foxtrot
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FoxTrot author creates "Pad Packs" with iBooks Author
FoxTrot creator Bill Amend packaged his beloved comic strip for the iPad using Apple's free iBooks Author publishing tool. Amend released these iPad mini-books recently and calls them the "FoxTrot Pad Pack". Each Pad Pack is US$1.99 and contains a mixture of 100 strips curated from the 24-year-old comic strip series. Amend has three Pad Packs in iTunes and hopes to add a new one every few months. He also plans to bring the series to the Kindle, Nook and Android tablets. [Via Daring Fireball]
Sunday Morning Funnies: Speedy
Comic News: The Daily Blink is back! Foxtrot's Oct 17 comic Beyond the Tree: The Opposite Direction and An Apple a Day Fourth Wall: Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt The Daily Blink: Relapse Also: Know Your Audience The Adventures of Disgraph T. Dwarf: Shell Shocked and Three Dimensions of Terror Daily Quests: BlizzCon! Disciplinary Action: Episode 9 and Episode 10 LFG #401 and #402 Away From Reality: Out of Focus Tales from the Crossroads: It's the Little Things Complex Actions: Door Number Two! and Hunter Loot What's Shakin': Page 7 Coffin Minis: K.I.S.S. Coffin Comics: Bye Bye Bubble Dark Legacy Comics: Turn-In Time Torment of the Week: By the Book Teh Gladiators: Ze Key Deception! Safe Passage Out of World: The 'Other' White Meat Guilded Age Away at BlizzCon notices: Slash AFK %Gallery-98595%
The Daily Grind: Do MMOs belong in the mainstream?
Age of Conan on The Big Bang Theory. Second Life on The Office. World of Warcraft on South Park. The Guild transforming into an internet phenomenon. The Simpsons and FoxTrot creating parodies of virtual worlds. It seems as though everywhere we turn, MMORPGs are toeing the line between niche and mainstream, especially thanks to the whirlwind of WoW. As MMOs become less of a fringe activity and more accepted in popular culture, I have to ask -- is that a good thing? After all, geeks are highly protective of their territory, often seeing themselves as the faithful guardians of That Which Society Rejected. To suddenly see that pastime become accepted and embraced by the crowd may prove disorienting -- and even disturbing. So do MMOs belong in the mainstream? As they become more widespread, is there something essential that's being lost in the translation? Are the faithful guardians resentful of MMO devs who may cater to the casual crowd over them? Is there a risk of overexposure and backlash? Won't somebody please think of the children?
Sunday Morning Funnies: Bears for literacy
It's almost June, but where I'm living, it's been feeling like late July. I hope everyone has been out enjoying the weather, especially during this pre-Cataclysm slump. Before you head out today for your picnic, BBQ, walk in the park, or afternoon raid, SMF has quite a sizable list of comics for your enjoyment. We even have two brand-spanking new-to-the-list comics this week, thanks to a couple of tipsters. Don't forget to make suggestions for comic inclusions in the comment section! This week's discussion topic is a free-for-all. Talk about your favorite character, an artist's shading technique, suggest a future discussion topic, or whatever else is on your mind.
Sunday Morning Funnies: It's not about you
Happy Pilgrim's Bounty! Before you rush off in excitement to check out the new holiday, why not spend a few minutes reading through some of your favorite WoW-related webcomics? Battlemasters: A Small Party. Cru the Dwarf: We'll Meet Again. Dark Legacy Comics: Profit! Experience Points: AFK. NoObz: Sixth Commandment. Teh Gladiators: Such Tuneful Words, Like Penguin Squak! NPC: Podfans. Also, Stream Fright and Oh the Humanity. I love his last response! Daily Quests: All's Fair in Love and Warcraft. LFG #305 and #306. Dungeons and Draenei: RP Servers. Beyond the Tree: Descent. Complex Actions: Cutting Out the Middle Man. Slash AFK: Turkey Fun. Check out this WoW-themed comic from FoxTrot.
