30 Extra Looks returns with Seaons 3! Famicom Games!

We've made it! A years worth of storylines have lead to the Showcase of the Immortals: Wrestlmania! We've had a long and winding road to get here, and given last year's show, I don't think any of us could have predicted this was the show that was going to happen this year. Was it a show that will stand tall, or did it falter and have an entire stadium booing the WWE champion? Let's find out together!

As always, we're answering the three most important questions in the wide world of wrestling:

1. What Happened?
2. What Should Have Happened?
3. Why Should You Care?

The Setup: THe show that essentially started the PPV wrestling show has now become the big "season finale" in the world of WWE. All storylines for months leading up to the show are wrapped up here. All roads lead to Wrestlemania, but not all of them are all that pretty. Also, I was not prepared to watch 6+ hours of wrestling, so I skipped the preshow.

Beer of Choice: Guiness Lager. It's ok, kind of a lighter Guiness.

(Intercontinental Championship Ladder Match)

1. Zack Ryder and his luscious beard managed to Woo his way up the ladder, taking out the Miz to win the championship
2. I like KO with the title, and would have like to see Zayn take it, but really, neither of them need a title, they can put on a good program with each other. If we're going to remove those two from contention, Stardust should have been the one to take it. He's got such a weird persona that would be cool to see get a bigger spotlight.
3. This should set off a proper KO vs Zayn feud and give Zack Ryder, who I know virutally nothing about, a big bump up to maybe make the IC title picture a little less predictable. Ryder was decent in the match, so I'm curious to see what he can do given a singles match with more time.

1. In what was a kind of sloppy match, Jericho hit a code breaker type thing and pinned AJ.
2. The exact oppostie
3. I guess this was Jericho basically saying he's only got so many WMs left in him and wanted a win on a big stage. But doing it at the cost of such a big name acquisition as AJ Styles seems like an odd move. Presumably AJ would move on to a new story, but what a weird way to bring in a new guy over these last few months

1. The New Day in their best Ginyu Squad getup, arrived in a giant box of Booty Os. But once they got in the ring, Xavier Woods got the worst of it. He managed to tag out briefly before getting back in and was attacked by King Barret leading to a Sheamus Kick/Pin.
2. If you show up in a giant box of your own made up cereal and dress up like Dragon Ball Z characters, you should get the win dammit.
3. It gives the LON a bit more of a threatening presence considering they had mostly been beaten by the New Day. But more importantly, hopefully the New Day now gets to move on to their next storyline and maybe defend the belts again at some point.

(Street Fight)

1. After what felt like a lot of Kendo Sticks and waaay too many chairs in the ring. Lesnar hit Abrose with a suplex into the aformentioned chair pile to get the win.
2. I like Ambrose, and Lesnar's gotta lose at some point. I wish it was tonight, but it was not to be.
3. It was a fun match, but felt like it ended suddenly without a real finale. I don't know what this one means for either Lesnar or Ambrose.

(Women's Championship)

1. My cousin Becky tapped to the Figure Eight while Ric Flair held onto Sasha Banks to stop her from breaking up the hold.
2. Sasha Banks should have pinned Becky. It would have created a storyline for Charlotte because she would have lost the belt without losing the match and setup a rivalry between Sasha and Becky.
3. As it is, nothing changes until Ric gets banned from ringside for the next one.

(Hell in a Cell)

1. Shane totally Shaned it up by jumping off the to of the Cell. But then he missed and the Undertaker Tombstoned him into oblivion.
2. I wanted Shane to win only to see what would happen if he took over Raw, though I guess it's silly to think the Undertaker's retirement match would be this one.
3. Well, they torpedoed all of the interesting stories that could have happened with Shane...so I don't know.

(Andre the Giant Battle Royale)

1. Shaq showed up for a while, but then that dude from NXT, Baron Corbin eliminated Kane and won
2. That's really what they should do, use this as a way to push younger talent.
3. Hopefully this means we get to see more of Corbin and see what he can do.

1. Rock Bottom and pin. Six seconds
2. This should not have taken place.
3. Dont.

(WWE Heavyweight Championship)

1. Roman Reigns powered up his Spear by hitting the ropes a couple extra times and ducked under Triple H's sledgehammer to win.
2. This had to happen. Triple H should never have had the title again.
3. Well, how much do you think they can boo one man? That's what the WWE is trying to find out.

The Verdict: There were some good matches, Undertaker/Shane and Charlotte/Becky/Sasha being the standouts. The rest of the night was filled with mediocre to boring matches with WAY too much time killing. That show could have been four hours, they pushed it to almost five, not counting the preshow. Too long with too much bloat. Dissapointing overall. Let's see what they can do with the 2017 season and pray Seth Rollings comes back soon.

Our first and, as it turns out, last stop on the Road to Wrestlemania™ was Fastlane. Where the wrestlers are...fast? What follows will be 42 days of stuff in the leadup to Wrestlemania. Seems like they would have squeezed another one in there, but hey, I don't call the shots. As the only interim PPV, they had to do a fair amount of setup for the big show. Did they set the table for an amazin smorgasborg, or are we looking at some takeout on a paper plate? Let's find out.

As always, we're answering the three most important questions in the wide world of wrestling:

1. What Happened?
2. What Should Have Happened?
3. Why Should You Care?

The Setup: Fastlane is now in its second year as a show, and much like last year, its a weird thing. Coming on the heels of the Royal Rumble, it's meant to help set the rest of the table for Wrestlemania. And being sandwiched in between these two iconic shows, it doesn't really have an identity of its own. And it doesn't help when the announcers use the word "Wrestlemania", by my count, 23 times throughout the show. And I'm sure I missed some.

