In addition to writing articles for WingDamage, I sometimes write comic books. This weekend is Seattle’s own ConventoCon GeekStravaganza, Emerald City ComiCon. These two facts have converged to bring me to the people on March 13th and 14th (check out my pics from last year).

The worlds of comic book nerds and gamer geeks has long since crossed over, and this is a great opportunity for all of us to come together to hang out for the weekend. Emerald City ComiCon is a great convention for finding awesome new stuff you’ve never heard of, meeting your favorite creators, or even seeing hot shot geek celebrities in the flesh.

My brother, Jeremy, and I will be in Artist Alley at tables D-11/12 showing off our comic, “Here There Be Robots“.

Here is a map to our table:

"Click to see the uncropped version"

This year’s con will be the best yet. First of all, our pals from Kirby Krackle will be debuting their new album, “E For Everyone”, and playing a free show on Sunday at 2pm. If you are into webcomics, the list of guests this year is ridiculous: Gabe and Tycho, Kris Straub, Scott Kurts, and Jeph Jacques to name just a few. Should I name drop a few of the media guests? How about Wil Wheaton, Stan Lee, and Leonard Nemoy? Does that help get your nerd juices flowing?

Are you more into the indie stuff? Check out the huge Artist’s Alley list at a con that actually cares about the smaller studios instead of cramming them into a dark corner that you can never find. There are also a ton of con exclusives that you should definitely check out.

Last year, we ran out of our trade paperback very quickly. This year, we will have plenty of copies of “Here There Be Robots Volume 1: Marooned” on hand. We will also have whatever stock is left of our individual issues, T-shirts, pins, and some new postcard sized prints of the various issues’ cover art.

If you are at the con, please come by our booth and say hello. Even if you just want to shoot the breeze about the latest hotness in video games and/or the WingDamage site. You can probably even get Jeremy to draw you something cool if you ask really nice.

"Doesn't Seem So Bad These Days, Does It?"

There is a lot of talk and confusion about the impact of violence in video games. It seems like every six months some moron will commit an act of violence and people in government and in the media are quick to blame it all on video games.

They cite questionable studies that supposedly show that playing video games causes children to be more aggressive and violent. No one seems to take the time to try to accurately explain what these studies are telling us. No one ever seems to talk about the numerous other studies that show no link at all between the two.

One of the major problems is people have trouble understanding the difference between a correlation and causation. A correlation simply means that as levels of A change, levels of B change. If there is a correlation between A and B, that does not mean that A caused B or B caused A. Both could be caused by C or D or something else entirely.

Causation means that A is causing B.

They seem like fairly simple concepts, but people get them wrong all the time. The most common example used to illustrate this in freshman Sociology or Psychology classes refers to taverns and churches.  There tends to be about the same number of taverns as there are churches in any given community. If you were to look at this you might suggest that taverns make people more religious or religion makes drink. In fact neither is being suggested by this relationship. There are more taverns and churches as the population increases, one is not causing the other. They are both related to another external factor.

The media reports that you hear all the time are referring to correlations, not causation. The most commonly cited studies show that subjects that spent more hours playing violent games showed higher levels of aggression. They claim that this demonstrates that this proves that violent video games cause children to be more violent.

Unfortunately, in order to show causation you cannot just take 2 bits of data from the real world. You have to run an actual experiment. Then you have to control for external factors that might interfere with what you are examining. You can not really control the real world in such a way that you could run an experiment to test this.

One other issue that no one seems to address, are all the studies that find no significant links between violent video game playing and violent tendencies. For just about every study that seems to suggest that a link exists, there is another study from someone else that shows no link. We never hear about these studies.

All this gets back to the relationship the media has with the scientific community. The news media is all about sound bites and quick fixes. Science is all about a slow meticulous build up of data. Researchers want piles of information, a reporter wants a sound bite. Which do you think is more likely to get people to tune in a story all about how video games are turning kids into killers, or a story that suggests violent video games have no impact?

Video games are an easy scapegoat. It is hard to watch kids shooting cops in a game like Grand Theft Auto and not believe that there is some kind of impact. Just like it was easy 50 years ago to blame comics or rock music. The impact of video games on children pales in comparison to the impact of parents and peer groups. A child’s friends have way more to do with their growth and development than Master Chief and Mario. Study after study demonstrates the powerful effects of a child’s peers.

