Monsterpocalypse Now

There's no need to fear. DHS is here. And they are protecting us from kaiju. " What's kaiju?" you may ask. They are giant monsters popularized by Japanese film-makers like Toho Studios, who gave the world the most famous kaiju: Godzilla. Sure, Gamera can go tear-assing around Japan, but he'd better keep his flame-shooting butt out of the U.S. of A. Too bad these guys weren't around in 1978 when Godzooky single-handedly ruined The Godzilla Power Hour.

According to Reason magazine, the Department of Homeland Security seized the first printing of a strategy guide for Privateer Press's giant-monster collectible miniature game Monsterpocalypse. The result was that the interdiction postponed the game's release for an entire week.

For the full story, see Reason's "Miniature Monsters Attack America."

Next thing you know, the ATF will be interdicting shipments of The Shotgun Diaries.

What's Everyone So Afraid of?


Related Links

Officlal Website for Monsterpocalypse Collectible Miniatures Game

KaijuCast: A Podcast Dedicated to Godzilla & All of His Rubber-suited Foes...

Artist David Wong has some great monster paintings, including a Godzilla.

Play the old Neo Geo King of The Monsters on your PC via emulator.

Fate's Warning

Must make myself watch Smallville. Must make myself watch Smallville. Must make myself watch Smallville.

( Read more ... )

Last Man Standing

What if a conservative talk show host like Rush Limbaugh were the last man on earth, and everyone else had been transformed into liberal nudist zombies? Find out in Hive Mind, the story of Doug Trench, right-wing radio talk show host, "stevedore of freedom," and the last man on earth. Aside from the zombies who are controlled by the Hive Mind collective.


h/t Kathy Shaidle @ examiner.com

Polyester, Afros, and The Tenth Judge of Hell

With pencils by Dusty Abell, ink by Drew Geraci, and color by Dean White, this is one of my favorite comic covers of all time. Too bad, the comic never came into being. Geraci explains:

From: Hellboy (Unpublished) For a few years, Dusty Abell and I were a team and did about 300 pages together. Dusty approached Mike Mignola with this concept which started in a chinese monastary in the 30's (based on some book he read) and wrapped up in the 70's, a period Dusty and I would constantly wax nostalgic over. Colored by Dean White, who did a terrific job. From my hazy recollection, Mike was actually interested, but it got put on the back burner, until other new opportunities came in which demanded his time ( like a movie, perhaps?) A shame this project never saw the light of day, isn't it?

Air Force Bugbots

Air Force Bugbots

Posted using ShareThis

I'll Tumblr 4 Ya

Collector's Club Announces 2010 Offering

From The G.I. Joe Collector's Club

The 2010 twelve-inch Membership figure is the URBAN ADVENTURER. The figure will come dressed in a black tee shirt and black shorts. He comes with the vintage style foreign head and has blonde life-like hair and beard. Additional figures will be available for Club Members to purchase and a separate accessory set will also be made available for purchase by Club Members as well. The figure, combined with the accessory set, (ordered separately from the Club) will complete this exclusive figure and make him ready for action! No Adventure Team collection is complete without him!

OFFICER LEVEL members who are CURRENT, ACITVE members

They also offer some 3 3/4" something, but no one cares about that.

Tintin for Nothing

Urbaniak Cowboy: A Thanksgiving Treat

Urbaniak Cowboy: A Thanksgiving Treat

"Are You There, James Urbaniak? It's Me, Dean." If, by "there," you mean Fandomania, then the answer is "yes." Paige MacGregor interviews Venture Bros star James Urbaniak at Fandomania.

Weekly World News News
Back in the late eighties, when money was short, Friday night frequently consisted of a six-pack of Sterling, a bag of Gator Chips, and a copy of the Weekly World News. Within its pages, a reader could find Bigfoot, aliens, exorcisms, the common-sense advice of Dear Dotti, and the fiery political rants of Ed Anger, whose columns were so vitriolic that he made Sean Hannity look like Stuart Smalley. While other periodicals were focusing on such mundanities as stock quotes and sports stats, WWN was scooping its competition with such headlines as "Abraham Lincoln Was A Woman," "Dick Cheney Is A Robot," and "Satan Captured by GIs in Iraq."

Unfortunately, like most of her more reputable brethren, the Weekly World News suffered heavily when the banner of journalism was ripped from the hands of print-media by the internet finally stopping the presses for good in 2007.

Fans of Weekly World News can now rejoice. Fellow WWN enthusiast and IDW Publishing editor-in-chief Chris Ryall has penned a four-part miniseries with the assistant of artist Alan Robinson that unites WWN-fan faves Bat Boy, PhD Ape, UFO Alien, Manigator, and Lemmie the Lake Erie Monster as a tabloid super-team in their epic struggle to save Earth from the Chaos Cloud.

Weekly World News #1 (of 4), a 32-page, $3.99 comic book, debuts in January 2010. Diamond order code NOV09 0841.

Read IDW Publishing's press release

Read Weekly World News on-line

WWN Article Archive at Archive.Org.

h/t Secret Identity podcast

Photodump

Merry Humongousmas

Road Warrior Party

Dateline Menzoberranzan

Why is this lady smiling? Because R. A. Salvatore has enough money? Nope. It's because Wizard$ of The Coa$t is bring the Underdark to Heroscape. Move over, Drake. Drizzt is coming. And he's bringing a whole Master Set of tiles, trolls, and black dragons with him.

On November 10, 2009, Wizards of The Coast issued the following press release:

LEGENDS OF THE DUNGEONS & DRAGONS UNIVERSE COME TO HEROSCAPE

Wizards of the Coast releases a new master set for the build-and-battle game system

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Contact: Marcella Kallmann
Wizards of the Coast LLC
425-254-2263
Marcella.Kallmann@Wizards.com.

RENTON, Wash—November 10, 2009—Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE: HAS) today announced the upcoming release of a new D&D Heroscape master set: Battle for the Underdark. The set, a first of its kind, will be released January 4, 2010.

Battle for the Underdark features iconic characters and monsters from the worlds of Dungeons & Dragons. Players will battle a troll, a band of drow (dark elves) and ultimately face the evil black dragon.

The new master set includes a rulebook, 10 figures, 50 configurable terrain pieces and customizable game scenarios, which bring new dimensions to the popular build-and-battle miniatures game. This set will follow the release of Small Expansion Set 10: Valkrill’s Gambit which comes out on November 17, 2009.

For more information about Heroscape visit www.heroscape.com

About Wizards

Wizards of the Coast LLC, a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc. (NYSE:HAS), is the leader in entertaining the lifestyle gamer. The company holds an exclusive patent on trading card games (TCGs) and their method of play and produces the premier trading card game, Magic: The Gathering®, among many other trading card games and family card and board games. Wizards is also a leading publisher of roleplaying games, such as Dungeons & Dragons®, and publisher of fantasy series fiction with numerous New York Times best-sellers. For more information, visit the Wizards of the Coast Web site at www.wizards.com.

Magic: The Gathering, Dungeons & Dragons, Valkrill’s Gambit, and Blackmoon’s Siege are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast LLC in the U.S.A. and other countries. Heroscape is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc. and is used with permission. © 2009 Wizards.

Make Your Own ...
Try the Heroscape Online Card Generator: Here

Tales from Retro-Future

What if The Matrix were an old silent comedy? It would look something like this:



Fly The Friendly Void
Steve Thomas's shop at Zazzle has a nice offering of retro interplanetary travel posters.

From An Old Popular Mechanics or Something

World Leader Pretend

If there is ever an election for World Ruler, Gotham City Insider gets my vote. Here's why:

If I Ruled The World...

My perfect world would be hand written letters and payphones.
Old records and old cars.
Guys opening doors for girls and waiting for them to sit down before they sit down.
Waiting for them to start eating before they eat.
dudes wouldn't wear pants hanging off their ass and hats like big buckets with stickers still on them and dudes wouldn't wear Hercules sandals, either
dudes would wear suits, always.
always dressed up.
ever see old photos of basbeall games back in the day?
men had on suits, fedoras, cigars, ties and sparkling shoes
they weren't painting their chests with beer helmets
and eating nacho cheese dip off their gut like a table

( Read more ... )

More Matt Helm
Yesterday, I linked to Gary Hatcher's fine piece of squeeage over Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm novels at CBR. Today, I'll include two more Matt Helm links. The first is The Matt Helm Dossier. The second is the Online Archive of California's Donald Hamilton Papers. This site is a box-by-box listing of what's in the 155 boxes of the Donald Hamilton collection.

Spy-Fi

A couple of items of interest for those who share my fascination with sixties spy-fi. First, some nice Robert McGinnis prints are available at RMG-Artwork. Unfortunately, they are currently limited to only James Bond stuff, but hopefully that will changes.

h/t CommanderBond.Net

Second, Greg Hatcher at CBR (Comic Book Resources) posted a good piece on men's comfort culture. He focuses on Donald Hamilton's Matt Helm and the works of John D. MacDonald.

Read "Friday Nestled Under an Old Quilt (Comfort Zone, part 2)"

Armes. J. J. Armes.

I ran across Wishbook Web this a.m. Among other treasures, they have the 1970 J. C. Penney Christmas catalog from which I am certain my mom ordered my very first G.I. Joe (he was the "G.I. Joe Soldier" on page 361). We were a J. C. Penney family. I had to go to my aunt's house if I wanted to see what a Sears catalog looked like.

In addition to Bicentennial costumes and the Guns of Navarone playset, the 1976 J. C. Penny catalog had an action figure called J. J. Armes. He was a private eye who had two prosthetic arms that had interchangeable hooks and hands. I'd forgotten about this rather creepy looking fellow until I ran across him.

"Some People Call Me The Space Cowboy..."

ganked from Michael May

Duke

"People think you can't train a dog to pull a cart. Impatient people think that. Patient people know better."
--Anonymous Farmer, The Simpsons

An excellent action figure from days gone by that I'd forgotten about until Calvin's Canadian Cave of Coolness uncovered it.

The Envelope Please ...

This week's Bartholemew J. Simpson Memorial Delicious Ironing Web Award for the Advancement of Irony, Incongruity, and Cognitive Dissonance goes to xxxThePeachxxx in recognition of the following statement culled from her Youtube site.

I despise the sickness called faith, and, in my opinion, it is not worthy of respect or praise. I have very little patience for conspiracy theorists. I have no time for bigotry of any kind, nor threats of eternal torture for not choosing your particular desert cult.

"Another Day Older and Deeper in Debt"

This was in my email when I woke up this morning. It is ganked verbatim from The Art of Manliness.
When famed War Correspondent Col. Frederick Palmer called on Douglas MacArthur at his Manila Headquarters, his most vivid memory of the meeting was that of the three frames hanging over the General’s desk. On the left, a portrait of Washington. On the right, a portrait of Lincoln. And between them, a framed version of a poem called “Youth” by Samuel Ullman. He also hung it in his office in Tokyo when he took over as Supreme Allied commander of Japan, and would continue to quote it in the many speeches he gave his “old” age. Because of his influence in Japan, the poem became very popular among the Japanese, and it is still more well known and beloved there than in the West.

Youth

By Samuel Ullman

Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life.

Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity of the appetite, for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of sixty more than a boy of twenty. Nobody grows old merely by a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals.

Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.
Whether sixty or sixteen, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonder, the unfailing child-like appetite of what’s next, and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station; so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from men and from the infinite, so long are you young.

When the aerials are down, and your spirit is covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you are grown old, even at twenty, but as long as your aerials are up, to catch the waves of optimism, there is hope you may die young at eighty.

Zoom Quilt

The Zoom Quilt II collaborative art project is a bit of Flash-work done by over thirty different artists. This animation takes the viewer deeper and deeper inside the painting to see surreal landscape that includes everything from tentacled horrors to cheese-eating mice. You can find it at http://zoomquilt2.madmindworx.com/zoomquilt2.swf.

Venture: The Gathering
From the mind of Andy: Venture Brothers Magic: The Gathering cards. Richard Garfield, eat your heart out. More can be found at http://community.livejournal.com/venturebrothers/432084.html.



All We Here Is Radio Ga Ga
The Vigilant Citizen has exposed pop singer Lady Ga Ga for what she truly is: a puppet for the Illuminati.

Celebrity Says, "Yap, yap, yap, yap, yap ...."

"Every construct we've built in American life is falling apart. Why? Because of personal greed and ambition. Capitalism without regulation can't protect us against personal greed...."
--Jim Carrey, The Guy Who Made $108,385,533 for Starring in Ace Ventura II, When Nature Calls

Once again I am justified in my belief that actors should be limited to a maximum of $500,000 per film. Considering the popularity of the Stimulus Bill's provision sal-capping of CEOs at 500 Grand per year, I believe limiting what an actor can make per film would definitely help keep "personal greed" and "ambition" in check.

MST3K in Far-Go

Famine in Far-Go was my favorite Gamma World module. I ran across the following video which reminded me of that fine TSR product.


MST3K - Chicken Of Tomorrow

Riz | MySpace Video

Codgers, Critters, and Comics

Originally posted by Jeff Rients over at Jeff's Game, this old guy is my new idol.

Creative Ecology
The Morae River: an exploration of the Morae River's ecosystems and the beings that inhabit them is a website at which one man makes up his own continent and the lifeforms that populate it.

May Be Worth Getting
Batman/Doc Savage Special #1. Despite having sworn off comic buying, I will definitely have to check this out.

CCC, Easy As 1-2-3

Last night, I watched the Civilian Conservation Corps episode of PBS's The American Experience. I've been interested in the CCC ever since I found out that my sole maternal uncle was a member. It was so good, I almost became a New Dealer. Now where's my "I Hate Von Mises to Pieces" t-shirt.

• A 1933 Time Magazine article introducing the newly-formed CCC, "Rizzo Goes to Work"

• Legacy of the CCC —The CCC Legacy Project outlines the Corps’ lasting contributions

• John A. Salmond’s cornerstone biography of the CCC, The Civilian Conservation Corps:
A New Deal Case Study from the National Park Service website

• Daily Life in the CCC—former CCC enrollee Paul Mathews recalls life in his
Pennsylvania camp

• National Park Service book chapter, A Day in the CCC

• Order your CCC t-shirt today

• CCC at the Digital Library of Georgia

• CCC at the Digital Library of Georgia

• CCC Links at Roadside Georgia

Hey! Hey! We're The Monkeys

Back when I was actively building a new D&D campaign world recently, one of the things I definitely wanted to include was knife-fighting monkeys. Today, Lord Robilar Himself posted some art by G. Barr that looks like a scene straight out of that which I envisioned for my murderous monkeys.

The ABCs of Awesome/Cool

The ABCs of Awesome/Cool, as swiped from Michael May's Adventureblog and Cal's Canadian Cave of Coolness

A is for Astronaut


B is for Bandoliers


C is for Crewcut


D is for Dim Mak


E is for Eazy


F is for Fez


G is for Gordon


H is for Hovercraft


I is for Inquisition


J is for Jambiya


K is for Khazars


L is for Laser


M is for Minions


N is for Nebelwerfer


O is for Orange Crush


P is for Pith Helmet


Q is for Quint


R is for Robot


S is for Smokejumpers


T is for Trenchcoat


U is for U2


V is for Vancleef


W is for Wolverines!


X is for Xenophon


Y is for Yeti


Z is for Zin