06/07/2006

Hot Off The Presses…

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

With so much to do, I guess its time for the obligatory final post (maybe) before the MoCCA Art Fest. If you’re in the New York City area, please stop on by this weekend, where I’ll be on-hand along with a slew of friends, and other cool folks, along with a veritable mountain of cool comics and other small-press, indie wares, like shirts and prints, much of which are worth scoping out and scooping up. Needless to say, its a pretty big deal for me, since its a local show and the chance for many cartoonists friends from other parts of the country to gather in my backyard, but MoCCA seriously does get bigger and better each year.

But making it perhaps the awesomest ever is the fact that I’ll be sharing a table with MK, Robin, Katie, Travis, and even my roommate Steph, who’ll have cute unicorn painting on-hand. PLUS, we’re right between Toby and Liz (you know ‘em, and hopefully love them, for those unfamiliar… hence the links), and I couldn’t possibly ask for cooler neighbors.

Unfortunately, it seems that I definitely won’t have enough time to whip up a coloring book (I’ve long since given up on A Nerd’s Guide To Organizing Your Movies, Video Games, Japanese Toys, and Other Nerdy Stuff). But at least I have whipped up some new covers for the pair of Unlucky mini’s. Here’s what they looked like before…

And here’s the new look…

Why the change? Basically, even though people really like my drawings, and some might actually miss them, I just don’t think they did a good job of getting the content across to people. Perhaps the overall tone, but not the individual stories. Basically, at this early stage, primarily because most of the world doesn’t know who the hell I am, I really need to prove that I’m not doing the same old auto-bio comics that everyone else is doing (no offense to everyone else, of course), and that’s to stress the “unique” qualities of my stories, specifically those that are in a particular issue. Plus it offers a chance to really focus on the folks who helped flesh them out up front; I’m not sure, once I have 20+ stories all drawn up), if I can include everyone’s art on the cover. I know they might be a bit too busy, but again, the whole point is to grab one’s attention, which I also feel the previous covers were sorta failing to do. Again, its a preview mini, so there’s no real need for total permanence here.

But yeah… they should be on-hand at the show! So at least I do have something. Plus, this is the first time I’ve had something for sale at MoCCA, so I don’t feel too bad.

UPDATE: There were some spelling errors, but they’ve been fixed. Also, they aren’t final either… just go to the comment section for more info!

Not much else to report. Last night was the first class for my summer semester of my intro to game design class, and it went rather well. Overall, a great group of folks. I don’t know why, but I always forget that most people, despite how much they are into video games, really don’t know much about it ultimately. Then again, the art of game design, especially when it comes to articulating its many facets, and the act of passing it along, is a relatively new thing. But I’m still shocked that most simply aren’t aware of its history. And hey… if people don’t mind sitting and listening to me talk about the Nintendo PlayStation, and I certainly don’t mind. Getting paid for it is also a nice bonus.

I finally got a chance to check out the new Dave & Buster’s in Time Square this afternoon. It’s… a Dave and Buster?s alright. Exactly like all the others I?ve been to, though a bit smaller.

And of course, all the games were ridiculously expensive, but that?s always the case, regardless of location (and there weren?t that many, but I?m assuming that?s due to space issues). But it was nice to see what looked like a brand new 8 player Daytona USA rig. I?m real happy that the game is still in production. Gave that a spin, of course, Also played a game of Virtua Tennis 3, primarily to see the Lindbergh board in action. Fun game as expected… insane animation! People looked creepy, which is to be expected for the series.

Also got a copy of the PS2 version of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories from Rockstar. I might try to give that a few minutes, though it is movie night, plus I still have plenty of other work to do…

BTW, if you look in the Weekly World News, either this week’s issue, or next (or perhaps even last week’s, or the one before that), you might find an article about “The World’s Most Allergic Boy” who goes by the name “Matthew Forte”. Hmmm… does it have anything to do with the fact that I’m friends with the editor and all the writers? Maybe…

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06/05/2006

Perfect Timing

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

So I finally have the name for my book! As I mentioned a few weeks back, my publisher needed it so their designers could get to work on the cover art, and ever since I’ve been racking my brain, trying to come up with something snappy or compelling. Its so stupid that I have awesome names for fake bands constantly coming out of my ass, but when it comes to something that’s a major thing, I’m always stumped (I’m still no 100% sold on the name for my comic book-thing… Unlucky is great, but there’s just something about Never Learned How To Ride a Bike or Yeah, I Can’t Believe It Either).

