I hope to one day be talented enough to write in a bath tub.

In case you weren’t aware, in high school I wanted to be a playwright. Well, alright, I was one, but I was a high school playwright, which is slightly different than being a professional one. Still, I wrote plays, had them performed, and the scripts won awards at various thespian festivals. Which was pretty neat!

Then, like a lot of depressed kids, instead of following my dreams, once I got to college I studied junk that I thought would lead to an actual job. Telecommunications, ho! I hated this stuff, but at least I got to play around with TV equipment, learned to write screenplays and make stupid short films. After a horrid four years of that nonsense I went to film school and really learned how to write screenplays. And just like my high school plays, some of these scripts were produced and turned into short films. Bad ones, but that’s how you learn.

Earlier this year I decided to break from comics and go back to straight-up writing. I’ve had this one idea for a movie kicking around since late 2006. I had done some research and preliminary notes on the subject matter back then but for some reason I put it aside. I picked it back up again a few months ago and threw myself into really fleshing out the story and continuing my research. I read bunches of books, drew maps and timelines and wrote stories about the characters. All this was in preparation for the actual writing.

Last month I went to Daytona Beach, Florida to write the damn thing. A couple of snotty people made remarks like “You have to go to Florida go write?” Well, no I don’t, asshole; it’s just nice there. Anyway, I spent one week alone in a condo on the beach writing my ass off. Every day I wrote in the morning, spent a few hours in the afternoon on the beach, and then wrote again at night until I was worn out. I loved it.

Once I returned to California I did a bunch of revisions and added several more pages of material. Now at this point the script is pretty much done. I won’t tell you what it’s called or what it’s about yet. But I’ll give you a hint: the title is similar to “The Something of the Something.” It’s literary. It’s classy. And it just needs a little bit more polish before Eden and I start sending it out to “people with connections,” which sounds like a major nerve-racking headache, but hey, that’s how business gets done, cubby.

I’m really happy about this thing. While I wait for the right people to take a look at it I’ve got to find a way to keep busy. How? Well, I’ve already started working on my next two scripts. Yes, two! One is a comedy and the other is an erotic drama. Gotta keep my options open, y’know. Eventually I do want to get back into writing comics. I’ve got some ideas that I’d love for people other than me to draw. I also have an idea for a photo book which I really want to pursue. But for now, though, I think I’ll keep my focus on where the money is. Because money is not funny, honey bunny.

Eden and I drove to San Diego on Friday afternoon and arrived around 8:00 that night. Since all the hotels near the convention center were sold out we stayed in Mission Valley, which actually ended up being closer to the Con than we suspected. After dumping our stuff in the hotel and changing clothes we went out to dinner with Crystal Jordan, one of Eden’s fellow Smutketeers. I made a great impression by drinking too much, getting hammered and mentioning dildos every chance I could get.

Saturday was spent wandering Comic-Con’s massive exhibit hall. We started near Artist Alley, checking out a lot of great independent work. In particular we loved the work by artist Fang Ling Lee. Around the same area were the video game publisher booths. I watched some people play Rock Band 3, although no one touched the new keyboard controller, so it looked like they just were playing Rock Band 2.

Around the video games area we ran into our next-door neighbors, which was a pretty weird coincidence. Then near the G4 booth we ran into porn star Nicki Hunter, who Eden knows from her appearances on Playboy Radio’s Night Calls, and who I know from the marvelous Anal Acrobats series of art films.

Laura & Pope & Pig

Later we met with our friend Laura, who had a surprise: She hand-made some incredible Pope & Pig dolls for me! They’re really amazing and they’re definitely the best “fan art” I’ve ever received. Now I need to figure out where I can display them so that they’re out of the reach of our destructo-kitties.

After lunch we stopped by the Heavy Metal booth, which I make of point of seeing every year. I like their booth not only because I’m a fan of their books, but also because they sell most of it for half the cover price. I ended up buying the oversized “Florescent Black” hardcover and three “Borgia” books by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Milo Manara. The “Florescent Black” guys were really nice and they gave me some free shirts and prints.

