Welcome to Friday! Woot! I would be soooo much happier if I didn’t feel quite so sleep deprived, but it’s my own fault, and I honestly felt much less tired this morning. I think the lack of sleep is simply catching up with me on this one. But, cest la vie, no?

At any rate, since it is Friday, we have a brand new webcomic, I was hoping to get this up late last night, or early this morning, but I simply didn’t have access to Goliath (my trusty Wacom) or the associated puter what Goliath is attached to. But now I have, and now the comic is finished.

I’m sure that Kilian will have more to say about this one today, as, par usual, he wrote it. For anyone who read the chat thread that was posted with last week’s comic, it should come as no surprise that this proud and central feature of NR is a completely, if not deranged, collaborative effort. So here it is, the newest webcomic for NR, and all you faithful Normalinauts featuring the truly epic dilemma of how to spend one’s time this weekend in the wake of the new Iron Man movie, and the release of GTAIV.

I sleep now…

(Click the image to increase to a readable size)

–Aleister

Tiger Army - Rose of the Devil’s Garden

Hey Guys,

Kilian here, I’m a bit late…I had a sandwich to buy which, I won’t bore you with the daring details but let’s just say that the giant ferret got what was coming to him…in any event, comments one and two were up before I could pop in here (man you’re fast Tengu!). And I actually do have a bit to add to this, in fact. OK, I wrote (well, half wrote, Gilgrim won’t claim his credit) the strip, and while I think that more nakedness from Kilian is always a good thing, the strip itself was inspired by real life.

For those that don’t know, both Gilgrim and I are father’s (and just let your mind marinate on that a second before considering how screwed THE CHILDREN are…) and, as such, have very little time for “nerdly endeavors.” So what do the geniuses out in the entertainment world do? Release GTA and Ironman in the same week! WTF! Seriously, it’s been pretty well documented that a whole lot of gamers are older (like us!), and as such, can’t be locked in our houses day and night playing a game, let alone fit in a movie somewhere.

It’s like they’re purposely trying to make us choose, and why would they do that? Spite! I mean, that’s all I can think of, anyway. I’m not the biggest Ironman guy, but the movie looks awesome, reviews have been solid (though, that is admittedly something one must take with a VERY BIG grain of salt when we’re talking comic book movie), and the cast and director are all top notch. So I really want to see this movie but I may very well not see it in a theatre. Already I have been thwarted once in an attempt to see it. And guess what, my chances of playing GTA are even more remote. I would need to get over to my brother-in-law’s house at some point after his two boys are asleep, so that they weren’t scarred for life watching me play, and that probably ain’t happening any time soon because I find myself falling asleep before 10 pm more and more lately.

I’m not complaining about my (or other people with similar situations) lot in life, I just wish hollywood and others would take into consideration the availability of time that most of us (those of us with normal, ridiculously hectic live) have…which isn’t much.

In a more GTA related rant, I need to make you all aware of this…

And thanks to Mojo, my personal news baron, for the head’s up.

Here’s the thing about Beck’s argument, it doesn’t make any verifiable sense. Forget that the “facts” he pulls out of his ass are ridiculous (like the introduction of TV in the 1950’s was responsible for a doubling of the homicide rate in this country), and focus on his point…that pop culture is eroding morality. He brings up the Miley Cyrus thing, and a bunch of other stuff that, supposedly points to a degradation in society. Whenever people make claims like this I wonder if they are familiar with any history older then the 1950’s (or, in fact, ACTUAL history from the 1950’s). I like going back to Elizabethan England, where hangings (yes, actual executions) and bear baiting (essentially, a bear is chained into a ring and a pack of wild dogs is set on it) were prime entertainment competition for Shakespeare’s plays. Or, how about Ancient Greece, where homosexual relations between adult men and adolescent boys were the norm. Those are just two of countless examples one could come up with to refute the “entertainment is killing society” argument you hear quite often these days.

Should a 5 year old be playing GTA? Of course not! Should a store/employee be punished for selling a copy to a kid with no parent, totally! But the fact of the matter is, entertainment is not good or evil on its own. It is what it is, and focusing on entertainment vehicles as the root of the problems in our country, and not on the actual problems (say, health care, stagnant wages, rising credit debt), does nothing constructive whatsoever…except maybe boost Glenn Beck’s ratings.

Neil Young - Heart of Gold

Bonus for those interested:

GamePolitics.com has links to both parts of the Glenn Beck thing as well

Glenn Beck - GTAIV - Jack ‘expert’ Thompson

And the NPR broadcast with Adam Sessler and Jack-y-boy

Tags: Glenn Beck is an Assbag, GTA IV, Ironman

This entry was posted on Friday, May 2nd, 2008 at 12:22 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.