Deborah Flint, the current President and CEO of Greater Toronto Airports Authority, is a featured volunteer in Issue 324 (November-December 2019) of TRB's magazine TR News . "Be flexible... Be a sponge, open to everything," she says. At TRB, Ms. Flint served on an Airport Cooperative Research Program panel and was previously a member of the ACRP Oversight Committee. In her role in Toronto, she oversees all airport operations, including the security and safety of employees and travelers. Previously, she s...

"I fell into transportation domain by chance, pursuing my interests in software and data. And although I kept working in these fields, TRB taught me about transportation and how my software and data expertise could help solve transportation problems," says Nikola Ivanov, Director of Operations at the University of Maryland’s Center for Advanced Transportation Technology (CATT) Laboratory. "Through TRB, I’ve met hundreds of brilliant experts, all of whom help me make a difference in people’s everyday live...

Bimonthly newsletter released by the Institute of Transport Studies at Monash University

Issue 324 of TRB's magazine (November-December 2019) focuses on climate change resilience. Along with several explorations within that topic, a short history of TRB is offered as well as all the usual standing features of the magazine. TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practice in all modes of transportation. It also includes brief news items of interest to the transportation community, research pays off articles , profiles of tr...

The March-April 2020 issue of TR News (#326) - including a cover feature on TRB's "century of progress and foundation for the future" of transportation research - is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Other feature articles in the issue include ones on whether research processes can keep up, accessible rail sleeper compartments, drones and lasers for railroad bridges, implications of California wildfires, and muc...

Issue 324 of TRB's magazine (November-December 2019) focuses on climate change resilience. Along with several explorations within that topic, a short history of TRB is offered as well as all the usual standing features of the magazine. TR News is TRB's bimonthly magazine featuring timely articles on innovative and state-of-the-art research and practice in all modes of transportation. It also includes brief news items of interest to the transportation community, research pays off articles , profiles of tr...

The March-April 2020 issue of TR News (#326) - including a cover feature on TRB's "century of progress and foundation for the future" of transportation research - is available in hard copy and digital copy for subscribers. For those who are not subscribers, the table of contents is available. Other feature articles in the issue include ones on whether research processes can keep up, accessible rail sleeper compartments, drones and lasers for railroad bridges, implications of California wildfires, and muc...

The closing panel in The Listening Lounge at February's Splore festival was a fairly ambitious one, I wasn't sure whether it was going to work and I knew I was going to depend on my panelists – a psychologist, a brilliant young Zimbabwean New Zealander, an evangelical pastor and a campaign expert – to make it work.
I'm never really sure after these discussions what's actually happened – I've spent the whole time in the moment. But re-reading the transcript (thank you to Emma Hart for that), I felt good about it.
I also felt that the subtitle: "How do we all move…

For obvious reasons, there has been a lot of attention paid to work going into developing vaccines that could prevent Covid-19 infection, and drugs that could treat it. In particular, there has been some excitement about new animal trial data for remdesivir, a drug developed by Gilead Sciences. Gilead's share price rose nearly 10% on the day the trial data were announced.
It will be some time yet before the safety and efficacy of remdesvir is established, if ever (it's worth noting that it was tried, unsuccessfully, as a treatment for Ebola). And since I started work on this post…

Regular readers will know that I've been hanging out for the "market allocation" parts of the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill, which will be the subject of a referendum this year.
While most media outlets ran inane stories last year on how many joints 14 grams added up to, it was clear to anyone who took the subject seriously that the questions of who would get to produce and sell cannabis and how licences would be awarded were vastly more important. And we've had to wait for answers to those.
Well, they're here. And it's very good news. From…

Like most people, I've been staying at home, doing a bit in the garden, cooking a lot and managing occasional bouts of anxiety. I've also written more here than I have done for a while. At a time when every Friday night has me missing my mates, it's been nice to see you all again.
But in the midst of it all – and after everything else disappeared – I got a new gig. It's with my friends from Spark Lab, it's called The Pivot Reports and it's a series of live-streamed shows over the next six weeks talking to business owners…

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Have you heard of Heath Freeman? He's a thirty-something hedge fund boss, who runs "Alden Global Capital," which owns a company misleadingly called "Digital First Media." His business has been to buy up local newspapers around the country and basically cut everything down to the bone, and just milk the assets for whatever cash they still produce, minus all the important journalism stuff. He's been called "the hedge fund asshole", "the hedge fund vampire that bleeds newspapers dry", "a small worthless footnote", the "Gordon Gecko" of newspapers and a variety of other fun things.

