Battling Wits With Birbal

Y'know, it's been a while since we visited with Mahesh Das , the wise-man/wise-ass adviser to  Akbar better known as Birbal. It's pretty obvious that we could use a LOT more clever people around these days. Or at least a hell of a lot less damn fools. But, some folks have to learn for themselves, and some folks simple Cannot learn. (Lincoln's "some of the people")
It hurts to watch. Especially knowing how easily the patterns of History tend to repeat.

So, let's turn our attentions elsewhere and check a few tales from Battle Of Wits, written & illustrated by Ramesh Mudholkar, and see how our favorite Raja fares...

I love the look on their faces in that last panel as they realize how they killed their friend and nearly doomed themselves. At least they showed a bit of wisdom at the end.

Not like today's fools who'll find a way to blame those they hate instead.

page art by Ramesh Mudholkar from Adarsh Chatra Katha #6, Battle Of Wits (year unknown)

The Sound Of The Fringeworlds

Well, the main machine has been rendering all night, and it doesn't look ready to quit soon. That being where  all the actual work for the blog gets done, and where all the resource files reside, it's gonna be a bit before i can prep pages. So, let's ramble about some of the work on the game for a bit. (Now you know, and can go ahead off somewhere else to read something enjoyable)

For some strange reason, this deaf old coot starting working on sound for The Third Colony. Up until this point, the only audio for the game was opening music, music for a couple of festival/party scenes, and minor sound effects like the Grav Lifts.

But, as we know, the ol' peripatetic mind meanders where it will and somehow it decided that the jukeboxes and stereos needed music. And that background music was needed (though optionally, on a user controlled toggle).
And more than just Hugh Masakella's Emavungweni for the festivals.

I set a hard limit of 50 songs, and fewer would be better. Currently there are just over 40 songs installed in jukeboxes and on data disks scattered around the game which the game player can install into their own music player.

(EDIT: I should also have noted that the craze on PoD9 is for 20th Century music, mostly latter decades.)

Popular Jukebox Songs
song (artist)

Bad To The Bone (George Thorogood & The Destroyers)
Blasphemous Rumours (Depeche Mode)
Boogie In Your Butt (Eddie Murphy)
Church Of The Poison Mind (Culture Club) 
Comfortably Numb (Pink Floyd)
Dead Man's Party (Oingo Boingo)
Dear God (XTC)
Get It On (Marc Bolan & T-Rex)
Goin' Down (The Monkees)
Heavy Metal Poisoning (Styx)
I Touch Myself (The Divinyls)
I Eat Cannibals (Total Coelo)
Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies)
It's A Mug's Game (Soft Cell)
It's A Sin (Pet Shop Boys)
Jump (Aztec Camera)
Just Dropped In (To See What Condition My Condition Is In) (Kenny Rogers & The First Edition)
Killing Moon (Echo And The Bunnymen)
Kiss (Art Of Noise & Tom Jones)
Lady Killer (The Vandals)
Love Missle F1-11 (Sigue Sigue Sputnik)
Mama Told Me Not To Come (Three Dog Night)
Nowhere To Run (Martha Reeves And The Vandellas)
Obsession (Animotion)
Sex Machine (The Flying Lizards)
Ship Of Fools (World Party)
Stop This Crazy Thing (Cold Cut)
Super Freak (Rick James)
Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
The Masochism Tango (Tom Lehrer)
Tush (ZZ Top)
Urban Struggle (The Vandals)
Walk The Dinosaur (Was Not Was)
We Got To Get Out Of This Place (The Animals)
Welcome To My Nightmare (Alice Cooper)
Where The Streets Have No Name/Can't Take My Eyes Off Of You (Pet Shop Boys)
White Lines (Don't Do It) (Grandmaster Flash)
Why (Bronski Beat)
Wild Thing (Ton Loc)
You Sexy Thing (Hot Chocolate)

Part of that selection reflects upon the game world, part upon the game creator.
I'll let you sort which be which.

I do hate to not include images, so let's take a peek at some of the boring work going on (mostly because there's pics on the stick leftover from email with my son)

One of the complaints about RPG Maker games is waiting for slow text to appear and having it chopped into little 4-line boxes. These can be very valid complaints, and i'm not fond of that either.

But, it doesn't have to be that way. 
All text messages in T3C appear instantly, with the exception of the occasional dramatic pause inserted. And those are measured in quarter seconds.
And as for that 4-line limit on the text blocks...

