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<title>Villainy Minor Recent Updates</title>
<description>The last update of the comic.</description>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/</link>
<language>en-us</language>


<item>
<title>Moooooom!!!!</title>
<description><![CDATA[Sorry this is so late and the lack of a Harbringer update.  I just moved out and honestly I don't have internet access at my new home.  In fact I can't even find my computer right now.  (I hope it didn't get lost or worse while I was moving.)  And I only just recently got the gas & heat turned on.

Which leads me to so bad news.  The VM files were lost while moving and all the issued we had done up ahead are missing.  This is the only update I have left (because I mailed it to myself to be uploaded from elsewhere in anticipation of my lack of internet.)

Currently Amy is under a brutal deadline to finish our graphic novel by the end of january so she can't take the time to redo them.  Unless we find the disks they were saved on I'm afraid that VM is either going to have to get a guest artist for a few weeks or go on hiatus.

If anyone is interested in helping out let me know.  If we can get a guest artist for that period we might do a Mary spin off story or something like that until Amy can return and continue the normal comic.

PS: If anyone has suggestions for a good high speed internet provider let me know because I am looking for one.]]></description>
<pubDate>Fri, 30 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/?p=318435</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Jokes on you</title>
<description><![CDATA[Havenshire Harbinger November 13th 2007

Cwen's Quest By Vinessa Tress

I'm very excited this week as I write this column.  Why you may ask?  Because Cwen's Quest is coming in comic form at last.  Cwen's Quest is going to be a weekly series on the popular hosting site Drunk Duck and can be found [url=http://www.drunkduck.com/Cwens_Quest/index.php]here.[/url]

Cwen's Quest was originally a little known book series by the author Derik Frost.  It followed the childhood adventures of Cwen Quest, daughter of the powerful demon Lord Attez after he exiles her from his island kingdom.  Derik Frost wrote seven Cwen's Quest novels in his life time largely aimed at children following Cwen's childhood adventures in a magical kingdom of fantasy.

The new series is done by being written by Nicholas J.G. Stroffolino and drawn by Sarah Nelson.  Stroffolino was a long time fan of the books and has often spoke about his desire make a comic series based off of the classic books.  The new series updates Cwen quite a bit.  Taking place after the original seven books Cwen is now a teenager and finally returns from exile.  The series is supposedly based on notes for the often rumored 8th never finished book in the series.

Faithful fans never fear though, Cwen and Wendy will be returning, however the new series introduces a new character into the mix named Riddly Lancer.  Not much is known about Riddly right now except he is a major character in the first issue of the new series.

I had the chance to interview Nick about the new series and ask him a few questions.

[i]VT:  Hi, Nick.  Nice to meet you.[/i]

NS:  Thank Vinessa.  It is nice to speak to you as well.  I always enjoy your columns.

[i]VT:  Alright, I'm a big fan of the original Cwen books, but why do a sequel?[/i]

NS:  The question is really why not?  The Wizard of Oz has a whole society based around writing new books for Oz.  Oh sure they are never going to replace the famous forty and most people don't even know anything but the movie but for Oz fans each new book is a treasure.  It is the same with new series like Star Wars or Dune.  After Lord of the Rings came out there was a popular phrase in England "Frodo Lives".  Authors die, books end, but characters live.  Cwen is still alive and well, with more stories to be told and I want to help tell those stories.

[i]VT:  How come you didn't just make a comic version of the original books?[/i]

NS:  Well it is really about the target audience.  The original books were written for younger kids.  They had more of a fairy tale like quality.  Today comics are read by teenagers and adults as much as they are children.  So when I started on the series I decided pretty early on that this should take place after the books.  Plus the books stand on there own.  If people are really interested, and I hope they will be, they can go back and read the original books.  I don't think there would have been much point in just copying the books, they don't need to be improved upon.

[i]VT:  What about Riddly?  Why bring a new character into the series?[/i]

NS:  Well there are a lot of very rich characters in the books and some of them will be showing back up in the new series but the problem is we already know all those characters and they already knew Cwen.  The story really needed someone who was new to ask the dumb questions the audience.  If you've ever seen Dr. Who they you know he almost always travels with a companion even though sometimes those companions are dumb as a box of rocks.  Why?  Because the writers need someone to ask the doctor what he doing since the doctor would be a total lunatic if he explained things to himself all the time.  Hence the companions and hence Riddly Lancer.  

[i]VT:  So is Riddly dumb as a box of rocks?[/i]

NS:  Heh. No, no he isn't.  He is just meeting Cwen for the first time so he has to be brought up to speed on things sometimes.

