The International House of Mojo

You may remember a web-site called "Blood Island El Grande" from the days of Internet yore. This was a site that recreated the locations from Blood Island (from The Curse of Monkey Island) in stunning and exciting 3D.

Well, it's back!

Not only has it got everything it had before, but now it also has new images from Blood Island locations, and the promise of further art to come.

I can also recommend the 2D art and the music, which has been brought to you (along with the rest of the site) by Goblin, the creator of our winning podcast jingle.

I don't know what it is about Razor from Maniac Mansion that makes her such a magnet for fan artists, but the leather-clad singer's latest unofficial interpretation comes today from Tony Andruss:



She just seems to really have an effect on people.

What was that I was saying not too long ago about Maniac Mansion fans?

A reader by the name of Fedez sent me two pieces of fan art earlier today, a drawing of Razor with a skull earring, and another of the big happy Edison family gazing upon the evil purple meteor. The only time that hamster wore a more terrified expression was when Syd pressed the "reheat" button on the microwave.





Don't you think it would be great if, I don't know, some hypothetical hosted site that used to flourish but now no longer gets updated returned in a glorious comeback in order to archive fan art like this? Just thinking out loud here.

If you've been on Telltale or Mojo's forums, then you'll probably know "Bad Asp!" -- he's the guy who wanted to report LucasArts to the FBI for cancelling Sam & Max 2.

Whilst others have forgiven LucasArts and moved on with their lives, Bad Asp! has continued to protest against them, as well as refusing to be appeased by Telltale's Sam & Max seasons, recorded, as they were, with new voice actors for the leading duo.

What does The International House of Mojo do with this controversial corner of the fanspace, a man who has been labelled "nutcase" by many others?

Why, we give him a blog of course!

Mojo might not agree with Bad Asp!'s views (and his blog does not reflect the opinions of the staff) but, whether you love or loathe him, you must at least admit that Bad Asp! has something original to say about LucasArts.

And nobody else is going to say it, are they?

Our good friends at Nightlight Productions are working on a new radio-style play called The Power of Monkey Island - and they need your help!

In the past they've treated the LucasArts fan community to two plays; Tierra De Los Muertos, set in the Grim Fandango universe, and Beneath Monkey Island. There are five roles open for audition in this latest play:

Governor Phineas Phatt
Elaine Marley-Threepwood
The Voodoo Lady
Kolomana the witch doctor
Murray

So if you have a microphone and you think you're up to the task, get in touch with them!

Source: MJ

If you've been wanting to grab some of that Tales of Monkey Island music, here's your chance. Benzo has updated the Telltale Music Extractor to support the game as well as Wallace and Gromit.

Legend tells of an unused MI1 theme somewhere in Tales too. Go explore!

Listen To Me, the place to go for inane rants, has put up their first part in a retrospecticus on the Monkey Island series.

Clicky for much nostalgia talk and some anal rape!

Over at iDesign iPhone is a lovely piece of fanart - a glorious iPhone wallpaper of LeChuck in voodoo striking pose. Obviously, the 3D work pales in comparison to this, but a respectable effort nonetheless!

Thanks to reader Ivo for the tip!

Now this is utterly fantastic. Poster quality. Also note the particularly grumpy-looking Dart in the bottom-right corner.

Apparently it's in the latest issue of PLAY magazine, alongside a massive Brutal Legend preview that been mentioned over at Double Fine Action News. Go buy!

Through some clever molding and a lot of time, sculpture artist Iain Reekie has created what we all desire: Grim Fandango action figures. The Manny figure comes complete with skeleton bird and sausages Robert Frost, while Glottis looks straight out of a Tim Burton animation.

Not available in stores unfortunately, as that would prove God existed and so therefore he wouldn't. QED.

Source: Iain Reekie's website

Didn't manage to nab one of those cool Maniac Mansion posters Star Wars Shop was selling recently? Would you instead like to pick and choose your poster from some of the best cover art to ever grace computer games (and the best games too)? Steve Purcell, William Eakin, Drew Struzan?

Well, intrepid community member extraordinaire Laserschwert has been busy creating a line of dreams downloadable posters to allow you to do just that.

Check it out right now, and weep openly. Is it too late for a calendar?

