January 25, 1997

I finally put the PDF version of issue 5 up. It's a whopping 11 megs. Like I said before, it's only worth the download if you're a big fan, and want to see the comic without the jpeg fuzzies.

January 23, 1997

As promised, head over to the Multimedia Section to finally hear what Dank and Scud sound like.

Enjoy.

January 22, 1997

Wow. What a month. I was part of an environmental disaster! We had a freezing rain ice storm up here, which caused everything to be covered with 3 inches of ice. Not only power cables, but power pylons couldn't take the weight of the ice. The whole city went without power for days. I was without power for more than a week. And Dank and Scud, who live over at Microtec.net, were unplugged for a couple of days as well.

Anyways, things are finally back to normal around here. I got my heat back a couple of days ago, Dank and Scud are back on-line, and it looks like www.quakecomics.qc.ca is working again. If you've had problems getting to the site in the past few weeks, I apologize. Blame it on the climate, and in the future, bookmark Dank and Scud's mirrors!

To make it up for all of you, I've got a special treat for you folks. In less than a day, you will finally get to know...well...I won't reveal it just yet. In the meantime, download the shockwave flash plug-in. Stay Tuned...

December 29, 1997

Whoops...I must have confused a few people by removing the zip files. My mistake, they were always there-- I just screwed up the links. I'm gonna fix it right now. Sorry.

(later) Just finished uploading issue 5's zip file. Usually Andrew is the one who creates the zip version, so I may have done it incorrectly. I think it got the conversion (to 8.3 file format) right, but if there's a problem let me know. The high-quality PDF version will be up shortly as well.

Some people have mailed me asking what will happen to Dank and Scud after issue 5. Is this the end? Will they be fighting The Strogg? Will they ever find the BFG? Well, you'll be happy to know that there are still plenty of Adventures about Dank and Scud that have yet to be told, not all of them in the realm of Quake. I won't reveal anything yet, but I promise you now-- Dank and Scud will NOT meet Duke Nukem and kick his ass, as so many of you have requested. The concept is well, just too cheesy, sort like Street Fighter Vs. the X-Men. Besides, I had too much fun creating new villains like The Prophet.

Before I start issue 6, I'm going to spend some time revamping the site. Believe it or not, my Day Job involves web site design and ASP programming, so I've been itching to make this site a little more efficient and better looking (and fix that dang old counter). Tune in here for up-to-the-week updates on my progress.

Can you believe it-- people are already asking me when issue 6 will be out! Sheesh...

December 28, 1997

Page 5 is done. And, oh look! Page 6 is done as well! Starting page 7...

WAIT A SEC! There is no page 7! Issue 5 is done! Have fun! Enjoy!

December 9, 1997

Page 4 is done, but who cares-- Quake II is out! Don't worry, I've promised myself not to play it until I've finished the two remaining pages...

(Yeah, right. --ed.)

November 26, 1997

Finished page 3. That's all I wanted to say-- you know, to stick to my word on keeping you posted.

November 17, 1997

Finished page 2, and a bit of page 3. Things are really rolling now. On another note, I finished Riven. Great game. And as cheesy as this may look, I decided to commemorate the moment with the following picture:

Yes, Riven was a great experience. It's too bad so many people are going to shun it because they haven't improved the interface. From a newcomer's point of view, they wouldn't be able to tell the difference between the sequel and its predecessor. Anticipation can cloud a fan's experience, and I'm sure many Riven fans were expecting more (even I was expecting the 360 degree panning that made Zork Nemesis so enjoyable).

Luckly, the folks at Cyan humbly ousted the competition by simply having an adventure game WITHOUT puzzles. Zork Nemesis, Obisian, Drowned God-- they're all cursed by the same problem-- a intriguing plot, beautiful pictures, wonderful music, inevitable puzzles. Yes, these games are enjoyable, but so is GAMES magazine.

Riven lets you discover without the worry that you're going to encounter some frustrating variation of checkers which you have to win in order to get you to the next cutscene. It's no wonder Riven didn't improve the interface.

