Can’t decide whether or not to play any really, really old adventure games? Wonder no longer! You can go to AdventureGamers.com and read my review of Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers.

Awesome!

It’s webcomics week! (Since these webcomics are totally free to browse as you please, I’m going to keep my own comments to a minimum, and simply link you to some of my favorite examples.)

Dinosaur Comics is somehow one of the most brilliant webcomics ever while barely qualifying as an actual comic. For almost seven years, creator Ryan North has been doing Dinosaur Comics five days a week using the exact same art with only the words changing. It’s a simple formula, with apparently endless imaginative permutations. T-Rex shows up, says a few things, a nice lady named Dromiceiomimus pops in and either interjects something or quietly observes, and then Utahraptor bursts on the scene with enthusisasm and a few comments before T-Rex makes his final remark. Occasionally other invisible or miniature characters show up like God, the Devil, a pygmy elephant, or a tiny bug. I feel like I should add that the Devil only ever wants to talk about video games.

The Devil! What are you doing here?!

Teens! Are you interested in slang?

That is why I will ask the Utahraptor to do them for me!

It’s SO CUTE!

Perhaps I will learn… SIGN LANGUAGE?

Another thing I love about Dinosaur Comics is its unrelenting positivity and optimism. It’s so exciting and charming that it’s difficult for me not to imitate North’s style when writing an enthusiastic blog post, you guys (Oops! I just did it!). Dinosaur Comics also has pretty sweet merchandise, but I wish North would put out complete collected editions instead of simply a Best Of book. All of Dinosaur Comics is the best! Maybe if everyone e-mails him to request it?

I almost forgot to mention that if you hover your cursor over each comic, there’s an additional hidden joke. And if you click on “contact” in the header, there’s yet another hidden joke in the pre-populated subject line of the e-mail. Try it yourself in the following hilarious comics:

Here Lies T-Rex: Hey I Bet He’s Still Wicked Handsome!

The answer is “Batman”!

YES I CAN.

The course of my life has now been set!

Notice the ‘k’!

So that’s Dinosaur Comics. It’s unrelentingly awesome so you should probably make it your homepage or something.

It’s webcomics week! (Since these webcomics are totally free to browse as you please, I’m going to keep my own comments to a minimum, and simply link you to some of my favorite examples.)

Penny Arcade is probably the most successful webcomic there is, and odds are I don’t really need to shine a spotlight on it, but the truth is it’s also one of the greatest. Authored by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, and populated by extreme versions of themselves (“Tycho” and “Gabe” respectively), Penny Arcade satirizes video game culture, and occasionally other topics gamers might be interested in. Games they’ve targeted include…

Ico

Pokemon

Mario Party

… and many, many more. They’ve been around for 11 years, doing three comics a week, and yet still come up with new funny material on a regular basis. They also have an annual gaming convention (which is expanding to a second convention in March), a charity that raises over a million dollars a year, two video games, and several books. Here are a few comics I think even non-gamers would appreciate:

Le Twittre

Potentially Offensive Insights

As Seen in Modern Lair

The Adventures of Twisp and Catsby

So that’s Penny Arcade! Please proceed to go back to the first comic and read it obsessively.

It’s webcomics week! (Since these webcomics are totally free to browse as you please, I’m going to keep my own comments to a minimum, and simply link you to some of my favorite examples.)

Toothpaste for Dinner is from the mononymous Drew (who also produces Married to the Sea with his wife and fellow cartoonist Natalie Dee), and is great for the way it takes the cartoonist’s observations on every day life and satirizes them in a classic single-panel format. For a long time I had a bunch hung up in my cubicle, but the longer I work here the more legitimate work-related things demand cubicle wall space, and most have (sadly) come down.

The Fourth Law of Thermodynamics

The Fifth Law of Thermodynamics

Landlord Methods

Like Coffee?

There are almost no reoccuring characters (except for Drew’s dog Chester), but some of the frequent themes are office life and hipsters.

The Magic Pen

Number Two

The First Rule of Work Club

Constitutional Hipsters

So that’s Toothpaste for Dinner. You should also read this one every day.

