I've been gone. Pretty much vanished from the face of the earth and out of contact with mortal life, since that last comic, over a week ago.

The first few weeks of my new job really have been a scream. Intensely stressful, interesting and, yeah, even fun.

Yesterday we finished the last few tasks associated with printing a magazine, and off it went to the presses. For the past two days, I've been at my guild get-together, ORKFEST, sitting at poolside (where there is wireless) or at the end of the table in the neighboring suite (where there is an ethernet connection) and trying hard to be sociable while working.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a magazine.
We'll be distributing the first issue for free at Comic-Con, SOE FanFaire and GenCon, at least till we run out, hehe.

Starting a magazine is a risky business, but it is also a heady, exciting time. I am certainly pouring in my best effort, and hope that I'll still be doing this in five years time. I am very happy to have been offered this position.

I even got to submit a full-page, incomprehensible comic about our inauspicious starting weekend of work on Massive Gamer. It brought to point the many, many hurdles we faced as a team, to bring this publication to publication. Huge kudos to my boss, Mark Arsenault, one of the best problem solvers I've ever met. No complete disaster was complete enough to shut him down, and believe me, we had many.

In addition to writing, I have had the opportunity to help with design and layouts. Our entire production department consists of one amazing lady, Raini Madden, who came out of retirement to help us out. Hope she stays forever.

I have permission to reproduce the front cover here... inside are some 96 pages of STUFF. We had so much good stuff that we had to peel some out to carry forward to Issue #2: September is PIRATE MONTH. Yarrrr!

I am really glad to be back, and am sure I'll be able to schedule in comics for this site once more. Ahhhhhh, home sweet home.

Now, you'll have to excuse me, I have some drinking, game playing, Rock Banding, more drinking, carousing, movie-going, visiting and drinking to do on the last two days of ORKFEST.

Then it's off to E3!

Brasse

ps. Yes, yes, if you want a copy of the free issue and can't get to one of the shows listed, I'll be happy to send you one for the cost of postage and envelope, as soon as I figure out what that is. I'll let you know!