But what's a Quake player doing playing an adventure game? Play Quake like a sport. Play Riven like a novel. 'Nuff said.

November 16, 1997

A big thanks goes out to Barnabas "Barney" Toth, who optimized the lag-inducing banner I made a couple of months ago (see below). What was 127K is now a slimmer 50K. Richard Simmons would be proud. Thanks, Barney!

November 13, 1997

Hmmm....Another Coincidence:

Blue from Blues News & Quakecast	Dank from, well, you know

Separated at birth? You be the Judge.

November 4, 1997

I've discovered something-- In Mark Laidlaw's cyberpunk short story titled "400 Boys", one of the characters says "Aw, Skud", which I've learned is cyberpunk-slang for "shit".

Coincidence? We think not.

Mark Laidlaw is currently developping the story for Valve's eagerly awaited game, Half-Life. For those who wish to pursue this snippit of conspiracy, the story is included in the 1986 cyberpunk anthology "Mirrorshades" (edited by Bruce Sterling, ISBN 0-441-53382-5). Pretty weird, if you ask me...

November 3, 1997

Wow, another month has gone by. I've completed one and a half pages of issue 5, but more importantly I finished creating the level for the final scene. I was faced with the decision to either find a level in Quake which best matched the scene I needed, or create it myself. Luckly, I chose the latter. It takes longer, I know, but we want quality here, right? Like, you can't have a chariot scene in a parking lot, now can you? Geez, Mike, that ought a confuse them...

They say you can find anything on the Internet. Well, that just ain't true. The other night I spent over two hours looking for pictures of explosions. I searched high and low, and couldn't find a single puff! I finally found one on a movie site, which will remain unamed for the sake of the copyright protection (especially after all that foxing that's been going on lately).

So when will issue 5 be out? Hell if I know. I'm working on it. Rather than give you a date, I'll let you know here whenever I finish a page worth, that way you'll get a better idea of the progress. Oh and, the title for issue 5 is: "A Void At All Costs"

'till then,

MH.

September 23, 1997 (6:41 a.m.)

Back from Italy. Incredible trip. My new apartment is empty, except for the computer. The empty rooms are making my keyclicks echo all over the place. I don't even have the speakers here yet, so I can't even play Quake. There's nothing for me to do here except finish issue 5, and there's nothing more I want to do.

August 30th, 1997

Finally, I have some time to update.

Busy, busy, busy. I've been so busy lately that the only free time I've had for developping Dank and Scud is at work (ssshh, don't tell them!). Ok, here's the deal:

- I'm moving. As of September 1st I will no longer be found at my Old Apartment.
- To make things a little more challenging, tomorrow I will be going to Italy, for three weeks. Still hasn't really hit me yet, but yeah, I'm thrilled. Finally, a vacation!
- Combining the two items above = = chaos.

Now, 9 out of 10 campers would agree that Real Life has taken over for Michael Houston. Nope. Nada. In your dreams. It seems that the lack of time in front of the computer has caused the creative juices to flow-- I have many plans for Dank and Scud once issue 5 is released. Here are some tidbits:

- It's offical-- Dank and Scud will make a brief cameo appearance in the Sega Saturn version of Quake. Well, Dank will, Scud might have some problems, since he really dislikes lawyers, let alone fans of "disposable assasins". I might be able to get his younger brother, Scuz, to understudy for him. I first spoke of this on Pseudo's Quakecast (July 31, 1997), where I successfully confused the hosts by first mentionning the Sony Playstation, then the Sega Saturn. Only the latter is true.

- Issue 5 is underway. It will be out mid-end October (As much as I would like to, I am NOT bringing my computer with me to Italy). Being the final issue in the "Doom Guy" series, there will be a lot of climatic elements, as well as plenty of explosions.

- We've started a Monday Night Quakeworld over here in Montreal, where every Monday night a bunch of friends set up a server and play until our eyes bleed. It's quite fun, really. So much fun that we're going to set up a permanent Dank and Scud server. For now it'll be a simple QW CTF server, but we have major plans for this one. Here's the idea: We're going to have two new runes, one looking like a 'D', the other, an 'S'. If you're lucky enough to pick one up, you become Dank or Scud. This is great, cause this means that there'll always be only one Dank and one Scud in the server at a time. Being Dank or Scud will deem you with quite unique abilities, ALL of which pertain to the issues. I've already created Scud's Special Weapon in QuakeC. Ahhh...QuakeC-- remind me to thank John Carmack for creating a tool to make me believe that I was actually programming a game. Anyway, the weapon is....well, now that would be giving away the plot for issue 5.

- At about the same time that we're developing the Dank and Scud CTF server, Dank and Scud will finally jump into something a little more interactive. A couple of weeks ago I had an incredible web based idea for Dank and Scud, which could only be done on the web, and would actually highlight, not hinder, the comic. I won't go into detail until issue 5 is completed first.

So, yes, Dank and Scud are alive and well. The web site is not dead, just off-season for the next few weeks. Until then, Ciao!

- Michael.

July 23, 1997

Andrew here... yet again.

Can't resist but to use this very public forum to display a pic or two of my little girl, taken early this afternoon. And no, she doesn't always frown. She only frowns when her parents force her to sit in front of a camera.

Ok, enough with that. I've indulged myself now. This is, after all, a Quake page....

July 23, 1997

I am pleased to announce that Andrew, the "Dank" of D&S, is the proud father of a baby girl. Zoë Alejandra Warrington-Arroyo was born on Sunday, July 20th at 8:18 pm. Please mail him your best wishes. Amazing, not even a day old and she's already learning to circle strafe...

I've uploaded the PDF version of Issue 4. Strange, at 7 MB it's two megs bigger than the last. I figure this is due to the increased jpeg quality that Photoshop 4.0 uses to create PDFs, but I'm only guessing.

July 18, 1997

Andrew here again -

I have heard from a couple of our mirror site maintainers and would like to thank them for their quick responses, especially given that I have not written them in a while. Thank you Piotr Marek and Lachlan Smith. Our sites Poland and Australia are now up-to-date again.

July 17, 1997

Well, it's taken half a year to create, but it's finally done. Issue 4 is ready. Enjoy! The PDF version should appear shortly.

NOTE: Issue 4 is BIG. When I say BIG, I picture size BIG. It all still fits at 800x600 resolution, but the pages are longer (it's actually two panels bigger than issue 3!). What this means is that you might get unloaded pictures for the page with your browser. I've found that only way around this is A) free up more memory, or B) read the PDF version. Why does it seem bigger? Well, my guess is that I did all the work for issue 4 in 1072x768 resolution (not 800x600 like before), which made me unintentionally create bigger panels (because things looked smaller). When I saw the work in 800x600, the images really popped out at me (you're in for a treat!)

MIRRORS: Unfortunately, we've kinda kept out of touch with the hosts of the Dank and Scud mirrors sites, so you may have to wait a bit until they appear there. We would appreciate it if the kind administrators of these mirrors could contact us so we can get it up as soon as possible. Andrew's email has changed, it is now: colin@odyssee.net. He's still in charge of updating the mirrors, so try to contact him first. Thanks.

Enjoy QuakeCon!

- MH.

June 30, 1997

Time for an update...

First off, I'd like to apologize with my pathetic email upkeep. No, my email is NOT broken-- I've read all your email, and will eventually reply-- once the issue is done. I hope this relatively large update can somehow make up for this. Sorry.

The issue is coming along just fine. Great, in fact. So great, that I've decided to give you all a release date:

About a week ago I had a nice IRC chat with The Ranger's Unknown Soldier. He told me that RGB 3, the Rangers new movie, would be shown during QuakeCon '97, which gave me the idea to release Issue 4 at the same time. Please do note, however, that this co-release does not mean that the issue and the movie are tied together in any way.

