Drop Target Zine

Cambridge Lanes and Games

2012-02-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

Back in December, I went down to Boston for a few days to attend the 30th birthday party of my good friend Liz Prince. When I got to town, Liz told me she knew a good place to go play pinball. Did I want to go? Yes, yes I did. So we got into the car and drove over to Lanes and Games, in Cambridge. Here's Claire and Liz in front of their billboard:

I gotta say, when I heard this place was a bowling alley, I didn't expect much. We have a Lanes and Games in White River Junction, and the machines there work, but aren't that great. I was pleasantly surprised therefore when I got into the arcade room and found that it had EIGHT machines, all of which were in PERFECT working order.

From left to right: Twilight Zone, Scared Stiff, Addams Family, Tron, Iron Man, Family Guy, Spider Man, Sopranos. What a collection! They were a little pricey, but worth every token. I put in a little time on Tron and a LOT on Twilight Zone, which I finally started to get the hang of by the end.

Anyway, if you live in the Boston area, I HIGHLY recommend this place! You can walk there from the Alewife stop on the red line, which is right around the corner. Tell 'em Drop Target sent you!

Insider Photos

2012-02-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

No I know that that title makes it seem like I've stumbled across secret photos that show Steve Ritchie and George Gomez literally using MAGIC to make pinball machine, but sadly, no, they're just a really tasteful collection of photos that were shared to us by comics prof, and all-around nice guy Isaac Cates (Isaac has been doing a really great series on mythical animals on his site HERE). These photos show the inside of the Stern pinball factory in a way that I've never seen it before: 90% devoid of people. Normally, when I've seen photos or videos from inside the factory, it is a blur of hustle and bustle. That's not to say that the images make it look abandoned, it's just nice to focus more on the machines and tools used to make the pinball machines than the hard workers. You can view the photos HERE

I also stumbled upon THIS the other day. Please put rubber bands around your shoes before you watch this, because I will NOT field complaints about socks being blown off!

Pinball Map App

2012-01-30T10:00:00.000-05:00

When Jon and I started this blog, we put a link in the sidebar, to a humble little operation called PortlandPinballMap.com In the last year or so, this site has expanded and improved, and I now think it is one of, if not THE most important resources for people interested in playing pinball.

Not only did they expand their database to include the Bay Area, Boston, British Columbia, Chicago, Colorado, Jacksonville, Los Angeles, Sacramento, San Diego, Seattle and Spokane, they also built an interactive app for iPhone and Android mobile devices. Let me be perfectly clear: if you play pinball and you have a phone that can run this app, you NEED to get it. It's $1. Just do it.

On my recent travels to Boston, Seattle and Portland, I had friends or family members install this app, which then allowed me to find pinball ANYWHERE. You can literally hit a button and it will pull up a map with all the pinball machines within a 3 mile radius. You can also search the database by neighborhood, by machine, or by specific location. So if you feel like playing a specific game, you can find all of the places it is available in your area and then pick the closest one.

Probably the best part about the app though, is that the database is completely updated by users. So if you go to a location and a machine is all beaten up, you can leave a comment, like, "The left flipper is broken" and it will be uploaded to the system. When the next user looks up that machine, they'll see your note. Or better yet, an operator may see your comment and come fix the machine! You can also update which machines are available at a location, so the more people use it, the more accurate it is.

If, like me, you don't have a smart phone, you can still access the database via the pinballmap.com website. But I'll tell you, I'm sorely tempted to get a smart phone, just so that I could have this app running when I'm wandering around any of the above cities (many of which I visit every year!) Either way, check it out and update some listings!

Yet Another Quechee Antique Mall pinball find

2012-01-24T11:00:00.000-05:00

I've seen old backboxes and electronic mini-pinball machines at the Quechee Antique Mall before, which lead me to believe that there is an old pinball enthusiast, who owns one of the booths. This suspicion was once again confirmed on my last visit, when I saw this beautiful old bagatelle-type board, from 1890 (!?!)

This summer, a small arcade opened up at one end of the Antique Mall's parking lot. There were a few old arcade games and that 1991 Data East Star Trek machine. But it was busted. Perhaps the same person who is selling these cool pinball items is also trying to set up the arcade? If they could get it working, I know two gentlemen who would definitely go use the machines! ;)

White River Junction Pinball Update

2012-01-21T21:09:00.000-05:00

Oof! Has it really been two months since my last pinball post?! I guess I have been crazy busy lately, but luckily good ol' Jon Chad has been serving up some good content while I've been dealing with other stuff. Fear not though, dear readers, during my absence I have still been playing A LOT of pinball on both coasts. And as ever, I have been snapping some crappy low-res cell phone photos, just for you!

Before I get too far afield, I thought it would be good to update you all on the pinball scene here in White River Junction, Vermont (where Jon and I currently live). As readers of Drop Target #1 no doubt remember, WRJ was the featured locale for our first "Pinhalls" article. A lot has changed around here since that zine was printed, so here is an update.

The biggest change is that Jon and I now own our own machines, Jurassic Park and Medieval Madness, respectively. Here you can see my parents playing a little pinball on a recent visit to "The Junc." These machines are only available to the students, staff and faculty of The Center for Cartoon Studies, where Jon and I work. We are still splitting proceeds with the school, and should be announcing the next round of April Fog Memorial Scholarship recipients in a few months.

The other big news is that Forrest B's Pool School has completely shut down, so we no longer have access to our beloved Star Wars: Episode I pin2k machine. Up at "Lanes and Games" the Last Action Hero machine has been taken away, but the Scared Stiff machine is still going strong.

For months and months the T2 machine in the back room of C&S pizza was all busted up. All of the G.I. lamps were out, one of the flippers was stuck up, none of the flashers were working - it was a mess. We had pretty much given up on it ever working again, when one day I randomly went to check on it, only to find that it had been completely fixed up! Not only was everything working, but all of the high scores had been reset. This lead to some of the most fun I have ever had on a pinball machine.

Jon and I have gotten pretty good at this point. We're not world-class players or anything, but we can get a replay after a few warm-up games on most machines. With the scores reset, it was remarkably easy to crack a replay and get up on the high score board. And each time you get a high score, the machine gives you a free credit. The first time I went in to play, I put in one dollar and played for an hour and half. Finally, my arms were getting sore, and I had stuff to do, so I left the machine with SIX credits on it (!?!) I told Jon about it, and the next day he had a similar experience. A few weeks later we went in together and did the same thing again. One dollar of quarters, an hour plus of gameplay. It was good times!

We thought we pretty much had the pinball scene in our area figured out, when all of a sudden, our boss Michelle gave us a hot tip: she had spotted "like five pinball machines" at the Pizza Chef in Quechee which is only five miles down the road. Ecstatic, we immediately checked out the community car and headed up there to check it out. The trip was a little heartbreaking... 1) because the pizza was the worst I have tasted since I was in 6th grade and had to eat in the cafeteria at "Islander Middle School" 2) There were only THREE machines... and two of them were out of commission.

Here you can see the lineup. On the left, F-14 Tomcat. Busted rubber on the left flipper, but otherwise looked to be in good condition. Shut off. On the right, Taxi, with an extremely worn-down playfield. Shut off. Luckily, the center machine, Black Knight 2000 was working great (except for the magna-save which didn't work, and the flippers were a little weak). We played for about an hour and had a lot of fun. The music on that machine is AMAZING! My favorite part is when the Black Knight says "GIVE ME YOUR MONEY." Classic.

I guess a few weeks later Jon found a No Good Gofers a few miles away in the other direction. I have yet to check this out, but it seems like every time we lose a machine, another one is found. I guess the pinball gods giveth and the pinball gods taketh, eh?

I've got a few more posts lined up from recent trips, so I'll try to post a little more regularly. Also, don't forget, we're both still guest blogging over on the STERN website!

Fresh from the DTZ Mailbag

2012-01-19T10:00:00.005-05:00

One of the best things about being part of a passionate community like pinball is that if you show the love, sometimes, the love is shown back. Every now and then Alec and I will get something cool in the mail from someone who just likes what we're doing. It genuinely touches our hearts. One time, we got a SUPER DUPER tiny papercraft pinball machine. Super cute. Recently, Alec and I got a DVD in the mail from all-around good guy Dave Marston. It was issue 7 of a video zine (!?!). I had never heard of a video zine, but it made sense. Little did I know that I was in for a treat.

The movie was split into two sections; snowboarding and pinball. Snowboarding, sure, cool, but PINBALL! YEAH! The pinball section was a half-hour long and was comprised of music videos made with footage that the creators took of their own personal outings and tournaments they attended. The videos sort of sum up the various events without showing every single flip and every single drain. It was pretty cool.

One of the music videos started with these three guys placing their hands on a fish statue. They all shake as if overcome with the pinball spirit. Next thing you know, these guys are setting up a Fish Tales machine in the middle of the woods and plugging it into a generator. Get it!? Gone fishing!? HA HA!

Pinballers will recognize a lot of the players featured. Keith Elwin, Rick Stetta, Lyman Sheets, Josh Sharp, etc etc. Again, though, this video zine is ALL music videos, so non of them talk. The only exception to this is a short flipper skills instructional segment, which was well-done.

This video zine is clearly far on the peripheral of pinball-dom, because I couldn't find a SINGLE screencap on the internet. I did find their website! Give it a whirl.

Links Links Links

2012-01-05T10:00:00.001-05:00

The internet NEVER fails to provide me with a seemingly endless supply of pinball content. Since I draw ALL THE TIME, I am always looking for different things to listen to. It helps pass the time when you're inking a ba-zillion little transistors, leaves, or whatnot. Here's some of the stuff that I've been TOTALLY digging lately. I'll preface this by saying that I am not claiming that these links are 100% NEW, just that they've crossed my doorstep.

1) Spooky Pinball Podcast: I don't know how I didn't get into this sooner. While the show is not 100% pinball, it is still super enjoyable to listen to. Often, that percentage of stuff that ISN'T pinball is still stuff that I'm into. One of the first episodes I listened to had a section on a Godzilla convention. I. LOVE. GODZILLA. And I love this show. I'll be sad when I've exhausted all the episodes.

2) New Episodes of the Silverball Podcast: I might have talked about this show before, but I love it. Rob Craig and Steve Rothchild have made a really well-produced show with some really great segments. Recently, a couple of new episodes have been released after a pretty lengthy hiatus. Pingods be praised!

3) PAPA video archive: The good people at the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association gave the wider pinball community what was maybe the BEST X-mas gift EVER: an archive and listing of not only the awesome tutorial videos that they make, but also regular gameplay footage and tournament footage. It's an amazing resource!

4) This Photo:

Someone on the internet was talking about our zine and wanted to post a picture showing off all three issues. First of all, that's just heart-warming. Secondly, this person took the photo of the zines ON a pinball machine; Lord of the Rings, with the glass off! This makes my glamor shot from Tuesday look like chump change!

Pinball Trip and Glamor Shots

2012-01-03T22:51:00.000-05:00

Recently, Alec and I went to Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH. I know that both of us have mentioned this SEVERAL times, but that arcade is INCREDIBLE. If you live in New England, you NEED to go there.

The arcade was pretty hopping. Alec and I put in a good 7 hours of pinball; playing away until our arms were sore. The game that we put the most time on was the Stern Tron machine. By the end of the night, we had both nailed down most of the shots, and figured out how to handle the basics (getting the different multiballs / skillshots / etc.) In one of our last games of the night, Alec totally put Tron through it's paces and got a replay on the first ball! Here's some pics from the trip:

This Super Mario Mushroom World game was AWESOME. First, it's half the size of a normal pinball machine (which is why I'm leaning over the machine. I'm not a giant) Second, the music is great. Third, this game can be set up to give out tickets. That's just cool.

Believe it, or not, this was my favorite machine of the trip: Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball. Does this game have modes: no. Does this game have a multiball: no. Does this game have a right outlane: no. I don't know what to say, the game was just fun to play. The right orbit shot leads to a set of lanes which funnel down to a little lower playfield (a la Black Hole, except no extra glass). Everytime I made that right orbit, I was on cloud nine. Mark Walters, who writes for McSweeney's, actually mentioned this machine in one of his articles (this one). He had serious complaints about this machine, and they're all totally justified.

I put some serious time on The Champion Pub as well. What a game!

PINBALL!!! YESSS!

Alec gets the #1 High Score on our old friend, Star Wars Episode 1. It was really surreal to put some time on this machine, it's been a long time.

This is the aforementioned glamor shot. I'm sorry internet. I'm sorry.

Pinball Costume

2011-12-22T10:44:00.001-05:00

Hello Pinballers! The holidays are in full swing here at Drop Target HQ, and I thought that I would give you guys the greatest gift I could give: embarrassing photos of me!

So, for the past couple of Halloweens I've been obsessed with really simple, iconic costumes. I think I must have watched some sort of Halloween retrospective or something, but all I remember is seeing people dressed as skeletons, ghosts, cowboys, etc. Classic. I decided this year I was going to be a spaceman. My costume was coming together really well, but I wanted to screen-print something on the front to make it a little more retro/iconic. So I put a simple Saturn on the front.

Later, I was discussing my costume idea with a friend and she said, "a space ranger, Jon? Why not a PINBALL ranger?" Oh.....my....Godzilla vs. Mothra.... TALK ABOUT A MISSED OPPORTUNITY! Well, I screen-printed some pinball parts around the Saturn and tried to pass myself off as a cosmic pinball ranger. Although, thinking about it now, I could have said that I was 3D Pinball Space Cadet from that pinball game that is included on nearly EVERY PC (I also think it's probably the most played playfield ever...ugh, now I'm sad!). Here's me in my costume:

And here is a detail of the shirt:

Needless to say, screen-printing pinball parts was really fun. I've been dying to get together some sort of shirt design that Alec and I could sell here, or at shows. Maybe something like this would be fun.

Anyway, happy holidays!!

Pinball Violence #3

2011-12-08T08:55:00.000-05:00

This week's unfortunate case of pinball violence comes from issue #40 of the 1997 run of Robin. Besides a particularly angry Robin scouling at us from the cover, the titular character doesn't appear in this issue. Instead, the scene flips back and forth between Tim Drake talking to his girlfriend, and his girlfriend's vigilante exploits. At first it's par-for-the-course; the girl vigilante is chasing down and beating up the bad guys. But then THIS sequence happens. First, she chases the goons to their getaway vehicle:

(click to enlarge)

So far this is pretty benign. She jumps onto the back of the truck and starts laying in on this one poor bloke. Heaving a mighty blow, he is hurled helplessly into a...pinball machine!?!

(click to enlarge)

Not just ANY pinball machine, mind you, but the rare "Gorfinator" pinball machine. Look at those classic lines peppering the cabinet! "I'll call you back" "If he don't get you, his boiler suit will!" (?!?) What in the world does that mean!?! These goons must have been wrapped up pretty heavily in black market pinball trafficing. They even have the uber-rare "Archie Enemy" pinball machine. "He'll win good" ahhhhhh, as if taken from the lips of the bard himself! Anyway, even though the two twins (!?) with the pistols have a clear shot at our hero, they decide to hit her with the Gorfinator.

