WHERE is Freefall Jones?

Easy -- over at Your Opinion Doesn't Count.

I figure I've got a work blog and the team blog, so for the time being, you can find me posting on either of those.

Feature Anatomy: Kid, Inc./Top 50

Every month I'll break down an article (or two) from EGM and write about how our art concepts make it to the final printed page. ...well, for the most part. I'll leave out the arguing, the phone call from #24 telling me we were back in business, and subsequent beating at the hands of Brock Samson.

"Evergreen" stories are articles that can be run anytime. Issue 206's Kid, Inc. story is an example of that (page 38 in the August EGM for those playing along at home). It was scheduled to run a couple of months ago, but because of space concerns and E3 coverage, this piece had to be moved back on the calendar.

It was a great concept, a 10-year old, Julian Finnegan, created his own game and now he's selling it. The story talked about his rise to the top, but also showed the dark side of fame--from orange cheetoh fingers to swiping everlasting gobstoppers... I might have that wrong, so you'll have to check it out for yourself. And if you read the article, you'll see that we even sicced EGM's review crew on the game, called Sharpshooter. ...but uhhh, it may have actually scored better than all the games we reviewed that month.

So Crispin was in charge of this one, and it was up to me and Mo to come up with concepts. After some brainstorming, I came up with some thumbnails (click to enlarge ...wait, why did I draw these thumbnails so big?):





I kind of liked the idea of showing the kid acting like a kid and having fun. Like the one of him jumping on a couch with a game controller--but everyone noted that I completely missed the point of the story (whuuut a dummy) of a kid who made a game and was selling it. The lemonade stand concept was perfect for this story.

Much props to Mo and her husband Kevin for actually building a lemonade stand for the photo shoot! They met up with Julian, his sister, and his mother and took photos on a busy sidewalk down 2nd Street in San Francisco. I don't remember if he actually sold any games, though... but Mo and Kevin were nice enough to let him keep the lemonade stand for future use.

On a side note, Bryan happened to be driving by as they were doing the shoot and heckled Mo with, "EGM SUCKS!" ...Awesome.



---------

The cover story for the August ish is The Top 50 Coolest New Games. "Enough of the sequels and licensed crap, already! We count down the most exciting original titles headed your way"...

Cool, huh? But, man, that's FIFTY games to lay out! And it was Bryan's job to get things organized for this monster. The countdown runs for about 20 pages and then the number one game gets featured for another six pages. Since this was also the cover story, Mo and I worked as a tag team to put the layout together. Go, Team Venture! (I wanted to make a British Bulldogs reference there, but that's not as timely)

The running theme through the feature was that each game had a "Cool Factor" that we were going to represent with an illustrated icon. So Bryan, Shane, Mo, and I holed up in Shoe's office and went down the list game by game and concepted 50 ideas for icons.

Thankfully we employed the services of 1UP's uber-artist, Sander (not to be confused with 1UP's uber-art-thang, Karen) to draw up the icons. And despite battling a horrible cold that had him wandering around like a zombie (not the fast-running kind, thankfully) he was able to come up with 50 different amazing illustrations. My only regret is that they were icons, so they had to run fairly small on the page ...here's a preview of some of the awesome work he came up with:




Be sure to listen to EGM LIVE* --the new podcast from our team... *not actually live

-Mike

------

Check out what my ne'er-do-well alter ego, Freefall Jones, is up to:
me, team, art battle, storytime

Animated round-up

All is right in the world. Comedy Central has put in a 13-episode order for new episodes of FUTURAMA. The bad? We have to wait until 2008. The good? You can ...nay, WILL once again hail the glory of Hypnotoad!


One for the "rumor for now" category is the possible direct-to-DVD animated movie based on Darwyn Cooke's 2003 graphic novel, DC: The New Frontier. The story takes place in the 50s, the dawn of the "silver age" of superheroes, and deals with an emerging generation of heroes as they come together to face an alien threat. It's a great read, I recommend you pick it up. Cooke drew the book similar in style to DC's animated universe--as seen in Batman: The Animated Series and Justice League--so it seems fitting that the man who helped created those shows, Bruce Timm, adapt New Frontier into a movie. I really hope this comic-to-animated movie adapatation is way better than Marvel's Ultimate Avengers garbage. It's like they took the Mark Millar's awesome storyline from The Ultimates and did the exact opposite. Who knew Uwe Boll directed cartoons? Ok, ok. That's not nice. Maybe it was Paul W.S. Anderson.