[i]VT:  Was it tough finding a visual style of Cwen's Quest?[/i]

NS:  Not for me I just write the stuff.  Seriously Cwen's Quest presented some interesting challenges but Sarah is great.  She hadn't read the novels when we started but she really got into the series once she started.  She really developed a strong visual style for Cwen's Quest.  I think it will be like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.  Before the movies everyone had their own idea of what a Nazgul looked like, but now everyone pretty much thinks they look like they did in the movies and that is reflected in all sort of Lord of the Rings art and media being developed now.  I think Sarah is doing the same for Cwen's Quest.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 13 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0600</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/?p=308775</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Tender Love and Care</title>
<description><![CDATA[Havenshire Harbinger November 4th 2007

Where is my simulated sweat? By Vinessa Tress

Personally I hate playing the Wii.  It's not because the Wii isn't fun, far from it.   Despite its fairly limited offering of top titles compared to PC, 360 or PS3 I think some of the most fun to be had in the video game world is on the Wii.  No, my problem is the Wii makes me feel guilty for playing it.  I like to game, but I'm far from a gamer.  I admit, I get into the fads.  I love Dance Dance or more specifically its lesser known competitor Pump It Up (Yay!) and I jumped on the band wagon with Guitar Hero II, III and I'll probably jam on Garage Band pretty soon too, pumping out the vocals for my local gang of 4.  I can play other games like Halo and not but I'm mainly a party gamer, as in I only play when I'm hanging out, and party gamers in shooters tend to end up being like Aquaman in a superhero fight.  Collecting high powered sniper rounds in the back of my head isn't my idea of good time.

Wii games however have expanded from Mario Kart & its kin and now simulate all sorts of activities like Golf, Bowling, Baseball and boxing.  The problem is, for me, when I was playing good old mario Tennis on the game cube I enjoyed playing a goofy and fun game on the coach with my friends.  When I play Wii tennis: weaving, swinging, and diving all with a little white stick in my hand I can't help but wonder why the heck we're not actually just playing tennis?

Playing the Wii to me is a lot like looking at a picture of a steak when you are hungry.  I don't want to look at a virtual picture of a steak I want to eat a steak.  When I want to play tennis I want to play tennis!  I want to feel heft of a racket in my hand, feel sting as I go crashing into the ground, and feel the jolt go up my arm as I return a power shot.  To say nothing of the fact I want to burn some calories so I can have that ever so juicy looking steak I was looking at earlier.

I, like most people, am a spoiled brat.  If they made a robot to wipe my bu..., erm, mouth for me I'd probably be the first to buy one to have one more annoying part of life taken care of for me.  When I play I still want to play hard while I can!  Truth is, though, these things are no fun to do by yourself so I'm putting out some positive peer pressure here to get my friends in on the act.

Life's short, or so my sports drink tells me and I want to get out there while I can.  There will be plenty of time to play Halo later when I'm old and my friend's eye sight has gone so they can't snipe me anymore.  For today, take me to the greens, put my on the court or take me to lanes but get me out of the house before it starts snowing.]]></description>
<pubDate>Sun, 04 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/?p=304143</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Say Nothing</title>
<description><![CDATA[Havenshire Harbinger October 30th 2007

Goddesses of Plastic By Vinessa Tress

Well it is all hallows eve again and time for yours truly to pick out a costume.  Normally I make my own costumes, largely because store costumes seems to only have one costume available and that being a slut costume.  Pirate Wench?  Naughty Nurse?  Major Flirt?  Um no thanks.  I used to be all about that back in high school as I crammed my shapely legs into instant wedgie tights and declared myself to be an super villainess but (villain-Tress jokes aside, X_X) somehow the whole thing becomes creepy when you see 6 year olds dressed as the PussyCat Dolls and asking for candy.  Thanks, Buffy, for teaching us it is okay to kick butt but not okay to wear a shirt that covers our midriff.

While some past years shoving myself into a corset would have probably earned me some wicked snipes from the B-Three, our resident queens of the social food chain around the campus, this year I'm lean and tone.  I've started doing a little weight training.  You see it turns out that muscle burns something like twenty-time the calories of other tissues (read fat), so all the aerobics classes which kept my nice a lean and on a ritz cracker diet were only setting me up for a midlife crisis when the cinnibuns I so love suddenly started making my buns soft and gooey too.  So I'm a little more buff now, which is a little awkward with some guys (re: girly men who fear I shall breaaaaaaaak them) I now can have the occasional chocolate reward and carry all my course books with me in my back pack without fear of falling down the stairs.  Please note if I kill you with my pack accidentally you died for a good cause and my self image rocks!