As with last year, and the year before that, we're running a sequence of voting polls to find the answers to this year's big questions. Please vote now on:

• The Best Secret History of '08!
• The Most Anticipated Game of '09!
• The Best Release of '08
• The Best Feature of '08!
• Best Beard of '08!
• Best Behind Mojo Post!
• Best Spelling Mistake/typo of '08!
• Best News Post of '08!
• Best News Headline of '08!
• Best (Active) Hosted Site of 2008
• What was 2008 like for you?

More questions will be added as soon as I think of them: but please let me know what other questions you'd like, in the comments!

Voting requires registration on the forums, but it's free, takes 2 seconds to do, and will mean that you can chat to Gabez, Jake, Remi, and the rest of the gang on the forums in 2009 and beyond.

Update: Happy New Year!

Update 2: Steve Purcell's new card!

You’d think that one day they’d learn, but no – The SCUMM Bar is at it again. It would seem that the same site that lied about shutting down back in 2004 just to get Tim Schafer to write something on their forum feels it didn’t rack up quite enough mortal sins upon its soul. In its latest act of supreme class, the inactive Monkey Island fansite is now extorting money from its oft-manipulated readers, insinuating that it will re-open its doors after three years once sufficient Paypal donations are made.

What a damn shame.

Dave Grossman -- of Telltale and LucasArts fame -- has added his new 2008 pumpkin to the fray up at phrenopolis.com

The new creation is, apparently, "inspired by some recent deconstruction and reconstruction at the old homestead." Take a look, if you dare!

I started making a Halloween theme for the site today, intending to put it up on Friday, but then I got too excited and decided to put it online now.

We can't possible compete with Telltale's Halloween Competition, but all the same, if you dress up as anything LucasArts+ related, send us a picture and we'll give you a big bag of invisible kudos.

In other news, I was on the excellent Department of Death web-site earlier on, in a bid to steal their delicious screenshots, and I saw news of a) playing Grim Fandango on the Wii, and b) this video of someone in a Manny Calavera mask playing "Manny and Meche" on the violin.

A big shout out to D.O.D. hosted site A Lift Underground for publicising our Secret History article series. If you've advertised Mix'n'mojo in any way, let us know, and we'll return the love.

Did anyone else know that you could set your language to "Pirate" in Facebook?

Yarh you blue-faced poopey pansy: it be th' time dhat t' mighty ship Nightligh' be setting sail fer anot'er darnchy adven're -- man t' sails 'n' swab t' decks or I be confabulating yer tidy wives till t' jill of t' hens be knocking on yer door!

Gander and cribbin at t' new episode of Beneath Monkey Island, and listen again to t' beforehard episodes at t' mainspray.

Salutations amongst t' other-folk? Rum 'n' dandy!

A reader named "DJEJAY" sent over some Maniac Mansion themed fan art, the inspiration for which seems to encompass the original game, Day of the Tentacle, and that awful unique TV show.





In the interest of clearing a few things up, he had this to say at the conclusion of his e-mail:

P.S. some things about these fanarts:
1. The pink fox thing is my fan character, DJ.
2. The little bug man is........HARRY THE FLY! Lol I love how he turned out!
3. The hamster on my ear in the first pic is my little companion. Ed and I both have hamsters. Ed's hamster, I decided to nickname Hermy while I named my hamster, Chaka.
4. The second pic is backwards but it says day of the tentacle.
That's all! Enjoy!

You heard him. Enjoy.

Our very own Zaarin was browsing through his favorite Norwegian gaming web site, where he found this interview with Dan Connors from Telltale. It's a good read, I'm sure, if you understand the language.

One quote that some of your favorite Mojoers found interesting, reads, (and is translated obviously,) "We like the net community around the franchise, the same way we also love the Sam & Max comunity or the Mix'n Mojo community." (Emphasis added.)

Awww. And to think this comes from Telltale, that actively removed our link from their Friends section! But hey, that's probably part of their special kind of love.

Maniac Mansion fan "defgav" has been working on a hack of the game's NES ROM, defiling the game and giving it sort of a new personality. He explains:

It's a NES rom of Maniac Mansion hacked kinda crazy. Most of the text is changed. Some of the graphics are altered.. specifically the characters are ALL JACKED UP! Hence, they are zombies. See.. it kinda plays like a fake sequel: The radiation was so strong the first time the kids saved Sandy that it mutated them into zombies. Now they're out for revenge. The goal is to blow up the house!

Read more about his efforts (which have been going on for five years) in his forum thread, where you can grab the ROM and run it through your NES emulator of choice.