Also share prints, apparel, and more.

If you’re following along on Twitter, you haven’t missed this good stuff:

• Despair’s latest vividly demonstrates awesome longer-form storytelling via video (here you go, Mr. Eisner), parts 1 and 2;
• Ask A Ninja isn’t shy about anything talking web video;
• Rooster Teeth has launched Red Vs Blue: Reconstruction;
• Laughing Squid captured the world’s largest lolcat;
• SoHo has a 20′ Lala;
• Diesel Sweeties celebrated a six-year undiversary. Congrats, yo!
• AppleGeeks honored Memorial Day;
• Kris Straub has opened his sketchbooks. So cool.
• Go inside PAA Episode 1.

More soon. Promise.

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!

ROFL Con (In their own words)

Mix up a bunch of super famous internet memes, some brainy academics, a big audience, dump them in Cambridge, MA and you’ve got ROFLCon.

The conference is slated for April 25th and 26th of 2008.

It’s a group dissection of internet culture. What makes it work, why it works, how it works. We’ll talk about where internet culture has been and where we think it’s going.

Then, there’ll be parties. A music show, with memes performing their work live. And then a big blowout party at the end, with everyone dancing and rocking out.

Needless to say, this might be the most important gathering since the fall of the tower of Babel.

• Chris Onstad at Achewood features an irreverent, but ultimately affectionate, strip explaining the basics of D&D to those who are unfamiliar with it.

• Giant in the Playground imagines Gygax’s arrival in heaven.

• Full Frontal Nerdity thanks Gygax “for saving us all a place at the gaming table.”

• Dork Tower remembers Gygax with an incredibly sweet, earnest cartoon.

• The undie band Uncle Monsterface (which defies description, but in a wonderful, wonderful way) offers a free download of their new song “(thank you) Gary Gygax.” (Via Wired.)

• At the Rooster Teeth blog, Burnie Burns writes: “He was born with a space alien’s last name; he was destined for nerdom at birth. D&D didn’t exist so he had no choice but to invent it.”

• Penny Arcade features an unbelievably touching, and perfectly executed, tribute to Gygax.

It’s easy to understand the outpouring of emotion from the undependents — Gygax was an undie pioneer, creating not just an original work of art, but an original form of art as well. He created D&D out of whole cloth, and he did it himself, releasing the very first editions of the game himself, without help from major distributors. He was almost a godfather to generations of creative types, and the undependent scene wouldn’t be the same without him. Rest in peace, Gary.

Ordering couldn’t be simpler. The familiar navigator located beneath each comic strip simply has a new button that reads “Buy a Print.” Click it and you’re done. No Ajax, no Logins, the item is automatically added to the Penny Arcade shopping cart. You can return to the navigator to add more strips, shop for other PA merch in their store, or just checkout.

A simple, subtle, nearly frictionless purchase process. You can read more about it in Gabe’s announcement here.

• Get out your credit card. Share the Despair. You can see all five new Demotivators here. I think this one is my favorite.
• Strong Bad answered an email about business travel. His commentary on webcomics last week reminded me of a classic from the Penny Arcade archives. It seems Gabe and Tycho anticipated the joke by, oh, about eight years.
• Tiki Bar TV unveiled their latest, Ice Breaker. Check the awesome new mug at the end of the episode.
• Just in time for Halloween, JibJab has served up two zombie reels (one featuring Democrats, the other Republicans) for their popular Starring You series of Sendables. Undie cat Aaron Simpson created his; you can, too.

Click the mug to get your drink on:

Your store links: Despair; Homestar Runner; Penny Arcade; Tiki Bar TV; JibJab; Aaron Simpson’s Cold Hard Flash.

Successful community strategies vary as widely as the Undies themselves. For instance:

• Despair, Inc. lets their fans build their own Demotivators. In addition, Despair offers excellent promotions to members of their Wailing List.
• JibJab has a massive community presence and lets fans star in their own clips;
• Penny Arcade has forums at their site, and they host their own monster convention, the Penny Arcade Expo, that this year brought together almost 40,000 fans for three days of gaming festivities.
• Rooster Teeth Productions has built perhaps the greatest Undie community site around. Check these amazing stats:

The web continues to evolve new ways to build and manage your community. TechCrunch has reviewed nine such tools. I like Ning a lot myself.
Ask A Ninja has announced an upcoming upgrade to their community platform. We’re eager to see what the Ninja unleashes for fans.
Creators, how do you encourage and engage your tribe?

Fans, what community features do you like the most?

–JLB

It is another thing entirely to become so huge that you can run your own convention.

The fourth annual Penny Arcade Expo (PAX) brought 30,000 folks to 130,000 square feet in downtown Seattle’s Washington State Convention and Trade Center for a great experience. Wired Magazine recently reported that this event is now the largest gaming convention in the USA.

Now that’s undependence.

For more on Penny Arcade and PAX:

• Recent Gabe and Tycho posts on PAX;
• Kiko photos from PAX;
• Wikipedia on Penny Arcade and PAX;
• Please also learn about and support Child’s Play (Wikipedia entry).

-JLB

You may know them better by their clients: Besides Despair, there’s Penny Arcade, Rooster Teeth, JibJab, Ask a Ninja, and Tiki Bar TV. Amplifier is designed to facilitate business for the creative sector, whether that’s fulfillment, distribution, customer service, or anything else that might otherwise be outsourced. This lets small businesses do things like personalize orders, include bonus items for certain customers, tailor their phone support to the feel of their company, and be able to focus on ideas, not management.