New Mike Doughty Album October 6

New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 New Mike Doughty Album October 6 Doughty Album October 6

That is all
-Mikel

Return Of The Blog (No Promises This Time)

So I really did not keep to my promise of... anything I said in the last post. I apologize profusely. Besides getting in the mindset that if I write about anything I have to write about everything (or nothing, and choosing the latter) The biggest block for me posting is that in order to talk about stuff I have to scan or sync my phone to get pictures and I never want to to that, laborious task that it is. People actually read this thing and I'm sorry I've left you hanging (not that you've been hard up for things to read on the internet).
Anyhow, this I can just link so I can talk about it. When me and Parker started updating 3 times a week in the beginning of Summer I wanted to do a quick little interlude about Mike fishing with his dad. Originally it was supposed to be water color but I've somehow learned to be a better draftsmen with just these 7 or 8 (I don't even know how many) comics. I'm more proud of them than anything else we've done so far. When I first wanted to do comics I wanted to do something like this, and the response I've gotten has been really positive from everybody, on pretty much all fronts.

Thanks everybody!

This last comic (which won't be up until Thursday so this is an early post) is maybe my favorite ever, and the last in the fish series. Maybe I'll make a little book and see who wants it, or give it away! That would be a fine profit margin, I wager.

In other news things are pretty much great all the time, in all regards. I haven't played or bought a new video game in a good while but Fallout 3 is still entertaining as hell. Firefly and Serenity were amazingly good watching them again, I'm even more proud to be a browncoat then I already was, and now I am really quite excited to go through Cowboy Bebop again. I actually get like, shaky with anticipation when I think about it or listen to the soundtrack.

Speaking of music, Genius is really nice when you have 60 gigs you've barely scratched the surface of. That's been pretty nice.

So other than that, school starts pretty soon here and I have a feeling I'm going to be updating more when that happens for whatever reason. I've also fucked around with the colors to see if it looks better. What do you guys think?

Thanks for the reads folks, I'll see you again soon.

Blog Posts

More soon to come I swear, sorry for the lateness. I may actually have sketches soon too wow wouldn't that be cool it sure would.

An Open Letter to the Internet

I mean, what are blogs for right?

So I quit reading VG Cats a long time ago when the author pretty much told everyone who didn't like his comic to go fuck themselves. It's a gaming comic that is pretty fucking shallow, which is to say it's extremely fucking shallow intellectually overall. The problem with VG Cats, besides it's animu bullshit and shitty fanbase, is that it's totally unoriginal. The most recent one (which spawned this rant) is basically a rehashed series of Penny Arcades that are eight fucking years old. Both comics are about dealing with the age old gamer paradox of "casual" vs. "hardcore" games; the idea that the fact that everyone plays games dilutes the inherent nobility in the pasttime. As me and Parker found out working on Tea Time, in the webcomic world, "Penny Arcade did it" is defiently as aplicable as "The Simpsons" in that South Park episode, so I can't blame VG Cats for stepping on their toes, but it's more than that. It's a good example of what's wrong with it. He uses the Colbert Report's "Tonight's Word" (and a title of a Brian Posehn routine), shamelessly to rant about nothing (which we'll get to), and then aknowledges that he stole shit so you can't call him out on it (granted: that isn't a bad punchline). Furthermore, VG Cats is Scott's (the author's) full time job, but he not only is his update shedule once a week, but he misses updates notoriously enough that it's seriously like once every 3 weeks (for God's sake, there's a major recurring character that was spawned from his habit of missed updates), and after all that time the most you get is filler bullshit. I'm a full time student, and I can put out 2 comics a week. Shit, even Tim Buckley puts out like 3 comics a week, and he is an untalented peice of shit.

As for the comic in question though: Casual games are not destroying our pasttime. Not only can I hold a conversation with dudes I wouldn't have anything else in common with, but developmental costs for next gen games are enourmous, and if you make a game that sells ridiculously well then it can go to other things. That is not un-fucking-precidented, movie studios do it all the time. "When was the last time you played a really good game?", asks VG Cats. Dead Space, you asshole, produced by EA, a company that has a vice grip on the casual game market. They put all the money they made from Madden and Tiger Woods into the best new IP I've played in years (not to mention risked it on Mirror's Edge too) and got it to a mirror shine in one fucking year, and for a game that good, that is fucking impressive. Your last comic was about Fallout 3, which is like one of the best games ever made, and it just came out.

