Dork Tidings

Here's Friday's Dork Tower:



The problems with the website remain. On the plus side, it's sped up work on the new, improved website. Either the current site will be fixed, or the new design up and running, soon. Fingers crossed

Until then, please look for new cartoons on any of the following:

My LiveJournal Page

My MySpace Page

My Blogspot blog (C'mon! Who's gonna be the first person to comment over at the new Blogspot mirror site?)

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Finishing up Munchkin Quest II this weekend. So, yay!I may even get a chance to continue cleaning and reorganizing the office, afterwards.

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EDIT: I had no idea so many people didn't realize Dork Tower Miniatures existed. They do, and are awesome, produced by Steve Jackson Games and sculpted by legendary designer Tom Meier. They can be found at Warehouse 23, or ordered directly from your Friendly Neighborhood Games or Comics Store.

Warehouse 23 Dork Tower Minis Page

Here's Monday's Dork Tower:



For some reason, there's a problem with the DorkTower.com web site, and I'm unable to post new cartoons there.

I hope this will be fixed shortly. But until then, please look for new cartoons on any of the following:

My LiveJournal Page

My MySpace Page

My Blogspot blog

All of these will have essentially the same content, and cartoons should continue Monday-Wednesday-Friday as per usual, with cartoons going up (hopefully) no later than noon on any days.

Today is Scott "Igor" Olman's birthday!

Scott's my good buddy, on whom Igor is loosely based.

I say "loosely," because if I wrote what Scott actually gets up to in a game into the comic strip, nobody would ever believe me.

Yes, that's right: I tone down Igor.

Happy birthday, Scott! And "HUZZAH!"

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Announcing...

Munchkin 7: More Good Cards!

Designed by Steve Jackson - Illustrated by John Kovalic

56 cards. - Suggested Retail Price $9.95
Stock #1460 - ISBN 978-1-55634-786-3
In Production

You Asked for It!

A munchkin can never have enough good cards . . . so we bring you . . . More Good Cards!

In this small but mighty expansion, you'll find the cards that you, yes, YOU, asked for in our online survey.

* More Wandering Monsters! The best from Munchkin Blender, with new art, along with the brand new . . . And Its Little Friends.
* More Monster Enhancers! New ways to beef up the critters your opponent is facing.
* More Cheats! More copies of the classic Cheat!, plus the TRULY abusive Cheat With Both Hands and Cheat Like There's No Tomorrow!
* More Curses! Don't Call Me Shirley from Blender, and two all-new cards, diabolic and hilarious!
* More Wishing Rings! Actually, just one. We wouldn't want to spoil too many of those Curses, would we?

Plus potions, items, and item enhancers! Shuffle them all in, or just add your favorites.

Munchkin 7 – More Good Cards is an expansion for the classic Munchkin set.

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whisperjeff clued me in to this. It's freaking brilliant. Especially if you lead the kind of creative (quote, unquote) life Jeff and I lead:


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The Tannahill Weavers schedule just arrived this morning.

I might have a shot at the Racine show. Possibly St. Paul...we'll see.

AUGUST 2008
01 FR Dublin OH Dublin Irish Festival, Coffman Park 614.410.4545
02 SA Dublin OH Dublin Irish Festival
03 SU Dublin OH Dublin Irish Festival
07 TH Zumbrota MN Crossings at Carnegie, 320 East Ave. 507.732.7616
08 FR St Paul MN Irish Fair of Minnesota, Harriet Island Regional Park 952.474.7411
09 SA St Paul MN Irish Fair of Minnesota
10 SU St Paul MN Irish Fair of Minnesota
12 TU Racine WI McAuliffe's Pub, 3700 Meacham Rd. 262.554.9695
14 TH Rochester NY German House, 315 Gregory St. 585.271.3354
15 FR West Hartford CT University of Hartford Wilde Hall ( WWUH ), 200 Bloomfield Ave. 800.274.8587 or 860.768.4228
16 SA Brunswick ME Maine Highland Games, Thomas Point Beach, 29 Meadow Rd. 207.443.1165


SEPTEMBER 2008
10 WE South Carthage ME NE Celtic Arts, NE Celtic Arts, 2 Highland Dr. 207.562.4445
11 TH South Carthage ME NE Celtic Arts
12 FR Canton MA ICONS Festival, Irish Cultural Center, 200 New Boston Dr.
13 SA Canton MA ICONS Festival
14 SU Pawling NY Towne Crier, 130 Rt. 22 845.855.1300
17 WE Felton CA Don Quixote's International Music Hall, 6275 Hwy 9 831.603.2294
19 FR Sebastopol CA Sebastopol Celtic Festival, 390 Morris St. 707.823.1511
20 SA Sebastopol CA Sebastopol Celtic Festival
21 SU Winters CA Palms Playhouse, 13 Main St. 530.795.1825
23 TU Charlottesville VA Gravity Lounge, 1301 S. 1st St. 434.977.5590
24 WE Bedford VA Friends of Bedford Public Library, 321 N. Bridge St. 540.586.8911 x18
26 FR Bethlehem PA Celtic Classic, Historic Bethlehem festival grounds 610.868.9599
27 SA Bethlehem PA Celtic Classic
28 SU Bethlehem PA Celtic Classic

I note I'm missing their two most recent albums, Alchemy (2000) and Arnish Light (2003). But after a series of just brilliant recordings in the 90s that came every two years apart, it's a shame there's not more out there that I'm missing. Plus: five years since their last release

What's the story, Tannahill fans?

So...who the heck is still around on a Friday evening/night? What are you up to right now? And why are you still here?

Today's Dork Tower is up...later than I'd have wished. Friday afternoons are dead times, online, and comments few and far between. Sigh. I suppose everyone's got something better to do than cruise the nets, fihing for 'toony goodness...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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Speaking of reusing art over...andover...and over again...

Friday Phone-It-In

In which Bob Gorrell NOT ONLY shows what Cut-N-Paste can do in Photoshop, but also ressurects a joke that was stale back in 1996!

(click here to view)

Bob Gorrell Creators Syndicate Inc. Jul 18, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

"Disinformation Superhighway." Gah.

Similarly, here's another joke that's NEVER been done before:

(click here to view)

Bob Gorrell Creators Syndicate Inc. Jul 10, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

Next up: a very clever gag from the Carter years...

