard (especially when there are scans for previewing). But then there are a million other questions: What kind of binding? Trim the edges? Create title pages, table of contents, extras sections? The answer to that last one is "yes, obviously"; I'm only doing this if I can go all out, dammit.

Judging by the prices I've seen, buying the issues and getting them bound well costs roughly as much as buying one of those professional omnibuses on ebay, but I think they would be cooler made by my hand.

Well, that's all for now. Goddamit I've gotten myself all worked up again. I need some goddamned money so I can start mining back issues. Which should be half the fun of having a comics hobby, right?

You Know Who's Fucking Great?

My friend Pedro, that's who. He's the greatest, most important person in the universe. If he told me to suck his dick while he was making out with my mother and sister (he's a great multitasker) I wouldn't even take the time to set down the baby I was holding first.

Microsoft's Terrifying Vision of the Future

Every year at E3, I enjoy watching the press conferences, preferably live, but always with friends. At the few legitimately cool moments (such as the scene in the God of War 3 demo where Kratos rips half the face off a Manticore and stabs it into the other half) a collective oooh and aaah is always more fun, but mostly the value comes from the entertainment of snarking about the crappy games and long stretches of people talking and not even showing a crappy game. I've just now gotten to watch them all, and while in recent years they've shown me that I really don't need to run out and buy a new console (like I could anyhow), this is the first E3 that has really, truly terrified me.

That is not hyperbole. As about the last third of Microsoft's press conference went on, I went from a sensation of mild apprehension that slowly increased to one of absolute horror. Over the last few years my playime and spending on new or used games has drastically dropped, but at seeing this I think I can safely say that the game industry has probably moved beyond me; to paraphrase and old EGM, it made me want to crawl into the corner and play Tetris on my Game Boy.

(Sidenote: today, I did actually dig up my old copy of Game Boy Tetris. I had totally forgotten that it had color on the Game Boy Advance, and probably the Game Boy Color as well. Whatever.)

As anyone who watched the press conference knows, this fight or flight reflex was triggered by Microsoft's attempt to latch onto the sweet, sweet motion gaming teat, an apparently incredibly powerful EyeToy-esque camera/microphone called Natal:



God. Damn. You. Nintendo.

Look what you've done. Look! THIS IS YOUR FAULT!

Ugh. Jesus.

More to come. I have to gather my thoughts in order to properly express my disgust, and no, you're the bigger loser for taking the time to read about my disgust towards a product that I'll never buy anyhow.

The First Post

Hello, all, I'm sure... well, let's face it, it's probably just going to be Pedro reading this thing. Just Pedro. Hello, Pedro. I'm blogging now. I've always had all kinds of bullshit ideas and half-formed topics that I always thought would be entertaining to read or write, so maybe I'll try it. More likely, I'll get bored and forget everything, but time will tell.