You may not be aware that both Fisher Price and Nintendo are colluding with Muslim terrorists to ensnare the young, which might make it difficult to understand today's comic. You may not think that unintelligible samples or scarves are an effective weapon for global jihad, but that just means you're a part of the problem, Mohammed.

The new MacBook Pro is incredible, that's what I hear from Gabriel at any rate, with the exception that it shuts itself off during ordinary use due to its infernal Goddamned heat. The laptop is perfectly capable of managing said heat, but for what I assume are aesthetic reasons they don't allow the internal fans to spin at the necessary speeds. Allowing a computer to fail for reasons of beauty is noble, I suppose. In its way.

I made no secret of my love for Defense Grid, and I'm overjoyed that we've got it up.  This version has all the updates, and is integrated with Greenhouse for achievements and leaderboards - by which I mean Triumphs and Standings.  It's been out for a while now, so getting a read on it shouldn't be tough - the (Windows only) demo is a great place to start as always.  I loved the voice acting, production values, pretty much everything about it.  I'm not in the habit of begging developers for early copies of a game, but I did so this time and felt no shame in it.  

This strip represents the culmination of Further Songs Of Sorcelation, but if you seek greater closure on the imaginary film itself, that is something I can provide.

I crave these things.

We stopped by Gameworks on Sunday night before heading over to the Video Games Live concert. We had heard that they had a Street Fighter 4 machine and we all wanted to check it out. They did have the machine and when I saw it I was instantly transported back to my youth. The arcade culture that surrounds a new machine like this was in full effect and it was something I hadn't witnessed since I was a kid playing fighting games like Virtua fighter and Killer Instinct. Chairs had been scrounged up and placed around the cabinet. There was a steady stream of people going up against one guy who had been running the machine for a while. It was like watching people being fed into a chipper shredder. He dismantled each new player without ever giving up a single win as long as I watched. I snapped this picture because I thought it was so awesome.

I don't know how much longer we can lash you with this scourge and still retain our alignment. I would expect a reprieve shortly.

We'll be heading out to New York Comic Con in just a few weeks. It's been years since we were over on that side of the country and our first time at this particular show. We'll be sharing a booth there with Scott Kurtz which should be a lot of fun. We'll have tons of shirts,posters and books. You have to give us money for that stuff but as always I'll be doing sketches for free.

Making something that is bad on purpose - and not bad inadvertently, which is my usual process - is a whole-body thrill. It goes hard against every natural instinct to write this way. It has the delicious and irresistible texture of sin.

TwistedPixel's The Maw was the PAX 10 Audience Choice winner at this year's convention, and it just hit Xbox Live Arcade for purchase.  If you stopped by the booth and liked what you saw, I'm sure they'd love it if you queued up the demo.  

Revel as the first of many revelations is revealed! Not reveling is also an option. You could also just kick back and listen to some Ravel.

The Song continues, ringing with the moon-drunk ululations of that animal Franzibald. Inconceivably, his cult endures. What succor this gruesome spectacle must be for them, this Goddamned moth-eaten pageant. Something to occupy their mealy forebrains while they shuffle through the forest, prying grubs from stumps.

It is my pleasure to announce this year's winner of the Penny Arcade Scholarship, also known as the coveted "Here is Ten Thousand Dollars" Award.  Diane Melville of Babson College, if you are able to retain even a portion of the optimism on display in this application, you will have been an incredible investment.       

I got a lot of requests for a larger version of the SOTS cover. Here you go.

Further compounding the madness of Gabriel playing - and running - Dungeons & Dragons, I am now being told that he is reading Dragonlance. Yes, that's right. The books you read in Junior High, the ones you might read in the library, forgoing lunch altogether because the threat of physical violence was very real. I can't really be angry at this process anymore, and besides - if he's at Dragonlance, his archaeological trek through my formative age must nearly be complete. I read Neuromancer and Fahrenheit 451 before I ever got into Weis and Hickman, so he may be in for a shock near the end.

Andrew Lloyd Webber (or his clever handlers) are looking to position his ouvre in an interactive context, and they're approaching publishers in that regard. It's almost certainly going to culminate in some SingStar-type bullshit when it could be so very much more.