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there could be words 345y or |\|07 50 345y

i bet megatokyo fans would pass it with 100% accuracy!

* lon3st4r *

If you're confused about whether or not someone is a member of the horde, this fine Megatokyo T-shirt should make it obvious.

Surely a robotic tentacle would be reserved for robotic Japanese schoolgirls?

That's why they need to hire some backup.

I want a rent-to-own-a-zilla of my own :)

Check out Megatokyo's take on this. Back when Piro first finds out he's been playing as a female character against the "darkly cute" Miho. As Miho puts it, "Don't you think our mutual confusion is rather interesting? Especially considering the rather 'intimate' nature of our in-game relationship?"

Largo: You modeled for Kasumi?

Erika: [Dodging a kick] Last Year, yes. Tecmo did motion studies on Live models to build more realistic character movements.

Erika: They used me to update the Kasumi model.

Largo: [Blocking an attack] I am impressed. The bouncing seems fuller and more realistic than before.

Erika: [Kicking] I think they overdid it.

Erika: [Dodging an attack] There's no way any girl would fight hanging out like this. Realistically, Kasumi would bind herself.

Largo: Do not say such things!!

Largo: [Exiting involuntarily at high speed, through closed window] They want to be free...!!

Erika: [Erika wins. Flawless Victory.] Can we talk about something else?

Any faithful /. reader would know the benefits of dumpster diving...

Lindon, Utah - GNAA (Gay Nigger Association of America) this afternoon announced that their previous kidnapping of the Olsen twins is behind the eating disorder afflicting Mary Kate Olsen today.

In a surprise announcement this afternoon, GNAA representative godspeed revealed that GNAA has known about Mary Kate's disorder for some time now, and that it was the ordeal she went through earlier that triggered it. "That skinny white girl," godspeed began. "Ever since we kidnapped her and her cracker sister, she couldn't stop eating nigger dick. After we originally injected the holy gay nigger seed into her, she just went crazy. Begged us for more all the time, wouldn't shut about about "Just needing a little more [cock.]" Shit, nigga, we GAY. Sure, we tapped that white ass to increase our numbers, but just cuz she wants it? HELL no!"

As reliable sources have reported, Mary Kate went on a binge after being released from GNAA custody. She had a group of niggers on call at all times, so she could eat a little black cock while in between takes one the set of her hit movie New York Minute. She was seen being rebuffed by R. Kelly, who in a statement to GNAA member l0de said "That bitch is WAY too old." Twin sister Ashley Olsen is reported as saying "I knew she had a problem, wanting to suck some nigger cock all the time, but whenever I tried to talk to her about it, she called me a "cracker whore" and stormed off. I mean, seriously, SHE'S the one sucking all that nigger cock, who is SHE to be calling ME a whore?"

Mary Kate is in a rehab facility in an undisclosed location, where well-qualified staff such as Ellen DeGeneres will help treat this young girl. Whether she will be able to beat this addiction to nigger cock, or relapse while seeing all those black bucks at NYU remains to be seen.

About GNAA:
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the first organization which gathers GAY NIGGERS from all over America and abroad for one common goal - being GAY NIGGERS.

Are you GAY ?
Are you a NIGGER ?
Are you a GAY NIGGER ?

If you answered "Yes" to all of the above questions, then GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) might be exactly what you've been looking for!
Join GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) today, and enjoy all the benefits of being a full-time GNAA member.
GNAA (GAY NIGGER ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA) is the fastest-growing GAY NIGGER community with THOUSANDS of members all over United States of America and the World! You, too, can be a part of GNAA if you join today!

Why not? It's quick and easy - only 3 simple steps!

• First, you have to obtain a copy of GAYNIGGERS FROM OUTER SPACE THE MOVIE and watch it. You can download the movie (~130mb) using BitTorrent.
• Second, you need to succeed in posting a GNAA First Post on slashdot.org, a popular "news for trolls" website.
• Third

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned User Friendly. Also on my list are Queen of Wands (which finished its several-year run, and is now doing a rapid-fire rerun with commentary), Something Positive, Applegeeks (which just finished an uncharacteristic Batman parody and is now resuming its normal staples of inappropriate behavior and Ramadan jokes), and Mac Hall (unrelated, at least in name, to Apple Macs). For the grad students among us, may I recommend Piled Higher and Deeper; more so for those who are considering grad school.

