Kriston doesn't like Penny-Arcade. I disagree with him about the comic's merits, but I guess I can understand where he's coming from. Tycho — the strip's writer and chief blogger — has a prose style that can be gratingly pretentious; the comic's gags lean heavily on non-sequiturs and in-jokes; and Gabe, the strip's artist, admits that his visual style is heavily cribbed from Stephen Silver .

But Tycho's doing something that I think even Kriston will like. Actually, I think Kriston will especially like it.

You may not have heard of Epic Legends of the Hierarchs: The Elemenstor Saga, but that's only because it doesn't really exist. Tycho invented the pretend franchise about a half a year ago as a blank canvas onto which all the most ridiculous conventions of the fantasy, Pokemon-derived, Saturday-morning cartoon, video/roleplaying game and shameles-kiddy-commercialism genres could be projected. Not too much has been done with it since then — a strip here and there, but that's about it.

Today, a new development: Tycho has created an ELotHTES wiki and invited readers to contribute. The setup is pretty straight-laced: the Elemenstor Universe is overwrought, incoherent and thoroughly broken, thanks to the franchise's imagined commercial history. The true stroke of genius is Tycho's insertion of grudging references to a little-loved, Ewoks-style cartoon departure from the canon called "The Wizbits" that briefly aired at some point in the past and horrified all true Elemenstor fans.

I have no idea whether any of the contributors will be genuinely funny, but the idea behind this project is a great one. The end product may or may not be hilarious, but it's certain to be an entertainingly incomprehensible, self-referential universe. It's fertile ground for nerds to riff on: I've already got an idea for the bio page about the Wizbits' executive producer that could best be pitched as, "What if Aleister Crowley had invented My Little Pony?"

First: Okkervil River and the Wrens' Charles Bissell. Tonight, IOTA, $10. Who's in? And are any of you interested in meeting up for a late-ish pre-show dinner in Clarendon?

Second, and much more depressingly: WWE wrestler Eddie Guerrero is dead. What can you say about something so sadly predictable? He was a talented guy, but that business chews people up at an alarming rate. It's pretty much the same as the carney lifestyle would be if it paid a little better and somebody wailed on you with a baseball bat every night between the tilt-a-whirl and your trailer. It sounds like Eddie died sometime shortly after breakfast on Sunday, but despite the morning hour I'd say the smart money is still on an overdose. Like a lot of wrestlers, Eddie had a history of problems with painkillers.

Sigh. Well, Tivo can watch RAW for the memorial package. The rest of us will go get rocked. Come join me — we'll invent a drink and call it the Frog Splash in Eddie's honor. I'm thinking tequila and creme de menthe.