My NINETY SIX year old GRANDMA just TWEETED me about my new YOUTUBE show.

Hatred really isn't a big deal. I don't mean, like, hating. Don't do that! I'm talking about the game Hatred, which is crazypants. If you want to know about it, it's basically a twin-stick shooter, which is whatever. I would never have known about it if there hadn't been such a breathless, plainly mercenary attempt to capitalize on the game's unvarnished, thoroughly amateur depiction of violence. That said, if someone is super good at Hatred call the police.

After a year long break we are finally getting back into producing Penny Arcade video content. We’re not just bringing back the old series though, we’re trying something brand new and honestly way cooler I think.

When we were running the original Club PA, in what almost certainly qualifies as Back In The Day, we would sometimes offer up bonus versions of comics or even exclusive ones. For a time, we did an extra strip altogether. It seems like if you are a member of a club called Club PA, maybe more PA is a good idea for that person. I understand such things are known as "incentives." Business is not my department! But an extra comic still seems like a good idea, so we're gonna do that. You'll get the new strip and a mini-post ("postito") that accompanies it in the Newsletter each month, though they'll eventually be archived for members on the site also. I really liked the first one.

There are tons of games I would like to write comics about, but there are a couple very specific challenges in this truly bizarre line of work. I am using the term "challenges" specifically for its hyperbolic thrust; I got it pretty fucking good here. But this is what I mean:

When I read that E3 was allowing "fans" to attend the show, and not merely those ostensibly associated with the journalistic edifice, I was like… well, yeah. I've been doing that with PAX for a decade or so and it's worked out pretty good. But fans means something very specific in this context: it means people invited by the exhibitors directly. Which gave me a second opportunity to say "well, yeah" in an incredibly short span of time.

The first part of the strip is absolutely true: his haircut man was not available. It's a continuum of human experience I'm not connected to in any way. I "cut my hair" the way a druid gathers mistletoe: under a full moon, with a scythe.

I was lucky with my own bandmates, actually; I was always the least reliable, least talented member, so disappointment tended to flow reliably in the opposite direction. I only played guitar at a couple shows, ever. I mostly just brought a microphone, or put it in someone's bag at practice so it would arrive without effort on my part, then hit the bar before the show to down a Snake Bite to sand the edge off my nerves. Then I'd hand a drink and a blank cassette to the guy at the board, and after the show I would listen to the tape on the way home, and make a thorough accounting of my failures.

They are available! I am by no means a golf expert; I come mostly for the buffet and the intensely shared fellow-feeling. For your calendar:

Last week I attended a special "Art Night" at my kid's school. I ended up spending the evening drawing with elementary school kids and had a great time. Here's some of my doodles:

So, last time, I was worried that between Destiny's immediacy and my belief that there was some mystically optimal condition under which to play The Witcher, it would end up sort of like my Steam library, in a list more akin to a list of achievements than of time played or work considered. But that is not true. Having secured 32 Light in order to make myself marginally less worthless to my Fireteam, I had a chance over the weekend to plow through the "Witching 101" portion of The Witcher 3 and into the game proper, which isn't an epic roleplaying game at all apparently but a card game called gwent.

I forgot to post my Throwback Thursday art yesterday. It was a hit last week and I intended to do it again but just spaced it. So to make up for it I'm gonna post two incredibly embarrassing pieces of artwork from my past!

Gavin came up with AirDND at lunch, and it was too good to leave on the table. Utilizing long-forgetten alchemical techniques, including those we have transmuted this notion into a comic strip.

Ask us questions, anything you want, completely asymmetrically! This is the new ritual for the Q&A panels, and it has made them diamond-dense with premium info. Drop a Q in there, and we will deliver an A several months hence.

The strip is hyperbole, I mostly felt like the perspective needed to be made available. I find the show very hard to watch right now, though; I guess it partly has to do with content, insofar as it's just the weight of it. Hitting play on that show right now feels like rigging up a Sword a Damocles and then sitting directly beneath it.

I talked about it on an upcoming podcast, but I absolutely did wholly extemporaneous open poetry readings in a Converted Church Goth Club Coffee Shop Arcade Basement. Shit's real, kid. I was all about that stuff.