August 2003 Archives

As I mentioned in last week's article, I recently had a visit from my seven-year-old cousin. During this visit, he was looking through the various saves on my memory card (an act which made me nervous, for I knew that one twitch of his sticky little finger could destroy my 60% clear on Metal Gear Solid 2 Substance's VR Missions), and noticed one save icon that was a hopping bunny. "What is that game?" he asked, and I could feel the trouble starting.

That unfortunately chosen image is the save icon for Silent Hill 3, a game which I would not expose my seven-year-old cousin to under any circumstances. He also asked about the many varieties of Metal Gear Solid saves, and I responded with the same, "No, that game isn't for you." Now, if you know children, telling them they can't do something makes them only want to do it more, and this denial led to about a two-day-long non-stop pestering (interspersed with the "can I sleep in your bed with you" argument, which is a whole other article for a whole different website) in which my cousin repeatedly begged to know or see or play these forbidden grown-up games, and I repeatedly said no.

Now, what I find strange about all of this is that when I told his mother about this, when I told my mother about this, when I told our very own Stephen about this, they seemed surprised. I make assumptions for their line of thinking, but I could see the thought form in his mother's mind: "Video games are for video games, aren't they? They're kid stuff."

No. They aren't.

I support the video game rating system, and I want to see it better advertised and more strictly enforced. Many of the games I own are rated "M", and for very good reason. While it is one thing for me to become an expert at Metal Gear Solid 2 until I start experimenting with shooting soldiers in different body parts to see their reactions (my favorite is getting the sniper rifle and shooting them in the crotch), that is not something that a child should be learning to do. Not to mention the fact that my cousin sucks at video games, and he wouldn't be able to shoot a soldier at all, let alone with the precision to get him in the ass to get his attention, then in the head when he turns around.

Maybe this makes me sound like a crotchedy cranky old lady, but when I was a kid, video games didn't get much bloodier or more disturbing than, say, Castlevania, and I didn't have cable TV until I was ten, so I grew up without seeing the ridiculous statistical number of violent acts that they say children see nowadays. I came into my taste for violent and horrific media when I was of age and could handle it, when I understood the line between fantasy and reality. Shooting a man in the ass in a video game is fun, but I'm old enough to realize that that would not be so much fun in
real life.

My point is, the children are our future and all that, but the children are basically stupid impressionable sponges, and if we make them into monsters by giving them grown up toys before they're ready, we have no one but ourselves to blame.

(Note: these opinions only extend to games with serious violence or horrific imagery. Games with naughty language and sexy ladies will just make our kids into George Carlin, something I wholly support.)

I'm attending a party tonight for one of Sequential Arts' own, Whitney of Tales from the Dork Side fame. She's in town and Stephen is throwing a party in her honor and is inviting a large number of people to come, to eat snacks and drink booze. It's one of those occasions when you're expected to bring a bottle of wine or whisky, or some chips and salsa or something. It's your job as an invited guest to bring something to make your invatation worth it.

I'm bringing a stack of mini-comics.

I had recently run into a group of guys outside of Virgin Records on Mass. Ave and Newbury Street who were selling their homemade comics for a buck (apparently Newbury Comics had asked them to stop trying to sell their book right out in front of their store). It's crudely drawn but acceptably well written. I was proud that they were taking to the streets to hock their wares. It takes confindence, ability and free time to do that. Not something that everyone has. I was so impressed with their can-do attitudes that I purchased their remaining stack of comics at a discounted rate (just because I respect them doesn't mean that I'm not willing to haggle).

I decided that these crude Kinko-produced comics were the perfect thing to bring to this shindig tonight. And I think that everyone should know about the option. If you're going somwhere for a party, don't think that you have to shell out twenty dollars for alcohol or even fifteen dollars for snacks. No, you can always go the extra cheap route and spend ten dollars on a stack of homemade comics or even spend ten dollars making one yourself. It'd not only be original and cool and stylish but it would also be a collector's edition.

Just think about it: you walk in the door and start handing out these little comics. The title would be something like "Whitney's Special Bash 2003!" and the cover would sport a little caricature of Whitney dancing or popping out of cake or something. Everyone could chuckle over it. They'd take it home and read it whenever they wanted to remember the evening.

Once we can get people to get sentimental over comics, then we can get them into comic stores. We can get people to plop down some serious coin to experience new memories and new sensations.