Really - it doesn't have to be that way. One simple line of code and textboxes expand to fit the need. (I also avoid the word wrap plugins that lead to those awkward mid-sentence breaks.)

And a lot of the boring work i've been doing is interface bits. Every district has a News Stand from which one can pull the daily news feed. Now it has a simple full screen display & interface -

As you can see, they're not big, detailed stories. But they do carry the basic happenings of the world outside the player's view, and set up ongoing plots and potential quests, as well as merely set the tone of the world.

I've mentioned that the colony is contained in disconnected cavernous pockets carved within the mining planetoid. These caverns (or Halls) are connected via a TransMat system. Each Hall has one or two Primary TransMat Stations that are connected on the Alpha Network, and each TransMat may link to two destinations. This can make it a tad tricky to learn one's way around PoD9.

Fortunately, you can pick up a Free TransMap from Admin or at Terminal Island (the Offworld TransMat station) -

So, now you're all good and ready to run around, right?

Maybe not so right?

Maybe very wrong?

OKAY.
We gotcha covered.

That map is more than just a "pretty" picture. It also remembers where you've been and becomes a Quick Travel map allowing the player to jump straight to any previously visited TransMat -

As i said. Lots of boring little detail stuff. But it's slowly turning this mess into more of a 'game' along the way.

stuff by -3- (2020)

Covering TC Artists

I've expressed my fondness for seeing Creators in their comics previously.
Let us expand that to include seeing Creators ON their comics...

How many of these folks can you identify?

Oh, sure - it's an old cover, but there are a few fairly famous names in the crowd. And, of course, it hasn't been very long since you had a look at Frank Borth, so that one should be fairly easy - right?

And, you might not know his name, but i'm willing to bet you can make a fair guess which one is the Editor.

Other famous names include one of DC's most prominent Editors (though an artist here), one of Jack Kirby's most beloved collaborators, a classic pulp artist of renown, and some familiar names from this blog (like the guy who draws The Bear).

And, Yes - if you're wondering...

I am rambling to stall and create spoiler space, because the answers are down
below.
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         .
         . right here...

The cover was drawn by Reed Crandall, the guy who was playing the comb before getting the trash can lids slammed over his head.

Incidentally - this was the cover to the first issue of the Draw-Along With Frank Borth series. Kind of an unfair spotting advantage, eh?

cover art by Reed Crandall from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v18 #11 (1963)

Frank Borth's Mistakes

From the way i've featured and talked about him, one might come to think that i view Frank Borth as some sort of Perfect Artist or something. But, i assure you, that's far from the truth. In fact, he's not only made mistakes - he's made hundreds of them!

Think i'm exaggerating? 
Not at all, and i can prove it.

Here are over 335 Mistakes from Borth -

Before you ask - No. We won't be running a guide to all the mistakes. You'll have to count them yourself.

page art by Frank Borth from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v17 #s 1, 5, & 13 and v18 #s 4 & 12 (1961-1963)

Landing Buttons' UFO

Before we view the concluding chapters of Buttons' UFO, let us pause a moment for a couple comments on our previous post.

I heard back from the Librarians at the Catholic University in Washington, D.C. regarding those pencil notes in the margins of chapter 5. While they cannot absolutely confirm that those are Frank Borth's annotations, their archive does include his personal collection of issues from 1956-1970, so it is very likely to be the case.
And let me note how speedy and helpful the Librarians at CU are. Thank You!

Very cool info - and a tremendous pain. You may have noticed i sometimes get a bit obsessed with knowledge/information. Now that i know this, i'm going to have to read through 15 years of their collection to see if any more instances of Borth's personal notes are included. I will, of course, keep you appraised if i find more.

The second note is merely another odd synchronicity in my daily life. Recall in the margin notes yesterday that he made reference to Ashtabula being funnier that Jersey City. I'd never heard of Ashtabula before. But between yesterday and today, i read the latest issue of VFW magazine and it turns out there was a naval vessel named the Ashtabula upon which one of those profiled had served.
Certainly funnier than the Intrepid (no, i'm not going to go hunt and see if there was a ship named Jersey City)

Any way, it was just a barely amusing encounter and example of how things seem to cluster in reality. Let's move onward, shall we?

Here are the final chapters of Buttons' UFO -

Damn. Should have read that warning before i tore a hole in the wall...

page art by Frank Borth from Treasure Chest Of Fun & Fact v25 #s 16-18 (1969)