Less traditionally, we also have Lore Brand Comics, which is pretty much standup in webcomic form. Alas, it hasn't been updated in months, but the archive is certainly worth looking through. Paradox Lost appears to be a comic book being written in webcomic form.

Other people mentioned them, but I have to say some of my favorites are Real Life and MegaTokyo.

So we have http://www.penny-arcade.com/, http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/, http://www.officialwdc.com/comic.php, http://www.pvponline.com/, http://ww.somethingpositive.net/ and http://www.megatokyo.com/. Any other favorites?

neko ga nai

For what it's worth, Piro, the artist behind the online comic MegaTokyo, wrote an extensive rant on the problem of what to call this type of art. I don't think it really answers the question, but it certainly adds some food for thought. If not manga, what is it?

For what it's worth, Piro, the artist behind the online comic MegaTokyo, wrote an extensive rant on the problem of what to call this type of art. I don't think it really answers the question, but it certainly adds some food for thought. If not manga, what is it?

I'm sitting off an ISP that plugs into Level-3 so this blackout is definately causing me problems. I can't get to Penny Arcade or Megatokyo (clearly this is a crisis). So I'm using Tor to get around it. Yeah, it's really slow at times, but it works.

( And as impossible as it sounds, there are more important sites I can't get to either, like the support site for a couple bits of software we use rather heavily at work. )

So THAT's why I haven't been able to get Megatokyo for the past several days. Darn Tier 1's disrupting my day!

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER!!!

I wouldn't go so far as to say Fred needs to be hit by a truck, but I would agree that Megatokyo has serious shortfalls, and I'm not talking about the comic moving too slowly, or not being funny enough anymore, which are artistic issues to which the response is "stop reading" (and I have).

The thing that makes me angry is that MT is Fred Gallagher's full-time job, but he still can't manage better than 10% filler.

No, they have the Sony Enforcement Division to take care of such problems.

http://www.questionablecontent.net/
http://www.dieselsweeties.com/
http://www.catandgirl.com/

http://www.vgcats.com/comics/
http://www.penny-arcade.com/view.php
http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=631
http://www.bobandgeorge.com/Archive/Apr04.php?date =1

There must be a way to just "slip" these into the discussion, but why bother? What's the good of an article ranting about webcomics without finding new, good web comics?

MegaTokyo Rules!

...to visit Japan!

MegaTokyo Rocks!

Wouldn't breakfast cereal and beer keep the data center cool? I mean the machines, not the admins. ;)

First of all, I think the article ought to mention Greg Kasavin (chief editor of Gamespot) -- personally, I like his work much more than Tor Thurston, and his (admittedly long reviews) have convinced me to buy more games than any other reviewer (Doom 3, Guild Wars). At the very least, I trust Greg Kasavin more than any other game writer out there, just based on his experience in the industry.

Additionally, I don't see why Scott Kurz is listed as a 'game writer' -- he doesn't explicitly discuss games (per se), but rather the culture that surrounds them. For instance, I would consider Roger Ebert a film writer since he writes about film, not about people who like film. Morover, Scott Kurz really doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same paragraph as Penny Arcade's Tycho -- his writing style is atrocious, his 'storyline' has no plot, and he personally backstabs fellow webcomic artists when he feels like it (read post at the bottom of page)

http://www.megatokyo.com/strips/0033.gif

I prefer well-lighted environments (Half-Life 2) over dark hell-holes (Doom 3) so I can see where I'm being shot at from.

If the game has a sniper rifle, there better be plenty of long distance targets to make it fun in single player, or have multiple camping... uh, hiding spots... in multiplayer. ;) The AI needs to be intelligent enough to realize that his buddy AI lost his head (or nuts, depending on how realistic the game is).

Having zombies in the game is always fun when you can blow them up in different ways. If you don't blow yourself up instead. And don't forget the nail gun.

Yes, but based on subscription rates to some of the more popular webcomics, people ARE willing to buy. From what I've seen of webcomics, most start off as a hobby and -- depending on popularity and the ability to generate revenue -- become the artist's main profession. The most obvious example of this, in my mind, is Megatokyo.

That's why I said "otherwise rightfully". It's like a two-person project at school where one person does 90% of the work and both get 50% of the credit. The understanding before the project starts is that they'll share credit equally, but the one who put more effort into the final result ends up feeling kind of bitter.

Keenspot makes money off of advertisement (and maybe other things, but I only know of the advertising part), but they need good webcomics to lure advertisers.

