My story The Art of War in the latest Star Trek manga got a really nice mention at Trek Movie dot Com:
Fans of Wil Wheaton’s blog or books know him to be an adroit writer of nonfiction, an almost Mark Twain for the geek crowd if you don’t mind such a comparison. Yet his “Art of War” story shows he is talented with fictional narratives, too. The story involves Kirk and a Klingon named Kring both trapped together in a collapsed mine on the planet Angrena. The “enemies forced to cooperate” situation isn’t unique to science fiction or to Star Trek, be it the film Enemy Mine or “The Enemy” and “Darmok” episodes of TNG. These kinds of narratives succeed if there is something different about how they are told and if they provide the reader with something to think about with the characters or a social lesson. Wheaton does all of these things with his comic.
They gave me 10 out of 10! Dude!
My friend and editor, Luis Reyes, is also getting rave reviews for his story, The Humanitarian, which I still haven’t seen because my damn contributor’s copy hasn’t shown up, yet. Luis is a great guy who took one in the chest when TokyoPop . . . uh . . . popped . . . a few months ago. I remember talking with him about his story while he was working on it, and he was really hopeful that people would like it. Sounds like they did: “Once in a while, a Star Trek story is so incredibly good that it stays with you forever.”
Cheyenne Wright did a pretty awesome drawing of a guy who looks like me, but cooler.
How much do you want a shirt that says “GE [lightning bolt] EK” right now? I guarantee it’s not as much as I do.
Depeche Mode: The Singles 1986-1998 is available from Amazon MP3 for 3.99 today only. I am not ashamed to admit that I loved Depeche Mode when I was a teenager. Any DM fans out there notice how, depending on your age, your seminal DM album is either Music for the Masses or Violator? Mine is the former, though I still love the latter.
xkcd and Diesel Sweeties made me giggle so hard it hurt my chest. Thanks for nothing, guys.
This isn’t awesome, but it’s important that I share: there’s a current crop of e-mails going around that appear to be from CNN or MSNBC. They’re not. They go to very well-designed pages that can fool people into installing malware. I don’t ask this often, but please share this bit of news with your friends who are . . . vulnerable . . . to this sort of attack.
There’s some really cool new stuff at Propeller 2.0 that I’m excited about, including the growing awesomeness of the Geek group.
Great Showdowns of the 8-bit Era is beautiful. (via reddit)
That reminds me: If I collected some of my favorite Games of Our Lives into a book, would you be interested in buying it? (Note that it was all WFH and as such the AV Club owns all the material; I’d have to convince them to give me permission, but before I bother trying to do that, I wanted to gauge interest here.)
I hate that NBC is delaying their “live” prime time Olympics for West Coast viewers, but their online coverage is incredible. If you’re only watching the Olympics in prime time, you’re really missing out on some great events, like Table Tennis, Archery, Rowing, Soccer, and Handball. I mean, gymnastics and swimming are neat and all, but there’s a lot more to the games than just those events. Durr.
Jefbot hates me, but it’s all in good fun. The next strip in the series is gold, Jerry. GOLD!
Top Shelf is rapidly becoming one of my favorite publishers. Like Vertigo or Blue Note, I can pick up anything from them and know I’m going to love it. I want to do a proper review at some point, but the book Super Spy by Matt Kindt is absolutely magnificent, and proves that graphic storytelling exists as literature. You can see one of the stories in the book here.
Finally:
Me: Ah! I hate this song! Change it! Change it!
Ryan: Hey, when we played the endless setlist, you said –
Me: We were playing for five hours! I don’t think anyone should be held accountable for anything they said, did, or turned off during the endless setlist. Now let’s never speak of this again.
Ryan: But –
Me: NEVER. AGAIN.
Ryan went back to school this morning. My ribs hurt so much, I couldn’t hug him as much as I needed to, making an already-difficult goodbye extra painful. He’s grown up and matured so much in the last six months, I just love having him around. He’s really grown into a fine young man, and is someone I’d like to hang around with even if he wasn’t my son. I’m going to miss him a lot.
