It's fun to sit on ice.

"Ripped from the headlines" is what we call a strip that actually deals with our own, real shit. Technically speaking, even when they're buried beneath irony and voiced by interlopers, it's still our shit. I suppose it depends on the mix of fact and embroidery of said fact. To mercifully bisect a short story threatening to be a long one, this is about as real as it gets.

We've got some new stuff in the store I wanted to point out.

I've gotten a few more requests for additional high-res art from today's comic. So here are a couple more panels, minus the text to use however you like. Just click on these thumbnails to get the giant full resolution images.

So uh, the response to today’s comic is a little overwhelming. I had the idea on the way into work and when I got to the office I wrote out the script. Jerry came in as I was furiously typing and asked if I was writing a news post. I told him no, I was writing some fan fiction. He asked if he could see it and I shared the document with him. He tweaked a couple lines but he essentially left it as is, which made me feel pretty fucking good.

When the DLC came out for Destiny, something about it being Dark, Grob-Grob willingly fed himself back into the machine. Imagine my surprise when I open up a mail from him yesterday morning and it contains - steady yourselves, friends - a bundle of fan-fiction.

I saw a mention on a news site that I wrote the story for the recently released Scrolls, which isn't entirely true. In case this is out there in other pieces, I can clarify.

There are some very fine-grained distinctions as regards our hobby. The learning curve to be good at it is "real." It requires a specific type of conscious, 4D literacy to understand why some conversations are being had, let alone assess the merits of a specific argument. Our parents and grandparents are mostly glad that we are not on the streets, that we have found something to do with ourselves that doesn't revolve primarily around servicing trucker dick. But they don't understand it. And most people can't.

We received some Dungeon Master's Guides in the mail, no doubt as a result of our tireless service to these coastal sorcerors, and spent some time perusing it.

Last night's charity dinner and auction was incredible. I'd like to thank everyone who came out to support Child's Play. I bid on a bunch of items including some awesome Destiny stuff and a signed copy of Dragon Age: Inquisition. I didn't win any of those but I did win a giant two player Bejeweled arcade machine. It looks like this:

When I was in Australia, alongside conversations about "The Australia Tax" were conversations about the R18+ designation. It's sort of like the ESRB's M rating, but with a spoiler and sick rims. It's been fraught almost since the get-go. But even designating something be made exclusively for adult consumption wasn't enough to secure access to Grand Theft Auto V at some stores.

When you think about it, Dragon Age: Inquisition is essentially Sexual Harassment: The RPG. Because the press dedicated to this medium hovers somewhere south of TMZ in terms of rigor, they've primarily been trading in the salacious sex the game offers. Usually they busy themselves by telling me that this or that sex is bad. But this kind of sex is rad because it's a sex they approve of, even though it has all the hallmarks of some really weird shit they don't have the IQ to perceive.

There's too much good stuff to play right now!

They're still on it; my customary post-Spokane debriefing has confirmed it in all particulars. When I come back from the Shadow Plains, where it does not rain, and what they call "rain" is just the ashes cast out from the Dream Furnace, I need to synchronize again with the truth of things. It's like an interrogation in reverse, where I shout troubling concepts under duress and my cohort simply defines them in a reassuring tone.

As someone with experience in these matters - on both sides of the retail divide - Gabriel simply stays home for Black Friday. And it's not because he doesn't like to buy things. We discussed it all in the podcast you may absorb at some future date: he feels that the "deals" are illusory and that he doesn't especially relish the thought of his heel on a retail worker's trachea while he pours into the Consumer Battle Arena. He has been that motherfucker in there, the one with the human throat, and even if there is still a pitched melee with or without him he can (at the very least) guarantee one less heel.

Thanksgiving is tomorrow and that means Black Friday is just a day away. Brian has cooked up a pretty ridiculous assortment of Black Friday deals and it’s my job to let you know about them. So I’ll start with the stuff we’ve got.