But, at the last possible minute, I had a flash of brilliance. So it’s going to be, unless my publisher rejects it or something: Paving The Pixel Road – An Introduction To The Principles And Theories Behind Video Game Design (or Paving The Pixel Road – The Art & Science of Video Game Design… whichever they like best). I’m not joking when I came up with it down to the wire, and I was so elated to finally have something that, at least I thought, was pretty damn keen. But I needed a second opinion, so I went on AIM looking for it, but most folks were either not on, or away from their desk (didn’t help that it was the end of Friday), so the only guy I available ended up being Jeremiah, who was in San Fran and in the midst of his chiptunes world tour (don’t ask me then why he was on instant messenger). But he seemed to like it and that made me feel confident enough to hit the send button.

As for the weekend, the Delaware trip was a real washout. Numerous plans were made, but almost none materialized; never got the chance to go to the shooting range, which totally sucked ass, especially since it was the primary reason to go down there. At the very least, heading down south offered a chance to get away from the city and to hang with Morgan and Andy (who just bought a house there). While it was certainly nice and relaxing to just drive around the nice parts of Wilmington, take a stroll through one of its many beautiful parks, hit some small arts & crafts fair where I spotted a midget in a tye-dyed shirt (which I heard is somewhat of a common sight around that state, though I forget who told me so), explore an old cemetery, and even do some shopping (with no sales tax, I finally nabbed New Super Mario Bros and the Venture Brothers DVD set), for the most part, we really didn’t do too much. Mostly because there’s really nothing to do, as typified by our Saturday night, which was just sitting around watching television and drinking beer. And that’s great and all, but I could have easily done that at home. Unfortunately, as more and more gets on my plate, especially with the book’s deadline in less than three months (and I must confess that I’m behind schedule) time has really become a major issue with me. So any moment which I feel could be better spent towards work gets me real cranky. Hey, at least I got plenty of Wawa chicken sandwiches. Also got the chance to finally see a girl’s roller derby game; I’ve always been curious about the sport, ever since Joe became buddy buddy with the Gotham Girls, and because Morgan and Andy’s friend Callie, who plays for the Philthy Britches had a match last night, I finally got the chance to take in a game. And it was lots of fun! It’s what you might expect, which is cute chicks racing around, trying to knock each other down, but I was surprised by the high degree of strategy involved. Plus now MK is thinking of picking up the sport, which would be super hot.

Delaware is nice and all, but its just so damn boring, but also so damn cheap. There was much talk about the ever increasing cost involved of living in New Jersey among MK, Morgan, and Andy, and much of the blame falls on the shoulders of hipsters, who all gather in beat-up, and most importantly cheap, areas which they claim as their own, and then proceed to suck all the life out of it, all while driving up the real estate prices exponentially (and at the same time, they believe that they’re also doing a great service by instilling “culture” into the area). Granted, its classic gentrification at work, but instead of dumbshit business yuppie types, its their dumbass offspring who either use mommy and daddy’s money, or worse yet, hot shot fucks that have already amassed a small fortune by the age 25 in advertising or design. I myself was basically run out of Groove Street in Jersey City by the folks who currently dwell there today, who have basically turned the neighborhood into “New Willamsburg”. Back when I moved there in later 99, it was this nice little cheap area that was close to NYC, and when I invited folks over to come check out my digs, it was like pulling teeth. They’d all say “But its New Jersey…..” and I’d go, “Yeah, but the thing is, its really nice out here! And get this, even though I’m in a different state, its actually faster and cheaper to get out here from where you’re at in Manhattan then where you live in Brooklyn and Queens”. And to that, all they could say is “But, its New Jersey…” That was until they actual came and liked what they saw… then immediately staked a claim and took things over, which caused everything to get so fucking expensive and obnoxious that I had no choice but to pack my bags. I think the epicenter for all the bullshit is a trendy coffee place called Ground, where the tragically hip gather to morn the fact that they are in New Jersey. And that’s the thing that really pisses me off, and that’s precisely the attitude that Morgan got when she ran into a gaggle in Asbury Park; they have to constantly bemoan the fact that they were in Jersey, by making tired jokes about the smell and the such, and act as if they’re doing everyone a favor by bestowing upon the lowly Jersey-ites with their grand presence. One of the main things that made the roller derby game so much fun was the crowd, which was admittedly mostly cool kids, but they didn’t have any of the pretense that you find in Willamsburg. Everyone where was there to have a good time, not just stand around and have this stupid sneers on their faces to signify that they bear the burden of being so Goddamn young and smart and beautiful and talented (in their minds of course). Another thing I really noticed was that there were plenty of girls in all shapes and sizes, and none of them looked all self-contious, whereas all the chicks in Willamsburg have that cocaine sculpted physiques.

