http://www.mondaynightcrew.com Monday Night Crew espouses the wit and whimsy of a motley bunch of anthropomorphic creatures as they explore the horrors of modern-day retail before meeting in the evenings to enjoy the company of friends. It is updated every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. This feed covers all site updates. en-us http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100310.html March 10, 2010: Are you familiar with former Eastern Bloc countries? Do you fancy yourself a fan of corny and vaguely inflammatory ethnic humor? Then, by all means, click through. Spinning the Monster Hunter 3 Tri demo over the weekend filled me with warm thoughts and the familiar tension I had not felt since, well, last Friday when I played Monster Hunter Freedom 2 Unite. On the plus side, the sequel abandons some language, so it's easier to type. Other new elements? Erm, I can play it on my television? http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0259.html March 10, 2010: For this website, both Ben and I write more scripts than we ever produce. Take my word when I assert that this fact is a very good thing. I would not line a birdcage with some of the frivolous, uninspired tripe we cook up. Still, it illustrates that the creative process is iterative, even in an environment from which we take no revenue (i.e., wese not gettin' paid here). Occassionally, I write scripts that I think of as palette cleansers similar to the one above - like water after a course of food, meant to wash the brain and reset the writing pH to neutral. I usually do not share those scripts because they are nonsensical if you are kind, abomidable if you're honest. For some reason, I showed the above example to Ben and Jason, and it somehow landed here. So, there you are internet. Enjoy my speedbump. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100308.html March 8, 2010: I wonder how many people lost their jobs or got written up this little mistake. What an oversight.This last weekend has had me hitting the books, or the art supplies rather, in preparation for my last week of class this quarter. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0258.html March 8, 2010: Our system of comic production does not often allow us to get topical stories out when they are hot. Most scripts are written a week beforehand so that Jason can work on them the weekend. The PS3 crashing news hit this time last week after Jason had already completed the weekly selection of comics. I wrote this comic almost immediately after reading the news and slotted it for today. The only thing missing from the comic is Dover having some flowers on his lectern (not a podium, as Daniel will remind me) that he was supposed to place by the PS3 gravestone in the final panel. When confronted with this, he demanded to see the script. I pointed out the oversight and he just looked at me. I just laughed as he told me to get out of his room. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100305.html March 5, 2010: Sometimes, we are crass. Sometimes, we make comics about being crass. Sometime happens to be today. Total Annihilation dropped on Stardock's digital delivery service, Impulse, earlier this week. It was a nice reminder that Steam does not hold exclusive sway over the digital delivery mechanism for PC games, as Total Annihilation was billed as an exclusive. I wonder how watered down that term must be, used in the context of a more than decade-old game whose heyday done come and gone, but hey. You can't legally download it anywhere else, and that's probably what the fine folks at Stardock meant. I wouldn't want to offend the Galactic Civilizations makers, lest they wrest their honeyed mana from my eager tongue. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0257.html March 5, 2010: Welcome to my every day. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100303.html March 3, 2010: Really? I mean really? How can people justify spending $300 on what basically boils down to a rental of a game? I want to play StarCraft 2 as much as the next guy, but dropping that kind of money on a beta key is borderline insanity. And yet people complain about the price of games and let gems fall through the cracks because of it - Clash of Heroes, Madworld, and so on. Certainly people could be spending that kind of coin on something more useful, right? http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0256.html March 3, 2010: This is yet another comic that went through many changes to what you see here. If you can believe it, this was first conceived as Irving reading news on his smartphone about beta keys selling for $300 and commenting how stupid people can be. Completely ignoring him, Dexter loses his mind when he wins an eBay auction for his prized SC2 beta key. I then tweaked the idea to cast Irving as the seller. Daniel commented that the ideas were too easy and so we changed it up to the more visual bar graph you see here. We thought about having our characters describe the items on the charts; for instance, DZ's daughter Susie for the pony and Irving for the coffee, etc., but ended up dropping them due to size and to avoid artist complaints. I think it came out well. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100301.html March 1, 2010: Wipe off the cheese dust. It is new comic time! http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0255.html March 1, 2010: This comic went through a slew of overhauls. It stated with the idea that Dexter and Dover were both being trained by a Doritos Drill Sargent. Daniel didn't find it that funny so we modified it to be more of an ESPN style look at the events of the 2010 Doritos Pro-gaming Combine. It's like football camp for nerds, I guess. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100226.html February 26, 2010: I perfectly understand delays, why they happen and why they are necessary. Others who occupy the primordial sludge of the internet can be less forgiving, occassionally rising up and belching out in digital angry mob form. I choose to stay the pitchforks and torches. However, I do not have the maturity required to still my pen. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0254.html February 26, 2010: Half the fun is realizing that this comic was completed and posted late. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100224.html February 24, 2010: Another comic to sink your teeth into. See how far I go for bad puns? I ended that first sentence on a preposition. Cannot stop me now. In physical cosmology, an offshoot of astronomy, the "ultimate fate of the universe" is hypothesized and balanced against the generally accepted Big Bang Theory (sorry, theologians). Science fiction movie and book fans are likely also familiar with this far-off phenomenon, the fictional universe's end having been postponed many times over the years by Captain Kirk, Dr. Who and others. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0253.html February 24, 2010: Would payment to Dracula be considered blood money? Being a man-thing of great experience, Dracula would certainly insist upon the otherwise extraordinary measure of creating six or seven trap-filled level-ish areas through which to travel before arriving at the destination. One would not want visitors whipping their way in at all hours of the night. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100222.html February 22, 2010: Because our world is replete with bosses as ineffectual as they are eager, our comic has King Wee-Bee. Because he is himself, bizarre projects in Wee-Bee Games are passed off as improvements. Do you remember Prey? http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0252.html February 22, 2010: Real mice shack up in hollowed out computers. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100219.html February 19, 2010: Relationships are sweet, sure. Candlelit dinners and dancing, little presents dispersed around the house for a happenstance surprise, a naughty liaison in the office bathroom. So, sure, togetherness is neat. But my real thought? I am old-fashioned. I love a good beatdown, mean-spirited, spiteful, black as Newgate's knocker breakup. The stories are so much more entertaining, and in the end, isn't that what everything is all about? http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0251.html February 19, 2010: Boy meets girl. Boy dates girl. Boy cheats on girl. Girl sets boy's car ablaze. Hilarity ensues. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100217.html February 17, 2010: Today's comic is brought to you by Aliens vs. Predator. Irving once asked why it is called Aliens vs. Predator rather Alien vs. Predator, or even Aliens vs. Predators. The world may never know . . . Late last night the Internet exploded with all sorts of scans of the newest Famitsu magazine revealing the newest Super Street Fighter IV characters. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0250.html February 17, 2010: This comic was originally supposed to accommodate the release of Modern Warfare 2. The dialogue was the same, explaining the Black Hawk Down quote. After reviewing it, we decided to bump it back to the AvP release this month. If I have any issues with the final product, I would say that it is hard to tell that DZ is camouflaged against the background, a la Predator. Hopefully that comes across to the readers. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100215.html February 15, 2010: Watching Philbert play through his PS3 copy of Dante's Inferno felt distinctly like experiencing an abridged cut of the epic, first-of-three poem. Assuming, of couse, that the abridgement were filmed by Guillermo del Toro and starred Russell Crowe being fed lines through a two-hundred mile oil pipeline. I have born witness to a number of re-imaginings of classic literature - always a dicey but potentially gratifying proposition - but rarely is the source material reconfigured as "summer blockbuster." At least the setting matches the scale paraded on display for the game. Abandon all hope, ye would do anything other than spend ten hours kicking demon ass. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0249.html February 15, 2010: The real question raised here is of the superior science of 13th-century Italy, and why Dante never shared his time machine with the rest of the world. I will not touch on the paradoxical implications of Dante copying from the Cliff's Notes of his poem before he wrote it. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100212.html February 12, 2010: That Final Fantasy XIII tidbit from last week rears its tri-necked head(s) in our comic today. It was not long ago that more discs per game equated to a heftier value for that game. However flawed that logic may have been, particularly for dreck like Riven and The X-Files game, nobody at the time would have argued the excitement at encountering a "Please insert next disc" screen. That weird, tactile marker for progress lent some physical interaction to a mostly virtual affair. In the modern era of Wii and digital download deliveries frequently measured in the gigabytes, disc swapping is now as relevant as a Brachiosaurus, and almost as common. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0248.html February 12, 2010: Our fat cat carries an unpleasant disposition. Socially awkward would be more accurately stated as socially ignorant. His ample girth surely hides animosity, quite unlike the jolly fat men of storybooks. I also made a conscious effort with this comic to change my scriptwriting style, channeling A Softer World for a different, more ruminating vibe. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100210.html February 10, 2010: First the bad news: the comic today was brought to you by the upcoming Data East Arcade Classics for the Wii. Unfortunately, the game saw an eleventh-hour delay at the hands of its keepers, and shifted to next week. Can't they think about our stringent comic release schedule? Now for the good news: The MNC ran all over our cross-web rivals the Rage Quit Radio boys in our Friday Street Fighter IV tournament. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0247.html February 10, 2010: My passion for Burgertime is great and this comic just popped into my head. This is one of those rare instances where the final product and script matched almost perfectly. Jason really captured the gripping horror of being overcome by an army of sausages, eggs, and pickles. HORROR! http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100208.html February 8, 2010: About trolls, Norse mythology claims that killing one involves stopping its heart and scattering the limbs to the corners of the earth. Traversing miles of seas, ice and forests can never separate far enough the appendages of the beasts, because each piece will actively seek to reconstitute the whole. Slithering, crawling, inching their individual paths back to the point of death, the disparate and severed flesh of the troll will refuse to accept the finality of death, always clinging to itself as absolute despite the vast gulf between reality and perception. So, too, is our esteemed news media. Though its shared brand of fear mongering assumes many stances, varying mostly on the issue presented (food poisoning, political intrigue, product recalls, etc.), one stubborn piece refuses to go peacefully into that good night. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/issues/comic_0246.html February 8, 2010: Censorship is bad, prohibited even by the U.S. Constitution. In certain extreme cases, however, exceptions? A fuller version of this comic exists with an additional couple of panels better filling out the idea. The punchline above was only panel two originally. However, because of too much writer-y jibber jabber in panel three, too much of the art was squished out. For a compromise, we cut the last two panels despite their finished state, and did this. We might work a better solution come printed book time, or find some sensible way to make it available on the site after a little reworking. http://www.mondaynightcrew.com/topics/topic_100205.html February 5, 2010: New comic today - sorry for the late post, terrible rainstorm here kept me from my computer. Also, do not forget that some of our crew squares off in the, uh, lined circle against the Rage Quit Radio chaps. Read post below for more on that.