**VIEWER ADVISORY** This weekend marks the start of The Venture Brothers' second season on Adult Swim. You can catch a new episode this Sunday (the 25th) at 10:30pm. OR, if you need your fix sooner, there'll be a sneak peek available on adultswim.com starting Friday at 6pm.

Vegas heartbreak.

Last weekend, Son of Gigan and I made our second trip to Vegas this year to see another fight. The names weren't as big as Pacquiao vs. Morales, but a fight in Vegas is still in Vegas.

The combants were Diego Corrales and Jose Luis Castillo. SoG said their first fight was great, but marred because Castillo was fighting over the weight limit. Before that fight, Castillo didn't make weight, but being the competitor he is, Corrales agreed to go on with the match.

And was subsequently laid out.

Pretty good set up for the rematch, right? Well, the night before we left for Vegas, I got an e-mail from SoG saying that Castillo ONCE AGAIN DIDN'T MAKE WEIGHT. He was 5 pounds over, and was given two hours to make weight. Of course he didn't do it.

And again, Corrales was faced with the decision of whether or not to let the match go on. Understandably, Corrales opted not to go ahead with the match.

So there you have it. It's Corrales' fault there was no fight. Wha?

Oh, and yes we still went to Vegas. I took the refund, but SoG still went to see the other matches on the card. Later he told me that people had travelled from other countries and had no idea the main event was cancelled until they got to the arena.

The chicken katsu hat trick.

This week at the magazine was production week. That means LONG hours at the office. I've been skipping my morning trip to the gym (yeah, like that was hard) to catch an early bus so I could get in to the office at around 8:30. I'd put in a long day and leave the office in time to catch the 7:15 bus back home.

After draining the creative side of my brain all day, the last thing I want to do is figure out what to make for dinner. Luckily there's plenty of cheap eats on Piedmont Avenue for me to choose from. But I'm being lazy, so as soon as the bus drops me off I step forward about ten feet and walk into the Geta Japanese Sushi restaurant next to the Long's at 41st and Piedmont.

Geta Sushi is a really SMALL place. There's about five or six tables set too close together and the entire place is about the size of a movie box office. That's why I order to go. And for some reason for three straight nights (Wed-Fri) I ordered the same thing: a spicy tuna roll, an unagi and avacodo roll, and the chicken katsu appetizer (just the cutlet, no rice, etc.). All that costs is $11.23.

Chicken katsu is da bomb. I might start using panko on everything from now on.

Champion of the Day: Not Shuttin' Up on the Bus Guy

Dude, it was bad enough when I got on the bus and you were already sitting there in the back yammerin' away on your cel phone. Everyone else on the morning ride sits and reads or listens to music... y'know being RESPECTFUL of the other riders.

But not you.

You didn't care if everyone heard your phone conversation. And seriously, could you actually hear the person on the other end? Really? Even with the loud sounds of the bus? Wow. How do you do that?

But after you got off the phone, why did you have to start up a conversation with that guy sitting towards the front? He may have been your co-worker, but there was PROBABLY A REASON WHY HE SAT FAR AWAY FROM YOU. That guy really took one for the team when he got up to move to the back so you wouldn't have to converse with him across the bus. But that didn't matter. We could all still hear everything you were saying.

And seriously dude, I could not believe you were able to explain and summarize three seasons of the new Battlestar Galactica on a twenty minute bus ride.

I HATE YOU.

The area "A" Residential Parking Permit adventure.

I never thought I would be one of those frustrated people you see running around looking like they don't know what they're doing, but there I was last Wednesday afternoon at Frank Ogawa Plaza in downtown Oakland looking for the offices of the Transportation Division. And because two different security guards could only take their best guesses as to where I could get a parking permit, I was sent to two different buildings that didn't have what I was looking for. Bitches.

I'll backtrack a little bit: With my new job in San Francisco, I've been leaving my car in Oakland; but because of the parking restrictions on my street (you have to move your car every two hours during the day) I had to leave my car about three blocks away. But I could pay to get a residential permit for my area so that the two hour restriction wouldn't apply. So I headed to City Hall downtown, which unfortunately seemed to consist of EVERY BUILDING in Frank Ogawa Plaza. WTF?

Finally I found the information center and asked the clerk where I could get a parking permit. She gave me a building number, but at that point I was so frustrated I made her physically walk with me out to the plaza and point to where I needed to go.

