“It is so difficult to mix with artists! You must choose businessmen to talk to, because artists only talk of money.”¹

Geek Out

Mix with artists. From 5 to 7 Friday night, cartooning students will join bona-fide cartoonist Paul Karasik at Jim Hanley’s Universe (33rd St. and 5th Ave.) to shill for the Center for Cartoon Studies based in White River Junction, Vt. (I went to school near White River Junction—it’s a beautiful area, and then January arrives.) “Center for Cartoon Studies” may sound like a fly-by-night scam advertised in the back pages of Batgirl, but it’s well respected among new-media scholars. They’ll give you the tools you need to make your Brisket Man comic—pardon me, graphic novel—a reality.

Your mind awash with dreams of becoming the next Daniel Clowes, take the F Train to Brooklyn for Rocketship’s belated Hotwire II release party. Artists featured in the hard-nosed Fantagraphics anthology—including Mark Newgarden, R. Sikoryak, And More!—will be on hand for realsies this time after the February party was scuppered by snow. If you buy a copy of the book, they might even write their names in it for you.

Geek In

Frighten pets and small children. A few weeks ago, I finally put together a Herbie the Mousebot kit I got for Christmas. I shouldn’t have waited so long. Herbie features infrared sensors, an obstacle-avoidance system made from a bent paperclip, and other novelties, but the kicker is that Herbie is freaking fast. You won’t believe how much pepper this thing gets from one 9-volt battery. Plus, if you get more than one, you can modify them to chase each other around. Your dog will hate this. You can find Herbie or a similar kit at your neighborhood robot emporium. In NYC, that’s Robot Village on the Upper West Side.

Revisit old foes. Nothing washes away the taste of Nintendo boxing awfulness like a lazy afternoon of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!. The Tyson-free edition of the classic game is available on the Wii Virtual Console, but for a truly retro experience, download a MAME emulator and find ROMs of the original arcade Punch-Out!! and Super Punch-Out!! games—I won’t link to them for gray-area legal reasons, but your Google searches don’t need to be especially imaginative to find what you’re looking for. The crude wireframe character will probably feel strange to players accustomed to Little Mac on the NES, but it’s fun to get a look at the series’ roots.

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1. According to a Finnish artist who liked to mix things up. ↑