Creaking Floorboards, or Why My Back Is Hurting

So, I've had twelve days off work just now. Bit of travelling, bit of fun, bit of adding to the pile of stuff...

Yeah, just a bit...

Max Overload! - Part 4 (and the last part, for now)

And so we come to the final strip from Max Overload!, and it's a doozy! Definitely a case of "shit game, great comic" with this one, as it's about Greendog - which is a very, VERY boring platformer for the Mega Drive. Drawn by ILYA (aka Ed Hillyer, of Deadline and Crisis fame) and written by Ian Carney (who, along with Woodrow Phoenix created the intriguingly titled humour anthology SugarBuzz). Enjoy.

Max Overload! - Part 3

So what's next from Max Overload!? Why, it's something about that smashing caveman-romp of a game, Chuck Rock! Written by Cefn Ridout (editor of Doctor Who Magazine back in the 1980s) and scribbled by David Lyttleton who's done mad stuff for loads of different publications - most notably Red Dwarf Smegazine, Fortean Times, NME, The Guardian, Punch, The Independent, etc. The story here seems like it takes place sometime between (or during) Chuck Rock II: Son of Chuck and BC Racers. Enjoy!

Max Overload! - Part 2

Here we go again, with the next comic from Dark Horse's short-lived games magazine, Max Overload! - today, it's a nice little comic about ToeJam & Earl, written by Anne Caulfield (travel writer and Lenny Henry script writer), and drawn by Woodrow Phoenix (who also did Ecco the Dolphin for Sonic The Comic and The Sumo Family for The Independent On Sunday). Let's get the funk out, or something...

Terror in the Skies!

Several years ago, I read Erich von Däniken's Chariots of the Gods?, and for a couple of months after that I was completely sold on the idea that we were visited by intelligent beings from other planets, at the dawn of civilization, and that all the ancient carvings and statues, supposedly of gods, were actually depicting those visitors wowing us with their technological know-how. Then once I tried discussing it with other people, as well as putting a bit of rational thought towards it, I realised it was complete and utter bollocks. Still, for that short space of time it was nice to have my view of the universe altered - I'd definitely recommend reading that book if you haven't, just don't take it seriously, 'kay?

This morning, I read something else, something NEW - something that no matter how much I think about it, I can't find any holes in it. A theory bandied about over the decades but one that's never really been given a lot of exposure. Something that had me grinning and laughing with the "Oh My!"-ness of it all - something that when I've tried to talk about with people in my daily life it's all fell to pieces because I was too excited. Something that's instantly made the whole world seem at once a lot more interesting, a lot more exciting, and a WHOLE lot more terrifying. That thing?

Giant airborne jellyfish.

Max Overload! - Part 1

Back at the beginning of 1994, Dark Horse decided to launch a video games magazine, for some reason. Dark Horse's background was, of course, in comics, so it seemed like they could offer something unique to the world of gaming magazines. And offer they did, in the form of Max Overload! (exclamation mark their own). 

And that unique thing? Comics, that's right. Other gaming publications had done this before - Sega Power had Captain Ages and his punk pal, Rewop (good, but more of a piss-take than anything else), whilst Sonic The Comic and Load Runner were more comics with magazine-ish bits in them. Max Overload was a "proper" magazine (with reviews and previews and news and stuff), but it had comics as "main features", so to speak. Hard to explain really - it's a magazine with comics in it. There we go. Oh, and this first issue includes some free Lemmings stickers.