Help Homeless Teens, Get a Free Book!

IMG_6625-56b2d6f875132As I mentioned earlier this month, my wife, Ann, is one of the founders of Project 16:49, a non-profit dedicated to helping homeless teens here in Rock County, Wisconsin. Ann and her book club (the Bibliobabes) are joining Project 16:49’s Lip Sync Battle, a big event in Janesville, WI, tomorrow night: February 27, 2016. They’re going to be performing on stage as part of the competition to help those kids.

To help out, please support the Bibliobabes (the bookclub’s fake band) directly. If you chip in any amount at all, drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com, and I’ll send you a free ebook of your choice from this list:

  • Amortals
  • Vegas Knights
  • Carpathia
  • Hard Times in Dragon City
  • Brave New World: Revolution
  • Dangerous Games: How to Play
  • Monster Academy: I Will Not Eat People

Just tell me the title and the format you want it in, and I’ll email it straight out to you – with my gratitude!

New Blood FrontTo top it off, I’ll ship the highest donor an autographed copy of Halo: New Blood, which won’t be in stores until March 15.

The deadline for this offer is 5 PM Central Time, February 27, 2016, so get to it! 

Also, if you’re local, you can join us that night. Tickets for the evening are $16.49 each (plus Eventbrite’s ticketing fees), and the night features hors d’oeuvres, a dessert buffet, a cash bar, raffles, music trivia, a “dress as your favorite singer/band” contest, and more. If you do make it out, be sure to stop me and say hi.

Even if you can’t make it out that night or manage to kick in something to support the Bibliobabes, please help spread the word. The more people who know about the event, the more who can help. Thanks!

Wanted: Reviewers for My Captain America Book

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If you are a US-based reviewer who would like to check out a copy of Marvel’s Captain America: The Ultimate Guide to the First Avenger, which I wrote with Dan Wallace, drop me an email at matt@forbeck.com. I’ll put you on a list and see if the fine folks at DK Publishing can hook you up.

Include your mailing address, email address, and the venue for your reviews, along with a home page URL and a phone number. Move fast, since the book comes out on April 5, and they need time to gather them all up and ship them out.

Spread the word to anyone you think might be interested too, please. Thanks!

If you’re not a reviewer, you can pick up your own copy on April 5. DK is actually sending me on a short tour to promote the book through Milwaukee, Chicago, and Minneapolis for Free Comic Book Day and Children’s Book Week. When I have more details to share, I’ll be sure to let you know.

Lip Syncing for Project 16:49

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My wife, Ann, is one of the founders of Project 16:49, a non-profit dedicated to helping homeless teens here in Rock County, Wisconsin. While she’s no longer on the board (she’s focusing on her job as a high school social worker instead), she still regularly helps out the organization with all the wonderful things they do for some of our area’s neediest youth.

As part of that, Ann and her book club are joining Project 16:49’s Lip Sync Battle, a big event in Janesville, WI, on February 27, 2016. They’re going to be performing on stage as part of the competition to help those kids.

There are few ways you can help out, if you’re so inclined. First, you can join us that night. Tickets for the evening are $16.49 each (plus Eventbrite’s ticketing fees), and the night features hors d’oeuvres, a dessert buffet, a cash bar, raffles, music trivia, a “dress as your favorite singer/band” contest, and more.

Second, you can support the Bibliobabes (the bookclub’s fake band) directly. The band that raises the most money gets a bump in the competition, so that not only helps raise money for Project 16:49, but can also make the Bibliobabes’ premier appearance even more triumphant.

Even if you can’t make it out that night or manage to kick in something to support the Bibliobabes, please help spread the word. The more people who know about the event, the more who can help. Thanks!

Join Me in Wisconsin Rapids

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Libraries rock. I spent a lot of my childhood in my local library, and I’m a big believer in supporting the kind of work they do to educate, serve, and unite our communities. I support them whenever I can.

