So it's been in the works for a while now, but my regular weekly column over at Cracked is now officially a reailty. It's called Robert Brockway: Word Puncher, and you can find the general page here. My first article is up here, and I'd appreciate any support you feel like lending.

It is official: I just sold my first book!

It was bought by the people that started it all: Three Rivers Press. It's going to be called Everything is Going to Kill Everybody: A Complete Compendium of the Many Ways Your World Will Die. It's a collection of twenty-five comedic essays about the very real ways the world almost ended and may end in the very near future. My deadline is June 1st, with an expected release early 2010.

Details here.

Also, woo!

So...this thing I wrote about Grand Theft Auto IV in about half an hour yesterday afternoon exploded. It's in the top 10 stories on Reddit, and the front page (web links section,) of Wired Magazine's website. I'm not entirely sure what the appeal is, but I guess it's there.

I thought you should know.

I though you should know that I'm kind of a big deal on the internet.

Kind of a really big deal. On the internet.

So, ladies, just...one at a time, okay? My back's a little sore from carrying around all of this internet fame all the time.

Hey, so the next article I've written for Atomfilms is up now:

http://www.atomfilms.com/2008/spring_break/index.jsp

I'd really appreciate anything you could do for it, read it, digg it, stumble it, whatever you can. Every little bit helps me to prove this thing, and maybe gets me a job.

Thanks guys.

5 Works of Art That Can Probably Kill You

http://www.cracked.com/article_15963_5-works-art-that-can-probably-kill-you.html

Read it. Give it a digg if you like it.

But mostly, just...just hug your children, call your mother, and make peace with your god. The museum's opening soon.

Hey, I wrote this:

http://www.atomfilms.com/2008/oscars/index.jsp

Go there, enjoy.

Okay, you may have heard me talking about some big news, so here’s the deal:

Atomfilms.com has contacted me about some work with them. They’re known right now as a video site for shorts of all kinds, and they’re pretty big in that field I gather. They’re a subsidiary of MTV, and have worked out some kind of merger with Comedy Central. Basically, they’re bigtime. However, most of their site has been slowly shifting to comedy, and now so are they. They plan to relaunch in mid-april. Until then, they have some seed money and are trying out a potential direction – introducing written content. If it takes off, it could become a permanent part of the site at relaunch.

So far, I’m the one they’ve contacted to start it. This article is the litmus test for this new direction, and if it works out, I and a few others I’ve brought in on this could have steady work. Steady, well paying work doing what we love – which is writing dick jokes.

This is big news.

It would set me up through graduate school and beyond, as well as a few other really funny bastards you don’t know yet. It could also give you a new place to whittle away your productivity during your “work” days. But it all hinges on these first few pieces doing enough traffic to justify the concept. So I am asking a favor: I need people to Digg these articles, at least in the beginning. If you have to make a Digg account, please do. I promise it’s not all that much work. Then just hit a button.

This first one is mine and the most important test, so if you only do it once let it be on this one. But we’d all appreciate it if you could do the same for some other articles maybe coming up, written by others. It would really help us prove our viability. Spread the word about them; send them to friends, anything helps. That first little bump will help us maybe make the front page, and hopefully the article is strong enough to stand after that. I would really appreciate it. It’s like donating to charity – it’s a small thing for you, but to us it’s huge.

Only in this case, instead of getting a picture and a letter of a starving child, you get photoshops with the word “fuck” in them, and possibly several humorous essays about things that happened in the 1980s.

This is all I can offer you in return, and it is yours.

Thanks,

-Robert

So, finally new article up at Cracked.com. I wrote several in December and they got bumped, so january will see a few more after this. You can get to it straight off the main page, or click here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15801_5-current-genetic-experiments-most-likely-destroy-humanity.html

If you love life and fear for the future, you can give it a digg or twelve also. Together, we can let the world know of the dangers science presents that only the return of Jesus can solve.

Seriously, I came over pretty fundamentalist in this one, and my stuff always goes over big on the conservative websites for some reason, so expect this to quickly turn into a Republican cluster-fuck about stem cells and abortion.

Should be good times!

Oh, Meagan has also built me an awesome website, it's http://www.ifightrobots.com and it's mostly old content edited and slapped up last minute to take advantage of the cracked linkup, so you don't have to read it, just check the sweet ass layout and icon and feel envy.

So, the Cracked article has been off the main page for a few days and is essentially dead. It did pretty well, about as well as the other one, somewhere along the 1/4 million mark I think. They did some pretty extensive editing on it though. I understand why, some parts were too offensive, some were focusing too much on the comic and not enough on the movie, and some were just too long. However, I was really proud of the original version, and it is vastly different from the published one, so I thought I'd post the original here for anybody interested. Cracked did what they had to do and it functioned perfectly well for what they wanted, so I have no complaints about that. Where else pays you fairly to write essays about dicks and comic books? So, anyway, here:

( The Director's Cut )

I figured in the interest of fairness, I'd leave it how I submitted it and not custom fit the changes they made that I actually liked and felt improved the article. I particularly agree with their structuring; each entry really should have ended on the "why it's not a good idea," section, it fits better with the point I was making and overall they tend to be stronger sections. Climaxing on the awkward handjob, in particular, was a stroke of genius. That whole sentence reads like a series of increasingly awful puns. I am sorry.

The new cracked article is up today, it's currently on the main page, http://www.cracked.com, but if you miss it there, you can find it here:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15679_5-upcoming-comic-book-movies-that-must-be-stopped.html

They did a bit more editing on this one, mostly for length, and so I personally like it a little less than the last, but I'm still pretty proud of it. So check it out if you have time, and if you like it, give it a digg from the main article page, or here:

http://digg.com/movies/5_Upcoming_Comic_Book_Movies_That_Must_Be_Stopped

Thanks guys

So they're running my article over at http://www.cracked.com today. They've renamed it to "10 most terrifyingly inspirational rock songs," to match the halloween theme, a premise which is known in some aboriginal cultures as "weak sauce," but regardless they're running it.

Though I've been "published" before, this is the first time I've ever been paid and I'm pretty excited about it. If you're reading this now it's the front page article currently, so head over if you're interested and maybe click the Digg button if you approve.

If it's been a few days, it'll be lower on the main page or accessed at this address:

http://www.cracked.com/article_15636_10-most-terrifyingly-inspirational-80s-songs.html

I've been asked to write more if I can, so this might be a recurring thing. Also, lately these articles have been making the front page of Digg, so clearly I am geeking out at that prospect.