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I’d buy the Games of Our Lives Book. But, maybe for the wrong reason. I’m a big fan of supporting local small businesses and (young) struggling artists. I really enjoyed your other works, so I’d buy G.O.O.L. (that looks really stupid) just to contribute to the Support Wil Wheaton, “The Writer” Fund.
GOOL book? WANT!!!!! And I know I would definitely want to purchase many many copies and hand them out as presents to my many 80’s raised geek friends. Put me down for a GE/EK shirt too. That is rad.
I probably wouldn’t buy a GOOL book.
But, if you could get the TVSquad folks to agree I’d buy a book of STNG reviews.
How much do you want a shirt that says “GE [lightning bolt] EK” right now? I guarantee it’s not as much as I do.
You’ll want a belt bucklet like that one, too. I guarantee it.
Getting your rock on, you’ve thrown the goat. I’ve thrown the goat. We all throw the goat. But it’s so blindingly obvious that the WW is the only way for you to throw.
This isn’t adroit I was looking for.
“Adroit.”
Congratulations on the great press, but I can’t believe you got “adroit.” I’ve been seriously trying for the past seven years to get someone to use that exact word in reference to me…and failed.
Now, if it ever does happen, I’ll just feel like a copycat.
I did not know that Table tennis was an olympic sport. LOL that’s just weird.
1. I really, really want a ge(lightning bolt)ek shirt now. (I also think that art would look good on a shirt. Whatever did happen to the maybe-we’ll-have-a-tshirt-contest?)
2. My seminal Depeche Mode album was the Singles: 81-85. That’s the first album I bought. (I know it’s not an album but a collection of singles but hey, cut me some slack here.) Funny story this: I’m a huge Pet Shop Boys fan. I became one because I thought one of my friends in high school was a huge PSB fan and since she’s hella awesome I thought I might give it a try. I loved them on first hear when I realized that I’d been hearing their music on the radio for years and loved them. It wasn’t until a year later that I found out she was a huge fan of Depeche Mode, not Pet Shop Boys. So I gave Depeche Mode a similar listen. And the same thing happened. “Dreaming of Me” of my favorite song ever.
3. I said the same thing when you twittered about GOOL but yes, I’d buy one. I like having hard copies to read. I’d really be excited about a TNG Season 1 TVSquard review book. Also, Wil Saves would be nice to collect in one volume.
Continue healing well!
Cheers!
*ahem* I believe I meant to say I’d be really excited about a TNG TVSQUAD book, not TVSquard. Oops. 🙂
Cheyenne Wright is the colorist for the awesome webcomic Girl Genius – and plays Othar in the GG radio plays – but I had no idea he could draw like that. That’s a hell of a portrait.
First – feel better soon and my sympathies on the son going to school without that big squeeze
second – I agree that GE[lightning bolt]EK shirt rocks – it’s a must have
Will someone PLEASE design that shirt? I don’t have the time, but would TOTALLY buy one.
Hey, Wil, see if Cheyenne will let you use the art!
I think you’ve found your t shirt design for this site. It would be very cool to sell them and donate a portion of the proceeds to a good charity of some kind.
I’ll happily donate my time to deal with prepping the art for t shirt printing, etc. if someone else can get the art ready (at least in vector form).
🙂
That reminds me: If I collected some of my favorite Games of Our Lives into a book, would you be interested in buying it?
HELL FUCKING YES.
The Depeche Mode covers of route 66 are all genius. no – make that GENIUS.
There is a new O’Reilly book out called “Intellectual Property and Open Source” and it is incredibly awesome. Could be the most important book I’ve read all year. Anyway – in the back on the page behind the colophon stuff they have one of those “if you like this you might like…” type deals and Just A Geek is the second book on the list. Nice.