Reading through some of those links above, you find a standard playbook for Freeman's managing of newspapers:

These are the assholes who a few years ago bought the Denver Post, once one of the best regional newspapers in the country, and hollowed it out into a shell of its former self, then laid off some more people. Things got so bad that the Post’s own editorial board rebelled, demanding that if “Alden isn’t willing to do good journalism here, it should sell the Post to owners who will.”

And here's one of the other links from above telling a similar story:

The Denver newsroom was hardly alone in its misery. In Northern California, a combined editorial staff of 16 regional newspapers had reportedly been slashed from 1,000 to a mere 150. Farther down the coast in Orange County, there were according to industry analyst Ken Doctor, complained of rats, mildew, fallen ceilings, and filthy bathrooms. In her Washington Post column, media critic Margaret Sullivan called Alden “one of the most ruthless of the corporate strip-miners seemingly intent on destroying local journalism.”

And, yes, I think it's fair to say that many newspapers did get a bit fat and happy with their old school monopolistic hold on the news market pre-internet. And many of them failed to adapt. And so, restructuring and re-prioritizing is not a bad idea. But that's not really what's happening here. Alden appears to be taking profitable (not just struggling) newspapers, and squeezing as much money out of them directly into Freeman's pockets, rather than plowing it back into actual journalism. And Alden/DFM appears to be ridiculously profitable for Freeman, even as the journalism it produces becomes weaker and weaker. Jim Brady called it "combover journalism." Basically using skeleton staff to pretend to really be covering the news, when it's clear to everyone that it's not really doing the job.

All of that is prelude to the latest news that Freeman, who basically refuses to ever talk to the media, has sent a letter to other newspaper bosses suggesting they collude to force Google and Facebook to make him even richer.

You can see the full letter here:

Let's go through this nonsense bit by bit, because it is almost 100% nonsense.

These are immensely challenging times for all of us in the newspaper industry as we balance the two equally important goals of keeping the communities we serve fully informed, while also striving to safeguard the viability of our news organizations today and well into the future.

Let's be clear: the "viability" of your newsrooms was decimated when you fired a huge percentage of the local reporters and stuffed the profits into your pockets, rather than investing in the actual product.

Since Facebook was founded in 2004, nearly 2,000 (one in five) newspapers have closed and with them many thousands of newspaper jobs have been lost. In that same time period, Google has become the world's primary news aggregation service, Apple launched a news app with a subsription-based tier and Twitter has become a household name by serving as a distribution service for the content our staffs create.

Correlation is not causation, of course. But even if that were the case, the focus of a well-managed business would be to adapt to the changing market place to take advantage of, say, new distribution channels, new advertising and subscription products, and new ways of building a loyal community around your product. You know, the things that Google, Facebook and Twitter did... which your newspaper didn't do, perhaps because you fired a huge percentage of their staff and re-directed the money flow away from product and into your pocket.

Recent developments internationally, which will finally require online platforms to compensate the news industry are encouraging. I hope we can collaborate to move this issue forward in the United States in a fair and productive way. Just this month, April 2020, French antitrust regulators ordered Google to pay news publishers for displaying snippets of articles after years of helping itself to excerpts for its news service. As regulators in France said, "Google's practices caused a serious and immediate harm to the press sector, while the economic situation of publishers and news agencies is otherwise fragile." The Australian government also recently said that Facebook and Google would have to pay media outlets in the country for news content. The country's Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg noted "We can't deny the importance of creating a level playing field, ensuring a fair go for companies and the appropriate compensation for content."

We have, of course, written about both the plans in France as well as those in Australia (not to mention a similar push in Canada that Freeman apparently missed). Of course, what he's missing is... well, nearly everything. First, the idea that it's Google that's causing problems for the news industry is laughable on multiple fronts.

If newspapers feel that Google is causing them harm by linking to them and sending them traffic, then they can easily block Google, which respects robots.txt restrictions. I don't see Freeman's newspaper doing that. Second, in most of the world, Google does not monetize its Google News aggregation service, so the idea that it's someone making money off of "their" news, is not supported by reality. Third, the idea that "the news" is "owned" by the news organizations is not just laughable, but silly. After all, the news orgs are not making the news. If Freeman is going to claim that news orgs should be compensated for "their" news, then, uh, shouldn't his news orgs be paying the actual people who make the news that they're reporting on? Or is he saying that journalism is somehow special?