(click to enlarge)

I guess the twins reasoned that the Gorf was too damaged to part out. Or maybe they were looking to toss it anyway since that cabinet is so gross.

(click to enlarge)

Or maybe they couldn't part it out because the Gorf is made of the most bizarre assortment of parts compiled in one wretched cabinet. I DARE you to try and figue out what's going on on the bottom of that playfield. This merciful machine has no outlanes, but it also has a two inch thick backbox. My two favorite things to note:

1) The pinball machines drawn in this sequence were clearly done without reference. Someone thought to themselves, "er...uh...pinball? it's a box with two buttons on the side? two flippers? a rule card?" It's the lowest common denominator.

2) The goons are LAUGHING at her as they peel off. They look like they're having the time of their lives. They must have wanted to get rid of the Gorfinator for a long time. Now they can focus on getting that rollover on Archie Enemy.

I looked at all the pinball machines released in 1997, and have no idea what the catalyst was for the Gorf and Archie. Until next time, keep you machines safe! Also, check out Alec's post on the Stern Blog!

Post at Stern

2011-12-01T00:20:00.000-05:00

I posted some images over at the Stern blog. You can check out the post HERE.

WAHOO!! PINBALL!

DTZ at Expozine 2011 in Montréal!

2011-11-25T22:17:00.001-05:00

Citizens of Montréal! Please note that Jon Chad will be at your 10th annual small press, minicomic and zine fair, expozine this weekend (11/26 - 11/27)! He will have copies of all three issues of Drop Target, so if you are in the area, swing on by and pick one up. He'll also have tons of his own cool comics for sale. We'll have to see if he returns with any pinball stories from Montréal... last time I was up there, I couldn't find ANYTHING!

Pinball Violence in Movies No. 2

2011-11-15T12:05:00.000-05:00

Sigh... Violence is never the only answer, you guys! Especially when pinball is concerned! Unfortunately, we arrived at another piece of American cinema that uses a pinball machine as a punching bag. I present, the end of Superman II:

I won't go to much into this one, since many of you have seen Superman II, but at the end of the movie, Clark Kent returns to a diner after he gets his powers back. Earlier, at the same diner, he was hassled by this guy named Rocky(?).

Well, with his powers back, what's the first thing on Superman's mind: REVENGE!!!! He lays down some well-calculated insults on Rocky, "I've never seen garbage eat garbage before!" and then swaggers up to him like a boss. Rocky takes a swing at Supes (like a Grade A Chump) and breaks his hand. Superman lands his sorry butt in a plate of food and then throws him across the diner into a Buckaroo (?) machine!

Pinball is one of the most American things I can think of, so I thought Superman would put more of an effort out there to safeguard it! Oh well!

You can watch it HERE.

STERN + DTZ!!!

2011-11-10T13:30:00.000-05:00

Hey Everyone (and welcome anybody that is here by way of Stern),

The good people at Stern Pinball have kindly asked us to share some of our pinball love on their website! As you know, we are ALL ABOUT getting pumped about pinball, and we really appreciate the chance to share that enthusiasm with a wider audience. We're going to be cross-posting some stuff from this blog and issue 1, as well as brand new content and finds! As of now, we're shooting to post something there once a week! Don't worry, loyal DTZ goers, we'll still be posting here a bunch too! Alec and I have been really busy with teaching and book projects, but we're planning on really digging in our talons to this stuff over the winter!

You can read our first post at Stern HERE.

STERN factory tour!

2011-10-28T14:14:00.002-04:00

Oh man, Jon and I really, REALLY wanted to go to Pinball Expo this year, but with our teaching schedules it just wasn't in the cards this year... The expo event that we were the most excited about checking out was the Stern Pinball factory tour. Luckily, Darian Glover did go on the tour, and whipped up this excellent video of the trip. It looks like it was a lot of fun... Maybe we'll be able to go next year!

Harry Potter Pinball Wizard T-Shirt!

2011-10-19T09:58:00.001-04:00

If you have been enjoying the Harry Potter Pinball dream machine playfields I have been drawing for Drop Target, then man-oh-man do I have the T-shirt for you!

This awesome Harry Potter Pinball Wizard T-shirt was designed by Ashley Hay and is available for a measly $11 on TheYetee.com It's only available until 10/20 (about 40 more hours!) so if you want to score one for yourself, you'd better apparate over to there right away!

Thanks to Drop Target reader Don for letting me know about the shirt. I ordered one and it will be my official pinball shirt from now on!

Max's Carcassonne Pinball Adventure

2011-10-06T18:33:00.001-04:00

The "Dream Machine" in Drop Target #3 was created by our Belgian pinball friend Max de Radiguès, who many of you no doubt recognize from our installments of "Zeros to Heroes." After spending a year living (and playing pinball!) in White River Junction, Vermont, Max has returned to his homeland of Belgium, where he is still playing pinball!

Recently Max traveled to Carcassonne, France to visit his cartoonist friend Pierre Maurel. While in town, Max and Pierre taught a series of comics workshops at local schools. As an added bonus, Pierre tracked down a local pinball enthusiast who agreed to show the guys his pinball collection. Here is Max's description of their trip out to his house:

It's in a farm a little outside Carcassonne. The guy is from Luxembourg and owns something like 30 machines (he had more than 40 but sold a couple of them). They are from a lot of differents time periods... He also as a huge slot machine collection. He just like to fix them. He doesn't really like to play...

So they're all in his barn covered with blankets, dust and random stuff... He buys most of them in Belgium and Luxembourg and sometimes Holland and he as a few machine on free play for his clients (he rents rooms for tourist...) He's getting divorce and looses the house so god knows what will happen to that treasure... Wish you could have been there !

Below are some photos from their visit - what a collection! Hopefully they'll end up in good hands.

Sorry it has been quiet around here lately. We have been spending most of our recent "Drop Target Time" sending out orders to all of our readers! Jon and I have a lot of cool stuff in the pipeline though, and we'll be sharing some of it with you all soon! Until then, keep flipping!

Drop Target #3 is now available for ordering!

2011-09-20T13:30:00.001-04:00

Okay, Drop Target #3 is finally available for ordering! This is our most jam-packed issue yet. It has all the regular features as well as two NEW features: "Special When LITerature" (pinball book reviews!) and "BANG BACKS" which we were going to include in issue #2, but we couldn't quite get it together.

Here is all the information about this issue:

DROP TARGET #3 - The Classics Issue

56 pages - 5.5" x 8.5" - B&W printing

First Printing: 8.5" x 14" full-color centerfold, screenprinted cover

FEATURING:

- THE REPLAY REVIEW: Classic Pinball Machines

- VIDEO MODE: Tommy (1975) vs. TILT (1979)

- SPECIAL WHEN LITERATURE: Pinball! By Roger Sharpe

- PINHALLS: The Pacific Pinball Museum - Alameda, CA

- TILT TALK: Interview with PPM director Michael Schiess

- BANG BACKS: Interview with Ben Heck

- APRIL FOG MEMORIAL PINBALL SCHOLARSHIP

- DREAM MACHINES: Zine King by Max de Radiguès, Portal by Jon Chad and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by Alec Longstreth

- FROM ZEROS TO HEROES: Part 3 - Making a Monster

You can order a copy on the DTZ #3 ordering page. Also, sadly we had to get rid of the combo page. Even with just three issues there were starting to be a lot of different combinations. With four or five or six or SEVEN issues, it would have been too much to keep up with. So for now, you can add issues one at a time on each of their pages and use the "VIEW CART" buttons to see what you've got.

Thanks everyone for your patience and continued support. Next up will be the MOVES issue, which we're aiming to have out in January/February.

Drop Target #1 first printing has SOLD OUT!

2011-09-19T14:34:00.000-04:00

Well, it's official. The first printing of Drop Target #1 has SOLD OUT. All 400 copies have been sold, but the zine is not out of print! Jon and I have created an easier-to-make second printing, which is still available on the DTZ #1 page.

The second printing has a plain black and white printed cover (instead of a screen printed cover on color paper) and instead of the full-color, fold out center spread, it has a grayscale center spread on the same size paper as the rest of the zine. Everything else is the same. Instead of a $5 cover price, the second printing will only cost $4, because it has fewer bells and whistles.

We will be creating similar second printings for each of the Drop Target Zines as their first printings sell out, so that we can focus our self-publishing energy on the NEW issues. Once the first printings of all seven issues go out of print, we will make a print on demand collection of all the issues.

Just so everyone gets a chance to see the center spread Dream Machine playfield in full color, here is a low-res web version for you all to enjoy! We will post these each time an issue's first printing runs out.

We are in the process of sending out the comp copies of Drop Target #3 and it will be available for ordering later this week! Thank you all for your patience.

Well what do we have HERE???

2011-08-29T22:32:00.000-04:00

Tonight we finished the first proof copies of Drop Target #3! In an unprecedented move, Jon and I are going examine the books for a WHOLE NIGHT, to look for any errors, BEFORE printing. Tomorrow we'll be slinging paper in the lab, and the book will debut at SPX September 10th and 11th in Bethesda, Maryland!

Also, things are going to be CRAZY around here with the start of the semester and SPX, so it looks like it won't be available until AFTER the show. Really, that's the soonest that we will actually have time to fill all the orders, etc. etc. Sorry for the delay, but please know that it will be worth the wait! This issue is a zinger!

It's off to proofreading we go!

Drop Target 3 is coming together...

2011-08-27T19:59:00.000-04:00

Here's what most of today looked like for me:

Sitting in front of the computer, working on Drop Target #3 - the Classics issue! It's all coming together. Assuming we don't lose power all day tomorrow, it should all be done by the end of Sunday night. Either way, it'll definitely be printed up and available for ordering by the end of next week.

Hang in there everyone, I think this one's going to be worth the wait!

Ryan Claytor's got pinball fever!

2011-08-23T19:53:00.000-04:00

Many years ago, at a long-forgotten comic convention I met a very friendly guy named Ryan Claytor. Ryan leads a very similar life, when compared to Jon and I. He self-publishes his own minicomics and like us, he teaches comics, though at Michigan State University and The University of Michigan Flint. But the similarities don't stop there, because recently Ryan has been getting REALLY into pinball!

He recently posted a list of the top five most enjoyable educational and/or helpful pinball resources that he has found in recent months. I'm proud to say that Drop Target was his #1 resource!

This summer Ryan went on a tour, promoting his excellent Elephant Eater comics, and he is now posting entries from his tour diary, which also include all of the pinball machines he played while he was out on the road!

The first tour post covers Kentucky and Tennessee, and MAN does Ryan manage to find some awesome machines out there! If you are living in those areas, definitely check out this post to make sure you're not missing out on some awesome pinhalls. I look forward to seeing the rest of Ryan's tour diary, so I can learn about some more of the great pinhalls that are scattered across the country.

Slowly but surely...

2011-08-16T21:07:00.000-04:00

As you can see here, Jon was super busy last weekend, screen printing the covers for Drop Target #3. The number of finished interior pages is starting to climb and we should be done with the issue in a few weeks. If all goes to plan, we will be debuting DTZ#3 at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland on the weekend of September 10th and 11th.

In pinball news, over on the PAPA blog they posted part 1 (of 4) of Classic Game Room's coverage of the 14th world pinball championships, which happened last weekend. I was super bummed I couldn't make it this year, so it's great to see some video of the event. The PAPA headquarters looks like an amazing facility. Hopefully Jon and I can make it down there one of these days.

Review!

2011-08-14T12:10:00.002-04:00

Hey Guys! Things have been ba-zonkers here at Drop Target HQ. We're getting all our ducks in a row for issue 3, which will be coming out next month. I'll be posting some samples from what we've been working on later this week, but right now I wanted to post a link to a nice review we got from the good people at One Minute Zine Review. You can listen to it here. Thanks, guys!

Two Year Pinball Anniversary

2011-08-07T21:15:00.001-04:00

For the last few weeks Jon and I have been teaching at the Center for Cartoon Studies Summer Workshops. Today was supposed to be the workshop BBQ picnic, but it was rained out, so instead we hung out inside with the students.

As we were sitting around chatting this afternoon, it occurred to me that it was the EXACT SAME circumstances which drove Jon and me into the (now closed) pool hall across the street from the school, two years ago. And it was there that we saw the Star Wars: Episode I pinball 2000 machine, which we became totally obsessed with.

It's hard to believe it's only been two years! Since then we've become fairly good pinball players, we each own a pinball machine and have both learned a lot about fixing them up. We also put out two issues of Drop Target.

Speaking of which, we are both rocking and rolling on issue three which should be out for SPX in mid-September. Jon's already knocked out a big stack of pages and we're both working on Dream Machines and some of the spot illustrations. It's exciting to be putting together a new issue. It promises to be a good one!

Until then, good luck to everyone who will be playing in the PAPA Pinball World Championships next weekend!

My Seattle Pinball Report

2011-08-02T23:37:00.002-04:00

Claire and I just got back from a week-long trip to Seattle, where we spent some time with my family and saw her friends Jon and Dana get married. As ever, I had one eye open for pinball machines while we were wandering around SeaTown.

Monday was a rough start to the trip. Boston airport? Dry. Atlanta airport? Nothing. SeaTac airport? No pinball machines that I could find! But then the next day my Dad took us down to the Georgetown area of South Seattle to get some lunch, and while we were waiting for the place to open, I found a 1978 Charlie's Angels machine at a bar called The Mix. I put up a score of like 100,000. Here's a photo of my Dad giving it a try:

Next we went around the corner to the Fantagraphics Book Store where Claire and I and Liz Prince (who was also on the trip) bought some books and records. As we were leaving the store I noticed that they had one of Jim Woodring's FRANK backglasses on the wall, which we have blogged about before. It was so cool seeing one in real life - it looks GREAT! I hope someone will build the whole machine.

The next day Claire and Liz and I ended up at the great pinball bar Shorty's which had the regular assortment of awesome machines, but this time they also had Rolling Stones and the brand new Tron! I hadn't played either of these machines yet, so I was stoked to try them out. Mini review: Rolling Stones was not fun to play. I personally hate the music of the Rolling Stones, but I still found it annoying that songs I started by hitting a shot would then be abruptly cut off by hitting other shots. The (Mick Jagger?) narration was totally obnoxious and I couldn't believe that so many parts were simply plastic cut outs that were standing up. Most of them were already snapped off on the machine I was playing on, and that game is only a year or so old. Ugh. I will not be playing that game again, unless I am stranded somewhere and it is the only machine around. Tron on the other hand was totally fun and had some really tricky shots. It felt like a simple playfield layout that was still challenging. While at Shorty's I got a replay on Avatar and Medieval Madness (natch!)

On Friday Claire and Liz and I went to a movie at the Bellevue Square Mall (or the one across the street, the lincoln-something mall?) The lobby of the movie theater had a Simpsons pinball machine, but it was out of order. As we were leaving the theater, we hit an upscale arcade that was attached to a bowling alley below the theaters. I searched for a pinball machine, but all I could find was an Ultra Pin machine:

The basic idea of an Ultra Pin machine is that there is a giant video game in the shape of a pinball machine. The "backglass" has a monitor in it, which can display an image of a real backglass and a dot matrix display (or alpha numeric display) emulator. The "playfield" is actually a giant flatscreen monitor, which can be set up for about ten different pinball machines. Supposedly the machine is rigged to respond to bumps and nudges.

