I am proud to introduce you all to your PAX 2007 Omeganauts! Please use whatever digital music service you subscribe to and pull up You're The Best from the Karate Kid soundtrack before reading the following. Trust me it's worth it.

Sorry for the late comic strip. I just got back from my annual vacation to the Oregon coast.  I spent last week in Lincoln City with my family reading and playing Pokemon. On the book side I got through two really good ones. First I finished up Sacrifice, the fifth book in the new Legacy of the Force series. All the books in this series have been great but no one writes Jacen as well as Karen. <Spoiler>. Somehow she's able to make falling to the Dark Side seem like the right thing to do. Every step he takes seems so logical. I know what he's doing is horrible but I can't help but sympathize with him. I never liked the way Anakin's fall was handled in the prequels. He was a was an annoying prick and I never bought his motivations for falling. The way Karen has handled Jacen I can't help but think I'd have made some of the same choices. As I read his thought process I can't help but feel like maybe he's got the right idea. Maybe this whole Dark side thing just got a bad wrap. And that's how it should be! The Dark Side is supposed to be seductive and I don't think anyone has ever captured that as well as Karen has. </spoler>

The second book I read was Galactic North by Alastair Reynolds. take a look at the cover and tell me if that does not fit perfectly with my book buying rules:

The book must have a picture of an alien planet, a space station or a space ship on the cover.

It's a collection of short stories all set in his Revelation Space universe. As universes go it's a pretty good one and the stories are pure Sci-Fi fun.

On the Pokemon front I've just about got Diamond wrapped up now. I've got sixty hours logged on it which is more than I've put into any other game with the exception of a couple Square titles. I captured my Dialga which was a really nice feeling of accomplishment. I decided to try taking my new an improved crew online via Battle Revolution to see if the addition of an ancient dragon with the power to warp space and time would give me the edge I needed to win. Turns out no. I still got completely hosed all night. I love the game but when I drop into a game and the other guy is fielding nothing but giant robot dragons and massive cats that one shot everything I throw out I get a little discouraged. Am I just coming in to late in the game to be competitive or is there something I'm missing?

Anyway the vacation was nice but it's good to be home. I'm currently working on our Assassins Creed comic book for Ubisoft and even though I was having a great time in Oregon I was really excited to get back and keep plugging away on this project. I'm just having a blast drawing Altair. I'll try and post some stuff from the comic soon if I can. Otherwise you should see it in the collectors edition of the game.

-Gabe out

Two fabulous new picture packs have recently been unearthed!  Behold the riches of our latest expedition:

In my zeal to defend Hogwarts and my dear friends, and also to get up on Cho Chang, it is entirely possible that I

There's even a little bearcake in there for the fur contingent! Truly, this film has it all.

The memories of those who came of age in the eighties have become a kind of ghastly rummage sale, a tilled up cemetery where icons lay tilted over bones draped in ancient finery. Pork caught a preview of Transformers on Monday, and he claims that it is not, in fact, heresy - but I don't know how calibrated our respective tastes are. I was going to make a statement about how any constantly shifting image could entertain him, enthrall him, command him, until I realized that this viewing was late at night, in the twilight period we call Pork After Hours, when his medication wanes and his blood is frenzied by some dark moon. For him to have focused on anything at any time after nine o'clock is actually high praise.

If you would like to know if the iPhone is great, well, it is great. Worth waiting in line? There's no question. Yes, once you realize that iTunes simply doesn't work correctly on 64-bit Vista, and once you agree to eject yourself from your negotiated Business Plan and pay twenty times more, you will be able to see a map that displays nearby sushi.

When I heard Geometry Wars was coming to the DS and the Wii, I was wondering how they could possibly turn it into a full-fledged retail product.  Now we know - this all sounds great.

(CW)TB
 

Brent's story is that he quit Apple to secure a place in line, but as is so often the case in workplace disputes management tells a different story.

It's the sort of pun that will only work in American English, probably. Also, I believe it drastically increases the chances that I will be stabbed at some point, which I'm sure I would hate.

ThreeSpeech has always made me slightly uncomfortable. This, from their mission statement, is why:

The Goddamned Dorito people are now exhorting gamers to create game ideas based on chips, which I took as a powerful theological argument.  They suggest that gamers may find inspiration in their "iconic shape," by which I assume they mean "a triangle."  These "Chip Lords" can't even be bothered to make their own commercials anymore. They have heard about the YouTube MySpaces, and they want to get an oily tendril around participation culture.

 Gametrailers has a really nice HD version of the latest trailer for our game. You can check it out right here. I know it's not a new trailer, but it's much nicer than the YouTube version floating around.

-Gabe out

Two new shirts today.  One based on the Broodax Strips, which can be found here, and looks like this: 

Gabriel and Kara are thinking about moving, but only one of them is approaching things with the correct amount of dread. It is almost impossible to find a home these days which is not some unholy conduit - a winking anus of evil that acts as a revolving door for hell's starveling dead. But a hollowed-out ghoul in shredded wedding gown doesn't need to be a dealbreaker. Don't let a sundered soul turn your dream home into a nightmare charnel house!

Entitled "Birds Are Weird," it includes every comic from the year 2003 in addition to commentary, pertinent newsposts, the occasional travelogue, and so forth.

We've also put every book that's currently out into a single bundle, which is to say four books, and then slashed the price.  Or reduced it, at any rate.  It's an unbelievable value, etc. 

(CW)TB
 

There's a new Alternate Reality Game spinning up for Halo 3, God Damn them - God Damn them to hell. I know perfectly well that I am being subjugated by a sophisticated marketing effort, that the best one can accomplish in these games is to get a real good look at the teeth before the mouth closes around you. I type this even as the rabbit holes stand open in two other windows. I don't presume to speak for the entire species, but there is something about secrets that does bit the mind.