Yeah, I know it's been a while. Part of that was last week's sweltering heat, part of it was genuine laziness, and yet another contributor is my borderline obsessive liking for the show The West Wing. I now have the first four seasons on DVD... and that makes me very happy.
     At any rate, I got some reader mail this week and I figured I'd share with the group. The first is from Meg, who is better known to most of you as "Anja," and it's in response to the last strip (the E3 booth babe one).
     "Hahaha! I wish you'd heard the Cyberlore guys bashing e3. When the guys making the 2nd Playboy game think the boobs:games ratio was off, there's a serious problem."
     Well, I think it should be noted that I have my first piece of "exclusive" information thanks to Meg. Playboy: The Mansion 2 is in development. Whoopie! (I guess.) At any rate, when you take a bunch of guys whose job it is to drape a game in T&A (AKA Cyberlore), and they tell you that E3 was over the top, it's time to take a step back and say "hey, maybe we don't need so much T&A."
     Kurt brought back some photos from E3 and, well, they included a shot of ass so large that it threatened to consume passerbys. Maybe that's when you've got to reconsider your booth design
     But hey, what should I expect when the industry's counter to booth babe overload is something as primitive and childish as this? One day they'll figure out that video game demographics have shifted, and we're not all horny 6th grade boys. Anymore.
     The next letter is from someone named Kanysa who writes:
     "Daer who ever drew the girl-sitting-watercolor.jpg I have a friend and hes telling EVERYONE that he drew that picture i even saw him copy it is it really yours i just want to make sure."
     I want to preface this by saying that anything I put up on this site is up for what is normally called "fair use," and then some. Sure, you can make backup copies. I know the site is unavailable sometimes. Sure, you can copy it for your friends. I understand that not everybody has a fast internet connection. You can take stuff and use it as your avatar or sig on a forum. Want a link banner and you have the photoshop skills to do it, go ahead. I'd actually be flattered. You can make desktop wallpapers, print shit out for your room.... whatever. If I didn't want you to have it, I wouldn't have posted it. I've even provided artwork for others to display on their sites. (playgrrl.com asked to use a drawing as part of their design, and I was keen on it as long as they put a credit somewhere in the comments. They've since moved to become Killer Betties and have switched over to their own in-house artwork.)
     The only thing I don't like is when people claim my artwork as their own. I've only really had one public problem with that. Someone on a gaming forum had my site listed as his own. I think he put it in his profile because he liked the site, and honestly didn't realize that it appeared as though he was laying claim. I politely pointed it out, and he removed it from his profile.
     In this case, though, I have no method of contacting Kanysa's friend, nor do I really feel comfortable asking for contact info when none was offered. Basically, he's been claiming that this image is something he drew. Now, I've been in contact with Kanysa and we've decided that the best thing to do is to put up some proof that it's my own artwork. Now, ignoring the fact that the original, uncolored art work was already posted not more than one paragraph above, I took this photo tonight of the original pencil artwork and last month's issue of Game Informer (just for currency's sake) on my chair. I hope this aids Kanysa in embarrassing this guy. But if this unknown guy is reading: you can still use my artwork as a buddy icon or avatar or whatever, just don't claim that you made it yourself.