Spike's Cartoons and Whinging

WoooOOOoo! Welcome to the Hauuunted Blooog!

Step right this way, my dears... You found your way through the crypts without too much trouble, I trust? Excellent, excellent. I'm so pleased Rufus didn't see you at the door. Most of the month he's a perfect darling, but you see... full moons excite that boy so.

This way, please. Mind the gravewax.

Do you like my study? This is where I keep the most terrible curiousities I've picked up in my years of travel. Do any of you have pre-existing heart conditions? I hope not. I really, really hope not.

My! The new Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action/CG hybrid movie is really rattling its cage, today! Isn't it unspeakably grotesque? It's mother's favorite, next to the planned live-action remake of Fantastic Planet. They like to hiss at one another from across the room. Tell me that's not adorable.

No one will claw at the McDonald's I Am Asian campaign, though. I suspect it's just too horrible.

Oh dear. Don't mind the noise, it's probably Blacktown.Net going on about evil feminist witchcraft, again. He tries to establish a church in his litterboxes twice every Tuesday. Throws the most awful tantrums when I change the pans.

Perhaps I should move his terrarium farther away from Ted Jesus Christ God.

What, leaving so soon? Ah, well. The back door's this way, past the Otakukin. Ignore the braying, they'll say anything for attention.

Yes, I know, it's the long way out. But it's bad for my image if anyone sees you leaving alive. You understand.

Are you certain I can't interest you in an electoral vote prediction before you go? Fifty percent chance it will terrify you, guaranteed.

I Hate Anime.

Wait, no I don't. It's just pretty hard to remember that, sometimes. Good thing I have Katsushiro Otomo to remind me.

I have never, ever, ever seen a decent steampunk movie. Ever.

Dictionary.com defines steampunk as "a genre of science fiction set in Victorian times when steam was the main source of machine power." I'd supplement that with the comment that the steam power is typically being used in ways it never was in reality; powering robots, for example, or rod-and-piston computers, or big ol' art-nouveau spaceships. It's just an aesthetic, yes. But it's an awful pretty one. And since the closest I've ever seen a movie come to steampunk was the positively vile League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, it's a pretty tough itch to scratch.

Don't think I'll be able to wait until next year to see this one. Might have accquire it myself. Yarrrr.

Official November 2004 National Geographic Appreciation Station.

National Geographic is absolutely erotic this month. I dare you to argue.

Observe the cover.

And observe the first page of the article.

And observe my wild-eyed, unreasoning joy.

Yes, it can be measured in the laboratory. Shut up.

Yes, there is fossil evidence. Shut up.

No, no one claims we evolved from present-day apes. Shut up.

And yes, it's just a theory. And so is that whole "the Earth orbits the Sun" thing. Time out to look up the scientific definition of the word "theory," okay? Go on. I'll wait here.

Got it? All done?

Good. Shut up.

The article didn't tell me anything I didn't already know, but I don't think it was written for me. It was written for the 44 percent of Americans who, through force of will, misinformation, or simple ignorance, don't actually understand evolution, or refuse to understand it. It's for the special class. This issue's for that kid who shit in the study hall garbage can. It's for the Young Earth Creationists among us going through their homeschooled kid's textbooks with black Sharpies, crossing out the blasphemy. This one's for the snake-handlers picketing the Harvey Milk school in New York, and the hysterical Baptists rolling around on the cement in front of courthouses while Ten Commandments monuments are jackhammered out of the lobby floor.

I hope every Billy-Bawb in Dogpatch lets this issue sneak into the trailer, just for the cover. I just wish I could see all their faces when they sit down to read it.

Blikada: In the Double Digits, Even!

Page ten. Comics section. You know the drill.

Let me know if you think the lettering is illegible. I'm kind of on the fence about it. I try to make it as clear as possible during the scan and clean-up, and I know my resolution is set pretty high, but I still sorta worry about how easily you can read the dialogue. I'd hate to letter with the computer, since I'm extraordinarily prejudiced against that kind of thing, but I'll eat that whale butt if I have to.

And now, a plug!

A lot of characters in Blikada were named with the assistance of The Everchanging Book of Names, a really neat and unusually pretty shareware app that, once properly tuned, can produce a buttload of randomly generated names that conform to the grammatical rules of any invented language. Hooray for not hemmoraging my brain trying to come up with decent incidental character names! Grab it, you geeks.

Everybody, Switch Partners!

All this week at GAM: Halloweeny guest strips! I draw his! She draws mine! He draws hers! BIG TIME FUN PARTY AMERICAN STYLE!

