A Confederacy of Dunces

The protagonist in most works of fiction needs to achieve some level of empathy with the audience in order for anyone to care about them. They need to be kind, good-looking, and a tragic past certainly helps.

The protagonist of A Confederacy of Dunces is an overweight, overeducated, total asshole of a human being who spends the entire novel practicing sociopathy and manipulating everyone around him to appease his borderline psychotic agenda. It's soooo good.

Even better? People hate this book. They fucking hate it!

My 3D Pedo-Box

So it finally happened. I've unintentionally become a pedophile.

I blame the 3DS.

Check out my digital kiddie stable

Follow the jump to learn more about my downfall.

Non-Readers Rejoice: I Made a Post Without a Bunch of Text

Query Letter

(Want to read an early draft of my query letter for Monsters in California? Read on, loyal Justinite)

Instead of working on Jet-Girl (for more than three hours) today, I'm going to put some effort into getting my book published.

Yes, I have a finished book just sitting around, gathering figurative dust. Collecting royalty checks would probably be better than constantly telling people that they can only read my book when it's published, right?

So step 1 is to write up a query letter, basically a lure in the shape of a one-page summary that I can use to catch an agent. The query letter/lure has to be extra-shiny, which is something I wish I'd realized a while ago because writing this thing is a bitch.


Here's how you're going to help me:
After the jump is the query letter. Read it and then tell me: does it pop?
Keep in mind a query letter isn't a proper summary. It's a lure (and a very sharp hook, if done correctly). I'm not interested in accuracy. Just attention.

If you haven't read the book then your input is greatly appreciated because I need those fresh eyes, but be warned that while I don't spoil too much I still give a good idea of what happens within the first five chapters.

Yeah, I know that doesn't sound like a big deal, but I'm a Story Nazi. I love the surprise and mystery of a novel. I love the not knowing part of the experience. People who skip to the end of a book to decide whether or not they're going to read it should be put into camps.

If it were up to me the back of every book would just be a big question mark. Maybe a 'Just Read It, Dummy!'
And the fronts, too. Titles give too much away.


Query letter up ahead.

EPIC 1980's Game Concept Storyboard

A little history: Pretty-much everything I drew as a child related to video games in some fashion. 90% of the time I was sketching in crayon the Great American Novel of video games.

That's right. I'm a game design prodigy, and here's the proof: a full storyboard that, if made into a proper video game trailer, would break down any server trying to handle all the pre-orders coming in.

Cursive may not have been the best medium to write down the dialogue but I was probably in the third grade when I made this and we used cursive all the time in that class. Is cursive officially an anachronism?

Hit the jump for a transcript of all the dialogue.

Character Design: Jenny

Jet-Girl Jenny

There are extremely good reasons why 8-bit graphics are still around and it's taken me a long time to work myself from the higher resolutions down to 320x240 (which is still a bit higher than SNES/NES resolution), but now that I'm down here I'm having a blast. Especially with character design.

The limited resources have a habit of guiding your decisions. If your character doesn't immediately pop then you're going to know it right away.


I think I read somewhere that the reason Mario was given a hat and moustache was to distinguish the pixels from each other. The moustache was to show that Mario had a nose and the hat just worked better than black hair.


Anyways, lots of pictures up ahead if you want to see my amateur version of the creative process up close.

I Must Show You My Sexy New Girlfriend

I ordered her three days ago and yes, I know you're thinking this is an eccentric purchase, but c'mon. Just look at her. That is amazing.



She's life-size and made entirely out of paper.


The only problem has been the shipping. I paid $350 for the entire finished model (no way I could build that myself) but it cost a lot extra to get it shipped from Germany.

When you buy luxury paper-craft make sure that the shipping is included.



She looks even better from the back.
I've got a picture...