I'm surprised it hasn't taken up even more time in the post and strip, considering how many of our actual conversations revolve around it. I think we've tried to shield you (by and large) from the burning heart of our affection for it. When we set up for a game, and I'm at the head of the table, it's strange how quickly old ways return.

Tom Chick is just the Goddamned king of games writers. Just... wow.

So many surreal things happen at an Anime convention that it would be difficult to choose one item. Well, usually. This time it wasn't very hard at all.

So we got a lot of questions at Sakura-Con about the state of our game. Everyone seemed to want to know when it would be done. Well the truth is that episode 1 is done or at least what they call "content complete". We're actually hard at work on Episode 2 now and have been for a little while. Episode 1 is currently going through some hard core bug testing as well as Microsoft's own certification process. In the meantime we actually need your help to make sure that once the game is ready we'll be able to deliver it.

I don't have solid data, just my own year-to-year experience, but it feels like gaming cosplay has been on the rise since we first started attending Sakuracon. The Team Fortress 2 crews you've seen showcased on the gaming blogs are one of the newer ones, but Valve seemed to rule the crossover space this year: there were several Chells as well, as well as Aperture Science Technicians, their Weighted Companion Cubes in tow. These cubes were sometimes literally in tow, hoisted up on crates for easy transport. There was even a GlaDOS.

I apologize for the recent downtime. We were moving over to a new host and it seems like no matter how well you try and plan, a switch like that always ends up taking longer than you expected.

In a last ditch attempt to dissuade me from my righteous course, Gabriel tried to suggest that we would get in trouble for toasting up such unauthorized treats. Of course, the whole endeavor was designed to provoke just such an encounter: to create a situation where someone would approach us and demand that we "stop making waffles." I'm quite certain that no person has ever, in the long and shining strand of human events, had to ask this of another person.

You should probably read the comic first.

Its worst tendencies having gone dormant for months, Electronic Arts suddenly drew itself up to its full height and began a fresh round of decapitations. Over the years, we've had to hold interventions like this from time to time for the company. It is in that spirit that we open a dialogue.

It took some doing, but the result was a convocation with true drama and gravity, like the Council of Elrond. This stalwart crew put their best foot forward, but unfortunately this exposed the foot in question to magma and licking tongues of living flame. I knew my way around the boss deck a little better this time, to the delight of my deep legion. When engaged in a campaign against that which is good and true, it's nice to know you have the support of upper management.

Sakura-con is coming up in just about a week and Tycho and I will be there as usual. We'll be doing a panel on Friday at 2:30 and we'll have a bunch of our new shirts at the booth. You should swing by and say hi if you're in the area.

Early bird registration for PAX (the only man made convention viewable from space) ends on the 31st which is only ten days away. We're already getting game independent game submissions for the PAX 10 which is great considering how early it is. We'll be taking submissions until May 7th and the top 10 will be presented at PAX. For all the details and rules for submitting your game hit the PAX 10 site. Also, if you have something interesting to say to the PAX audience or you know someone who does please hit the panel/speaker submission page and drop us a line.

Earlier this week we announced the return of the Penny Arcade scholarship. This is our second year doing it and I really enjoy the process. Sifting through the candidates and choosing one is ridiculously hard but I feel like the end result is something pretty special. Basically we want you to tell us how you plan on making an impact in the game industry. We'll give the winning student a $10,000 scholarship. You can get all the details and application forms on the official site located here.

As a funny aside, I actually misspelled scholarship both times I wrote it up there. Turns out there is an "a" in it. Who knew. Anyway, that seemed sort of ironic to me.


-Gabe out

Okay.

We find ourselves at Continuity's dark door again, apologies all 'round, but when Gabe's exterminator rescheduled the comic essentially appeared out of thin air. Let me assure you on behalf of Penny Arcade and the global brands we represent (beneath the umbrella firms "Brazen" and "UltraLith Consumer Lures") that we will observe our creative impulses more keenly in the future. The problem is that continuity, in its dormant state, looks like inspiration.

Gabriel apparently has a tiny boarder, a friendly creature with tidy fur content to dwell out in the garage. That certainly wasn't my experience with the genus, a tattered pageant of misery whose psychic reverberations are still being felt. I recall with unrelenting clarity the beast we secured in a humane trap, rolling and sucking air in its madness, placed on the table in a mockery of polite dinner. It had a musky, unhallowed scent like some primeval mustard, its yellow teeth so long that it could not close its own mouth. Threading its ten fine fingers around the bars, it cried out "We crawl, we swim! We nest and gnaw! We are WE, AND WE DEVOUR!"

We have new shirts for you to buy.

The first new shirt is more of a shirt refresh really. I felt like the old Fruit Fucker design was getting a little stale. I draw him different now and I thought the shirt should reflect that.

We were recently contacted by the Make-A-Wish foundation with the news that a young man had chosen to invest his wish in us. This was no surprise. Well, a wish in Gabriel was a surprise. A wish in me, certainly - I'm an investment. Here are only a few of the things that make me such a winning opportunity: