Above is a picture I found in a random forum of a storefront somewhere in Akihibara, Japan, advertising one of my favorite video games, Persona 3. I have been feverishly playing the PSP version for the past couple weeks, and of course I have been enjoying it. I have discussed my love of this series elsewhere on this blog, so I won’t go into it all over again. All I can say is if you played the PS2 version, and liked it, you will like the PSP remake. It is just different enough for fans of the original to find something new to love. Plus if you didn’t play it on HARD difficulty the first time around, now is your chance. At least that is what I am doing.

Since I don’t have any new models to show off (not yet, at least! but I am working on some!) I will show off a couple of Persona models by other people. First, here’s Izanagi Okami from Persona 4, by Franz Maxirus Feliciano:

Awesome work Franz! Great attention to detail! Next, here are a couple models by Geofrey Shank. Rasputin the MAD MONK and Tatsuya Sudou.

Geofrey has made a few other awesome boxpunx, like Spider Jerusalem from TRANSMETROPOLITAN, and also from Persona 2: Innocent Sin he made Joker and Hitler! (yes, that nazi bastard; if you ever wondered why P2:IS never came out in America, you have Adolf to blame!) If you want those guys, you need to check out his Deviant Art site: GEOFREYSHANK.DEVIANTART

Now, last but BY NO MEANS least, I want to show off these super sweet IMPS customs by my friend ABZ from OH-SHEET toys. She calls them “THE GLOOM CREW”. I love it! Click the image below for a slightly larger view of her excellent promo image!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD ALL THREE MODELS IN ONE .ZIP FILE!

I totally love how these little guys turned out! Plus it’s always really amazing to see someone else’s art on your toy, and I am honored that all three of these people chose to color some boxpunx, thanks so much everyone!

I leave you with a video from the PERSONA MUSIC LIVE show, a performance of songs from P3, P4, and the animation “Trinity Soul”. There are videos of all the songs performed available on YouTube. For fans like me who can’t make it to Japan, this is a real treat. For the non-Persona fans out there, uh, well, I err….

When will I be back? I don’t know. Soon, Hopefully. ^^

Here it is, BOXPUNX SERIES NINE: IMPS! Imaginary Monster Papercraft! Download and Enjoy!

Click me or the pic above to go straight there!

Models by Jason Harlan, Photos by Vin Breau.

Check out the rest of my gallery while you are there if you haven’t before. There are a few new items! Just click the word “harlancore” in the upper right hand corner, before the “/IMPS”.

(More Crystal Castles, I can’t get enough!)

FIRST, and most very importantly, I have decided to CLOSE ALL COMMENTS. No more, the comments I get are very very very few, unless of course you count SEX and DRUG comments. I just don’t understand it! I have set up a variety of safeguards and filters, but every day, I get a handful of these ridiculous comments from people trying to sell for the most part TERRIBLE things. While I was away, I have amassed over TWO THOUSAND of these unwanted comments, and I am TIRED of clearing them all out. Even though I have now turned off commenting, I still don’t actually expect it to work. WordPress may be free and easy to use, but like most things in our modern world, it does NOT work well.

I have chosen the option for NO TRACKBACKS….yet I get trackbacks ALL THE TIME.

I have filters saying mark posts with specific words as SPAM…yet still they find their way into the “waiting for approval” list.

I don’t blame WordPress for this (I never expect too much from ANYTHING anymore), I blame the evil people sending these comments.

SOOOOOO….if you want to say something about a post or to me, send me an email or find me on Facebook. Most of you already do that anyway. And I think thats all I want to say about that.

Now for the FUN stuff: First, I want to show off an image I found of the winner of the Boxpunx contest held way back in Computer Arts Projects #126. The winning model was designed by the super talented DOLLY OBLONG. I have no idea how long ago this was announced, no one ever contacted me to let me know who won, I just kind of stumbled across it while trying to catch up on “what’s new” out there after being away from my computer for so long. If Computer Arts sent me an email, I still have not found it. And if it was announced in an issue, well, I don’t have constant access to their magazines, the book stores near may house only sometimes carry them. I had to drive ALL OVER TOWN to get my copy of #126. So attention kids, just because you are in a magazine doesn’t mean you will ever actually SEE it. Some publications have been gracious enough to send me a copy, others I never heard from again after the work was done. At first I thought it was unusual, but after a while I got used to it. And my experience matches other designers that I know, so whatever. Not a big deal, ultimately.

Either way, Dolly did a great job and congratulations to her, and every one she sent a copy to!

Next up, I want to show off a series of models by my buddy GAVIN STONE, curator of the awesome website CLAN OF THE FANBOYS, and contributing writer to a few others. I also asked him to help with HEAVY PAPER, so if we get back to that ever, he will be a part of it. These models were made just before and during my time spent away (Did I mention I was in the hospital?) and I am happy to finally be posting these! Anyone fond of STAR WARS or SPACE CHANNEL 5?

ULALA:

PURGE:

HAN SOLO:

I think they all turned out awesome! Gavin says he plans to make some other ones as time goes by (including Chewbacca!) and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with! Enjoy the models! Then go check out his site!

Boxpunx series 9: Imaginary monster papercraft (IMPS!) is all cut out and assembled. Now just to take pictures. I do not own a camera so I will continue to get my friend Vin to do me the honors. I don’t expect him to get around to it for a couple more days, but I will continue to bug him every day. I bet we will have something to show by tuesday, maybe wednesday. I am not the only one who has been in less than perfect health, I had face and tooth issues, he has had some back and shoulder issues. He says he is feeling better, after taking even longer off of work than I did, and going to physical therapy. So yeah, lots and lots of fun has been had over the past couple of months.

I think that’s enough posting for now. WordPress is sooooo slooooowwwww when it comes to uploading things so even though this post doesn’t seem very long, it took well over an hour to create.

I will end with a video from THE RUNAWAYS movie by Floria Sigismondi, starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning. If you like rock n roll movies, you will definitely like this one. I do, and did. The band was very popular with the “big kids” when I was growing up in the seventies, and was where Joan Jett and Lita Ford got their start. The song is called “Cherry Bomb.” Hot stuff. This type of thing simply does not exist anymore.

At last, I am slowly trying to re-enter society. After a few health issues, money issues, and just sheer exhaustion issues, I again feel healthy, well rested, and all-gamed-out. I still haven’t finished either of the Final Fantasy or Dragon Quest games I mentioned last post, but I did play through the entirety of RED DEAD REDEMPTION. And yeah, I totally dug it. Two kudos! Highly recommended.

Also while I was away, I finally had the revelation I was so desperately searching for. What is Boxpunx series NINE going to look like? Well, I have seen it, and yes, it’s pretty cool! I call them IMPS, which to me means “Imaginary Monster Papercraft”. Expect twelve cute little creatures very soon. I am really proud of both the new model and the designs, but mostly I am proud of the possibilities the new model presents. I don’t want to say too much right now, I am only posting this to build hype!

So, anyway, I did say I wouldn’t post anything till I had made a new model, and since the last post I have made at least 50 models, trying to work the kinks out of the next series. Since they are still not ready to post (I wanna get some photos taken before posting any templates) I will instead post a new “classic” boxpunx model, the next entry into my “endless” series.

I have said before that I don’t typically do requests, but am totally not against being sent them, since there may be a good idea in there somewhere. A gentleman by the name of Tom Demeulemeester sent me one I thought was pretty great. He is a new father and asked if I would make a baby boxpunx! (Again, congratulations Tom!) So here is the baby boxpunx I made, not just for him, but for everyone.

I think it turned out nice and cute, I hope you do too!

There are many other things I could post, but I want to save some of it . Over the next few days I plan to post some of the models that have been sent to me, as well as some other cool things I have seen while I was away. I really want to get back to posting regularly, and I think I have enough material now to do so, so expect a surge in productivity from me as I try to get back into the swing of things.

Oh, and if you didn’t know, the book PAPERTOYS! has been released by MONSA, coutesy of Louis Bou (Thanks Lou!) and it looks absolutely awesome. Tons of photos and models are included within, and even if you can’t read it, it’s still worth picking up if you are a fan of papercraft. Here is the cover. If you click on it, it will take you to Amazon where you can buy it.

Ok, more tomorrow (if all goes as planned!) but for now I leave you with my latest musical obsession CRYSTAL CASTLES. Here is “Xxzcuzx Me”.

And here is “Baptism”. Toatally insane and brilliant.

Wait! One more thing…many people have written me asking about the HEAVY PAPER magazine. It’s true, I think I may have bitten off more than I could chew, since once I started creating the pages, I realized my presentation would take a looooong time to complete. But since work has been done, I think I should try to complete at least the first issue, let everyone see what I did, and see where we go from there. So I plan to return to it, but I really need to dial it back a bit. Too ambitious, perhaps. Maybe the first issue will inspire some people to offer their assistance…..hmmmm….

Wow, that’s the longest break yet, I think. My apologies to anyone coming here to see something new and finding nothing but Go-Go’s videos. But sometimes that’s how I roll.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a pretty random and occasionally unreliable person. I am easily distracted. Like many of you, I like to observe art, not just make it. I spend a lot of time saving different universes in video games as well. Typically I become really distracted when I am into a game. I am almost always into a game. Be it old or new, something pixelated or polygonal has my attention. It’s amazing how I make any papercraft at all considering how many games I have played or am currently playing.

You could separate the games I like into two categories: The good and the EPIC. The good are the games I am playing over long periods of time, stopping occasionally to play something else, but always coming back to, devoting a bunch of time to, then switching again.

The epic are the ones that skip good status and go straight from tryout to epic. Tryout status is of course any game I play and either don’t know if I like it yet, or didn’t like but tried it out. Epic status is a game that once I start, I play it all the way to the end with very few if any breaks before playing another game. There are always breaks, but few if a game REALLY impresses me for any reason. So both good and epic games are games that I think are a lot of fun.

BUT…there are epic games that are good games, meaning, ones that are just so long that I will inevitably TRYOUT a game that becomes EPIC keeping me away from the other epic game I was playing. Are you still with me?

Plus older games are just longer than newer games. I am still playing many old games, specifically playstation one games. Right now I am playing Dragon Warrior 7. I bought it way back in the day, and when I flipped the manual around I saw an advertisement for Dragon Warrior IV coming 2002. So I thought cool, they are going to remake the old games, some of which we never got here. Instead of playing number 7 I shelved it, waiting for the remakes. They never happened, until more recently of course, and on the nintendo DS instead of the playstation 1, and I have played both the Dragon Quest IV and Dragon Quest V remakes and loved both. I am still running around both worlds finding new things, these are two very long, very robust, old-school classic role playing games, I highly recommend them!

So, uh, anyway…I had to go and grab that dusty but now wonderfully attractive Dragon Warrior Seven for Sony playstation one! off of the shelf and find out what it was all about. Boy was I in for a shock.

This game was pretty much set up in the same style as the DS remakes, but this was the precursor, or whatever, regardless, its just more and more of the same but more. Does that make sense? When I started it I couldn’t put it down, it had become epic rather quickly, and I was loving it. Definitely a game where the beauty just unfolds before your eyes, and this game does that masterfully. To put it simply, in the beginning your world is very small, and it opens before you in a way that I can only compare to one of the most classic of old school rpgs, Chrono Trigger. For me to compare a game to that game, that is serious stuff, and I am serious, Dragon Quest VII is an awesome game, if you love old school rpgs of course. If not, err…I….uh….

So you can imagine me being pretty confused when I was in the xbox 360 aisle of the local Fryes department store holding a copy of Final Fantasy XIII on release day. In the back of my mind I was afraid to stop playing DQVII for as long as I suspected the game in my hand would cause. But unfortunately there was enough cash in my pocket to afford it so I was powerless to prevent myself from buying it (I tried to fight these urges in the past, I always fail) so I went home with it because you know, it was FINAL FANTASY XIII.

What do I think about it?

I think it is good, and if you like old school or new school rpgs you already have it, or have at least tried it out.

I will definitely be playing FFXIII to the end. Taking breaks occasionally to play DQVII.

Red Dead Redemption is on the horizon.

And I am trying to finish repainting the couple hundred WARHAMMER 40,000 miniatures I have collected over the past, wow, has it been twenty years? That’s incredible. But the last game I played was about 10 years ago!

(coolest mini pic from the web I could find! Not mine, but I wish!)

The armies I built were space marines, chaos space marines, and Eldar. Vin and I have been painting and modding old stuff like fiends. Not just minis, but terrain as well. It has been, just as it was in the past, before the internet, a perfect way of clearing my mind and giving me some peace and some focus. If I am ever going to make a new boxpunx series I need time to THINK!

Looking back at all the series, I feel like I have covered so much of the landscape of my mind. At least the less than horrible parts I am willing to share, hehe.

Boxpunx basically tells a story about me. Every model gives a little insight into what I like, or what I think.

Which games do I like? It’s all in there.

Toys, shows, movies, genres, all kinds of things that entertained me through out my life. Not just anything, but things I really liked. I don’t want to just make a model about anything, I want it to have a special meaning to me. I imagine any one who designs a toy thinks and feels this way.

My political and religious views are in there. Some morality. Some tongue in cheek. I like comedy. I do not wish to know someone who doesn’t.

Hell, the last batch were a bunch of band T-shirts, because I couldn’t think of anything else I really really liked that I hadn’t done yet, except perhaps music.

Which bring us to now, I am trying to come up with something original. The problem is I haven’t come up with the ONE yet. That model that goes from TRYOUT straight to EPIC status, skipping GOOD entirely.

When I do get there, I will let you know. In the meantime, I hope you don’t mind the WH40K pics that are going to come soon.

I played first and second edition 40K heavily and now here we have returned to it in it’s fifth edition. Vin and I are still learning the new rules, but we have a few battles under our belts (right now we are just pitting space marines against orks, and I have more losses than wins! Those orks are tough! And there is too many of them COMING!)

Oh well. Life is random. Did I mention I had to go to the hospital? That was crazy, my face puffed up like a balloon! Once drained of whatever puffed me up I had to have an infected tooth removed. Very brutal. It’s gone now. The worst part is I have no insurance of any kind.

God bless America & Skulls for the Skull Throne.

I am still working on my little fiction story. I have 12 chapters of a rough draft going so far. I still have no intentions of pursuing writing over drawing and painting, but it has been fun doing it, and once it is finished, if it is something I am proud of, I will share it. If not, I will write something new. At least that’s what I Imagine I will do.

And I killed HEAVY PAPER for now. Maybe I will resurrect it with some black magic voodoo at a later date. The art I was making for it, I will just show here as I complete it over a longer period of time. The content still exists, but the format has changed, really.

I will try make a new Boxpunx about something I like next post, I want to make something 40K related, but I just haven’t nailed an attractive concept yet.

Forgive me if I don’t consider suggestions very well, but I still appreciate them, so if you want, send them! I just can’t guarantee I will ever make them! Sorry! Download the template and ask your artist friend to make you one. Don’t ask him or her to make you a whole series though, as they may have a lot on their plate already.

If you don’t have an artist friend, I suggest you get one.

Oh my goodness! An update! It has really been a while this time. I really don’t have anything to show, only a few words to share.

Let’s get right to it, the subject of this post. I have decided to take a break from making papercraft and plan to put BOXPUNX on the back burner for a while. That only means one thing: I won’t be making new boxpunx models.

But, remember, before that thought sets in, remember that there are over 300 boxpunx models in circulation right now. A handful of blank templates waiting for people to draw all over. Boxpunx still EXISTS, I am just not making new ones.

