firehose

HarperCollins

A London writer and illustrator who wanted to create a sequel to Where the Wild Things Are, one of the most famous children's books of all time, have had their idea shot down due to a copyright dispute. The book was to be a tribute to famed author Maurice Sendak on the one-year anniversary of his death.

Writer Geoffrey Todd and illustrator Rich Berner tried to raise money for the project on Kickstarter, but apparently lawyers at HarperCollins, which owns the copyright to Sendak's classic book, got wind of the project and sent a takedown notice to the crowdfunding site.

The duo said they got legal advice and were "very careful not to impinge on Mr. Sendak’s copyright," but that apparently wasn't good enough. The project, which was to have been titled Back to the Wild, has been removed from the site, with Kickstarter simply noting "it is the subject of an intellectual property dispute."

Google has reportedly paid the makers of Adblock Plus, the single most popular browser extension on Chrome and Firefox, to look the other way when it comes to its web advertisements. According to the German news site Horizont, Google and other unnamed companies are paying to be included on a "whitelist" that prevents their pop-ups, banners, and display ads from being blocked by the free service.

Horizont said in a report that it's unclear how much Google has paid Eyeo, the company behind Adblock Plus, to whitelist its ads, and that it doesn't know which other companies are doing the same. Both Eyeo and Google didn't respond to email requests for comment on Friday afternoon — but if we hear back, we'll update this post. In an FAQ page on the Adblock Plus website, Eyeo notes that it offers whitelisting under its Acceptable Ads initiative for free to smaller websites. The Acceptable Ads whitelist, which has been in place since at least 2011, argues that unobtrusive ads should remain viewable as long as they aren't annoying.

Eyeo also argues that it has a reason for charging others for the special treatment. "Managing this list requires significant effort on our side and this task cannot be completely taken over by volunteers," the FAQ says. "That's why we are being paid by some larger properties that serve nonintrusive advertisements."

Gamers in India have taken to Twitter to protest Electronic Arts' plans for gaming price rises in that country.

Under the hashtag #EAPCIndia, dozens of gamers have turned up to complain about EA's decision to price PC games at significantly higher levels than the traditional 999 to 1499 Indian Rupees, which is equivalent to between $17 and $25. According to MCV India, forthcoming games like Battlefield 4, Need For Speed: Rivals and FIFA 14 are priced at between Rs 2499 and Rs 3499 ($59) bringing them into line with Western prices.

MCV India speculates that the move has been prompted by a desire to stop non-Indian gamers using VPN services to buy games cheaply via EA's online retail site Origin. EA isn't the only company raising prices, although reports suggest that other publishers have raised prices less sharply.

On Twitter, gamers are unimpressed. One wrote that it is "a dumb business move, pushing people to piracy". Another stated, "It's just hilarious that they expect people to pay over 3k for FIFA 14 or a Need For Speed title."

Polygon has contacted Electronic Arts for more information.

Many game companies cut their staff numbers to save costs, or reassure investors, but Nintendo chief Satoru Iwata says that's a strategy he won't be using.

Participating in an investor Q&A, Iwata was asked why, given Nintendo's lackluster financial performance recently, he had not cut staff numbers. He replied that such moves might resolve short-term difficulties, but always proved counter-productive in the long-term.

"If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, employee morale will decrease," he said. "I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world."

Iwata pointed towards the value of the yen against the dollar as a significant factor in the company's decreased profits. He also said that today's games require more manpower to produce than those in the past.

"I know that some employers publicize their restructuring plan to improve their financial performance by letting a number of their employees go, but at Nintendo, employees make valuable contributions in their respective fields, so I believe that laying off a group of employees will not help to strengthen Nintendo's business in the long run."

In 2011, when Nintendo addressed the sluggish performance of its recently launched 3DS by slashing the machine's price, Iwata imposed a 50 percent pay-cut on himself, while other board members also took smaller pay decreases.

Hurricane Sandy caused widespread damage in Fire Island, New York.

Fireisland.com

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman this week accused Verizon of trying to "depart from a century of telephone service regulation" by ending wireline telephone service in a part of Fire Island devastated by Hurricane Sandy in October, 2012.