In the evening we went by the Sigh Co. Graphics booth and picked up a bunch of fantastic shirts. We left the show around 6pm and later had dinner with Sigh Co. owners Brian & Gwen. We tried getting in to the annual X-Sanguin party, but tickets were sold out, so instead we got lost wandering around Horton Plaza.

www.fanglinglee.com

On Sunday the first thing Eden and I did at the show was pay another visit to Fang Ling Lee’s booth. We’d spent a while talking about her artwork the night before, so we figured we should give it another look. After sorting through her art we ended up buying a framed canvas piece called “Dragon” and also buying FIVE of her limited edition prints. So, yeah, we liked her stuff a lot.

After that we said our farewells to whatever friends we could find and took one last look around the anime, music, clothing and movie vendors. We left the Con around 2pm and then after lunch we were on the road. We finally arrived home in LA last night. Not bad for a 50-hour vacation!

Random Highlights:

• Seeing Bill Plympton absentmindedly scratching his butt.
• Getting a kiss from Nicki Hunter.
• Standing in front of a bored-looking Billy Dee Williams.
• Showing off my Cthulhu tattoo at the Lovecraft booth.
• Vegetable Garage.
• Helping a woman at a Japanese import booth decide what pocket pussy she should buy for her 17-year-old nephew.

Hey, it's my ink!

I’m not saying I don’t like having tattoos. I love having them and I crave more. But unlike many people who are “into tattoos” I don’t enjoy the act of being tattooed. I’ve talked with people who like being tattooed because of the endorphin rush they receive. That doesn’t happen for me. My body gives me no pleasure when I’m tattooed; I just have to endure the pain. And while that’s kind of fun in its own way, when a needle is working dangerously close to my armpit, or near a particularly sensitive area around my collarbone, I really wish my brain would just get it together and produce some of those sweet natural drugs.

Most often when I’m being tattooed I listen to music or read a book. This helps distract my mind from the pain. But some areas are just too bothersome and I have to stop what I’m doing and just brace myself. This is fine, but it often leaves me worn out. I wish I got the same physical rush from tattoos that I enjoy after receiving a new piercing, but I don’t. Piercings only take a second and the rush lasts for hours. But conversely, tattoos take hours and the rush is nonexistent. What a rip-off!

It’s gotten to the point where I no longer look forward to getting tattooed. Well, I do and I don’t. Like I said, I love having them, but the process itself is getting tiring. Sitting in a chair while a needle repeatedly jabs me has started to feel like routine. So why do I keep doing it? Simple: Because they look sweet, baby.

Sure, there’s the whole “look what I’ve endured” aspect of tattoos. But really, I’m more into the art. So far all my tattoos either reference literature I love or are taken directly from it. Most of them relate to the work of Robert E. Howard or H.P. Lovecraft. But who knows what’s next? Shall I get Falstaff on my neck? Or maybe Montana Wildhack across my forehead? What about Horton the Elephant on my chest (from the story “Horton Hatches the Nipple”)? Anything’s possible!

Explogamer started out strong and was a lot of fun to write, but it ended up losing steam around October of last year. I became bored with writing for it and so the site languished, untouched. My long-time fans have probably also noticed that I’ve let Load World Comics fall to the wayside as well.

Much like Explogamer, I became bored with making comics. I spent a good ten years writing, drawing and publishing my own comics. But sometime last year I felt like my art stopped growing. So I tried out a site that would focus on another one of my passions: video games. And although Explogamer was a good substitute for my creative needs, it didn’t last.

So in the last couple of months I’ve returned my focus to my original dream of being a full-time writer. As I’ve written in my bio, when I was younger I thought I would become a playwright and later in film school I learned to write screenplays. I loved doing both of these things but somehow over the years I lost my way. Now I feel it’s time to get back to the basics and write my ass off.

