Today we lost a dear friend and founding member of Desert Bus for Hope, Bill Watt. We mourn his passing deeply and wish strength to his family and friends as we navigate our shared grief.

LoadingReadyRun has posted a tribute on their website, which you can read here.

Personal tributes have also been written by Jer and Ash.

Words are insufficient in these moments so, please, hug someone you love. Find a way to celebrate the gift of life. In doing so you will also be celebrating our friend and a life lived loudly, authentically, and unmistakably, Bill.

Love,
The Desert Bus Team

THANK YOU

As of the end of bussing this morning, we had raised $676,883.57 and had achieved a lifetime total of $3,112,329.72. This is more than we had ever thought possible. Thank you, from the bottommost depths of our hearts. You are, indeed, the most generous community we know.

We did it.

During Paul’s shift, we challenged the community to create artwork of Paul’s Pathfinder character, Oknarok. Here’s the winning submission, from Xeno_Striker:

And, here’s some of our honorable mentions…

Check out the rest of the community’s submissions after the jump.

This is our last donation drive and last Official Desert Bus 9 T-Shirt giveaway! Donate $6.37 (or multiples thereof) for a chance to win the last Desert Bus 9 T-Shirt in the building. We’ll run this donation drive until 12:00 AM PST.

While the first run of Desert Bus 9 T-Shirts is sold out, you can still pick up a t-shirt from the second run on the Fangamer store. DO IT.

We’re nearing the end of this year’s Desert Bus, but we’ve still got a couple of giveaways to go! Donate $9.02 (or multiples thereof) for a chance to win this Pinny Arcade Starter Set. And, this pig comes pre-sweetened, as the LRR team will be throwing in all four LoadingReadyRun Pinny Arcade pins! We’ll run this donation drive until 11:15 PM PST.

We’d like to extend a thank you to The Joint Pizza for sponsoring the pizza that will be consumed during the afterparty this year. For the past 14 years The Joint has been serving downtown Victoria faithfully. From a pizza haven for folks with dietary restrictions to serving slices for the late night crowd, The Joint wears many hats.

We are very grateful for the support of The Joint Pizza in making our afterparty stress free and keeping us fed as we unwind from a long week of raising money for Child’s Play.

You want to talk about limited edition? There have only been Three copies of the Desert Bus 8 Hardcover Photo Book. One of these copies went for a live auction earlier in the week. One of these copies is staying with Andrew as his personal copy.

This is the last one. It’s also signed by as many members of Desert Bus 8 as could be obtained.

Any donations of $7.51 or multiples thereof until 9:45 PM PST will get you an entry into this drive. This is your chance to own a piece of Desert Bus History.

Thanks to Max Temkin and the folks over at Cards Against Humanity, and to all the donors out there who contributed to the surprise donation drive. With your help Desert Bus 9 has passed Desert Bus 8 in total amount raised.

We say year after year that at some point we have to plateau, that one year we’re going to not up the ante on the donation total.

You keep proving us wrong.

Thank you

We have a surprise call-in with Max Temkin of Cards Against Humanity. We are running a Donation Drive for an Advanced Copy of the new card game Secret Hitler. The winner will be the ONLY person in public with a copy of the game. 

Also a copy of every Cards Against Humanity card ever printed. That’s right, every single card. Anything ever printed by Cards Against Humanity, including the Reject Packs which are not available to the public. Every holiday bullshit card, and every single holiday bullshit gift. The box will also be signed by Max Temkin.

Let’s add in a copy of Slap .45, Max’s other new game.

This donation drive will be for easy donations of $14.99 or multiples thereof until 8:15 PM PST

Oh, and we’re going to be drawing Three Separate Winners for this. 

Formed in 2011 as the collaboration between siblings Steven Dengler and Ash Vickers, MegaCynics is a webcomic that follows the wonderful interactions in their lives. It is a story that encompasses video games, popular culture, hockey, friendship, family, sibling rivalry, nature vs nurture, good vs evil, wealth vs poverty, and giant anacondas vs robot gorillas. Ash can also be found every Sunday night doing art streams on the Megacynics twitch steam.

Steven Dengler is the Co-Founder, Co-Writer, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Megacycnics. Steve is well known to Desert Bus fans as a longtime sponsor and the King of Desertbus.

Ash Vickers is the Co-Founder, Co-Writer, Creative Director, and Lead Artist. Ash is well known to Desert Bus fans as the founder of Shame Tickets, being an awesome event manager, and her not-so-secret love of Speed Racer.

We appreciate everything that MegaCynics has done for us and welcome them back as a sponsor!