Make your own mini-comic today!

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder

I had high hopes for Enter the Matrix. Most likely, unrealistically high hopes. I had heard that the Wachoswki brothers, the very same writer-directors of the film, were behind the making of the game. This meant that unlike most spin-off video games, this one would be cool. It would be coherent and actually relevant to the mythos of the series. My hopes were raised further when I heard about how much live action footage was shot for the game. It soon seemed as if "Enter the Matrix" was not a video game so much as an extension of the film franchise, for all intents and purposes, it was a fourth film in the series. Or so it seemed.

When I was watching the Matrix Reloaded, I kept feeling like I wasn't getting the whole picture. There were references to the Osiris and there was that one character who was really clingy to Neo who I'd never seen before. I can't help but think this is because when I saw the film I had not at that point seen the Animatrix nor had I played the game. I thought to myself as I sat in that theatre seat, surely the anime and the game must fill in some of these blanks.

Does the game do that? Yes and no. It does but not very well. It tells you some things that happened off screen during Revolutions but it in no way helps bridge the gap like I thought it would. It's good but it's not great. I'm a large fan of the cut scenes in the game and that's good because there is a lot of them. However, it got a bit overboard at points where the cut scenes were going on for so long that I'd just put down the controller and wait to be able to play the game again.

And it was hard to wait. The game is fun. Or at least until it gets too repetative and boring. The gameplay itself is good and clean. Some of the missions made me scratch my head because I didn't care or it made no sense. But what bothered me the most was the quality of the rendered cut scenes. Some of the cut scenes were DVD-rom stuff shot at the same time as the movie. That stuff looks great. The game itself is very well designed and well rendered. But the cut scenes aren't as good (which I don't understand). Also, the voice acting is only so-so.

It is cool that you can play as one of two characters and that the gameplay switches between the two of them (not drastically but enough to warrant some replay). What annoyed me was the "hacking" feature. It was a cool way to offer a cheat menu and, again, to offer some replay value but the format of it was just annoying. I'm not a computer hacker because just the thought of typing in code frustrates and annoys me so I have no clue why I'd want to play it as a game.

All in all, it was good but not great. I rented it played it for four days and returned it. That's about all I can recommend it for.

I write this article now in a tiny hotel room in the East Village in New York City, awaiting the morning when I love into my dorm to begin my final school year. So, what I'm saying is, I've been traveling all day and my mind is a little whack-a-ding-hoy, to use the technical terms. But we've been behind and this article needs to go up tomorrow, so I press on! I press on!

This past week I had my aunt, uncle, and seven-year-old cousin Travis come to visit me. The aunt and uncle aren't the important parts in this story; it's the seven-year-old cousin that matters in the world of dorkiness. You see, when I first met Travis but a year ago, he discovered that I was the most important thing a young child can have: The Cool Older Cousin. You know that cousin, the one who's probably more than ten years older than you, full of wisdom and wit, and, best of all, likes video games. Being the Cool Older Cousin means that you become your younger cousin's favorite thing in the world, and all of the other grownups will be happy for your existence, because the kid will only want to hang out with you.

Now, while it is nice to finally be considered cool for being a grownup and still liking video games by someone, there are some downsides to this, other than the aforementioned Always Having To Deal With the Kid problem.

For one, you and the kid are going to play a lot of video games. I know, this doesn't sound bad, but the problem is how the kid wants to play video games. That is to say, the kid wants to play, and the kid, being young and stupid and not entirely well acquainted with how his extremities work, will suck. You will watch your own flesh and blood make boneheaded mistakes in the most simple of games, and you will be seized with thedesire to whack the child on the head and shout, "JUST GIVE ME THE CONTROLLER AND LET ME DO IT." But you won't, because his mom would be mad.

Another problem is that when the child does, indeed, give you the controller, he has a very short attention span. He will be delighted to watch you kick ass at the game that just thwarted him moments ago, but only for about ten minutes. Then he will be bored at seeing your prowess and want to switch to another game that he can suck at. I had to go out and buy my own copy of Dark Cloud, as my cousin would not let my interest in it carry over more than fifteen minutes. AND HE COPIED OVER MY SAVE, THE LITTLE... I'm okay. I'm okay.