In addition, Schneiderman has accused Verizon of violating a state order by telling customers outside of Fire Island that they should accept wireless phone service instead of repairs to their landline service. He says Verizon should be fined $100,000 per customer, per day.

Verizon says it has not violated the state order, and that its offer of wireless service outside Fire Island is strictly optional. Verizon is, however, trying to gain state approval to end wireline service entirely in western Fire Island.

Q: Wait, what’s this I hear about Captain America in a roller derby? Did that really happen? — @RonHogan

A: Like a lot of comics fans, I spent my Independence Day talking to people about my favorite Captain America stories. Before long, this particular issue came up — mostly because I’m only about five seconds away from talking about Cap and the Falcon battling their way through a roller derby to the death at any given time. It’s sort of my go-to topic in case there’s a ever a lull in the conversation, which is why I’m always such a hit at parties.

Point being, yes, my friends, that comic is very real. And it is amazing.

It happens in Captain America #196, right near the start of Jack Kirby‘s return to Marvel in 1975 after the stint at DC that saw him creating The New Gods, The Demon, and OMAC, among others. It’s an era that produced some of my favorite Kirby comics, as it combined that wild, boundless ’70s Kirby style that I love with a return to characters he’d created years — and in Cap’s case, decades — before. This was, after all, the era that brought us Devil Dinosaur, the series that saw an angry Tyrannosaurus Rex stomping aliens to death in the Garden of Eden. That might actually be the platonic ideal of a Kirby comic, but books like Captain America and Black Panther were right up there with it.

I have a personal connection to this one, too: It’s actually the issue after the first Marvel comic I ever read. I was around four years old, and I don’t know where I got my hands on Cap #195 — it would’ve been a ten year-old back issue then — but I do remember that it scared the living hell out of me. There’s a scene with Captain America watching an army of crazed fanatics whipped up into a frenzy that drove them to tear a “Freedom Freak” effigy that was hanging from a gallows called “The Love Machine” apart and club it with metal pipes. That was just too much for my young mind to handle, to the point where even seeing the cover scared me, and drove me right back to those nice, safe Batman comics where he was breaking drug dealers’ thumbs. I think that actually might be why I love Kirby’s work so much now — particularly the stuff from the ’70s. Things that seemed scary and weird when you were a kid always have a weird little thrill to them.

I do wish I’d stuck around for one more issue, though, because #196 is where things get wild. The whole thing’s collected in a paperback called Madbomb, but if you haven’t read it, here’s the basic plot: There’s a secret organization that wants to overthrow America at the bicentennial using a sonic bomb that’ll drive everyone crazy, after which they’ll reinstate the aristocracy and turn all undesirables into cavemen to use as slaves. You know, standard comic book villain stuff. By this particular issue, Cap and the Falcon have infiltrated their secret hideout, met the head bad guy’s daughter (Cheer Chadwick), been captured, and forced to compete in the deadly sport known as Kill Derby!

And this is where things start to get weird.

One of the things I really like about this story is how much importance Kirby puts onto the idea of Cap’s shield as a symbol. I love that, because it underscores one of my favorite things about the character: He’s a soldier who doesn’t carry a gun. He carries a shield, because he exists to protect and defend people against the forces that would hurt them. It’s one of the most elegant ideas in comics, and something that I think really plays into Kirby’s idealized vision of what America should be, and it’s also one of the reasons why stories where Cap carries a gun never really feel right for me. It’s a big symbol, and in Cap’s view — and Kirby’s — that symbol has a lot of power.

So obviously he can’t let it be used to kill people in an underground roller derby to the death.

The choice is clear. They’re going to have to enter the Kill Derby themselves, recover the shield, and escape from the “New Society” compound while the other entrants concern themselves with winning the actual pot of gold that the elites are using as a prize. And that means it’s time for Cap on a skateboard!

A super-fast rocket skateboard, no less.

Incidentally, the large figure between Cap and the Falcon? That’s Tinkerbelle, the captain of their Kill Derby team, and the woman who punched out and captured both heroes in the previous issue. Unfortunately, she’s only able to give them the basics of the game, but as it’s one of those time honored “win or die” propositions, it seems pretty simple anyway.

It does make me wonder if I should be watching more real-world roller derby, though. I mean, I know they use rollerskates instead of skateboards these days, but flamethrowers are still legal, right?

