Death to Uni-taskers

Alton Brown's new re-designed site went live today and my shirt is on it. Look at it's golden glory!

The REALY BIG news

I've made mention from time to time about some big news that I couldn't talk about just yet. Well I finally got the go-ahead.

I like to watch a show on the Food Network called "Good Eats". I'm a big fan of the show and it's host Alton Brown. I switched to kosher salt because of him. -- if you haven't seen it, do go catch a few. It's like cooking with Mr Wizard. His goal is not just to give you a recipe but to teach WHY it works -- the Science of cooking.

So - Last year I did a little cartoon inspired by the show and sent it to a few friends... who sent it to a few friends...etc...



and somewhere in that chain was Alton Brown himself.

Long story short -- I'm designing a new line of shirts for Foodie-Guru Alton Brown. Host of "Good Eats". The first shirts are back from the printers and should be going on sale next week.

The really weird thing about this all is I didn't go looking for the job... he came to me. It's unsettling.

This is not the image on the shirt... for that you will need to wait one more week, but I just couldn't not say anything any more.

Zombie Shooter

Check out this fun yet creepy little shooter - Hints Mouse to Aim, Left Mouse click to Shoot, Shift to toggle to a Shotgun (once you 'found' it)

I've Seen Serenity

HEAVY SPOILERS

S ------------------ S
P ------------------ P
O ------------------ O
I ------------------ I
L ------------------ L
E ------------------ E
R ------------------ R
S ------------------ S


Joss had warned us that the film was going to be much darker. I knew this was code for "Crew Death". I did the 'math' and figured it was going to be either Book or Simon (in a last defence of River)

So when Books death came, I was ready. Some folk think that his 'last words' went on too long... but after several viewings I'm ready to argue that. the first part is really about Mal saying how sorry he is for this happening and Book easing his guilt (in a way).

The second part is where we begin to tune out. But I believe it is here that Joss gives us a very big clue to the mystery of Book himself. Books very last words (as I hear it after 6 veiwings) to Mal are...

"...River... I dont care what you belive... Just belive everything she -- "

which - to me - confirms my idea of Books backstory. He's an Ex-Operative. (The fact that he KNOWS what an Operative even is helps that along).

As to the death of Wash -- Man does that sting. After 6 times it is still painful to watch. but it does hold a purpose. Up untill that point we feel that the Big Damn Heroes(tm) are going to pull it off. They are going to beat the bad guys and escape all manner of Hell -- like they always did before.

And when a Reaver harpoon rips that away from us - the whole film changes. Now our heores don't look so big no more... Just damned.

As an aside - I will say that Joss messes up here. We are never given a chance to mourn for Wash. Zoe's first response is breif, and gets subsumed by the on-going action. We don't really get to see that wailing moment that would be just as cathardic for the crew as for us sad sacks in the auditorium. When the next few jokes come along they feel hollow and... I don't know... wrong.

I felt like yelling "How dare you ask us to laugh at a time like this?!?"

My other reactions include...

Denial icon_eek.gif "No WAY!... maybe they can fix him... maybe the alliance saves him... maybe it's a trick?..."

Anger icon_evil.gif "Joss Whedon sucks! -- I Hate him AAAAAAAAAARRRRGH!"

Bargaining icon_sad.gif "...ok... this was the rough cut... maybe they will change it before it comes out if they get the right feedback ...."

Depression icon_cry.gif "He's still dead.... "

and now Acceptance.

See... what follows Wash's death, only works because of his death. Zoe breaks the line to engage the Reavers in hand to hand combat. Why? It's such a bad, BAD thing to do.

Vengance.

She is out for blood and nothing but an axe to the back will stop her. Because of this Jayne can't get clear shots off -- which is what allows the Reavers to get a foothold on the room. This forces them to fall back --

When Kaylee says that she's starting to loose feeling from those darts in her neck, we really think she might not make it. This makes Simon try to go back to get his bag, which gets him shot down. Which makes River the only one left to save them (as Inara is busy trying to stop the bleeding).

Wash's death starts a chain reaction... we don't know if any of them are going to live. We really just don't know anymore.

and that is good storytelling.

My question -- what should we read into the fact that Whedon killed off the two biggest advocates for non-violence?

Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse

A Massively Multi-Player Web-Based Zombie Apocalypse... need I say more?

Lord Spare me from Trolls

Ok... so I hang out at a forum that I'm not going to name here and a conversation started with this question... [names changed to make me laugh]

Canada Guy wrote:
Is it true that there are some states down there where they just plain don't teach Evolution? I just found that out a few weeks ago and i couldn't quite beleive it.

which was answered...

Brainwashed wrote:
No it's required teaching by the liberal religious machine.

I don't know what I was thinking... I took the bait and posted back...

Cheyenne wrote:
No Science is required teaching - Evolution is just a part of that whole. And no state in the Union has banned the teaching of Evolution -- some backwater counties have just managed to get stickers on books that say

"Evolution is a disputed theory - and has not been proven to be fact"

Which is laughable if you have a half-decent education. and understand the definition of Theory [when used to discribe a branch of science]. Which is...

a well-substantiated explanation of some aspect of the natural world; an organized system of accepted knowledge that applies in a variety of circumstances to explain a specific set of phenomena.

Biblical literalists have tried to put creationism on the same level as Evolution by renaming it the Intelligent Design Theory. But no matter what you call it, creationism has never been able to meet the criteria to be accepted by a true Scienist. Only those that are getting paid by the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

which got this response... emphasis mine.

Brainwashed wrote:
Yes, Science is required, but evilution[sic] is just a theory, unproven.

I see you're going with the new 'liberal religious machine' approved definition. Which says accepted knowledge like a pagan charm. Ask any 'skin head' if the holocaust happened, and their accepted knowledge says no.

Obviously you are a child of the liberal religious machine and view anything you don't agree with as being unproven. Evilution has been proven to be a wack job. It is still only a theory, unproven and continually tested.

Evilution? You are kidding me, right? Talk about yer wack-jobs. Apparently I am also comparable to Nazi Skin-heads because I belive in the sound foundations of Science... and what the hell is the liberal religious machine?

Let me say this once more for 'tards in the back... SCIENCE IS ABOUT REPRODUCEABLE RESULTS. EVOLUTION HAS REPRODUCEABLE RESULTS! Go to a dog show and tell me that there is no such thing as adaptive radiation.

I view anything I don't agree with as being unproven? Mr. Kettle this Mr. Black talk among yourselves and leave me the fuck out of it.

Texas Zombie Massacre

Thursday outside the Frank Erwin Center, a horde of zombies attacked the "American Idol" auditions. No one was hurt.

The zombies, 15 fake-bloodied actors in all, lurched out from under the IH-35 overpass and shuffled toward the Erwin Center, where they encountered the pop-star hopefuls.

Most of the 100 or so young people gathered outside had just been rejected by the "American Idol" review board, and they were talking, singing and waiting for rides home when the zombies arrived. "Braaaaaaains!" the zombies said. Nick Muntean, a UT radio-television-film graduate student who organized and participated in the zombie horde, added, "Television rots your braaaaaaains!"


The pop-star wannabes were largely unimpressed. "I don't get it," said Jacob Gandia, a singer.

Classic :)

More HERE

Firefly Episodes on the Big Screen in WA

From Fireflyfans.net

On September 17, 2005 at 7:00 pm, Kirkland Performance Center will be showing 4 episodes of Firefly: Serenity parts 1 & 2, Out of Gas and Ariel. Tickets will be $6.50 + $1 service fee. There will be concessions, giveaways and a Jaynestown sing-along to liven up the night.

To order tickets, please call 425-893-9900 or got to our website: kpcenter.org. The box office is open Tues-Sat 12-5.

We have authorization from the studio to do this and are paying royalties to be fully legal. All proceeds (if any) from this event will benefit KPC, a non-profit company.

Just in time for my birthday!

Funny...

Bush "will not yield”
TUESDAY, JULY 12, 2005

WASHINGTON President George W. Bush expressed solidarity with Florida on Monday, projecting a determination to prevail over terrorist Deities like the one behind Hurricane Dennis. And he insisted that while perfect protection was unattainable, solid progress had been made in protecting the U.S. homeland.

"In this difficult hour," Bush said, "the people of Florida can know the rest of the American people stand with you."

"The city that survived the Cuban missile crisis will not yield to terrorists," Bush said in his first major speech since the Act of God.

Nor, he said, would Americans back down.

"Our nation has no greater mission than stopping God from launching new and more deadly Hurricanes," he said.

Bush implicitly rejected any notion that the global war on God, rather than help quell divine terrorism, might have generated new "god-fearing" recruits.

"We're fighting the enemy, our Lord and God, across the world so we do not have to face him here at home," he said. "The best way to defend America is to stay on the offense."

On Monday, the president spoke plainly of a fight with an end.

"The kind of God that blows up trailer parks and valuable beach-front properties is not the God you can negotiate with or reason with or appease," he said. "In the face of such adversaries, there is only one course of action: We will continue to take the fight to Heaven, and we will fight until this enemy is defeated."

Yet he qualified this, saying that victory would come only by promoting a democratizing transformation of the Promise Land.

"We know that the Heavenly Host will not be defeated by force of arms alone," he said. "we need a strong Will to engage the enemy, but just as important is a strong and secure democracy that will provide an alternative to the totalitarian' ideology of fear and guilt."

He concluded, "The only way the Celestial Choir can win is if we lose our nerve - this isn't going to happen on my watch."

Batman Begins review

Eli - love of my life - scored me a pass to a screening of Batman Begins at the Cinerama last night. I was happy to get the chance to go, but not 'pumped'. I have become more and more disillusioned with the Bat-films.

I remember the summer of Tim Burton's Batman. I was pumped. You could not escape the damned thing. It promised a return to the core of Batman--The Dark Knight. The three amigos (Oloro Davis, Marvin Baptiste and myself) set out from the coastal town of Hale'iwa and made the hour-long drive to the Kam Drive-In in Aiea, Hawaii. Kam was an old rundown place that had just replaced the older window clip-on speakers for new-fangled radio broadcast technology in an attempt to draw kids back from the multi-plex theater in the Pearl City mall which had opened just across the street. We decied to use this to our advantage. Once there, we set up lawn chairs, soda laden ice chest and my super-base boombox. Then, just as the film started, Marvin hit record on the tape deck. Giving us a full audio recording of the entire film.

I listened to that tape all summer.

As much as I loved that film I have come to realization that it was a piece of crap. Go. Watch it again.

See? Crap.

Each film after it was only worse. Not until the Batman Animated series came out did we have a truly noble adaptation of the character. The Animated series is now the signpost by which I judge all subsequent depictions. So... The question looms, "how does Batman Begins stack up?"

It's FREEKIN' AWESOME!!!!11!one!

Director Christopher Nolan has done a masterful job. This is it, fan-boys: THIS IS THE NEW MECCA. That said - you will get no spoilers from me. Go see it your own damn self.

The most annoying thing for me is that I need to wait a week before I can go see it again.

Cry for me, Argentina.

Woooooooooooooot !

For those that do not know - my day job is art assistant for Phil and Kaja Foglio, working on the Mad Science comic book Girl Genius...

Hereafter know as the EISNER NOMINATED Girl Genius !

...Again... Woooooooooooot!

Best Ebay Auction Ever

Haunted Nintendo

I brought this System home, and on the first night of playing, about 10 minutes into the game, I began hearing sounds similar to human voices, mumbling to the background music of the television.

Naturally I thought it may have been static or something to that effect, or maybe it somehow interfered with a truck driver's CB Radio System, so I didn't pay much attention to it.

But it continued through-out the entire time I was playing, stop for a minute or two, then start again. It got to the point where I went really close to the TV, I paused the game to try to hear it a little better, but then it would get silent. When I would unpause it, there it would go again.

I know it sounded like there was a conversation going on but I couldn't make out any of the words.

More

I ran across this linked to from Aaron Stewarts website Otaku-House which also has a really cool video called "16 millitary Wives" from a band called The Decemberists. I highly reconmend it!

Arcanetimes Fan Club?

Welcome My Minions. I am Cheyenne Wright, and this is a link to the ARCANETIMES Fanatics Club. It will be the cornerstone of my Empire of Greatness(tm) for which I am destined.

too much? .... I can never tell anymore. Hows this....

Howdy! My name is Cheyenne and I've started this google group to give folks that read my comic a place to share ideas and give me feedback about my comic. It will also give them a chance to get to know me, and me a chance to know my readers better.

Better. You see... at a recent poker party James Ernest came up to me and told me I needed a better PR deparment. It seems that on his recent trip to GAMA he was showing off his new game and telling folks that I was going to be the artist on it. To which the reply was "oh yeah... she's good"

I am used to this. I've grown up with the name Cheyenne. Had it all my life. Up untill 4th grade folks would often think I was a girl. Thoughout high school I had to deal with clumsy attempts to embarass me by mocking my name.

Even now when my girlfriend Elizabeth and I are introduced it's often as "Cheyenne and Eli" -- to which the intoductee inferrs that I, the 6 foot 4 bearded one is Eli... and that the beautiful love of my life is an exotic dancer (not that there is anything wrong with that - some of my best friends are exotic dancers)

I can not change this perception of me... Alone. If only I could be
famous.

