FF DOT: The Pixel Art of Final Fantasy

BOOK TITLE: FF DOT: The Pixel Art of Final Fantasy

YEAR: 2018

GENRE: Picture Book

SUBGENRE: Videogame Art

GRADE: A

As someone who spent most of my childhood playing Final Fantasy games left and right, this collection of artwork was nostalgic heaven for me. The first game in the series was basically a D&D campaign brought to life and the character and environmental designs reflected that. Even though my favorite classes to use were physical combatants, I got a kick out of seeing the magic users as well. I could just imagine these brave warriors fighting monsters and crawling through dungeons all over again. The rest of the games in the series gave me a nostalgic boost as well. Cecil was a stud as both a dark knight and a paladin, wearing the finest armor and swinging the mightiest swords. Sabin could be WWE Champion today if he wanted to with his brute strength and intimidating presence. Bartz could put on samurai gear and throw money at his opponents like he was more powerful than Elon Musk and Bill Gates combined. Whenever your creative well is running dry like mine was, this book will power you back up again. You don’t even have to be a fan of the games to get enjoyment out of this; the art is simultaneously a history lesson and a shot in the arm for anybody wanting to flex their creative muscles. What more is there to say other than this book gets an easy A out of me?

Pee-Wee Herman On Crack

VERSE 1

Baldheaded puppets, intestines for strings

They’ll cut off your head, hollow everything

A present for the darkest of dark lord knights

Not bad for a bunch of freaks who look like

Pee-Wee Herman on crack

Never get your serotonin back

Pee-Wee Herman on crack

Childhood is under attack

VERSE 2

They’ll play you a nice little waltz lullaby

Not in hopes you will sleep, but want to die

Infinite loops until your sanity goes bye-bye

Not bad for some monsters who look like

Pee-Wee Herman on meth

Pray for the quickest death

Pee-Wee Herman on drugs

Intestinal noose fits nice and snug

VERSE 3

My guitar is made from puppet strings

When I open my mouth, the demons sing

When I strike the mallet, funeral bells ring

When the puppets dance, you’ll start to think

That they’re Pee-Wee Herman on acid

Schizophrenic voices bring the traffic

Pee-Wee Herman on pills

Getting their bloodthirsty thrills

VERSE 4

When you beat them down, the trauma remains

Making lemonade out of your melting brains

All the Xanax in the world won’t help you now

Neither will the simple phrase, “I disavow”

Pee-Wee Herman on heroin

Cool off your superhero arrogance

Pee-Wee Herman on crack

Once they’re in your mind, there’s no going back

Pee-Wee Herman on crack

Pee-Wee Herman on smack

Pee-Wee Herman unpacked

From a body bag, goodbye to your sack

Karlos Ludwig

Okay, so maybe I already have a character named Karlos Ludwig. He’s the guitarist in the title band Death Blade. He’s got dreadlocks, a fluffy beard, and badass shredding abilities. Even so, his role was very small, because there were other characters who easily outshined him and his name was only mentioned a few times within that short story. Before the guitarist version of this character was created, Karlos Ludwig was an entirely different person in a Good Reads fantasy RPG called Medieval Magic. In that storyline, he was an introverted knight who didn’t like taking crap from authority figures. Being introverted works for a lot of people in real life, but unfortunately, aggressively seeking privacy from the other players doesn’t work so well in an RPG setting. Nobody can say he didn’t try, though. He ordered a big ass pizza at a bar known for brawls. He took a swim in a fairy lake. He trained in an open field known for being hunting grounds. How could this guy not be obvious to everyone after all these things? It’s probably because everyone was so scared of Karlos that they were afraid to approach him. Due to a lack of human interaction, I had to permanently disable him from game play and when I tried to make a more extroverted character, that didn’t work either. Eventually, I parted ways with Medieval Magic and went on to bigger and better things. Despite having already used Karlos as a character in Death Blade, I feel like he didn’t get enough of the spotlight and that he needs more. I’m more than willing to recycle his name into a more prominent character. What kind of character will that be? Karlos Ludwig is a very intimidating name no matter what occupation he undertakes. Hey, he could be an undertaker! Nothing strikes fear in the hearts of others quite like burying dead bodies. But what if he was actively seeking “clients”? What if he was cruising the neighborhood looking for young girls to put in these graves? Alive, no less! Karlos Ludwig is already sounding like a creepy psychopath. But he doesn’t necessarily have to be. In Medieval Magic, he was a dark knight similar to Cecil Harvey’s first incarnation in the videogame Final Fantasy IV. What if Karlos was Cecil Harvey on steroids? Maybe instead of dark blue armor, it could be all black with poisonous spikes. Instead of a long sword, Karlos could carry a glowing green battleaxe to signify even more poison running through his veins. Whether he’s an antihero or an ant villain, the one requirement I would have for Karlos Ludwig is that he’s the scariest motherfucker in the entire prose. He’d have to have a face only a mother could love, provided that mother also gave birth to either Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson. I think we can make this work, people. I’m not ruling it out just yet!