Right.

Once they’re on the track, what follows is some fantastic Kirby sports (or at least sports-ish) action. The dude with the flame thrower gets blown up, but he’s wearing a fireproof suit so he keeps skating around and setting everything on fire, people are throwing gladiator nets and shooting missiles out of their fingertips. It’s awesome. There’s even a panel where Cap has a line of dialogue that I’m pretty sure Kirby himself said to Stan Lee when he left Fantastic Four:

It’s a great sequence, full of the kind of big ideas that Kirby specialized in, with deathtraps that were big and weird enough to be a threat to his big, weird heroes.

Eventually, Cap and the Falcon find the guy who stole Cap’s shield, but rather than just jumping on him and taking it back by force, Cap tries one last time to reason with him:

And that, I think is what really sticks with me about this story, and a lot of what Kirby was doing in the ’70s. He’s constantly exploring ideas of morality in the strangest possible ways, whether it’s the modern mythology of The New Gods or something as goofy and almost slapstick as Cap battling his way through the Kill Derby to get his shield back so he can stop a bomb with a mechanical brain inside it from going off. That stuff provides the backdrop, but what’s really going on here is a portrayal of the ultimate soldier, someone who was essentially created for war, who still only uses violence as a last resort.

In this story, Captain America and the Falcon are forced into a situation where everyone else is glad to be there, gleefully murdering each other with flamethrowers and clubs because there’s money waiting for the survivor. Even after going through that, even after participating in that by necessity, Cap’s still trying to find a better way. And when he can’t, when he has to fight, it’s not something he’s happy about.

Kirby treats even the silliest, most cartoony superhero violence as a regrettable necessity at best, and that’s amazing. He’s never particularly subtle about it — using an actual pot of gold as the prize is about as on the nose as you can get, even compared with the rest of the story — but he doesn’t need to be, either. It’s all there on the page, mixed up with rocket skateboards and brain-bombs.

Broforce, long before the explosions and shark wrestling, began with director Evan Greenwood's deep desire to create an action-packed cooperative game.

"We wanted to make a game that you would play with your friends, a local co-op game, and we wanted to make a game about a guy called Rambro — a violent, machine gun-firing, spelunking... something," Greenwood told Polygon.

The game was initially developed as Super Smash Lander Suicide Party, Bro?, an entry to the April 2012 Ludum Dare #23 Game Jam, where it won first place in the Humor category and placed high in groups awarded for the best graphics and having the most "fun factor." After the warm reception at the game jam, the team at South Africa-based Free Lives Games continued to tweak and add content to the game.

"Then we thought, we can add co-op with [another character] Brommando — and it just grew from there," Greenwood explained. "The idea that [the game] would have bros, and would have this kind of violent action movie feel... It was just going to be that kind of thing.

"Somewhere in development of that game, I started really feeling this bro idea," he explained, "and in Broforce it became a loving portrayal of action heroes. I'm in love with 80s and 90s action movies, and as soon as they were involved [as sources] it became this thing about going into outer space and fighting dinosuars and shark racing. There are so many things we can do with this concept."

So for Greenwood and his team, what exactly is a bro?

"[The appeal] is, a bro would do anything for his bros," Greenwood explains. The machete-wielding gun-toting bombastic heroes of Free Lives' game will work together to save America, defending their comrades in tight spots and teaming up for Grindhouse-style terrorist takedowns. "I don't think we really see [being a bro] as a negative."

Greenwood noted that the studio is currently working to incorporate what they feel is a very important new element into their title: female heroes.

"A lot of our discussions of what makes a bro eventually turned to, what would a ladybro be called?" he said. "But we decided that separating the characters by prefixing them with 'Lady' or 'Female' isn't really the female equivalent of a bro. Calling her something else, using that [prefix], would be a separate thing, and we really didn't want to do that."

The challenges of adding women to the game at all, Greenwood said, is not that women can't embody the spirit of the fiercely strong and protective bro — it's more about the game's nature, which is intentionally offensive at times. Players will spend a large amount of their game time triggering massive explosions and gunning down terrorists. Greenwood's team still needs to determine if adding these characters would be a logical fit.

