I’ve put a good 13 hours into Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop Distance now and so I feel comfortable telling you that it’s awesome. With that said, If you’re going to play it you need to put up with the wonky camera, the ridiculous story, the complicated nested menus, and systems piled on top of systems. Trust me though, buried under all that crap is a lot of gold. The combat system is fast and fun, the Pokemon style monster collection is great, the Flick Rush card battle game could be sold all by itself, and visually the entire game is just gorgeous.

I’ve gotten a lot of mail about my latest Daughter’s of the Eyrewood piece. Thank you very much to everyone who took the time to drop me an email. A lot of you went ahead and linked me back to the very first PA comic and wanted to know how I got from there to here. The answer is that you guys have essentially watched me learn to draw over the course of the last 14 years.

I was going to write about the phenomenon of Losing To Win, but Sirlin is way, way on it. I saw it on The Cut, as I see so many things now.

It is difficult to talk to Gabriel at the moment, as the lion's share of my conversational attempts are directed to "The Hand." His focus is on the 3DS, specifically on the game that is in the 3DS, even more specifically Kingdom Hearts: Dream Drop. His relationship to that device is fraught, as I've desribed repeatedly - but it's the first time he hasn't complained about it and has found the 3D a boon. That feature is annoying when its implemented in a merely nominal way, but it's most annoying in a game that simply isn't enjoyable; a game that no amount of spatial wizardly could improve. Many such games exist.

Back in 2008 we were contacted by the Make A Wish foundation. We got to meet a young man whose wish was to spend a day with us at Penny Arcade. Nathan Burgess came out to the office and we ate pizza and played video games. He was an awesome kid and we ended up putting him in a comic strip the next day.

We have one of those.

Hello my name is Max Fairbanks and i Understand your Company deals in motorized wheelbarrow ,And can you email me with the types and Models that you have including with their prices range On them thank you
Best regards
Max Fairbanks

It is a truth universally acknowledged that muhfuckin' Orcs are a huge problem, and must die, but I can't get Brenna to warm to the idea that directing a steady stream of them through our wholly custom hellscape is the appropriate response. There isn't another route, not here; I might refer you to the name of the game itself to get a sense of its dialectic.

**UPDATE** You can now get this artwork as a print through our Kickstarter!

Freelancer - a PC game from "Digital Anvil," back when Microsoft maintained a broader first-party menagerie - was a videogame. In addition, it was also a server you could run, and host a universe for other people. I liked the first thing, and loved the second; like Neverwinter Nights, it existed in the twilight between single-player and massively multiplayer. This was, of course, long before Infinity Ward would marry immediacy and progression into the world-eater Call of Duty became - but these were meant to be a bit more pensive. Another era, really.

I admit to being a huge fan of reality tv style game shows. I love shows like So You Think You Can Dance, Hell’s Kitchen, and Master Chef. I even watch shows like Ink Master and Shear Genius. It doesn’t matter if it’s singers, chefs, fashion designers or gardeners. I love watching groups of people pushed together to compete at something they are good at. I don’t know a thing about cooking or dancing but I can’t get enough of these game shows. I’m always amazed when the challenge is something like “make a fruit tart” and one guy says “shit I’ve never made a fruit tart before” and then he proceeds to make a fucking fruit tart. I could never do that and maybe that’s why I love watching it so much. Could you pull a theme out of a hat and then write and draw a comic strip about it? Probably not, but I’m guessing you might like to watch people who can.

The only thing that keeps my workday from being an unbroken stream of Outernauts' plinks and boinks is the fact that "energy" exists. My compatriot hurts for it, and it's made a beast of him.

Our next big Kickstarter stretch goal is the Strip Search web show. This will be like Master Chef for web cartoonists. We will be sharing lots more information about the show soon but right now we are about to hit a much goofier stretch goal. Tycho will cosplay at PAX dressed as a character that you all choose. We should hit this goal pretty soon so we went ahead and put up the voting page. Just hit this page and drop in the name of a character you’d like to see Tycho cosplay. We will let this run for a bit and then narrow it down to the top ten and have a vote.

With Part Four, The Proxy comes to a close. It will Prox no more. But! Gabriel must like you, you must have forged a connection somehow, perhaps at PAX; he went deeply, profoundly H.A.M. on today's strip. I mean, I wrote the words that are on there I guess, but I've got nothing to do with this thing.

Check it out, we added a bunch of new rewards to the Kickstarter. You can check out all the details right here but there are a couple highlights in my opinion: