Rose City Comicon is a convention! Of comics! Hence “comicon”! Locke and I will BE at Rose City Comicon! In Artist Alley! Somewhere! With books! We’ll take your money! Exclamation!

With books, you ask? Indeed, with books. In fact, Volume 4 will be launching as a con exclusive. Don’t let the lack of an exclamation point on the previous sentence discourage you, for I seem to have used my reserves on the last paragraph. Nonetheless, Massive Pwnage Volume 4: Magic is Boring, a truly MASSIVE book, won’t be available online until after the show.

And now, some numbers, in list form:

Okay, that last one wasn’t really a number, but you get the idea. Also, I lied about running out of exclamation points.

But I’m not lying about the other things! So, if you’re in or around Portland, OR, maybe stop by the con and say hi! We’ll say hi back!

Red Son by Mark Millar
The main question behind Red Son is “what if Superman was raised in the Soviet Union instead of Kansas?” but it becomes much more than that. Superman’s ideals and goodness of character are unchanged, he’s still a paragon of justice, but he takes a different role in this alternate universe. Early on in the story, Superman is tasked with leading the Russian people, and why shouldn’t he? In what better way could anyone do as much good for as many people as possible? No one could bring order to the world the way that Superman could, so why shouldn’t he rule it? That’s the real question behind Red Son. If you’re a fan of Superman, or even better, if you’re not a fan of Superman, I fully recommend this different take on the first superhero. Also, as a side note, I never truly understood Lex Luthor until I read Red Son. I always saw him as a fairly straightforward villain who just wanted to rule the world, but Mark Millar proved me wrong.

Kingdom Come by Mark Waid and Alex Ross
Here’s another example proving that Superman’s greatest enemies are ones that he can’t defeat by punching in the face or throwing into the sun. Kingdom Come takes place in a future where the Justice League has been forced into retirement and replaced by the next generation of heroes. Unfortunately, these new heroes aren’t quite the pillars of righteousness that their predecessors were and, more often than not, do more bad than good. Eventually, Superman can no longer watch from the sidelines and comes out of retirement along with the most prominent members of the Justice League. The events that follow illustrate just how blurred the line between good and evil really is, with each hero taking their own side. Also, there’s a totally awesome fight between Superman and Captain Marvel. Seriously, it’s really cool.

All-Star Superman by Grant Morrison
I’d recommend any of these stories to anyone who might not care a whole lot for the Man of Steel, but I think I might recommend All-Star Superman the most in that situation. In this story, we witness the last days of Superman’s life. Knowing that his end is near, he tries to accomplish as much good as superhumanly possible. What follows is essentially a collection of different stories of Superman tackling varying labors while constantly struggling with his failing health. Each story on its own is on par with the best Superman stories ever told, but with a narrative that binds them all together, All-Star Superman is the complete package. Also, Superman combines two of his greatest strengths in this story when he punches the sun. A highly recommended read!

IMPORTANT NEWS! Massive Pwnage will be switching servers this week. I have NO IDEA what this means and NO IDEA how to do it but STAY CALM. I got this.

What it really does mean, though, is that I’m in the progress of making a backup of the entire site and archives, downloading it to my computer, and then uploading it to somebody else’s computer. Someone trustworthy, I presume. This shouldn’t effect you guys at all, or at least, that’s the idea. At worst, we might lose a few comments, so keep that in my mind.

Just a heads up, you know, in case the entire site ends up in a recycle bin on someone’s desktop somewhere.

I wouldn’t describe Adventure Time as a kids show. Like the original Looney Tunes cartoons, Ren and Stimpy, and Animaniacs, I believe it’s made for and by adults, but is accessible enough to be enjoyed by just about anyone. Except these scenes. There are few things in this world that are wholly and truly frightening. Few things that chill you to the absolute core of your very being. Here’s five from the scariest show on TV.

Read the full article!

Hey guys! The charity game came and went, and we had a blast. Although we didn’t meet our goal,we still managed to collect 110 in online donations and 100 in on-site donations. At some point we’ll have the awesome Erika, our ranger, upload what she had from the game. Livestream proved really glitchy and gave us a lot of problems. We’ll be looking into a different means of streaming next year. Despite the game having finished, we’re still collecting for Childsplay until Feb 6. That’s next Wednesday. If you’d like to contribute, please visit http://linfieldchildsplaycharity.chipin.com/childs-play.

When it was still being Kickstarted, Ence pointed me to an awesome project, Roll20.net

Roll20 is a TSR endorsed online tabletop simulator, a place for you and your friends to play Dungeons and Dragons, Pathfinder, Mouse Guard, and any other Tabletop game your heart desires. All without a download; completely playable right from your internet browser. As a player, it provides you with every tool to communicate with your party, document your characters actions, rolls, etc, and much more. As a DM, it provides the tools for you to hand out notes, images, and journal entries to your party. It also provides a multi-layered whiteboard of sorts for you to draw dungeons on a grid, as well as move around tokens.

The biggest draw to Roll20.net is the Library of art available for you to play with. If you need a few goblin tokens, you can search the extensive library of premade tokens and just drag them onto your board. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can drag and drop images of your own from your computer and use them instead! You can add music, ambient tracks and sound effects using the Jukebox function and other cool stuff.

I’ve been DMing a group online and so far I’m really impressed with the system. If you’re a gamer inclined to start a campaign or join an ongoing one, you should check out Roll20.net.

See ya on the flipside!

-Locke

Once again, Locke assumes the role of Dungeon Master in an effort to destroy a party of young adventurers. For charity! All donations go straight to Child’s Play and each donation tier, once reached, aids the party, giving them a chance to survive the adventure. Check out our official donation page for more information on the campaign and donation tiers.

To help us count down these last ten days of 2012, we’ll be visiting the top 10 most popular Massive Pwnage comics of the year! Check back every day between now and New Years to see this year’s best along with some commentary!

Here’s number one, the comic with the most views in all of 2012!
Click for the larger image:

#1 Everyone Loves Ezreal

The winner is EVERY SINGLE EZREAL COMIC. Every single one was in the top ten. Rather than have the entire list be the Ezreal comics, I lumped the entire arc together as number one.

Everyone really does love Ezreal.

To help us count down these last ten days of 2012, we’ll be visiting the top 10 most popular Massive Pwnage comics of the year! Check back every day between now and New Years to see this year’s best along with some commentary!

Click for the larger image:

#2 Perspective

The idea that playing a game with distorted senses of size and proportions could effect your perceptions of real life is pretty funny.

To help us count down these last ten days of 2012, we’ll be visiting the top 10 most popular Massive Pwnage comics of the year! Check back every day between now and New Years to see this year’s best along with some commentary!

Click for the larger image:

#3 Rinse and Repeat

Oh man. There was so much nerd rage surrounding the Diablo 3 launch. It was CRAZY. This is exactly what it was like. I get mad just thinking about it!

To help us count down these last ten days of 2012, we’ll be visiting the top 10 most popular Massive Pwnage comics of the year! Check back every day between now and New Years to see this year’s best along with some commentary!

Click for the larger image:

#4 For the Kids

I wasn’t able to attend Locke’s charity D&D game, but I managed to watch the livestream for a bit. It was pretty neat and inspired me, not to do my own charity work, but to draw this strip. Feels good.