The game is a bit insensitive at times... It's all about glory and shooting bullets, and being manly."

"It's not a gender thing, it's just about the bros — they all just want to fight the good fight, stand up with each other and protect each other. The game is a bit insensitive at times, and we're not exactly weeping for these terrorists; it's all about glory and shooting bullets, and being manly."

But perhaps "manly" isn't the right word, as Greenwood notes 80s and 90s action films are packed with strong, "badass" female heroes — his favorite being Alien heroine Ellen Ripley.

"We debated adding female characters a lot, and decided eventually that we didn't want just a token female, because that would just be awkward and wasn't really fair," Greenwood said. "That would actually be really revisionist of action hero history. 1980s films were dominated by males literally roundhouse kicking people. But then you have [characters] like Ellen Ripley from Alien, and she kicked the ass of every male. The female characters are deserving, we definitely intend to introduce them."

At one point the team toyed with the idea of creating a rival Broforce of all female characters, a set of competitors that would save the day once the male Broforce screwed up. While the bros were "destroying everything and wasting taxpayer money," the ladies would come in and clean up, and maybe there would be a little bit of romance thrown in — another premise that didn't sit right with Greenwood.

"The separation didn't sound right," he said. "I think it's better if they are all a team. There doesn't need to be any sort of distinction, and no corny romantic stuff. Lots of bromance, but no romance."

Free Lives doesn't intend to make too big of a distinction between the "ladies and the dudes" of Broforce in terms of skills once they introduce them as playable characters. These women will also carry "bro" somewhere in their name, and there are already plans to make Broforce versions of Ripley, Tank Girl, Terminator's Sarah Connor and even "The Bride" Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill.

"They're all action heroes united to defeat terrorists," Greenwood said. "They can be any-bro."

Broforce is available as a free playable "Brototype" via Free Lives' website, where players can get a good look at the game's mechanics, steeped in firepower and bro-fueled corniness. But what the demo doesn't show much of is the game's narrative, which Greenwood said is still being fine-tuned.

"We want to have a big space action opera, maybe something like a rouguelike, and by the end of the game Brofroce will be saved more than once," Greenwood said. "We do hope to include more aliens, like Contra-esque aliens, and a subplot with Satan trying to take over corporate America... Zero gravity explosions, big themes like betrayal and more about of the identity of being a bro."

One of Greenwood's ideas about understanding bro-dom involves a cyborg modeled after Star Trek character Data: a bro-bot who does not know if he's a bro or not. Greenwood said this bro-bot would question his bro status because he doesn't have feelings — only to realize none of the human bros really have feelings either.

"There's a place we definitely wanna go with the story."

The decision to borrow aesthetics and themes from 80s action movies was because Free Lives did not want to make a serious game. Brofoce is a fun hyperbole of the action genre from that era, and there are certain elements — mostly revolving around war and foreign relations — that don't sit as well with audiences now.

"You look at a movie like Commando and you see Arnold Schwarzenegger going from killing bad guy to bad guy, there aren't any consequences," Greenwood said. "And at the end they just pat him on the back and say, 'Well done, you destroyed everyone.' When you were a kid watching these films in the 80s, you thought it was the best thing you've ever seen. But now it can't work that way, because people have the internet and are aware of the things going on in foreign countries. It's more complex now, we can't just have Rambo going into Afghanistan and waging a one-man war and then riding horses at the end and being like, 'This is for the people.'

"It's wonderful that we could think that way then, but to some extent that's why it can't be so funny now," he added. "If we focused on a more modern portrayal, we would have to be more serious, and we really don't want to do that. But everyone has an opinion — this stuff is just part of our cultural heritage, we grew up watching these films."

"It's not about getting drunk and being irresponsible, it's about standing up for what's right and the positive side of manliness."

Broforce is currently on Steam Greenlight and Free Lives hopes to launch a pre-order and beta access campaign in the near future. The full game's launch is dependent on reception to the beta program and how long it takes the team to accordingly tweak the final features.

"Through making the game, we have a much more positive view of what a bro is, I think," said Greenwood. "We hope this becomes a cornerstone for what people think bro culture is. It's not about getting drunk and being irresponsible, it's about standing up for what's right and the positive side of manliness."