Why not? It’s simple: I am tired. Even now, I sit here in my room, continuously drinking coffee after coffee, I think I am like on cup number twelve, yet I am still tired. I am so drowsy. Also, I really want to stop and think about new ideas, allow time for improvement, revelation, and evolution.

I watched this podcast called Lynchland, starring the very talented and very funny Liam Lynch, and I not only loved the brilliance of it, it inspired me to want to do more. Although I don’t know what “more” exactly means, I do know I have some unfinished business outside the realm of papercraft.

What I plan to do FIRST is something that probably NONE of my papercraft fans are going to like, or even care about in the slightest. That’s ok with me, because like I said, BOXPUNX Still exists, and I will one day, return to it. I Know I will. But anyone who knows anything about me knows I also like to draw, make music, and WRITE.

After reading THE DARK TOWER I was so very inspired to finish something I started on long ago. This crazy story idea I have had for a while, kind of a biography but one that isn’t true at all really, only some of it, but for the most part it is a fantasy story. It’s not a papercraft story, that’s for sure.

Writing is not a new thing for me. I have always liked writing, drawing, and making music. For the most part I think the music I make is something only I will ever enjoy, and I say that because it has never garnered the kind of response I get from my drawings or prose, most just kind of hurridly leave the room to avoid saying much. Again, that’s ok, I know with the music I try so hard to make something unique that the average person will find it unlistenable. Whatever. ^^

I can draw well, but I am no Da Vinci. I am not sure I want to be either, but I figure I will always draw. Period.

But what about writing? Well, I have always written. Poetry, stories, or role playing game campaigns. I never thought of myself as a “novelist”, simply because most of the things I write I have always thought would be less enjoyable than my music. Ever heard of an artist being his own worst critic? It’s so very true. Ask anyone who thinks he or she is an artist.

After reading a few books and seeing a few things in a way I had never seen them before gave me the strength (and courage!) to not only try to turn this series of stories banging around in my head into a full blown novel, but one that I might actually share with people.

So, in order to do this right, I need a re-education. I want to learn about a million things, one of which is grammar. A refresher course in all that is punctuation. It will take time, to learn what I need and then to actually do the work. I have already done an outline, one that gets more extensive everyday, and the introduction along with the first four chapters are written as we speak. I already know how its going to end. If it is good, I already know what book two and three will be about. Pieces of this story started forming when I was about 16, only now at age 30-something do I find myself fleshing it out, and can see it becoming more real with every word I type.

What does this mean for HEAVY PAPER? Well, you can maybe blame HEAVY PAPER ultimately for all of this. I wanted to make a comic strip, based on a different story idea I had, this one centered on BOXPUNX and papercraft, but full of crazy things as well. But when I got about 30 pages in, I couldn’t help but feeling I was putting a tremendous amount of effort into the wrong damn thing.

Why don’t you stop all this unnecessary madness, and write Damien’s fucking story already?

The world does not need a new papercraft zine, at least not of the sort I was making! I may still finish the first issue someday, if only to not completely waste what was done, but in all honesty, the comic strip was so AMBITIOUS that coloring one page could take days! It looks beautiful, I still want to show it off, but I don’t think it will be done anytime soon, it is so exhausting!

Anyway, I think that is enough of an explanation. If you are new to this site and my world, please, don’t think you missed out on BOXPUNX because there are still 100′s of posts here to browse, and 100′s of models here for you to download. If you cannot constructively kill an hour here at my site, even if it hasn’t been updated for months, then I really should take the whole thing down, because I have failed in what I have tried to do. Which was to create a website with substance, centered around topics I love.

Hi again, tis’ been awhile, I know this. But I have returned with a small preview, and 5 new models. Five tiny new models, this time they are interpretations of the band DETHKLOK from the Adult Swim cartoon Metalocalypse. Click any of the preview images for a larger version!

