As part of being a member of webcomics.com (which I heartily recommend, by the way) we’re doing homework each month. Homework! I never did it back in the day but anyway.

This month’s homework was to do a character turnaround so I did one with Action Sally:

Comments, folks?

Grabbed this tonight. I’m sure you know how much I love buying games I already own again and again, especially when it comes to the Commodore 64, so this was a no brainer when I saw the store had been updated with SPACE TAXI and (wait for it…) WIZBALL.

Hang on a second, I gotta catch my breath.

SPACE TAXI AND WIZBALL HOLY CRAP IN A SANDWICH YES

So let’s take a look at how these games turned out in addition to some of the new stuff that’s part of the 1.6 release.

Space Taxi is one of the greatest C64 games ever made. It’s just a fact and if you’re not on board with it than you’re my enemy, it’s that simple. Imagine Lunar Lander with characters that you pick up and transport to different areas, and really bizarre landscapes like a beach and a giant growing cactus. I love it.

It controls really well – surprisingly well – on the iPhone. Space Taxi is a very sensitive game in the best of times but I didn’t really have problems flying around the first couple of levels. It is a bit tricky if you play in the half screen view since you tend to oversteer a lot so play in the full screen view if you can.

One item of note is that the game costs about twice as much as most of the other games on the service – totally worth it to me, especially if the money goes to the original creator. (Oh yeah, the title screen shows we’re playing a cracked copy of the game – what’s up with that?)

The BIG question everyone will have with Space Taxi is: What about the cheesy speech? I’m sorry to report that the speech really isn’t emulated at all – it just kind of comes out as a series of pops which makes me think the SID chip isn’t really being emulated 100% faithfully. A shame, but I hope it gets fixed soon. Which brings me neatly onto…

…Wizball, which to me is the definitive Commodore 64 experience. It just does everything right and to me is pretty much the perfect video game. When the title screen appears and Martin Galway’s incredible soundtrack blasts effortlessly out of the iPhone speakers, oh man, you couldn’t get rid of the smile on my face. Wizball. On my iPhone. Suddenly I feel like my iPhone is complete.

Playing it though…hmm. There’s problems. Wizball has always been one of the trickiest games to get working right, and goodness knows the C64 itself is a tricky enough bugger to emulate properly, but…there’s a couple of issues. Wiz sometimes disappears off the screen for a few seconds, and the colour pots alternate on and off with the power up icons instead of having their own spaces. The power up icons aren’t visible at all in half screen mode and are only half visible in full screen mode – I guess because in the original they were sprites in the outside border.

Controls don’t work that well – Wizball is a real joystick game if ever there was one and touch controls could never work right. I barely like playing Wizball with a dpad. I adjusted after a little while but it adds a smidge of lag to everything and once you get into the colour complete stage you shouldn’t expect to last long. I’m sure I’ll get better at it as time goes on but I can’t see myself playing this as readily as I would if it was on a more tactile system.

The notes in 1.6 say that you can adjust the sensitively of each game’s controls but I can’t see where that is. Hmm.

OH! There’s a ton of new free games with the 1.6 release, including Jeff Minter’s lawn ‘em up Hovver Bovver (still great and I love that his games are geting re-released on here for free, though I’d gladly pay for them) and a conversion of Data East coin op Express Raider / Western Express. So that’s good. Other new games that came with the 1.6 release include Boulderdash II (which was never my thing) and Super Pipeline, which was a cool game back in the day. So glad to see these ‘back of the catalogue’ games are getting a release.

I really wish I knew what the road map for C64 iPhone was. Are they going to try and improve the emulation issues on already released games, or are they just pressing on with new games in further releases?

At the end of the day – SPACE TAXI is still SPACE TAXI so that’s worthwhile. Even a compromised version of Wizball is still better than a slap in the face and it’s the only way to play it on the move since the DS Commodore 64 emulator can’t load Wizball for some weird reason. Huzzah!