What's wrong with causal games anyway? I grew up on casual games, Spyro is not what I would describe as "hardcore". Neither is Crash or Pong or Frogger. What the fuck is "hardcore" anyway? Difficult? Fuck that shit, that's never why I played games, I'm not a sadist. Causal games can be hard too, like Rock Band on expert (or Spyro, unless your Ruth), so what does it matter?

And you know what? Fuck everyone, quicktime events are awesome.

And yes, I realize that what spawned the comic was some new show about "gamers". Fucking get over it, G4 has been on television since I was in jr. fucking high. There is always going to be shit like that, that doesn't mean the industry is in some kind of downturn.

What gets me more that anything about VG Cats though is the fucking fans. It's nowhere near the size of Penny Arcade, sure, but they are so ravenous and stupid it is like dealing with a brick wall. They refuse to acknowledge that their favorite comic is bland and unoriginal, and worst of all they can't see what a raging asshole Scott is. He misses his own pathetic update structure, and then bitches at the people who complain when he puts up a shitty comic. "This is my canvas" or "I'm giving you free entertainment" are common phrases in the webcomic artist's toolbag, but listen: Fuck you. We are the ones providing you with your fucking income from website hits. We are the reason you can afford to be such a lazy piece of shit. We pay your salary mother fucker, we buy your shirts, now make us some decent fucking comics or shut up.

The Good Stuff

I have been in extremely high spirits as of recently! This isn't exactly uncommon because I'm not a terribly sad guy but most of the time I am a mix of content awkwardness and existential malaise. That sounds a little worse than it is. Recently though, like over the last week or so I've been feeling great, and decided to make a list of shit.

• Weather. Colorado is fucking crazy! I love snow, I really do, which is one reason I don't ever want to leave Colorado, but I also love sunshine. This past week has had both, sometimes in the same day!
• I have been watching Lost with Ruth and oh my, yes. Lost. Wow. (Coincidentally, I don't know what Ruth may have told you at my ability to play Playstation 1 games but it is naught but lies and slander)
  
• My birthday approaches, on which I will be 20, which is weird, but I will not only be drunk when the clock strikes 12, I will also be dressed as Obi-Wan Kenobi and hanging with (nearly all of) my best friends.
• I have a new project in my sculpture class that is going to kick serious ass.
• The cute gal with dreadlocks who draws all the time that usually sits in front of me in Art History kind of talked to me, that sure was nice.
• I am either going to Bonaroo or on a road trip over the summer (or maybe both I dunno) so that is awesome.
  

The final point is Tea Time! As I mentioned in my little blog post, I wanted to try something new because markers suck, and for whatever reason I really like hatching with a pencil. It's pacifying I guess. So I found a happy medium which is shading with a ball point pen. I think it works really well, and coincidentally when I was ready to start this new style, some kind of fear I had about drawing that I was unaware I had left me, and I just kind of did it.

It was very liberating! We also got a shit load of hits and positive feedback from people about the new shit and that was very encouraging. I've had a drive to draw recently that I don't remember having for... I dunno, way too long. My good buddy Mecha also shipped all of his books out here, cartooning books and anatomy books and the like, so I am really excited to steal them.

Today I finished the comic, finished a T-Shirt design, and also showed Mikey the design I had for a new Crow shirt, and they're going to use it! I am more than stoked! There will be pictures, worry not.

I feel like I did a lot today.

Life is good ladies and gentlemen!

MIX TAPE: The Trilogy, A Snowy Day Story

I awoke to find several inches of snow flurrying around the backyard, and not moments after I get out of bed, Parker texts me that Front Range is closing at 11:30, the exact time of my math class. After dancing, my mom texts me that CSU is also closed, which means I have the day off. I made a fire in the wood burning stove and have been taking in the sweet smoky smell that's filled the house, had some tea, watched the blizzard, and then sat down to do some real work.

My good friend Mecha is back in town (permanently now, for school, which is totally fucking rad) and while we were in the car, he asked if I could make him a CD of my favorite songs because the music I listen to is so awesome. I told him I would make him three.


