geekosystem

I was walking through the Phillipsburg Mall in Phillipsburg, New Jersey the other day with my family and stumbled across the single greatest doghouse ever to exist in history. I present you with "Bow Wowser's Castle" by artist Sam Boglioli. There were a bunch of dog houses around the mall, but none of the others were geek-themed, so I didn't bother taking pictures of them.

World of Warcraft is a community as much as it is a game, and sometimes that community has been called on to help out the real world. Blizzard, the company behind WoW, has hosted fundraising efforts in the past for charities like St. Jude Children's Hospital, the Make a Wish Foundation, and even the relief effort after the devastating 2011 tsunami in Japan. Their latest call to action for players has broken all of their previous fundraising records. Blizzard announced last week that World of Warcraft players have raised $2.3 million dollars for Hurricane Sandy relief.

Any kind of sale where businesses invite their customers to pay what they please for goods just reeks of disaster. The obvious problem is that "paying what you want" tends to gravitate towards "paying nothing at all." The good people behind Cards Against Humanity recently held a pay-what-you-want sale for holiday packs, and they've released the data they collected from it. The results just might surprise you.

Yet another Humble Bundle has arrived, but unlike the video game bundles of the past that were primarily of the indie variety, major third-party publisher THQ is stepping up to the charitable plate in an unprecedented move and offering a Humble Bundle of their very own. We're not talking about their run-of-the-mill, rubbish assortment of shovelware based on Nickelodeon cartoons and Disney movies either. With great games like Company of Heroes -- yes, with its expansions -- ready to play on Steam, there couldn't be a better way to give to a charitable cause.

Just two days ago, The Walt Disney Company announced they acquired Lucasfilm, and that the next Star Wars trilogy would begin in 2015 with Episode 7. The deal was said to cost $4.05 billion, a staggering sum of money that George Lucas plans to put toward funding education.

How one segues from minor Internet celebrity status to the rest of their life is probably an important indicator of their personality. After all, the sudden onset of celebrity status is often associated with horrifying results. Just look at what Lindsay Lohan has become and compare her current state to the Lindsay Lohan of The Parent Trap, and you'll understand completely. As a more positive story, however, it looks like the girl of Overly Attached Girlfriend fame has now moved on to promoting charity.

Yesterday, the folks over at Indiegamebundles.com came out with the Recession Bundle, a bundle of 8 great indie games. But this isn't your average bundle; a portion of the profits go to the charity, SOS - Children's Village Croatia. Find out more about the bundle and a little bit about each game after the jump!

Lawyer Charles Carreon may have bit off more than he could chew when he delivered notice to one Matthew Inman, the creator behind the immensely popular webcomic The Oatmeal. You see, Carreon is representing FunnyJunk, a website that had a spat with Inman last year over infringement accusations. They're now demanding $20,000 for their trouble. And the internet isn't happy with that.

The Humble Indie Bundle is back, and just in time for the holiday season! For those who missed out on the bundle's first iteration, the Humble Indie Bundle is a neat package of generally-awesome indie games, and features a custom price tag, in that customers can literally pay what they want for the bundle, and the bundle is free of hampering DRM. Customers can also choose how much of the money they paid for the bundle goes to the games' developers, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, or Child's Play charities, and they can also tip the creators and administrators of the Humble Indie Bundle.

This time around, the second-ever Humble Indie Bundle comes with the beautiful Machinarium (including the original soundtrack, which is nothing short of ear-candy), Braid, Cortex Command, Osmos and Revenge of the Titans. The admission price of whatever you want is absolutely worth any of those games alone, and each game runs on Mac, Windows and Linux, so there's really no reason not to go donate a few bucks to charity and pick up five worthwhile indie games.

One more thing for California lawmakers to think about: severely regulating the video games industry will render it less likely to perform inspiring works of charity. Activision, the parent company behind the Call of Duty franchise, held a held an event related to the launch of the newest CoD installment that, other than hosting numerous celebrities, a Metallica concert, and a armed-services only tournament, raised seven figures for US veterans. Said CEO Bobby Kotick:

“Call of Duty is one of the biggest of all entertainment franchises that uniquely pays tribute to the courage, dedication, and sacrifice of those who defend our nation and our freedom around the world,” “It is especially popular among service members at home and abroad, which is why we are honored to have this event highlight the critical issue of veterans unemployment and make our own contributions to the cause.

The Hero Initiative is a non-for-profit organization that works to help out established comic book creators who are down on their luck, as many in the industry have been at some time, due to the mercurial nature of in industry where royalties, character rights, and steady work-for-hire are in no way guaranteed.

Their latest fundraiser involves printing 50 blank-covered copies of Archie #600, the issue where he proposes to Veronica, asking 50 of the biggest artists in comics today to draw their own cover, and selling those issues on eBay. The originals, that is. The 50 new covers will also be collected in a published book, which will probably be a bit more affordable to the average comic reader.

The list of artists on the project include Neal Adams, Darwyn Cooke, John Romita, Tim Sale, and Cliff Chiang (above). We've put a few of the sample covers below the jump for you.

Boy, I can't wait to see Tim Sale's.

Tonight, Shinobi Ninja, a DIY rock band hailing from Brooklyn, NY, will be the headlining act at New York City Twestival 2010. According to the Twestival website:

Some ninjas are stealthy. Others attack their enemies with great ferocity. In the case of Shinobi Ninja, they kill through a combination of hard rockin’ riddims, razor-sharp rhymes and a hipster attitude that does Brooklyn proud.