There are real issues at stake here. There are real acts of violence that are carried out in the real world. Instead of focusing on real issues at the heart of these problems, it is much easier to hold a press conference condemning video games. Instead of dealing with the slowly self destructing public education system it is much easier to blame it all on Doom. This is politics at its worst.

It would be great if we could point to something like video games as the cause of these tragedies, but the data is at best inconclusive. If video games were really responsible, then we could simply remove them and the world would be all shiny and happy. The real causes for these tragedies are far more difficult to remedy, and blaming video games is just pushing the real problems to the side.

"Are you ready for some Football?!"

I don’t think this one could replace Madden at the top of the charts but I think a combination of super heroes and sports could be awesome. Picture the Avengers playing the X-Men in a football game. On Defense, Wolverine is lined up as a defensive lineman, with Cyclops playing free safety. Colossus is a linebacker, and the other X-Men fill out the rest of the defense. Offense has Captain America as the Quarterback, Luke Cage at Fullback, Ms. Marvel at Wide Receiver, Thor is an Offensive Lineman, and other Avengers fill out the rest of the offense.

The teams are lined up, muscles are flexing and characters are talking trash. Wolverine is smoking a cigar and Captain America is barking out audibles, Cyclops is calling out coverages as Luke Cage cracks his knuckles. As Captain America takes the snap, Wolverine pulls out his claws as Thor swings Mjolnir to meet him. Cap scrambles looking for an open receiver as Ms. Marvel absorbs an Optic Blast from Cyclops, Colossus breaks through the line only to ram right into Luke Cage the two strain against each other until Colossus manages to break free. Colossus is bearing down on Cap just as Cap throws a deep pass over the defense to an open Ms. Marvel who floats in gently for a touchdown.

That is just one example of a simple play. I imagine that the game would be pure chaotic fun. People would be teleporting or shooting energy beams or using one of the hundreds of different powers. There would have to be some way of limiting power usage but I think that if the right balance is struck between football and crazy powers the result would be a blast. You would have to perform well to build up a super meter like a Gamebreaker in NBA Street. Once the meter was full you could unleash your super powers that would result in a turnover or a touchdown. If NFL Blitz were to be bathed in gamma radiation and get super powers the result would approximate what I am thinking.

Most games would be high scoring affairs with constant scoring and lots of big hits and big plays. I would set the games up into 2 minute quarters and I imagine scores of 50+ to be quite common. With all the powers and chaos I think teams would need to be shrunk down to 7 on a side. That would be enough to have some semblance of an offensive line, wide receivers, quarterback, and running back.

For the teams there are literally hundreds of different Marvel characters any number of which could be recruited for some sweet football action. You could have pre-made teams or random squads or even heroes versus villains. I think with the rich history of characters and costumes the possibilities are virtually endless for DLC. Maybe you are tired of the regular universe heroes and villains and you want some Ultimate action or some futuristic 2099 heroes.

I think this type of game could act as a bridge, maybe a comic fan picks it up cause he loves Luke Cage and finds out he likes football. Or a football fan picks it up and starts thinking I wonder who this Thor guy is? Everyone could potentially benefit. If Football is a success there could be a whole string of sports related Super Hero games. DC Soccer anyone? Hey if Mario can do it why not Spider-Man and Batman?

Way back when, in the early days of the NES, before they even had Nintendo Power Magazine, there was the Nintendo fun club. It is the very one that Doc Lewis recommends that you join.

As some of you know, I also write a comic book with my brother Jeremy. Our comic is not the first time that his art skills have come in handy.

The assignment was simple. Draw a scene from Metroid. This was the original Metroid, back when most people hadn’t even reached the secret ending and found out that Samus Aran is actually a woman. Remember when that was an Easter egg?

Jeremy had been drawing comics for the local newspaper, as one of his best friend’s dad was the owner, so he had been drawing pretty regularly at the time. He was a pretty avid gamer back then as well, as I mentioned in my Scene It review, and decided that he would throw his hat into the ring. Metroid was one of his favorite games at the time, so all the pieces were in place.

