"Welcome to the Party, Pal!"

I am about to snap.

Eleven-plus hour work days, working six days a week, spending the rest of my time studying for this licensing exam. I officially have no life. And not in a good geeky kind of way.

Waiting for things to come around, hope it does one of these days. In the meantime, squeaking in this stuff when I can. Didn't manage to get back to the "Dawn of Anubis" story yet, didn't get to wrap up Forge like I wanted to, and didn't get to get to new "Tag & Dream Girl" stuff like I'm dying to. But managed to get a couple of things for y'all. So let's get to it.

This Time Around

First in Forte 2000...

It's all about the art this time, baby...

Drop on into the Gallery for some AMAZING new stuff! And stuff in all three Galleries, too.

First, in the Character Art Gallery, lots of new art. Eryck Webb went off auctions for a while, but he knows how to take care of his regular customers, so he does spot work for me when I need it. And I did need some character designs for the Realmwatch when the Forte Chronicles was coming up, so he did those for me. Plus he did the fun "Away Mission" piece just before he went off auctions. And he made me an offer I couldn't pass up for a great price on a color work, which turned out to be the stunning "Rainier and Moondancer" work. Those of you who've been keeping up on your F2K reading know the impact of that piece. And over in the Eryck Webb (Other) Gallery, he did a couple new Forge pieces for me too that turned out very, very cool.

Another big score this time was more work from the remarkable (and cheap!) Seattle artist Timm Gillette. He did the Nightsable and Dyna Girl shots last time, and I liked them so much I kept hitting his auctions over the past couple of months, and got his takes on Tinker, Moondancer, Thresher, Passport and Frenzy (the last two being the daughter of Dr. Jackal and Knightsabre, soon to be showing up the in kids-of-Forte teen group "FourStar"). You'll be seeing a story from me one of these days that these works inspired. You'll note that his stuff tends make heroines looking a little youngish. This popped a tale in my head called "Thirteen Going On Forte", where all the women of the current Forte get mystically reverted to thirteen-year olds. It'll be much comedy.

The real jaw-dropper this time around is a guy I found off eBay who's right here in Sacramento. His name is Hoa Phong, and as you'll see, what he does with a pencil is pure magic. Check out his Nightsable and Dyna Girl works. Daaaammmnn. That's the closest I'm going to get to getting Adam Hughes Forte art.

Speaking of stunning...had to finish my David Enciso set by getting a Tinker from him, and I think it's his best one yet. Beautiful!

Also picked up new works from Juan Falk, Eric Lear and Greg Moutafis (the latter was a Christmas gift from Aaron). Hope you enjoy them all. And again, I've marked the new ones with handy "new" tags so you can spot the stuff since last update easily.

And since I hate to get just one use out of a great work of art, I worked some of them into new additions to the Issue Cover Gallery and Wallpaper Gallery. Hope you like those as well.

As I said, I managed to crank out a little writing for the update, and the first of that is on the Forte '05 page. Anyone remember "Paladin Magazine" from the old 'Times? A fictional magazine (taken from a magazine about super-heroes I introduced to K.C.'s world back in the MidKnights campaign between the Paragons and Forte games) where 'Times characters got interviewed? I was going to bring that back for some Forte world interviews, but decided to try something a little different. I realized I had this character named Import, a member of the new Paragons, a British chick living in Cleveland (as, thanks to the Harrows Act in K.C.'s world (brought about by the misadventures of Aegis way back in the day) supers are banned in the U.K., who has her own webcast radio show about music and super-heroes. So she (and her show) became the new format for doing this kind of thing. Hope to have more interviews with Forte world people with her in the future, but figured I'd start out just like Paladin Magazine did back in the day...with an interview with Dr. Jackal. Hope you like the first installment of "Import's Export", and hope you like the snazzy web design that goes with it. And please note...none of those links work (I don't got time to build all those pages! Please, fool!), except the one leading to the Jack interview.

And last, but certainly not least...live Forte gaming! Aaron came into Sacramento to visit for the weekend recently, and one of his requests was to get some gaming in. Had to oblige the man. Besides, I'd been promising some Forte gaming for Randy "Anvil" Auer, Jim "Tomarssuk" Kletzing and Adam "Lightsedge" Johnson ever since I moved back here, so I was overdue for them, too. So it came to be! Ran a Forte universe game for the old Forte guard right here in my own apartment (didn't have to go to a Con to do it for a change). This game officially starts something I'm calling "Forte Chronicles", which is going to be a sort-of campaign that basically runs whenever I can get some Forte people together to dust off their old characters. Hope this isn't the last of them, as I have plans for more gaming (when the time (HAHAHA) is available) with the Sac guys, continuing tales of the old Forte veterans in all-new adventures. Stay tuned for more...but for now you can check out "Forte Chronicles #1: Into the Realm" over at the Forte Expanded Universe page. Forte lives!

 

Next Time...On "The 'F' Word"...

Well, I'll probably be bitching about being rushed for the Con next time (got the Nice Guy table happening...and a few 'Timers to hang out with!), and I don't imagine work will be much better, but I'll try to get back to some Forge (last chapter!) and get back to Forte 2000 issues so we can FINALLY get to the big #150 and see how the "Dawn of Anubis" turns out! And, knowing me, you'll PROBABLY see some more new art up there...

See you in the summertime!

Michael O’Connell
Keeping Forte hope alive, baby...