Recently in Links Category

• How I learned to appreciate art house games. Interesting stuff.
• The future of shopping malls. Saw this last week at LA's Santa Monica Pier.
• The case for a downtown movie theater. Even Wooster has one.
• Dawn of the taco. Good luck Brent!
• Classifying the novel. Clever.
• Steampunk Random Story Generator. Funny 'cause it's true.
• Warren Ellis on SF magazines. "These are the walking dead."
• Warren Ellis: Print is Not Dead. "Don't be daft."
• Summer 2008 Goblin Fruit now up. Beautiful stuff.
• The little bookstore that could. Next time I'm in NYC...
• Harvard is funny. Wow, what a network.
• Sundance: The Science of Storytelling. Wow, what a panel.
• NYT: Content is Back. It left?
• Superheroes for Sale. Bordwell on Iron Man and The Dark Knight.
• Endicott Mythic Fiction on Goodreads. I miss the JOMA.
• 43Folders on Making Time to Make. It sounds so easy.

• Frotz brings IF to the iPhone. You're standing in a field with an expensive phone...
• Tate Liverpool launches first iPhone art exhibition tour. I should've done it years ago.
• NIN talking to HBO about Year Zero TV series. Trr-rr-rr-rr-rr-ansmedia!
• Criterion Collection's reference Blu-Ray player is a PS3. Sweet, so's mine!
• Canadian theaters open for gaming on 50-foot screens. I so called this.
• Kotaku: Should talent get their names on boxes? "Warren Ellis' Dead Space?" Hell yes.
• Warren Ellis' Dead Space. Like I said, hell yes.
• The secret books of game design. McCloud and Norman, sure; I've not read Alexander.
• Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone sells 300K copies. *spit take*
• Braid on XBLA sells 30K copies. Not yet profitable, but it's still very new.
• Eternity's Child creator moves to comics. 1.) Dyack rules, and 2.) see next item.
• Truly indie DS game: 15K hours to create. Why auteurship in games is nigh-impossible.
• Pokémon film franchise: US$455M. A new bullet for my "value of transmedia" slide.
• Who needs publishers? I have mixed feelings about this, of course.
• Brainy Gamer's narrative manifesto. Good lay-of-the-land survey here.
• Movable Type Pro and 4.2. TOTQ social network? Interesting.
• Alec Austin on fanfic vs. original fiction. Amen, brother.
• Excerpt from Michel Gondry's new comic. You read that right: comic.
• Preview footage of Coraline. Selick + Gaiman = Awesome.
• Koldkast.tv. Another iTV web-channel enters the fray.

• Jeff Smith and Scott McCloud on comics. Can't wait to visit Wexner.
• The 8 Kinds of Fun. Mahk is on the GAMBIT Advisory Committee.
• Star Wars 1942. Ooooh.
• Steampunk Star Wars. OOOOH.
• Steampunk accessories. It's the new new thing. Time to jump onboard.
• Adventure Game Studio. Projects, always more projects.

Haven't done one of these in a while either...

• Behind the Scenes at First Second Books. I love these tours.
• Warren Ellis' Freakangels stats. Hmmm.
• Scalzi offers writers advice on money. Double hmmmm.
• The poetics of comics. Cool stuff.
• Gaiman with his Henson Award. Very cool stuff.
• NYT: Starbucks takes a 3-hour coffee break. Remains to be seen if it means better coffee.

Apologies for the lack of depth in commentary; I think I'm fighting off a low-level version of the office plague du jour.

A couple of little notes before leaving the office for the rest of 2007...

• Tori Amos comic anthology coming in 2008. Comic Book Tattoo: awesome.
• Mass Effect as transmedia property. I smell a paper.
• Dead Space as transmedia property. I smell another paper.
• PICNIC conference videos. Must-see TV.