So what options do we have for a girl too buff to be Snow White and about a metric ton too light to be Wonder(Bra) Woman?  Joan of Arc?  Naaaah.  Flonne Angel of Love?  Naaaaaah.  Athena Goddess of Wisdom & Victory?  I'm liking the sound of that.

So how to transform into Athena on a budget?  Well to start with, stop at your local costume shop and get a 300 Spartan costume on sale because Leonidis' plastic abs got cracked in shipping.  After we pitch the leather codpiece we have a serviceable helmet we can modify a bit, a spear & a sweet red cloak.  I'm opting for less "chick in a bed sheet" and more "warrior maiden" look.  Next, we get some sandals also conveniently on clearance to make room for winter boots and paint them gold.  The hard part is coming up with some armor for my torso.  Fortunately, I cheat by borrowing some from a friend and then make my own Roman legion style skirt to go with it out of an old belt and some plastic strips.  I'm going to be wearing some skin toned tights and a home-made white garment, which looks marginally better than if I had cut a few holes in a potato sack, under my invincible plastic armor for warmth.  In the end it looks a bit cheesy, but that is half the fun.  I opt to carry my helmet as it keeps falling off and instead wear a fake laurel wreath on my head to help people figure out who I'm supposed to be.  With a little bit of make up I don't think I look half bad.

Sadly no one knew who I was supposed to be, most assumed I was supposed to be a video game character of some sort.  Curse you Kratos for rotting people's brains!  But I had fun making it.  Maybe next year I'll go as something scary like mid-life crisis Britney Spears?  Naaaaaaah.]]></description>
<pubDate>Tue, 30 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/?p=301418</link>
</item>

<item>
<title>Disappointment</title>
<description><![CDATA[Havenshire Harbinger October 20th 2007

Sudoku I Choose You! By Vinessa Tress

When I was a girl it was Pokemon.  Those horrible one-hundred and fifty-one pocket monsters which invaded from Japan.  They arrived like locust and began consuming everything in their wake.  Within weeks my favorite shows had been sent to the dust bin of TV programming to make room for these horrible little monsters.  Once here, they began to multiply as generation after generation of pokeball slingers continue to hunt and capture the ever multiplying and mutating beasts.  With all the "mating" they must do to produce those kinds of numbers I wonder how they ever find the time to fight.

Well now Japan has done it again, but this time the monster they sent us is Sudoku!  It is a little known the fact that Sudoku is in fact not Japanese.  Sudoku started life in the United States of America under the name Number Place where it was generally considered too complicated and boring to actually be played even by computer geeks to which the game was targeted at.  Several years later however the Japanese came across it and renamed it Sudoku after giving it a healthy dose of the radiation that created Godzilla and sent it around the world once it had finished becoming a giant monster hell bent on destroying major metropolitan cities.

Recently a local paper that isn't the Havenshire Harbinger decided it needed to get in on the Sudoku trade.  They resisted it for a while but when they realized how many suburbanites lay about each morning desperate for their Sudoku fix so they can get through the day, their eyes turned green with dollar signs.  But wait, there was a problem: the paper was all ready full up!  What could they do?  Well, it was an "arts & entertainment piece" so cleary something had to give.  We can't have to much of the arts in a paper, they reasoned, people might hurt themselves flipping past it to find the sports page.  So what to cut then?  Celebrity Gossip?  Heck no!  Too many people like Paris Hilton's very lively hood depend on that.  Could we cut the section on daytime TV?  No, no, no, how else would people know what is going on in All my Children?  If they missed an episode they would be totally lost!  But fear not for they found something they could cut down, the comics!  After all no one reads comics anymore.  Heck with Calvin and Hobbes, Farside & Peanuts gone are there even any comics lefts?  Not anymore, ehehe, we cut them for Sudoku and horoscopes!

This is the deathnote of an era.  The strip format comic is dying, no match for Sudoku's atomic fire like a bird going south for the winter it flees away to the internet.  Never more shall the morning paper deliver comic goodness to start my day off with a smile, that is what people have cell phones for right?  Well I love my I-Phone but satan will be starting an ice hockey team before I try and read comics off my cell phone while eating breakfast.  With my morning co-ordination the only laugh I'll get out of it is when I try and test the limits of my phone's warranty after fishing it out of my cereal bowl.  Oh morning comics I shall morn your loss, but at least all always have witty columns right?  Right?
]]></description>
<pubDate>Sat, 20 Oct 2007 00:00:00 -0500</pubDate>
<link>http://www.drunkduck.com/Villainy_Minor/?p=296859</link>
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