I bought two credits ($1 for the credits, $2 for the card which carried the credits - UGH) This was my first time playing video game pinball, so I set the machine to Medieval Madness so I could compare it to my own real MM machine, or the MM I played at Shorty's less than 48 hours before.

In my humble opinion The Ultra Pin is a giant pile of digital crap. It seems like something a video game company threw together overnight, using a bunch of 20 year-old programmers who have never played a real pinball machine in their lives. The (ENTIRELY DIGITAL) flippers were somehow LESS responsive than real mechanical flippers (??!) and had a crazy 0.5 second delay that made gameplay almost impossible. Also the playfield was stretched and squashed to fit the monitor, screwing up all of the trajectories of the shots. The flippers flipped up way too high and the machine did NOT respond to bumps and nudges. Also the slingshots did not behave like ANY pinball machine I have ever played. Bounces that clearly should have fired them did nothing. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. It totally sucked. It is not pinball. Not even close.

I'm pretty sure most of my gripes could be fixed by simply consulting someone who has actually PLAYED these games in real life. Hopefully this company will do just that and improve future versions. As it stands now, it's a real shame that Williams signed off on this project and allowed its creative property to be misused like this. You would hope they would have gotten to test it out. I can't believe they did, or some of these problems would have been fixed.

I will never play an Ultra Pin again. I'll save my $3 for a real pinball machine, thanks.

That night we had the rehearsal dinner, which coincidently was at a pizza restaurant in Georgetown, across the street from The Mix! I headed back in at got a 287,000 on Charlie's Angels (hit all the drop targets at the top and on the right, plus got all the top lanes, which felt good). Then on Saturday, I dropped Claire and Liz off for pre-wedding stuff and headed back to Shorty's where, after an hour of trying I finally got a replay on Tron on my very last game. I also got a match, but had to leave the two credits for some other pinhead. I had to get to the wedding!

On Sunday, which was our last day in Seattle, I finally made the trip down to the Seattle Pinball Museum, which was EASILY the pinball highlight of trip. I have added it to our "PINHALLS" list on the right sidebar of this blog so you can easily find information for it next time you are in Seattle!

Here is the entrance, with a sandwich board out front so you know what awaits you inside. This is only a few blocks from the International District bus/light rail stop. It's a $7 admission fee and then all the machines are set to Free Play.

Inside the machines are lined up in chronological order, by release date. This first wall was mostly elecromechanical machines, and a lot of them have information cards on top of the back boxes, so you can learn more about the machines. I went right down the line and played them in order. It was really cool seeing how certain innovations were introduced and how the designs got more and more complex. I also finally got to play Four Million B.C. which is the first game I've played with "Zipper Flippers" which close up the center drain gap when you hit a certain target. Super fun!

On the other wall were some games with alphanumeric displays, all the way up to modern day Stern machines (I played everything except Rolling Stones). You can also see the upstairs area in the above photo, which I got a tour of during my visit. I gave the owner some copies of Drop Target #1 and #2 which he seemed to really dig, so he showed me around the museum and told me about his plans to expand into the upper level with some more machines.

Lastly I took this photo of some great side art from old machines. The Seattle Pinball museum also had a ton of backglass art hanging on the wall, which was great to see. This place already has an awesome start and it sounds like it is just going to get better and better. The staff was super friendly and there were a ton of families and kids in there on Sunday. I hope this place will be around for a long time so I can visit it every time I come home to Seattle to visit my folks. If you are in the area, I HIGHLY recommend swinging by to check it out!

Claire and Liz and I had red-eye flights back to the east coast on Sunday night. At the SeaTac airport we saw one of those interactive wall screens that was running a hotel ad in the form of a playable pinball machine, with the theme of a hotel lobby.

It played about as well as the Ultra Pin, with a second-long delay between when you touched the flippers and when they flipped. As you can see, Liz was not amused. The graphics were pretty neat I guess, and it's cool that a major hotel chain would think to use pinball to promote their services, but I am officially super NOT into video pinball.

Claire and I flew out of Seattle at 1am and landed in Minneapolis three hours later. We only had a 20 minute layover to catch our flight to Boston, which was on the other side of the airport. As we were dashing along a moving walkway I saw a small arcade area with THREE pinball machines (Nascar, the Stern Indiana Jones machine and... one other one I couldn't make out). It was heartbreaking... Finally, an airport with pinball, but no time to play! Next time Minneapolis, next time!

Custom Re-themed Pinball Machines

2011-07-24T10:00:00.005-04:00

(click on image to view larger)

A few weeks ago, my friend Liz Prince sent me a link to a blog post about this awesome custom-made Akira pinball machine. In the image above on the left, you can see an image of the original playfield, which was a 1980 Buck Rogers machine. Then, some very talented artist (I tried to follow the links but couldn't find the original source for this image - Tumblr - UGH! If you know who did this, let me know and I'll put up a link) re-themed the playfield art for the anime Akira.

This is SO tastefully done! Most of the scoring stuff is still the same, it's just that the characters and backgrounds have been replaced. Jon and I saw a few re-themed machines at the Pinball Wizard Arcade that were based on Boston-area sports teams (the Red Sox, the Celtics).

I think this is such a cool idea, especially for old machines, where there was no sound yet, and all the targets just award points. This is on my list of "someday" projects. It would basically allow you to have a custom pinball machine about whatever you want. Talk about a dream machine! Does anybody know of any other custom re-themed pins? Let us know in the comments!

Pinball Videos Galore!

2011-07-16T19:59:00.000-04:00

The Crazy Flipper Finger gang just posted their first "PAPA Style" tournament video over on their blog. This is pretty exciting! I love watching these videos, not only because it's great to watch competitive pinball in action, but also because it teaches me a lot about the game that the players are competing on.

Also, if you haven't seen one yet, starting with the new Stern Batman game, PAPA's video tutorials are now in widescreen format, with multiple view points (birds eye, flipper view, dot matrix). They are best viewed in full screen mode with HD on. Check them out!

KING OF THE REALM!!!!!!!!!!

2011-07-10T14:58:00.002-04:00

Well people, TODAY I FINALLY BEAT MEDIEVAL MADNESS!!! It was, without a doubt, the craziest game of pinball I have ever played. Below you can read all the details...

For most of this summer, my schedule has been thus: From 9am - 1pm I work on Basewood, then I go home, eat lunch and answer emails, and then at 2pm I go play pinball for about 30 minutes (or an hour if I have a good game!). Today I was puttering around the house for a bit in the morning, so I didn't get to the studio until 10am. I worked until noon, and then on a whim decided to play pinball BEFORE my lunch, instead of after. Oh what a difference a few hours made!

I booted up the machine and put three credits on it. On my first game I got 122 million, lighting all of the blue lights except for Castle Crusher - I died with just a few gate hits left to complete. A few weeks ago when I was doing some circuit board repair work on the machine, most of the high scores were reset (all except for my Grand Champ score of 215 million) so this was the new #2 score. Usually if I have a good game, I stop playing, because I usually can't top it. But it was my FIRST game, so I decided to play another. Little did I know it was going to be the game of my LIFE!

Ball 1 lasted FOREVER. When it was over I had a 42x bonus that cashed in at something like 25 million points, which left my score at 96 million. On that ball I had the best castle multiball I've ever had - completing all five ramp shots AND the super jackpot with all three balls still in play. I hit all of the subsequent jackpot shots except for the left joust by the time it was over. With that extra ball I got into my first Royal Madness, which I screwed up pretty quickly. Little did I know it would be the first of FOUR Royal Madness rounds for this game.

I kept making shots and kept going for the castle gate. I got video mode and successfully killed enough vultures to get the extra ball, and soon thereafter I lit Royal Madness again - this time I cleaned up. Every time I hit a shot, the corresponding blue light came on. I completed all the shots (for ANOTHER extra ball) and by the end of it, all the blue lights were on except for Castle Crusher.

I only had the King of Payne's castle left to destroy, so I built up the SECOND Castle Multiball, and then when I started it, I used all three balls to attack the gate, which worked great. I didn't win the round, but I did blow up the last castle. When the multiball was over, I was all set for Battle for the Kingdom. I sank the center shot and the final mode started up.

Now, I have made it to Battle for the Kingdom half a dozen times at this point. The first two or three times I had no idea what was going on, and I was so terrified I would lose immediately. The last couple of times though, I figured out what I needed to do. So when the four balls started launching, I immediately set to work hitting shots. I was on FIRE. I cleared all of the jackpots in short order (because I KNEW there was a timer running this time!) All I had left was the left joust. I hit that (STILL with THREE balls in play!) and then the two trolls shot up and all the blue lights started strobing.

I have died here at least three times, but THIS time I had saved some troll bombs. BLAM! BLAM! Those suckers were gone, and I still had three balls and plenty of time to get my six gate shots. The multiball attack worked wonders and I got my shots with plenty of time to spare. The gate opened and I hit the final center shot.

Suddenly, the flippers went dead and thunk thunk thunk my three balls drained. I was like, "HUH?!" and then the King of Payne started screaming, and I was awarded FIFTY MILLION POINTS. There was a cool animation with all of the peasants celebrating the King's downfall, I managed to snap a shot of it with my cell phone:

Then the game entered some sort of crazy victory lap mode, where all the jackpots were lit and each one gave me some ungodly amount of points (5 million?) I only hit three of them before the ball drained. At this point my score was something like 275 million, SHATTERING my previous high score.

But the game was not over! I still had an extra ball, and was miraculously, somehow still only on Ball 2. I went back to work. I got the extra ball for blowing up the "second" castle (though it was really the EIGHTH), and another for completing my 10th hurry up, which somehow I had not done up to that point. I lit Royal Madness again, had another Castle Multiball, had another video mode and then lit Royal Madness AGAIN. At the very end of the game I realized that I only needed one more catapult item to start barnyard multiball. I started that (which was CRAZY) just before my last ball finally drained. When the dust settled, my final score was 377,204,710 points. Which means that even AFTER I had beaten the game, I put up another 100+ million points!?!

Not only did I set the new Grand Champ score, I got the first King of the Realm ever entered into the machine, and records for 11 Castles, 7 Jousts, 7 Catapults, 7 Peasants and 7 Damsels. I suspect it will be some time before I touch those records again! I've never beaten a pinball machine before - this is the first time. It is a pretty amazing feeling. I've now seen everything this machine can do, but you can always get a higher score, right? Well, here's to trying!

More pinball finds from the Quechee Antique Mall!

2011-07-07T17:50:00.000-04:00

My old comics pal Liz Prince is in town for a few days, so Claire and I took her up to the Quechee Antique Mall to look around. Once again I found some pretty cool pinball stuff for sale!

First I spotted two bagatelle-type games, where you send a marble up a simple playfield with pins and wires and little indentations which redirect or capture the ball. First was "Kick-Back" and the second was "Trik-E-Shot." Both had really great looking designs:

Next up was a Smoky backbox, inexplicably detached from the rest of the machine. It would have been cool to see the whole thing. I think this was going for like $200?

Lastly was an Atomic Pinball, which was recently reviewed by Classic Game Room (that's a link to a video where you can see this tiny pinball machine in action)

I didn't buy any of these items, but it was just cool seeing them mixed in with all the other artifacts. It seems like there is a pinball collector in this area, who keeps putting items from their collection up for sale.

TRON!!!

2011-07-03T13:43:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I visited my sister in Worcester, MA. On the way back, I got to go to the Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH. We've already written here and here about how much we here at Drop Target HQ love the Pinball Wizard Arcade. Owner Sarah St. John runs a tight ship, and all the machines were in perfect order. There were a couple of new machines, including Hook (Data East), Riverboat Gambler (Williams), and TRON!!!!! (Stern).

I was told that the machine had gotten there a day earlier; it was in perfect working order! This will probably the closest to "out-of-box" that I'll ever get to playing a game. Here are a couple of my quick reflections on the game.

The shots felt real smooth and satisfying. I didn't have a problem figuring out the timing and position on a lot of the shots except one. In the center rear of the playfield there was a gate with targets that protected a spinning light disc that you need to hit to start multiball. For the life of me, I could not hit the shot from the right flipper. I know that there are tons of shots on almost EVERY pinball game that can only be hit from one flipper, but since the disc is pretty centrally located, I kept on trying to hit it from the right. Take all this with a grain of salt. I'm NOT the best player, an might just have been eff-ing it up.

I loved the music and the color scheme. The sound effects were really great. I could tell the video effects on the dot matrix screen were really good, but my eyes were glued to the game, so I didn't get a good look. I had a great time playing the game.

The only other thing that I didn't 100% love about the game was that more than once I had NO idea what the game wanted my to shoot at. I started a couple multiballs without knowing it.

Again, I'm not the best player in the world, and I only got to play 2 games. The game was, understandably, really popular. I really hope that I get the chance to play it again soon so I can get a better impression on what the deeper gameplay is like.

NY Times Covers the National Pinball Museum!

2011-07-01T17:46:00.000-04:00

My buddy Pat Barrett sent me this NY Times article today all about The National Pinball Museum and its recent woes. It sounds like an amazing place. Hopefully I'll get to visit it in a new venue this Fall, when I head to D.C. for the Small Press Expo or maybe it will still be in its current location.

Pat Wilson plays pinball!

2011-06-27T08:15:00.002-04:00

I woke up this morning to find the following picture tweeted by Patrick Wilson, the drummer of my all-time favorite band, Weezer:

Weezer should totally write a pinball song. Pinball's nerdy right? It would fit perfectly with "In the Garage" - a place where many people keep their pins!

Pinball Violence in Movies No. 1

2011-06-15T09:19:00.031-04:00

One of the saddest things, EVER, is to see an innocent pinball machine maimed, scorched, dropped, or otherwise destroyed in a movie. Pinball is such a good, innocent, pure form of fun, that a pinball machine getting destroyed in a movie can mean one of two things:

-The person doing the pinball destruction is pure, unadulterated evil.
-S*** is getting REAL!

I don't know where this unimaginable glut of pinball machines comes from! I'll take them off your hands for you, Hollywood! Sigh... I present to you No. 1 in my museum of pinball violence: Lasterblast.

The basically sums it up. Billy is a wimp, comes across an alien laser, it bonds to him, and turns him dag-nasty evil. This is a really weird movie that I think they did a mystery science 3000 episode about. The pinball scene happens pretty far into the movie. Billy is pretty far gone at this point. The scene cuts to him, and with NO provocation...

KABLOOMERS!!!

He lets loose his lasers! The machine is clearly outside in a parking lot, but in the next scene he's running out of a building, so I guess the machine was inside. Since he doesn't destroy anything else inside, he was clearly on a pinball assassination mission. Maybe he was so frustrated that he couldn't put up a decent game with his ugly laser arm. You can watch the scene here (it's about 6:50 in.) What gets me the most is how sudden it is!

There's also a scene where billy blows away a Star Wars billboard, which just leads me to believe that he is literally going after everything I love and hold dear!