Then, there is the problem of the two player game. Dear Travis asked me to select a game for us to play from his collection, and I picked Virtua Fighter 4, because I am always a sucker for hitting things with virtual small Asian girls. Now, sure, the seven year old beat me the first few rounds, but I swear, this was because I'd never played the game before and was learning the control system. No, it was. Shut up. But then when I figured out the moves (variations on forward-forward attack button work in every fighting game ever) and started repeatedly whaling on him (perhaps I shouldn't beat my seven-year-old cousin at games, you say. Perhaps I should let him win. Perhaps you should think of the shame of losing to a seven-year-old.), he got bored and moved on to another game. It was a plane game, where he impressed me by repeatedly crashing the plane directly to the earth.

With the added problems of how my cousin could not read (and you try to find a game that doesn't involve reading in some way) and how he repeatedly insisted that yes, we were going to play the games I said were "grown up games" (Metal Gear Solid and various Silent Hill games) even though they would scar him for life, I quickly grew weary of the role of the Cool Older Cousin. As the visit wore on, I became the Cranky Older Cousin, the one that yells at you and tells you to sit down and be quiet.

Warn your children.

And now I will actually write a game review about a game that has just been released. Remember this one, kids, it probably won't happen again.Well, maybe when FFX-2 comes out.

You may have heard about the Silent Hill game series. If you haven't, you should. The series started on the original Playstation console with a game that was a change from the existing monsters-crashing-through-windows variety of the survival horror genre we'd seen in games like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis (actually, I don't know if Dino Crisis counts as survival horror, but I had to think of something other than Resident Evil). It was different from those games because your hero was not a trained individual, not a special operative, but rather just a normal guy in the wrong place. This lead to having a character who could hold and fire a gun, but might not be able to properly aim it, and would get winded after running a long way.

But the real draw of Silent Hill was not having to stop to catch your breath, it was having to stop the game to catch your breath. The game had some of the most terrifying settings, graphics, sound, and events that had ever graced the console. It actually made me need to sleep with the light on.

Because of this standard of freak-out excellence, the release of a Silent Hill game series on the PS2 was awaited with excitement, and had success with Silent Hill 2 (which is a whole different column). A successful sequel begets another sequel, and Silent Hill 3 was released.

This game is both a delight and a disappointment. You play as Heather, a standard teenage girl lost in a world of horror. Heather is a refreshing change from the protagonists of the previous two games, Harry and James, who were middle aged men and, to put it lightly, total tools. (One of Silent Hill 2's five endings features James killing himself. That's my favorite one.) She's a girl you can't help but like, who has a good attitude about the freaky things around her. (For instance, she reacts to a closed locker with blood pouring out of the bottom with "I don't think I need to open that one." Quite different from her predecessors.)

The game has not wimped out when it comes to terror; it has, in fact, surpassed the levels of sheer freaky freak freak-out stuff in the first two games. The magic of technology allows for new graphical jiggery pokery to make you cry, such as blood that oozes and crawls along the walls itself, and backgrounds jittering and going out of focus while Heather stays perfectly solid. The ambient sound effects add to the overall atmosphere of fear (hah! oh, what, it rhymed). There is nothing that makes me whimper like a little girl like walking down an empty hall and suddenly hearing a child crying from nowhere. The music, as in the first two games, is darkly beautiful -- and conveniently enough, a soundtrack is included with the game.

Now, sadly, we have to get to where the game falls short. To begin with, the gameplay had some very frustrating aspects. I am not one to complain about Heather not being able to aim at times, because even though she is a teenage girl, she is no Raiden. My frustration came with the fact that there are death-trap times; you die instantly, no chance to escape. Okay, so maybe I shouldn't have been wandering around on the subway tracks, but when the station is filled with evil mummified dogs with split heads, you don't expect a train to come! At least, I don't.

My largest complaint and disappointment with the game comes with the plot. Silent Hill 1 had a plot about occult nonsense that made little sense. Silent Hill 2 had a beautifully subtle and psychologically terrifying plot that still gives me chills when I think about it. Silent Hill 3 has a plot about occult nonsense that makes sense, but is really neither interesting nor frightening. The storyline is directly connected to the first game, which means that it is full of cults and reborn demon gods and women in dark dresses proclaiming about prophecies in bad accents. Not what I want in my cutscenes.

The combination of this poor plotline and the fact that creep-outs andcat scares are only really frightening the first time through greatly decreases the replay value. The game has two endings (and one gag ending), and I don't really see myself playing beyond enough to see all of those. Unlocking new costumes and weapons is not enough of a draw for me.

