Get Your Get Your War On

Continuing on today's visual theme, and on my general topic of discussing the various appurtenances of the publishing biz, I see that HarperCollins in the UK has launched a video game to promote a book. But...well, it's a wee bit appalling to be perfectly frank. It's called Apache, "an online game allowing players to pilot a helicopter gunship to [promote] the launch of 'Apache' by Afghanistan pilot Ed Macy."I knew this would piss off David Rees no end, so emailed him the link. He did not disappoint.

OMG, if only we had the budget to make an online game where you drop cluster bombs in Afghanistan and then civilians die all over your screen. . . with pop-up graphics displaying the percentage of likelihood that their kids will join the Taliban seven years later. . .

David, for those of you for whom the name only vaguely rings a bell, is the creator of the cult internet comic Get Your War On, which we originally published in book form in 2002, lost  to Penguin for the sequel, and then got  back for the definitive edition publishing Oct 9th.We're not only calling it the definitive edition of the comics, but also the definitive history of the War on Terror to date, and you know what's weird? It is. And a lot more truth than in the three volumes of the Bob Woodward books.A fabulous development in the life of the comic is that it has just been animated, by 236.com, the humor site affiliated with HuffPo. And it just won an award from NewTeeVee for how bloody brilliant it is, cause, you know it is. See for yourself.(David and the animator get a terabyte hard drive, holy shit, aren't there like export controls on those?)