Buying games I already own over and over again is a beloved hobby of mine, and the Commodore 64 is the center of this money-wasting activity. I can’t help it, it’s an addiction!

I already own five working Commodore 64s, mostly obtained through eBay auctions and people handing them to me because they knew I was into “that sort of stuff”. They all work fine and I have one set up at home and one here at work.

The trouble really begins when it comes to emulation. All my PCs at home and at work have a C64 emulator installed. I put homebrew on my Nintendo DS and Nintendo Wii specifically so i can get C64 emulators on them. I was going to jailbreak my iPhone because I heard there was a C64 emulator for it, but there’s an official C64 emulator out for it now so I just got that instead. Oh, and I put a C64 emulator on my Dreamcast because well frankly Space Taxi is better than Crazy Taxi any day.

The iPhone C64 app is interesting because you have to buy most of the games that are released for the service. You get a couple of games for free (the excellent International Soccer and Laser Squad are free with purchase of the app, and are worth the admission price easily) and most games are 99 cents a piece. I bought Microprose Soccer for it and it’s excellent but not as playable as the original – it’s one of those games that really needs a joystick for precise control. Oddly enough Laser Squad is MORE playable without a joystick.

I have to admit I never bought Microprose Soccer back in the day so it’s good karma to actually buy it now…over twenty years since it came out. Oh well, better late than never, right? *cough*

I’m super excited about Wizball, International Karate + and Elite coming out for it – they’re like the holy trinity of C64 games. Then again I already have the originals of these and can play them any time I want now so why am I excited? Probably the idea of being able to play Wizball at any time because I’m never without the iPhone.

So what Commodore 64 games did you love? And which ones would you still pay good money for?

So the interwebs are abuzz with talk that Kevin Smith was ejected from a Southwest Air flight the other night because he’s too fat.

I think I’ve flown with them once or twice, I can’t recall, and I don’t really know what to think about the whole deal. I mean, there’s no doubt that the seats on these little flights are way too small even for regular sized people because God forbid anyone be able to get some elbow room to read a book, much less work on a laptop. That’s pretty much the main reason I hate those flights because I can’t get anything done while suspended in mid air for those long hours.

You know what gets me though? It’s the way they handled removing him from the flight. Instead of going straight up at the check in booth “No, damn it, you’re too damn big to get on this ride” they waited until he was sitting in his seat and everyone was ready to go before pulling him back out.

That scares the crap out of me.

Not because I’m a fatty (though good Lord knows I am) but because I have this horrible fear that I’ll be taken away by the flight authorities for…something. Anything. They finally figure out that I never turn off my mobile phone while on the flight. They notice that I’m not really paying attention while they’re doing the safety demonstration. They get suspicious about how many weird electronics I have in my bag. They saw I stole the headphones out of business class last time.

It’s pretty scary to think they can remove you at any time, for no real reason. And frankly it’s a really low thing to do to drag someone out in front of everyone. Christ, I hope that never happens to me.

On a side note I’ve been reading forum posts about the whole incident and people are making fun of the shorts he always wears. They’re kind of jean short things. Jorts. Sheans?

ANYWAY I WEAR THOSE SHORTS EVERY DAY.

I’ve finally gotten off my giant bean bag (well actually it’s a giant sack of potatoes but who’s counting) and set up a Facebook fan page for our lovable plant-based heroes! Hoorah! It’s what all the cool kids are doing these days apparently, and I’m ever so eager to be thought of as cool.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Plant-Man-Flowerin/284726619457 is the link you need to activate in your Web Terminal Device. I don’t know how that works ask a grown up to help.

I’ll be adding all sorts of little goodies to the page – next week I’m adding character grids which is a cool little technique I’m using to learn more about the characters that fill my head all day long. Plus I’ll put up sketches and other bits and pieces. Come on by and say hi!

