Fans in attendance at our various signings have witnessed Fabien's sketching magic firsthand. The man is a sketching BEAST! Being fully aware that Bill, Fabien, and Ohm all brought their 'A' game to our various signings, Fabien made sure to give every fan in attendance a beauty of a sketch starring our good friend King Katch.

We must unfortunately inform you that our Secret Headquarters signing on Friday has been canceled. Those of you waiting for your last chance to see Fabien to get King Katch or the Tikitis HC signed and/or sketched on can see him at the Stuart Ng Books store on Saturday from 1-3pm:

 Stuart Ng Books
20655 S. Western  Avenue
Suite 104
Torrance, CA 90501
(310) 909-1929

It's quite the honor to be given the opportunity to participate in a Wacko/Soap Plant event. Jerry says it was walking into the Wacko store that made him decide that he should live in Los Angeles. If you live in Los Angeles and have not experienced Wacko, you MUST check it out sometime... and there's no better time than tomorrow! Jerry, Fabien and I will be there from 3pm to 6pm. It's the perfect place to get some awesome holiday gifts (and the King Katch Original figure)!

 Wacko
4633 Hollywood Blvd.
Hollywood, CA 90027
(323) 663-0122

Fabien's now safely in Los Angeles. The King Katch Originals and Tikitis Comics have been picked up from our distributor. Now we're just hours away from our first signing! Join us tomorrow at Munky King, Los Angeles from 2pm to 4pm. King Katch Originals will be $80. Tikitis HCs will be $30. Fabien will be signing and sketching. We look forward to seeing you!

Munky King

7308 Melrose Ave (near Poinsettia)

Los Angeles, CA 90046

2pm to 4pm

It's all coming together: King Katch Original are safely at our distributor's warehouse. Tikitis HC are there as well. Fabien M is hours away from flying to Los Angeles for a series of signings. Next week and a half should be fun. If you're in Los Angeles, GO HERE or HERE for the Los Angeles signing tour schedule. It's also due time to start pestering your favorite Designer Toy Stores to begin ordering King Katch Originals. With only 500 of these figures made, we expect them to move fast!

Thanksgiving is many things for many people. For me, it's spending some decent time with family, homemade cooking and video game playing. If things go my way, this year will be spent playing a bit of DONKEY KONG COUNTRY RETURNS. I've played a few hours of it since I got it on Monday and I'm thoroughly enjoying the experience thus far. DKCR is easily one of the best looking 2D platformers I've seen. The environments are rich and vibrant. It's also a very challenging game. I've played through nearly all the levels in the first 3 worlds (there are 8 worlds total)... and I have died many, many times. So far, it's clearly more difficult than NEW SUPER MARIO BROS. WII... and I welcome the challenge!

As a whole, I find the platforming experience less intuitive than NEW SUPER MARIO BROS... at first it feels a bit cumbersome, but once you get used to the controls you discover that the slightly higher learning curve opens the game up for a deeper sense of control and gameplay depth. Beyond your standard jumping and running/walking... you are also have the ability to stomp the ground, blow air from your mouth, roll, and climb. You will regularly use these extra actions to discover hidden locales and bonus levels. At times, you must also use these actions to solve a puzzle that allows you to progress through the level.

Control-wise, you can choose between holding the Wii Remote sideways (just like it's used in Super Mario Bros) or use the Wii Remote and Nunchuck combination. After experimenting for a few minutes with both, it became clear to me that the true way to play the game is with the Nunchuck. In order to perform the ground stomp, roll, or air blow you need to shake the controller. While holding the Nunchuck and Remote in separate hands, shaking the controller felt way more natural and convenient.

Also, with the Nunchuk set up, you use the analog thumbstick to control Donkey Kong's movement. At first it feels a little weird to move Donkey Kong with the analog stick. But after a few minutes playing the game it becomes a joy. As with most platformers, you will be running through the levels 80% of the time. If you're holding the Remote sideways, you can run by pressing and holding the b-button. But with the nunchuck set-up, you just have to press the Analog thumbstick fully in the direction you want to run. You do lose a sense of directional precision with the analog stick. For example, I found myself sometimes rolling instead of blowing because my directional input was incorrect... but, as a whole, movement feels smooth and responsive.

The last thing I found initially odd but later enjoyable is Donkey Kong's ability to climb. If you see tufts of grass, Donkey Kong can climb it... but in order to prompt him to do so, you must press and hold the B button while moving. At first, this choice feels unnatural (especially since most platform type games have you climb and hold automatically)... but I found that once you get used to the set up your preciseness of movement increases as you have full control over when and for how long you wish to grab onto climbable environments.

Thus far, Donkey Kong Country Returns has been a ton of fun to play. It's beautiful, cleverly designed, and challenging. I'm both excited and scared to experience the more challenging later levels!