Tina Leyk has been busy recently… we’ve got a bunch of new stuff from her. On the Fur-Lo comic page, you’ll find a new pair of single-panel strips, ‘FETCH!’ and ‘Mission Invisible’. On our general art page for her, you’ll find two new doodles (I found them both quite funny), and a pretty awesome plushy she made (spoiler warning, if you’re still watching for these). I want one! (The new stuff is all at the bottom of the page; just scroll down. Yes, a better search mechanism is STILL coming.) Nice stuff!

Updates will be light today, due to the fact that it’s Easter… but we’ve got a couple of things, at least. First off, Stuntmutt turns in a new Sunday One One Se7en strip (which also, nicely, works as a Holiday strip… not bad). Apologies to the poor MC, who found the WRONG person to rile up.

Webshift dropped into our forum to point out a couple of pretty cool things over at the Nightmare Armor site… first, there are photos of the blue armor, in all its glory, worn on a deck in the beautiful backwoods of Georgia – pretty snazzy! Second, there’s a new raffle going on, this time for a helmet, fully painted and with F/X lighting and fans. Tickets are $10 each, but you’ll get two for one if you buy $50 worth (or, put another way, buy 10 and they’re $5 each). All the details, and mailing instructions, can be found on their front page right now, and will be on their Fan Appreciation page until the contest ends, on May 10. Go win yourself a smashing product!

Looks like you can get your hands on one of those Halo 2 calendars without doing anything except filling in your name… Forerunners.org is giving away 5 of them, as well. The catch? Some browsers can see the page… others get an error; 500 has been seen, as has 1060. All I can suggest is that you try another browser – it’s not that the site is down, because I can continue to load the page in one browser, while a second says ‘it’s broke’. Thanks to Battleground: Halo, where I found this tidbit. (And remember – you can still enter our Win a Date with One One Se7en for ANOTHER chance at one of five of these, right here at HBO. THEY’RE EVERYWHERE!)

There’s a pretty cool new page over at Red vs Blue – a history of the group, as written by the resident psycho, gFunk. It’s a sad tale of loneliness and betrayal, but with an uplifting message at the end. Or maybe that’s just the alcohol. Credit for the find goes to pilotelite, who seems far more interested in getting mentioned on this news page than actually bringing you the information…

Devin Olsen and Gil27 have completed work on The Reactor Room – a multiplayer level based on the Maw’s Reactor Room. It’s downloadable at Halomods.com. Check it out!

Gustav Larimore writes to say that Effervescing Blue Productions has a new movie posted, as well – a Warthog Jumping Tutorial. (You might remember that there’s already one posted here at HBO… but more info is rarely a bad thing.)

Icetiger writes that he’s posted 3 new Halo movies on his website, Icegames; they show footage recorded on the HBO-COERCE server. Check ’em out!

Yesterday, we mentioned an article in the Wall Street Journal about the Red vs Blue team. We couldn’t post the article itself, because we don’t post print articles that are still for sale on the newsstand. (We did give you an online link that works for non-subscribers, so reading the content itself was doable.) It’s gone today, though, so we’ve put up downloadable copies, for folks who like to archive stuff like this. Thanks to typ993 and Black Six for providing the content!

It’s been since Monday that a Fan Fiction update has been posted. My bad… now there are 28 stories to read. I’m sorry.