Last month I completed my first feature-length screenplay and I’ll soon be shopping it around this crazy town called Hollywood. The experience of writing this script really sparked a fire in me. I felt like I was really doing what I’m meant to do. And while I’m working on this stuff I’ll periodically update this site with news and who knows what else. So keep the faith! You’ll be hearing more from me in the future. And this time, hopefully, it will be sooner rather than later.

Eddie Riggs and friends.

For me personally, Brütal Legend had a lot of good things going for it. Over the years I’ve played two Tim Schafer games (Grim Fandango and Psychonauts) and I loved them both. So I was definitely looking forward to whatever was next on the dude’s plate. I’m also into heavy metal music. I count Iced Earth and Blind Guardian as two of my favorite bands. I also have a healthy appreciation for Motörhead, Judas Priest, and Black Sabbath. And to top it off I’m a fan of Tenacious D. So if you tell me you have an action game based on the fantasy elements of metal, set to a hot metal soundtrack, starring Jack Black, and it’s all put together by the people what made Psychonauts, well son, I will tell you I’m very excited. Unfortunately it didn’t all work out as planned.

Sure, I could go on about how Brütal Legend totally mislead people about its gameplay. Or how the third-person hack-and-slash segments weren’t all that great. Or how driving around in The Deuce (your hot-rod) was made all the more tedious through the lack of a mini-map showing you how to find things. Or I could complain about the tedious and repetitious side-missions. But what I really want to talk about was this: For a game that’s all about metal and kicking ass, Brütal Legend really wasn’t very fun.

A giant chrome spider is pretty fucking metal.

So in case you don’t know the game’s story, allow me to summarize it for you. In Brütal Legend you play as a character named Eddie Riggs (Jack Black) who is described as the the greatest roadie the rock business. While working for the band Kabbage Boy (a completely awful faux-metal teeny-bopper group), Eddie is killed and somehow transported to a world in which everything is inspired by heavy metal. The landscape is covered with heavy metal references, like giant swords and axes, skulls, bones, metal sculptures amps, stage lights and all all kinds of other awesome things. There are demons. There are hot chicks. There are glam rockers and goth rockers. There are giant metal spiders and chopper-pigs and fire-breathing lion-monster things and battle nuns and Lemmy and Rob Halford and even Ozzy…..! It’s all pretty fucking metal.

Anyway, it turns out the humans in this world are enslaved by a bunch of demons. Through various circumstances Eddie meets up with the human resistance and, being the world’s greatest roadie, organizes them into a band/army. By the end of the game Eddie’s army, which he names Ironheade, is made up of groupies, roadies and headbangers, a stage and tour bus, dudes in leather riding choppers, scantily-clad chicks on the fire-lion things, and a bunch of other stuff that really works in the whole band/army way. So all of this is pretty sweet. The problem, and this is the game’s biggest failing, is that eventually you have to command all these characters at once in moderately-sized real-time battles.

Ozzy sez: "What the fuck am I doing in a strategy game?"

And that brings me to my main issue with Brütal Legend: The gameplay is not “metal.” Sure, commanding an army of blood-thirsting warriors is pretty fucking metal, but Brütal Legend handles it in a such an inept way that actually playing the game gets in the way of the fun. I liked the game’s characters and setting way more than I liked playing the damn thing. What’s the point of commanding troops and cutting up dudes if I’m not having a good time doing it? It’s like the designers at Double Fine figured out a great concept for a story but couldn’t decide how to properly implement it.

All Double-Fine had to do was make a funny God Of War-style game. That would have been sufficient. Adding in the open-world, driving around stuff would have been extra icing on the cake. But unfortunately they decided to go further, layering a dumbed-down real-time strategy game on top. These battles were such a pain to play that every time I finished one I was relieved that I would never have to do that again. But I kept playing because I really liked the characters.

Hello, nurse!

Unfortunately just liking the characters turned out to not be enough, because by the end of the game the cool characters were undermined by a lackluster story. SPOILERS HERE! Throughout the story Eddie is referred to as the greatest roadie in the business. He’s someone who uses his skills to make someone else look great.  But as the story progresses it becomes apparent that Eddie is the real leader of the human resistance. Everyone in the band looks up to him for leadership. And yet at the end of the game Eddie steps aside to let Lita Halford (great name, by the way) be the leader of Ironheade.