Initially I was going to include these models with the first issue of HEAVY PAPER, but since then I have changed the format a bit, and one of the significant changes was the resolution. Instead of making it 150 DPI I have dropped the zine down to 72 DPI, with is too low to print. I figure since it will be a zine about ART not TEMPLATES maybe it shouldn’t be printable. I also changed the page size from 8.5 x 11 to 17 by 11, so I can make two-page spreads without having a line thru the center.

More changes: Instead of emailing a sample issue to artists that I think might be interested in contributing, I have now decided to make the preview issue available to everyone, and if you want to submit something, you will have to download and look thru the sample issue to find the guidelines. All it took was someone asking me “what if you miss someone?” to cause me to change the plan. Hopefully it is for the better.

So, expect a downloadable preview issue of HEAVY PAPER #21 when next I post, and inside you will find the submission DO’s and DONT’s. Please don’t send me anything till you have looked at the zine.

Besides working on HEAVY PAPER, I have also been reading a lot. I have become obsessed, and I think my strong interest in video games is finally dying out. I am still into games, and still plan to play games, especially the games I own but haven’t finished, but I am slowing down, playing less often. It’s like all my focuses are shifting at once. Instead of playing video games and reading comics I want to play tabletop rpgs and read as many books as I can. Instead of making new boxpunx I want to make new illustrations, using boxpunx as the inspiration, and still use my skills to promote papercraft as ART and papercrafters as ARTISTS. I am even more into electronic music now more than ever before.

I will say this about HEAVY PAPER, it will be BOXPUNX HEAVY, no doubt. But instead of new stuff, I fully intend to recap all the old stuff throughout the life of this zine. Even though each issue will have a theme of some kind, the overlying themes of this concept are:

1.) To represent papercrafters as talented illustrators.

2.) To glorify that which has already been done, and perhaps forgotten. Or never seen. To remember how interesting the past can be!

Here are two more preview pages, to sweeten the deal, but that’s it, when I return, we will have a full blown preview issue, 30 + pages. And if I can get people to submit, hopefully it will be 75-100 pages long in it’s completed form. That’s of course counting every page as 2 pages, like an open book or magazine. Regardless, if no one submits, it will be 50 pages for sure. The whole thing is already laid out, and many pages are done already. Just a few more tweaks, and maybe by this time next week it will be downloadable.

Click images to enlarge them!

Until next time, here is The Knife with the amazing “Forest Families”. This is a live clip, and the recording is good, so don’t be put off. Plus, they have some really cool animation playing on a thin screen in front of them (or something, I really don’t know!) and the effect looks really neat. Watch it for that if nothing else.

If you are one of those people who never watch the videos I post, that’s too bad, because I always try to pick something either visually or aurally interesting, in what I think is a truly creative manner, and sometimes, if I am lucky, it’s both. I understand not everyone will like what I post, I just hope people click the videos every now and again, and hopefully you find something new to love. Kind of like me with The Dark Tower. As far as I am concerned, Nothing is more exciting than finding a new thing to love!

Wow, I rambled on a bit there, but eh, I guess that’s what a blog is for right, a place where we can all publicly ramble. I hope at least some of it was interesting…

Anyway, (*ramble*ramble*) now that the Dark Tower has been finished, I am reading both the Elric of Melnibone saga by Michael Moorcock and the Sookie Stackhouse mysteries by Charlaine Harris. I am also inches away from cracking open The Stand by Stephen King. I feel like I may have felt if I had never played a Final Fantasy type game before now and somehow I ended up with a copy of part 12, played it, loved it, and now have not only 11 more Final Fantasy games to play, but a whole host of other similiar things. I am not so daft that I didn’t realize “Books are a magical doorway to the wonderful world of Imaginationland!”, there just didn’t seem to be enough time before, since I was dedicating so much of it to all these other things. I always thought I would get around to serious reading one day.

So yeah, it’s very exciting to see that day finally arrive! Here’s one more video from THE KNIFE! This is a get up and RUN THE HELL OUT OF THERE song, if it was on the soundtrack to your life, this would be playing the day you did something incredible. It’s called LISTEN NOW.