Weekly Webcomic Wrapup revisits the classics
Digital Unrest's Chris Simmons originally made this comic in April 2006, and we subsequently crashed his servers. The strip has bee remade this week with new art and, given that it never got a fair shot last time, we're going to throw it in again this week. Thanks for the trip down memory lane, Chris. Here are our picks for the week's best game-related webcomic. Polling after the break; be sure to vote for your favorite!Orderly Debate (Digital Unrest)The World May Never Know (Fanboys Online)Bluetooth Headset (CAD Minis)For Your Consideration (Penny Arcade)Rupees Cannot Buy Hearts (MNC)The Fundamental Theorem of War (2P Start)Anguish (Penny Arcade)Giving Birth (Castle Vidcons)(Not game-related, but make sure you read PVP Online's five-part FoxTrot/Family Circus "tribute")
FoxTrot vs. RIAA
Sunday funny? Satire? Or political cartoon? You decide.[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Phat Loot Phriday: Doomulus Prime
Lots of players love getting this big red-and-black hammer as a quest reward when raiding for the first time. But not all of them know who it came from-- a WoW player who announced some sad news recently.Name: Doomulus PrimeType: Rare Two-Hand MaceDamage / Speed: 158-265 / 3.80 (55.7 DPS)Abilities: It's not quite as good as the inset above: the real version gives you only +22 to both Strength and Stamina. On equip: Increases your hit rating by 10. Came from a newspaper comic! Yes, the Doomulous Prime was originally envisioned by Bill Amend, the cartoonist behind the comic strip Foxtrot. He's had a running joke in his series about "World of Warquest," a game that one of his characters plays that bears a striking resemblance to our favorite game. Allakhazam's got a lot of the strips, and even an interview (Amend plays a Night Elf, but we like him anyway). Unfortunately, he's taking a break-- Amend announced this week that starting Sunday, his comic will only appear on Sundays. A darn shame. But our good friends at Joystiq have discovered what he's going to be doing with his time from now on: playing WoW, of course. How to Get It: After the mace appeared in the paper, Blizzard included it with the Ahn'Qiraj patch, so you've got to go to Silithus to pick this quest up. It's called The Perfect Poison, and it'll send you to kill Kurinaxx in AQ20 and Venoxis in ZG. Both bosses are early on in the instance (and two of the easiest raid bosses in the game), so for the effort, this is one of the best quest rewards in the game. And it's just one choice of many, many good quest rewards-- if your guild is running raids at all, do this quest! Right now!Getting Rid of It: BOP (because it's a quest reward, dur). Sells to vendors for 6g 41s 37c. Kudos to Amend for thinking up this great hunk of spiky red and black metal in the first place-- now that he's got more free time, maybe he'll be able to get his Druid up high enough to get it!
What will Foxtrot artist do with his free time?
Bill Amend, creator of the überpopular comic strip Foxtrot, is going to be dropping to Sunday-only strips at the end of the month. Wonder what he'll be doing with his free time? This strip from the series drops a hint. We'll be sad to see the strip only once a week, but at least he's still doing it all himself.
A little dig on the Burning Crusade via Foxtrot
I used to read Foxtrot daily when I was a younger guy. I would wake up every morning, grab the newspaper off the porch, read the sports page and then hit the comics. As far as I know, my newspaper only had those two sections. There may have been a couple more, but heck if I ever read them. Then I discovered the internet in college and ESPN.com, and my need for the Detroit News or Free Press was greatly reduced and I stopped reading the comics entirely. After having not read Foxtrot in years, I am happy to see that Jason is as big a geek as ever. Foxtrot has been known, through the Jason character, to spotlight what is hot in the geek community, and World of Warcraft is no exception. Last week they dealt with the panic that overcomes a WoW addict when the internet service is interrupted, and this week they have a nice series of jabs at the beta key frustrations of those of us on the outside looking in. And on a totally unrelated point, I pimp Blizzard 24-7 on a site that gets a pretty good amount of traffic. As does Mike and Elizabeth! Where are our keys? Huh? Where are they? Just kidding. I do not want to anger my Blizzard overlords on the chance they lock my IP out of WoW and I end up playing Stars Wars Galaxies or something. Yuck. [Thanks to Trippy and Jeffrey for sending this in via our tips form!]
FoxTrot's Sudoku-ometry [update 2]
Bill Amend's FoxTrot is known for its love of video game themes. Today's strip found Jason Fox adding another layer of complexity to the latest pen-and-paper craze, Sudoku, while his sister Paige questions his actions.Break out your books on calculus, sequences, binary and hexadecimal number systems, logarithms, algebra, geometry and trigonometry and get cracking -- or, if you're lazy, continue reading for the solution guide.
FoxTrot: Run Windows on your iFruit
Even Jason from FoxTrot wants a shiny new Intel Mac. Today's comic illustrate's the boy bugging his mom for "one of those new Intel-powered iFruits... because you can run Windows on them," to which she replies "I don't want to run Windows. It'd just be a big headache." It's always nice to hear that Apple-nut sites like TUAW aren't the only ones who 'get it.' However, I don't want to ruin any more of the strip than I already have, so check it out for yourself.[thanks, Logan Rockmore!]
Mainstream WoW References
World of Warcraft was recently listed as one of the top gainers in Google's 2005 year-end zeitgeist, which means that awareness of the game is increasing, and not just with gamers. The people at Jeopardy have included the game in answers for the show, and the popular comic strip Foxtrot, recently referenced World of Warcraft in a strip.