Finally, and most importantly, he says all of this as if we haven't seen how these efforts play out in practice. When Germany passed a similar law, Google ended up removing snippets only to be told they had to pay anyway. Google, correctly, said that if it had to license snippets, it would offer a price of $0, or it would stop linking to the sites -- and the news orgs agreed. In Spain, where Google was told it couldn't do this, the company shut down Google News and tons of smaller publications were harmed, not helped, but this policy.

This surely sounds familiar to all of us. It's been more than a decade since Rupert Murdoch instinctively observerd: "There are those who think they have a right to take our news content and use it for their own purposes without contributing a penny to its production... Their almost wholesale misappropriation of our stories is not fair use. To be impolite, it's theft."

First off, it's not theft. As we pointed out at the time, Rupert Murdoch, himself, at the very time he was making these claims, owned a whole bunch of news aggregators himself. The problem was never news aggregators. The problem has always been that other companies are successful on the internet and Rupert Murdoch was not. And, again, the whole "misappropriation" thing is nonsense: any news site is free to block Google's scrapers and if it's "misappropriation" to send you traffic, why do all of these news organizations employ "search engine optimizers" who work to get their sites higher in the rankings? And, yet again, are they paying the people who make the actual news? If not, then it seems like they're full of shit.

With Facebook and Google recently showing some contrition by launching token programs that provide a modest amount of funding, it's heartening to see that the tech giants are beginning to understand their moral and social responsibility to support and safeguard local journalism.

Spare me the "moral and social responsibility to support and safeguard local journalism," Heath. You're the one who cut 1,000 journalism jobs down to 150. Not Google. You're the one who took profitable newspapers that were investing in local journalism, fired a huge number of their reporters and staff, and redirected the even larger profits into your pockets instead of local journalism.

Even if someone wants to argue this fallacy, it should not be you, Heath.

Facebook created the Facebook Journalism Project in 2017 "to forge stronger ties with the news industry and work with journalists and publishers." If Facebook and the other tech behemoths are serious about wanting to "forge stronger ties with the news industry," that will start with properly remunerating the original producers of content.

Remunerating the "original producers"? So that means that Heath is now agreeing to compensate the people who create the news that his remaining reporters write up? Oh, no? He just means himself -- the middleman -- being remunerated directly into his pocket while he continues to cut jobs from his newsroom while raking in record profits? That seems... less compelling.

Facebook, Google, Twitter, Apple News and other online aggregators make billions of dollars annually from original, compelling content that our reporters, photographers and editors create day after day, hour after hour. We all know the numbers, and this one underscores the value of our intellectual property: The New York Times reported that in 2018, Google alone conservatively made $4.7 billion from the work of news publishers. Clearly, content-usage fees are an appropriate and reasonable way to help ensure newspapers exist to provide communities across the country with robust high-quality local journalism.

First of all, the $4.7 billion is likely nonsense, but even if it were accurate, Google is making that money by sending all those news sites a shit ton of traffic. Why aren't they doing anything reasonable to monetize it? And, of course, Digital First Media has bragged about its profitability, and leaked documents suggest its news business brought in close to a billion dollars in 2017 with a 17% operating margin, significantly higher than all other large newspaper chains.

This is nothing more than "Google has money, we want more money, Google needs to give us the money." There is no "clearly" here and "usage fees" are nonsense. If you don't want Google's traffic, put up robots.txt. Google will survive, but your papers might not.

One model to consider is how broadcast television stations, which provide valuable local news, successfully secured sizable retransmission fees for their programming from cable companies, satellite providers and telcos.

There are certain problems with retransmission fees in the first place (given that broadcast television was, by law, freely transmitted over the air in exchange for control over large swaths of spectrum), and the value they got was in having a large audience to advertise too. But, more importantly, retransmission involved taking an entire broadcast channel and piping it through cable and satellite to make things easier for TV watchers who didn't want to switch between an antenna and a cable (or satellite receiver). An aggregator is not -- contrary to what one might think reading Freeman's nonsense -- retransmitting anything. It's linking to your content and sending you traffic on your own site. The only things it shows are a headline and (sometimes) a snippet to attract more traffic.