So, in conclusion, if you want a game that will make you turn on all the lights in the house, go for Silent Hill 3. If you want a game that will make you turn on all the lights in the house and that has a good storyline, get Silent Hill 2. And if you are afraid of monsters... well, I wouldn't look behind you right now. Trust me.

Last week I talked about naughty comics and this is my follow up to it. It's less of a sequel and more of a footnote or a P.S.

I've been surprised at the amount of email that I've recieved on this. It's not that many but at this point when we get one we celebrate. Some of it has been positive, some of it has been negative, some of it has been to ask me if I was making this stuff up and some of it to ask where they could purchase such stuff. Let me answer these questions and just ignore the personal feelings of others cause I'll be honest, I don't care. You support my desire to see porn? Good. You don't? Too bad. I'm still gonna look at it. My looking at porn doesn't affect you one way or the other (except that it makes me happier and thus I don't make your life more difficult).

Does this stuff exist? Yeah. And it's better than porn on video. Comic porns have plots, stories. Something to get you going. Comic pornography is much more erotic and much less "stick it and pump" cause that would get boring really quick in a comic.

Where do you get it? Go to your comic book salesman and ask for it. They'll order it through Diamond distribution. If you don't feel comfortable talking to them, then buy Previews magazine (Diamond's catalogue) and take the order form home and order the comic. There are several nice companies and artists out there so feel free to go exploring.

This doesn't just go to fellas, either. Ladies, get yourself some dirty comics. It's a mix between a porn and a romance novel, you'll love it. My advice to all my readers: find some comic book porn and go to town. You'll be glad you did. And never let anyone make you feel bad about it. What you do with your pornography is between you and your junk (they're called "privates" for a reason).

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder

The Crow was a memorable movie for my generation. Everyone I knew went to go see it and loved it. It was moody, broody and just all around dark (but with that pin prick of hope and true love that made it all the more angsty teen fodder). The fact that Brandon Lee had died during the making of the movie only added to its mystique and mystery. So we all lined up (and snuck in) to go see it.

When you see the movie now it looks extremely dated, which is the risk that any film runs when it tries to capture the youth. In trying to be hip and modern, it locks itself into a certain time period like a fly caught in amber. However, in my opinion, it's not that bad a time period to reflect. (I still think the soundtrack to this movie is incredible and hosts a who's who of my high school CD player rotation).

The film is a pretty good adaptation of the comic, although it does take a few liberties (the dream sequences of the comic are too surreal to work in the film and were wisely cut). It fits the mood of the comic extremely well and gets across all the main points. The thing that works the best is the editing, which always cuts on action just like a comic book. There is a rarely a thoughtful pause in the editing

This is a flick that's worth watching at least once. It's well done, even if it is a bit over the top and melodramatic.

Blade is the father of the current trend of comic book movies. I know it can be hard to believe, after all it was the X-Men that made our dreams come true, it was Spider-Man that broke the records, it was the Matrix that made it cool. But it wasn't any of those that started the trend all over again. Blade was made first and made a pretty penny doing it (of course, next to the box-office behometh that is Spider-Man all its profits do look just like pennies). True, the Matrix probably would've been made anyway, Blade or no Blade. It was a Joel Silver production and didn't need much encouragement from a tiny New Line film (also, only a few people think of the Matrix as a superhero film despite the fact that it most obviously is, if the suits as Warner Brothers had thought of it as one, I wonder if they would've been quicker to greenlight it or more hesitant?).

Of course, it had to was up to Blade to get the ball rolling. When Blade was made, Spider-Man was a legal nightmare and wasn't on the track to being cleared up anytime soon. The X-Men was a large cast ensemble which are nightmares in their own way from casting through production. Daredevil was a lesser known properity and League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (which hadn't even come out at the time) was an even lesser known properity and Ghost World was an even lesser known properity than the League. The Hulk was too expensive and the technology wasn't advanced enough. None of these projects seemed fesible to make and if they did, then they didn't seem profitable (which is just as bad in Hollywood terms).

Blade proved that a comic book movie could make money if given a chance (the story goes that David Goyer, the film's writer, had to lobby hard to convince the studio to give them more money and not treat the film as a throw-away comic book adaptaion like the Punisher or numerous other atrocious comic book films). Blade also got Marvel to prek up its ears and try to get every project that it had off the ground.

That's how important Blade was.