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I haven't been posting the cartoons up on my MySpace page, recently, because people tell me MySpace is playing silly buggers with the links (I simply cut-n-paste from here), and I haven't had time to look into it more. Not entirely sure why they SHOULDN'T work. But I pulled out of Suicide Girls (man, there must be a better way of phrasing that) after reformatting every entry to their standards just became too much of a hassle.With luck, that won't have to happen with MySpace. I'm just not sure when I'll get time to figure out what the problem is.

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Look! Look! (Or rather "Listen! Listen!") I'm a Comic Book Expert! Grin.

Just in case you weren't awake at 7:10 am this morning or, indeed, listening to WOLX Radio, Madison, I was on-air, pretending to sound like I knew what I was talking about when it comes to the new Batman movie.

Actually, it didn't come out too badly. I'm not a big fan of doing this kind of thing, and, honestly, my heart was more into the Watchman trailer than The Dark Knight, but Fletch is a pal, and it came out almost like I knew what I was talking about.

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Last week I found out what it was like to be booed by 7,500 people. That was actually quite fun.

This week I found out what it's like to lose quite a large sum of money. This wasn't so fun.

Lee Enterprises - owners of my old newspaper, the Wisconsin State Journal (it's a bit more complicated than that, but that'll do), just sent out their quarterly earnings. I had a bit of stock in the company from an old Employee Purchase Plan.

Anyway, that stock, which was once up to about $50 a share, plummeted to $3 over the last quarter, having dropped 90% in the last year alone.

My fault. I left the money in those stocks because I thought Lee Enterprises Upper Management were Ruthless Bastards Who Only Cared About The Bottom Line. What I forgot to take into account was, like much of the newspaper industry's upper management, they were STUPID Ruthless Bastards Who Only Cared About The Bottom Line.

Newspapers. Yeah. THEY'RE the future.

Honestly, what was I thinking?

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Plus, the Subaru, which just had a new starter put in last year, was towed back to the garage this morning.

Why? well, ANOTHER starter, apparently, needs to be put in. Four hundred buck.

"But you just put in a new one last January," I explained, as patiently as I could after discovering I was already quite a bit poorer than I thought I was this time, last week.

"Yeah...the warranty just ran out."

I believe I shall stay in, this weekend...whimpering or drinking, Haven't really made my mind up, yet...SOMETHING self-destructive...

I've got it! Cartooning!

IT MUST BE MINE: Occasional reviews of various things Cool and Otherwise

DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS RECORD SHEETS
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
Page Count: 12
Price: $9.95

OK. If I'm gonna do some reviewing here, I really want to focus on the positive, rather than the negative. To point people towards what is good and grand in geekdom, not dwell in the muck and mire of mediocrity.

However...

I just picked up a copy of the Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition Character Record Sheets: retail price $9.95.

Now, I am a huge fan of Character Sheets, going all the way back to AD&D 1st Edition, circa When-Debbie-Harry-Was-Still-Enormously-Hot-And-ELO-Was-Still-Enormously-Groovy-And-Not-In-A-Post-Modern-Retro-Irony-Way.

Though largely superfluous (you could almost always just photocopy the character record pages from your handy-dandy core books, regardless of what game you had), commercial packs of Character Record Sheets represented potential in a way that merely Xeroxed copies simply couldn't - especially in the days when photocopiers produced more "good intentions" than "sharp, crisp copies."

Page after page of Exactly The Same Page, to my fevered young mind, seemed to signify nothing less than the dozens of characters just waiting to be a-rolled. This was a veritable Futures Market in Fantasy Roleplay Characters.

To this day (in much the same way a single-line adventure description in a convention program will) a brand-spankin' new pack of Character Sheets will catapult me back to the days when this was all still new, magical and limitless!

Now, I'm quite the fan of 4th Edition: I think it's a superb release that plays to my particular RPG style and strengths. So I was quite excited at the prospect of lovely, untouched Character Sheets simply awaiting the results of my dice rolling before legions of new characters would be at my beck and call.

Anyway, as I said, I picked up the Character Record Sheets Tuesday. Did I mention the price? Ten bucks, close as dammit?

And the package contains...

Four character record sheets.

Yes, four. In a lovely folder, mind you. The kind Target usually sells for $.99 during Back To School Sales.

Hold on! There's also...eight sheets of perforated Power and Magic Item cards (each contains eight blank cards), adding up to the "12 pages" advertised (didn't this originally start out at 32 pages, btw?).

And...and...

Oh. Wait. That's it...

No. Seriously?

Yup. In fact, the blurb on the back cover of the package even has the audacity to suggest that two of the character record sheets are a "BONUS!", as they are "widescreen-style...that doesn't crowd middle of the table ." So, like, with two of the sheets considered "BONUS!", the original release would have only had the two non-widescreen character sheets in it?

Now, as Character Sheets go, these are perfectly fine Character Sheets. They are concise and well laid-out, whether wide-screen or otherwise. And the cover art is just lovely, lovely stuff. My only niggling complaint would be that SPACE TO DRAW CHARACTERS SHOULD GO ON THE FRONT OF THE SHEETS, NOT THE BACK! But I'm biased like that (in much the same way, I walk around screaming SALT AND VINEGAR - BLUE! CHEESE AND ONION - GREEN! in a way that most sensible consumers simply don't).

Again: I do like D&D4. A lot. I like character record sheets. A lot. But WoTC's Dungeons & Dragons Character Record Sheets (did I mention retail price $9.95?) is simply one of the most absurd, almost...almost cynical releases I think I've ever seen in this industry. Not only is this not even in the same ballpark as Green Ronin's old Character Record Folio (retail price: $4.50) (IMHO, the apex of Character Record technology), it's several giant steps back from the basic pads of record sheets of yore.

Four sheets. Retail price: $9.95.

Yes, I can just go to Kinko's, and make more copies. I'll kinda have to, now. Or just download them for free, of course ("BONUS!" horizontal layout notwithstanding, that is). Yet free downloads are no excuse for a pricey printed product. The basic idea behind the package is sound: at $4.95, I might have gone for this. Even with eight more character sheets included, it might have slipped by, unnoticed. Yet as it stands...well, all this can possibly lead to is more blogs tiresomely spelling "Hasbro" as "Ha$bro," and nobody wants that.

Honestly...I...I really don't want to sound harsh, but...