There are certainly other potential options worth of our consideration -- among them whether to ask Congress about revisiting thoughtful limitations on "Fair Use" of copyrighted material, or seeking judicial review of how our trusted content is misused by others for their profit. By beginning a collective dialogue on these topics we can bring clarity around the best ways to proceed as an industry.

Ah, yes, let's throw fair use -- the very thing that news orgs regularly rely on to not get sued into the ground -- out the window in an effort to get Google to funnel extra money into Heath Freeman's pockets. That sounds smart. Or the other thing. Not smart.

And "a collective dialogue" in this sense appears to be collusion. As in an antitrust violation. Someone should have maybe mentioned that to Freeman.

Our newspaper brands and operations are the engines that power trust local news in communities across the United States.

Note that it's the brands and operations -- not journalists -- that he mentions here. That's a tell.

Fees from those who use and profit from our content can help continually optimize our product as well as ensure our newsrooms have the resources they need.

Again, Digital First Media, is perhaps the most profitable newspaper chain around. And it just keeps laying off reporters.

My hope is that we are able to work together towards the shared goal of protecting and enhancing local journalism.

You first, Heath, you first.

So, basically, Heath Freeman, who has spent decade or so buying up profitable newspapers, laying off a huge percentage of their newsrooms, leaving a shell of a husk in their place, then redirecting the continued profits (often that exist solely because of the legacy brand) into his own pockets rather than in journalism... wants the other newspapers to collude with him to force successful internet companies who send their newspapers a ton of free traffic to pay him money for the privilege of sending them traffic.

Sounds credible.

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, GreenReaper, Rakuen Growlithe, and Sonious.

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Video from Thabo Meerkat, transcribed

Welcome to another edition of Digging Up Positivity! This episode is dedicated to the many volunteers that make all those amazing conventions and charities possible. But besides them, we are covering some animation news and other (maybe otter?) tidbits!

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Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, Rakuen Growlithe, and Sonious.

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Video from Thabo Meerkat, transcribed

Hey there, and welcome to the April 2020 edition of Digging Up Positivity from a rapidly changing world. But even in these weird times, there are still a lot of positive things to be found!

read more

Contributors this month include 2cross2affliction, dronon, earthfurst, GreenReaper, and mwalimu.

read more

"I think I'm the only candidate who's prepared to take on the billionaire class," Sanders, I-Vt., told ABC's George Stephanopoulos on "This Week." "We need a political revolution in this country involving millions of people who are prepared to stand up and say, enough is enough, and I want to help lead that effort." Continue reading →

Bill Curry:  “In some ways, you would be [surprised that the polls in Connecticut are busy today]. Last week, on the Democratic side, every story said that it’s all over for Bernie; it’s so difficult to put this nomination together. … Continue reading →

The Weather Company, an IBM Business, and PRISA Noticias, one of the world’s leading Spanish-language media groups and owner of EL PAÍS newspaper, announced today a collaboration to combine the most accurate forecasts with one of the Spanish-speaking world’s largest media groups. The Weather Company will provide in-depth weather data and forecasts, as well as tailored content across PRISA properties. In turn, PRISA Noticias will provide locally relevant articles, photos and video content within the Spanish versions of The Weather Channel app and website (weather.com). The collaboration will also enable local marketers to access advanced data-driven advertising solutions from IBM Watson Advertising (formerly The Weather Company’s ad sales business) across both companies’ properties.

New advertising streams for global news organisations uncovered by AI

2019.9.14うす塁斗オナカスイタ昨日は新宿文化センターでプレビュー公演でしたありがとうございました！始まったねcircusカーテンコールでスタンディングオベーションも頂くことができて感謝です。そして富山公演から！まず地方をまわってからの東京、大和頑張ります。まだネタバレになるから言えませんがあれをやったりこれもやったりラストが、、、、とか色々とお楽しみに、、目を凝らして観てね 気づくことや気づかないこと気づいて欲しいことや気づいてもらえることアクションもダンスも汗かくほどやってます。それは毎回ですが。あと憶測とか目で見たものが全てじゃないからねdopeなものほどカッコいいとか玄人好みのものとか牛すじ煮込みのカレーとキュウリとか大根のぬか漬けカレーの方が見栄えとか魅力あるように見える事も多いかもしれないけど、ぬか漬けだって手間暇がかなりかかる大変な事だよね、牛すじ煮込みのカレーは圧力鍋使って30分以内にできてる事もあるしね、美味しくて好きだけどぬか漬け永遠に食えるけど一般的に腹筋バ続きをみる