From a story-telling perspective, this makes Eddie into the same person he was at the very beginning. What’s the point of going through all those battles if Eddie doesn’t learn that he’s not just the world’s greatest roadie, but, instead, he’s the world’s greatest king? the whole story seemed to be leading to that point, and yet it didn’t happen. This was a HUGE disappointment to me.

Tim Curry sez: "I'm just a sweet transvestite."

Sure,  an argument could be made that a smaller, quieter ending is more poignant. But a game called fucking “Brütal Legend” is not about small and quiet. It’s about loud. It’s about violent. It’s about METAL, goddammit! And that’s where Brütal Legend missed the boat: It went for complicated gameplay and a pussified ending when it should have gone FUCKING BANANAS! Chop chop, motherfucker! All aboard the Crazy Train, bitchesssss!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Ahem….

Y’know, it’s pretty disappointing that the best thing I got out of Brütal Legend was a free GWAR concert. Maybe eventually I’ll accept Brütal Legend as a flawed game that really tried something different. But I don’t think I’ll ever get over the cock-blocked feeling I got from its lackluster story. And that’s a real pain in my fucking balls.

Yes.

• Batman: Arkham Asylum – Awesome.
• Animal Crossing: City Folk – Hey, it’s Animal Crossing all over again. Which can be either good or bad, depending on your feelings towards the past games.
• Killzone 2 – Pretty, but I hated the controls.
• Resident Evil 5 – The first RE game I haven’t like. I think I played it for 45 minutes before deciding it wasn’t worth the effort.
• F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin – Fun, creepy, and kind of forgettable.
• Brutal Legend – Good and bad. This will require a longer post.
• Infamous – Fantastic! I loved the gameplay, I liked the story and the enemies, and I really dug the overall vibe. A lot of fun.
• Prinny: Can I Really Be The Hero? – Hey, I loved the first Disgaea, and I love Prinnies, but this game is too hard.
• Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days – Again, I loved Disgaea 1 and I love Prinnies, but playing this game on a PSP did not do it for me.
• Work Time Fun – I love this game. It’s completely insane and barely any fun. But somehow not being fun totally makes it worth playing.
• Holy Invasion of Privacy Badman: What Did I Do To Deserve This? – Great title, but the game made no sense to me. I couldn’t even figure out the tutorials.
• LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga – Played it for about an hour. The charm of the LEGO games has faded.
• Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box – It’s a lot like the first game, but the story and setting aren’t quite as interesting. I got bored of it pretty quickly.
• Heavenly Sword – Wow! It’s like God of War but totally lame!
• 50 Cent: Blood On The Sand – Funniest game of 2009. A stupid good time.
• Modern Warfare 2 – The single-player campaign is the video game equivalent of a major Hollywood action movie. Excitement in a box. I didn’t play any of the multiplayer.
• Borderlands – LOVE.
• A Boy And His Blob – Spent about 30 minutes with it before I figured it wasn’t for me.
• Flower – Hey, it’s pretty. The music’s kind of nice. And it’s a cool concept in an interactive art project kind of way. But I can’t say I found it to be much fun.
  

  Bor-ring!!!

• Shatter – Like a lot of people, I bought this game because the soundtrack is great. In fact, I bought the soundtrack a few days before I even bought the game. So the game is pretty fun. It’s got some neat ideas for an action-puzzle game. But I think I’ll just stick with the soundtrack.
• Dead Space Extraction – Looks great for a Wii game. Kind of fun. But I also found it frustrating and stressful.
• Mass Effect 2 – Wowzers. This game is good.

Hey, so that’s, like, a lot of games. I didn’t realize how many it was until I laid it out here. I think I may have a problem….An awesome problem.

Electric Six is one of my favorite bands. And unlike most of my other favorite bands, Electric Six is actually alive and performing. So for that reason along they hold a special place in my heart. And as of next week they will have gone interactive. Yes, on October 6, 2009 three of their songs will available for download in Rock Band. Which is awesome. Awesome awesome.