For those of you who are interested in playing against Dank and Scud, try out 204.50.80.204. It's a local CTF Quake server set up by some friends at our generous ISP, and Andrew (Dank) and I (Scud) usually log on several times a week to vent our frustrations. Word has it that Andrew has since become a CTF junkie, so expect to see Dank on there more often. If you see Scud on there, it's me, so please tell me to get off the server and finish the issue, damn it!

Speaking of On-Line fragging, I was playing around with the ReaperBot and managed to set up a Dank and Scud server, which you could join and fight against two Dank and Scud ReaperBots. It was the first time I ever saw these two in action, and gosh they were good. Now, if I could only get them to stop fighting each other (it would seem I wasn't enough of a challenge for them). Still, if anyone has the resources to have this set up on a permanent basis, I'd love to help make an official Dank and Scud QuakeWorld Deathmatch server.

Last week I made a wonderful purchase- I am now the proud owner of a Diamond Monster 3D accelerator. This card must have some sort of black magic wired into its circuits (no wonder they call it a Voodoo chipset). Geez, I must have spent an hour looking into the ultra-smooth plasma texture of a teleporter. Once I snapped back from my hipnotic state, I tried out a screenshot. Impressive -- it saved it as a targa file (due to its 16-bitness). When I tried loading it in Photoshop or Paintshop Pro, however, it didn't look right. Upon closer inspection, the screenshot looked sort of, well, interlaced (pronounced horizontal lines):

GL Quake Screenshot Detail at 200%

I haven't tried any other screen resolutions or refresh rates, so I don't know yet if there is a solution. What I DO know is that the screenshots I've found on the Internet "seem" to be of a much better quality. Any suggestions on this would be appreciated. If I can get the images to be sharp enough, expect issue 5 to be the first GL Quake ehanced issue of Dank and Scud!

May 29, 1997

Wow...I must be getting better at this-- it's taken me half the time it normally takes for me to lay out a page, yet with twice the quality. I'm starting to use the new and improved version of the Quake Model Editor, and now have much more freedom in having Dank and Scud pose for me. Here's a sample:

Geez, I must have given away the whole storyline with that pic. Sorry. The issue is coming along wonderfully, although I must confess-- I like spending time designing the comic. What I mean is, the more complicated or challenging the panel, the more I enjoy laying it out. This, in turn, usually means I spend too much time fiddling with the graphics. Please be patient.

On another note-- a lot of good games have come out recently (Interstate '76, MDK, etc). Well, now that they've been completed and behind me, I can now devote ALL my time to the comic. Jedi Knight won't be out until September, so that should give me plenty of time to finish the issues, heh, heh.

Oh yeah, before I forget-- the first two pages are complete.

May 12, 1997

I feel like I've been keeping the fans of Dank and Scud in the dark. I apologize. Here's the news:

Item #1: Where the hell is issue 4? I'm asked that on average three times a day, and my simple answer is, I'm working on it. I'm working on it on a daily basis. Trouble is, to the rest of the world, it looks as though I'm sitting around doing nothing. All I can say is that at least one new panel is drawn every day. I could give in to the threats and put up a page at a time, but what fun would that be?

To put you in better spirits, I have some startling news for you: I've finished the storyboard for issue 4 AND 5. I had 8 pages written, and wanted to add more, so I split it up into two. Issue 4 will be five pages, issue 5 will have six. It'll only take a fraction of the time to create the fifth issue, since most of the model editing and skin re-drawing will be done already. Great news, eh? This means there's more to come after issue 4, and it'll come sooner. Aren't you excited? Just, please be patient. Issue 4 will not be the Direct3D port of Dank and Scud, if you know what I mean.

Other good news-- Issue 4 will be laid out on a nice new 17 inch monitor, and I just got Photoshop 4.0. I'm in heaven.