Themes

2011-06-12T09:07:00.000-04:00

One of the coolest things to see out in the wild is a bank of pinball machines that are all in great working order. That's a pretty big "duh", am I right, players? What's even cooler, though, is when that group of machines (and it doesn't need to be a LOT of machines, mind you) are all THEMATICALLY related. I recently had the good fortune to be in Portland, ME for the Maine Comics Arts Festival (MeCAF). I had gotten a lead the week before from the owner of Casablanca Comics that he was thinking of bringing in Hulk and Buck Rogers pinball machines into his shop. By the time me and my posse rolled up, he hadn't, but very nicely pointed me in the direction of Coast City Comics. Both shops were AMAZING comics shops, but Coast City delivered on the goods. In the back were four machine, three of which turned on:

-Monster Bash
-Batman (Stern, the one not turned on...)
-Nightmare on Elm St.
-Elvira Scared Stiff

What a lineup!

Besides Batman, the other machines were in PERFECT working order. I can't stress how clean, and how well these machines played! It was like they were fresh from the box. I had never played Monster Bash or Nightmare on Elm Street, both were a lot of fun, but Monster Bash was AMAZING! What I loved most about these machine, though, is that they all share a theme! It added a real touch of class that all the pinball machines had something in common. Since there are so many machines are based on properties, it stands to reason that you could simply round up a number of similar themed properties within a genre and get the machines based on those properties! It makes me think about what other cool pinball groups you could make...

Vacation:

Whitewater, Gilligan's Island, Fish Tale, No Good Gofers

Space:

Attack From Mars, Black Hole, Space Shuttle, Apollo 13

I could do this all day! Anybody out there have any good pinball theme combos?

Pinball Ownership: YEAR ONE

2011-06-09T18:37:00.000-04:00

Well, it has been exactly ONE YEAR since I bought my Medieval Madness pinball machine. As some of you might know, I enjoy being somewhat organized, and so I am here to say that I have kept meticulous records of all of my pinball spending over the last year! Let's see how it all breaks down...

First off, let me just say that I am going to ignore the large sum of money I initially spent to buy the pinball machine. I knew I was never going to pay that off, and I was happy to pay it, to bring this machine into my life. In looking through all my receipts I was more interested in knowing if the machine was bringing in enough money to sustain all the tools and parts I had to buy, to fix up the machine.

The Center for Cartoon Studies graciously lets me keep my machine in their media room, which is adjacent to the senior studio space. CCS students have 24-hour access to this space, and they have been playing A LOT of pinball over the last year! Jon and I both donate half of the money made by the machines back to the school (in the form of the April Fog Memorial Scholarship) but even so, the machine brought in $692.50

The biggest expense was PARTS. My Medieval Madness machine was in AMAZING shape, but it still needed a little work, like all pins do! In the last year I have put in LEDs for all of the computer-controlled lights, rerubbered the playfield, put in all new coil sleeves, replaced both troll stand-up targets, replaced the castle gate, as well as a million other little repairs as the game broke and needed parts to be repaired or replaced. Total cost for one year of parts: $534.26

The other main expense was TOOLS. I pretty much had to start from scratch here. Pinball maintenance requires some very specific tools (soldering gear, digital multimeter, etc.) as well as some very basic stuff that I did not have, like a ratchet set. Hopefully I'll only have to buy this stuff once (unless more of my mail is stolen!) so I see this as a solid investment in the future of the machine's wellbeing: $244.52

Okay, kids, it's MATH TIME!
+$692.50
- $534.26
- $244.52
-------------
- $86.28

Well, I don't know about you, but I think $86 is a very reasonable price to pay for one year of a fun new hobby. I learned a lot about fixing up pinball machines and about electronics and circuit boards and all kinds of other things. Plus I got to play a lot of pinball and share it with a bunch of other people. Again, I'm not counting the initial cost of the machine here (or other side stuff like pinball DVDs) but even with that stuff added in, it's been a total blast operating this machine, and I look forward to another year keeping it in the best shape I can!

New DTZ Readers and Their Pin-blogs!

2011-06-08T21:25:00.000-04:00

Another cool aspect of our recent spike in Drop Target orders, is getting to know some of our new readers! I thought I'd share two of their sites with you all.

First up is Tyler Hollback, who recently started the Pindiana blog, in which he will be documenting machines on location in the midwest. So if you live in that part of the country, check it out to find where some pins are located "in the wild." It also looks like Tyler will be talking about repairs on a few pins that he owns. Good stuff!

Second, from Portland, Oregon, is Paul Nama, who has a small site where he has been documenting a few pinball machines that he has built himself! Above, you can see one of the coolest things he has done, which is to project the playfield art onto a blank playfield surface. This allows him to change the graphics at will, incorporate animation, etc. It's kind of like Pinball 2000 taken to the extreme! (Pinball 2011?) Anyway, check out the rest of his site to see his process. It's pretty cool stuff!

rec.games.pinball = THE BEST!!!

2011-06-07T04:15:00.000-04:00

Oh man, most of you pinballers probably already know about rec.games.pinball but just in case you DON'T, Jon and I can tell you how awesome it is. We are both still on a big "Repair Rampage" right now, fixing up our machines, and in the last week we have both used this valuable resource to help out with our endeavors.

rec.games.pinball is a usenet group (which is like an online bulletin board system, which was developed at the end of the 1970s). This one is devoted to pinball, and there are a LOT of users on there! Jon and I have been using the Google Groups version of the group, and it is extremely easy to use. It's basically works the same way as Gmail, and is fully searchable, with entries going all the way back to 1990. It is a vast repository of pinball knowledge!

Jon posted a question about getting a scan of some JP plastics and got a response within an hour. I posted about some mid-playfield G.I. problems that have been plaguing my machine for the past few months and got some expert advice almost instantaneously.

It really seems like the main gathering place for the pinball community. As I said at the start, most of you probably already know this! But just in case you don't (as we didn't) I thought I'd put up this post. I've also added a link in the "PINBALL RESOURCES" sidebar of this blog for easy access in the future!

FAQ: Subscriptions / The Future of Drop Target!

2011-06-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

It's been a busy week here at Drop Target Zine headquarters! Thanks to a link from the PAPA blog and a mention in Jim Schelberg's PinGame Journal email blast, we have been sending out a lot of zines to new readers. Thanks to both of these great pinball organizations and welcome to our new readers!

One question we have been getting a lot is, "Do you guys offer subscriptions?" I thought I'd just answer that here on the blog so that everyone will know our current and future plans for Drop Target.

As of right now, Jon and I have plans to make seven issues of Drop Target. For each issue, we will do a first printing of about 400 copies, which have the screen printed covers and full color center spreads, which fold out - these will cost $5.00 each. After those 400 copies are gone, we will make a second printing of each issue, with plain black and white covers and center spreads - these will only be $4.00 each. Then, once all seven issues are out, we are going to make a print-on-demand collection of all seven issues, using Lulu.com (like I have done with my Phase 7 collections) which will have a full color cover, a perfect-bound spine and black and white interiors.

Because we only have seven issues planned, we are not going to offer subscriptions. We will post on this site when new issues are available, and we also send out complementary copies to key members of the pinball community, with the hope that they will help us spread the word. Hopefully everyone who is interested in the zine will have plenty of time to get a first edition copy of each zine.

Okay, I hope that clears everything up. Feel free to leave a comment or shoot us an email if you have more questions! And thanks again for checking out our zine. We are already working on issue #3, which we hope will be out by the end of the summer!

Special When Lit - for FREE?!

2011-05-30T01:00:00.000-04:00

I know that I might be super-duper late out of the gate on this one, but I just found that the (relatively) new pinball documentary Special When Lit can be seen, for free on Hulu.

Watch it here!

This movie is a real joy to watch! The opening credits are completely AMAZING!

Big Repair Day!

2011-05-29T19:55:00.000-04:00

Oh man, today was a big one. Jon and I met up at noon and then spent SIX HOURS working on our pinball machines. It was intense! Here's a shot of Jon working on his machine in the background, and a pile of burnt out, filthy, junk parts that we had pulled from the machines.

Last week Jon posted all about getting the circuit board from his Jurassic Park expertly fixed by Sarah St. John at the Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, New Hampshire. That fixed a pop bumper coil and sling shot coil. Then, today, Jon replaced both of the end-of-stroke switches and red caps on his flipper mechanisms. He also took the plunge and put in a TON of LEDs for his computer controlled lights.

We also both put red rubber on the flippers (ironically, we both re-rubbered our entire machines with black rubber about a month before learning that white/red rubber is bouncier and more fun to play on than black rubber - ugh!)

Let me tell you, IT'S LIKE A WHOLE NEW MACHINE. The flippers are fast and responsive, everything's working, it's so much easier to understand the modes and what to shoot with the brighter lights. It's that great moment in restoring a machine when everything mechanical is finally working, and all that's left is the cosmetic / aesthetic restoration.

Meanwhile, over on Medieval Madness, I went through the whole machine and replaced every single nylon coil sleeve. I've seen this recommended on lots of different pinball blogs, but never got around to it until today. I wish I had done it sooner. It really breathes new life into the game. Everything's running more smoothly. It was also a good chance to learn more about each of these coils. I found a couple that were starting to swell and will need to be replaced. I also was able to CLEAN a lot of stuff.

I also went through and tried to replace some of the strain on my General Illumination circuits by replacing about a dozen #44 lamps with the cooler burning #47s and even a some LEDs under the ramps. My mid-playfield G.I. string fried the triac on the driver board, so that will be my next repair, and hopefully these preventative measures will keep that from happening again in the future.

ANYWAY, it was super fun nerding out all day, wrenching on the machines. Get your tools out on memorial day tomorrow and tune up those pins!

I'm just trying to fix my pinball machine!

2011-05-26T14:06:00.000-04:00

Click here to read at full size!

PINBALL WIZARD PILGRIMAGE!!

2011-05-26T01:58:00.000-04:00

Oh my GAWD, you guys! Alec and I had the most amazing pinball vacation last Tuesday! I'm sorry I haven't gotten around until now to talk about it, but we've both been out of town this weekend with our own little vay-cays (Alec already reported on the pinball-barren Montreal, but I'll report more about mine later!)

Sooo, in this post, Alec talked about the amazing time that he has at the Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH. This relatively new pinball / video game arcade is expertly run and maintained by Sarah St. John. Let me preface this whole story by saying that she knows EVERYTHING about pinball machines and pinball repair. Alec and I were exhausted from a busy week of doing thesis reviews and commencement activities at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and decided that a pinball break was just the thing we needed.

In addition to running the Pinball Wizard Arcade, Sarah also does house calls to fix pinball machines, and does repairs during all hours to the machines in-house. Since I've gotten my JP machine, the left pop bumper and left slingshot have NEVER worked. I replaced the coil and he transistor, and TRIED to replace the damage to the burned traces on the CPU board, but so far, no luck! I was afraid that the burn damage was too deep, or that I had botched it up. I decided to bring my CPU board into Sarah and see if she could fix the traces. We were pinbrawlers with a MISSION!

When we got to the arcade, we had about 2 hours before Sarah showed up, so we occupied ourselves with PINBALL! Oh my god! I was blown away by the a) quantity of games b) the quality of games, and c) the variety of games. There were so many of my old favorites there, as well as machines that I have always wanted to sink my teeth in to! I could go on and on about all the amazing games I played, but I'll mercifully condense it down to a list that got my pinball blood burning:

-Tales of the Arabian Nights
-Banzai Run
-Party Zone
-Doctor Dude
-Strange Science
-Monopoly
-Lord of the Rings (which, believe it or not, I had never played until then)
-No Good Gophers
-Blackwater 100 (This game is BONKERS)

And that's just the tip of the ice burg. After a while, Sarah St. John arrived at the arcade and we met up and talked pinball for a little bit before I went out to the car to bring in my CPU board.

Sarah promptly went to work and whipped out the digital multi-meter (a device used to gauge current / resistance / connectivity / etc) and checked the troubled components. I was surprised to learn that I had actually done a fine job repairing the traces and replacing the transistor (good job me). After running some tests, Sarah figured out that it was the PRE-driver to the transistor that was also shot, as well as a malfunctioning 7402 chip. Holy Multiballs, Batman, she's a real wizard, and I would have never figured that out. I'll take this opportunity to remind our readers at home that when I figured out how to replace the transistor and fix the power supply problems on the power board it took EVERY ounce of my cunning and smarts. (I refer you to this picture). For Sarah, this sort of stuff was like water off a duck's back.

When she suspected that the 7402 chip (which runs the pop bumpers and one of the slingshots) wasn't working, she took us up to one of her workshops that overlooks the arcade to test it. The machine that she plugged the chip into to test it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen (so far [that day]), and one of my only regrets about the trip was that we didn't get a picture of it. It sort of looked like a computer tower laid on its side, with a whole ton of tiny holes punched in the top so that you could plug in a myriad of chips into it.

Mind officially blown.

After confirming a bad 7402 chip, Sarah asked me if I wanted to see her workshop and the CPU board testing device. Did I ever! To my horror, though, I suddenly couldn't find Alec. I was going bonkers trying to find him, but we must have been just missing each other. I assumed we were just going to go around to the back of the building, or next door, or something, so I finally gave up and went with Sarah.

I'm going to take a break from my thrilling pinball repair tale to recount other awesome pinball tales that were happening concurrently. While I was heading off to Sarah's workshop, Alec was having some quality time with an old friend. Oh, you know, just a little darling named STAR WARS EPISODE ONE!! If you're a regular reader of this zine / blog, you'll know that SWE1 is the wet nurse that weened us onto the wild world of pinball. In true Alec fashion, he totally rocked that machine, and by the time I had gotten back, had secured a place on the High Score Board!

Way to go, Alec!

Meanwhile, I had arrived at Sarah's workshop, which was on her property. Every room made me squeal with delight, every desk a pinball nerd's dream come true. Every sort of machine, part, and tool were at her disposal, and that's not even mentioning the vast amounts of games just sitting around. With every new room, I would say something like, "Wow, what a workshop! This is bonkers!" (I said bonkers a LOT that day. Sorry Sarah!) Sarah would reply with, "this isn't the workshop" or something like that. I was completely blown away by the the sheer quanity of parts that were carefully organized and filed away. I had been to houses of pinball collectors before, but this was the first time that I had seen such a complete and thorough workshop.

We finally ended up on the top floor in a huge room filled with these wild, huge machines. There must have been 30, at least. These, Sarah explained, were CPU testing devices that she had acquired through her years as an operator/collector. With these, you can plug in your CPU board to test all of the features without having to plug it into a game. Using a series of buttons, you can trick the board into thinking that you are rolling over switches, activating lamps, launching balls, WHATEVER, and then see how the board reacts. You can fix / test a board for someone whose game you might not have, and is 1000 miles away!

Each of these machines correlated with a different era of machine from different manufacturers. Sarah found the one for Data East machines. With the new 7402 chip installed, the board tested out A OK!!!

(Here's the one for my board!)

However, Sarah is super-duper thorough, and offered to take the CPU board back to the arcade and plug it into the Jurassic Park machine that she had on the floor of the arcade and test it there. What a class act! I was really touched by her thoroughness and her enthusiasm. Once we got back to the arcade, we popped in the board and started up the game. There was something charming, but also a little nerve-wracking about plugging in my CPU board into someone else's game. It's not like the board carried anything malignant, or anything like that. It just goes to show Sarah's confidence in the repair. Everything, naturally, worked like a charm.

