RKdia Comics

Metroid Other M came out today! I just got back from picking up my copy. Along the way I got a letter saying I didn’t get a job I was hoping to get…so I’m back at square one.

Let me take this moment to briefly say that I’m open for commissions any time and you can donate to help me keep the bills paid by clicking the donate button on the right side of the page! Also note, that if you ever see a piece of art go up here at RKdia Comics…from fan art to a comic page and you think you might be interested in purchasing the original art, just drop me an email at drewr@sage.edu!

In honor of the new Metroid game, which I’m going to sit down and play just as soon as I wrap up this post, I whipped up a piece of fan art! Unfortunately my brush-pen died right as I was finishing my line art, and it’s not quite ready for show yet. Above is a quick preview to keep you guessing, and I’ll have the finished piece go up tomorrow. I’ll probably stream as I work with it in Photoshop so keep your eyes peeled!

-RD

Metroid is ©2010 Nintendo
Original art is © 2010 Randall Drew

Not much to post this week as my weekend was a total relaxation-fest. Here’s some filler for some upcoming activities and events I hope to get to from now until January as well as some pimpage for the VGM Remix community that means so much to me!

First up is the Small Press Expo in Bathesda, MD on September 11-12! That’s only 2 weeks away holy cow! Tables sold our really early this year, and I won’t be tabling anywhere, but I will definitely be leaving some comics at the CCS table as well as with some of my classmates who did manage to secure some space. I had originally planned on completing the next chapter of Citadel in time for SPX, but the story was slow to come together this summer, and I’m still penciling pages at this stage. I hope to have it done before the end of the current chapter going up here at RKdia Comics.

My good buddy JoeCam of Bound Together fame is on the move to a bigger place, this will spawn the return of the (inside joke about the next event I’ll talk about) FAGFest party this November! While a small, private gathering of many friends from across the Video Game Remixing community, I do plan on bringing some comics to share and will probably be doing all sorts of sketches over the weekend festivities. I’d also like to take this opportunity to bring some attention to some of these folks and the various sites we all come together at to share our love of game music:

OneUp Studios – Home of Mustin and The Bad Dudes as well as headline band The OneUps. OneUp Studios was my first true internet home, introduced to me by my first SAGE College buddy Mike Sacco (a blogger now for WoW.com after leaving Blizzard Entertainment.) OUS has been many places, produced many amazing albums, and the gathering of talent, personality, and friends there is solid as a rock. I look forward to knowing many of the members there for a very long time. Most of the FAGFest attendees come from OUS.

OCRemix – Begun in 1999 by David “DJPretzel” Lloyd, OCR is nearly synonymous with the VGM Remix community. Known and often embattled over for their strict submission guidelines, Judges panel (lead by former VGFrequency radio host Larry Oji) and quality standards…OCR turns out regularly some of the best re-arranged vgm music on the internet. Garnering attention from industry pros like Grant Kirkhope (Banjo Kazooie) and Tommy Talarico, as well as creating pros of their own.

X-Strike Studios – Originally formed by a group of guys all attending college in Fredonia, NY, X-Strike Studios is home to some very ambitious and very different personalities. They produce Video Game Movies that don’t suck, and have been since 2003 with their breakout cult hit River City Rumble. Not only do they produce full length feature movies, but there are weekly video casts, news, podcasts and featureettes that grace the internet with astounding frequency!

MAGFest 9 is going to wrap up my fall and winter travels this year in STYLE. The largest gathering of nerds with a passion for VGM on the East Coast (at least…before there was PAX East) MAGFest has grown exponentially since it’s inception as the Mid-Atlantic Gaming Festival WAY back in 2002. Now, as the Music and Gaming Festival, MAGFest features an enormous lineup of guests, panels, gaming of all kinds and plenty of fun. The main attraction of course is the Concert halls…with a free for all/chiptune hall and a main concert stage that, over 3 days, rocks the house with amazing performances from the likes of the MiniBosses, The OneUps, Select Start, Metroid Metal, Armcannon, and The Smash Brothers…just to name a few.

I’ll be going to see a lot of the same familiar faces as at FAGFest (an obvious in-joke at this event) and to spread some comic love as this year Scott Ramsoomair – Creator of the hit webcomic VG Cats, (He’s Canadian, but then again, nobody’s perfect) and Ashley Davis, the driving force behind Once Upon a Pixel, a web video series that retells the stories of video games as if they were children’s books will be in attendance! MAG’s been known to bring cartoonist 8bitMaximo out of his studio as well!

Well, that’s enough pimpage and blabberizing (as Larry O would say) about VGM Remix for now. Come back Wednesday for a chat about Justin.TV and the game LPing/Streaming community!