INVADER ZIM Fact #2

SHUT IT DOWN! SHUT IT DOWN FOREVER!

One of the big rumors going around, and one of the most insidiously resilient, is the many headed hydra of a rumor revolving around why the show was cancelled.  I compare the thing to a hydra for the obvious reason that no matter which variant of the cancellation rumor you try to dispel, another, more preposterous one pops up and is passed around by people with such utter conviction of its truth that it reaches enough similarly lifeless types to grow roots in the ever-firm foundation of ignorance of ones’ own ignorance.

I don’t know how many times I’ve read or heard someone ask why the show was cancelled, opening the portal from the great cosmic inter-ass allowing THE EXPERT entry into our world, this being a person I never saw around the studio, whose name was never on any of the memos, whose voice was never on any of the conference calls, whose only involvement with the show was watching it on their teevee and writing themselves into hideously creepy adventures with the characters, but who has no doubt that they know the facts about a show that was cancelled a hundred years ago.  This person is a walking fact-dispensing machine and lords their knowledge on whatever message board or forum they are king tick on.  So when they talk about people and events from the production, they speak with such absolute certainty as to be experts, leaving no room for the doubt that should be in their heads considering their only source of information is entries on the internet from similar masters of their field.
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INVADER ZIM Fact #1

The original motion capture suit for the ZIM character

The original motion capture suit for the ZIM character

To this day when my head is as elsewhere as it can be, fans still write to me or come up to me at conventions or toilet stalls to ask this or that about INVADER ZIM, and equally as impressive as the show’s staying power is the seeming toxicity of the incorrect information surrounding the show.  Even looking up the IMDB or Wikipedia info comes up with stuff that I don’t recognize as being entirely accurate, so I can see how people can be a bit off when recounting “the truth” about the show and its production.

What’s more bothersome, though, is the manner in which the information gets spread, passed on from person to person, spreading like a virus that doesn’t have any room for anything but absolutes.  This particular virus is a stupid, ignorant virus, however, seemingly proud to pass along ANY bit of information about a thing it is obsessed with no matter how painfully wrong it is.

So here I am to relate the first of many facts throughout the month of March!  I do this because I am fucking awesome.
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INVADER ZIM and McRib, separated at birth?

Weirdly enough, this was an actual promotional poster for the show

People keep telling me that INVADER ZIM is going to be airing on Nicktoons for the month of March, and only for the month of March, as part of national cancelled show awareness month or something.  Apparently it’s true, and that’ll be good news to some people, so that’s cool – people need stuff to watch and ZIM is definitely capable of making televisions display images emit sounds.  The whole one-month-only thing is funny to me, though, and reminds me of how McDonalds would, every couple of years or so, thaw out their subterranean warehouse where they store their McRib slug, a creature whose sole purpose is to use its great ovipositor to shit out McRib patties, and sell the sandwiches for a limited time only.  I’m not sure if that’s still the case with McRibs, but that’s how I remember the situation.
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Pre-Game Lobby

So last month, maybe two months ago (hard to keep track of time when you’re thousands of years old, get what I’m sayin’?) 2K games sends out one of those probes, not unlike the one they send down to Hoth at the start of Empire.  I fucking LOVED that probe when I was a kid, all the arms and the lenses – it was pretty much my kind of probe, ya know?

Anyhow, the 2K probe showed up and asked if I’d be interested in doing one of those Xbox Live things where you play a certain game with fans, in this case playing Bioshock 2 with people.  Now, if you’re in the know, which you are (this is where I ruffle your hair good-naturedly, then wink at you and creep the living fuck out of you) you know that I’m kind of known for being somewhat bemused by the general perception of my fans.  I’m not exactly known for having a huge audience of gamers so much as I am for attracting people who were apparently taken over by parasites that only now forming the connections to their hosts’ communication centers.

That’s not saying they’re all like that!  It’s just that there are so many that those are the ones that make the most noise when I say things like “Some of these people make me sick to my stomach” or other such passing comments based on HARD FACT.  And a few are gamers, even!  That group of folks that showed up at PAX – awesome people.  Lovely, polite, and either uninfected or inhabited by parasites that have been around long enough to be able to convey thoughts and ideas without making everyone around them incredibly uncomfortable!  Man…I miss those people.

But then I got to thinking about it:  What if the people I end up playing with ARE the hideous ones, the ones that think that everything I say or do is a reference to my own work, as if I am constantly bathing in a stew of self reference?  The object of the game is to light these people on fire and shoot them in the face!  What better matchup, what better pairing of differing aspirations?!

So I said yes and I’m sure it’ll be fine and I’m sure I’ll get my bloody ass kicked bloody because I’m not that good at the multiplayer in that game from what I have experienced.  I’ve played it a bit and it’s a more old-school, bang your dead before you turn around to see who is filling you with lead kind of game.  But I hope to get in a few lucky shots.

Still, I’m not entirely sure how this whole thing is supposed to go down.  I had assumed it would be me in a lobby of constantly rotating fans, going into matches and then playing a different group each time.  But I realize that that’s not how Xbox Live works.  There’s no real way to mediate this other than to do it myself, so that’s going to be a bit odd and somewhat clumsy the way I am thinking of it.  If I accept a game invite, will I simply be playing with that one person that invited me as well as a bunch of people who don’t  necessarily want to play with me but have been thrown into the mix by the matching process?

And if I am in a party, and invite people that have sent friend requests, do I tell them all to leave after each match and then fill it with more people?  Very time consuming if that’s the case.  Now I wonder how all those other luminaries feature on the dashboard have dealt with this and other mysteries.

Ah, well.  I’ll tell you how it went down after it goes down later tonight.  Back to work.

Some Scud Art For Sale! Awwgahd!

He who controls the ink, controls the universe.

So I’ve been trying to get my original artwork situation in check, and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably NOT supposed to be all over the floor or crumpled to plug up those weird gaps in the garage door to keep birds from getting into my house.  People come over and express horror at how I take care of my original drawings and sketches, screaming at me to not store old comic pages in pickle jars that are still half full of brine.

I’ve NEVER actually sold any of my original comic stuff, keeping it sequestered away in a closet somewhere, but these odd strays get out, things I did for other people’s books or album covers and such, and those are the ones that just pile up on top of my scanner getting weird, black dust all over them.  So this is the first of some art auctions I figure might clean things up a bit around here.

So this Scud page I did for Rob Schrab gets to be the first, and that’s fine, because Rob’s a monstrous man, and having this around is just a hideous reminder of that.  Just having it near me gets me all clammy, thinking of the way he looks at you with those weird eyes of his.

Holy shit I’m getting all uncomfortable just thinking about it.

Go HERE if you’re interested. (In the art, not the Schrab)

Signing off.