1. I would totally buy that book.
2. I want that T-Shirt, too.
3. Something else that you hopefully find cool: Toy Story 23. Enjoy!
Looks like he took care of that : http://www.cafepress.com/arcanetimes/1584769
I’m loving watching all the less popular sports (badminton, table tennis) online with zero commentary. It’s kinda weird but nice.
That picture is kick ass.
I would buy a Games of Our Lives book in a heartbeat, especially if you did a book tour involving retro arcades or something like that.
I love Depeche Mode. Yep, Music for the Masses, closely followed by Construction Time Again (long story involving an ex).
T-shirt? Well, not me, but definitely hubby.
And thank you for saying something about the CNN/MSNBC spam! It’s been going straight into the spambox, but it might not for others.
To answer your “would you buy that”-poll I admit, that I’m one of the guys you mentioned some months ago in your calculation whether this “net personality” stuff is going to get your bills paid. And as statistics said, that you just need 1000 people to invest 100$ a year in stuff you produce to make a living out of it, I confess I’m one of them.
Just to get this straight: I won’t invest 100 bucks just for you awesomeness without getting the merchandise, but — you know what I mean :-).
BTW: What happend to the shirt-design contest and did Cheyenne just win it without trying? If so, make that GE/EK on the front and his drawing on the backside.
Rock on!
*le sigh* There are so many comments to make on this post, but I will have to do them later cause I am busy supposedly training D.J’s at the moment.
The whole going off to school thing I am dreading. My oldest turns 13 in a couple weeks and its killing me. I can’t image what that stage is going to do to me.
Thanks for the heads up about the DM Mp3’s. That’s a cool deal. Lots of songs for only $3.99. My son and his friends have been in my cd collection so I can’t find quite a few of them now.
It’s cool to get some of my songs back and for so little money.
Wil Wheaton as James Hetfield.
Rock On, Dude!
And, I think that should be the winner of the T-Shirt contest.
hey Wil, since your post is all over the place, I came across this if you haven’t seen it already. these brothers are pretty funny in general if you watch their youtube channel, but this ones for you:
Good GOD I feel old now. My seminal DM album is Some Great Reward.
I want one of those shirts! Those are cool. I am thinking of the baseball tee version. As far as a Gool book, I am not a huge video game player, but I have a fondness for some of the old stuff like Mrs. Pac-Man. So I might buy that book. There was a really cool video on YouTube awhile back where a guy who bought a full size Mrs. Pac Man arcade game took it apart to fix it and made a video of himself explaining what all the parts did. Here is that video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lEBlzSrcQw
Your post just made me think of that video, and I thought some of you may enjoy it. I have Mrs. Pac-Man for my iPod and in Namco Museum 64 for Nintendo 64. That’s my newest system HEHE, so you know I am not a big gammer.
Get Well Wil and good luck to Ryan on the new semester.
I WILL be buying that t-shirt.
Interesting idea about DM, but my favorite album of there’s would have to be Black Celebration because it came out when I was in 10th Grade, and a girl I should have liked more than I did gave it to me.
An almost Mark Twain! That’s a really great compliment, even if it doesn’t seem like one at first glance.
Those shirts are great!
I just noticed you use a lot of ellipses in your writing. Not sure if you know this, but us Mac users can type in Option + ; and get the actual ellipsis character (…). Also, em (—) and en (–) dashes are shift + option + – and option + – respectively.
This will be interesting to see how they show up in the comments. Anyway, a good list of these is here:
http://www.forlang.wsu.edu/help/keyboards2.asp
I don’t want a t-shirt that says “G E lightning bolt E K” on it. What I want is a white t-shirt with that drawing of you wearing the GE/EK shirt on it.
And you must truly be a geek or you’d never go near a Depeche Mode “singles” collection. Instead you would hold out for a Depeche Mode 12-Inch Singles collection. My first one was Just Can’t Get Enough, their first American release. It was 1981, the record (yes, vinyl) was a dj promo and I was working as a nightclub DJ in the 2nd of my 15 years spent in that ‘profession’. You were, what, maybe 3 or 4? But I still love you anyway, even though at least 50 per cent of the time I have no idea what you’re talking about.