『著作権保護のため、記事の一部のみ表示されております。』

When Chris and I were at GenCon this year, we had the chance to sit down with a few of our favorite publishers for some 1 on 1 interviews and get information on upcoming releases from their catalog. I wanted to share some of this info with you guys to aid you in planning your board game purchases. 

Japanime Games

Domina Anthology featuring Argot, Miraris, and Pralaya (2019 4th quarter or 2020 1st quarter expected Kickstarter delivery then retail release) .
This anthology of games from Japanime is illustrated by Qtonagi and features games originally released by Domina from 2015-2017. Argoat is a worker placement game in which players travel trough the land looking for pieces to get to Eden and escape the nightmare of their current reality (bonus – it’s colorblind friendly). Pralaya is  competitive press your luck set collection game reminiscent of Forbidden Island in which your island is sinking and you must collect relics and pay the boatman to get off the island before it sinks. Miraris is a competitive bidding social game in which a row of cards equal to the number of players is established. All players choose a card from their hand and then all chosen cards are revealed simultaneously and placed in numerical order in a new row above the existing row of cards. Players get to claim the card from the initial row located underneath their number. If more than 1 player has revealed the same number, none of them get to claim a card. Also, there are secret objectives involved. Note: Japanime is taking pre-orders for the Domina Anthology on the Kickstarter page here: https://japanimegames.pledgemanager.com/projects/domina-anthology-featuring-pralaya-miraris-and-arg/participate/

Tanto Cuore 10th Anniversary Edition (coming to Kickstarter in the near term. Exact date TBD).





Core Connection: Rise of Atlantis (straight to retail release 2020 1st quarter). Atlantis is rising and player must stop robots from taking over. Tableau building game. Pre-order here: https://japanimegames.com/products/core-connection-rise-of-atlantis





Finally, while details are still tightly under wraps, Japanime did let me in on the news that they are developing some non anime board games centered on themes of Japan such as Japanese cuisine. These will be a mix of Kickstarter and straight to retail offerings in 2020 and beyond.


Calliope Games

Ship Shape (out now; released at GenCon). This game, designed by Rob Daviau, centers on strategically arranging crates in the hull of a cargo ship in a attempt to earn the most victory points.
Scoring is based on what you can see in the hold when viewing directly from above. The game includes friendly catch-up mechanisms. The story goes that Rob had a loose idea in mind for a packing game but it wasn’t fully developed until after Calliope approached him and asked him to design a game for their audience (Calliope focuses exclusively on family friendly gateway games that can be played in under an hour and accommodate 2-6 players) .


Tsuro (originally released 10 years ago; Calliope still enjoys healthy sales of the game that started it all; expect to see 10th Anniversary press and promos forthcoming).

Spymaster (estimated retail release 2019 3rd quarter). Players take on the role of spy agency chiefs attempting to accomplish their missions.

Everyone Loves a Parade (estimated retail release 2019 3rd quarter). In this dice rolling game, players compete to create the best parade float.

Tsuro: Phoenix Rising (estimated retail release 2019 4th quarter). 3rd and latest release in Tsuro line.






Matagot




Paris New Eden (will be released at Essen 2019). In this medium-weight worker placement dice game, players navigate a post-apocalyptic Paris landscape, attempting to use survivors to rebuild the city.





Kolossol Games



Omen: Heir to the Dunes (coming to Kickstarter 2019 3rd quarter). This is the latest release in the Omen series. A standalone expansion,  it’s the largest edition to the series since Omen: Reign of War that was released in 2011. It is set in ancient Egypt and introduces factions and structures.





Almanac (coming to Kickstarter date TBD) is a choose your own adventure system resource management game.



Renegade Game Studios

There are so many recently released and upcoming games coming out from Renegade that I’m going to break them down by quarter.

Recently Released

Proving Grounds is the first release in the solo hero series. These are immersive narrative dice games designed for solo mode. A novella or graphic novel is include with each release for full engagement.

Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated (not to be confused with the Clank! Legacy: Acquisitions Incorporated - Upper Management Pack that is also out now). This game introduces legacy elements into Clank! . Players can create a franchise of the Aquisitions Incorporated company and steer the franchise in a direction toward victory.

2019 3rd Quarter

The Aquicorn Cove Board Game is based on a graphic novel. It has an environmental theme and features water dwelling unicorns. It’s a step up in complexity from the Tea Dragon Society card game but still family friendly and features a bit of the press your luck mechanism.

ClipCut Parks is a twist on the roll and write genre. It’s a roll and cut game and includes the required scissors. Players compete to build parks.

Gates of Delirium is the latest game from the designers of Lotus (Jordan and Mandy Goddard). Players take on the role of investigators exploring a map and trying to keep gates that hold back horrible monsters (from the H.P. Lovecraft universe of creatures) from opening. At least that’s what they do while they are sane. Actions available to players differ based on their mental state of sane or insane. When players are insane, they work to open the gates. Note: We had the chance to play this with one of the designers overseeing and available to answer questions at Renegade Rally during GenCon and I LOVED IT. I can’t wait to get my hands on a copy and get it on the table to give you guys a more thorough report.



2019 4th Quarter





Paladins of the West Kingdom is the second strategy game in the West Kingdom trilogy. It ships to Kickstarter backers in the 3rd quarter of 2019 but won’t be available in retail stores until the 4th quarter. This one will be a heavier game than Architects and features engine building as a path to victory.



Clank! In! Space!: Cyber Station 11 is the latest expansion for Clank in Space. I don’t have a lot of details on this upcoming release but I assume if you’ve been a fan of the previous CIS expansions, this one will not disappoint.

2020 1st Quarter

Fox in the Forest Duet. The follow up to the widely popular 2 player trick taking game Fox in the Forest, this new release is a cooperative trick taking game for 2 players.

Eternal: Chronicles of the Throne is a player vs player deck builder currently available from Renegade. The second title in the series will be released in the 1st quarter of 2020 with organized play kits for in store play also available.

Warp’s Edge by Scott Almes will be the second release in the solo hero series I described above.

In development for 2020 and beyond (no specific quarter details given)

Vampire: the Masquerade – Chapters is a narrative role playing board game for up to 4 players.
It includes detailed miniatures and you can track the Kickstarter launch here: http://www.vampirethemasquerade-chapters.com//

Power Rangers: Heroes of the Grid. Ok, so there is a detailed description of this upcoming release on the Renegade web site as well as on BGG but they lost me at Power Rangers so I couldn’t find the motivation to go look this up.

Gods of Metal RPG. I don’t have many details on this title but the slideshow presentation during the Renegade Rally was quite impressive. There a decent overlap between heavy metal music fans and RPG fans and Renegade has that intersection on the Venn diagram in mind with this release. What I do know is that you’re definitely going to want to curate a kick-ass soundtrack to play alongside this.

Wardlings RPG. In partnership with WizKids, every character has a familiar who whisks them away when their life is in danger (no death=kid-friendly). When a character is whisked away they wake up the next morning in their bed a year older. Eventually characters age out of the thematic setting and can be shifted to a standard D&D RPG.  This RPG was actually first announced back in March and the press release has more details.

Finally, there is a new title coming out set in the Scott Pilgrim universe featuring minis. There aren’t a lot of details available on it but if you loved the graphic novel or the 2010 movie, my guess is you will want to be all over this.

Hello Everyone!

Chapter 02 of Starfighter has officially begun! I have really been looking forward to this moment and hope you enjoy the next installment of the story. With the first chapter of Starfighter in the capable hands of our printers, I am now free to work on pages again! Thank you so much for your patience and support; it is truly appreciated!

If you haven't already, feel free to check out the shop and subscribe to the RSS feed!

Much love, - HamletMachine

Hello Everyone!

It's happened! Starfighter: Chapter 01 is now available for pre-order!

Starfighter: Chapter 01 is a full color, 64 page 8"x6.5" booklet that includes the full first segment of the story as well as six new, exclusive illustrations, with a message of thanks to the fans and supporters! This run is limited; be sure to pre-order a copy of this sexy space saga today and be a part of Starfighter!

Starfighter: Chapter 01 contains graphic adult content and you must be at least 18 to purchase it!