Four sheets. Four sheets! Retail price: $9.95.

What a load of sheet.

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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According to today's Spam

Clinton Found Hanged In Bedroom (Bill, we're guessing)
Hilary Clinton vows revenge (for Bill's hanging, presumably)
Facebook hacked into, millions of accounts lost
Girl cuts off partner's ear with ice skate
Guy peddles girlfriend for hundred bucks (possibly after having his ear hacked off), but, on a more positive note:
Heath Ledger awarded posthumous oscar

robin_d_laws says these can be turned into an Esoterrorists adventure seed. Me? I'm thinking GURPS Illuminati (admittedly mainly because I don't have Esoterrorists yet...)

So: who can com up with the best adventure using these nuggets?

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The Great Luke Ski has passed on information for the Tom Smith (a core member of the Funny Music Project (FuMP)) fund raiser:

Part 1:

The Tom Smith Fund Raiser:
"Mr. Smith Goes To The Hospital: A Fast Fund Raiser For A Fast Filker"

Core FuMPer, filk legend, self-employed professional musician, and all around nice guy Tom Smith recently suffered a leg injury that will keep him off his feet all summer, simultaneously forcing him to cancel gigs while also racking up hospital bills. So Rob Balder and DJ Particle rallied the filk and comedy music scenes to submit over 40 Tom Smith cover songs by the likes of the great Luke Ski, Sudden Death, Worm Quartet, Possible Oscar, TV’s Kyle, Art Paul Schlosser, Odd Austin Aeschilman, ToyBoat, Steve MacDonald, and dozens more for an MP3 album to help Tom Smith get on his feet (pun intended, this is about Tom Smith after all). The price of this downloadable MP3 collection? As much as you feel you can afford right now, it’s up to you. To donate, follow this link. Thank you everyone.

Part 2:

The Tom Smith "Dead Again" Video Contest!

Create a fan-made video for Possible Oscar's cover of Tom Smith's "Dead Again", and you can win an MP3 player loaded with the entire Discosgraphies of Tom Smith, Possible Oscar, the great Luke Ski, Rob Balder, and the Funny Music Project: Volumes 1 through 9! For details and rules, follow this liunk.

Wow, what about this new trend in Spam subject lines, trying to sucker you in with some bizarro dystopian vision of a Martin-Amis-like world gone south. A sort of Alternate Reality reading of tabloid headlines:

Britney in coma, feared dead
Tornado in New York destroys city
Democrats withdraw Obama from Race
Angelina Jolie Dies in Miscarriage
Ben Sheets named All-Star Same starting picher

Oh. Wait. That last one was for real (anyone else on the Milwaukee Brewers mailing list? Did they REALLY misspell "pitcher"?)

The interesting thing about this new e-mail trend is, if you open it, a SECOND awful headline appears, before a link that -- by now -- anyone with even half a brain will realize probably doesn't link to the New York Times online:

Nicole Kidman loses baby in miscarriage
James Brown dies of heart attack
Military insurgence in Afghan, US troops killed
New evidence confirms US Moon landing was a hoax

My favorite one-two punch so far is the subject line Elton John dies in rocket ship followed by "Federal regulators prepared to infringe individual rights by restricting what consumers can do online." Try saying THAT three times fast.

I find trends in e-mail Spam subject lines fascinating. I wonder if anyone's ever done a study on them...

EDIT: Apparently someone has written on the trend. Interesting...

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Yes, I did change yesterday's punchline three times.



Every now and then, a syndicate inquires as to whether I'd want to do Dork Tower as a daily strip. I've never really had the time to pursue it. Still. God help anyone who eventually becomes my editor.

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Quite liking Thunderbird as a mail program, so thanks to all for recommending it (I prefer my mail Application-based to Web-based, hence not going with the alsso highly recommended Gmail).

How to transfer mailboxes from "Mail" to "Thunderbird," when Thunderbird doesn't even recognize that you've got a Mail application when you go to "Import Mailboxes." Hmmm...

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Hurmmmm. I'm a LOT closer to 100 games than I thought I was before.

Just did up a spreadsheet, so I wouldn't miscount. Apparently, I've worked on 98 games. To wit:

( The Games 98 )

At this point in time, I'm working on six games (one of which - Texterity - I also created)

Supersonic (Out of the Box)
Lightning (Out of the Box)
Texterity! (Out of the Box)
Word on the Street (Out of the Box Games)
Run Wild (Out of the Box Games)
Munchkin Quest II (Steve Jackson Games)

Munchkin Quest II will most likely be the next one I finish, sometime very soon. So I'll be at Ninty-nine. Supersonic, Lightning and Texterity and also pretty far along. Sooooooo....

...sometime in the next month, it looks like I'll hit the 100 games mark!

Frankly, I'm as shocked at this as you are. I mean, for a start...well...how to put this delicately?...DON'T GAMES COMPANIES REALIZE I CAN'T EVEN DRAW A FOURTH FINGER? Goodness sakes. Anyhoo, I wonder if there's some way to celebrate that (the "100 Games" thing. Not the "Can't draw four fingers" thing). Shame I won't be at GenCon...that would have been the perfect place to throw a party...

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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The Only Spam Haiku I could get out of Today's Spam
(Depending on Whether you Pronounce "Failure" "Fai-u-lar" or not)
By John Kovalic, and his Spammers

Girl takes down five guys
baby borned with two privates
failure notice

Well, Apart From This One, If You're Gonna Be Pedantic About It
By John Kovalic, and his Spammers

failure notice
baby borned with two privates
Girl takes down five guys

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Good lord...is it really Monday already?

It was an amazing weekend, for a number of reasons.

Friday was Dr. Beth's birthday - she of Team Blink. So the gang went to watch the Madison Mallards play the arch-rival Wisconsin Woodchucks.

Well, my pal Phillip needed some help pulling a fast one over my great friend (and his girlfriend) Dory. Dory is known to have more than a little Nancy Drew in her (along with a healthy dose of Dolly Levi, but that's another post). Thus we needed something that wouldn't raise any suspicions whatsoever. So here's the set-up: Phillip and I conferred with some Mallards staff folks, and got everything squared away. I then told Dory that she and I were going to play "Name That Tune" on the field, in-between the fourth and fifth innings (the Mallards are big on mid-inning promotions and entertainment).

