First off, thank’s be to Mojo, for this most holy of internetz sacraments…

It’s funny…in a way…though not, I suspect, in the way the producers intended.

I guess I can understand if Brad’s co-workers were really concerned with his spiritual “well-being” except that the way Darren talks to Brad at the end…seems to me that Darren just really wanted to see Brad drop a load in his pants…which is fine, I’m all for that type of thing, but don’t do it under the guise of helping someone find “the truth.” Besides, pulling a practical joke on someone isn’t my idea of a good argument for your faith, I’m just sayin…

And on that note…here’s something I think we can all agree is edifying to the human spirit…

I have to assume that all six of our loyal readers are doing their utmost in our current “voting frenzy” because our number on Top Web Comics keeps dropping like a…something that drops swiftly and efficiently…

Look at that, we’ve only been doing this for a week and we’re already in the top 300! You guys surely rock out with your C**KS out! And for those of you without C**KS, you surely rock just as hard, but with some other body part that is uncovered…maybe an arm?…

I’d like to see the site get in the top 50 which, given our current trajectory, looks totally possible.

So, thanks again and KEEP IT UP!

This was completed last Thursday, and seems to have finally gone up today… all in all I was surprised by the cancellation of the series, but the reasons for the cancellation are, well, not evident at this time. However, I was lucky enough to be able to put together one final strip in order to say goodbye to all of the wonderful readers who stuck it out and came back week after week for the 30+ installments. To all that have been reading the series and allowed me, April, Wednesday and even our son, Salem, to be a part of your lives - and to all of those who enjoyed the strips, thank you, very, very much.

So here it is, the final installment of Megalo Life - for Trickster Online Revolution.

And so 2007 closes today, and with it this weekly webcomic serial. Thank you again to everyone who showed their support, if you would like to leave comments for the series itself, please do so in the actual comments section for the Megalo Life series at the bottom of the URL link as I will be reading them there.

See you all next year!

–Aleister

Those that know me, or have been following my personal bloggings for the last year, know that I have a thing for French Bulldog puppies. You see, whenever I’m sad, or am having a bad day, all I have to do to help thwart the pain of my current predicaments is do a google image search for the inarguable cuteness that are French Bulldog puppies. Most of the time this works to an amazing degree. I developed the habit when I was working at Blizzard and my teammates and I would participate in ‘image search races’ where we would use the google function to try and find the best, weirdest and funniest or most random images the fastest.

This tradition and practice has continued into my new job. Although there is no official ‘race’ everyday, there is still the occasional need to find the weird and obscure. To this end, and in celebration of this weird and delightful net-surfing pastime I present to you my collection for today of the weird and unusual from ye olde interwebz. Behold:

A creepy man in a creepy hat

“Spiders are the fiercest hunters on the planet!”

this is why furries frighten me… O_O

. . .

And there you have it, my image findings for the day, enjoy, smile, and try not to think too hard about the weirdness that is out there waiting to be found on purpose or by accident in the digital-web-i-sphere.

–Aleister

‘Allo Normalinauts! Sorry, I’m not sure what new moniker to give to our loyal, almost double digit readership here, but for now, I’m throwing Normalinaut into play to see how it fairs. Anyone else who has a better one they’d like to throw down, by all means, please do.

Ok, so we’ve been on a fairly serious bent it seems for the last couple of posts, and with good reason, as what’s currently going on with the Presidential race will certainly effect not just the US but peoples in any other country where our nation’s sticky tentacle pull any sort of influence. So thank you for indulging us (and specifically, the more activist minded Kilian).

Now I’m not saying that this trend of seriousness, when serious issues come up will not be coming back to the forefront here on the old Normality, but I did want to take a moment to touch on some of the not-quite-as-serious things that have also been going on. Not to bend this to a completely egotistical outing, but there it is anyway.

