Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 26, 2024 8:20:35 GMT -5
The Sandman: Volume 8 – Worlds' End*Sigh* Where to start with this? I think Gaiman wants the reader to regard cities as having distinct personalities, which they most certainly do, if only in the most loosely literal of ways – you know, as in, "Paris is a romantic city" or "Glasgow is a hard city." The trouble is, I find the idea that maybe cities can have dreams to be cringe-inducing in the extreme. It's the kind of lame story idea that I would have come up with at school for a fiction essay when I was about 12! I mean, sure, Gaiman's execution is of his usual high standard, but the basic concept sucks. Frankly, I expect better of him. Huh. What did you think of the City of Stars stuff in Sandman Book 6 (the living star became part of The Sandman with Endless Nights and Overture, both arcs published post-1996 of #75 in the regular series)? Actually, I'm reading Endless Nights right now and read the living star story the other night. Basically, I liked that story, but I'll get into much more detail when I post my full review of Endless Nights here in a week or so. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 25, 2024 9:02:02 GMT -5
I was thinking it might be out of my price range ($89 Canadian) but now that you mentioned hardcover, is there any chance of it coming out in a cheaper softcover edition, does anyone think?
I can’t swear to this, but I don’t recall Rebellion offering softcover editions. They don’t seem as flexible as other publishers. There have been a number of softcover collections of various Scream! strips in the past... Monster, The Dracula File, and a couple of The Thirteenth Floor volumes. So it's possible this might get a softcover release at some point, I suppose. The big selling point with this hardcover is that it reprints all of the 15-issue run of Scream! in it's entirety, which is just gonna be nostalgia heaven for me. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 25, 2024 1:42:34 GMT -5
I am soooo getting that hardcover. Scream! comic...gone, but not forgotten. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 25, 2024 1:36:38 GMT -5
I read Dragonlance #2-4 by Dan Mishkin, Ron Randall, and Randy Elliott. My twin brother bought some issues of this series back when it came out, but I'd never read this particular issues before. I like these issues and would consider buying. Randall's art is very suited to this series. Mishkin written other sword and sorcery series like Amethyst, right? It's interesting trying to get to know the mythology of the series and the characters, and the least interesting character gets written out. The main character in these issues is Riva Silvercrown. She possesses the Dragonlance, which apparently she acquired at a monastery in #1, but I haven't read that issue. She considers herself to be a warrior, and she's pretty good at it despite her sexist father thinking otherwise. Oftentimes, when I'm read old comics I'll skip over the letter page. In this case, I read most of it, because it has some cool info like role-playing game stats/attributes for characters in the stories. Dragonlance #4 also has a map at the end of the issue. I've got the first novel in the Dragonlance series that I really need to give my full attention to at some point, it looked like a fairly interesting read Back when I was a teenager, my two best friends were both really into the Dragonlance books. I've never read them, but they clearly must have had something to have appealed to my friends as much as they did. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 25, 2024 1:27:49 GMT -5
Were Egypt to take over the world next year, the entire "Current Era" would be renamed "third intermediate period"!  |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 24, 2024 11:46:17 GMT -5
Whenever Ancient Egypt comes up I feel obliged to point out that it spans a time period of over 3000 years, longer than the period from Hellenestic Greece to present day. We today are closer to the time of Queen Cleopatra's reign than she was to the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza. "Ancient Egypt" was a colossal period of time. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 22, 2024 10:11:50 GMT -5
Been meaning to say, I picked up a copy of Stereolab's Mars Audiac Quintet on CD a couple of weeks back (the vinyl was prohibitively expensive, unfortunately). I've been really enjoying revisiting the album, I must say. It's spinning as I write this. Thanks for reminding me how good this album is berkley. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 17, 2024 23:30:08 GMT -5
The way I see it is if something coming from an unknown # is truly important, they can leave a voicemail and you can get back to them Yep, this is me. I never answer an unknown number. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 17, 2024 5:39:40 GMT -5
I'm gigging this Sunday, so won't be able to make it.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 16, 2024 18:21:26 GMT -5
I stumbled upon a great 1968 CBS News Special documentary on YouTube about the operation to take Hill 943 during the Battle of Dak To in the Vietnam War. It's called Hill 943 and is a fascinating slice of late 60s American TV news coverage showing the everyday life of GIs out on operations. Well worth a watch if you're at all interested in the Vietnam War.