I then handed Phillip my camera, and said, loudly and obviously, "Here...come along and take some pictures of this.

So the three of us proceeded onto the field, where...


( The pics you can see me taking, after the cut. )

Bottom line: I did a good deed, AND now know what it's like to get booed by a crowd of 7,499 people! (I'd have said 7,500, but Judith assures me she didn't boo.)

(Many thanks to Dossy Shiobara for providing the YouTube-Fu).

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Someone brought one of my books to the ballpark, knowing I hang out there in the summer. It was VERY cool to sign a copy of "Attack of the Editorial Cartoonists" in front of Mallards staff while organizing the engagement stunt. I just wish Judith could have seen it!

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Later in the game, a young kid was leaving, sad that he hadn't gotten a baseball from the players.

"Hey, guys!" I shouted, to a group of Woodchucks near the fence. "Swap you some bratwurst for a ball for this kid, here!"

Number 32 underhanded a ball to me, and I passed it on to the little boy, who was ecstatic.

"Oh, my god," I exclaimed, to my pal Scotty. "I can do ANYTHING today! There is NOTHING I can't do! What do you want? Ask me! Ask me anything! I'll make it happen!"

"I want a Mallards jersey," said Scott.

"Oh, MAN," I shook my head, slowly. "Scott - you BLEW it! You could have asked for WORLD PEACE, but instead, you went for the Mallards jersey!"

"In his defense, they ARE pretty nice jerseys," noted The Todd.

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Alcohol MAY have been involved in the above exchange.

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Here's a better shot of that CONvergence Guest of Honor badge cajones drew for me.

We both think it should be a cover for a Dr. Blink issue.



I especially like the hourly rates.

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

This was for those folks who complain Matt puts up with too much of Igor being, well, Igor.

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A brief photo essay on CONvergence 2008. Until I can actually write down a proper essay.

Oddest thing I came away from the con with: the nickname "Bring Me My Wimmin!" As in: John "Bring Me My Wimmin!" Kovalic. And, yes, I have no idea why. This moniker was bestowed by Eryn and Amanda (who, as usual, were totally brilliant in the Iron Artist panel as Japanese pop-star Heidi Fujiyama and her manager Sama- see below).



Both my signings were with Peter Mayhew, AKA Chewbacca. You may have heard of this little movie he was in? Anyway, he's utterly charming, and the only guest I've ever seen who's taller than me. By quite a bit, I might add. What a great time that was. HOT DAMN, this photo is great. I hope I meet Peter again, as I'd love for him to sign a copy of this.



I also love it when people come to signings dressed as Dork Tower characters. Gilly, indeed!



Plus, did I mention Best Power Girl Costume EVAR?


( Quite a bit more madness behind the cut )

And so it ends...for another year, anyway.



What's left but to scream "FIVE DAYS!", and mention that I'm totally serious about getting an exchange program going between CONvergence and Warpcon!

I am so making a return trip to CONvergence in 2009! Who from Warpcon is coming over with me? and who from CONvergence is going to Cork, Ireland with me in January?

PRESS RELEASE

TO ALL MEDIA

EIGHTH ANNUAL
DIANA JONES AWARD
SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

Annual award “for Excellence in Gaming” to be presented 13th August, 2008

London, 4th July — After much debate, the shortlist for the eighth annual Diana Jones Award for Excellence in Gaming, covering the year 2007, has been announced.

The Diana Jones Award is given to whatever the Diana Jones Committee believes has best demonstrated ‘excellence in gaming’ in the previous year. This year the committee has shortlisted six potential winners. In alphabetical order, they are:

Canon Puncture
By Rich Rogers, Chris Perrin, and Chris Norwood
Canon Puncture (canonpuncture.blogspot.com) is a podcast by Rich Rogers, Chris Perrin, and Chris Norwood. Across 27 episodes in 2007 they nailed uncommonly good interviews with game designers from Jared Sorensen to Red 5 Studios to Kevin Siembieda, skillfully working some of the wider history of the hobby and conveying a sense of its true porousness and possibilities. Their “round table” conversations about the industry are tempered with honest concerns, but still express “heart on the sleeve” enthusiasm spanning more than twenty years of engagement with the hobby. And their conversations about actual play, successes as well as failures and frustrations, reveal uncanny insight into the social workings of play.

Child’s Play
Child’s Play (www.childsplaycharity.org) is a charity appeal to gamers, benefiting children’s hospitals in (so far) six nations. It was founded in 2003 by the creators of the Penny Arcade game review comic. Its objective is to give gamers a chance to show the world, by helping children, that they are caring people, not ultra-violent zombies controlled by evil video games. Although the charity accepts cash donations and holds special events to raise money, most donations are made by clicking, through the Child’s Play site, onto a hospital’s Amazon.com wish list. The wish lists include not only handheld videogame devices, but also DVDs, books, and toys of many kinds. The donor selects what he wants to give, and Amazon.com does the rest. Thus, the administrative overhead of Child's Play is a very small percentage of total donations—and those donations were over $1,300,000 last year. The Penny Arcade creators, Jerry “Tycho” Holkins and Mike “Gabe” Krahulik, have very intelligently leveraged their huge audience in the service of Good.

Come Out and Play
The festival Come Out and Play (www.comeoutandplay.org) is the primary showcase for the new movement of pervasive games (a.k.a. street games). Held in New York in 2006, Amsterdam in 2007, and back in New York in 2008, it mixes up urban spaces with technology and new media to turn cities into playgrounds, game boards, and giant arcades. Whether the game is PacManhattan (a live-action version of the classic video game using cellphones to track player positions), Journey to the End of Night (which takes a traditional schoolyard game and stretches it out over several hours and miles of a darkened city), or any of a hundred more, anyone who takes part in Come Out and Play will never feel the same about the urban environment again.

Grey Ranks
By Jason Morningstar
Published by Bully Pulpit Games
Jason Morningstar's roleplaying game of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, Grey Ranks, commands attention for many reasons—its fidelity to and evocation of historical detail, its unique and harrowing subject matter, its elegant mechanics of play, and its unflinching assessment of war and heroism—but it deserves highest marks for two factors. First, it is a game of inexorable tragedy, sacrifice, coming-of-age, mortality, and self-destruction. These truly mature literary themes are almost unexplored in gaming of any sort, and virtually unseen in roleplaying. If gaming is to approach the other arts in depth and richness, it will be games like Grey Ranks that make such an approach possible. Second, its emotional grid mechanic anchors a solid, powerful rules design that drives such themes home in play. Jason Morningstar has not created a game that lazily appropriates the historical horror at its heart, he has created rules that reveal that horror, rules that re-create that horror in its players’ hearts and minds. Aristotle said that all true tragedy must end in terror and pity. It’s hard to believe that Aristotle never played Grey Ranks.

Open Design/Wolfgang Baur
Open Design began as an experiment in funding the development of roleplaying game supplements. Wolfgang Baur—a highly respected, long-time Dungeons & Dragons editor and designer for TSR and then Wizards of the Coast—went back hundreds of years to dig up the concept of patronage, add a few modern twists to it, and apply it to the problem. He posts a project and publicizes it along with a monetary threshold. When the funding his patrons chip in reaches that threshold, he starts on the project in earnest. Baur supplements his exemplary work by letting his patrons suggest various directions for each project and then allowing them to look over this shoulder as he works. Each project becomes a master-level class on adventure design for those privileged to be a part of it.

Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media
Edited by Pat Harrigan and Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Published by MIT Press
The fact that MIT Press is publishing serious work about roleplaying games and other “playable media” is a signpost for how far games of all sorts have come over the past 40 years. The essays herein tackle everything from Dungeons & Dragons and Choose-Your-Own-Adventure stories to World of Warcraft and The Howard Dean for Iowa Game. The book also contains three full-fledged roleplaying games:—Puppetland, Bestial Acts, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen—making them the first to be published by an academic press. In such a young field as games, it’s essential that we develop a serious discussion about their meaning and how they work, and Second Person delivers that necessary, seminal volume to kickstart such a movement.

-----------------

About the Award

The Diana Jones Award was established in 2000 to celebrate the principle of excellence in gaming. Each year the Award is given to the person, company, product, event, trend, or item that in the opinion of the committee has best demonstrated “excellence” in the field of gaming in the previous year.

The award is announced and the trophy presented at a ceremony the day before the opening of Gen Con Indianapolis (this year on Wednesday 13th August). Winners receive the Diana Jones Trophy and the admiration of their peers. The award is administered and decided by a mostly anonymous committee of games-industry luminaries in three countries.

Previous winners of the Diana Jones Award include Peter Adkison, former CEO of Wizards of the Coast; Jordan Weisman, former CEO of FASA and Wizkids; the games Sorcerer, Nobilis, My Life with Master and Ticket to Ride; the game supplement The Great Pendragon Campaign; and the generosity of the charity auctions at Irish games conventions.

A fuller description of the history of the Diana Jones Award and its extraordinary trophy, plus details of all the previous winners and shortlists, can be found at the award’s website: www.dianajonesaward.org

More information

For more information on the award and on how to gain access to the award party on August 13th, please contact the designated public representatives of the Diana Jones Committee:

Matt Forbeck matt@forbeck.com
James Wallis james@erstwhile.demon.co.uk

If I wasn't so busy (and trust me, I am plenty busy), I'd have a long, rambling post about how wonderful CONvergence 2008 was.

Perhaps tomorrow. To make up for this, if you were at CONvergence 2008, post any memories and photos in the comments section here! I'd love to hear what others thought.

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In the meantime, Monday's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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And today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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Larry Harmon, the man who played Bozo the Clown, has died at the age of 83. This is a damn shame.

Generations of kids grew up on Bozo here in the US, and this news can mean only one thing:

Many crappy Bozo obituary cartoons.

However, since it's a holiday weekend in the US ("The Fourth of July") and in England ("Thank God We Got Rid of Those Americans Day"), many cartoonists may not get the chance to phone in a Bozo at the Gates of Heaven cartoon until Monday.

So here's your very own "Do It Yourself Bozo Obituary Cartoon."



Grab it, open photoshop, and beat many a salaried editorial cartoonist to the punch! Post your results in the comments section below! Bonus points if you have St. Peter saying something that is later used by a salaried editorial cartoonist!

(Note: there will prolly be fewer Gates of Heaven cartoons for Bozo simply because a fair number will also take the "Two People Reading a Newspaper or Watching TV news about the election/Congress/Bush/Whatever and Commenting 'At least we have THESE Bozos left...'" tack. Or maybe just a CLOWN...with a TEARDROP...sniff...)

EDIT: Former Senator Jesse Helms passed away as well. So...take your pick! (And yes, since you asked, people DO wear their campaign buttons at the Pearly Gates. Has Editorial Cartooning taught you nothing? Frankly, I should have labelled Bozo "Bozo," St. Peter "St. Peter" and the Pearly Gates "Heaven." I stop short of calling the Clouds "Clouds," though...)



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A note from my Mom, in London:

"A huge thank you to your readers from glorious, sunny London. Your dad will be well chuffed when I take his laptop to the hospital for him to read. Tomorrow, I think. Get wells from places we've loved in our travels. Places we have yet to explore. They will be a great morale booster. Thanks to each!"

Thanks a million, gang! Dad's doing great, I'm told. I deeply appreciate all the good thoughts!

And if anyone wants to keep posting Get-Well-Soons to my dad (I want to say "Father Muskrat," but that sounds a bit like a Terry Pratchett character), feel free to!

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The Madison Mallards swept the Battle Creek Bombers in their own crib last night, 8-2 in the first game and 7-2 in the second. This means they're First Half Southern Division Champs, which also means an automatic playoff berth come August! They beat out the Wisconsin Woodchucks by a half a game, meaning the de-facto rivalry will now become even more hated. As the Woodchucks had a five-game lead just a couple of weeks ago, a crueler fan might refer to them as the Wood-chokes.

Not me. No-siree bob. Uh-uh...

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Last night at CONvergence, there was a lovely young lady who filled out a Power Girl costume, uh...well...um...I suppose "spectacularly" is the only word that comes to mind.

I have a camera with me, but didn't have it on me at the time, which is a darn shame. On the other hand, that may be a good thing, as the lens might well have melted. Power Girl is NOT an easy costume to pull off well.

I'll try and upload other CONvergence images later. But the con is going brilliantly, and I'm relaxed and happy. Spent much time at the Dreaming cabana party, were everyone pulled off an Egyptian theme brilliantly, and were kind enough to give me a little Dreaming gift bag, complete with Dreaming beer and Dreaming shot glass! (I was too late for the House of Toast party, which had run out of toast by the time I'd gotten there - tonight, perhaps...)