High-fives were had, pizza was shared, and Alec and I played out the rest of our tokens. We had some awesome games (including this crazy 2-player game on Rescue 911 where we both replayed on the same game!) All-in-all, there aren't enough good things I can say about Sarah, her staff, her know-how, her collection, or her arcade. I know that Alec already reviewed the arcade, and I had sort of meant for this to be my take on it, but I realize that this has just materialized into a love letter to the Pinball Wizard Arcade. I'm not sorry, though, I can't recommend this place highly enough! One of my favorite arcades of all time!! Thank you Sarah for your hospitality!

Drop Target in Montréal!

2011-05-25T17:47:00.000-04:00

Jon is working on a MEGA post right now, about a recent pinball adventure we took together, but in the meantime, I thought I'd write a quick post about a trip I took to Montréal, Quebec last weekend.

First off, I am sad to report that Montréal is NOT a happening town when it comes to pinball. I wandered all over the city with my girlfriend Claire, in various different neighborhoods and districts and there was not a pinball machine to be seen anywhere. I checked bars, movie theater lobbies and generally had my "pinball radar" on all weekend, to no avail. The lack of pinball was confirmed by a few local Montréalers whom I questioned as well.

If I am wrong about this, and there is some epic pinball parlor hiding somewhere in Montréal, please let me know! I would love to know about it, because the rest of the city was awesome, and I will definitely be visiting again soon.

Okay, but! On Friday Claire and I went to the Drawn and Quarterly bookshop, where we ran into Peggy Burns and Tom Devlin (who work for D&Q). Here's me at the shop, holding an advanced copy of Big Questions by Anders Nilsen:

Anyway, they asked us if we knew where we were going to get lunch and we replied that we did not! So they took us to Dépanneur le Pick Up, an awesome little diner with a killer Pulled Faux-Pork sandwich. While Claire and I were standing in line waiting to order, I looked around and suddenly I saw an awesome ZINE RACK. And WHAT, dear readers, was in that rack? You guessed it! Drop Target issue one!

At first, I was like "Huh?! How did THAT get here?!" but then I remembered that Drop Target #1 was nominated for the Best English Language Zine at the 2010 ExpoZine festival in Montréal! (a fact that I think we forgot to mention on this blog - whoops!) Anyway, a few Canadian distros picked up the zine after our nomination, so I guess that explains how it might have gotten there.

We're in good company! Pretty much every zine on that shelf is top notch and most of them can be found over at Microcosm Publishing, if you want to check them out. Hopefully some Montréalers will read our zine and then demand some local establishments get a pinball machine or two!

Okay, well, that's my story. Jon should have a post soon that will blow your mind - or at least, it blew ours when it all happened!

Drop Target in the Multinomah Public Library System!

2011-05-16T18:52:00.000-04:00

People of Portland, Oregon! I am happy to announce that Drop Target is now available in your public libraries! A representative from the Multinomah Public Library system swung by Stumptown back in April and bought some copies of the zines for the library. This means you can now check out the zines for FREE, using your library card! I think that is so cool.

Sorry things have been a little quite around here. Last week Jon and I were on the thesis review committees here at CCS and then it was graduation this weekend. For graduation day, I set Medieval Madness on FREE PLAY for all the graduates and their families. Here's a photo of CCS graduate Beth Hetland playing pinball with her sister and father.

Well, fear not Dear Readers! Jon and I have a big pinball field trip planned for tomorrow and we will report back afterwards with a recap. Happy flipping out there!

Pinball Tomes

2011-05-05T22:03:00.000-04:00

I was crusing around the internet seeing if there were any recent books on pinball, maybe about the later 90's machines (does anyone know any?), and I found this one site that must have, at one point in time, sold vintage pinball books. Some of these covers are amazing!

It's really worth checking out just to see some sweet pinball graphic design, including the famous Pinball book by pinball historian Roger Sharpe.

Don Rosa plays pinball!

2011-05-03T17:57:00.000-04:00

As some of you know, I am a HUGE Don Rosa fan. His comics were some of my favorites, when I was growing up.

Today on The Comics Reporter, Tom Spurgeon posted links to a series of four videos of Mr. Rosa giving a tour of his house and all the various collections that it houses. I was very surprised when, about 6 minutes and 15 seconds into part two of the tour, when Mr. Rosa reveals that he collects old pinball machines! We even get a look at his working Flash Gordon (Bally, 1980) pin:

Then, in part 3, about 5 minutes in, he says that he's been trying to buy a Shadow (Midway, 1994) machine. There's something about comics and pinball, I'm telling you! We'll have to try and get some copies of Drop Target to Mr. Rosa, one of the greatest living cartoonists in the world.

The next STERN pinball machine is TRON!

2011-04-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

There is a new update over at PinGame Journal about the next Stern machine, which is TRON. It looks pretty cool - three flippers, plenty of ramps. It's from the same team that made Iron Man and Avatar. Plus it's got the Daft Punk music from the soundtrack. I look forward to seeing this thing on location! I have yet to play their new Rolling Stones game yet. Anyone played that yet?

Never Give Up!

2011-04-26T18:27:00.000-04:00

This afternoon Jon and I headed over to the old telegraph building to play some pinball. We started a two-player game of Medieval Madness and neither of us was doing very well. After both of our second balls, we each had less than 1 million points.

Then, somehow on my third ball, I took the game from the worst start possible all the way up to the end of the game. I lit all six of the blue badges, entered Battle for the Kingdom, and was three center shots away from beating the game when I tilted (the damn ball got stuck behind that right troll with 4 seconds on the clock! I lost a 25x bonus - whoops). I ended up with 163 Million Points and a new Troll Record (60!?!) It was a hell of a game. One of the best I've ever played.

And how many times have you had a crappy ball one and ball two and just given up on your game? Well, I'm here to tell you this: Never give up! You can always turn that game around. Even if you just have one ball left. As long as there's a ball on the playfield, you're still playing pinball. Keep it going!

Drop Target #2 is now available for ordering!

2011-04-22T16:40:00.000-04:00

Drop Target #2 is now available for ordering! I also put up a new section for ordering DTZ Combos. Right now we only have issue #1 and #2, so the only available combo is those two issues shipped together. But down the road when we have more issues, people will be able to order 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 or all 7 issues in combos to save on shipping. Exciting stuff! Speaking of which, here is a quick rundown of what is in issue #2:

DROP TARGET #2 - The D.I.Y. Issue

44 pages - 5.5" x 8.5" - B&W printing

First Printing: 8.5" x 14" full-color centerfold, screenprinted cover

FEATURING:

- From Zeros to Heroes: Part 2 - OWNERSHIP

- PINHALLS: The Pinball Hall of Fame - Las Vegas, NV

- DREAM MACHINES: Avatar: the Last Airbender and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

- TILT TALK: Interview with Pinball Hall of Fame mastermind Tim Arnold

- THE REPLAY REVIEW: Medieval Madness

- VIDEO MODE: This Old Pinball

PDX = Pinball Paradise

2011-04-21T22:43:00.000-04:00

I just returned from a week in Portland, Oregon where I played A LOT of pinball.

On Friday, I played a quick game of World Cup Soccer at the Backspace Cafe. Then Claire, Greg and I hit up Ground Kontrol which was back in its freshly fixed-up space. They had the usual vast array of games, but I only had eyes for their new Star Wars: Episode 1 pin2k machine, which had a WORKING lightsaber (the first I have ever seen in one of these machines!) It also had the only REAL, non-robot Jedi Spirit score I have ever seen entered. "By whom" you ask? CFF of course. Sadly, the center gate was stuck up, so it accepted EVERY center shot, instead of rebuffing most of them. Other than that, the thing was in great condition and I played it for about an hour. Right before we had to go, I played my best game ever of Attack From Mars (7,425,044,200 and I blew up all the different saucers for each city!)

Ground Kontrol was getting set up for the PDX Pinbrawl which was on Sunday. They had set aside certain machines so that tournament players could get warmed up and get to know the machines. Sadly, I missed all of these festivities because I was stuck at the Stumptown Comics festival all weekend. Oh well! I sold some copies of Drop Target #1 and #2 and talked pinball with CFF member Drew Anderson. You can see an interview we did at the show on YouTube, in which we talk about comics and pinball and all kinds of other stuff.

Saturday night I ended up at Voodoo Donuts 2, where I played Creature from the Black Lagoon, Game Show and Elvira. I'm telling you, every square corner of every Portland business is packed with pinball! On Sunday we met up with my old friends Gabe and Grizzo, who took us to the Good Foot bar, which had Medieval Madness AND Jurassic Park (!!?!) as well as the Data East Star Wars game.

Monday we all went to Slabtown which ALSO had a Star Wars: Episode 1 machine! I couldn't help but think that maybe Drop Target #1 has helped to make this a more popular machine. Anyway, I had a blast playing it and Medieval Madness which were both in great shape.

On Tuesday we made one more run to Ground Kontrol, and this time I played all kinds of machines, getting replays on T2 and Indiana Jones (Williams). Good times! Thanks Portland.

I'm going to run to the post office tomorrow to figure out the shipping costs for DTZ #2 and then I will put it online (hopefully by the end of the weekend) for ordering!

Saw it on Craigslist!

2011-04-17T23:21:00.000-04:00

If anyone has a spare 400 smackers lying around, they could find themselves the proud owner of this neon pinball sign:

I have to admit its pretty cool!

Things are pretty busy here at the Drop Target headquarters! Alec and I wear two hats up here in Vermont. On one hand, we're both cartoonists! Since spring is convention season for cartoonists, we've both been going all over the place. On the other hand, we're also both teachers at the Center for Cartoon Studies, and that means that it's getting close to finals, commencement, and all sorts of other end-of the-year hullaballu! So: busy, busy, busy. Not busy enough to neglect my harsh pinball regiment, though! I spent a lot of time in the Senior Studio here at the school today and CCS Senior Beth Hetland (April Fog Memorial Scholarship recipient 2011) and I played some really incredible games of Medieval Madness. There was this one really bonkers shot where the Troll came out from under the playfield and launched the ball over the dragon's shoulders and back into the shooter lane!

It was awesome...ANYWAYS, here's a doodle I did. I don't even know what to say...

Are there any good pinball tattoos out there?

Pinball and Pizza at Fratelli's!

2011-04-11T21:52:00.000-04:00

Well, Jon and I finally finished up Drop Target #2 last week! This weekend we were both in New York City selling DTZ #2 to the attendees of the MoCCA Comics Arts Festival. I had a great time at the show and found a lot of great new comics, but even better, on Friday night, I found a great new pinhall!

In the photo above you can see one of my gracious hosts for the weekend, Dustin Dennis, who recommended the Fratelli Pizza Joint which had pretty awesome pizza and EIGHT pinballs in prime condition:

Simpson's Pinball Party
Addam's Family
Sopranos
Big Buck Hunter
World Tournament Poker
Lord of the Rings
Pirates of the Caribbean
Family Guy

I had a a pretty good, 115M game on Pirates, which I had never played before. We also headed over to the Satellite Lounge, which was only like five blocks away, where I had an awesome multiball on Avatar, scoring 75M (my best game on that machine yet). They also had Dracula, Earthquake, Monster Bash and the Indiana Jones, Batman and Sopranos Stern games.

On Saturday night, I somehow talked my friends into revisiting BOTH establishments, where I managed to get a 98M on Addam's Family (my best yet for that one too!) and a pathetically low replay score on Monster Bash. What can I say? I was wiped out after a long day at the show. Also, a little bit drunk... Anyway, I've added Fratilli's to the sidebar of excellent Pinhalls. Definitely give it a visit if you are in New York!

I will be at the Stumptown Comics Fest NEXT weekend in Portland, Oregon, and then we will finally put DTZ #2 up for online ordering. Sorry for the wait, I just won't have time to make the necessary trips to the post office until I get back. If you are in Portland, swing by the show and pick up a copy! I'll report about my pinball activities in PDX when I get back!

DTZ#2: Almost there...

2011-04-01T18:25:00.000-04:00

As I type this, Jon is down in the lab, screenprinting the covers for Drop Target #2! This issue is shaping up very well, and it's looking like we will definitely have it ready for MoCCA in New York on April 9th and 10th (barring any disasters!) I'll also bring a big stack of them to the Stumptown Comics festival in Portland, OR April 16th and 17th. If you are in the area, please swing by and pick up a copy!

I'm dying to let everyone know what's in this issue, but I better hold off until the official release. I'll tell you this much, however - if you love pinball, you're going to love this zine!

The 2011 April Fog Memorial Pinball Scholarship

2011-03-30T09:29:00.000-04:00

When Jon Chad and I set up our pinball machines in the media room at the Center for Cartoon Studies, we set up a deal with CCS in which 50% of the proceeds would help us pay for our machines and 50% would be donated to the school in the form of The April Fog Memorial Pinball Scholarship (named for the house in which my Medieval Madness machine used to live).

Since last June, there have been 2640 games of Medieval Madness played, and since October, 848 games of Jurassic Park! (Those stats DO NOT include games played by me or Jon). Which adds up to $546.00 That is a lot of pinball!

Before spring break, the CCS seniors submitted design proposals for their thesis projects, including mock-ups of the finished packaging. During spring break, two alumni (Bryan Stone and Laura Terry) looked through the proposals and selected the best four, based on design and content. Each of the four students will receive 1/4 of the money as photocopies, to help with the printing of their thesis projects.
Yesterday in class, Jon Chad announced the winners of the scholarship:

Lawrence Derks
Jon Fine
Beth Hetland
Emily Sauter

Congratulations to these seniors, and thanks to all the students, staff, alumni, fellows and faculty who dropped a quarter or two in the machine!

DTZ#2 update

2011-03-23T23:17:00.000-04:00

I just wanted to post a quick update about Drop Target issue two. Jon and I are working on it feverishly, and the finished pages are starting to pile up! We've got about 25 in the can already and there are a lot more on the way.

We're aiming to have this book done for the MoCCA Arts Fest in New York City, April 9th and 10th. If you live in New York or in the surrounding areas, please swing by and say hello! I will also have copies available at the Stumptown Comics Fest in Portland, Oregon April 16th and 17th. After that we'll put up the online ordering information for everyone else.

We'll continue to keep you guys posted about this issue. It's going to be awesome!

T-REX!!!

2011-03-16T19:51:00.000-04:00

As Jon mentioned in his last post, his Jurassic Park machine has been on the fritz lately. We have big plans to fix it up over Spring Break (next week!) but lately it has been switched off so that that no unsuspecting student deposits a quarter for a game they can't play.

The other day, I went in to play some pinball and when I turned on the power strip, Jurassic Park booted up. Unbeknownst to me, Jon had come in that morning and fixed up the machine. I didn't know this at the time however, so I dropped a quarter in, to see if the machine was in fact working...

THEN I HAD THE JURASSIC PARK GAME OF MY LIFE.

The top scores in Jurassic Park are listed as a series of dinosaurs. #1 is T-Rex, #2 is Velociraptor, etc. The best I have ever done on this machine is to get the #6 score, which is some obscure dinosaur I had never heard of before. And that was for a score around 300,000,000.

