I picked up Bloodborne expecting not to like it. I've never played any of the Souls games and from what I’d heard, Bloodborne was the same sort of game. As I understood it, these were brutally hard games that seemed to generate equal amounts of frustration and joy. I’m not an especially skilled gamer and I don’t tend to play very difficult games. I get frustrated easy and I’m usually the first to read a game F.A.Q. when I get stuck. I just sort of assumed Bloodborne was not for me. Boy was I ever wrong.

The first day, he quit on two separate occasions. This is not weird in any way. It would be like if you had just gotten a job and your job was to be kicked over and over in places ill-suited to jostling. You would say, "Maybe this isn't for me." Then I got this text:

I was surprised that my cohort went in for something like Bloodborne - he's never accompanied me on any previous journeys into "From Software Bullshit," except in one instance, which I will detail later. The main thing that distinguishes the new one from the old cadre is that it allows (in a way) for a more traditional co-operative multiplayer, which is almost certainly what sold him a copy.

You can watch the same intro we did if you want to, and you should. If I suggested that Final Fantasy XV had a wild tone - Monster Hunter Road Trip + heartthrob warlocks - the austerity and documentary presentation here will twist your head a few degrees past its stated tolerances. Some have found it confusing! As usual, I stand ready to part the veil.

Today’s Sketchdump is an interesting one I think. Last week my youngest son came down with a cold and he was having a hard time sleeping. I laid down in his bed and read some stories to him and then he asked me to make one up. I started with the classic Dad play of using your kid in the story. “Once upon a time there was a little boy named Noah.” I ended up telling a story about a little boy who lived in a lighthouse on a tiny island in the middle of a great big ocean. One foggy day he saw a ship on the horizon and realized his light was turned off. So he had to run up the stairs all the way to the top of the lighthouse to turn the light back on. He kept getting distracted though as it turns out his light house is full of rooms. They started out pretty normal, he stopped at the kitchen first and got himself a sandwich, then the bedroom and the laundry room and he had to stop in each room and do something. There was a video game room where he stopped to play Mario, and a homework room (which he actually skipped right over since he was obviously in such a big hurry) and they got more ridiculous as he climbed. The last room before the top was an “Ice Cream” room which I honestly have never seen in a lighthouse, but it was a crowd pleaser. Anyway, he finally got to the top and turned on the light just in time for the pirate ship to see it and avoid crashing into his little island. It was a goofy story I cooked up on the spot, but then he asked to hear it again the next night.

I was feeling a little nostalgic today. Usually I never go back in the archive but today I kept jumping back and forth between the current comic and the first one. Like this:

It’s been a long time since we talked about Club PA but it’s still going strong. I first of all want to thank everyone who signed up when we first launched it last year. If you signed up previously it might be about time to renew and if you don’t have any idea what Club PA is, let me break it down for you.

We had a really good time checking out both games, actually, but yeah. As soon as the bing bong told us it was downloaded, this is what was up. It's been a long time since I invested myself in the larger budget "Square Games," we've been in different places for awhile now, with my tastes more or less chipped into granite and them trying to broaden scope. But go to a friend's house and check out that FFXV shit, for reals. It's a road movie where everybody is some species of sorcerer. The tone is fucking whacked out.

This is the strip we did on stage at PAX East. Typically its manufacture runs virtually the length of the time allotted, but with all the extracurricular sketching he's doing it was like forty minutes or something. The cold was real, though: I had to bring someone a pass, outside, and only a few seconds out there triggered a fight or flight response. I felt the surface of my eyes freeze.

As someone outside all the traditional production-y roles for visual stuff, I find this kind of thing really interesting. Steve Hamaker, who did all the coloring on The Judging Wood and a bunch of other rad stuff, all over the place, everywhere, recorded himself coloring the last page and it's pretty fuckin' wild. My son winced when I typed the f-word there, but I assured him that this is how the truly hardcore comport themselves.

The Judging Wood Part V: The Judgening is now deliciously available. Now we we can return to our typical subject matter, with its laser-focus not only on the dick or glans but also on the peepee.

I’m still on my post PAX vacation but I wanted to post a few sketches since it’s Monday. First though I wanted to say I hope you enjoyed the Trill comics. I know our stuff can be a little hard to follow sometimes. We don’t like to start at the “beginning” of stories and we rarely stop at the”end”. I can’t speak for Tycho but I know for my part I like to leave room for people to interpret their own stories. What we do is intentionally loose and I know that’s not for everyone. I really love Trill and her birds and drawing her was so much fun especially in this last page. I guarantee she will be back again at some point. For now though we will be returning to your regularly scheduled PA strips.

The Judging Wood is only five parts - well, this side of the equation is, anyhow - and here is Part Four. I had to "know" a lot of things to work on the book, and some of that stuff is in this stuff.

I usually try and pick up a new game or two at PAX and I grabbed some good ones at East.

Part Three of The Judging Wood is now available, with a lush cameo prowling over from the other Daughters project, "The Tithe." We are the luckiest fans of this setting, I think.

We just wrapped up another PAX and I celebrated by sleeping until almost noon. I always have a great time at these shows but this one in particular was great. This year's Acquisitions Inc. will go down as one of my favorites. We had a few thousand people watching live in the audience and then another 15 thousand folks watching at home via Twitch. I cannot believe this is my job!