Case in point, I’m going to be speaking at the McMillan Library in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin, from 7 PM to 8:15 PM. As their website says:

Matt Forbeck is an accomplished author, comic creator and game designer.  He’ll be talking about his latest work, The Avengers Encyclopedia as well as his upcoming book on Captain America.  If you are a fan of the Marvel universe or superhero comics, you won’t want to miss this event.

This promises to be a good time in a part of Wisconsin where I rarely make a public appearance, so if you’re anywhere nearby, come on out and join us!

Join Me at Gary Con

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For those who don’t know, Gary Con is a wonderful tabletop games convention held in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, by the kids of Gary Gygax in honor of their father. Gary Con Zero was held at the wake after Gary’s funeral, and it wound up being such an excellent and fun remembrance of the man that Gary’s kids have continued the tradition every year. Hard to believe he’s now been gone for eight years.

This year, I’m once again back as a special guest at the show, along with a host of tabletop gaming luminaries like Allen Hammock, Peter Adkison, Jolly Blackburn, Jeff Butler, Mike Carr, Stephen Chenault, Chris Clark, Michael Curtis, Jeff Easley, Joe Goodman, Bruce Heard, Tim Kask, Dave Kenzer, Terry Kuntz, Dave “Diesel” LaForce, Chris, Lindsay, Greg Marks, Mike Mearls, Dave Megarry, Frank Mentzer, Mike Monard, Terry Pavlet, Jeff Perren, Stefan Pokorny, Merle Rasmussen, Mike Reese, Rob Schwalb, Lester Smith, Steve Sullivan, Tony Szczudlo, Jeffery P. Talanian, Jim Wampler, Jim Ward, David Wesely, Tom Wham, Skip Williams, and – of course – Ernie, Heidi, Elise, Cindi, Luke, and (maybe even?) Alex Gygax.

Due to some SNAFUs, I just today managed to get my events listed for this year, and pre-registration for the show ends on Saturday, February 13, at 11:45 AM Central Time. Sign up fast to guarantee yourself a seat. If you can make it to the show, though, we’ll cram as many people into the rooms as we can, so don’t worry too much. The events are:

Shotguns & Sorcery Seminar: This summer, Outland Entertainment is releasing a new Cypher-system RPG based on Matt Forbeck’s Shotguns & Sorcery fantasy noir novels. Come hear Matt and co-designer Rob Schwalb talk about the game and what you can expect from it. March 4, 12 PM — 1 PM. 

Games and Fiction Seminar: Come chat with bestselling, award-winning game designer and novelist Matt Forbeck about games, fiction, and the spaces in between. This one runs twice: March 4, 1 PM — 2 PM and March 5, 4 PM — 5 PM.

If you love old-school gaming, D&D, or just tabletop games in general, this is a show you should not miss. In addition to the special guests, I’m also looking forward to seeing Mike Witwer (author of Empire of Imagination: Gary Gygax and the Birth of Dungeons & Dragons) interview the Gygax kids and talk about the development of D&D. On top of that Pat Kilbane (of Mad TV and Seinfeld fame), will be previewing a D&D documentary he has in the works.

Join us.

Captain America Book Cover Revealed

3dcapbookLast summer, I wrote Marvel’s Captain America: The Ultimate Guide to the First Avenger, along with fellow Marvel expert Dan Wallace. It covers all 75 years of the history of Cap, from his first appearance in Captain America Comics #1 to the present. Look for it to be released on April 5, a month before Captain America: Civil War hits theaters.

Earlier this week, DK posted the first images of the book’s amazing cover. I have yet to confirm it, but that sure looks like Steve Epting’s excellent work.

The cover also reveals that none other than Stan Lee wrote the foreword for the book. As someone who grew up reading Stan’s stories, that’s an amazing honor.

I cannot wait for you to read this. It’s a gorgeous book featuring stunning artwork and one of my favorite characters of all time. April can’t come fast enough!