Keep an eye out on Tuesaday (hereafter referred to as SUPAR TUESDAY) for a very special Lucas and Odessa, drawn by someone who I'm pretty darn sure ain't me.

Atrocity Tourism: OS-Tan.

While we're on the subject of the inscrutable Orient... Can't talk about Japan without covering their unspeakably insane preoccupation with prepubescent girls, now can we?

That would be dishonest.

So, meet the OS-Tan. Or Tans? I dunno, I ain't Japanese.

"Tan" is the cutsey-pie, childish way of pronouncing the Japanese honorific "chan," and "OS" stands for, naturally, "operating system."

Yeah. So what was have here are computer programs. Except they're girls.

No one person made these up. They're kind of accepted, collective, consistent characters over in the Japanese corner of the Intarweb, most notably the mega bulletin board Futaba Channel/2Chan. They even have personalities.

Windows ME is, appropriately, the dumbshit incapable of accomplishing anything worthwhile. As a former Windows ME user, I can definitely say this is 100% accurate.

ME-Tan, she's pretty popular. Every other OS-Tan picture I see is her freezing, crashing, or screwing up. Fun to draw. Not fun to run a computer with.

Windows XP, as proven by the waves of security attacks suffered by anyone who dares to use the thing, is more beauty than brains. She's usually dressed as an idol singer (a short shelf life, Japanese pop music munchkin) and she's got big knockers, but that's about all she's got going on. She's also greedy. You see her eating constantly.

She's not to be confused with XP Professional, who's got P-shaped earphones and wings. No, I don't know what that means.

Windows 2000 (2k-Tan) is stable and reasonable, so she has glasses. She also works harder and better than her friends, so she gets a maid bonnet. She's also designed by the Japanese, so she gets speakers bolted to her head for no reason.

And there's Windows 98 and 98 Second Edition, who live in crayon boxes and are sometimes doll-sized, or carry around doll-sized crayon boxes. Which I'm sure there's an excellent reason for.

They're no longer supported by Microsoft. They tend to cry a lot about that.

Can't forget Windows 95. She's a reserved, old-fashioned chick in a kimono, who who gets homicidally violent and starts swinging a katana around when you mention any of the Mac OS-Tans.

Yeah, they have OS-Tans for Macs. Also for Linux. And Linspire/Lindows. And Longhorn. And Firefox and Thunderbird, who are actually Mozilla-Tans. Because, you know, it's not genuinely creepy until it gets that obscure.

There's piles of this stuff. PILES. More than you could ever possibly imagine or need. And I haven't even mentioned Toshiaki, filthy Dr. Norton, or the Sabas.

A better explanation is here. It covers the OS-Tans' frequent use of scallions, and why all the servers are in mackerel costumes. It doesn't, however, mention that their panties are their firewalls. Which sort of makes my soul feel cold.

A depressingly huge archive of images of the OS-Tans is here. It's in Japanese-er, but you can decipher their moon langauge if you mouse over and read the status bar on your browser. Make sure to watch the Flash mock-opening-sequence for the OS-Tan's TV show, "Troubled Windows."

And, finally, an archive of the translated Troubled Windows communal manga from 2Chan is here. Predictably, half the jokes are about what worthless garbage Windows ME is.

That would probably be cute, if I hadn't directly experienced how true it was.

Liliane, Bi-Dyke!

Has everybody seen this?

Ever since Modern Tales began selling banner ad space on the sites and forums, I've made an effort to click on every unfamiliar comic that comes up in rotation. I suck at staying on top of things, so this is the most exposure I get to comics that aren't already MT-associated. Yesterday, I spent an hour reading nearly all of Liliane, Bi-Dyke.

Liliane, a slightly butchy bisexual, has a pretty tough row to hoe. She's attracted, in her own words, to "butchy girls" and "faggy boys," but the butchy girls tend to wind up female-to-male transsexuals, killing her interest, and the faggy boys tend to be... well... fags, and never actually want to date her. Ah well.

The comic's conveniently chopped up into different story arcs, my favorite of which are the agonizing "Dog Park Pickup," and the currently-running "Tips on Passing" for gals who want to pass for guys. But really, read them all. It's some really beautiful cartooning.

Atrocity Tourism: MasaManiA.

What little I know about Japan scares me.

To be fair, I probably shouldn't be looking at so many Japanese cartoon porn sites. Nostril-fucking and vaginal cannons and naked preschoolers are kind of bound to give you the wrong idea about a country, no matter how pretty their classical architecture tends to be.

Pagoda.

Schoolgirl eyesocket rape.

Buddhist temple.

Bukkake.

The Golden Pavillion.

Poju.

