The guest list really is a who’s who of Internet fame and/or ignominy. Amplifier’s own Joel Bush will be there to hopefully document the event. We gave him a great video camera so honestly, he’s without excuse!
You can say many things about the gang at Rooster Teeth. They own their medium. They’re funny. They’re continuously experimenting with new forms and permutations (Grifball!) And many more.
But they’re also just overkillers in the best way. They invest their DVDs not only with the classic Red vs Blue content, but with so much of the unrelenting absurdity that is their signature. So when they release the DVD BOXED SET of ALL 5 Seasons of RVB on 5 DVDs at $69, you’re already getting an enormous value. (The DVDs individually retail for $20) And each of those DVDs were packed with all the outtakes, missing scenes, bonus foo and so on.
But with this new boxed set they’ve now created 2 MORE hours of behind the scenes material, “making of” documentaries and all sorts of other stuff. So six DVDs for seventy bucks, it’s like $50 off. Plus you get the awesome black/blue and red all over double-box to carry them in.
We hope to have a more extensive writeup soon. (we still have to watch through all this stuff!)
Arguably one of the most influential working t-shirt designers today, Glenn Jones, has launched his own t-shirt company, Glennz Tees. If you’ve spent much time in the t-shirt world, you already know his work. He’s won more Threadless contests than anyone. He combines a richly-colored, insanely detailed illustrative style with a laugh-out loud funny visual gag.
The death of Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax earlier this week wasn’t just a loss for gamers and fantasy fans, but for creative types and undependents all over the world. Some of the web’s best and brightest undependents have been remembering the role-playing game titan as only they can.
According to some highly-regarded scholars of the intersection of music and popular culture (by which I mean, whoever wrote the first entry that came up after my hasty Google search), David Lee Roth once said that the reason most music critics love Elvis Costello is because most music critics look like Elvis Costello. (For those who have never really gotten over the nerd vs. jock tensions in high school — Hi! I’m Mike! — it should be pointed out that Costello later got nominated for an Oscar and commissioned by the Danish Royal Opera, while Roth is now doing this.)
The point is — or should be — the relative acceptability of nerdiness is a somewhat recent phenomenon, and the Internet is helping the bespectacled and pallid among us finally convince the world that knowledge is actually pretty cool. There’s a whole slew of webcomics out there celebrating, and not apologizing for, their creators’ love of periodic tables, quadratic equations, obscure art history, and all other kinds of fancy-pants book-learnin’. Here’s two of them:
Happy Valentine’s Day (sorta) from the Undies:
Enjoy.
Micropersuasion.com’s Steve Rubel recently described the revolution underway as (i.) content production and distribution explodes and (ii.) creators bypass intermediaries to go direct. Providing an apt metaphor, he called for Digital Curators to help audiences discover, experience, and understand the best “finds” within this ever-increasing flow of content.
Nice call, Steve. Thank you.
We help audiences (all of us) find, follow, and enjoy the best work from the emerging class of self-sustaining Internet-based artists, aka the Undependents or Undies, who are telling amazing stories within podcasts, video, webcomics, machinima, animation, etc.
As curators, we feature these programs:
The Undependent Universe’s Collection continues to grow. It currently includes the following, in no particular order (visit the site for links):
Thanks again, Steve, for your great post and ongoing work. And thanks, too, to all the Undies and especially all the fans who support them. Without you, this revolution doesn’t happen.
I recently highlighted Despair’s BitterSweets relaunch. In their typically super-creative fashion, they have amplified this product and taken it to a completely new level. Fans can now share their own expressions of dejection, dysfunction, and Despair.
At iheart.despair.com, you can:
In addition, since this product is completely integrated with their store, you can purchase these items in the same order as a t-shirt, mug, and custom calendar.
This is some seriously cool stuff. Share the love.
Time Magazine’s Lev Grossman calls webcomic Achewood (which is, perhaps, the best comic strip in American history) the best graphic novel of the year, noting “(i)t’s not a graphic novel in every, or maybe any, traditional sense, since its primary venue is the Web, but Achewood is so profoundly genius it would be a crime to put it anywhere but on this list, and at the top of it.” (more…)
Previously in Undependent…
So now we’re introducing to Undependent readers Tiki Bar TV’s new “Drinkbot Decanter.”
Again, Tiki Bar has produced a genuinely original product here. Like the Lala Calendar and the Charooba Mug before it, Drinkbot Decanter scores a direct hit for true fans. But we at Undependent, presuming as we do to be experts, also have to praise Tiki Bar TV particularly their manufacturer Tiki Farm for a tiny detail which serves as the crowning achievement of this product. As this will factor into future merchandise profiles, we’ll call it the “You’ve Got to be Kidding Me” factor.
Drinkbot Decanter’s capstone is the tiny, detailed lampshade included with the order. If you haven’t done so already, watch the classic Drinkbot episode for this perfect bit of prop comedy. Being confident comedians, they don’t stop everything to ensure viewers see the lampshade on Drinkbot’s head. It’s just another example of theinspired lunacy that is the signature of Tiki Bar TV.
So, if you were making an expensive, completely custom mug, would you go to the trouble and add more cost to it for this small joke? Of course you wouldn’t. That’s why we’re not writing about you, we’re writing about someone who really gets how tangible the little intangibles ARE. Cheers and mahalo to Tiki Bar and Tiki Farm for really going the extra mile for a joke.
Now that you think about it, you agree, right? Buy a Drinkbot Decanter to say so!
Undependent™ tracks the emerging class of self-sustaining Internet-based artists. By artist we don’t mean artiste. We mean those content creators whose self-expression originates in and emanates from the Internet itself. The compelling ones attract audiences and in so doing are capable of creating completely self-sustaining businesses with total artistic control. (Read more here)
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