Archive for September, 2009

It's Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Well, for some people. Sept. 19 started at midnight GMT, and that's when Telltale Games began giving away free copies of the first episode of Tales of Monkey Island, the new installment in LucasArts' classic Monkey Island franchise.

Telltale's latest episodic series is Tales of Monkey Island, a five-episode saga featuring mighty pirate Guybrush Threepwood and his motley crew. Tales of Monkey Island pulls the legendary franchise thundering and plundering into the modern era with an epic storyline conceived by some of the same team that dreamed up the original games. So polish up your swashbuckles and start practicing your Aaaarrrrr!, because this brand new Monkey Island adventure is available now!

And the first episode is free, until midnight Sept. 19 GMT (8 p.m. EST, or 4 p.m. PST), so get going!

Check here for more details.

Demented horror comedy may be one of the toughest genres to do convincingly, but Jeff Strand makes it happen, Author of How to Rescue a Dead Princess, Single White Psychopath Seeks Same, Graverobbers Wanted (No Experience Necessary) , The Sinister Mr. Corpse, (and many others), he has stepped away from his frivolous roots to produce a serious psychological thriller, Pressure.

Good: it did really well and was a finalist for the 2007 Bram Stoker Award. Bad: this is a problem, because it might encourage him to wrote more serious stuff, and you know how I feel about that. Fortunately, judging from the helpful video above, that "serious" thing hasn't taken a firm hold yet…

Strand will be signing at the Books-A-Million in Cassleberry, FL, tomorrow from 1 to 3 pm. Can you and your homicidal impulses dare not to go?

Check out more of his ravings here.

Today I attended Ratha Yatra (Festival of Chariots) on Daytona Beach, the first time this ancient ceremony has been held here. The idea is that it simulates a trip made by Jagannath, Lord of the Universe (also called Krishna), while on vacation to the countryside to his aunt's home. Ratha Yatra has been celebrated for thousands of years in the Indian holy city Jagannathapuri and is probably the oldest and largest religious ceremony around.

We saw hundreds of devotees singing, chanting, drumming, and pulling a brightly-colored chariot covered in flowers, food and red and yellow cloth, bearing the effigy of the Lord for all to see. They were to pull the chariot 2 1/2 miles down the beach to Sun Splash Park, where a feast awaited.

And they would have too, except for one slight, 1,000-foot problem: the Daytona Beach Pier.

Pics and more details are in my Flickr set here. While I'm sure the organizers were frustrated, no one yelled, festivities continued anyway and the celebration went on. Here's the beginning of the festival which explains it much better than I did, shot by news-journalonline.com's Ron Hurtibise:

The first hint I ever had that the funny things people said on TV were actually written by someone besides the actors was from watching M*A*S*H. This was a big deal for a 11-year-old.

Hawkeye: Looks like a pregnant bagpipe.
Trapper: Do bagpipes get pregnant?
Hawkeye: Sure they do, right after they make those funny sounds.

(I learned a lot of things from M*A*S*H, actually. I taught myself how to juggle after watching Hawkeye do it. I still know the closing stanzas of "Gunga Din" by heart. I'm pretty sure I could perform an emergency tracheotomy if I had to, and had a ballpoint handy. And I learned that good guys could make fun of religion — or, rather, religious people — and still be good guys.)

Frank: What are you doing there?!
Hawkeye: I just wanted to borrow your Bible, Frank.
Frank: Since when are you interested in the Bible?
Trapper: I peeked at the end, Frank. The Devil did it.

I even recorded the shows, although in those pre-DVR, pre-VCR days that meant me holding a 4-lb tape recorder and a microphone the size of a zucchini up to the TV speaker and hoping for the best. I had boxes of tapes, all duly labeled with episode names and season, and I listened to them over and over in the hopes of capturing that amazing rhythm of puns and snakebite-fast comebacks and just hilarious lines that served as my inspiration for what I wanted to be when I grew up.

A wiseass.

Also  a writer, although I didn't know that yet. It took a few years of steadily watching, and memorizing entire scenes to perform for my friends at school the next day, before I made the connection to the names in the opening credits. More specifically, I noticed that all my favorite episodes had "Larry Gelbart" on them. In the first four years, Gelbart wrote 97 episodes and had his hand in all the rest, sometimes up to his shoulder. Were Hawkeye and Trapper funnier when this guy was behind them, whispering into their ears? Was I not necessarily a M*A*S*H fan as much as a Larry Gelbart fan? OK, it wasn't exactly a Helen Keller "water!" moment, but it was a big thing for pre-pubescent me.

Frank: Colonel, you are not listening to me!
Henry: Uh, you'll have to speak a little louder, Frank. I'm not listening to you.

Of course most of the rest of the series was also brilliant and funny and groundbreaking, but never again quite in the same way for me. Gelbart and fellow producer Gene Reynolds and the other writers and directors and the cast had clearly been out to shake up television, push the boundaries, see what they could get away with. Language. Humor mixed with the horror of inhumanity. Characters with strengths and weaknesses and real changes that were still there the next episode. Episodes from the POV of a patient, episodes in letter form. Ending an episode of a  comedy sitcom with the devastatingly emotional blow of the death of a beloved main character, with no closing punch line to soften the blow. I was spoiled for quality television at a very early age and it's stayed with me.