You know how you alays hope one set of your friends likes another set of your friends? I think there should be a CONvergence/Warpcon exchange program. My two favorite cons in the world need to see just how fabulous each other is...

Settling in nicely at CONvergence, thank you very much.

I've had many Big Worries weighing on me, recently. The main worry for today has thankfully now passed: I just got a call from England telling me my dad came through knee replacement surgery very well indeed.

My dad is an ex-Marine, and has possibly the highest pain tolerance of anyone I've ever known, so when he says it was painful, I'm assuming it was the kind of thing that would leave me a gibbering wreck, had I gone through it.

So, hey, if you're reading this, why not leave my Dad a "get well soon" message in the Comments section. After all, he is halfway responsible for my being here (life-wise and cartoon-wise, not CONvergence-wise, that is). I know it'd really cheer him up, getting get-wells from around the world. And it'd make my day, too!

Thanks a million! (And, it goes without saying, those of you fortunate enough to still have your dads around, go tell 'em how much they mean to you, even a fortnight after Fathers' Day).

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Went out to dinner last night with cajones, chebutykin, princeofcairo, and mollpeartree. We hit a place downtown called "Ike's Food and Cocktails."

Much cool, fun food was consumed. Case in point: Lobster Corndogs.

I'd say more about the rest of the food, but after "Lobster Corndogs," what's left to say, really?

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Speaking of cajones, here's the Guest of Honor badge he created for me.



Did I mention cajones rocks? Hard?

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My pal alexbot3000 visited over the weekend. We dragged him and his wife, Kristen, to a Madison Mallards game, where Alex threw out the first pitch in front of a crowd of about 6,000, and the Mallards then proceeded to get spanked, 14-2.



Video of Alex's throw DOES exist. It WILL be posted! Bwa-ha-ha!

Nevertheless, a terrific time was had, and the Mallards are in the thick of the pennant race, still. If they win both games of their double-header tonight, or if they win one, and the Wisconsin (Wausau) Woodchucks lose, they'll be first-half champions, and gain entry to the Northwoods League playoffs later this summer. So I'm wearing my Mallards gear around CONvergence. I even briefly contemplated popping 60 miles south, down to Rochester tonight, to see the Honkers play the St. Cloud River Bats (the theory being, it's better to see some Northwoods baseball than none when your team's in the thick of the hunt).

But that would mean leaving CONvergence immediately after the opening ceremonies, and for goodness sakes, there are cabana parties to check out!

Cabana Parties: the Lobster Corndog of the convention scene.

Now...GO MALLARDS! And...GET WELL SOON, DAD!

Update - Dad's doing great, is now sleeping, and the Mallards are up 6-2 in the 5th inning of the first of a doubleheader...they've got the bases loaded, one out, and just scored two runs! Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster for international calling plans and internet radio...

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

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Minneapolis foodies!

What are the cool places to hit in the Twin Cities?

I'm gonna have to return to Matt's Bar for a Juicy Lucy at some point. And there was an amazing Indian restaurant in a strip mall close by the con (I've forgotten the name, but WOW, was it good - is it still around?).

What other special haunts are there in the Cities, food-wise?

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Good news - I'll be bringing prototypes of two new games Out of the Box - "Ninja versus Ninja" (yaaaay!) and "LOL!"

"LOL!" is a party game I designed that I'm terrifically happy about. It will be released by Out of the Box in 2009, and the playtests have been a dream. Folks really seem to love it. It's been a far happier experience than when I designed the Whad'ya Know home game...

I'll most likely be playing some in the Autograph area, as Chewbacca signs, and I look sadly around for people to love me...

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Guess what? ANOTHER!

Of COURSE cartoonists are gonna keep running lame, easy gags

.

..if Editors keep proclaiming them "Cartoons of the Week."

I got seven words right here for you, buddy!

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There are 1,931 folks on LJ who have "Friended" this blog.

I'd like to do something for the person who becomes #2,000, but it doesn't seem as if there's any way to tell who that is...I don't see a way to sort friends by date added...

(Additionally, there are 5,261-ish folks on LJ alone who subscribe to the Dork Tower Syndicated Feed. So it'll be a while before we hit another milestone THERE...)

Yesterday's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

Busy weekend, or it would have gone up on time. But hey, at least I'm A WEEK AHEAD ON THE STRIPS, AGAIN, after a marathon drawing session yesterday.

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Remember this strip? From Friday?



I did not know - honest - that last Friday was the honest-to-god anniversary of the Potemkin mutiny.

I actually had written the comic strip months ago (on the banks of the Thames), and only ran it because I didn't want to start the 4E series on a Friday.

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My CONvergence schedule, this week:

THURSDAY ----------------------------

Signing/Autographing 5 pm - 6 pm
Autograph Table
John Kovalic, Peter Mayhew

Opening Ceremonies - 7 pm - 8 pm
Main Stage
Trace Beaulieu, Windy Bowlsby, Christian Colquhoun, Larry Dixon, Daren Dochterman, Mark Evanier, Kenneth Hite, ASL Interpreter, Christopher Jones, Dr. Jim Kakalios, Perrin Klumpp, Harry Knowles, Jay Knowles, John Kovalic, Mercedes Lackey, Bridget Landry, Peter Mayhew, Robert Meyer Burnett, Andrew Probert, Jeremy Stomberg, Video Team,Vincent Truitner, David Weber, Len Wein, Greg Weisman, Pat Wick, Tim Wick, Ishmael Williams, Wally Wingert, Marv Wolfman, Bernie Wrightson

FRIDAY ----------------------------

Game Design - 6:30 pm - 7:30 pm
Atrium 2
Learn about the process of designing games.
Christian Colquhoun, John Kovalic

SATURDAY ----------------------------

Signing John & Peter - Signing/Autographing 3:30 pm - 4:30 pm
Autograph Table
John Kovalic, Peter Mayhew

Kovalic! - 5 - 6 pm
Atrium 2
Spend an hour with John Kovalic, a game designer and illustrator. Maybe you'll even learn the secret history of Apples to Apples.
John Kovalic, Video Team