So firstly, for anyone interested, and I assume that we’re seeing some new faces around here from ye olde MyTrix community as well as from Trickster Online Revolution in general, let me take this opportunity to say thank you very, very, very much for all of the truly heart-string-strumming comments on the final Megalo Life that went up this last Monday on the official Trickster Online Revolution website. I meant every last word that typed out in the episode’s commentary and a lot more that would really not be appropriate or in anyway professional for me add as well. I really did love (and hate using the past-tense) working on the strip week after week, and it is my belief thatthe silly little comic outing worked great to promote not only the game, the company, the community and to shed some light on the fact that the game is brought to its loyal players by real people who are weird, wonderful, falable and overwhelmingly human. This was, to my thinking, something that really set us apart from other games and communities that are out there. Obviously, there are games with better graphics, mechanics, support or any other individual component that you could name, than TOR, but I always held the belief that the strength of the title despite the uphill climb against newer, flashier titles and the seemingly endless stream of even-newer-debuting titles, was the community and the way it could interact with the company behind the game.

For me, Megalo Life was one of our several pronged efforts to create and sustain that sort of unusual community/company involvement, and in the passing of the comic, I am bitterly happy to see that I wasn’t too far off the marks in my thoughts. As it turns out, the community does seem to have enjoyed the comic. I never made the thing to have people start clammering that it was the greatest thing to hit the internet since porn, or even the best webcomic out there. It really was, at its inception and at its core, a means for those of us behind TOR to pull back the OZ-like curtain and say, ‘No, it’s ok, there is a man back here, it’s cool,’ and then /wave in a friendly manner. For whatever reason, it was pulled, canceled or decidedly ended… however you want to put it, it doesn’t matter the ultimate outcome was/is the same: the series is no more.

But as I said, the one really positive thing to come out of all of this, especially as the title to this post might suggest, is that when the air started to clear and emotions could be stowed for a bit to re-asses the aftermath, there was nothing more evident than the fact that the fallout of the series has shown what I might humbly term as overwhelming community support for the strip and my efforts.

Again, for anyone interested, especially those from the TOR community, I am deeply thankful that you enjoyed the series, and I am very, truly moved by the outcries of support and even unhappiness to see it/me go. So thank you. I don’t know a better way to express it, than to just keep saying thank you over and over again.

I suppose that it was something of a pipe-dream to think that overwhelming outcries from the community would possibly spring some sort of rethinking to the cancellation decision as the evidence mounted to the fact that strip (like some of the other efforts, such as the now still missing GM Blog) actually did work. It did encourage interaction and involvement in the community and for the game itself. It was a useful effective tool to help set us and our collective efforts apart from the other, and oft-times behemoth-y-juggernaut-like competitors in the online gaming world who always have more money and resources to throw at things than we could dream of. Because of the players, the Tricksters, the community members and the readers of the Megalo Life series that returned week after week, and especially have been showing their support in the final installment, I think it is now assured that the points have been proven. There should no longer be a question as to whether or not it was effective, useful, and basically a good thing.

Doubt can no longer be attributed to the quantifying of the effort - and no question can reasonably be raised as to whether or not the series itself was a much needed bridge between players and corporation.

Thank you once more, sincerely and whole heartedly to every single one of you Tricksters who have come forward in the comment section on the final Megalo Life and in the My Trix thread to show your support and even your surprise at the sudden ending of the webcomic. My heart’ still heavy from the ending of it all, but I can watch now with a smile on my face because I know that I did make a difference, and I made that difference because you let me. Thank you.

The decision always has been and is still now, out of my hands. If I could change it, I would, and perhaps I thought naively that you could effect change as well. Maybe that will still happen, at this point my crystal ball can’t see quite that far into the future ^__^ but I’m glad to have your efforts behind it just the same.

As Megalo Life has ended, in a somewhat traumatic sort of way, suddenly, and without any real warning (announcements, or even being posted on the normal day of the week) I will be taking this week off to finish recuperating from what can only be described as a tumultuous, emotional, rollercoaster of crazy bat shit, and will not be posting a new strip for NR today. I should be able to return to form once more next week, and in the meantime I offer some other stimulus for visual trauma:

If you’ve noticed on the top right side of the NR site here, there is a new section added, along with the Comic Archive, and the Vote Campaign for TopWebComics, and other information, there is a new section (still being polished so be nice, please) titled Gilgrim’s Artwork. So if visual stimuli is what you crave, as they say, buy the ticket, take the ride.

Cheers,

–Aleister

KMFDM - Last Things

Well, I didn’t want to take down gilgrim’s post (since it is well written and heartfelt) for one quick thing…so anyway, read this and let your imagination pique at the possibility…

And I, for one, vote for Normalinauts!

–Kilian