commentary

This d8 storyline came about when that year's Cartoonist's Choice Awards' nominees were announced. For "Gaming Comic", of the four comics nominated, all but one had anything to do with role-playing games. One was about characters inside a video game, one was about two guys who purportedly played video games (but didn't actually play them in the comic strip), one was about characters who travel to different game system worlds and have adventures, and one featured an office staff that played computer games and whatnot.

None of these were what I would've called a gaming comic: a comic that featured characters playing a game. To me, "gaming" means "role-playing games". Not those games for your XBOX, your Playstation that call themselves "RPGs", but real, do whatever you want to, your mind is the limit, role-playing games.

So I wrote one.

The d8 storyline is about gamers, the games they play, and the characters in the game. I think this is what a gaming comic strip should be about.

With this, and a week later on when the characters play a super-hero RPG, there's as much gaming in this strip in 2002 as there was in MegaTokyo during the same time period. No reason why I shouldn't be nominated.

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