The three songs will come in a pack called (amazingly) “Electric Six Pack 01.” The songs will be: “Dance Epidemic,” “Gay Bar,” and “I Don’t Like You,” from their second, first and fourth albums, respectively.

Let’s break this down, shall we? “Dance Epidemic” is a good song. I like it. It’s not one of their best, but it’s still good. And as the singer you’ll get to sing the line “Your body goes to waste every minute you don’t give it to me,” which is totally worth the price of admission. It’s also a good “band” song, so it should be fun to play in a group.

“Gay Bar,” like most things from their first album, is great. Great great, even. It’s a hot dance-y song, and it includes the phrase “I’ve got something to put in you / At the Gay Bar!” I could definitely see this song being fun for every member of your Rock Band. The guitar parts are cool, the lyrics are fantastic, the drums are great, and I think the bass is pretty good too. Get this song.

“I Don’t Like You,” is not one of my favorites of their songs. And actually, I think it already appeared in some racing game a couple years ago. But that was a racing game, so who cares. This is a music game, which makes more sense. And I’m listening to it right now, and in the context of Rock Band, I think it makes sense. It’s fast, it’s loud, and there are good guitar parts. I approve this song for use in your music game.

Okay, I’m done talking about the songs appearing in Rock Band. Now let’s move onto what’s happening with Electric Six itself. Keep in mind this is all coming from a guy who is frequently photographed wearing Electric Six t-shirts; a guy who has seen the band play on the West Coast, then the East Coast, then the West Coast again; and a guy who hugged a sweaty Dick Valentine immediately after one concert and almost offered him a blow job. So I’m not exactly a casual fan.

Did you know Electric Six has a new album, entitled Kill coming out on October 20^th? Probably not. I barely knew and I love them. Amazon.com has more info on the album than the band’s official site does. That’s crazy. Here’s the description of the new album, which I snagged off of Amazon:

Electric Six is done trying to not sound like their first record Fire, and wants to go home, but can never completely go home. Electric Six wants big loud guitars and fuzz basses intertwined with the occasional r&b jam. With their sixth album, KILL, they prove they can still sound like Fire, but its sprinkled it with what they’ve learned. They can go back to the skull-crushing guitars and disco grooves, but they will be cooked in an avant-garde reduction sauce. KILL doesn’t rest on any laurels. KILL seeks to boldly and bloodily go where it can go where no Electric Six has gone before.

Sounds great to me. Their first album is still their most entertaining ( although my favorite songs of theirs, “Jimmy Carter” and “Rock and Roll Evacuation,” are from their second album). So any music they make that sounds like Fire is probably a good idea. I’m excited about this album even though I’ve heard nothing from it. Apart from a few songs, I really haven’t much enjoyed their last couple releases. But I’ll stick with them, because, hey, they still fucking rock and they still make me laugh.

So I want to say “Congratulations” to one of my most favorite bands. I’m glad they’re getting music in Rock Band, and I’m glad I’ll get to play it. I can only hope that calling this pack “01” means there will be a “02” at some point!

Tattoos? Shaved head? Straps barely covering her boobs? Awesome. Fan reaction over her seems to be mixed, but I think she’s rad. Unlike Street Fighter’s Juri, who hurts people with her feet, Subject Zero hurts people with guns and her foul, foul language. Check it out!

Maybe she’s got a little too much “baditude,” but I don’t care. I’m just  smitten by her haircut. I can’t wait for her and CathyJones Shepard to get it on!

What a cutie! Y’know, with that pointy ear-like hair and stripes on her body, she’s kind of a cat-girl, isn’t she? I dig it. I don’t know what’s up with that shiny eye thing, though. At least she’s barefoot and kicks really high. I’m especially looking forward to whatever skimpy extra costumes Capcom comes up with for her. Yes, I’m officially totally stoked about SSF4 now. Nice job, fiends!

See the video below!

Boi-oi-oi-oinggggg!