I almost forgot to introduce that new feature I mentioned. It’s nothing exciting or groundbreaking—just a bit of nostalgic indulgement.
Back in high school, there was a period where I fancied myself a bit of an artist. The culmination of my artistic ambition was a Ren & Stimpy comic I made, but that’s beside the point. Late in my high school career, after I’d already given up the idea of being a comic artist, I put what little talent I had cultivated into a strip featuring a character who was essentially a salt shaker with arms. He was called Roundhead, and it was good.
If I recall correctly—and it’s very possible I don’t—Roundhead may even have had a short-lived run in my school newspaper. In any event, he was put aside until I got to college. In my freshman year, I discovered the joys of creating a website with no more than Microsoft Notepad (which I more or less still do to this day). I was still drawing Roundhead and decided to start scanning them and throwing them up on my website.
Over the years, Roundhead became a kind of mascot for me, and something of a cast of characters grew around him: his triggerhappy twin brother, Bob; the Mob he often preached to; Dark Blockhead, his original arch-nemesis; and Negativo, his…um…later arch-nemesis. For the record, “Mr. Zem,” a Nazi-esque villain, was created by my friend Jim Holzman, and there was a time he requested I not use the character, at which point I renamed him “Mr. Z” and then wrote him out of the story. But his name is still in the first couple strips, which I’m going to put up for now. Jim, if you’re out there and you’re still bugged by this, let me know and I’ll take the strips that mention Mr. Zem’s name down.
I often drew these comics while working at the circulation desk of my college library (it was a low-key job) and would stamp them with the library’s date stamps. Initially, the gag with Roundhead was always the same: he’d try to inspire the Mob to do some noble thing, then end up saying, “Let’s go shoot something!” Ha ha, I guess(?) But over the course of the twenty or so strips, you can see me get a bit more ambitious, both in storytelling and in my art (okay, not much in the art, but at least some cross-hatching shows up).
In 1998, when I was still fascinated by what could be done with a computer, I recorded a few (entirely instrumental) songs I’d written for my guitar onto my computer, then burned them onto a CD. I called the CD Songs in the Key of Roundhead (I’m pretty sure I ripped that off The Simpsons).
A few years ago I came across Jhonen Vazquez’s Johnny the Homicidal Maniac, and I was amused to see how his improving art style and tendency toward philosophical meditations somewhat mirrored the development of my doodles. He even had a Roundhead-like character named Happy Noodle Boy who, oddly enough, also stood in front of mobs and shouted things at them. I swear to you I never read JTHM until years after I drew the final Roundhead strip; I guess antisocial stick figures have a place in our collective unconscious.
Anyway, I’ve decided that once a week for the next few months, I will be posting an old Roundhead strip…unless people hate them and start complaining, in which case I’ll stop.
So, without further ado, here’s the first—okay wait, a little more ado. This strip was actually drawn in MSPaint, which I can’t apologize for enough. A few of the strips were done in Paint, but most are drawn. But this strip does give you a basic introduction to the world of Roundhead.
Many, that’s a ton of ado for something so arguably lame. Anyway, here you go: Roundhead 1
—04/27/07
In a profound brain fog today, so please excuse the random topics.
DG recently gave me Crackdown (an Xbox 360 game) as a consolation prize for being neglected during these final months of her thesis (yes, I can be bribed). I’ve been playing it a bit too much, I think, because last night all I could dream about was jumping up the side of buildings and hiding behind walls while grenades were thrown at me. It may be time to take a break…yeah, right.
Crackdown also comes with access to the upcoming Halo 3 public beta, which should be interesting.
(Man, is this all I have to write about these days? When did I become so boring? …oh, right.)
I was planning to review Crackdown, along with Grindhouse and Hot Fuzz, but I’ve hit one of those phases where I find reviewing pointless. My enthusiasm should return at some point.
You may recall the incomplete zombie novella I posted in segments back in October, Vengeance Upon the Dust. I finished it in December but haven’t looked at it in months, so it should be nice and baked. I intend to put it through the editing process next week while I’m on vacation. At that point, I’ll show it to a few select readers, then maybe start shopping it around. I don’t like the “Dust” title; I’ve taken to calling it The Wanderer again. That’s still too generic, so I’m open to suggestions.
Speaking of resurrecting old junk, I’ve got a new feature I’m going to introduce tomorrow. It…might be fun.
—04/26/07
I’ve written before about the Xbox 360’s Achievements system, which rewards you for performing certain tasks in videogames and adds points to your overall Gamerscore. It’s arguably an old-fashioned idea, a return to the days of the arcades when players wanted to get their initials in the #1 spot on that Space Invaders cabinet.
But other than that, there’s no real use to one’s Gamerscore. It’s just one more way videogamers can compete with one another. Videogamers are a competitive lot, to be sure, so I suppose I should not have been surprised by the existence of LevelMy360.com. But I was, nonetheless.
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—04/24/07
Okay, this is kind of amazing.
—04/18/07
I’m probably the only person I know who cares about this, but Marvel has a listing for its new ongoing Halo comic, due out in July a few months ahead of Halo 3. Here’s the description:
The Eisner Award-winning team of superscribe Brian Michael Bendis and artist extraordinaire Alex Maleev unleash an epic story of mankind’s struggle against the alien threat of the Covenant. Picking up from the conclusion of blockbuster video game Halo 2, the must-read issue reveals how the Master Chief, while onboard a hostile ship headed towards Earth, is battling against Covenant forces! Intertwined with Master Chief’s interstellar one-man-war is the saga of a great American city’s rebellion and downfall, two disparate lives’ collision and shared fate, and the Convenant’s hunt for an ancient relic of untold power and value. With hope dwindling and the fate of humanity hanging by a thread, is there any chance for a future? Read this debut issue to start the journey into the Halo universe!
—04/17/07
I was told today that a pitch I’d made to a major magazine was accepted. I can’t go into specifics—I’m not even close to writing the article yet, and the issue won’t be out for months. But I don’t think it will come as a surprise to anyone who reads this blog.
—04/13/07
I’ve been wracking my brains lately for a topic for this blog. Even yesterday, as I watched from the bleachers while the Red Sox thumped the living crap out of the Mariners at their home opener, I was thinking to myself, “what can I write about?” It was only just now, as I sat here thinking yet again, that it occurred to me that I could write about…going to Opening Day!
First, some background. For her birthday, my father got my mother tickets to the first five games of the Red Sox season to ensure they got to see Daisuke Matsuzaka throw his very first official pitch in Fenway Park. But since Dice-K wasn’t going to be pitching the home opener, they were so incredibly generous as to hand the tickets off to DG (my girlfriend) and me.
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—04/11/07
Last month my cousin kindly loaned me his copy of Dead Rising, an Xbox 360 game in which you have to survive in a zombie-infested mall a la Dawn of the Dead.
Having lost some interest in zombies after finishing my as-yet-unnamed novella, it wasn’t until last week that I finally fired the game up. My main motivation for it was to pad my Gamerscore with some quick achievement points.
Unfortunately, I found myself getting bored pretty quick.
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—04/04/07