The next, and more important question, is how good is it? Well, it's okay. It's good enough for me to own it but that doesn't say much since I have trouble avoiding comic book movies, good or bad.

The dialogue isn't great and the characterization isn't much either. So what does it have going for it? The three A's: action, attitude and atmosphere, The film has great fight scenes. They're well cheorographed, well fought and well shot. His mixture of sword fighting and gunplay is great and well done. It was also unapologetically rated R. Take a moment to appreciate what this means, it was a comic book movie that refused to let any younger than 18 into the theatre. To most Hollywood executives the word "comic book" and "kid friendly" are synomous, so for New Line to work so hard to make a mature comic book movie was quite a feat. Which brings us to the third "A," atmosphere. The film is sexy and dark, the perfect mood for a vampire movie.

So, as long as you know what you're getting into (great mindless action), this movie is great fun.

Spider-Man for the PS one is a decent enough game even by today's standards, which I think says a lot for the care that Neversoft took making this game.

It's based on the early 90's Spider-Man cartoon and as such it has decent voice acting for the most part (a few choices such as Venom are just annoying but that's more of the cartoon's fault than Neversoft's). The figures are blocky, but this is a PS one game, so what are you gonna do? The cut scenes are good (not great but solid) even if the figures do have pretty limited body language.

The game allows you to do a few creative web tricks without making the controls too complicated. And even if you do find them a bit difficult you can always try the "Kids Mode." As Guy Ryder said, "there's no shame in Kid's Mode. I just leave out that part when I'm telling people I beat the game." If you're over the age of eight, however, and have more self-respect than Guy (which is not hard) then you can do the training mode and try to improve yourself. To monitor your progress there's a record section that keeps track of all your best times of each event.

It's evident that Neversoft loves Spider-Man. Each major arc of the game even has its own comic cover to kick off the introduction. Also, they've hidden comic covers throughout the levels (thanks to a FAQ from gamefaqs.com, I was able to find them all). You can also unlock numerous variants of the Spider-Man costume such as Ben Reilly's costume, Scarlet Spider, the symbiote Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man Unlimited, Peter Parker and even quick change Spider-Man among others (my personal favorite is the Amazing Bag-Man).

But those aren't the only extras. It also has a character viewer where you can get a three dimensional look at all of the major players in the game and even a few important cameo players such as Daredevil, Captain America, the Human Torch and a couple of others. There's also one of my favorite features, a movie viewer where you can see cut scenes from any point in the game. They also have the storyboards from each of the sequences. Another little quirk is that if you leave the controller alone during the opening menu you will see a few demos, including Spider-Man in a James Bond parody. I think that in terms of extras, this game is as good as the PS one gets.

The story that holds the whole thing together is pretty thin but they do their best to see that it holds up and for the most part it does. The problem comes in that Neversoft is trying to get in every villain that they can get. In this game you have to fight the Rhino, Venom, Carnage, Lizard, Mysterio, Doctor Octopus, and Scorpion, not to mention countless thugs, goons and lugs. When the creators cram in lots of villains into one game, the storyline almost always suffers from it.

The game has an adjustable difficult setting but for the most part it is straightforward and easy. The ending is surprisingly difficult considering how easy the rest of the game is but the final cut scene is worth putting in the time to defeat the game.

The best part is how cheap this game is, if you can find it. I got my copy from Blockbuster for five dollars. This is a good clean fun game and it's a good way to spend an afternoon or two.

You may or may not have noticed, but the title of this column is "Tales from the Dork Side", which seemed like a good idea when it was late at night with Stephen and we were brainstorming about the site. We came up with a lot of great ideas for articles I could write, and they all burned away in the horrible, purifying light of the morning. Remember, kids, if you want to channel alcoholism into creativity, you have to do the creating when you're drunk, not hungover. It doesn't work the other way. I've tried.

But you may be wondering if I have a point. My point is, there's a certain word in the title of this column that needs to be defined. No, not "side". Or "the". Okay, yes, we do need a good definition of "from", but that will take much longer than the length of one article.

What is, exactly, a "dork"? And, related to this, how do we define the dork's close family members, the geek, the nerd, and the spazz? Well, like this:

Geek: A geek is, by and large, someone with some expertise or great interest in the technical, science, or any stereotypically left-brained region. They are very smart people, who have skills, and know how to fix your computer, or cure your cancer. Because of their devotion to their craft, they may become socially isolated from people outside of the "geek" strata, but there have been certain geeks who have succeeded in socializing, and even mating outside of their species.