All I meant by that comment is that I recall that some of the webcartoonists have felt like the guy doing 90% of the work.

Beyond that, I wholly concede your point.

And the "ideally" comment was more a shot at people who start webcomics only because they've seen the success that a few have attained and want to achieve the same success. It happens a lot, and the general concensus amongst webcartoonists (based on various rants I've read and webcomic panels I've attended) seems to be that if you're doing it solely for the fame, you're doing it for the wrong reasons.

I usually fall on the side of "love of your craft," but I can certainly appreciate the other side too.

I've really got no problem with a webcartoonist who runs his webcomic like a business, because art supplies, bandwidth and hosting do cost a lot of money. And if you're making a living off of your strip it costs that much more.

A few artists who live off of their webcomics:

Penny Arcade
Sluggy Freelance
MegaTokyo
8-Bit Theatre
Player vs Player
Schlock Mercenary
Something Positive
Ctrl-Alt-Delete

And those are just some of the ones that I read and can remember.

• Real life
• Phd (perhaps not as funny to non grad students)
• Applegeeks

Where does User Friendly fit in the scheme of things?

Ideally in the "dead and buried" category. Comics should either look good or be funny. Megatokyo looks good. Dilbert is funny (or, well, it has its moments, but is funny most of the time). Penny Arcade is both. User Friendly has neither art nor humor going for it, and thus is a waste of time.

Anyone who still fails to understand should read the Megatokyo online strip. Preferably give yourself a night and a day with beer, start at the beginning and read to the end. You can also buy most as a book I believe! This will teach you w00t!, teh, j00 and other 133tsp34k and relieve you of all stress and extraneous heartbeats. Oh, and feh is Yiddish.

I hope you H4xor'd it Nekkid - otherwise your box is toast ;)

I'm going to rephrase the parent a little less insultingly.

Yours is definitely not a bad comic...like those stupid sprite comics with no plotline. But yours isn't a great comic. And at this early stage, of course you shouldn't expect it to be a great comic, but you haven't set a path yet for making it great. Let me give a few examples.

Penny Arcade has a very creative sense of humor and excellent skill in satire of the computer industry.

User Friendly has a very in-depth plot line and pokes fun at the computer industry and other topics in science very often. (Back when the EA galley-slave scandal broke, it was UF that drew the comic strips of the EA employees on the slave ship.)

WoT Now? is a sprite comic, but the creativity and dialogue more than makes up for the lack of hand-drawn graphics. Moreover, the sprites are custom-made for the comic. WoT Now? is mainly for readers of the Wheel of Time series, which limits its potential readership but also gives a very clear focus.

One One Se7en is a similar example of parody within a series. Note that the drawing quality is very low, yet the comics themselves are amusing.

megatokyo has an unusual setup (American gamer somewhat lost in Japan) that provides enough opportunities for a long plot.

Basically, I think what I'm saying is that unless you want to go for one-shot gags like 117 does -- and you can do it well -- you need some sort of plotline. At the least you need short story arcs. And you'll need a consistent set of characters and a focus of some sort, e.g., the computer industry? A fiction series? A particular setup that would make for a nice short story?

And unless you're going for a special effect near the end of an arc, try to put a good joke in each strip. Your jellyfish joke was either too silly or too complex to work well, for example. It's hard to come up with original and genuinely humorous jokes, but such is the challenge of a cartoonist.

Any bets on how long until a Tetris clone is implemented for this?

Apparently the panels also have pressure sensors on them -- that's so cool. It sounds they have the hardware they need for an awesome game of massively-multiplayer Twister or Mosh Mosh Revolution. Variants of pinball, pong, or arkanoid could also be fun, with virtual paddles drawn wherever there were two nearby pressure points (i.e. feet).

playstation? you mean you have an EDS module?

(for those "illeterate", the EDS module is an android acting as an input device for the Playstation2, used only for dating and emotional sims. only in japan. in the fictionnal world of fred gallhager, in Megatokyo. as the character named "Ping")

playstation? you mean you have an EDS module?

(for those "illeterate", the EDS module is an android acting as an input device for the Playstation2, used only for dating and emotional sims. only in japan. in the fictionnal world of fred gallhager, in Megatokyo. as the character named "Ping")

On Topic:

That said, I think I know why Jobs hasn't pursued the hand-held media player thingy. Remember Sony's (former)[0] President standing next to him at the launch of the imac? [1] What do you bet that those two know very well what the other is up to?