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: You want us to catch this killer or not?

DAVID ACEVEDA: Going undercover as dirty cops. You think you can pull that off?

VIC MACKEY: We can try.

-The Shield-

The Bathory Brothers (Markus and Karlos)

If it hadn’t been for Five Finger Death Punch, I would have never known that the last name Bathory existed. I didn’t study Hungarian history, so the closest thing I have is the band’s guitarist Zoltan. But what about other Bathory’s in my life? What about the two dark knight brothers Markus and Karlos Bathory? When last we heard of them, they made an appearance in my poetry anthology Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage. I wrote heavy metal lyrics describing how they would stomp in the skulls of a hundred barbarians and peel the skins of a thousand dragons. You know, the stuff Beowulf could only dream of doing while jerking off in the “whale road“. Where did the Bathory brothers come from, anyways? Aside from the obvious answer of the bowels of hell, they actually do have a legitimate origin. They came to me in a dream I had one night about playing an alternative version of Super Mario World for the SNES. In addition to playing as Mario and Luigi, the obvious good guys, I also had the option of playing against the forces of good as the two evil sons of bitches known as Markus and Karlos Bathory, the black and red knight respectively. The dark knight brothers didn’t use pussy items like mushrooms, flowers, and feathers to bowl over their opponents. They had real weapons such as crossbows, magic wands, clubs, and war hammers. They also didn’t ride on a silly green dinosaur called Yoshi. They rode big ass armadillos, dragons, skeletal bulls, and anything else that could destroy their enemies just by walking over their tiny ass bodies. Now that you know both sides of the good and evil spectrums, which group of brothers do you think would win in a fight: a couple of fat-ass plumbers or a duo of brain-bashing, rib-cracking, flesh-ripping metal knights? All I can say to Mario and Luigi at this point is that they better have an unlimited supply of invincibility stars handy. The only way to defeat Markus and Karlos Bathory is by cheating. Even then, your chances are so slim it’s next to fucking impossible. So what shall I do with the two metal knights? Should they be part of a dark fantasy novel? Seems to be the most logical thing to do with them. They’re not getting enough attention in that poetry book, that’s for sure. Or maybe I could write a Mario Brothers fan fiction and somehow sneak the two knight siblings in the midst of the action. But once I figure out what to do with Markus and Karlos, then comes the question of whether they’re going to be antagonists or protagonists. We know they’re going to be villains, it’s just a matter of whether or not people choose to sympathize with them. If I can somehow make my audience sympathize with a couple of demonic warriors, I’ve got it made. I could retire early, you never know.

　

***CONCERT QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Are you guys fucking stupid or what?! You just kicked a chick in the face on purpose!”

-Ivan Moody, lead singer of Five Finger Death Punch-

"Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" by Frank Miller

“Age is just a number.” We hear this phrase being thrown around a lot and only half the time does it actually stick. In the case of Batman coming out of retirement, once again, the reader finds himself riding the fence. At 55 years old, Bruce Wayne has slowed down dramatically. Considering that Gotham City has become a dystopian hellhole, the city needed Batman whether he was 55, 75, or even 100. Somewhere along the path of old age, Batman had become more violent and disturbing in his approach to fighting crime. He probably had to be in order to keep up with both father time and the dystopian world in which he lives, where crime breaks out on every street corner and every building in this city. And guess what? The Joker had not missed a step since passing into the elder end of his life. If anything, he too had become more sadistic and disgusting in his approach to violent behavior. When mixing the concepts of old age, rampant crime, and questionable justice, Frank Miller delivers with “The Dark Knight Returns”. And yes, it is a fast read, the short page count not withstanding. But anytime the name Frank Miller’s name comes up in conversation, so does the gigantic elephant in the room. An elephant so huge that he can’t even hide behind corporate buildings. Of course, I’m talking about Miller’s comments toward the Occupy Wall Street movement, referring to the protesters and “pond scum” and “rapists”. If you go to my post about “All Cats Have Asperger Syndrome”, you’ll see a little kitty joke I made at the end with an Occupy punch line. In case that alone doesn’t lend itself to what I think of Miller’s comments, then here it is. He’s done a hell of a job with “The Dark Knight Returns” and “Batman: Year One”, but his comments about the Occupy movement are disgusting as hell and I’m glad Alan Moore, the creator of Watchmen, had the sense to call him on that. If Frank Miller can continue to make awesomely violent comic books with a dark edge, then I promise to separate his work from his personal politics. I’m an atheist who listens to Skillet, so I think I’ll do just fine in ignoring political views I don’t agree with.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“New rule: wing nuts have to stop saying they’re going to boycott Oreos because they made a gay cookie. In fact, this giant blob of vegetable oil and corn syrup is the perfect symbol for gay pride, because when I look at it, I’d rather have a dick in my mouth.”

-Bill Maher-