Just a link this week.

And no botched lyrics in this one, I promise.

Yay, I'm home!  ...and my desktop computer decided to stop finding wireless networks while I was gone.  WELL THAT'S FUN.  GOD DAMMIT.  Can I get home from a convention and actually have everything be normal?  Apparently not.

Anyway, me news -- The Laughing Ogre here in Columbus is having a FF #1 thing on Wednesday.  (Apparently it's just literally "FF" now, so trying to spell out what the acronym means is counter to informational purposes.)  The Laughing Ogre is having a sale with 15% off Fantastic Four trades and 25% off Fantastic Four back issues. And if you buy the FF #1 "blank cover" you will get a sketch on it from one of the local artists in residence.  One of those local artists is me! So if you've got a hankering for a doodle of HERBIE, I'm totally your man from noon to about 6 or 8.

I may also learn to draw the Thing.

I'm going back to C2E2 for its second year this coming weekend (March 18-20), and I'm bringing some pals.  You can find me sharing a table with Danielle Corsetto (Girls with Slingshots), Randy Milholland (Something Positive), and Joel Watson (Hijinks Ensue).  It looks like we're in booth 862, which is a corner booth in the back of the hall facing Artists Alley and the Webcomics Pavilion.

You can still buy tickets to C2e2 online, but only for the next two days (plus eight hours as of this writing).

As a sidenote, woo, apparently Mattel's booth is selling three exclusive JLU three-packs at C2E2!  There's:

• Goldface / Evil Star / Kyle Rayner


• Angleman / Firestorm / Killer Frost


• Heatwave / The Flash / Mirror Master

I've bolded the guys who are new.  I'm pretty excited for Killer Frost.  Oh, and Evil Star, too, I guess, if only because of his one, quick hilarious bit in "The Great Brain Robbery."

I miss you, Dwayne McDuffie.

Hey, look, it's Venkman!  (...one of two, as I explained yesterday, with the unwanted,  unexplainable duplicate order to be auctioned probably tomorrow or something.)  But this first one I'm keeping!

Of course they save Venkman for last.  Sure, Matty teased us with the slimed variant first before giving us the "real" one, but we all knew this day would come!  Frankly, I expected it to come a little later, after Louis came out, or something.  Is there gonna be a Dana?  There has to be a Dana.

(This arrangement has me wondering how Matty's gonna handle their Back to the Future line.  Is Marty gonna be last?  Will they release "Marty-dressed-as-'Darth-Vader'" earlier on, as a similar tease?  And how can they possibly be doing a Back to the Future line when the entire cast can't use the same body?  And which Biff will I buy?)

Peter's got one of the better likenesses.  Actually, I think he, Winston, and Egon all have pretty good likenesses, with poor Ray looking off somehow.  Ray needed a taller body, I think.  They tried to make him look taller by making his head tiny, and he just looks strange.  But, Peter, he looks great.  Affably smug.

The first thing I noticed out of the package, because I don't pay any attention to these things apparently, is that, oh my god, his body actually has different parts.  His pantlegs aren't tucked into his boots.  He's wearing gloves!  It was quickly confirmed by my roommate, Steve-o, that the untucked pantlegs are Venkman's trademark.  So, hey, cool, that was a nice attention to detail.  The gloves though, after some Google Images research, they upset my OCD.  Peter seems to wears gloves only when everyone else is wearing gloves!  And none of the other toys are wearing gloves!  Grarrr.

Ah well.  Let's not stare a gift-retool in the mouth.

Venkman comes with a stand.  It's dumb and unnecessary, especially since nobody else has one.

But he also comes with a proton pack stream!  Now that is sweet.  It's two pieces that snap together so that it can fit into the packaging, and it's super long.  It's so super-long that I had to crop it off in the initial photo so you could see Venkman better.  The thing is, man, I kinda wish one of the other guys had come with one, too.  To get the full Crossing-the-Streams effect, you'd hafta buy a buttload of Peters.  (hahaha buttload of peters)  And I did get shipped that extra one, but I don't think its cost is worth it to me just for the accessory.  Ah well.

Anyway, complete Ghostbusters power!  Woooo!

Ahahahaha.  I'd never tried using MattyCollector to get anything He-Man before Optikk, since until last Monday I only cared about things from DC or Ghostbusters.  This was to my credit, as I am a being who is filled enough already with hate.  I don't need any more!

About five minutes before noon, up pops the "don't refresh, you're in a queue" page.  This page is bullshit.  It will only keep the people who read it and follow its instructions from getting access to the website.  While you heed its words to not refresh and be a good little boy, all of the smarter people are refreshing and getting the shit you're waiting for.

And sometimes the refresh page doesn't even work.

My refresh page was still refreshing, like clockwork, every three seconds... the next day.  It never went to the website proper, even long after Optikk was sold out.  It was broken.  MattyCollector.com is broken, as a rule.  But it works well enough that Mattel can get their money, so oh well.  Deal with it, dorks.  (Doesn't that sound familiar.)

Me, I'm lucky enough to have folks willing to help me out, and so I have an Optikk on the way, despite being robbed of one like most other people were.

(And, heh, for those of you wondering, it's actually the word "buggy" that's being censored in today's strip, but feel free to substitute your favorite curse in its place.)