It seems to be from two different sources because about half way through a watermark appears and the colour changes noticeably. There are TV ads for Buick cars and General Motors trucks among others in the documentary, but sadly they've been "scoped", so only the beginning and end of each advertisement is present.
Anyway, here's the link...
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 14, 2024 18:29:21 GMT -5
looks like recent ebay sales would indicate 10-15 each, with some lots that were a lost less (under 5 bucks per) There seems to be a 2nd set in 1977 that had more backgrounds and not just the character on a white cup So...not quite as pricey or collectible as I had assumed.  |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 13, 2024 4:09:01 GMT -5
Does anyone else remember the Marvel Super-Heroes Slurpee cups that 7-11 was offering back circa '75 or so? There were 60(!) of them in all, of which I managed to snag six (Captain America, Doc Savage, Hercules, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Thing). I might've gotten more but I wasn't a big Slurpee fan. Unfortunately, it only took two or three washings for the pics to wear off so I chucked 'em all decades ago. Cei-U! I summon the summer I graduated from high school! Here's a poster listing the cups in the '75 series. And Cei-U! it says right on there not to put them in the dishwasher! There was a DC set as well... I bet these cups -- especially a full set -- are worth a pretty penny these days on the collector's market. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 12, 2024 3:10:00 GMT -5
Like many here, I'm sure, I've always had a real soft spot for Roger Coreman's films. Favourites include The Raven, Death Race 2000, The Dunwich Horror, and Battle Beyond the Stars. Shame that he's passed away.
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 11, 2024 12:15:32 GMT -5
I re-read the first Elfquest TPB this week, "Fire & Flight", which collects these five issues…  I like Elfquest a whole lot, but I probably haven't read any of these comics for close to 10 years. This first volume introduces us to a tribe of elves called the Wolfriders and almost immediately we see them driven from their forest home by savage humans, betrayed by conniving trolls, and stranded in a parched desert. After many days arduous trek across the wasteland, the Wolfriders stumble upon a hitherto unknown second tribe of elves called the Sun Folk. The Wolfriders are welcomed into the Sun Folk's village and the two communities join together and adventures ensue. The characters here are all really strong and it's a mark of Wendy and Richard Pini's talents that the different Elves are all very easy to remember and differentiate from each other. The Wolfriders' chieftain Cutter is a good protagonist and his close friends Skywise, Strongbow, Redlance, Nightfall, and Treestump are also enjoyable characters, all with very distinct personalities. Cutter's love interest is a Sun Folk healer named Leetah, and she is also a very well-rounded and a fairly strong, independent female character. In the first issue (originally published in Fantasy Quarterly #1), Wendy Pini's artwork is decent, but it does look a little bit amateurish and marks this out as very much an indie comic. By the second instalment, which was originally published in Elfquest #2, there's already a marked improvement in how accomplished the art looks. Wendy's art continues to improve throughout the rest of this first collection. The series is a very easy read. It sucks you in and bowls along nicely in a "can't put this down" manner. It is sometimes a product of its time (the late '70s): Cutter's flared trousers are a dead giveaway, for example, and the female characters are not especially strong from a modern viewpoint. That said, Elfquest does feel like something of a feminist comic, just by dint of it being co-created and drawn by a woman, at a time when women in the comics industry were still a rarity. Plus, the female characters are, for their era, unusually independent—especially Leetah. With its elves, trolls, wolves and human characters, along with the medieval-like setting, you can totally see why this comic resonated with the late '70s fantasy paperback, Tolkien, and Dungeons & Dragons crowd. I really enjoyed re-visiting Elfquest and I can't wait to get stuck into the next volume. |
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Confessor
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Post by Confessor on May 9, 2024 19:45:31 GMT -5
Dang! It had looked like maybe we were going to get a chance to tour the White House when we're in DC. My son's girlfriend's mother (the gf is graduating law school also) is friends with one of Obama's speechwriters and was hoping to arrange it. But, alas, it was not to be. Ah well. Another time. Sorry to hear that. I know that not getting to see where Superman was when he returned the roof and flag to the top of the building will come as a bitter blow to you. |
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