On ball one, I started Tri-Ball and immediately hit a ramp jackpot shot. Then with all the "CHAOS" targets lit, I cashed in my smart missle to start the chaos 6-ball multiball. With that going I hit all five "CHAOS" targets again, and then I hit the T-Rex to collect the super mega jackpot. Then the ramp was lit up again (more supers?), and I hit it like 5 or 6 times at least. I glanced up in the middle of this and I had something like 450 million points (?!?!?!) And that was on BALL ONE. I just kept my cool for the rest of the game (got the T-Rex bounty, completed a few modes, got the extra ball, etc.) and ended up with 571,138,920 points!

The Quarter Thief

2011-03-11T02:50:00.000-05:00

I'll be honest, I think both these images are coming from some sort of deep dark part of my mind that is WAY too sleep deprived. As Alec mentioned in the last post, we are hunkering down here at DTZ HQ working on the next issue. You all are in for a treat!

Meanwhile, in the magical world of pinball ownership, my Jurassic Park machine needs some repairs. There's a couple of targets that need lock nuts to tighten them in place, the EOS switch on the right flipper needs to be fit back into place, and there's some other odds and ends. I've been so busy, though, that I haven't given PB (my machine's nickname) the attention he deserves. I'll get to it, though, and SOON!

Working on issue #2

2011-03-06T18:14:00.000-05:00

Whoa, ten days without a post? Well, all I can say is that Jon and I are hard at work on Drop Target #2, which we are going to try and have out for MoCCA in early April.

We've got some awesome stuff lined up for this issue, but it's all TOP SECRET at this point! One thing I can show you, is the header image for a new segment of the zine we are starting in this issue, called "Bang Backs":

The idea for this segment is to focus on people that are working hard to bring pinball back up to its former glory. Jon and I feel there is so much negativity surrounding pinball these days, we want to focus on people that are trying to bring it back from its so-called "death" instead of bemoaning the public's falling interest.

"Bang Backs" is named after the illegal pinball move, which you can see perfectly demonstrated in this short video clip:

We'll keep everyone posted about issue #2, and please just know that if things are quiet around here, it's only because we're pouring all of our energy into the production of issue #2. I think it's going to be a good one!

Monster Cats!

2011-02-23T17:22:00.000-05:00

My girlfriend Claire Sanders made this painting for our friend Liz Prince, for her birthday. Liz has two cats named Wolf-man and Dracula, so Claire created an all-cats version of the Monster Bash backglass, placing Liz's cats in the band, playing the drums and lead guitar. Pretty rad, huh?!

Pinball Wizard Arcade!!!

2011-02-17T19:36:00.000-05:00

Holy smokes you guys, I visited a brand new TOP NOTCH pinball arcade in New Hampshire this week, the Pinball Wizard Arcade in Pelham, NH.

It was so great to see a BRAND NEW arcade done RIGHT. They had about 75 pins on location, all in great working order, and not just any pins, some of the best of the best!

Spider man, Avatar, Lord of the Rings, Rollercoaster Tycoon, Twilight Zone, Addam's Family, Banzai Run (which I played, which was crazy!), Xenon, Captain Fantastic, Arabian Nights, Flash, Cirqus Voltaire, Black Hole, Dr. Dude, Black Knight, Black Knight 2000, High Speed, The Getaway, BOTH Pin 2k machines and dozens more I can't even remember. It was amazing!

I met Dave Marston there (who supplied me with photocopies of Multiball #10, thus completing the entire run for me and Jon!) and we chatted a bit with the owner/operator of the arcade, Sarah St. John. While we played, she was walking the floor, opening up machines and fixing small things here or there.

Sadly, I only had about an hour to spend at the Pinball Wizard Arcade, but Jon and I will definitely be back for a full day of pinball SOON, and we'll let you know how it goes! In the meantime, if you are close to Pelham (a stone's throw from Boston) head to the Pinball Wizard Arcade, it's worth the trip!

Illustrations and Funspot

2011-02-13T18:12:00.000-05:00

Hey, internet, long time no see. I've been really busy over here at DTZ HQ. As such, I've amassed a neat little pile of pinball drawings. Here are some pinball doodles:

(I don't drink like THIS. I've always thought that idea of a barcade would be more common)

I LOVE DRAWING PINBALL MACHINES! Oh, and playing pinball. DUH! Alec, Claire, Colleen, and a whole HOST of other pinball / arcade lovers took a trip to Funspot this weekend. I don't think I need to say it again, but that place is completely ballin'! They have around 35 pinball machines, seperated out in Electro-mechanical, early Solid State, and more recent Solid State Games. Here's the pros and the cons.

Pros)
-A lot of machines! You never needed to wait to play!
-Great variety and classic examples of different eras!
-Cheap games! All the pinball games were only 1 token!
-THEY HAVE MONOPOLY! The 2001 Stern Monopoly game is one of my favorite games of all time.

Cons)

-Machines in various states of disrepair. *Sigh* I know this is going to make me sound like a negative Nancy, but I was really disappointed with the amount of inoperative games. There were probably 15 out the 35 that were turned off. Some of the ones that were on also had problems. Funhouse's alpha-numeric displays were illegible, the middle ramp needed to start the multiball on Fire wouldn't pop up, Paragon's 2nd right flipper was freaking out, you know, lots of little things. Which is really too bad. Now, I'm not unrealistic. I'm cognizant of the fact that Funspot is the world's LARGEST ARCADE! I'm sure that maintaining those machines is a full time job, and with so many people getting play time on them, it must be hard to get in and make even little adjustments.

This was an otherwise tiny blemish on an otherwise AMAZING trip. Here are some other highlighs:

-My girlfriend played the heck out of the Chiller Arcade Game. This game is the most violent, messed up thing I have ever seen.

-Alec and I met up with Dave Marston (who Alec had met earlier ) and we talked pinball. He was super-duper awesome and gave us a copy of the last issue of Multiball that we needed to round off our collection! It was great to play some pinball with him!

-FIRE! As I mentioned before, there was a problem with the center ramp popping up on the williams game Fire needed to start multiball. The real tragedy in this was that I LOVED THAT GAME! I would love to own one someday! It was a blast to play, and that bell on top was super beautiful.

Well, I think that's it! Let's go play some pinball!

Another Successful Pinball Night... and a new high score!

2011-02-07T19:27:00.000-05:00

Every week here at CCS, Steve Bissette hosts a movie night, where he shows some of the rare gems from his film collection to any of the students who want to swing by. Last week Jon and I kicked off the movie night by showing Pinball 101. Then Steve showed a few dinosaur themed movies, to celebrate Jon's repair of his Jurassic Park machine. Afterwards, we put the machines on free play, for people to try out some new moves.

Jon and I weren't sure what time the movies would wrap up, so we met at the pinball machines at about 9:30pm. We played and played, until about 11pm and then, just as we were about to give up, a whole BUNCH of people came and played for another hour. Here's a shot of the action, two four-player games going strong!

The next day I went in to play my daily game (or two) of pinball, and I managed to beat my previous record of 210 Million on Medieval Madness, getting a new Grand Champion score, 8 castles, 6 peasants and 52 trolls! I was also ONE SHOT away from completing Battle for the Kingdom! All I had to do was shoot the castle one last time and that 50 Million would have been mine. Oh well, next time!

PAPA video tutorials

2011-01-27T05:08:00.000-05:00

Oh man, my friend Ryan sent me this awesome video tutorial of Medieval Madness. It's a great explanation of the game, and "Bowen" is obviously a world class player! He also does a great job narrating, explaining each move as he executes it. It's also just a really great camera set-up, directly over the board.

I'm not sure why it's taken me this long to start reading the Tilt Warning Blog (where this tutorial was posted) but the blog is written by the people who run PAPA (Professional and Amateur Pinball Association) and they have an ever expanding page of such tutorials. Check them out! I know these are really going to help me up my game when I come across these pins in the wild.

Spotted at the Quechee Antique Mall!

2011-01-23T12:23:00.000-05:00

A few months ago, Claire and I were at the Quechee Antique Mall looking for christmas presents to give people and we came across this backbox from the 1975 Gottlieb game Spin Out. I can't remember the exact asking price, but it was something nuts like $500.

It's always weird to see PART of a pinball machine like this. Where did the rest of it go???

Vegas Pinball

2011-01-17T11:56:00.000-05:00

Recently my girlfriend and I went on a vacation to Las Vegas. We needed to get away from White River Junction and its crippling winter. Las Vegas wasn't a steaming jacuzi, but it was warm enough! Neither of us had any intention of gambling more than $10 or so. We both planned to take advantage of all the free stuff that Vegas throws around to the poor people getting fleeced alive. Also, as I explained before, Vegas was a criminally cheap vacation to take. There was one other major factor to the decision to go to Vegas, though: the Pinball Hall of Fame. Tim Arnold has amassed a truely amazing collection of games. I'm getting ahead of myself, though. There were a couple of pinball machines that I encountered before me and my grilfirend took our legendary trip to the PHoF.

First, within minutes of checking into our hotel, I discovered that the arcade had the Ripley's Believe It or Not, No Fear, White Water, and NBA Fastbreak machines! A nice little line up! The NBA Fastbreak game was super fun to play. I had never tried it before. I had also never played Ripley's Believe It or Not, and I had a blast with it! Another great Stern game!

There was an awesome bank of pinball machines in the hotel across the street, Circus Circus. All of the great recent Stern machines like Simpson's Pinball Party and Pirates of the Caribbean. Unfortunately they were all not working. Or, at least, they were all turned off. Here's a Sad Chad:

Ugh...too bad. I also found a copy of Star Wars Episode 1 in Excalibur that played great, but didn't have the lightsaber! What does a guy have to do!? There was a Shrek and Family Guy in the Bellagio hotel, which was really funny to see side by side (they both have the same playfield, just different art). My girlfriend and I also had an epic couple of games on the new Stern Indiana Jones machine in the Sahara arcade. At first, I saw that the machine was pretty filthy and looked kinda gross, but I decided to go for it and WOW! The thing played like a dream!

All of the shots felt really satisfying. Hitting that Ark and getting the huge multiball was completely off the hook.

Finally, last Monday, on MY BIRTHDAY (!!) Colleen and I went to the Pinball Hall of Fame located a couple of miles off of the Las Vegas strip. We took a local bus to get there, and the whole time I was completely freaking out! When we finally found it, it solicited this response:

I was completely going bonkers! I love the matter-of-fact sign. "Prepare to replay, ye who enter here." I don't even know where to begin with describing this collection. It was huge. Here is the game list. There were a ton of games there that I have always wanted to try, but have never found out in the wilds including Black Hole, Haunted House, The Champion Pub, the Gottlieb Super Mario World, the new Stern Avatar, the Data East Star Wars, and Monster Bash. I'm barely scratching the surface of thegames I played, but needless to say that they were all in impecible order, and MANY replays were had! Every new Stern game was there, and there was a massive collection of Gottlieb wood rail games. There's nothing like playing some old EM games and hearing those chimes and bells!

Oh man. Time Machine, I LOVE that game...

The crowning jewel of the hall of fame wasn't a machine, though, it was Time Arnold himself. Tim has put together an amazing collection with the help of his club members and works tirelessly to see that they are all clean and in perfect working order. He was gracious enough to grant me an interview where he told me about the history of the Pinball Hall of Fame, a lot more about the collection, and a ton of other stuff about pinball! He's a real pinball genius and it was a real pleasure to get to talk to him. When I first approached him and introduced myself, I found him working on an extremely rare game called Pinball Circus. It was a completely innovative game that made it all the way through the design phase, but was never fully produced. Only THREE copies of the game exist and Tim Arnold has one!!!

Me freaking out.

Me getting a replay, word.

If you are EVER near Vegas and like pinball, you HAVE to check this place out. It is literally pinball heaven. A great place to play. Not only that, but Vegas is really cheap. They just kept giving us free drinks and shows, who would want to gamble!?

The last thing I'd like to say is that I officially have a new favorite game: Cactus Canyon. I played it at the PHoF and I couldn't get enough of it. It's the coolest thing ever. There's a gold mine, a quick draw, a train. AHH! IT'S THE BEST!! Anybody got one! Wanna let me in on that hawt flipper action!? I can't believe I'd never heard of it until now, but it seems like it had pretty low production numbers, which is crazy because this game is beautiful.

Pinball is alive and well in Florida!

2011-01-15T22:42:00.000-05:00

It has been pretty darn cold up here in Vermont lately, so last week Jon and I both took off for quick vacations to warmer locales. Jon will do a write up soon about his trip to Las Vegas, where he played A LOT of pinball, but for now I thought I'd do a quick wrap up of my trip to Florida and the pinball machines I played while I was there!

The day before I left, Claire and I had to run some errands, including a trip to the post office at the top of the hill in White River Junction. While up there, we decided to swing by the bowling alley, to see if the Scared Stiff machine was fixed yet (last time I played it, I pulled the plunger back and it yanked right out of the machine!) I'm happy to report that the repair man has fixed this machine up nicely! Other than some GI problems in the upper playfield, it's looking great. I got three consecutive, escalating replays, which I took as a good sign for the upcoming trip!

Claire and I were mostly going to Florida to visit Harry Potter land. Our hotel was about a mile from Universal Studios. On our first night there I took a walk to a drugstore a few blocks away, and on my way back to the hotel I saw through a window into a tiny arcade right off of the lobby, with a T3 machine in it! The flippers were pretty weak, but I managed to squeak out a replay before going to bed. On our last night in town, Claire ran both ramps all the way up and then started a multiball during the "BIG POINTS" mode (or whatever it's called). She shattered my highest score, easily snagged the replay and ended with something like 32 million? Way to go Claire!

While walking around the "Islands of Adventure" park we came across a giant arcade! There was one Shrek machine tucked in the very back of the room, under a platform. It was in good working order and after a few games I got the replay. My game lasted a while and two other pinheads had lined up to play. Claire played my replay credit and then we let them use the machine.

The next day we went to the regular "Universal Studios Florida" park, and while walking around the "New York" section we came across another arcade! The facade of this one was so cool, with a giant marquee. It must have been fun to go into a place like that back in the day. Sadly, they only had another Shrek machine, and the flippers were super weak and it was having some other switch problems as well. I still managed to squeak a replay out of it. It was actually pretty fun playing this game because we had watched the Shrek 4D movie that morning!

That night I dragged Claire to a Chuck E Cheese that had a Pirates of the Caribbean pin, but it was totally busted. 10 credits sitting on it, but it couldn't even launch a ball. Drag... but our pinball adventures were not over yet! No, in the Orlando airport, I saw a sign for another arcade! Surprisingly, it was a King of Kong themed arcade, with a massive poster from the documentary and Donkey Kong wallpaper all over the interior and along the signage. Sadly, the place did NOT have Donkey Kong or any other vintage arcade games, which would have made sense. The only pinball machine they had was Avatar. I've played this pin three times now, in three different states and I think I can safely say, I do not enjoy the game. Too many toys, not enough ramps. It did not help that this particular machine was slanted about 5 degrees to the left. It also cost 75 cents for a credit. After many frustrating games, I finally started a two-ball multiball that I then turned into a 4-ball multiball, which resulted in a replay. The last credit was three balls down the left outlane, then we boarded our flight back to the cold Northeast.