The Munchkin Book

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A while back, my pal Jim Lowder asked me to write something about one of my favorite games, Munchkin, for The Munchkin Book, a collection of essays about the bestselling card game created by Steve Jackson and illustrated by another pal, John Kovalic. The book, published by BenBella, went through a long, twisty maze of revisions and approvals, but it’s finally been approved and is slated to be in stores on February 23.

For my part, I interviewed Phil Reed, the CEO of Steve Jackson Games, about Munchkin‘s present and future, and it was just as entertaining as chatting with Phil in real life. A lot of other people chipped in excellent pieces as well, including Andrew Hackard, Ed Greenwood, Jennifer Steen, Joseph Scrimshaw, Jaym Gates, Dave Banks, Christian Lindke, Bonnie Burton, Liam McIntyre, and Steve Jackson himself.

It’s a great, fun read, and it includes new Munchkin rules for each chapter of the book, as well as fresh illustrations by John Kovalic throughout. If you’re a Munckin fan – and if you’re a gamer, you damn well ought to be – you need this book. Get in line to kick down the door and loot the room on February 23.

Halo New Blood Deals Everywhere

New Blood FrontAs I mentioned last week, the ebook edition of my Halo novel New Blood is on sale in the US for the Kindle for only $1.99, through the end of January. It turns out that the sale’s been extended to just about every other ebook vendor. For example: 

If you enjoy audiobooks, you can also get the audiobook edition from Audible, bundled with the ebook, for only $5.98. Just add the audio narration to the Kindle version, and you’re all set.

The sale is slated to end on January 31, so go grab the ebook in your favorite format fast. If you prefer a hard copy, don’t forget that the paperback edition is slated to arrive on March 15.

Mabinogi Duel Hits the US

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A couple years ago, the folks at Nexon asked me to help them out with the localization of their upcoming trading-card game app, Mabinogi Duel. This is free-to-play TCG app built for Android and iOS is based on Mabinogi, Nexon’s popular fantasy MMORPG, which launched in Korea back in 2004 and is still rolling along to this day. Mabinogi Duel had a soft launch in other English-speaking nations last year, but it just recently made it through all that and was launched in the USA.

Localization’s a funny kind of gig. You take the text translated roughly from the original language – some of which can be hard to decipher – and brush it up so that it should make sense to a native speaker of the language. All the while, you want to retain the flavor of the original, as it was intended. This is, after all, someone else’s baby, not mine.

Sometimes it’s simple, and other times you’re better off just scrapping what’s there and starting from scratch. Either way, you’re often working with a game that you haven’t actually seen or played, which makes it all the more challenging.

For most of Mabinogi Duel, I just cleaned up what was there and moved on. However, the game features a prominent goblin character I was told spoke entirely in “crappy rap.” Since rhymes don’t translate well from one language to another, I had to concoct scores of awful rhymes for this little gobbo from scratch. I’d inflict a few on you, but you can download the app and do that yourself.

As with many of my past video game gigs, my name’s not mentioned in the credits. This is sadly common when it comes to freelancers, who are rarely in the office when the credits list is being drawn up. Still, the game came out well, and the checks cleared, so I don’t complain.

It’s a fun, fast game with amazing artwork and some interesting wrinkles on the standard TCG design. Go give it a go!

Halo: New Blood News

New Blood FrontNew Blood BackMy Halo novel New Blood came out last March as an ebook original, the first such one in the new line from Simon and Schuster. It features the story of Gunnery Sergeant Edward Buck, star of Halo 3: ODST and also one of the new team of Spartans in Halo 5. 

It did well enough as an ebook that Simon and Schuster decided to release a print edition, which should hit shelves on March 15. To celebrate that, the US Kindle version of the ebook is on sale this month for only $1.99.

Simon & Schuster fiddled with the front cover a bit, and because this is a print book they had to come up with a back cover as well, both of which you can see here.

It’s a hell of a thrill to see “New York Times Bestselling Author” next to my name on a cover, due to the success of The Marvel Encyclopedia. Hopefully this book will make it to the list as well. Preorder it now, and look for it on March 15!