All comic orders come with a small special goodie, And will ship on Dec. 3rd!

Starfighter: Chapter 01 is available for international shipping! If you have any questions about how to order or shipping availability, please email: starfightercomic@gmail.com

Thank you so much! To everyone that's read the comic and to everyone that pre-orders, YOU HAVE MY THANKS! And my love. You're the best! I couldn't have done it without you. -HamletMachine

Hello Everyone!

The pre-order for Starfighter: Chapter 01 has concluded! This means that all comics that are ordered from now on will ship out immediately. My love and undying gratitude to everyone that has ordered so far! You guys are so awesome. Seriously, thank you so much!

If you have any questions about how to order or shipping availability, please email: starfightercomic@gmail.com -HamletMachine

I will meet you there this weekend!

I'll be at TABLE F2 with the lovely keshii! There's going to be a lot of amazing and beautiful people there!

I will have Starfighter: Chapter 01, t-shirts, hot shorts, AND ALSO, some sweet extras. This will be my first con with a table.. and it is all because of you guys! Thank you so, so much! I can only hope I can meet you guys so I can thank you in person; you have my humble love and affection.

I'll see you there, sweethearts! -HamletMachine

Hey Everyone! I've been hard at work for the last month or so on doing a small update to the website. The most obvious thing you'll see is it's gotten a bit of a facelift which will hopefully make it a little easier to use. I've also tried to streamline things a bit so we don't have as much server strain when Hamlet puts out a new page.

Additionally, we've put in a new fanart section that features a whole bunch of awesome Starfighter fanart done by sexy Starfighter fans from around the world!

The games section is also improved, sporting games to some of our favorite awesomely talented artists.

If you don't watch HamletMachine on DeviantArt, check out the extras section too, where I've added a bunch of her recent Starfighter drawings.

Wow, ok that's it for now I swear! -Thisbe

I'll be at TCAF in Toronto this weekend with thepapermouse -- just for fun! I won't be at a table, but YOU CAN buy Starfighter: Chapter 01 from the Saicoink's (romanshoubu) table! I don't have a number for where Saicoink will be, but I do know it's on the first floor somewhere (I'll update if I find out more!). If you find me, I can give you a sticker and my sweet love. Don't worry, I'll be gentle.

Con Info

See you there! -HamletMachine

Hey Everyone! Just want to let you all know that HamletMachine has set up Starfighter related accounts on both Twitter and Facebook. You'll now be able to get Starfighter updates on whichever site you prefer! You can get to these Starfighter related pages at any time via the icons in the upper-right hand side of this page. Feel free to drop by and say hello!

In other news, we've added a set of 1" buttons to the Starfighter Shop. You get one each of Cain, Abel, and the Starfighter Logo!

Also, I have it on good authority that a new page is on the way! -Thisbe

It's Starfighter's Birthday! I thought I'd celebrate by announcing the big news..

Polish your vinyl sweethearts, I'll be making the big trip from NYC to SF to attend Yaoi-con this October! I'll have a little love table and everything!

I am really excited to go! It'll be my first time there.. and just thinking about the vast treasures ...of erotica to behold is making me eager! Plus, I will get to meet some sweet west coast honies. So if you're in the area or heading over, be sure to stop by! I'll be so happy to meet you guys!

Here's some more about the con:

Yaoi-Con Info

It's a date! -HamletMachine

To celebrate the 69th page of Starfighter, I've updated the Starfighter extras gallery with an appropiately themed drawing of Cain and Abel! (It's the last image in the gallery) -HamletMachine

HamletMachine has a full review of our experience at Yaoi-Con up at starfightercomic.com!

Thank you all for your patience! I've had a lot of computer problems over the past two weeks and lost what I had been working on for page 26 of Chapter 2… But don't worry, very much like Narsil of King Elendil, IT HAS BEEN REMADE! My apologies for the delay! I really appreciate the continued love and support. And yes, I have a new hard drive now.

Also, the long awaited second Starfighter T-Shirt IS NOW AVAILABLE! This shirt had previously only been available at MoCCA and Yaoi-con, but now it's ready for purchase on the shop! This is actually the first t-shirt I designed, so I am quite fond of it!

Along with the new shirts, we've gotten in another shipment of the original Black Starfighter T-Shirt as well.

Thank you all so much! Enjoy! -HamletMachine