It's not really fair, and I know it's not. Even with my brain blasted to ash and my eyeballs running down my cheeks like apple jelly and my fingers scrabbling at the Go Back button in an effort to GET AWAY GET AWAY OH GOD I CAN STILL SEE IT IN MY MIND JESUS HELP ME A WHOLE GARBAGE CAN WHAT THE FUCK HOW IS THAT EVEN REMOTELY EROTIC, I know I'm getting the wrong impression.

I don't really know Japan. The pigin-Japanese half-pints of Deviant Art who won't shut the fuck up about KAWAII DESU GOMEN SAMA YOKATA AH NO for five seconds don't know Japan. The anime recluse locked in his bedroom, stroking his Rei doll and dreaming of moving someplace where harems of women will fight for the honor of letting him walk in on them in the shower, walloping him with an oversized mallet, and then regretting their deeds in a blush and a shower of cherry blossom petals don't know Japan, either.

So that's why I like MasaManiA.

MasaManiA is a photoblog, written largely for the benefit of English-speakers by a Japanese native who's favorite word in the English language is clearly "fuck." The English is poor, but the author's sense of humor still translates pretty well. And he's just as mystified by cosplayers and trendy self-harmers as I am, which is a really good sign.

Take a look, if you can. I've got this thing bookmarked.

Blikada: Now with DIALOGUE!!

Yup. Just uploaded page nine. Comics section. Make with the clicking.

Usually, when someone writes comic dialogue for non-English speakers, they put the words in between those pointy brackets. You know, < like this. > I'm not gonna do that. English doesn't actually exist wherever this comic is, so it would of be kind of silly. And like I've always said, most fantasy/sci-fi comic and novel dialogue should just be considered translated for the reader's convenience, not actually English right off the bat. So there won't be any goofy, archaic touches, or entirely-too-bizarre spellings, either. We'll be doing this phonetically, because that makes sense.

And since an approximation of the expression "shit" is kind of universal among human cultures, I'm comfortable with making it an expression of annoyance and disgust in an alien language, too. Because everybody shits. Everybody. Even the Pope.

Enjoy.

Happy Birthday, Dungeons and Dragons.

It's thirty years old, today. How about a song for the birthday boy? Lyrics below the cut.

Clutch - 24 Earth Years

If anyone has a better copy of this unreleased outtake, I'd love to get my hands on it. Not often you hear a decent hard rock song about roleplaying games.

And to drive my nerdiness home, a few liner notes of my own.

-- Neil Fallon, Clutch's vocalist, claims he played a "druid wizard halfling" in the 1980 version of AD&D. This was impossible; Druids and Magic-Users (what they used to call Wizards back then) weren't available as a multiclass combination for demi-humans, and halflings couldn't be Magic-Users anyway back then. Of course, he could play that combination with modern rules. But it's not 1980. So Neil's either lying his ass off, or cheating his ass off. Not that I mind. He's probably too busy rocking to care about this nerd shit, anyway.

-- "Gygaxanor" is a reference to one of AD&D's creators, Gary Gygax.

-- "d20" is the bare-bones mechanics of AD&D. It encompasses die-rolling, stats, leveling, feats, etc., and it recently went open-source, meaning anyone who wants to make a roleplaying game using d20, can. d20 stands for "twenty sided die," the standard die used. Am I a loser yet?

-- The old AD&D didn't take place in Middle Earth. It was just a shameless rip-off, as most fantasy settings are. Hobbits appeared in the first printings of the rulebooks, but the Tolkien estate forced AD&D to change the name of the race to "halfling," and change the Ents to "treants." (Strangely, Orcs were okay.) Current halflings, by the way, are nothing like Hobbits. They're scrawny, wear shoes, have wanderlust, ride large dogs into battle, and have these really weird, pointy skulls. I hate 'em. Ugly.

-- Mazes and Monsters Was a super-cheesy, made-for-TV exploitation flick aired at the height of the ZOMG D&D = SATAN-WORSHIPPING panic of the 1980s. It did star Tom Hanks, and he did go insane as a combined result of too much "Mazes and Monsters" and the goofy, magical properties of the cavern he and his friends played the game in. (I am totally serious.)

AD&D was the Harry Potter of the decade; Christian groups claimed it turned kids on to the occult, and distraught parents claimed that the death of their child's character drove their child to suicide. Hilarious. There's still a (dun dun dun!) Jack Chick tract about this threat, and a lol-tastic page about the movie (with sound clips and video!!) is here. To this day, some gamers use the phrase "gone Pardeux" to describe a person way too into their character.

