#truemetalfacts

“George Hurt You” shirts are in the store!!!

I am sort of obsessed with the VH1 Classic show Metal Evolution. It chronicles the origins of metal from the earliest Celto-Scandinavian troll worshiping proto-Druids to today’s loud and angry angry-loud dudes, and ties it all together with lineage charts, moon phases, farmer’s almanacs, bundles of sage and armor piercing cod-pieces. As Eli says above, it IS a rich and storied history.

Last week’s episode regarding the proliferation of European “Power Metal” was particularly fascinating. Power Metal is a sub-genre that involves fast soloing with classical influences, powerful high vocals, and lyrical content about dragons, destiny, glory, battle, brothers and sisters rising, challenges, more destiny, a boat, more dragons, a bigger boat, ice, THE MOUNTAIN, overcoming, an enchanted lute, a regular lyre, a sorceress’s betrayal, the last unicorn, a dwarf, crystals, and valor. Another thing worth mentioning about Power Metal is nearly all of the songs sound like they COULD be glorifying white supremacy. They aren’t. But they sound like they COULD be. I strongly recommend Metal Evolution for all fans of music and the endless permutations of musical genres.

COMMENTERS: Please create more #truemetalfacts. If you post them on Twitter, use the hash tag.

You can now purchase a super high quality 11×17″ print of any HE comic by clicking the “Buy A Print” button between the “Previous” and “Next” buttons in the navigation menu. If you don’t see it, try refreshing your browser cache.

A Good Day To Buy

“Winter Is Coming” shirts are now IN THE STORE!!! [based on this comic]

Thanks to Lar, who inspired this comic via a twitter exchange a couple of weeks ago. Lar has some AMAZING prints for sale, including all 11 Doctors as totes adorbs bunnies.

There is a sort of reality distortion field for geeks that tends to envelop them and dampen their higher cognitive functions at events such as ren faires, comic-cons and… places where nerdy things are for sale. The example I always use is the one where you’re at a ren faire and you convince yourself that you REALLY NEEED an 11 foot tall driftwood wizard staff topped with a pewter dragon clutching a power crystal. I mean it’s only $200, and it’s basically one of a kind, and it would look SO BAD ASS propped up in the corner of your apartment between your alabaster Middle Earth chess set and your replica Xena shuriken/Gabrielle bowstaff. It seems like such a fantastic and fiscally responsible idea until you walk back to the parking lot and the reality distortion field fades.

I know some of you are able to get these items home and feel very good about your purchases, but for me they are just buyers remorse waiting to happen. I’ve never allowed myself to purchase something expensive that doesn’t actually do anything. I want to, believe me. I’ve just never had that kind of disposable income, or unclenched long enough to allow myself that kind of indulgence. I’ve had friends who own fantastic movie props, replica swords and lightsabers, hyper realistic costumes, etc but I’ve never been able to partake myself. I met a guy at Comicon San Diego last year that owns the largest private collection of BSG props (including most of the CIC) and I thought “GODS how awesome it must be to come home and be surrounded by that stuff… and FRAK ME that money could have payed so many bills!” I really think he’s the one that has the right idea. Him and the guy with the wizard staff and the lady with $3500 Serenity model with the blinking lights are the ones that know how to have fun.

COMMENTERS: Have you ever made such a purchase? Did you regret it or revel in it? What Bat’leth type item do you covet? I can’t go through those Harry Potter gift catalogs without having to convince myself that I don’t need Voldemort’s wand, a time turner and a golden snitch for my mantle.

A bunch of webcomic creators, including myself, donated items for the World Builders charity auction/lottery. They help families in 3rd world countries to be able to feed and clothe themselves through giving them goats, chickens, cows and such. Read more on Patrick Rothfus’s blog.

UPDATE 01/25/12: You can now purchase a super high quality 11×17″ print of any HE comic by clicking the “Buy A Print” button between the “Previous” and “Next” buttons in the navigation menu. If you don’t see it, try refreshing your browser cache.