He sent in his entry, and a few months later we saw this:

Click to Enlarge

The prize was the NES Advantage and two games of his choice. He ended up picking R.C. Pro-Am (a fun little racing game by Rare), and even though it wasn’t out yet, they let him choose Super Mario 2 as his second game. We were hoping that meant we would get it early, but no dice.

Once we finally did get that copy of Mario 2, we dug right into it. It was such a weird departure from the original, primary because it was actually a reworking of Doki Doki Panic, but it didn’t matter. It was one of those games that, while fairly easy, especially by 1980′s standards, was just fun. We spent a lot of time finding all the hidden shortcuts and mushrooms hidden throughout.

Who knew that one drawing of a bounty hunter fighting a giant dinasaur-lizard would turn into quality gaming time within the Gregory Clan? So I guess the real point of this article is to say “thank you” to Jeremy for picking awesome games for his prizes and for being cool about letting his younger brothers play too.

On a very special ninth episode of “Barrel Roll! – A Video Game Podcast”, with Wesley Johnson from Insulin Funk in tow, we review “Wanted: Weapons of Fate”, Civ Rev on the DS, “Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard”, and HAWX to name but a few.

In the news we discuss the rumors of the Xbox Elite being bundled with some best-sellers, Assassin’s Creed 2, the fact that GameStop has gotten themselves in hot-water (as did EA), and that you can suplex a dragon in Bayonetta.

The second half of the show, we talk about the Tom Hanks classic made for TV movie, “Mazes and Monsters”. This is followed by a comic discussion about what we’ve been reading lately.

This episode, we had a lot of problems with Skype, and with keeping people on-topic, much to our own amusement. If it seems to jump around in a few spots, this is why.

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In the spirit of DC comics’ Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel Comics’ Civil War, comic creator Erik Northfell and I have crossed our characters over in the most epic way possible… Wii Bowling to the death! Okay, no one dies. But we did make a cool poster out of it. Click through to see the complete poster in all of it’s glory.

Northfell and I have been online comic buddies for a while. I really love his character design aesthetic, and the plots and concepts that he comes up with for his stories. Beyond being really unique and imaginative, he writes stuff that I’m really interested in; magicians in a world that appears to be ancient Egyptian and post apocalyptic simultaneously, a mysterious man who catches the last flight onto a planet about to be obliterated by a dying sun and populated by those too poor to book travel off of it. The basic premises of his books are completely unique and intriguing. Also, I think Erik’s and my work shares some common aesthetic and thematic ground that made the idea of some kind of a collaboration seem like a natural fit.

After batting around a few ideas, we decided to make a poster that would cross over Thad from my comic Dead Man Holiday and Mark from Erik’s comic SOL, under the premise that they would be playing Wii Bowling together. We looked at some old boxing posters for inspiration, drew our characters, Erik worked his typographical magic on it and it was done. Really, it was all an excuse to get to make Miis for our characters. You can purchase the poster for $2.99 on this IndyPlanet page. You can also check out this entry on my blog to see a cool behind the scenes sketch!

Purchase this poster HERE! Only $2.99!

"Emerald City ComiCon Bound!"

Don’t forget, most of the Wing Damage crew will be at Emerald City Comicon this weekend (April 4th and 5th).

We are mostly there to promote my all-ages adventure comedy graphic novel, Here There Be Robots. For sale at the booth will be copies of our trade paperback (collecting issues 1-3, the mini, the promo, and more!), our fourth full issue, T-shirts, stickers, buttons, and more!

But that is not all, oh no my friends.

Jesse will be there with our good pal Geoffio (who you heard on the first episode of “Barrel Roll!“) to promote their music projects Main Finger and Noise and A Beat. I can only assume if you are on this site, you like video games. Well, then their video game related music should be right up your alley!

We will be in the Artist’s Alley at tables D-11 & 12:

"Click to see the uncropped version"

Because of the con, we are also up in the air about what to do for the podcast this week. Here are my ideas so far:

1)Do a short show after the con one of the nights, since we will no doubt be exhausted.

2)Record a live show via Talkshoe, which people could call in to using the Talkshoe client.

3)I will be attempting to do some quickie interviews with people at the con. If I get some usable audio, I could put those together for a show of some sort, but it will most likely be more comic focused.

Please let me know your thoughts. Either post on this topic or email podcast@wingdamage.com