(Note: despite the nomenclature, a "band geek" is not a true geek at all, but actually a breed of dork. Much like the red panda.)

Nerd: The nerd can perhaps be considered a subspecies of the geek, with the specific characteristics that define a geek brought into excessive amounts. The nerd knows what it is doing, it is the top of its field, or is the most devoted to its particular interest. This "deep geek" immersion leads to further isolation from the lower intellectual castes, who fear and do not understand the nerd. This is generally just fine with the nerd in question.

(Note: Not all of the characters in the film "Revenge of the Nerds", were, in fact, nerds. Lamar Latrell was just gay, and Dudley "Booger" Dawson was just gross.)

Spazz: The spazz is actually not strongly related to either the geek or the nerd groups, but it is common to see a crossbreed. The spazz does not have the skill or interest of the geek, nerd, or dork. They are just socially inept. Anyone could be a spazz. Even you.

(Note: Probably you.)

Dork: The one you waited for. The dork covers many fields. What defines a dork is not an excess of skill, but an excess of interest. They become subsumed in whatever they like the most, until their hobby nearly defines who they are. This, as might be suggested, leads to difficulty in interacting with the outside world.

(Note: If you have ever thought something like, "Man, that guy definitely has four dots in Cool", you are a dork.)

These different breeds can often crossbreed, so you will meet a geeky dork, or a dorky nerd. Or even the rare dorky geeky nerdy spazz. Do not get in an elevator with that one. Really.

I myself am a dork. I dabble in many fields; I am a bit of a movie dork, a bit of a comic dork, a large bit of an anime dork, quite a deal of a video game dork... I am dork of all trades, and master of none. Much like the bard in AD&D.

If you ever compare anything to the bard in AD&D... well, you know what you are.

Hello and welcome to my sixth column, or as I like to call it: my "sexth" column. Come now and read my article.

Cable, VHS, DVD, the internet, magazines... what do all these things have in common? They are mediums that are sustained by pornography. Don't you forget it for a second that DVD and the Internet were struggling until softcore and hardcore pornography came along and fortified it. If you don't believe me just look at laserdiscs (to all the young folk, it was like a DVD but it was the size of a record instead of a CD, a record being a CD that was even more fragile and about five times as big).

You have to understand that the porn industry is second only to the military industry. So how do you make a successful enterprise, you appeal to perverts. That's the lesson to be gleamed from all of this. Pornography is what sells things. Sex, after all, is one of the great motivators of society.

How does this apply to comics? Hardcore comics, that's what I'm talking about. They're already out there (even current X-Men scribe Chuck Austen has done them, go ahead and ask him about a book called "Draw Me Pretty") but there not getting enough press. Just as you should hand every kid an issue of the X-Men or Spider-Man you should hand every pervert an issue of Cherry or Click.

Join me next week when I dive further into the world of adult comic books.

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder

I was a never a Teen Titans fan. I'm still not really. I have no plans to go back and read Marv Wolfman's historic run or read Geoff Johns new take on the team, although I respect both writers. I don't have anything against the Titans, they just never seemed like my cup of tea which is why I was so surprised by the Cartoon Network's "Teen Titans."

Why surprised? Because I love it. Maybe it's Bruce Timm's work but I've not always loved his work on the JLA, so I'm not sure. It's not as if the show is doing anything really new: it's a teen superhero melodrama with more than a touch of anime flair. While what it does may not be new, it does it extremely well.

The character designs are good and fit the storytelling style very well. The humor is funny (especially Starfire's naive comments like "the blinding lights and deafening noise are most enjoyable" or her offering of her planet's "pudding of sorrow" to her teammates always steal the scene). The stories are fun and enjoyable. The best thing is that the show never takes itself too seriously and is always willing to poke fun at itself.

So watch the show and enjoy!

When Stephen (who is the boss of this website, in case you didn't know. But not the boss of me. Most of the time) first approached me to write this column, he described it as a column about manga and anime, since this is allegedly a comics website, and those things are sort of related to comics. I, of course, being a diligent and obedient author, said, "I think I'll write about video games." And Stephen acquiesced anyway, because he knows I'm the only one of his friends who can meet a deadline.