It’s webcomics week!  (Since these webcomics are totally free to browse as you please, I’m going to keep my own comments to a minimum, and simply link you to some of my favorite examples.)

Chainsawsuit is from Kris Straub (also known for producing the Sci-Fi parody comic Starslip), and what makes it great is the way it translates what was clearly a bizarre stray thought by the author into a funny three-panel strip.

Aquarium Business Plan

Ghost Dad Rules

Sally the Cured Nymphomaniac

Some of his favorite topics are Furries, H.P. Lovecraft, and parodies of Garfield, Hell’s Kitchen, and Anime, but in my opinion the best strips are usually the random one-offs.

Hermione

Steampunk Fetishists

I’m Excited

So that’s Chainsawsuit. You can read it every day if you want!

Why do people get angry about things that have no genuine consequence? What is at the root of all this worthless anger?

Life is meaningless.

We are but the tiniest speck of a speck of a speck in a mind-bogglingly vast universe, and whether we are born or live or die is of no consequence. Imagine if you had a pinprick-sized birthmark between your second and third toe on your left foot. Now imagine you didn’t. That is how much of a difference our existence makes.

Okay. So how do we live?

Something inside of us desires meaning, but since there is no true meaning we can only be disappointed. What we want more than anything we can never truly have. Our options are: physical suicide, philosophical suicide, acceptance, or avoidance. Some people avoid the issue by using drugs or alcohol to shut their brains down completely, a few people commit suicide, even fewer struggle with acceptance, and the rest choose some form of philosophical suicide. When I say “philosophical suicide,” I’m referring to the (generally unconscious) decision to infuse elements of your surroundings with undue meaning, and then clinging to said surroundings as one would a life raft in the middle of an empty ocean.

Examples: religion, politics, and entertainment. These are the primary carriers of worthless anger.

In the face of a meaningless existence, the easiest way out is give everything over to “God’s plan.” Everything that happens is God’s plan, and you don’t have to understand it, because someone else is understanding it for you, and everything is going to be okay, because the plan is perfect. Problem solved. But when someone else has a different interpretation of God, and these interpretations seem incompatible, that’s when the anger starts. Someone is trying to take away your life raft and leave you treading water! And if you keep pushing in this direction for a while then, you know, there’s usually a war or something. Then no one’s happy.

That’s the most extreme type of philosophical suicide, but at its core it’s the same as all the others.

“Tea partiers” have their rallies, and express their worthless anger at the ruling party because they disagree with them on issues neither side fully understands. Politics is like sports, where you pick a team and root for them no matter what. Rally-goers are just the sports fans who paint their faces and openly wish the opposing quarterback would be seriously injured and forced to retire. There is no room for nuance or shades of gray. It doesn’t matter what’s actually in the health care reform bill (or any other bill), because whatever the opposing team is doing must be wrong, because the opposing team are the “bad guys” who are trying to steal my life raft. I use Republicans as an example only because they’re the angriest right now. When the cycle comes around again and they’re back in power, it will be the Democrats’ turn to have pointless rallies. No one has a monopoly on pointless, uninformed outrage.

And finally, some of us try to fill the void with what we think of as “art.” Despite the pretension of intellectual refinement, art aficionados are as prone to impotent fury as anyone else. Look at any internet comment board after a magazine posts yet another list of “The Top 100 Albums of All Time” (for example), and view the righteous indignation that Blonde on Blonde came two spots after Pet Sounds or that Otis Redding wasn’t in the Top 10 but Al Green was. Once the aficionado decides some particular work of art has meaning for them, then any disagreement, however slight, secretly carries with it the “life is meaningless” subtext.

So, if life is meaningless, then why bother even writing out this mini-essay? Because I’ve decided I want to have as much fun as I can before I inevitably die, since as far as I can tell nothing else can possibly matter, and everyone constantly arguing about stupid bullshit is seriously harshing my mellow. Please cut it out.

Thank you.

Check it out: Reinventing Alvin is now available on Smashwords for only $3.99!  The lowest price ever!  You can read it on your PC or any eReader!

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