Thus, MIX TAPE: The Trilogy, A play in 3 Acts was born. 47 ball explodingly good songs on 3 CDs, including Episode I, The Freshness (big openers and iressistable hits), Volume II, Life is a Series of Down Notes (where we dim the lights a bit), and Chapter III, Return of the Jedi (the triumphant return of happiness). Each CD has a little boooklet/peice of paper that dictates what the tracks are.


I never made a mix tape before, at least for another person, and this was way more fun than it should have been (I think owing a lot to the fact that this whole excercise pretty much was just ego stroking and justification for my recent feindishness in music), but none the less it has seriously inspired me. People should do shit like this more often. If I could mass produce these easier I would give them to all my friends and make them all the time. Also if I had this much fun then graphic design should be a cake walk.


(Special thanks to Ethan, who if you look at the set list up there, is responsible for like 70% of what's on there. I think I'll write that on the back of the case now actually)

MadWorld

When the Wii came out, I camped out for some 18 hours outside of Circuit City in freezing weather in order to obtain one on launch day, with Twilight Princess. It was worth it for a time, certainly, the Wii was a sound investment. Miis and Wii sports were greatly appreciated around these parts. After coming to terms with the fact that Twilight Princess wasn't anywhere near as good as Wind Waker however, and until Super Mario Galaxy, it collected dust (unless I wanted to play Gamecube games). Galaxy was great, and so was Brawl but the later can barely be called a Wii game, and the former came out like a year and a half ago. To the point, when I heard about Madworld I was very excited. When I was camping out on launch day I thought mainly of the Wii's potential for extreme gratification in violence. Snapping peoples necks and such by pantomiming the fucked up acts in the real world.

Madworld is the fulfillment of these prophecies.

Firstly, Madworld joins a growing number of games that are basically perfect, graphically. It wanted to look like Sin City with a dose of Japan and it does, pretty flawlessly. I'm tempted to call it the best looking game on the Wii because it set its bar and achieved it almost to perfection. I was worried that in the black and white world it may be really hard to see what the fuck is going on but it is surprisingly coherent, more so than a lot of games I can think of that use color, actually. It's also just stylized enough that the intense violence is still awesome and visceral but still comic enough that you don't feel like a terrible person.

The story is that you, as Jack (voiced by Steven "Spike Speigel" Blum) are on a gameshow that takes place in an entire city. If you kill someone in more and more extraordinary/violent ways, you get more points. That's about it. Also: You have a chainsaw arm.

God of War has some great violent cutscenes and quick time events (essentially in game cutscenes that prompt timed button presses) that really get you into the ultraviolence, but when you play Madworld there is some other force at work. For example, when you use the daggers (there are multiple weapons, each with their own combos and finishers), one of the finishing moves is straddling a man on the ground, and stabbing his chest over and over and over and over and over and over in rapid succession, and in order to do this you pantomime the act with the Wiimote and nunchuck. The first time I did this I actually started screaming/laughing uncontrollably and had to pause. It's kind of hard to believe. There are a ton of finishers in this game, all unbelievably violent (you can remove a man's spine with a chainsaw and hit him with it)


Madworld's stages are pretty much a series of sandboxes that you get to do whatever you want in, and in traditional Sega arcade style, all of them are replayable at any time. It's not terribly long (I'm at about 2.5 hours through and I think I'm like half way) but the sheer variety in killing different people with different things throughout the different stages makes for a very replayable game. I don't think I can ever get tired of how awesome the finishers are for some of the bosses either. You basically accrue points until you unlock the minigame (which can be anything from tossing people onto train tracks to hitting them onto a giant dart board), unlock weapons, and then finally the boss of the stage.

Here's some fucked up shit I've done to people in this game:
1. Thrown a man in a flamming oil barrel, impaled him with not 1, not 2, but 3 sign posts, then slammed him repeatedly onto a meat hook on the wall.
2. Ground a man to paste on a passing subway
3. Shoved fireworks down someone's throat and watched him explode, killing 2 of his friends.
4. Stabbed a wok through a ninja's eye, then tossed him into a deep fryer.

This list could go on for much longer.

The controls are a little unresponsive, and as ridiculously gratifying as the quick time events are, when they don't work it can be really frustrating. This has been rare however. The bike levels are also kind of shallow but over all, if you have a Wii, this is a sound, sound purchase. I have like 4 Wii games now, and I am getting comfortable with the idea that this was the title I was camping out for.