Here is a little preview of HEAVY PAPER. Over the next couple of posts I plan to show a few bits and pieces, today I will show off the comic strip I have been working on. I call it “Adventures in Boxes”. The first image is a scan of page 24, unfinished.

This is page seven, fully inked.

This is the completed page seven.

I have cranked out about 30 pages of random nonsense so far. The comic is not strictly about papercraft, but it will reference it, as well as feature an intrusive boxpunx slant. I am not only making a comic to put in the zine, but various drawings as well. Next time I will show some scans from that element. With each preview I will explain more and more about the zine, slowly unwrapping it until the first issue is completed. Oh, and it won’t be “issue number one”, instead the first issue will be number 21. Why? I will explain later. Until then, here is another track by The Knife.

Maybe I should have posted that on January 1st. I think I may have even wanted to. It is hard to say, so much has happened since the last time I posted something. Dec 24th was it? ( I had to cheat to know that of course^^) Not that long ago, but it seems much longer.

For the most part, I have been working hard on HEAVY PAPER, trying to create a sort of sample issue, something I could parade around to other artists who might be interested in the concept. I also have been playing Dungeons & Dragons with my roommates. This is something nerds like me do. We haven’t played it in weeks though, further back than the last post even, but it is worth noting that over the years we have made characters on more than one occasion, played thru various modules, tried different classes, had various types of fun. So even though we don’t play all the time, we do play often enough that it would be fair to say we are always in the middle of an adventure.

I had been thinking for a while that I might like to run a game. I have before, but it has been a while. I have run games using various systems, ranging from D&D to Mage: the ascension to Cyberpunk 2020. Vin and I together have run live action Vampire: the masquerade games, on more than one occasion…full-on hardcore nerd and lovin’ it, thankee-sai.

If you hadn’t got this before, the boxpunx photographer and the boxpunx creator are very good friends. Boxpunx wouldn’t be what it is without his touch.

What was I going to say again? Oh yeah, what it is I had been doing recently….so anyway I wanted to write a game and after playing Fallout 3 I thought what a beautiful time to run a Gamma World adventure! Let’s play the first three modules, old rules and all. I even as time went by decided to not just play using the old stuff, but to maybe “re-write” the old stuff, just enough, so that my friends and I could play with the old flavor, but with my own twist.

This is also something nerds like me do.

That was when Vin insisted I go and see Roland first. I really needed to. In a way I knew that I needed to, it came up too often. I guess now was as good a time as any.

Harlancore began following the gunslinger, who was following the man in black.

Vin suggested, “Before you write a Gamma World adventure, maybe you should read The Dark Tower!“. So I did.

Or I should say, so I am. I am not done yet, it’s a seven-book long series, and I am somewhere in the middle of book 5 at the moment, “Wolves of the Calla”. I am not going to say anything about the story. Not a word. But I will state a few things and then briskly move on.

1.) I have never read a Stephen King book before now, but have seen pretty much every film and TV mini-series. Although I know the books are better. ( How can I not? it’s the kind of thing people never stop saying! )
2.) I have heard about The Dark Tower books from someone somewhere pretty much since they came out. Seemingly all my life, and always glowingly.
3.) I have spent perhaps too much time dedicated to reading mostly comic books. Perhaps way too much.
4.) I am madly madly in love with these books! It’s like the coolest RPG I have ever played, entirely in my own head!

It hasn’t completely distracted me though, on certain days definitely, it couldn’t be helped really, but for the most part, a large chunk of time has been dedicated to the new project. I am so very close to being so very close. I need to make a couple new models and post them to pass the time. Maybe I will go do that now…( …as I reach for the Stephen King book lying by the bed…calling me…Ka is like the wind… )

Next time I will post something actually from the ‘zine, like maybe the cover or an un-colored page from the boxpunx comic strip. You can see some of the photos Vin has taken NOW if you can find his link in my blogroll, it’s called VIN’S TUMBLR SITE. Good luck. Here’s a clue: it’s alphabetical…