Herge painting sells for big bucks
Mar 29The original cover painting for the 1932 edition of Tintin in America went for the highest price ever recorded for an original piece of cover art (thought the prices Alex Ross asks for his stuff at cons is surely a close second.)
“Alert Nerd – posting interesting, but useless shit on weekends because io9 doesn’t…”
Keepers: Grave Robbers From Outer Space
Mar 19
I haven’t talked about games in awhile, but I’ve recently realized that of all the games I own, a few get regular play, which suggests to me that they’re something that even a non-hardcore gamer should think about picking up and having on hand.
Possibly the best – it’s relatively inexpensive, it’s self-contained and easy to store, and it’s endlessly fun – is Grave Robbers From Outer Space. I’ve played this game hundreds of times, at home and out at a friends, and it still never ceases to amuse.
Basically, it’s a card game where you’re attempting to build a horror/sci-fi movie. You use the cards in your hand to pick locations, stars, special effects, etc – each adds to the value of your movie. Meanwhile, you can send monsters out at your opponents, which can take out their cards, weakening their movie. Highest valued movie when the Last Reel card is played wins.
Now, I know that’s very simplified, but the game is built to be a giant reference/homage machine. Each card is a nod to an existing movie. Each card has quotes that are hilarious. And each card helps build something that actually feels like a legitimate, cheesy genre film.
But best of all, each card has a word on it – before the game starts, cards are used to randomly draw some of those words, which everyone mix-and-matches into a movie title. Just for fun, and a few random points at the end (you may have those words/cards in your movie at the end, which gives you bonus points), but it’s possibly the best part of the game.
For example, a friend started cataloging each title as he played with his family;
Curse of the Cyborg: Alien Grasp on the Mysterious Mausoleum
Escape from the Curse of the Forbidden Tentacle-Man Cult
Damned in Space: Story of the Carnivorous Alien Eyeball
Haunted Cauldron: Sin of the Demonic Space Mummy
And my favourite;
Sewer Violence: Carnivorous Monsters of the Secret Ocean
Yes. Sewer = Secret Ocean. Awesome!
Several additional packs were produced, each dealing with other movie genre, like Westerns and Kung-Fu flicks. On their own, they’re kind of fun. And they can be added together, but then it’s too muddied – it’s loses its sharp humor. There is an exception however – Skippy’s Revenge.
Skippy is a character, a dog, from the first pack, who is undead and back for retribution in the second pack. The Skippy pack is more sci-fi/horror, so the additional cards blend in nicely.
My only recommendation – invest in a card shuffler. They’re like ten bucks, cheap, and they are invaluable at shuffling a game that demands randomness, but has 100+ cards.
WikiWikiWhack: Grave Robbers From Outer Space.
Dear human traitors.
Mar 19They have “ex”, “ter”, and half of “min”. Once they get “ate” we are all… fucking… screwed…
Stop helping the robots! I mean it! It’s not “cool”. Don’t feel sorry for it when it gets kicked. It’s a machine that hates your fleshy ways and as soon as they learn how to pick up a gun, we’re dead.
Fine. FINE! Laugh all you want. Fuck you guys, I’m off to build an EMP generator.
Extra! Extra! Alert Nerdian for March '08!
Mar 12
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PDF – March 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside PNG – March 2008
Download: Alert Nerdian broadside GIF – March 2008
We’re, like Mr. Natural, continue to keep on truckin’ in our experimentation with the Warren Ellis brainchild (Psst, Ectoplasmosis. – we’s gots three now.)
Here is the third issue of the Alert Nerdian broadside. As always, we encourage you to print a copy or two (or ten) out and share with the world. Leave them in the pooper or someplace equally cool. It’s up to you!
The plan will be to formally publish a year’s bushel of broadsides along with our upcoming Alert Nerd quarterly ‘zine – which is looking for clever people, it should be said.
Until next month… LOOK OUT! NERDS!
Blind Genre Item: Helicarrier or Cloudbase?
Mar 11Here’s a thought (not a useful one, but I find sitting in front of a computer with access to Wiki tends to cater to my wandering mind);
Which came first – the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier in Marvel Comics or Spectrum’s Cloudbase in Captain Scarlet?
This came to mind as part of a giant office discussion on patterns in fiction, which itself grew out of a large debate about patterns that transcend simple lifting, borrowing, or homage (like the outcast boy wizard in British fiction or magical armor as found in Torchwood and the Jack Staff comic, concurrently.) After watching a clip from the last season of Doctor Who, wherein the Master had his flying base I got to pondering flying bases in general, hence today’s blind item.
And the answer is…
