Vicinity of obscenity in your eye
The second half of System of a Down's double album comes out tomorrow. It's heavier, darker and generally more complex than the pop-oriented Mesmerize, but it's every bit as good in my opinion.
System of a Down is one of my favourite bands, and I'm glad to see that they're finally starting to get some much-deserved respect. I understand why folks were quick to write them off. Even though they were never really "nu metal", they certainly toured with plenty of terrible bands that were. And then there's the fanbase... political bands have crazy followers, metal bands have smelly followers, and System of a Down has both. It's discouraging. But as soon as I pop one of their CDs into my stereo, it's easy to forget about all that. Good music is very distracting!
The books are at the printers, and should be ready by Friday. I'm printing a ton of extra copies, so I should have enough to keep them available in the shop for some time. I know I originally said you needed to order them by the 19th if you wanted to get yours before Christmas. But since I'm not even getting the finished books until Friday, I guess I'll keep accepting orders for them until the end of this week.
As for everything else in the shop, it should arrive in time for the holidays as long as you order before December 2nd. (But if you live outside North America, you probably should order earlier to be on the safe side!)
Sam Logan
Banana banana terracotta pie
Last day to order various things in the shop! Last day to hear me hype up various things in the shop!
Every time I get nostalgic for some PC game from my childhood, I try to install it and find out that it won't run on Windows XP. Maui Mallard in Cold Shadow isn't exactly a timeless classic, but it was still a fun game, and it's grown all the more desirable simply because I can't play it anymore. There is a SNES version that I could emulate, but it appears to be remarkably different from the PC version I remember. Bummer!
Hideki Naganuma, the man who wrote most of the original music for the two Jet Set Radio games, has finally authored another soundtrack. This one is for Sonic Rush, and unfortunately the only place you can get it is from the Sega Direct website, which only ships within Japan. I don't think I have any Japan-resident readers, but if I do I'd glady swap some art or something for that CD. It may be super cheesy, but I'm a huge sucker for Naganuma's stuff!
Sam Logan
Vaxxine, take the sting out
Only three days left to preorder a copy of the book, among other things. Otherwise, you will have to wait until the new year for any Sam and Fuzzy print action.
I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but these books are designed to be completely self-contained. That is, none of the comics collected inside it make any cryptic references to comics that are only available online. Since I originally designed it for Comic-con, I wanted it to serve as a sort of introduction to Sam and Fuzzy... in theory, anyone should be able to pick it up and enjoy it without ever visiting the site.
Speaking of the books... those of you who ordered a book with a sketch before Tuesday have recieved a surprise discount. It was certainly a surprise to me, at least! Due to a coding error the shop had been undercharging $1 for books-with-sketches. Whoops. That will teach me to be more careful!
Anyhow, I'm only mentioning this because I don't want anyone to think they're not going to get their book because they underpaid or something like that. The error was on my end. If you ordered at the cheaper price, you are still getting your book. No worries!
Sam Logan
(PS: And please, keep that extra dollar for yourself! I know many of you are the kind of overly noble folks who might try to donate the difference, but trust me... you're better off keeping it. For a transaction that small, Paypal is just going to take more than half of it away in fees anyhow.)