Item #2: You may have noticed that I've been updating the news page these past few times. The reason is that Real Life has taken control of my PR person, Andrew Warrington. This is a set-back for you, since you will not be informed as often. Not to worry though-- Andrew still helps me out with the storyline and humour, so at least there's no set-back for the comic. When I say Real Life, I mean it-- Andrew will be a father this summer.

Item #3: What's with Dank and Scud Interactive? Originally, I thought I'd take some time off the comic and play with other Dank and Scud media. Even though I enjoyed creating these little experiments in art, I still felt the pull of issue 4. I was interested in Dank and Scud Interactive, but I was more interested in getting issue 4 out. So, I'm going to put this whole Interactive thing on the side...at least until the next Rangers movie comes out...

Item #4: Here's a little known fact: Dank and Scud are featured on the CD of the June issue of Computer Gaming World. There's no write-up to speak of, but it's there on the CD in PDF format. Still, it's nice to have the comics finally on permanent media.

So, there you have it. Once I finish this update, I will be entering Cocoon Mode, and will not emerge until issue 4 is finished.

April 24, 1997

Here's a flashy Dank and Scud banner for those of you who wish to include a link to Dank and Scud on your web page. Share and enjoy.

April 17, 1997

Dank and Scud made a visit to the QuakeCast on Thursday...They got a chance to meet Mexican Mace Royer in the Studio. Have a look!

For the curious, the original pic is from the Live Studio Cam at the Pseudo site. During the show I scraped the pic from Netscape, and had the Dank and Scud version posted here before the show was over, so that the chatters could see. Although you couldn't really see it here, but Mace was smoking cigars, which is the butt (no pun intended) of Scud's joke.

- MH.

Due to popular demand, I've re-created the "Boulevard of Broken Limbs" picture down below to a higher resolution. It is now a 155K jpeg, clocking in at 1024x768x16bit. You can find it right here. Enjoy.

- MH.

March 15, 1997

Michael here. No, Andrew is still about, I'm just sabotaging his news page. My birthday is on St-Patrick's day. So, to celebrate, here's some nice doom-suit green text for ya! Andrew, you realize how long our fans have been waiting for issue four? We gotta give them something! Fans, I know what it's like to wait for something-- I've been waiting for the new Nine Inch Nails album for what seems like months. At least Trent put out The Perfect Drug to keep us happy. Well, I feel we should do the same. So here, more artwork...

Dank and Scud have asked The Escher Clan to help them find that awfully clever weapon, the BFG. Can you help them find it?

Well, that was fun. Did I make you click? Thought so. Here's one more:

Yes, I know these files are big. This is because a lot of people asked me if I could send them a higher quality image of Boulevard of Broken Limbs. Well, unfortunately, the quality you see down below was the best I could find on the Internet (I have since found a 1234x673x16M copy of it -- expect an update). So, the two images above are of a higher quality, and should suffice to be your Windows wallpaper.

As for the images, I should give credit where credit is due. Here are the titles and authors of the works I used, from the top:

Relativity -- M.C. Escher
Sleep -- Salvador Dali
Nighthawks -- Edward Hopper

The pictures you see here will eventually find a home in a new "Art Gallery" section, which will be part of the "Dank and Scud Interactive" site. This Art Gallery will house the numerous submissions I've received by people who have started their own Quake related artwork. I'm hoping the three pictures I've created here will prime the pump of artistic endeavor. If you do wish to send me your artwork for The Gallery, PLEASE send it in jpeg format. It's a bit frustrating to wait for a 1 meg bitmap to arrive via e-mail.

Other news: I've created PDF files of the comics. To most, this may not seem like much, but it's a tremendous improvement over our zip-file thing. Check them out in our new PDF section.

I'd also like to once again say thanks to all who support Dank and Scud. Issue four won't let you down. Like Andrew said, we've been talking about it, and all I'm going to reveal is the title: Welcome to the Machine. Isn't it great how many ideas can sprout from a single title? I bet right now you're all thinking about what it could be about. Well for now, listen to the song.

Happy St-Patrick's Day.