Pardon the double-post both here on DorkTower.com and on my normal LiveJournal account, but the word needed to get out far and wide:

In honor of Talk Like a Pirate Day, we’re proud to announce the winner of the “Win This Booty-Ful Art” contest.

Almost 300 entries came in, which blew me away a little. Many of them were VERY, very good. Some of them got me to laugh out loud, and were all kinds of brilliant and original and snit.

A few were a bit obvious, and several were sent in by over a dozen folks each. There were LOTS of variations on Ratite (”RAT-ite,” getddit? Geddit?), which is bloody clever, since I didn’t even know that a Ratite was the family of flightless birds Kiwis belong to! So a consolation prize goes out to Kiwi Carlisle, of St. Louis, for being the first person to make the connection, thus learning me a new word.

There were also many, many pairings of the words “Plunder” and “Down Under.” The most succinct was “The Plunder from Down Under,” but Dartanyan Hetrick’s (Dallas, TX) “Rats of Plunder from Down Under” was the first such to come in, so a consolation prize goes to him, as well.

The SECOND RUNNER UP, Christian Peters from Cologn, Germany, certainly knows his way around an English language pun, with the dreadful but tasty “New Sea Landrat,” artfully stuffing all elements of the drawing into one very ridiculous card.

The FIRST RUNNER-UP, who will be expected to fulfill the duties of the winner should he or she be caught in a naked Penthouse spread, is Beth Reiten, with “Mutiny on the Barbie,” which doesn’t really explain what the rat is doing there, but was very silly nevertheless.

The GRAND PRIZE WINNER, however, is Kelly MacDougal, whose “G’Day Matey” again never really explained why there was a rat there in the first place, but just made me laugh. A lot.

(Steve Jackson himself suggested “Yarrrrr! They Wuz Outta Parrots,” so I guess I should send HIM something, as well, since he’s kinda sorta my boss and all…)

Congratulations to all the winners, and I now hereby publicly challenge Mr. Steve Jackson to fit the “G’Day, Matey” card into the game.

Yarrrrr!

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Munchkin Quest 2 has been announced, so I can now speak of it openly.

When Steve first brought the idea to me for cover suggestions, I asked for more information about it.

“It’s called “Munchkin Quest 2: Looking For Trouble,” he said.

“OK,” I said, a little later. “How about something like THIS:”

Now, I can absolutely respect and support Steve’s decision NOT to put a toilet bowl on the cover of a major release, instead going with THIS cover:

…and yet, I can’t help but think that somewhere, the Baby Jesus is crying just a little.

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Speaking of toilets, a while back I asked if folks could guess what this Munchkin Quest monster could possibly be:

This wan’t a competition: there were no prizes. Still, surprising few people guessed that it would actually be called (wait for it….)

The Komodo Dragon.

Thank you! Thank you! I’m here all week. Try the liver.

I love my overseas publishers.

My French publishers speak English much better than I will ever speak French.

My Italian publishers speak English much, much better than I have ever been able to speak Italian.

My German publishers speak English infinitely better than I will ever speak German, even if I live to be 100.

That said, hilarity sometimes ensues when I need to do special Munchkin cards for our overseas partners.

To wit: two German Munchkin Booty promo cards were requested. Here’s my favorite card description EVAR, from one of them:

Piratten/Pirats

Illu: Several rats dressed as pirates (with patches, peg leg, a kiwi on the shoulders, dagger between teeth, just like the pirates you know, but they are rats)

OK. I know they don’t mean “kiwis,” but “parrots.” Still, the idea of a Munchkin Pirate Rat with a Kiwi on its shoulder amused me. So I sketched it up anyway.

Let’s have a competition. Tell me what the name of this card would be. The winner will receive the original art of the drawing you see in glorious technicolor above!

All entries must be posted on the DorkTower.com feedback page, or at the Dork Tower LiveJournal Syndicated Feed page that this note appears on. Deadline is Monday, August 25, midnight Central Standard Time. The winner will be picked by the Lovely and talented Judith.

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Speaking of the German promos, here’s the card wot I eventually drawded:

I believe the German version of Booty will be available at Essen, along with this little thing called Munchkin Quest.