Geek or no, you are one of The Good Guys!
That artwork is cool enough for Wil to be a GTA character (not that he isn’t two already).
DM… nothing shameful about it, dammit! I loved them so much I haven’t even got a seminal album, they each took turns.
Wil, since my boyfriend turned me on to your site I have started every morning with a dose of WIL!! I just want to say THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! You ROCK!
Yah, those shirts are totally available here: http://www.cafepress.com/arcanetimes/1584769
W00t!
Feel better soon, WW!
Hi Wil!
Get well soon.
Your Games of Our Lives articles are hilarious. I would love to read them in portable book form!
I think I’m going to order one of those GE/EK shirts too. Thanks for the link!
And thanks for the link to the Jefbot comics.
I hope you’re feeling better soon!
Man I LOVE that illustration, really well done.
And yes I love Depeche Mode too… BTW, the singles collections (both of em) have been living on my iPods for many years now 😉
Congrats, Wil – you’re now officially Bania.
I just thought I would post my first comment on this….I would read anything you publish, as I love “Just a Geek,” (my hubby knows my penchant for geeky things, and knows I follow your twits and weblog), plus, you’re just COOL. You’re our age and you talk about YOU. That is something Wil. You did good.
Thanks so much for the kind words — and thanks for taking the time to talk to me at San Diego — I know how crazy it was there — it took me about 10 minutes to find my way from my booth to yours! I tried to stop by later but didn’t see ya. Anyway, thanks again and glad you liked Super Spy! You made my day!
Wil,
This morning our IT department sent out a warning: “Currently there are emails circulating that have a Trojan Horse Virus with the subject line of “MSNBC Breaking News”.”
Because of your post, I knew that the e-mails might also claim to be from CNN. I told our IT department so and attached the MSNBC article at Propeller; they issued an amended warning.
p.s. I risked the Powers-that-Be-Making-the-Rich-Richer finding out that I read your blog at work by replying to the issuer of the warning in the IT department: “Credit to Wil Wheaton: http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2008/08/various-awesome.html”
p.p.s.
Wil Wheaton is now, by definition, a bearded geek icon. Therefore the picture at top left is now outdated. Just saying.
p.p.p.s.
Correction: top right. Okay, done. Sorry.
For Wil and anyone else who wants a GE(lightning bolt)EK shirt, the artist-formerly-and-still-actually-known-as-Cheyenne has called them forth from the very firmament of the cosmos. Or at least added the design to his Cafepress store:
http://www.cafepress.com/arcanetimes/5873612
Use of the single-character ellipsis is often deprecated, because the ellipsis points are too close together in most of those characters. If you have to add an ellipsis next to punctuation, the spacing is uneven and it looks bad.
En and em dashes, OTOH, are 4D win.
Re a potential “Games of Our Lives” book: only if you expressly acknowledge that the very best thing about the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Halloween 2600 games, was that they were heavily advertised in Fangoria — thereby magnifying their prurient appeal. 🙂 -gabe
xkcd made me lmao
I’d definitely buy a ST:TNG book, and gift the GOOL book.
CNN/MSNBC link shared.
LOVE the JEFBOT comics… I might have to start reading it. At least til the end of this storyline.
And congrats on the rave reviews!
I wonder if Wil has seen this yet today: http://www.viewaskew.com/kevin/thebody.jpg
http://silentbobspeaks.com/?p=377
For some strange reason, I didn’t originally read GOOL – mostly because I was sheltered and didn’t know it was there. Since your Twitter about it, I went and checked it out – and I would TOTALLY buy that book!
And now I must go hunt your Star Trek manga (which, just from the review has to be better than either the Labyrinth or the Dark Crystal mangas).
I would trade shiny rocks for your tree pulp and ink any day.