[877] filling in

console

< Piro >

"in stores now!"

Tuesday - June 27, 2006

Well, after a trip to a local Borders, as well as lots of sightings of the book in the wild, I think I can safely say that Megatokyo Volume 4 is on store shelves. I now call upon the MT masses to go forth and cons00m! Visit your local bookstore (Borders, Barnes & Noble, etc) or visit your local comic book store and pick yours up today! Only if you want one, of course.

We have not yet received our own shipment of Volume 4 for the MegaGear store, but we expect it to arrive towards the end of this week. Due to the holiday, we don't expect to be able to start shipping MT Volume 4 until sometime next week. Once we have a good idea of when we will have the books and when we can start shipping, we'll make them available for purchase in the MegaGear store.

I often get asked which is better, to order the book from us at the MegaGear store or buy it at a bookstore or a comic book shop. The answer is simple - if you would like to purchase book 4, please purchase it in whatever way is most convenient for you. Every purchase, no matter where you buy it, helps support Megatokyo. We do profit a tad more from books sold through the MegaGear store, but it is also important that the book do well in bookstores and comic book shops. It makes publishers and retailers happy with Megatokyo -- and that's a good thing.

There are two more articles up about Megatokyo. The first is an interview i did with the fine folks over at Comic Book Resources (CBR) who had some nice things to say about the book. I gave them three new frames from "circuity' to post, one of which i don't think i've posted before.

The other is an interesting review of Volume 4 by David Welsh in his "Flipped" column at Comic World News. What's most interesting about it is that Volume 4 is his first exposure to Megatokyo, and it's interesting to hear his take on the story based on reading only chapters 5 and 6.

A few months ago, i was asked to do a few exclusive comics for a news website, and i'm glad to say that i am finally pulling them together. It's been an interesting proccess - i was originally trying to do 4 koma strips, but i just could not get the pacing right, so i've decided to just do full pages like i normally do. :) I expect to have the first of these ready this week, and i'll let you know where to go find it when they post it. I appreciate their patience with me. :)

In other news, i've been keeping pretty busy. I still have work to do on Chapter 8 development, but it is coming along well. Hopefully i will feel comfortable enough to start tomorrow.

I've finally started to experiment with my nice set of Copic markers, and I've actually surprised myself with how much i've enjoyed working with them. I'm still experimenting, but i really feel that this more analogue way of coloring works much better for me. My computer coloring skills have never been good, and i think it's just the nature of the medium. Markers and pencils allow me to be more spontaneous than the more technical approach coloring on the computer requires. Whenever i think too hard about what i am creating, it always turns out crappy. You can check out some of my first efforts over on Fredart. Of course, even though i have a 72 marker set i already feel like i don't have enough makers. Doesn't that just figure. :P

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< Dom >

"The Age of Aquaman"

Monday - June 26, 2006

[Dom] - 12:35:00 - [link here]

Greg Dean and I have decided that I should become a superhero.

This mighty, fateful proclamation was made as we were driving from a soon-to-be-legendary Carrow's diner to an already-legendary strip of Casinos for his birthday trip, and verily, the heavens shook with the import of the event.

For, you see, we decided that I should become a superhero not to aid mankind--enough heroes exist to aid mankind, really, and we don't want real heroes to get overshadowed--but to aid superherokind. Specifically, Aquaman. Because Aquaman needs all the help he can get.

Decades of Aquaman's presence in the DC pantheon of heroes has done nothing for his pathetic reputation, since he's the butt of every joke with his "Swim fast, talk to fish" superpowers. From Twisted Toyfare Theater to comic book store conversations and even the R&D whiteboard at Wizards of the Coast, Aquaman is the single most pathetic hero in existence today. Yes, he's even more of a punch line than Ambush Bug, and Ambush Bug was created as a joke.

So, I need to become a superhero even lamer, even more narrow in application than Aquaman. I mean, in episodes of Superfriends, things always had to fall into the ocean before Aquaman was relevant, and to keep people from making fun of Aquaman, I need to be relevant in even fewer situations.

So, there's the challenge: we need to find me a superpower that's useless, but still relevant in enough situations that I'm still a superhero--I mean, there are plenty of kids at Xavier's School for the Gifted Youngsters who have absolutely useless mutations, but they're minor characters and never even considered for X-Man status. So no "can draw stick figures with my mind" here--and no existing superpowers, either. So no stealing the vaguely-kinda-sorta lame powers from the sidekick kids in Sky High, especially since they found them to be useful once or twice (well, except for the bioluminescent one, but that's okay). I mean, I could always steal Ghost Rider's lame superpower, the Penance Stare (AKA "Look into my eyes and FEEL BAD ABOUT YOURSELF!" or "The Jewish Mother Attack"). But that would be cheating.

So would intentionally trying to "lame up" existing superpowers. Like, instead of "talk to fish" I could try "talk to Volvos," but that's just degradation through imitation. I'm trying to be unique here. Plus, it was pointed out to me that "talk to fish" isn't really that special on its own, since people talk to their pets and their plants all the time without it being a superpower.

So what does that leave? I was thinking that maybe I could have a superpower to see five seconds in the future, but then I realized that while not useful for any sort of foresighted information gathering, it would be great for, say, mimicking Spider-Sense. So any sort of foreknowledge or divination is out, since it's either pointless or really, really cool.

Maybe I could have Will Ferrell's superpower of choice--when confronted with one of Barbara Walters' trademark softball questions, he decided that his superpowers would be vomiting and speedreading. It would be awesome just to see that look on Barbara Walters' face again, but really, if I'm going to be a lame superhero, I'd at least like to be comfortable. So forcibly ejecting the contents of my gut at will is right out.

Maybe I could be the Master of Surface Tension or Brownian Motion the same way that Magneto is the Master of Magnetism--but given a really creative writer, control of even the most minor physical force could make me useful more than half of the time. I mean, being the Master of Brownian Motion could make me really good at modeling chaos like stock fluctuations, and the Master of Surface Tension can walk on water or force bloodstreams to malfunction, so that's right out too.

Hey, here's one, what if I could make grass grow faster? I could have a Leaf Blade and a Leaf Sheath to have really silly swordfights with, and a ready supply of bamboo-based weapons, so I wouldn't ever be completely useless, just weak. And I would be able to say "I'm powerless without a lawn nearby!" much in the same way as "My ruby quartz visor is the only thing that can contain my optic blasts!" but with even less personality, which is an achievement in and of itself. The power would make me a great Flash villain, too, I'd be Captain Sawgrass and have a gimmick just as lame as Mirror Master, Captain Boomerang and The Trickster--my main method of attack beyond the Leaf Blade would be making grass grow to entangle The Flash's feet, even though he'd just run through it a second later. And if any power immediately makes you think of the Flash's rogues gallery, that's a good entry on the lame super powers list.

So other than making grass grow or vomiting at will, what else can I have? Well, I was thinking that I could have an innate ability to aggravate and annoy people so I could be a great sidekick/decoy, but that's been taken by Green Arrow, who also can shoot a bow really well. That means that power's out, since the Green Arrow doesn't really have superpowers.

Anyway, these are my preliminary thoughts on my superherohood--if any of you have any further suggestions, I'd like to hear them. Until then, I need to plot how I'm going to get my Captain Sawgrass powers--I figure rolling around in an irradiated lawn should do it, right?