Aside from bitching about hipsters, I outlined another group I hate intensely, known as “Waysians” (there’s many other terms, such as Rice Eaters, which is a favorite of mine). Basically, it’s a white person who wants to be Asian, really, really bad, by parlaying facets of the culture to a ridiculous degree. There’s two basic types: the first is the tough guy who wears a wife beater, with short cropped hair that sticks straight up with plenty of gel. Their favorite film is Fast & The Furious, they have tons of tattoos with assorted Asian characters (all of which they think says cheesy shit like “war” and “fire” but probably says “cheeseburger” or “I’m a fucking retard” in Chinese), and they roll around in souped up Japanese with huge (and grossly inappropriate) spoilers. Then you have the nerds & wieners that feel that the key to being Asian is to be a walking, talking Anime & Manga encyclopedia. These types annoy me the most since I deal with so often, since most are also diehard gamers. The worst is when they try to use Japanese grammar, also grossly inappropriately…

“… And that’s what I told Peterson-san.”

“Excuse me, Peterson-what?”

“Peterson-san.”

“Look, first off, you’re not Japanese. Second, neither is Peterson. Third, we’re not in Japan.”

Anyway, even though the roller derby got out at a relatively early time, 8:30, it took about three hours for MK to drop me off at Hoboken, where I just missed the PATH train to NYC. So I had to wait 30 minutes, then wait another hour at 34th Street for a Q train, transfer from Atlantic to Pacific, wait another hour for an express D train to 36th Street in Brooklyn, then walk all the way in 23rd St. in the pouring rain. I finally got home around 3, plus I still had work to do! Which meant that I accidentally slept in and was late for work by 30 minutes, and with Monday morning classes just starting that was not good. And since I was totally out of it, I could barely get any work done, including prepping up my syllabus for tomorrow evening (it’ll be the first class for my intro to game design course this summer). So today has not been the best of days.

Plus the MoCCA Art Fest is this upcoming weekend, and I am totally not prepared. Aside from not having the How To Organize For Nerds picture comic ready, which I knew would be a longshot but totally perfect for the NYC audience, but I don’t have the coloring book ready, which is something I really wanted, as well as new covers for my Unlucky mini’s. I suppose I can have them all read for SPX, but like many folks, I’m getting a bad feeling about this year’s event. Aside for it being at a new location, a strange time of the year, plus the fact that Dave & John will be missing, I recently heard that there won’t be a show anthology, which is total bullshit.

Though today wasn’t a total pain in the ass. MK alerted me to the fact that this year’s Asian Film Festival has been finally announced, and this year’s selection looks particularly strong. We both already have a list of stuff that are must see, including the bizarre masked wrestling/bugs from outer space tale, the live action adaptation of Cromartie High School which looks even funnier/stupider than the comic and cartoon show, the latest Takashi Miike picture which happens to be (believe it or not) a kid’s movie, a film called “Oh! My Zombie Mermaid” which seriously needs no explanation, the Spinal Tap meets winter the Olympics movie, and the latest movie from both the director and cast from last year’s brilliant The Taste For Tea. Sweeeet.

Oh, and I got the chance to (finally) play some New Super Mario Bros. Its Mario back in glorious 2D action, so what else needs to be said? And speaking of games, and for those who haven’t heard… the Dreamcast, yet again, is not dead. 10 news games are coming out, and on these shores. Granted, they’re basically homebrew titles, but still!

Last thing, aside from it being the first day of my class, tomorrow also happens to be 6/6/6. And you know what that means…. yup, it’s Nation Emo Kid Beatdown Day. Get ready.

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06/01/2006

When A Girl Asks You To Play Laser Tag With Her, You Say “YES!”

by Matthew Edward Hawkins

A few things…

- Last night I had dinner with a bunch of friend and other folks, including Steve, who was wearing a totally hot jacket which he first alerted me to its existence earlier in the weekend… a Tron track top. You can see Steve sporting his new attire, and quite proudly (as I would) here, though pictures doesn’t do it any justice; all over the sleeves are printed circuitry, just like what the folks in that world have all over their bodies, and slightly raised.