“FIVE DOLLARS FOR A HOT CHOCOLATE FROM THE STARBUCKS ACROSS THE ROAD?! AGH”

Man I sure hope the poll results don’t change before Monday, because I’m gonna be royally stuffed.

In other news, the locals are duly impressed with my over the top “Alf from Home and Away” Australia accent. I expressed wonderment with their “dollar bills” and told everyone how good a documentary Crocodile Dundee was.

Happy 24 Hour Comics day, everyone!

Hi! I’ve decided on what the name of the Plant-Man book will be: Small But Perfectly Formed.

It’ll be a manga-sized book with over a hundred pages of wacky tomfoolery, hence the name. It’ll collect many of Plant-Man and Flowerin’s first adventures with a handful of new comics, never-before seen pieces of art and a surprise or two. With a bit of luck we’ll have it on sale here before Christmas!

I don’t have any details on the price yet but stay tuned. I’m really excited about having a piece of Plant-Man in my hands.

Work on the cover has begun. I started with a couple of quick sketches, trying to make an image that works with the title and somehow sums up the feel of the comic:

Trampoline, eating cake and…being shrunk? OK, I guess. Let’s keep going…

I like the one where they’re looking at the bonsai tree. It’s about plants!

Then I was tinkering with a more arty one, with close ups of the character’s eyes and some character poses next to them:

I like it but it’s not really evoking the feel of the comic. I showed the sketches to the wife, each image on a seperate layer and then she grabbed Photoshop and made this:

Hee, she’s funny. BUT! It kick started an idea…how about a cover drawn in crayon, like it was drawn by Flowerin’?

I like this one. I like this one a lot. It might read a bit too kiddie given some of the humor inside…

So…what do YOU think? Maybe none of these ideas will end up as the final cover – all I know is that I want it to be vibrant, colorful and evoking the carefree attitude of the comic. Please let me know what you think!

So you might be wondering just what is so special about the new story, Choose Your Own Plant-Man. You might also be wondering about what that smell is, but that’s not important right now.

Choose Your Own Plant-Man is an interactive story! That’s right, YOU decide what happens next! Simply vote for what you want to see happen in the poll on the right. The winning poll decides how the story goes! Wow the future really is here alright.

Okay there is a drawback to this awesome interactivity…while this story is going, Plant-Man is going to be a weekly comic. The trick is of course that I’ve written the story ahead of time, and YOUR decisions will determine if we get to the good ending or one of those horrible endings that you pretend didn’t happen!

Let’s see how this goes and how quickly I can build up a buffer again. Thanks for your support!

I’m in the middle of doing a long form story on Plant-Man at the moment. Well, that’s nothing new, because Plant-Man has always been long form. The funny thing is that I never thought it was.

As you might know I started doing Plant-Man + Flowerin’ as a mini comic, and they usually ran to about 12 to 15 pages of story. Compared to a regular Marvel or DC book which had 22 pages of content each issue or a graphic novel that ran anywhere from 48 to 72 pages, I always felt that Plant-Man was pretty small.

On the web however even a 12 page story is treated as an epic. Weird, huh? I think a lot of its comes from the way most webcomics are done as a traditional 3 or 4 panel strip format. They’re easy to digest, you don’t have to scroll, and you’re pretty much guaranteed a joke at the end.

A 6-or-so panel page in a multi page story on the other hand doesn’t have those conventions and so people tend to stay away from them. It makes drawing in and keeping an audience a hell of a lot harder than something like, say, Funny Webcomic, which you can drop in and out of with no prior knowledge needed. A strip comic is also a lot quicker to get through, too, which can be seen as a plus.

On the negative side though strips (typically) don’t have as much depth or length to the story-lines. I know I put a lot of jokes in Plant-Man (well, in theory) but I don’t feel like I have to do a joke every four panels or whatever.

I like the form of the full page, it’s something I’m comfortable with and I’d hate to have to drop it completely in order to keep doing comics online.

I think a week or so of ‘strip’ type Plant-Mans would be good…what do you think?