Help make me famous kids.

Must... Kill... Girlfriend...

Writer's block is so frustrating it goes around the bend, and cracks funny on the back of the skull with a whiskey bottle.

I really was up at 3 am that morning trying to write ANYTHING. It's so disheartning to just sit there staring at a blank page. And oddly, it's not for lack of ideas... I have many ideas for things that I'd like to do with my comic. But when it comes time to sit down and put pen to paper... Nothin'. GRRRR!

Then comes the doubt. "Did I use up all the funny?"... "was I EVER funny?", it's around this point I reach for the afore mentioned Whiskey bottle. ahhh... Whiskey, you make everyone funny.

In other news. Like the new site design? I felt it was time to streamline it a touch. Let me know what you think guys...

No Webcomic?

No comic up yet. I'm having a problem with Keenspace not updating the site right. Trying to get it fixed. Watch this space for new info.

UPDATE - the site is working right again and the new comice will be up ASAP

Mitch Hedberg 1968-2005

"My lucky number is four billion. That doesn't come in real handy when you're gambling. "Come on, four billion! Fuck. Seven. I need more dice." - Mitch Hedberg

I saw Mitch perform in his last performance in Seattle at the Moore theater, as part of a double bill with Steven Lynch. It was around Christmas and as we left he had set out cases of "Happy Holidays - from Mitch" tree ornaments. I remember seeing 2000 + people wandering through the late winter evening . Wrapped up in scarfs with their arms cradling the sparkling gifts. Delicate nuggets of joy. I'll miss you brother.

UPDATE - Mitch Hedberg dot Net is offline

Knee-Jerk of the Week...

Wow.

William Poole, 18, was taken into custody Tuesday morning. Investigators say they discovered materials at Poole's home that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.

Poole told LEX 18 that the whole incident is a big misunderstanding. He claims that what his grandparents found in his journal and turned into police was a short story he wrote for English class.

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

More Here

I am the Monarch of the Sea...

Well the webcomic is down. Probably because Wil Wheaton linked it from WWDN. HAH! I am doing a little happy dance!

UPDATE 2005-03-28 The site is back up. Also Mr Wheaton asked asked me if I'd make the strip available on a mug so I Did

Live From Con

Howdy All. This message is coming to you live from Norwescon. Last night we pulled off a great production of the new Girl Genius Radio Play "Agatha and the Sleepy Clank" as well as an encore performance of last years "Minor Heroes". We have also Officaly made our "Big News" announcement, which I would repeat here... but I'm going to let Kaja do that first in her Blog.

Tonight we have our TPU Student Orientation at 9pm in Cascade room 9, which if you were here at the con you would know where that was. Once again, Tommorow at Noon in Evergreen 1 & 2, I have an autograph session. I figure on the rare chance that anybody shows I have prepared a limited edition bookplate that folks can walk off with and paste into their books at home.

Lasty - Yes I know that Wil Wheaton is spelled W-I-L not W-I-L-L like in todays comic. I'll fix it on Monday. Toodles!

Fine! HAPPY!?!

After a long hiatus, a new ATC is up. Exult O shore, and ring O bells!

Con Apperance

Wow. I just got an E-mail from the fine folks over at Norwescon. I've been invited to sit in on 6 panels, including an Autograph session on Saturday, March 26th at Noon in Evergreen room 1 & 2. ACK! ok... now i did this joke last year, but lets try not to make it a reality ok folks? come on down to the Sea-Tac Doubletree Hotel on Easter weekend and bring your Savages Worlds and Renamed Spygames, printouts from the site, hell -- ANYTHING you want. I'll sign it. repeat - I'LL SIGN ANYTHING! Just don't leave me sitting there.

Art that'll rip you a new one

New art is up in the portfolio section. Hop on over and check out my
new "tradigital" paintings done for GWG's Rippers RPG.

Smell that? Smells like....Convention Season

Howdy all. As it turns out, I'm still alive... don't belive me? Come on down a vist me at the Emerald City Comicon. I'll be there at the Studio Foglio booth on Saturday and Sunday signing copies of "Renamed Spy-Game" and making an ass of my self in front of Scott Kurtz or the Penny Arcade guys.

Then I'll be in San Francisco Febuary 18, 19, and 20 for Wondercon. doing pretty much the same (one trick pony and all that).

Oh yeah... KILL SKuLS!