Sony gets to try be the iTMS of the movie biz, without jumping through the hoops that Apple would to convince movie studios to go along. (The are a move studio!) Apple gets to watch Sony take all the risks. (Dead pixels , anyone?) Meanwhile, they can continue to focus on the minaturization tech they've got going for the ipod. Why would Jobs want to produce an ipod for watching movies on a tiny little screen, when he could make an ipod in a year or two that lets you watch High Def movies on any screen in your house? Sounds like this could fit rather well with the miniMac as a home entertainment PC.

Okay, stop reading. I'm going to relentlessly connect the dots now, and I know you've probably heard all this before.

You know the drill: the miniMac plus a broadband connection plus a computer monitor becomes a platform for watching downloaded movies...particularly HD movies, since Jobs has a thing for them, and people who can afford really good broadband tend to have HD tv's anyway. So, you get the miniMac as a user-friendly Tivo-iTMS combination.

But wait! There's more! Now, for a low, low, price, (heh) you can get a iPod-Video! Take your rental movies, and play them on any screen, anywhere! Show grandma your home movies by just hooking up the (included) rf adaptor to her 30 year old TV! Show your boss footage of the latest progress on the big engineering project! Keep your kids occupied in the SUV with an endless loop of Barney! (And no pesky DVD's in the van to get lost or scratched!) If you are really bored on that 20 hour plane ride to Japan, you can squint at the small OLED screen that covers the entire surface of the ipod. (No ipod tatoos for you! One year!)

oh, and if that doesn't blow your mind, think about the kind of PDA Apple could make with an ipod covered in a high resolution OLED skin.

____________

[0] President Kunitake Ando, replaced by Ryoji Chubachi. Not to be confused with the new Chairman-CEO, Howard Stringer. AP press release here.

[1]see this Ars Technica article.

Actually I liked it. That bit of angst allowed us to get closer to CmdrTaco, letting us have a more intimate connection with Slashdot.

Of course, I read Megatokyo, so maybe I have an atypical reaction to angst.

Many webcomic artists have been trying to find a method to finance webserver costs, but it usually comes down to "direct donation" via paypal, or buying stuff through a storefront for related goods. Most authors don't mind hitting up people for a few bucks, but others have spoken in the past that donations "rip off" the readers of what they believe to be "free media" Personally I support the storefront option for that kinda site, but for something like a piece of software, donations work all of the same. I guess everything needs an ethnical debate these days.

You mean like this?

Frequent screwups? Penny Arcade are dependable as clockwork. Well, not quite, but they are very consistent, and every comic IS a comic. You should read Megatokyo sometime. The whole archive is at least 10% filler. And since the author quit his job to do MT full-time, I find that disgusting.

As for this pot thing... well, a long time ago, I ran a web comic of my own on Keenspace. It was only stickmen, but it did update seven days a week. For a thousand straight days. Not kidding.

So, good luck guys, we'll see you all in four or five years' time when somebody actually claims this...

(Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with MegaTokyo, except for being obsessed with it.)

http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=9

Sony is rumored to be developing a life-like female-looking robot that can ride the BODS without the limitations imposed by the WET. This should be a must-have toy for /.ers, who according to conventional wisdom cannot expect to share their BODS with a real woman. MegaTokyo's Ping is an early prototype.

And if they were redone by these guys, could it do Mosh Mosh Revolution ?

---

No sig for you!

Schlock mercenary
Sluggy Freelance
Megatokyo
PvP online
8-bit theater
Red vs. Blue

A lot of content is produced that way. Some of it even good one. Just beacause it's not video doesn't mean it doesn't count.

And let's face it, most of us would rather read a comic with a pile of crap fighting psycho-bears than see some bald guy parading in front of a camerafor half an hour, no matter what he actually did.

And then you were like, "OMG! Z0mbi3s!!!1!" and blew them away with your +10 Boomstick of Flamage, right?

I mean, that's what real internet addict would do : )

Obligatory Non-PA linkage!

I wouldn't be surprised if Sony was doing this on purpose, though. Drive up demand for the new Cool Thing, so when they do finally release it (what, Q1 2005? Q3 2005?) it'll sell like the proverbial hotcake.

I summon... Rent-a-Zilla

-jim

Junpei knows, as should you: Leet ninj4 ski11z.