Beer of Choice: Yuengling Black and Tan. When you want your Lager, but you want is a little Darker.

 and    and 

1. A great tag team match was had, then Sasha Banks got Tamina to tap out while Becky had her own submission hold on Naomi.
2. Sasha and Becky had to come away with the win.
3. Given the strange moments in the Divas title match later, some more techinal wrestlers like Sasha and Becky are sorely needed in the title hunt. This hopefully puts them in line for some kind of triple threat match.

 def  (Intercontinental Championship)

1. After a brutal match with a lot of repeat moves, Kevin Owens popped up Dolph into a Powerbomb and that was that.
2. Owens needs to keep the belt.
3. Kevin Owens is one of the best heels going in WWE right now. Keeping a belt on him keeps him being a trememdous asshole in front of the most people. I think we can all enjoy that.

, , and   ,, and

1. Ryback performed and absurd number of suplexes and won. Now can some explain to me how he's on the same level in any capacity to Big Show and Kane?
2. The Wyatts really should have won this match.
3. With another lose in the Wyatt's ledger, how in the world are we supposed to be afraid of them? They build up such an incredible mystic around the characters and eating worlds and all that, then they lose. every. single. time. Either they need to stop talking such a big game or they have to win something. It's becoming ludicrous.

  (Divas Championship)

1. After a pretty good story of a match, Brie fell and hit her face on the rope and then Charlotte Figure Eight'd the hell our of her legs and retained.
2. This could have gone either way. I'm not a big fan of heel Charlotte, but Brie hasn't done enough in the ring to prove she deserves it more.
3. Well, either Brie gets her shit together or she's gone from the championship picture for a while. That finish was so strange, it's hard to see why they'd put them both back out for another big match like that.

1. AJ Styles was super awesome and won with one of his crazy submission holds.
2. 100% that
3. AJ Styles had to go through the Jericho guantlet, and let's hope that's done now. I was a big fan of Jericho, but his is no longer that guy and he can't hang quite as well as he used to. This should let AJ move on to bigger and better things.

1. There was a 10 minute block they needed to fill, so this "match" happened. Why wasn't there a tag team title defense again?
2. A tag team title match.
3. You really, REALLY, shouldn't.

 (Triple Threat Match for WWE Title shot at Wrestlemania)

1. Brock Lesnar was put throught two tables, then Dean Ambrose destroyed everyone with a chair, then Reigns speared Ambrose to win.
2. Either of the other two should have won, my first pick being Ambrose.
3. So WWE is going down the same path as last year. Again. People don't like Reigns, so lets take the belt off him and then have him win it back, surely people will like him this time! How many more times are we going do go through this loop until they get that it's not working? Bleh.

The Verdict: A few good matches, but an overall underwhelming show. I guess I'll have to pop back in to watch the last Raw before Wrestlemania to see what the hell is going on, but this did nothing except setup the dissapointing main event. It must be damn groundhog day at WWE headquarters, because they think Roman Reigns in still their guy, when he clearly is not anyone elses.

It all began 10 years ago today. Sitting in front of me were the pencils of a poorly written and even poorly-er drawn comic, but I knew it was the funniest thing put to paper in years! With the same scanner I have today, my pencils became a .jpg. What font would I use for lettering? Well there was only one that had "Comic" in the name, so "Comic Sans" was surely the best bet. But the pencils just didn't look right, I'd better do some digital inks! I was so ahead of my time. So I took my mouse, yes, that's right, and traced my comic in photoshop with a fixed width brush. What a masterpiece! It was that day, when I finally uploaded it to the free web storage that came with being a student at University of Delaware, that I became a comic artist. Here is that first comic, for your perusal and awe:

Then, a few weeks later, I did another. And for some reason, I kept coming back to these characters, each time wanting to write more. It wasn't until the launch of the The Cat Who Always Dies in 2011 that I felt 30 Extra Lives found its footing. I had a separate outlet in CWAD for non-sequiters and I could focus on my character based story in 30EL. But then came the burnouts. I would start to build momentum with regular updates on both sites, plus working on a game, plus a new video series. Within a few months, I would get tired of everything and drop it all. Nothing frustrates me more than looking back on that archive and seeing all those gaps.

Every gap I had lead to another rebuilding period where I promised to get comics out on time, and then I would stop again. I partially had yet to find my voice, and partially gave up on myself. So this past March, I made a quiet promise to myself to keep my workload simple and hit every update for a year. I'm really close to that goal as I haven't missed a date since March 9, 2015. Every Monday and Friday, another 30 Extra Lives went up. And in the middle there, every Wednesday a new Cat Who Always Dies went up. And peppered in some Tuesdays and Thursdays along the way saw random columns (like 30 Extra Leg Drops), reviews (like Paper Grils #1), and videos (like 30 Extra Looks and a TMNT Trailer analysis) on my YouTube channel. This past year has been my most rewarding year creatively since conceiving of Mark and Henry all those years ago.

The current storyline, "Cleo's Last Stop" is kind of the culmination of the kind of comic I've wanted to write. And today's comic is the beginning of the climax. I'm really proud of what I've been able to accomplish and encourage you to jump back to April to read the story from the beginning. I've been working hard to make every entry new reader friendly so it's not necessary, but this has been building for a while.

I want to thank everyone that's stopped in along the way to buy a book, like, share, retweet, subscribe, point, laugh, and even shake your head at me. I really do this comic for me, but having other people enjoy it means the world to me. I plan on keeping my end of the bargain to continue to bring you the adventures of Mark, Henry, Sammi, Holly, Frank, Cleo, Wolfy, and Dracs for years to come. I hope you enjoy the ending of this almost year long story and will stay aboard to see what's next for this crazy crew. I'm excited to find out as well, because as cliche as it is, they're the ones writing the story, I'm just drawing it.