• Award-winning indie game Aquaria now available. Coming soon for the Mac.
• Dragon Quest IV trailer. Bring on Dragon Warrior for the DS!
• Craig Thompson work-in-progress. I love to see the evolution of this stuff.
• Humans are evolving faster. And here I thought it'd slowed down. Courtesy Uncle Warren.
• BusinessWeek: Hollywood's Quest for Innovation. A-yup.
• Noctem Aeternus. Oooo.
• Jeff Parker on Comic Writing for Artists. This will be crazy useful someday.
• Japanese cellular storytelling. Maho no i-rando. Magic Island. Bloody fantastic.
• Comics scholar Hillary Chute at Harvard. I'd love to read her PhD thesis.
• XNA 2.0 now available. Multiplayer at last.
• NYT's Judith Warner: Holier Than They. Sing it, sister.
• NYT: Crossover Dreams. Free on the web, paid for in print.
• Q&A with Jeff Smith. Wonderfully long and in-depth.
• CFP: The Uncanny Media Conference, 7-9 August 2008. Mwa ha ha.
• Comics exhibit at The Norman Rockwell Museum. Through May 26, 2008.

Gotta clear up some memory for tomorrow's big show, so here goes. Little to no commentary this time, still working on slides.

• JOMA: Fairy Tales for the 21st Century.
• Star Wars Shop offers Concept C-3PO, R2-D2 figures.
• IBM to launch cloud computing initiative.
• $170 Torpedo Projector. I want three.
• Veer: Estilo font. Considering this for a project.
• Uncle Warren: Fudged Numbers on SF Mags. May have posted this before; oh well.
• NYT: Big Executive of the Tiny Screen.
• Saft 1.0.1 Leopard compatible. Woo!
• The Society for Animation Studies. Awesome.
• NYT: Hokum that Stands the Test of Time. I love Ricky Jay.
• Clay Shirky and RU Sirius: is the Web good for Writers?
• ComicMix's Elayne Riggs on the WGA Strike.

• NYT: Questions You Should Never Ask a Writer. I love Doris Lessing.
• Ira Glass on storytelling. Noted for future reference.
• Get Lamp. A documentary on IF?
• Delicious Library 2 preview. JANUARY!?
• FlickrExport 3 preview. Gimme gimme.
• Cory Doctorow on SF mag design. Part I.
• Warren Ellis on SF mag design. Part II.
• Warren Ellis on SF magazine sales. Part III.
• GTA: International Media Poetry Contest. Sweet.

• Terra Nova: Rules v. Fiction. Intriguing thoughts on interactive narratives.
• NYT: The Rabbit-Eared Life. Henry gets a shout-out from Judith Warner.
• NYT: Stephen King on the short story. Going to see him next week; so stoked.
• Free The New Yorker Conference videos online. Hat tip to Smokler.
• Autumn Goblin Fruit online. Gotta submit one of these days.
• Charactereme? I miss Ksenia.
• The First Interstitial Salon. Very, very cool.

I've just finished up an, ahem, ambitious project at work, which means that I've finally had a chance to catch up on the news from the past week, some good, some bad, and some just interesting. On a personal front, I'm thoroughly excited because they've just opened up both a Cosi and a Sebastian's within a block of my office here on the MIT campus. Given the bleak nature of our dining options before, this is a Very Good Thing. (And that's about as close as I'll get to a "Cheese Sandwich" post for the daty, thanks.)

• {fray} returns! Derek is heading to print!
• Dragontouched: a WoW comic. It's not machinima, but what is it?
• Metal Gear Solid 4 trailer script. Matt's going to be either sad or stoked.
• Starbucks + iPhone: what he said. Hee hee.
• Flight 3 wins Harvey. Congrats to Kazu and company!
• NYT: Besting Mick Jagger. That's a great house.
• NYT:Buildings Designed to Communicate. Hmmm.
• Times Select RIP. Amen.
• Badassery. Sweet.
• RIP Madeline L'Engle. May space fold around her.
• Gaiman joins Clarion faculty. Wow.
• RIP Robert Jordan. Now the Wheel of Time will never conclude. Rats.