The hysteria was enough to convince TSR (AD&D's publishers) to change any occurance of the word "demon" and "devil" in their rulebooks into "tanar'ri" and "baatezu" for the second edition. We're now on edition 3.5, and they're basically back to being demons and devils again. You lose, holy rollers.

PS: Actually, the kids in Mazes and Monsters weren't roleplaying. They were LARPing. (Live Action Role Playing.) Tabletop roleplayers don't wear costumes. Funnily enough, to the best of my knowledge, There WEREN'T any LARPs back then.

There you have it, folks. TOM HANKS INVENTED LARPs. IS THERE ANYTHING THAT BEAUTIFUL, BEAUTIFUL MAN CAN'T DO.

Wow. This is pretty pitiful, isn't it? My apologies.

Lemme cap it off with a picture of a AD&D character of mine. Slightly NWS, so linky dinky.

That's right. I still do it. STONE ME PLZ.

Bet you were expecting some half-naked, D-cup elf chick, huh? Nah. I got tired of that Pretty Pretty Princess shit when I was four.

Clutch - 24 Earth Years

I don't know, but I've been told I'm about twenty-four Earth years old
And come my next birthday it'll be a quarter century
I don't know, but I have heard a gnome from the old world say these words:
"Take a look what the cat dragged in; a dead woodpecker and two of my kin."

Music Appreciation: Karma, Irony Launch Allied Offensive Against Seth Putnam!

So there's this band. They're called Anal Cunt. And their frontman, Seth Putnam? He's in a coma.

Yeah.

According to RockNews, Punknews.co.uk, and I Ate Your Microphone, there's gonna be brain damage. The gnarly kind.

And I guess that's not really funny. Unless you know anything about Anal Cunt.

Consider a few song titles.

Windchimes are Gay
I Just Saw the Gayest Guy on Earth
Hitler was a Sensitive Man
Old Lady Across the Hall With No Life
I Like Drugs and Child Abuse
I Became a Counselor So I Could Tell Rape Victims They Asked for It
Van Full of Retards
I Sent Concentration Camp Footage to America's Funniest Home Videos
I Intentionally Ran Over Your Dog
Recycling is Gay
You Got Date Raped
Ha Ha, Your Wife Left You
Pottery's Gay
Internet is Gay
I Noticed That You're Gay
You Went to See Dishwalla and Everclear (You're Gay)
I Sent a Thank You Card to the Guy Who Raped You
Women: Nature's Punching Bag
Being Ignorant is Awesome
I Made Your Kid Get A.I.D.S. So You Could Watch It Die

Also, consider the memories of his fans, quoted from the SA Forums:

"I remember watching him buy crack from some hobos and smoking it with them then hitting a skinhead girl in the head with a beer bottle during their set."

"Another goon vinnland was telling me about how they got chased out of muncie indiana because seth hit a pregnant girl with a folding chair."

"That even beats the show I saw where they put on a neo-Nazi anti-feminist band as their opening act just to piss off all the 16 year-old teenygoths/punks in the audience and then played "Hitler was a Sensitive Man" "Ha Ha Holocaust" and "Body By Auschwitz" all in a row. It was all security could do to keep a beatdown from happening and I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer beauty of how AC orchestrated it all."

So maybe now you're getting the idea.

Any teenybopper dipshit can troll online. Anal Cunt essentially trolled real life, which is probably a lot more dangerous. And a lot funnier.

But anyways, KARMIRONY.

Anal Cunt - You're in a Coma

There's not a lot of payoff to most Anal Cunt songs; all the humor's in the lyrics and titles. But there are still some worth listening to, if only for the novelty of actually being able to make out what Seth's saying. I can personally recommend "Hitler Was a Sensitive Man," "I Just Saw the Gayest Guy on Earth," "Art Fag," "Chris Barnes is a Pussy," and "Technology's Gay." Also, the entire Picnic of Love album. Because hey, why not.

Lyrics below the cut. Bet they don't help, even a little bit.

You're In A Coma

You're in a coma
You're in a coma
You're in a coma
You're in a coma

My God How I Love FallCon.

Imagine a con where the tables are free, the crowd is receptive, the con staff bends over backwards to be helpful, and there's free food and booze for the attending dealers and artists.

Weird, huh? That's FallCon, a cool little get-together in Saint Paul, Minnesota. And I have to admit, Dirk was right: Small cons are great. I might even let him drag me to Anime Reactor, now. I wouldn't have a table or nuthin', but that would be a novelty, these days. I could really dedicate myself to photographing fat cosplayers for your amusement.