• Halo 2: Operation Dream Knife (Chapter 1: Hallway), by System Failure
• Chapter 4, Hell’s Bells, by The Silver Spartan
• The Spartans On Reach: Part 1 , by SpartanFortyFour
• Fall of Rye: Chapter 5: Beginning of a Suicide Mission, by teemus
• Halo:The Critical Strike, by Scott H.
• Retaliation, by Blue Jaguar
• The Third World, by Michéal Douglas
• The Blood Gulch Gig – Part Two, by Jillybean
• Beckoning to Doom: Prologue, by Nick Kang
• Halo: Lost and Found pt:II , by Riley217
• Death of the Cheif, by MASTERC
• From Darkness, by MT
• Battle of New Lexington, by Noah610
• Defending America Chapter 1, by romac1991
• A Jackal named Bird (comedy), by someone that you dont know
• Mysteries Part 5, by Horror
• The Strive to Survive (Chapter 7: Survivors), by CoLd BlooDed
• The Fury Of Earth’s Children, by Conrad Lauf
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 1, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 2, by Mark Lieberg
• Halo 2: Chapter 7 ; Part 3, by Mark Lieberg
• Pirates: I Only Work for Prophet – A Parcel of Rogues, by Ross Becalick
• Operation: Stingray Ch. 3: –Desperation pt. 2–, by Nick Kang
• No Ither Alternative Part 3, by Watsaru
• Halo 2: Part 1, Taking Over, by BlueChief
• Homeworlds XXVI, by Mainevent
• Today and Tommorow, by Br Wells
• The Wrath Of Earth’s Children, by Conrad Lauf

I’ll do my best not to let them pile up like this again.

One One Se7en, as well, was passed over… and that’s a sad thing, because it iMC is back.

DOH! Yesterday was busy enough that the standard comics didn’t get posted… they’re up now. Halo: Resolution gets to a punchline it’s been working towards for a week.

This week’s Bungie Update is over at Sector 7… and it’s a tasty one. No screenshots… but some tantalizing info. Go read!

Information about the Bungie Fanfest at E3 2004 has been posted at Bungie.net – go now and see! There is room for only 50 signups, with slots assigned by lottery… so if you’re planning on being there, go now to sign up! (There’s no benefit to signing up more than once, but there IS a benefit to signing up sooner.)

The latest Red vs Blue episode (29) is available for Sponsors (on the sponsor forum, not the standard page) – and it’s the best in a while. First swearing I’ve heard all season, too… New logo, goes nicely with—nope, not ruining it. Go watch. (If you’re not a sponsor, this will be up on Sunday. Nice Easter present.)

Whoa. Seems like big-time, to me… the Red vs Blue crew is on the front page of today’s Wall Street Journal (print edition) – according to Gus Sorola,

“A reporter for the Wall Street Journal came down and watched us produce an episode recently (27 if I recall properly) and wrote a story about the site.”

If anyone sends in a scan of the article, we’ll post it (tomorrow). Thanks to Black Six for mentioning this on our forum! Update: very cool… Jon Keegan (who works at the WSJ) sent us a link that works for non-subscribers for the next 7 days… and typ993 made a pdf of the article (which we’ll post tomorrow, once today’s issue is off the shelves). Thanks, guys!

Halo Babies continues with their new plot series this week… I must say, seeing a kid in an undershirt is bizarre. Check it out!

Couple of movies for you, hosted outside… WaLKa point out a movie he made called ‘Killing Spree‘ over at Halomods; 3:36, 13 mb, WMP9 format, it’s mostly what it says (killing sprees he’s had in HPC games). There are a few very funny sequences (the ‘kill the entire enemy team with flag melee attacks as you’re escaping’ bit was hilarious). Also, Merecatfish pointed out ‘Oochy Woochy‘, a sequel to his previous ‘Fun, yet Useless’ film. (I found the music to be mindnumbing by the time this 7:36, 26.1 mb WMP9 film was over… but maybe that’s just me.) Lots and lots of random stuff.

Jake ‘Evergreen98’ Billo of the Junkyard has written the first of a 3-part series about the next iteration of Xbox Live, and it looks at how Halo 2 fits into the equation. Frankly, I’m confused by many of his conclusions… but maybe I’m just out of the loop on this stuff. Go check it out!

Short notice, I know… but sometimes, you just gotta grab the bull by the horns. We’ve got a new contest for you: come up with a brilliant one-liner using BOLL’s Automagic 117 StripMaker, and win a cool prize! To help you along, BOLL has added 31 new panels to the collection; let your creativity go wild! All details can be found on the Win A Date With One One Se7en page – be sure to note the closing date of the contest. You’ve only got a few days!