SUNDAY ----------------------------

Iron Artist - 11 am - Noon
Plaza 1
Come watch as our very own Iron Artists battle to bring life to the Secret Ingredient. They will be given a scene and an hour in which to bring life to their creation, engaging in a frenzied battle to win the people's acclaim forever. Who's art scene will reign supreme?
Louis Frank, Kelvin Hatle, Eryn Hildebrand, ASL Interpreter, Christopher Jones, Melissa Kaercher, Perrin Klumpp, John Kovalic, Jennifer Menken, Amanda Schuckman, Gordon Smuder, Video Team, Matt Waterhouse

Closing Ceremonies - 5 pm
Main Stage
Trace Beaulieu, Windy Bowlsby, Christian Colquhoun, Larry Dixon, Daren Dochterman, Mark Evanier, Kenneth Hite, ASL Interpreter, Christopher Jones, Dr. Jim Kakalios, Perrin Klumpp, Harry Knowles, Jay Knowles, John Kovalic, Mercedes Lackey, Bridget Landry, Michael Lee, Peter Mayhew, Robert Meyer Burnett, Andrew Probert, Jeremy Stomberg, Video Team, Vincent Truitner, David Weber, Len Wein, Greg Weisman, Pat Wick, Tim Wick, Ishmael Williams, Wally Wingert, Marv Wolfman, Bernie Wrightson

Yes. My signing sessions are both with Chewbacca.

That's pretty freaky cool.

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it.

Of the three readers of this blog, perhaps one will get it. Which is OK by me. Seriously, I don't EVER want to know how I come up with stuff like this...

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In the vocal stylings of "Alvin? ALVINNNN!"

Carson? CARSONNNNN!

Floodwaters breach Mississippi River levee: Muskrat holes blamed.

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And just in case you missed last night's insomniac post...

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Was supposed to drive down to Wizard World Chicago today. Not sure if I'm feeling too sleepy now.

Spit.

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Speaking of conventions I'm not at...

robin_d_laws, he of The Birds fame, and he whom I now hate because he's getting to go to Australia, dammit (All Cheese Twisties CAN be sent to: John Is A Shameless Beggar, Box 45063, Madison, WI 53711), shot some footage at last year's GenCon.

"If you were a sea creature, what kind of sea creature would you want to be?" he asked, apparently anticipating Barbara Walters' next prime-time special.

Anyway, he cornered three folks whom I consider good friends.

Apparently, I befriend people who have a thing for cephalopods...


(Some mildly NSFW language from...well, you guess who.)


stannex:


angusabranson


iamnikchick


Two more good friends, less octo-sessed.

princeofcairo


Michelle Nephew


More pals can be found here.

SPAM SUBJECT LINE HAIKU
(it's been a while)

Upcoming Events
Million dead in Chinese quake
3 Days Left to Save

We're taking it off
Gemma Hayes Night in Pictures
Power in your Pants

This is a Warning
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Biggest tool on earth!

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My great friends James Wallis, doing what my great friend James Wallis does best - amaze people:



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On his blog, Michael Ruhlman posed the question (paraphrased greatly here) "What are your go-to, everyday dinner recipes?"

Here are those I'll fall back on, on a time and time again, if I've no time to think about something special.

Most of these come originally from my favorite cookbooks, but have gotten to the point with me where I'll seldom if ever go back and look at the cookbooks when making them. Most have evolved slightly.

John's go-to recipes:

Jalapeno Black Bean Soup
(Gleaned from the Whole Chile Pepper cookbook)
Mushroom Soup
(Gleaned from the Les Halles cookbook)
French Onion Soup
(Gleaned from Le Cordon Bleu at Home)
Potato and Leek Soup
(Gleaned from Le Cordon Bleu at Home)
Sweet and Sour Soup
(Gleaned from Soups and Stews)

Spaghetti Arabiata
(A simple sauce that can morph into many different sauces with additions. I think I originally found it in Bugialli on Pasta - it reminded me of the sauces I had when my dad worked in Milan)
Fettucini Carbonara
(Gleaned from the Silver Spoon cookbook)
Risotto (Either mushroom or gorgonzola, but whatever's on hand)
(again, using the basic Silver Spoon recipe)
Pizza
(Trying to match the Neapolitan style as best as possible)
Lasagne or Canelloni
(A variation on my mom's recipe, with the America's Test Kitchen twist on canelloni)
Holupki
(From my Grandmother's church cookbook)


Chicken Picata or Milanese
(Gleaned from watching my mom and grandma make it)
Tacos, rice and Beans
(Gleaned from Rick Bayless' Everyday Mexican)
Pan-fried Trout
(When available and fresh, of course)
Grilled/roast fish (usually Sea Bass)
(From a L'Etoile class I once took)
Catfish, coated in flour and pan-fried
Moules Marnier
(And all the variations this can lead to. Cleaning the mussles is a pain, though...)
Curries
(Using curry pastes, but I'm learning how to create my own)
Roast Chicken
(Gleaned from Thomas Keller's recipe)


Looking back over the list, I see it's it's odder and more eclectic than I'd have guessed...

I totally buggered up the links to Jonny Nexus' various sites and stuff yesterday, so here they are again, all shiny and new and, you know, LINK-able:

I've read three books so far this year on gaming. All have been just terrific.

I've already talked about "Achtung, Schweinhund." I'll be posting on the thoroughly enjoyable "The Elfish Gene" soon.

The third book was kindly sent to me by jonnynexus, its author: "Game Night."

I read it over the last weekend I was in England, although it was actually sent to me last winter. I wish I hadn't waited so long. I also wish I'd brought it with me to Warpcon, where the inimitable author was, to get it signed.

Well, if you're in the Reading area this weekend (of England - hush, you Pennsylvanians), you can do one better than me and pick up a copy and have J.N. sign it for you! Just pop by Eclectic Games, which I hear is a rather excellent shop that's moving to a new, larger site adjacent to their current location. The opening day is this Saturday, 28th June, when the author will start signing away from about 10 am onwards.

So if you're near Reading, it would behoove you to hit Eclectic Games, grab a copy of this Pratchett-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game-night kerfuffles. Plus, Jonny's a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is.

Eclectic Games is located just opposite the railway station (hopefully, this link opens to a map).