Also got to finally pass along some belated birthday gifts, which included a shirt for Dave, the Sheltered design, which is all cutsey-like, since I know which is something he likes, and one for John, featuring Stormtrooper beating Darth Vader in ping pong, which is pretty lazy I know (I’m sure the guy is totally sick of anything Star Wars related at this point), but still…

And with that out of way, I can finally say publicly (since I didn’t anyone even getting a small idea of what they might be getting) that Oddica is my new fave outlet for shirts. BTW, I wore the robot giving the finger to oil companies shirt last night for the first time, and it was uber comfortable. Can’t wait to rock out the other one for MoCCA; hey, I gotta look my trendy-nerdy best, right?

Oh, and I simply cannot wait for their next wave of shirts. I’m totally getting Richman’s Sport, Sith Abandon Ship, Trainman, Can’t Beat Em, Sell Em, and the robot vs the octopus one the first day they’re available.

I also have to state that the folks who run Oddica are top-notch. Not only did they upgrade my shipping when they made a slight mistake on their end (which I would have never noticed, so its not like they needed to tell me or anything), but they loaded the bag up with all sorts of cool pins and postcards, plus the shipping bag itself was simply awesome. Order for yourself to know what I’m talking about.

- During dinner, one of the main conversations was X-Men 3, naturally, which shifted to talk about the Ghost Rider trailer that played beforehand. The concensus seems to be is that it looks stupid, but seriously folks… it’s a flaming skull wearing a leather jacket that swings around a chain whip while riding a bike that leaves a trail of flames. How “realistic” can that possibly look in the first place?

Also, while talking about bad dreams, I mentioned how the only ones I have is due to me having to sell some much loved games in the past, so I’m constantly searching for them in an attempt to buy them back, which resulted in Dave mentioning that he has the same exact dreams as well… of me selling my games and the all the shock and horror from his end, which I found funny.

And when Steve left, I asked him if might be interested in checking out some midget oil wrestling match that’s I guess taking place in Willamsburg (I saw a flyer when I was in town for the GNG the night prior). Which got a good laugh from everyone…. though I was serious. Though I hope the flyer was serious too and it wasn’t the name of some fucking shitty as hipters/emo band. Cuz then I’ll be pissed.

- Well its June 1st, and I just got paid (from my teaching gig, plus a nice meaty freelance check arrived yesterday), so I’m going to finally go out and get New Super Mario Bros. I know it was yet another game that I told everyone “OH DEAR JESUS, I HAVE TO GET THAT GAME ON DAY ONE!!!” but never actually did. Actually I was going to pick up last week, but…

I’ve been hesitant on admitting this publicly, but I may as well, since I’m still pretty pissed about it. Remember that party I threw last weekend? Well, it was great except for one really shitty thing: I was the victim of petty theft. Joe Salina passed along a gift certificate to GameStop, which besides being totally awesome, was going to be my direct ticket to New SMB, but by the end of the night, it was missing from where I left it in my bedroom. Since then I’ve been going through my bedroom like crazy, to make sure it didn’t fall behind some furniture or something.

So who would do such a thing? None of my friends, that’s for sure. But there were more than just friends at my party… a few vague acquaintances were there on-hand, and at least one person whom I believe to be the culprit. But since I have no proof, I won’t say anything, and even then, that would be wrong, even though I’m certain that the person doesn’t read this site. Anyway… it’s pretty shitty I know. And sorry Joe… but thanks again, I really appreciated it.

- Just when I figured my piece for GameSetWatch (I think I’ll be sticking with the “To Live and Game in NY” title since at least one person likes it… thanks Robin) was ready to wrap up and send off, some unexpected and new information comes along. This morning at Insert Credit, another NYCer passed along a report regarding Lazer Park, the laser tag arena & arcade in Times Square, which closed it to door to business this past weekend. It’s sorta sad to see yet another shut down, though its hardly surprising of course, plus I don’t know anyone who was particularly a fan of the establishment. My only “fond memory” of the place, if you can call it that, is of myself and others goofing on this one kids in our class in college who worked there. The guy was so proud that he wore his uniform everyday to class, even though I believe he only worked there a day or so. Plus he was a real nerdlinger-grade uber geek, dumpy & Asian, with a pony-tail, and had a drawing on his pencil box of one of the ninja turtle’s head with the inscription “T.M.N.T. lives in me!”

Anyway, if there’s one lesson that can be gathered from the write-up, its that if some girl asks you to play laser tag with her, you fucking drop whatever you’re doing and join her. Period. Granted, this sorta depends on how cute she is, but my point still stands.

- Meanwhile, over at NeoGAF, here’s an interesting discussion regarding Sony and if are indeed biased against 2D games. Well, anyone with half a brain already knows the answer, but its fun to see Sony apologists in action, especially in this day and age.

- Over at IGN, they’ve decided to relaunch their Dreamcast section, but re-reviewing all games to see how they compare to stuff out today. Sounds interesting… till you discover that it’s only for US game, so no imports are included. Then it becomes “what’s the point?”

- And the latest chapter of the Legend of Zelda: The Light of Courage has been released. It’s better than ever and bits of stop motion are quite wonderful. I especially love the surely looking purplish-pink Triforce.

- For those who are curious (I’m sure no one’s even though about it), what I generally do when surfing the web is whenever I come across anything interesting, I’ll copy and paste the link so I can bring it up later on when I post. The thing is, I sometimes have all these text files with random links on them floating around, sometimes labeled and sometimes not, and over time I forget about stuff. Well the other day I decided to sift through them all and see what I’ve missed, and its quite a few things, including classic scenes from games done in Lego and a one-legged guy playing DDR, and rather well.

- Plus, here’s a ton of game related YouTube & Google videos, including…

… a great Japanese ad for Zelda: Four Swords featuring puppets (I’m sure I’ve linked to it before, but whatevas)…

… a SUPER old Japanese Zelda commercial, this one for Link’s Adventure, a.k.a. the Zelda game that everyone likes the least…

… that one crazy commercial for Link to the Past, featuring Link as a chick that everyone has seen about a million times, but in case someone hasn’t…

… another old Nintendo television spot, this one for Metorid…

… here’s one for the Mega Drive (Genesis) featuring a very serious looking guy (and some SHOCK)…

… this lengthy vid features the Famicom Disk System, both the system itself, how to set it up and downloading new games onto disks, and an in-depth look at its games (including Zelda 1)…

… androgynous goth J-rocker Gackt and Parappa the Rapper, together (at last)…

… here’s another long one, which I’m certainly most people won’t have the interest to sit through in its entirely, though fans of Streets of Rage should definitely check it out: the game’s composer, Yuzo Koshiro, playing DJ at a club with his own game tunes…

… for those of you who haven’t been able to beat the game with the all the achievements necessary in Sonic Adventure 2 (hell, I can’t even get passed the shitty ass Knuckles levels with its worst camera ever in a 3D platformer ever), here’s a look at what you get: the first level from Sonic 1 in 3D…

… and finally, for those who have forgotten the brilliance of the live action Super Mario Bros movie (seriously… it’s highly underrated), here ya go.

- Finally, word on the street is that the DS Lite, which is supposed to come out in the US next week, started floating around earlier this week due to places likes Target and Walmart breaking the street date. So lots of people started running around trying to grab one early, but eventually Nintendo caught wind and put the kibosh on things. But that hasn’t stopped folks from still searching… including Slonie, who stopped by a Target, where they didn’t even have the original DS. A friend of his took a pic of some guy who was disheartened by the empty shelf space…

… Slonie claims that its not him. Yeah, right.

Slonie also reminded me that the Venture Bros Season 1 DVD came out this week! Gotta grab that. Also found out that the new 20th anniversary edition of Transformers is coming out this November. I really hope they hire that crazy British guy that I saw at that lame ass Tranformers convention a few months back who knows pretty much everything about the movie (and will hopefully have those animatics from key scenes that he created himself from bits and pieces of discarded storyboard books that he’s paid thousands of dollars in acquiring).

- Been looking towards this weekend for a while now… I’m heading to Deleware to shoot guns again. Can’t wait!

UPDATE: Just wanted to pass along a big thanks to Brent for a few things…

First off, he’s the guy who turned me onto Akismet, which has more or less eliminated all my spam woes. The absolute worst was earlier in the week when I got seriously almost 3,000 spam posts in a single day! Even worse than that was how they caused my email server to freak out Tuesday night, so I?m missing out emails from a four hour timeframe that evening. But since Jason installed Akismet on Wednesday morning, it caught pretty much every single piece of spam (with the exception of two), which has been precisely 3,648 fake posts. And all legit comments haven’t been accidentally snared. Sweet! And once again, thanks!

Second, props to Brent for catching the Ghostbuters reference in the title of this post.

Also, and I didn’t find this out till recently, Brent is the man behind Assembler.org, specifically the very awesome (especially if you’re a shooter aficionado) RIG, which was recently shown at some indie film and video festival (I would have loved the chance to see it projected on the big screen, but I believe it took place in Texas). Hopefully, he’s working on a screensaver version for OS X!

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