I sold out of SOLID! and The Naturalist's Guide to Art School. The former's gone forever, the latter I'll reprint for what must be the fifth time. The last copies of both are now sitting in envelopes and woulda been mailed today, but the post office was closed for Columbus Day. Oops. Sorry guys, I'll get everything out tomorrow.

Selling a good chunk of my stock was great, but meeting Matt Feazell was what made my day. Poor guy. I pity him for being subjected to me. But you can bet your ass that I'm not sorry I asked for this.

Uncanny likeness, isn't it?

That there's gettin' FRAMED. Or at least tacked to the wall.

Gone Connin'.

I'll be at Fallcon this weekend with Dirk and The Marvelous Patric, both of whom one might find on my Friends List over yonder. If you're up in the Twin Cities around then, be sure to drop by the table and paw at my delicate original pages of Sparkneedle and Blikada like so many fumbling, ham-fingered apes. I ENJOY IT. REALLY.

Dirk's been extolling the virtues of smaller comicons for weeks now, so I can't wait to see how this turns out. My experience with 'em has been relatively limited, from Pretty Large (Wizard Con Chicago) to Has Its Own Area Code (SDCC), so I've got lots of bizarre, unrealistic expectations about Fallcon, like people paying attention to me and actually making a net profit.

You cannot stop me from dreaming my crazy dreams.

So I'll see you guys Sunday night. And don't worry about Sparkneedle, it should be on time this weekend, despite my abscence. Unless I screwed up the upload or something.

Blikada? Don't Mind If I Do!

Not too thrilled with this page, but it's already been too long since the last update, and there's a point where you just have to say the hell with it and post the goddamn thing, so here it is. I can think of about a jillion better ways I could have done the second panel, but eh.

Fun fact: See those weapons in the first panel? I know they'd work. I nearly put a hole in my drywall with a plastic chopstick testing their feasibility. That is because I am smart.

Who covets my think-meat? SHOW OF HANDS, PEOPLE.

Comics page. BE THERE.

I Hate Movies.

This is the post where I request recommendations from all you special people out there for science fiction films where the pursuit of science isn't cast as a monumental act of hubris against God and Nature. Seriously.

Please tell me all about flims you enjoy that feature technology or scientific experimentation, but are as devoid of evil/insane scientists, researchers, or cold, faceless sci-tech corporations gettin' their comeuppance as possible. This includes rampaging genetic test subjects, out-of-control robots, traitorous AI, and the requisite Blind Science-Acolyte Skeptical to the End, who can't believe OMG SCIENCE HAS FAILED, but knows how to open the chamber/hack the Gibson/upload the virus/irradiate the gibbon-molesting room, so isn't as expendable as the rest of the guys in white coats.

At no point should the Hero announce "This is WRONG!", be poo-pooed by the Authority Figure, and then attempt to save the Authority Figure from the molested gibbons, only to JUST fail, because Authority Figure needs to die for daring to molest those gibbons when God never intended him to, and Hero needs to show what an awesome guy he is by even bothering to try in the first place. But not too hard.

I'd prefer a moral that doesn't involve things MAN, in all-caps, was never meant to do, because MAN (also all-caps) was never meant to wear underpants, rent climate-controlled re-conditioned lofts in the meatpacking district to impress their girlfirends, be immunized against polio, or live past thirty-five. The three pounds of hyperactive, sparking think-meat mashed up inside all of our skulls pretty much ensures that we get to do whatever the hell we please, and when you can make your own reality, what nature intended becomes irrelevant pretty goddamn fast. Taken to its logical conclusion, the assertion that scientific curiousity or advancement isn't what's meant for humanity means we should all still be living in trees, trying to find a comfortable way to sit on an estrus swelling and working termites out of the branches with twigs.

Unless you people have a problem with twigs now or something.

So yeah. Recommendations, please. I'll Netflix all the promising ones.

Atrocity Tourism: My Miserable Life.

I've been totally ignoring the blog since forever, haven't I?

Sorry about that, guys. I can't even begin to describe how busy the past week's been. So here's a little something to tide you over while I finish up the next Blikada page. Who knows, maybe some of you might not have seen it.

My Miserable Life.

I like a good dose of Schadenfreude as much as the next vicious, gut-eating harpy, but I think this site blew out a fuse. So, I get my kicks trying to figure out which stories are real, and which are total fabrications submitted in an attempt to break into the "Top 5 Tales of Woe" winner's circle. Or, uh, loser's circle. Because that's apparently an accomplishment to be proud of.

Yeah.

Anyway.

"Smothered by debt." "We're both having his child." "Unfortunately I get these infections monthly." The titles alone are enough to make your bowels clench in a combination of relief and horror.

Have fun. I'll try to get you guys some comics tomorrow.