CHICAGO and CALGARY Fancy Bastards: I am coming for you! I will be at C2E2 April 13-15 and Calgary Expo April 27-29 with Blind Ferret.

Outnumbered 2.35 To 1

BIG ASS 11×17 PRINTS ARE IN THE HIJINKS ENSUE PRINT SHOP!

You can even get a big ass print of the Doctor Who/ MST3K comic.

I know I’m a late adopter, but I just got my first Blu-Ray player in December. Having amassed and subsequently ripped/server stored/eBay’d a rather sizable DVD collection, I thought I was done purchasing movies via physical media. I bought the player mostly for Netflix, but seeing as it was there and that it had all those P’s (1,080 of them to be precise) I figured I might as well start re-acquiring A) My most favorite/ infinitely rewatchable movies (your Lebowskis, Ghostbusters, Princess Brides, Backs To Futures and such) and B) My most favorite gorgeous/visually stunning films (your Avatars, Fireflied Serenities, various Pixar’d Cartoonicals, Lords Of Some Rings, and what not). On a lark I threw up about 25 movies on my Amazon wishlist and shit-in-my-biscuits if’n they weren’t nearly all purchased by your magnificent Fancy Bastards within a couple of weeks. Merry happy to me! It was the highest def’d Xmas I’d ever had! Many of them were sent anonymously or only with first names, so if I didn’t thank you directly please know that I am extremely grateful.

A couple of very nice FB’s got me the Lord Of The Rings (Extended) Blu-Ray set for the very Blackest of all Fridays (before we even had the Blu-Ray player), and my wife and I just sat down to watch Fellowship this weekend. I know I am a heretic, but I HAD to zoom that shit in. I can’t stand seeing the black bars taking up 1/3 of my TV. I’m just the type that would much rather see a full 16:9 picture than know exactly what the rest of that one Orc’s shoulder looks like before he movies fully into frame. I realized this type of zoom-happy behavior is a dealbreaker for many of your videophiles, but having crossed the threshold of fatherhood and 30-year-old-hood I find myself giving less and less of a shit about “BUT THAT’S NOT THE RIGHT WAY TO NERRRRRRD!!!” and more about comfort, ease of use and simplicity. Zooming in my Blu-Rays to fill the screen is basically the entertainment equivalent of staying in sweatpants all day. Sure, it doesn’t look as nice, but who’s really gonna know besides me?

COMMENTERS: Is there a particular “accepted nerdy way” of doing things that you just refuse to bend on? Do you rip all your audio in lossless codecs? Do you get twitchy when you see that someone’s surround sound speakers are improperly placed [raises hand]? Have you ever managed to unburden yourself from any of these behaviors to positive results?

All HijiNKS Ensue wallpapers are now available on a “Pay what you like” donation basis. Please consider donating to support HijiNKS Ensue.

TO CURRENT VAULT SUBSCRIBERS: I am currently reworking the Vault and the incentives for donations. I have some really fun stuff to announce, hopefully later this month.

Side Effects May Include

“George Hurt You” shirts are in the store!!!

Purell: Kills 99% of germs and rewrites 99% of your DNA!

I am still very sick and the things happening in and around my head are still quite horrible. It is as these moments that I reflect on how lucky I am to not have a real job. It used to infuriate me when I had to decide between staying home, losing money, getting shit from my boss, but actually getting well and going in to work no matter how ill I was in order to save face, impress my boss and not impact my finances. People get sick. I never understood the vilification of illness in the average American workplace. Every real job I’ve ever had has viewed getting sick as a form of betrayal, a character flaw or a lack of commitment. I once got sick the first week of a new job. It was a 24 hour virus that my wife (then girlfriend) got at the same time. Unspeakable terrors were exploding out of all available evacuation points with little to no warning and we only had one bathroom. It was a god damn nightmare. When I came back to work the next day my new boss told me that he strongly considered firing me right then and there, and that I should have come to work, thrown up to prove I was sick, then been sent home. He turned out to be a heroin addict, so… hey, whatever.