NEXT: Jon Chad's pinball adventures in Las Vegas!!!

Gojira!

2011-01-07T17:02:00.000-05:00

We're getting into a real ven diagram here about the things I love in life. I'm a HUGE fan of the Tokusatsu genre. It's a pretty broad genre, but all of the giant monster / mecha stuff really captured my heart as a kid. I loved Power Rangers, Ultraman, and Godzilla. The 1990's Godzilla movies were all really great (my favorite is Godzilla vs. Biollante) and I rented them from the video store at every chance I could get. In 1995, Godzilla vs. Destoroyah marked the end of the 90's Godzilla movies. There was a five year break before I found out that Tristar was planning to release a Godzilla movie.

UGH. We all remember how sad that made us, right?

Two years later, an honest-to-goodness TOHO Godzilla movie was release in theatres; Godzilla 2000. It was probably the single most exciting movie-theatre watching experienceof my childhood.

All this buildup is to say that there has never been a proper TOHO Godzilla pinball machine released (I'm not counting the Sega Godzilla machine since that was based on the Tristar Godzilla). I mean, talk about a machine that would design itself! All that destruction!? All those monsters!?

Sigh...Well, to get a little Godzilla out of my system, I made this mock poster in the style of the old Godzilla posters. It says "Godzilla Pinball" down the side. King Ghidorah and Godzilla are going at it! Ah man, I need to dig up my vhs's...

I leave tomorrow for my trip to Las Vegas with a planned stop at the Pinball Hall of Fame. I'm going to go in on my birthday! I can't think of a better way to celebrate the annual success of my continued survival! I'll try to post from the road!

McSweeney's Pinball Articles by Mark Walters

2011-01-07T15:08:00.000-05:00

I can't remember if we have posted about these articles before, but you should totally head over to the McSweeney's website to check out the pinball articles by Mark Walters. They are hilarious and well written, and Walters gives lots of in-depth information about each pinball machine that he plays.

I have also added a link to these on the right side-bar under "Pinheads" so that you can easily check back in (sadly there is no RSS feed for the entries). We can only hope these will someday be collected into a book!

Nate Beaty's WRJ Dream Machine!

2011-01-06T12:29:00.000-05:00

Whenever a friend comes to visit either Jon or me in White River Junction, we always take them around to the local haunts to play some pinball. Last February, one of my oldest comics pals, Nate Beaty came to town. Here's a photo of him playing the T2 machine in the back of the pizza place, with me and Max:

The next night we took Nate up to the bowling alley, where they had Scared Stiff and Last Action Hero. Nate had an amazing game on Scared Stiff, and was about one shot away from beating the entire board. It was a super fun night. A few weeks later, Nate posted this illustration of me, Max and Jon playing a White River Junction themed Dream Machine!

(click image to see it larger in Nate's Flickr)

If you've ever been to White River Junction, you know that this illustration is LOADED with in-jokes. Note the slingshot covers are Vermont and New Hampshire, with the connecticut river running right down the middle. At the base of the ramps you can see a bus and a bowling lane (the bus station and bowling alley are both on top of the hill). The school where Jon and I teach, CCS, is right at the back of the playfield (awarding "BIG POINTS" - a wink at Nate's favorite line from the T2 pin) and the outbound lanes are labeled "Drop Out" and "Move." You can even see the school's mascot, Inky Solomon battling some bowling pins on the backglass!

You can check out more of Nate's awesome illustration work and photography on his website.

Jim Woodring's FRANK Backglass!

2011-01-01T19:52:00.000-05:00

We've been getting tons of emails about a recent post on the Fantagraphics blog, all about a custom made FRANK Backglass, drawn by cartoonist Jim Woodring. Comics and pinball? Now, that's right up our alley!

A guy named Eli Curtz had this backglass made by Classic Playfield Reproductions. Check out their site to read all about their process of making this backglass. It also looks like Mr. Curtz has an additional 25 copies of the backglass, which he is selling for $200 each. You can get ordering information on his Frank: Homebrew Pinball Machine page - it looks like he's going to build the whole thing!

The machines I (RE)played on, during my Winter Vacation!

2010-12-31T16:02:00.000-05:00

If you've read Drop Target #1, you know that Jon and I live in a tiny town in Vermont. For Christmas I went home to Seattle, which means that I had to stop over in an in-between city, to catch my flight. For various reasons, I chose to fly out of New York City. And while there, you know what I did!

My first stop was at Reciprocal Skate Shop on the Lower East Side (402 E. 11th St. - by the corner of 1st Ave). Jon discovered this place over Thanksgiving break and it was everything he said it would be. The proprietor, John, is a super pinball fanatic, and he's got four machines crammed into his tiny storefront (when I was there it was The Getaway, Creature From the Black Lagoon, World Cup Soccer and Dr. Who). He said he had another 15 or so machines in his apartment and in another space and he often swaps them out. He was super friendly and loved talking pinball. This shop is just a short walk from the 1st Ave stop on the L train, or from Union Square. Swing by next time you are in New York!

That night, me and my buddy Gabe wandered around Brooklyn playing pinball. Our first stop was Enid's, but alas, their Addam's Family was out of order! Next we hit Muggs which had the new Iron Man pinball machine, which was actually pretty fun. After a few games Gabe and I both got replays, which I soon found out would be a THEME for me on this trip... That night we ended up at the Satellite Lounge, which is easily the best pinball bar in Brooklyn, with 6 or 7 machines. I staggered in drunk and instantly had the best game of Monster Bash I've ever had, easily passing the replay score. At that point, I decided to start taking photos of every machine I got a replay on:

As you can see here, I also got a replay on Stern's 2008 Indiana Jones machine. I must say, I had more fun playing Indy and Iron Man than I have ever had playing other Stern machines. I opened the Ark of the Covenant at one point, which dumped FOUR balls onto the playfield, which was intense! I only regret that I left the bar without playing their Sega Starship Troopers.

The next morning I flew home to Seattle, where I had a very relaxing Christmas with my entire family. The day AFTER Christmas, I headed to the pinball mecca, Portland, Oregon for a super quick trip (less than 24 hours!) After a lengthy meeting, my pal Greg and I went to Ground Kontrol, which was in a new temporary location across the street while they were remodeling their main space. They didn't have quite as many games, but still more than was possible to play in the two hours we spent in there! Here are the ones I got replays on:

T2 was no big deal, as I live above a pizza place that has that machine, so I know all the shots. It was my first replay on Addam's Family though. I played a TON of new machines, but the two I spent the most time on were Cirqus Voltaire, which was SUUUUUPER crazy and fun, and Tales of the Arabian Nights which I became totally obsessed with. Both of those games have some really innovative playfield parts and awesome ramp shots. Every machine I played at Ground Kontrol was in perfect condition. Their dedicated repair person was working on machines as I was playing and I thanked him for keeping the machines in such great order. Hands down, this is the best place to play pinball in Portland, if not the entire West Coast.

That night I ended up at Slabtown with Gabe (back in Portland for Christmas with HIS family) and Grizzo. Sadly, the change machine was broken, and at about midnight the bartender said he couldn't give us any more quarters. It was Sunday night, the day after Christmas, so Grizzo had little luck getting a roll of quarters from a few other neighboring businesses. Also, about half the machines were either broken or so filthy they were not really fun to play. It was sort of a bummer ending to my Portland Pinball Playing, but I was not done yet for this trip to the Pacific Northwest!

Nope, on my last day in Seattle I swung by Shorty's for a few last hours of Pinball. They had the newest pinball machine, Avatar, which I did NOT enjoy playing (too many toys, not enough ramps, weird elongated flippers). I played a lot more Arabian Nights, some 1993 Indiana Jones, and then Monster Bash, where I had my best game of the entire trip. I collected all six monsters and their instruments, thus starting the Monster Bash, where every shot was worth 2 Million. I ended up with 122 Million, which was a #3 High Score. Putting up a score in a real pinball bar like Shorty's felt like quite an accomplishment!

Sorry if this reads like me bragging about my scores, it's just really satisfying to see myself getting better and better at pinball. Each time I go out and play "in the wild" I can see a marked difference from the last time I played. At first I couldn't get a replay at all, and then a few months later I could get a replay on games I had played a lot. And now, I feel like I can get a replay on almost any machine if I play it half a dozen times. I know I still have so much more to learn, so all I can do is keep practicing!

I've added some of these bars to our "Pinhalls" side menu, so check them out if you are in the areas I mentioned. And like Jon said in his last post, Happy New Year! Let's make 2011 a year filled with all kinds of pinball fun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010-12-31T01:42:00.000-05:00

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY!! Does everybody have a good New Year Resolution? Does it involve PINBALL?! I used to think that New Year Resolutions were a joke and a half, but a couple of years ago I made one and totally stuck to it. It's doable. My big pinball plan for 2011 is to finish shopping out my Jurassic Park machine and have it ready to trade / sell / show at the new pinball festival in Pennsylvania. Also, Alec and I plan to have another issue of DTZ out sometime in the spring. Keep your wrist-radios tuned to this channel, pinballers!

In somewhat related news, yours truely is going to be going to Las Vegas in a week and a half (!?!) My girlfriend and I decided to go on a trip as a x-mas gift to each other and Las Vegas is:

a) Warmer than Vermont

b) A criminally cheep trip

Also, it's no secret that the Pinball Hall of Fame is located in Las Vegas! Needless to say, I CAN'T WAIT.

I have some REALLY killer pinball illos I've done lines up for the next couple weeks! Be forewarned, though, some of them are WEIRD.

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

2010-12-23T10:07:00.000-05:00

Happy Holidays everybody! Anyone that flips the ole silverball with me can tell you that I LOVE THE HOLIDAYS. I love the food, the music, the snow; EVERYTHING. I'm actually not terribly keen on the actual day, but all the days leading up to Christmas are awesome. Gentle readers, what is it that YOU want for the holidays?

I was visiting some friends in Burlington Vermont this weekend and two cool pinball things happened. First, I need to preface this story with the fact that there are NO PINBALL MACHINES, AT ALL, in all of Chittenden county (a large chunk of VT that includes Burlington, Colchester, Winooski, Essex, and my hometown of Essex Junction).

1) This quote from a friend of mine who had visited me in WRJ and played the machines that Alec and I have (he isn't a pinhead, but he might be now!)

"Guys, Jon and his friend have two pinball machines that they maintain, and I've played them, and it's the best thing ever. They're LITERALLY living our childhood dream. Remember the old Aladdin's Castle arcade in the U-Mall? Remember how we used to run out of quarters? Well, remember how much fun that place was, but then imagine NEVER RUNNING OUT OF QUARTERS."

It was just one of those awesome, I-love-pinball, kind of moments.

2) A friend of mine that works in the Essex Outlet Cinema told me that he urged his boss into getting a pinball machine for the lobby!!! Apparently, it's a Sega South Park, which I've played before. It's a pretty fun machine! I can't wait to give it a whirl. It's a pinball oasis in an otherwise pin-barren sea.

Well, that's all I've got for you true believers over here at Jon Chad HQ. Stay warm and have a great week!

More memmories

2010-12-20T10:07:00.000-05:00

Just another image from what was going on in my mind's eye when I was fixing my Jurassic Park's circuit board. It was probably the most stressful thing I've ever done. The relief / satisfaction that coursed through my youthful veins when I turned on the machine and realized I hadn't f***ed up th machine was beyond articulation.

Hey! Hey! Did you guys hear that the Allentown show was shut down?! I was super bummed because Alec and I were so gun-ho on attending. Almost IMMEDIATELY, though, someone else bravely picked up the reins and decided that the show must go on! So, I think the show is now called PinFestival. It's going to be held around the same time in May that Allentown was held and in pretty much the same area. I think it's safe to say that the Pinheads here at Drop Target HQ are pretty pumped about going!

Since I didn't put up an image last week, here's another one:

Alec and I joke ALL THE TIME about how the backbox of the machine is the "brain". This probably contributed to my paralyzing fear of fiddling around with the circuit board. I really liked how this one turned out. Go play some pinball, y'all.

Microcosm now carries Drop Target #1!

2010-12-12T12:11:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone, just a quick update to let you know that Microcosm Publishing is now carrying Drop Target #1! So now you can either order Drop Target #1 directly from us, or lump it in with a BUNCH of awesome zines and minicomics from Microcosm.

We are slowly but surely getting our plans together for Drop Target #2, which we are still hoping will be out this spring. There's a lot more on the way, so we'll keep you posted!

THIS IS THE COOLEST

2010-12-01T09:36:00.000-05:00

Quick post!

My dad is a patent and copyright lawyer, so I've always had a real fascination with inventions. He turned me onto the quick-and-dirty patent confirmation tool known as Google Patent. It's pretty self-explanatory. I was thinking that there must be some pretty rad PINBALL inventions documented there, and then I found THIS:

Patent for Linkable Pinball Machine

!!?!?!?!?? Designed by George Gomez?! Connect multiple pinball machine together for cooperative gameplay!?! Why have I NEVER heard of this!?! Can you even imagine how amazingly cool that would be!? Discuss!!

The breath of life!

2010-11-29T20:50:00.000-05:00

Man, oh man, another horrendous pinball fate that I wouldn't wish on ANYONE; having your quarters eaten by the machine. Drawing the mouth on the pinball machine was probably the best thing ever. I thought about having wires, coils, and 555s coming out of its mouth, but with a game named "Evil Eye," there's much more sinister stuff going on under the glass.

So, the big news that I wanted to write about today was that I have brought my Jurassic Park machine back from the grave!

"But Jon Chad?" I hear you cry "I never even knew that the JP machine was down?"

Yes, unfortunately, three weeks ago, I went into the backbox to try and figure out what was causing my game to randomly reset. It used to happen once in a blue moon, but it had started happening constantly. I couldn't get through a whole game without it rebooting and running the T Rex diagnosis. So, I had read on the This Old Pinball Data East guide that one of the common causes of game reboots was contact between the sound board and the metal mounting plate. I removed the sound board and found nothing wrong. On further inspection of the boards, though, I found that the CN1 and CN8 power connectors on the Power Supply board were completely fried. I removed both plugs to inspect the damage. When I plugged them back in and turned on the machine, the thing went completely dead. Nothing. Nada.

"The culprits."

NO WORRIES, though. I decided that I needed to rise to the challenge and fix my baby! I poured my heart and soul into electrical diagrams and figured out how circuit boards work.

"A genius at work."

So, last Saturday, I very nervously opened up my machine, removed the power supply and CPU boards, and replaced the faulty components. It was honestly the scariest thing I have ever done in my life. Well, I was super duper nervous in any case. After all was said and done, and the machine was put back together, I held my breath as I turned it back on.

IT WORKED PERFECTLY!

There were absolutely no problems with the machine. No random resets, no sound cutting out, and the T Rex moved its head just like it should; diligently searching for the ball. I can't tell you how exciting it was to take a machine and breathe life back into it. I know that there are probably some pinball mechanics out there thinking, "hmph, all that Jon Chad kid did was replace a Molex power connector and a couple transistors? YAWN. Par for the course!" Well, to me, it was the most exhilarating and rewarding thing ever. I LOVE PINBALL!