And so, in the weeks leading up to the grand unveiling of the new and improved website, I promised him that I would write an article about Metal Gear Solid Substance. Oh, what an article about Substance it would be, with informative insights and clever commentary on all of the tactical espionage action. "I'll get that Substance article to you soon," I told him.

Then I handed him this article instead, and he told me I'd never work in this town again. This lead to some confusion as to what town, since we live in different cities, and while he was distracted, I published the article anyway.

A couple of years ago, I fell in with some bad stuff. It was by accident... you know how these things are; you start out innocently, curious, just experimenting, and before you know it, you're hooked, up until three in the morning, barely blinking, just thinking about your next crop.

Yes. I'm talking about farming sims.

Harvest Moon was released for the Super Nintendo in 1996 by Natsume and Ubi Soft. I remember seeing a small feature on it in Nintendo Power (because of course, I was a Nintendo Power subscriber from the first issue on for six years), and thinking "Gosh. Farming." And then, years later, when I was involved in the shady world of downloading SNES ROMs (since the SNES is effectively dead, I don't feel too guilty. But remember, it's illegal, and we at sequentialarts.typepad.com don't condone illegal activities. So if anyone asks, I slipped and fell onto my mouse and clicked on the download.) I went mad with power and decided it was time for my moon to be harvested.

It's deceptively simple. You play a young man who has just inherited a farm out in the country (as opposed to those city farms you hear so much about) and have a given period of years to bring it from its ramshackle state into a thriving source of produce and livestock. It is not what one would expect to be a fun game. You will spend hours weeding, chopping wood, tilling fields, watering your crops, milking your cows... and for what reward? Well, as with any simulation game, you really only get the satisfaction of having done something correctly. If you water your crops daily, they grow, you can sell them, and have money to... buymore crops. Or perhaps trade with the elves that live beneath your farm for a magical watering can.

I lost weeks of my life to this game. It addicted me to such an extend that when I saw the Playstation sequel, Harvest Moon: Back to Nature, I embarrassed myself by shrieking with girlish farming delight in the Circuit City. They knew my horrible secret, but it was okay, because I could see on the back of the box that there were even more crops to grow and you could even raise sheep. Sheep! And sure enough, it was everything I could imagine. There were something like twelve different crops, and a bevy of livestock to be raised. I named all of my chickens after Evangelion characters. Shinji was my best hen. He laid golden eggs because I hugged him a lot.

Yes. If you hug your chickens a lot, they lay golden eggs. Because this is Harvest Moon, and it's a farming sim, and it's here to make you think things like "I have to get my cows inside, there's a storm brewing" and "This drought is hell on my tomato crop" and worry about whether or not you'll have enough feed for your chickens to get you through the winter. If you let it get to you. If you listen to the siren call of farming.

(EDITOR'S NOTE: While I was shocked to find this article posted on the website, I do have to say that it's quite good. So I told Whitney that she could indeed work in this town again. Her response was, "which town, Stephen?" To which I responded, "Any town you want, Whitney. Any town you want... Also, Guy has asked me to correct Whitney in saying that she is the only friend that I have who can follow a deadline. Instead of correcting that I will reinforce it, because as we all know, Guy is more of a tool for hire than a friend.)

Marvel Epic is off the hook. I'm surprised that it took so long before Marvel finally allowed its fans a crack at writing some of their favorite characters. I was even more surprised after PJ told me that Roy Thomas, one of the first fans of the genre, used his fandom as a catapult into his comic career.

I mean, for years Marvel was always open to seeing new artists and trying to find the next big thing that they could sign, you know, the artists who were busting at the seams to be discovered. Alas, writers had no such in with the company. All they could do was hope and pray to get noticed through some other means such as writing television, movies, novels, or doing smaller or independent comic work.

Now Marvel is just as open to receiving the work of writers as it is to artists. They're hoping to find some diamond in the rough (for I am sure that hundreds of people are going to turn in scripts that are just dreadful), some author whose vision of the Marvel universe and storytelling will take comicdom to that next plateau. And I am confident that just such a writer is out there.

For you see, that's what is truly great about this opportunity; it allows the world to finally get a taste of some of my writing. That's right boys and girls and children of all ages, I'm going to be throwing my hat in the ring. I'm gonna put my money where my mouth is and just hope that Marvel doesn't tell me to go ahead and munch on those dead presidents.

Only time and Bill Jemas will tell.

On a mission from God,
Guy Ryder