COMMENTERS: What’s the worst state you ever forced yourself to go to work in despite your better judgement? What’s the best “playing hooky” that you’ve ever pulled? Have you ever tried so hard NOT to get sick that you made yourself ill? Once I felt a cold coming on so I started eating vitamin-C like TicTacs. I had a crazy adverse reaction to an overdose of the stuff and had to go to the hospital. Then it happened again a few years later when I didn’t realize the cough drops I was sucking down by the bag full each contained “100% of my daily recommended dose of vitamin-C.” Considering that each time my entire body began swelling up in a freak-show maroon rash, I am now deathly afraid of anything that has more than a standard amount of C. If I even see an orange in a grocery store, I set the entire building on fire. It’s the only way to be sure.

Good news for Chicago Fancy Bastards: It looks like I will be at C2E2 again this year with the Blind Ferret crew. That’s one of my favorite shows of the year. I’ll post more details when things are finalized.

You Can’t Do That In My Sinuses

Sorry for the lack of comics last week, but the above panels pretty accurately (and rather unfortunately) illustrate what my life has been like for 7 or 8 days now. I thought I was just getting an allergy attack, but after several days it seems to have gained a malicious sentience and begun a full scale assault against my ability to not feel like a giant pile of undulating grossness. I assume that came across in the tone of the comic.

Nothing says, “I bought you some stuff from the Internet,” like buying people stuff from the Internet.

I made the terrible mistake a few days ago of thinking, “I’m starting to feel a little less shitty, so I should get out of the house and have some fun!” I might as well have injected monkey pox straight into my eyeball. After my prematurely celebratory Friday night out I not only went back to sickness square one, but I seem to have super charged my cold/sinus infection/techno-organic anti-life virus into overdrive. Now, I’m basically sleeping all day and only waking every 12 hours or so to drain my face into a bucket. A sadness bucket. A sadness bucket full of hateful face juice. I am not kidding when I say this shit resembles Nickelodeon Gak in both color and consistency. I am scared that if I went to a doctor they would turn me over to the government, who would permanently detain me in an undisclosed location and harvest my mucus for spaceship fuel. Or at least industrial comet polish.

Ok, enough gross out, health related nonsense. When I was a kid I had a tub of Gak. I remember it smelling like burnt tires and carcinogens. It just reeked of petroleum and poison. I always wondered if the unpleasant odor lead them to develop “Smell My Gak.” I never saw that particular variation up close and personal, but I find it hard to believe that the “hot dog” scented variety was an improvement over the original recipe. I also get the impression that “Glow In The Dark Gak” was simply them giving up on trying to make Gak NOT glow in the dark. Like they had exhausted the world’s supply of cadmium attempting to mask Gak’s natural radioactive properties, so they had to introduce it as a feature.

I had grown too old for amorphous weaponized chemical gel-based non-toys by the time Floam and Sqand were introduced. I didn’t even realize that the “Here, kid, play with this biproduct of an industrial accident,” trend continued with products such as Smud, Gooze, Skweeez (with three E’s), and Zzand. SPUMG seems to fall right in line with these fine products. It’s terrible, it smells bad, it tastes worse, it’s is most definitely poisonous and you DO NOT WANT TO KNOW HOW IT IS MADE.

COMMENTERS: Continue the Nickelodeon product line! All you need is a few odd consonants and an improperly placed vowel or twelve. Something like SKROBZ. What does SKROBZ look like? How terrible does it feel? What is it supposed to do and HOW TERRIBLE DOES IT FEEL? Did you own any of the actual NICK family of chemical warfare play things? I had a GAK inflator. One time I made a stop motion movie using my friend’s camcorder of the GAK crawling out of its tub, oozing over to the inflator, blowing itself up then popping. In retrospect, I wonder if it was actually stop motion, or if I had simply managed to video the moment it became self aware.