So did the habit of obsessing over a show beyond what normal people would consider, well, normal. Even in high school when the show was slowing down I went for M*A*S*H bowling afternoons every week with my friends Eric Marle and David Story and Dan Schwieg, all of us in olive drab shirts and dog tags, swigging Sprite in martini glasses and keeping a poker game going in between our turns. But even then we still tended to gravitate toward the earlier shows when we quoted lines  (I was always Trapper).

It cheered me up no end when I bought the DVD sets and got both my sons completely hooked on the show. Finally they starting getting my references! Unfortunately that also meant they started realizing their funny dad didn't write all his own material, either…

BJ: Minding my own business is a full-time job. In my spare time, it's my hobby. I can't divide myself emotionally. I couldn't break my word to Peg, and not because God will send me to Hell without an electric fan or because it's not the right thing to do. I simply don't want to.
Hawkeye: You've got a lot to learn about messing up your life.

Larry Gelbart had a gift for humor and emotion that I envy still. Yes, yes, he worked for Sid Caesar and co-wrote Tootsie and Oh God! and co-wrote the book for A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum and many other notable accomplishments, but mostly he showed me (and the world) how to laugh, and he showed me what television was capable of. I am very glad tonight that I got the chance to tell him what his work meant to me; I wrote him a year back, as much of a gushing fanboy letter as I've ever seen, and while I'm sure his response was what he sent to everyone I still hope that my praise, added to the rest, cheered him up.

Gelbart died of cancer this morning at his home. He was 81.

Abyssinia, Larry.

The official, licensed, Museums Replicas versions of River's axe and a Reaver sword were certainly impressive, reasonably accurate, and came with a cool wall plaque, but they weren't exactly cheap. And the actual props from the Prop Store of London were even more expensive.  What's the economically disadvantaged fan to do?

Never fear! Bud K is selling the "Serenity Axe" and "Serenity Fantasy Sword" for just $27.99 each! OK, they're not exactly like the movie versions — slightly different shapes to the blades — but they're not bad and definitely closer to my personal price range. And I like how the description tells you that "Dedicated fans and hardcore followers of cult sci-fi hits will instantly recognize this replica weapon" without actually mentioning River or Reavers.

The axe measures measures 27" overall and features an "authentically detailed" stainless steel 19 1/2" axe blade and wood handle. The sword is 16" overall with a stainless steel 11" blade and wood handle. Both come with nylon sheaths.  Great for your wall or your cosplaying, easy on the wallet.

Video: Season 3 – Episode 1: Expansion Time

The wait is over!

Well, actually for the members of the online megahit show The Guild the wait has just begun, as a huge new development in their lives arrives: the new expansion to their game.

"'The Spires of Dragonore!' New continent, new powers. Most importantly: new character hairstyles!"

But will it distract them from their problems? Last season Bladezz deleted Tinkerballa's character after she manipulated him, Codex got dumped by the hunky stuntman she liked and went to find Zaboo, who had apparently gotten over his crush on her with the help of the mouth of the stuntman's hottie roommate Riley, and Vork is… still Vork. Slaying goblins is starting to look a lot easier than all this real-life crap.

Episode one of the new season is now at MSN Video for your viewing pleasure (XBox Live gold members got it a week ago).  You can see it for free along with behind the scenes stuff, the Comic Con panel, the music video, and the previous episodes. But you really should order the Season One and Season Two DVDs for more stuff, commentaries, and because this sort of thing needs to be supported.

10 years. 10 years to get out 27 issues of a comic. Taking your time, people?

OK, granted, Planetary creators Warren Ellis, John Cassaday and Laura Martin were interrupted several times by illness and other projects. And OK, out of 26 previous issues every one was a hit. And OK, they never promised a regular schedule and then went back on it, they were always upfront about delays and hiatuses. And OK, I can't exactly bitch since my own webcomic went on two hiatuses in a year…

The thing is, is it worth the wait? 3 years since the last one?

Haven't read it, beyond the preview pages at the Wildstorm blog. But I'll be buying it the day it comes out, and so should you. And if you haven't read the rest of them, go get them. I'll wait.

If you were living in a world full of superpowered people, how would you find out what they've been doing? Especially if they didn't want you to know? You build a group like Planetary; three archeologists uncovering 100 years of secret superhero activity.

The three have their own abilities — Jakita Wagner is strong, fast and tough, The Drummer can detect and manipulate information streams, new recruit Elijah Snow can extract heat from nearby substances at will — and there is a hidden Fourth Man running the show as they search for clues to what really happened in the last century. It's fast, subversive, thought-provoking, and often hilarious (the DC crossover special where they encounter every version of Batman that's been seen, from the original to the Dark Knight to the 70's hero to Adam West must not be missed) and features barely concealed and not-very-flattering references to almost every other iconic hero like Superman, Captain Marvel, Sherlock Holmes, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Nick Fury, Godzilla, the Justice League, the Fantastic Four and the Hulk.

The art by John Cassaday is breathtakingly believable, and Laura Martin's colors ground it even further into reality. Also, Warren Ellis is a sick, sick man.

With any luck the release of this will trigger a new edition of the whole series, but for now we'll make do with the collections. Planetary #27 will be an oversized issue, with a 3-piece wraparound gatefold cover drawn by Cassaday, coming out sometime in October.