The Story of the Pacific Pinball Museum

2010-11-26T11:06:00.000-05:00

My illustrator friend Rosemary Travale sent me this great video about the Pacific Pinball Museum (aka "Lucky Juju's") This is one of my favorite places to play pinball. It's $15 at the door and they have three rooms full of pinball machines, from all different eras, all set to free play. You can actually play pre-flipper machines, a wide range of EM machines and a whole room full of the best solid-state machines from the 80s and 90s. They also have juke boxes with era-specific music in each room, which are also set on free play. If you are ever in the bay area, you NEED to check it out. Anyway, check out this great video to learn more about this important pinhall!

Dave Marston!

2010-11-18T11:49:00.000-05:00

Last weekend we had a visit here at Drop Target headquarters from a real pillar of the pinball community: Dave Marston, long-time contributor to PinGame Journal. He traded me a photocopied stack of his "Pinball on Record" articles for another copy of Drop Target #1 for his archives. We also played some pinball and spent an hour or so chatting about the current state of pinball and our plans for future issues of Drop Target! Coolest of all, he rolled into town in a van big enough to haul some pinball machines, with a very special license plate... :) Thanks for swinging by Dave. Hopefully we'll see you again soon!

Pin Treats

2010-11-16T09:05:00.000-05:00

So, this might seem like a departure from the normal collection of pinball illustrations I've been doing, but actually, it's extremely appropriate. Anybody who has seen me get 100% in the pinball zone knows that there's only one snack that will satisfy spur me on to higher scores: Tootsie Roll Pops. I'm a sucker (no pun intended) for hard candy, and Tootsie Roll Pops are pretty much the best. I know that this isn't exactly a pinball illustration, so here's some more:

First Game Ever

2010-11-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago, I ran into my colleague, Jason Lutes walking down the street with his two children, Clementine and Max. He told me they were heading to go check out my pinball machine for the first time, so I decided to tag along.

We set Clementine up on a stool and she could just barely reach both flippers. At first she just started flipping the flippers as fast as she could. But then we explained that she should try to hit the ball, and all in an instant she GOT IT. She started waiting for the ball to near the flipper and then she would carefully push the button and send the pinball back up the playfield. It was really amazing to see someone play their very first game of pinball, especially someone so young. It made me realize just how intuitive pinball is. It's such a simple interface, anyone can play!

TROLLS!!

2010-11-08T18:04:00.000-05:00

As we all know, Alec has a Medieval Madness machine and I have a Jurassic Park machine. When Alec came with me to come get my machine, I drew this for him as a present. Here's a colored version.

Out of all the awesome stuff on Medieval Madness, my favorite is probably the trolls. I love everything about them; how they announce themselves, the dot matrix animations, their voices, etc. We even went so far as to name the trolls (because, as far as we know, they don't have names...). The one on the left is named Herman, and the one on the right is named Pee Wee. Ha ha, get it? The best part is that Pee Wee is kinda a wuss and if you even hit him from behind, he'll count it as a hit sometimes.

The really magical thing about the trolls is thinking about the what the ball represents, in this case. I've heard this question come up again and again when talking about certain game: "What is the ball supposed to represent? Is the player the ball?" On games that have distinct narratives, it's easy to try and project oneself onto the ball. Overall on a game, that can get confusing. I try to think of it, mode to mode, what am I trying to achieve, and what is the ball representing at that moment, or geez...WHUTEVAH.

I love to think about how you're this knight in Medieval Madness and you're:
a) tossing iron balls into the face of a troll
b) punching a troll in the face

Both of which are ideal situations.

Also, these pictures are AWESOME:

Max's Dad's Old Pinball Machine

2010-11-03T17:38:00.000-04:00

Jon and I both work at The Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction, Vermont. Each year CCS has a fellow, and last year it was the Belgian cartoonist Max de Radiguès. Max appears a few times in Drop Target #1, and played pinball with us almost every day last year.

Max would often mention an old pinball machine that his Dad owned, and a few weeks ago Max visited his father in the south of France and he took a few pictures of it, which he forwarded to me and Jon. It appears to be a 1935 Par Golf which is a pre-flipper machine. Thanks Max!

Belated Happy Halloween

2010-11-02T01:25:00.000-04:00

Aww man, talk about dropping the ball on this one! I finished this thing, no kidding, like, three weeks ago. "Good time management, Jonch" I thought to myself, "Now all that's left is to just sit back and post this on SUNDAY, which just so happens to be HALLOWEEN!"

Man oh man, dropping the ball. The shot was all set up for me, and I let it drain right down the middle.

This image is horrifying, btw. All I could think about as I was drawing / coloring it was how I would have died from a heart attack on the spot if this happened to me. I'd like to think that you could tilt him away.

Pinball on The Road

2010-10-27T10:36:00.000-04:00

This October I have been on the road A LOT. At the beginning of the month, I had to drive from Vermont down to Connecticut to pick up my friend Aaron. On the way back, we found this Lord of the Rings machine at a gas station in upstate New York. It was well maintained and played like a dream. We put in two dollars for 5 games, and on the last game I got a replay, which we left on the machine for the next road warrior who passed through.

Later that same week, Jon and I drove down to Boston to pick up his Jurassic Park pin, which he mentioned in his last post. I got my Medieval Madness machine in Boston too, so the trip felt very familiar. Same car, same guys, heck, we even stopped at the same sandwich place on the way home. I've got to say, there is something very special about driving home with a pinball machine in the back of your car. I think that's about as close as you can get to living the American dream.

Lastly, Claire and I just drove cross country (from San Francisco back to Vermont). The only pinball machine we saw on the road was a Pirates of the Caribbean at an Ohio Turnpike travel center. All these rest stops are built with the same layout, so I can only hope that there is a pinball machine at every stop in Ohio! We made it safely back home to Vermont, and when we arrived I found that "Foggy" (my Medieval Madness machine) had a new friend!

Lastly, This morning Jon and I received an email from AJ over at Syndicate Product, who wrote the first review of Drop Target #1. Good news, she liked it!

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN'!!

2010-10-27T10:03:00.000-04:00

Sorry this is late. Well, I know that I never SAID when I would put up pinball illustrations, but I meant for them to go up on Sunday.

Anyway, HERE IT IS, the BIG news....

I am not the PROUD OWNER of a 1993 DATA EAST JURASSIC PARK MACHINE!!!!

Isn't it BEAUTIFUL!?! It's pretty much the coolest thing ever. The game plays incredibly fast, and the flippers are unbelievably responsive. There are a lot of moves that Keith Elwin shows off in the Pinball 101 DVD that I haven't been able to pull off regularly on most machines, but this bad boy is more than up to the task. There are so many modes to start up. There's a 6-ball multiball, and a giant T-Rex head that eats up the ball! IT'S THE COOLEST!!!

Originally, the illustration I was going to post was going to be me triumphantly high-fiving my new machine over an exploding volcano, but I chose the fixing-up one because that has been the theme of my first week of pinball-ownership: fixing. I got this machine for a really sweet deal, but it came from an operator's route, so I new it wasn't going to be perfect. THAT WAS WHAT I WAS HOPING FOR, THOUGH! Tinkering and fixing up Alec's Medieval Madness machine with him has been a blast, and when I was scouring the globe (er...New England) for my own machine, I was partially looking for a project machine to shop out. All of the fixes have so far been minor, save for the laft flipper being deader than disco. Turns out that there was a bad soulder on the grounding wire and I just needed to re-soulder it. I've been refering to THIS online manual A LOT lately, and it's been an AMAZING resource!

This whole pinball machine ownership has taken everything to a whole new level. It's going to be a really amazing adventure. I'll keep you all updated on what's going on. Ha ha, also, MY APOLOGIES TO MY GIRLFRIEND!

Well, I don't want to bog you all down with blog. BLOGBOG. I'll have some fun Halloween stuff for ya.

We ALL know how THIS feels.

2010-10-17T22:03:00.000-04:00

*Sign* Well, just another day in pinballdom. Sometimes it feels like the machine is programmed for pure evil and every loving, encouraging nudge you give it just throws a danger-danger-tilt back in your face. I know that we should all be exercising a quantity of restraint. In all seriousness, though, I don't tilt that often 'cause I'm too shy to put a little bit of the oom pah pah on a machine. My girlfriend Colleen tilts more than me 'cause she's so pumped about the ball hitting around in the bumper pit. It's cute.

I have some AMAZING news to share with you guys, once I can get a glorious enough picture! Stay tuned!

Also, I saw this on a show report on Pinball News from 2 years ago. IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!

IF ONLY!

2010-10-10T13:24:00.000-04:00

I know that this is pretty much impossible, but, hey, A GUY CAN DREAM, right?! Speaking of quarters / coins / etc, I've noticed that they've been issuing new pennies. Also, I've seen new nickles and new silver dollars. I don't get what's up with this nearly perpetual reissuing of our different units of currency. It makes me wonder how coin doors even work. Is it based on the size and weight of the coin inserted? It seems like American and Canadian quarters must weigh the same but somehow the coin door knows that they're not legit. It's crazy...

Also, I'm probably not revealing hot, breaking news with this one, but THIS is super-duper cool!

This is the Visible Pinball machine that Micheal Schiess built. It seems like it would be super-duper distracting to play, because I'd be looking underneath the playfield and back box too much! I heard it was at PPE4 this year! Just another reason I have to get out to the west coast to play!

More Pinball Down Under

2010-10-06T10:06:00.000-04:00

Claire has continued to find more pinball machines in Australia. Here is a pretty sweet bank of them at Luna Park in Sydney! Also, it looks like I was wrong in my earlier post, where I said Claire found a 1976 Star Ship pin, it was Star Trek! Thanks to Vicki for taking all these awesome photos.

The Good Pin Samaritan

2010-10-05T16:57:00.000-04:00

First of all, that image above pretty much illustrates the dream. Now, I have a really awesome girlfriend, but the idea of playing pinball SO GOOD that some girl starts getting interested in you is incredible. I've been doing a lot of color pinball spot illustrations lately, and I'll be posting them up from time to time.

I was biking around West Lebanon, NH today and I decided to take in a game of pinball at a pizza place, Lui Lui's. They have exactly one pin, Twilight Zone. The machine's condition could be described as "shoddy" at best. Both the gumball machine and the clock are completely dead, and the playfield is just filthy filthy filthy. Now, all of this is on a GOOD day. Today was a new low. THREE balls were jammed in various places around the playfield, and the machine was continually shooting off solenoids in an attempt to free the balls. The sounds of this poor machine shooting off it's coils again and again broke my heart. It was pleading for help, and I was powerless. What about the poor people in that restaurant just wanting to enjoy their pizza in peace and quiet? They probably left thinking, "pinball, ugh, WHAT A RACKET!"

So, in hopes that I could restore even one shred of dignity to this noble pin, I found the operator's sticker and called them! I mean, THAT'S WHAT THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO DO, RIGHT!? The operator picked up and actually seemed happy that I was calling from Lui Lui's, like I was breaking some long duration of enforced incommunicado. When I told him that I didn't work for the restaurant, he seemed disappointed and told me that an employee would have to place the service call. When I tried to relay that to a manager that I caught that wasn't busy, he DID NOT want to hear about it. I even tried to coax him with, "You know, there's a bunch of us in town that really love pinball, and we'd be really excited about a working Twilight Zone game..." but this guy was flat out IGNORING me.

I don't get it, I really don't! I'm pretty much telling this guy that I want to give him business, and all he has to do is pick up the phone and ask for something that he is ENTITLED to through his relationship to an operator; a clean, well-working game. It's crazy! I feel like I did the right thing in calling, but to no avail...

Oh well, in the long run, there are a good amount of pins to play in the area, and being down one isn't the end of the world. In happier news, I found this archive of images squirrled away on the interweb of a warehouse raid. Look at all the pinball machines all stacked on each other! It's pretty much the most beautiful thing I've ever seen! HERE is the link.

Also, there's this:

This really never fails to cheer me up. It's the ultimate tag team pinball experience. It's, like, CROSSFIRE, on speed. It's awesome awesome awesome.

Foggy's 13th Birthday!

2010-10-01T17:47:00.000-04:00

On the back of my Medieval Madness pinball machine, there is a stamp, from the day it left the factory: September 29th, 1997.

This means that "Foggy" (as we like to call her) turned 13 years old a few days ago! To celebrate, Jon and I had a pinball night at the school, where we watched TILT: The Battle to Save Pinball, and then we put the machine on Free Play for anyone who wanted to play. Here's a shot of the action, which went until almost 1am!

Beth Hetland even made a little birthday crown for Foggy! It was a special night.

Bobo Loves Pinball

2010-09-28T13:12:00.000-04:00

In my mind, Bobo Backslack has been playing this game for, like, an hour, and he's either lucky enough (or good enough) to keep getting match after match. That guy behind him just wants to give it a whirl, but Bobo's having the game of his life, and he's not ready to give up them hawt little flippers!

Also:

I thought this sort of thing was only possible on older machines!

Pinball Down Under!

2010-09-27T13:30:00.000-04:00

My girlfriend Claire is in Australia for a few weeks and today I got my first letter from Down Under. In Melbourne alone, Claire has spotted pinball machines in a few different diners, a record shop and a bowling alley. Machines included a Star Ship, Guns and Roses, and Creature From the Black Lagoon. Claire writes, "I played The Creature From the Black Lagoon pinball. ALL the middle lights in the face were out. I got a match at the end, so I got a free game."

Drop Target #1 is now available for ordering!

2010-09-20T20:51:00.000-04:00

Now available in the Drop Target Zine shop!

DROP TARGET #1 - The Introduction Issue

52 pages - 5.5" x 8.5" - B&W printing
First Printing: 8.5" x 14" full-color centerfold, screenprinted cover

FEATURING:
- Pinball Glossary
- TILT TALK: Interview with Multiball editors Brinda Coleman and Sam Soule
- THE REPLAY REVIEW: Star Wars: Episode I (pin2k)
- DREAM MACHINES: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Lawrence of Arabia
- PINHALLS: White River Junction, VT
- VIDEO MODE: Tilt: The Battle to Save Pinball
- From Zeros to Heroes: Part 1 - OBSESSION

Drop Target Issue #1 is ready to rock!

2010-09-07T19:12:00.000-04:00

Okay you guys, Jon and I have been working super hard over the last two weeks, and today we finally finished printing up 400 copies of Drop Target #1! It's 52 pages, with a screen printed cover and a full-color center spread. It's pretty deluxe! Easily the coolest zine I have ever made.

We're going to debut the book this weekend at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland. If you are in the area, please swing by! Once we get back to Vermont, we will put up PayPal links so people can order copies from anywhere. Trust me, if you're into pinball, you're going to love this zine!

Drop Target #1 at SPX!

2010-09-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

We are hard at work putting the finishing touches on Drop Target #1, The Introduction Issue, which will be debuting this weekend at The Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland. If you are in the area, please swing by and pick up a copy! Here's a picture of Jon Chad screenprinting the covers!

Announcing: Drop Target Zine!

2010-07-18T21:09:00.000-04:00

Well, Jon Chad and I have officially started working on Drop Target Zine #1, which will hopefully be out for SPX in September. If you can't tell from the title, this will be a pinball fanzine. More to come!