When I got to that building another security guard stopped me and asked me what I needed. I told him a parking permit and he had me sign in and directed me to go through some double doors. The doors read "Parking Citations" --I looked back at the guard and said, "...there? I need to BUY A PERMIT." He just nodded and said, "that's it."

I walked into the next room and saw a bunch of chairs for people to wait in and some teller windows. Hey, whaddayaknow? Maybe this was the right place. I sat down and waited to be called. When I got up to the cashier window I told the lady I needed to buy a Residential Parking Permit for area "A".

She looked right at me and said, "You don't get that here. That's up on 6, but they're already closed at 4:30."

It was 4:45. My head almost exploded.

I stormed out of there and glared at the security guard. I wasted almost an hour on a wild goose chase and came away only with a seething hatred for Oakland's governmental beaucracy.

Two days later I returned for another attempt at getting that damn permit. This time the security guard was much more competent, "...head up to the 6th floor, I'll call and let them know you're coming." ...wow. Where was this guy the other day? I guess they stick all the dumdums on the night shift.

And EVEN BETTER, when I went to the offices to apply for the permit, the clerk told me the permit for my area was FREE. She just copied my info, gave me a sticker, and I was on my way. The whole process took less than ten minutes. How easy was that? Crazy.

In search of the Black Dahlia.

Black Dhalia was the nickname for Elizabeth Short, a woman brutally murdered back in 1947. She was cut in half and her killer (killers?) were never caught. Here's the Wikipedia entry about her life, infamous murder, and sensationalized murder investigation.

Anyway, it turns out she's buried in Piedmont at Mountain View Cemetery (along with some other notable people). I've been to the cemetery many times for walks, it's actually designed with lots of trails like a park, but this time a group of us were on a quest to find the Black Dahlia.

Roll call: Me, Big Cherry, Specs, The Writer, and Croms (who brought the Black Dahlia to our attention).

We all stumbled to meet at the cemetery gates around noon--which was as early as any of us were going to show up anywhere on a Saturday morning--and made our way past the mausoleums and up the hill towards "Millionaire's Row," where some of the aforementioned notables are buried.

When we made our way to the top, Specs and The Writer pointed out how a lot of the monument tombs had symbols of Illuminati on them (the photo above features C.O.G. Miller's pyramid mausoleum). A good amount of our time after that was spent looking for other Illuminati symbolism on tombs and gravestones--eagles, snakes, pyramids, floating eyes, statues of a woman pointing up, etc.

On the way back down we began our hunt for the Black Dahlia. After a little online search the night before, Croms found out Elizabeth Short was buried in plot #6. Unfortunately the plots jump around without any sense of reason, from 12 to 13 to 37. And each plot had anywhere from 16 to 60 graves. The search was coming up fruitless and some of the crew needed to bail.

It was up to me and Croms to wander around one of the back corners of the cemetery for the elusive plot #6. One of the legends of Black Dahlia is that the groundskeepers move her grave around from time to time within the cemetery to prevent crowds of people converging on her grave. We finally found plot #6 and split up to read tombstones--unfortunately, no Elizabeth Short.

We wrapped up our quest and headed back out towards the main gate. Maybe next time I'll try to find the grave of Mac Dre (seriously...check that link of notable people).

Champion of the Day: Great Clips for Hair Lady

So I was getting a haircut at the usual place when some blonde lady walked in and asked, "Where are your clips?"

The vietnamese lady cutting my hair stopped and said, "...what do you mean? Hair clippers? You want clippers?"

The blonde lady answered, "Hair clips," and pointed to a sign --you could feel the embarassment fill her body as she realized GREAT CLIPS FOR HAIR was the NAME OF THE SHOP and you couldn't buy hair clips there.

Shangri-La? At least the next best thing.

I've left the comfortable confines of the music-technology magazines to venture into the world of video games as the new Assistant Art Director on a big-name video game magazine.

It wasn't easy saying goodbye to my familiar job of magazine layout, illustration, and the occasional special project, but the chance to influence the look of a major magazine (especially one so entrenched in pop culture) was too good to pass up.

Even better is the chance to work in downtown SF. My offices are RIGHT THERE. The area during the day is very bustling and you feel a lot of energy just walking around. It makes you want to throw your hat...


Finally, the new work environment isn't your typical corporate office, either. Every writer in the bullpen has their own flat screen and different consoles to test/play games. What is this place??? I kindly backed down from a challenge on Soul Caliber 3 so as not to be virtually emasculated on my first day.