Eclectic Games
Thames Tower
38-45 Station Road
Reading
RG1 1LX

So, yeah - buy "Game Night." Get it signed. It's a fun, fresh, irreverent read that'll ring true to any gamer even if, unlike the protagonists, you happen not to be a god.

Chapter one is available as a free preview download. With luck, clicking on that there link should procure it for you.

****

Some folks asked for larger images of the Star Kobolds that'll be used at Origins. Here they are:




A reader asked, yesterday if, based on these drawings, Tribbles tasted like chicken.

"Only in the dish "Truffle with Tribbles," I replied.

Ba-dum, dum!

(With extra emphasis on the "dum.")

****

Mattel's released their first Apples to Apples game with all-new content: Apples to Apples to Go.

An exclusive for Target which therefore can also be picked up at Amazon.com as well, I bought my copy with more than a little trepidation. Now that A2A belongs to someone else, it's a bit like bumping into an ex-girlfriend and her new husband on the street.

It's gratifying that Mattel kept the illustrations and logo I did for the game (indeed, my plucky little Apple is even larger on the cards, now). So too was it nice to see that the flavor text I spent much time on (snarky doesn't come easy to me, gang) made it through to the Mattel version. But what would this all-new edition be like?

I needn't have worried. Mattel got it right.

If you like Apples to Apples, you'll love the all-new cards in the "To Go" version. It's packed with Red Apple cards like "Dick Cheney," "Linday Lohan," "Machiavelli" and "The First Amendment," and the flavor text hits just the right notes: "DICK CHENEY: 1941- , Forty-sixth Vice President of teh U.S. and much-feared quail hunter." Brilliant. And the mix of high-brow and low-brow cards seems spot-on

There are a couple of slight mis-steps: "Snooty Maitre D's" carries with it an implicit value judgement - a simple "Maitre D's" would have been more fitting. Similarly "Your Ex" should have been "My Ex," as all such cards are written from the Judge's point of view. And I'm surprised at some of the "all-new" cards. We never did "A Plague of Locusts" "Word War II" or "ABBA"? Really?

Still, it's a great set, and I can't wait to play with it. Any fears folks might have had about Mattel changing A2A for the worse seem definitely unfounded, at least based on the terrific "Apples to Apples to Go."

****

But Mattel...next time you want to show my beloved little Apple guy running...give me a call. I work cheap. Honest.




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And yet another Change/Change cartoon...

(click here to view)

John Trever Albuquerque Journal Jun 26, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

Today's Dork Tower is up...



Click here, there or anywhere to see it. (The basic idea came about when I was skimming through Miss Sara's MySpace blog last night.

I wasn't happy with the drawing I did for Dork Tower, last Friday. So I redid it:



If you're not gonna get paid for a cartoon ONCE, you might as well not get paid for a cartoon twice. And if you're gonna do the stupidest joke of your career, you might as well like the damn drawing.

Here...


...is a link to the original.

****

To those of you lucky enough to be going to the Origins Game Fair this weekend: damn, I wish I was there.

Instead, here's a drawing I did for the annual Kobolds Ate My Baby Midnight Massacre event.



Wanna guess what the theme is?

The Midnight Massacre, run by those insane geniuses at 9th Level Games, is a hoot. Try and make it there, if you can. (I forget whether it runs Friday or Saturday, but I believe it's Friday.)

****

I've read three books so far this year on gaming. All have been just terrific.

I've already talked about "Achtung, Schweinhund." I'll be posting on the thoroughly enjoyable "The Elfish Gene" soon.

The third book was kindly sent to me by jonnynexus, its author: "Game Night."

I read it over the last weekend I was in England, although it was actually sent to me last winter. I wish I hadn't waited so long. I also wish I'd brought it with me to Warpcon, where the inimitable author was, to get it signed.

Well, if you're in the Reading area this weekend (of England - hush, you Pennsylvanians), you can do one better than me and pick up a copy and have J.N. sign it for you! Just pop by Eclectic Games, which I hear is a rather excellent shop that's moving to a new, larger site adjacent to their current location. The opening day is this Saturday, 28th June, when the author will start signing away from about 10 am onwards.

So if you're near Reading, it would behoove you to hit Eclectic Games, grab a copy of this Pratchett-esque debut novel of gods, roleplaying, and game-night kerfuffles. Plus, Jonny's a hoopy frood who really knows where his towel is.

Eclectic Games is located just opposite the railway station (hopefully, this link opens to a map).

Eclectic Games
Thames Tower
38-45 Station Road
Reading
RG1 1LX

So, yeah - buy "Game Night." Get it signed. It's a fun, fresh, irreverent read that'll ring true to any gamer even if, unlike the protagonists, you happen not to be a god.

Chapter one is available as a free preview download. With luck, clicking on that there link should procure it for you.

****

I always seemed to enjoy the idea of The New Pornographers more than the actual New Pornographers themselves, but I must admit, the new album, "Challengers," is getting steady rotation on my iTunes, along with REM's "Accelerate" and Aimee Mann's "@#%&*! Smilers."

Just picked up The Apples in Stereo's "New Magnetic Wonder," which is good, but hasn't blown me away yet.

The Apples in Stereo fans: which albums are their Must-hears?

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Holy cow...ANOTHER "You Can't Say That Up Here, Mr. Carlin" gag...

(click here to view)

John R. Rose Byrd Newspapers of Virginia Jun 25, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

I love this, though: two cartoonists who seem to at least know that Carlin was more than just Seven Words You Can't Say on Television:

(click here to view)

Mike Keefe Denver Post Jun 25, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

Yesterday, in a deft piece of parody, Jim Siergey came up with a terrific mocking of what he expected many Carlin obits would look like:

(click here to view)

Jim Siergey Jun 23, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

He says it took him 20 minutes.

It took at least one award-winning pro roughly the same time today, apparently.

(click here to view)

Scott Stantis Birmingham News Jun 24, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

( Other variations on the Seven Words. I'm sure these won't be the last. )
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Oh, BTW: Two more "Change" cartoons today!

(click here to view)

Justin DeFreitas Berkeley Daily Planet, West … Jun 24, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

(click here to view)

Scott Stantis Birmingham News Jun 24, 2008 EditorialCartoonists.com

One's by a student. The other, an award-winning pro. Wheee!

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On another topic, while this is a pretty rote, easy idea (right up there with "let's harness politicians' hot air for energy"), I've no basic problem with calling Congress a "Dry Hole."