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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 13, 2020 10:53:10 GMT -5
I can't imagine Lunar and UCS being very happy with this either, they set up two new companies just to distribute DC comics which probably required some investments and two months later get to hear "Sorry, we shrinking down production a lot." I don't know if it necessarily means they'll be selling a significantly lower number of units just because they are producing fewer titles.
Sorry, can't follow you here: why wouldn't they be selling less if DC is producing less?
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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 12, 2020 14:46:55 GMT -5
I can't imagine Lunar and UCS being very happy with this either, they set up two new companies just to distribute DC comics which probably required some investments and two months later get to hear "Sorry, we shrinking down production a lot."
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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 7, 2020 15:27:25 GMT -5
There are many historic comics in Europe, but I appreciated Murena (about Rome during the rise and reign of Nero) a lot because it had notes in the back that go "Well, we know that Nero didn't talk to this specific senator X, but another one. But it would mean we would need to introduce another character just for this conversation, so to make the story easier to follow we chose to use the one we have used before. According to historical sources, he talked to Y."
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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 7, 2020 11:52:58 GMT -5
ROcksteady Studios (Developers of the Batman:Arkham series) have announced their new game:
I was disappointed with Arkham Knight, but I'm kinda interested in a Suicide Squad game, so I'll keep an eye on this.
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Post by Dizzy D on Aug 4, 2020 7:52:01 GMT -5
I've been buying quite a few Humble Bundles in the past few years. I still stick with physical for a lot of comics, but I like having some digital comics on my work laptop to read when I'm in transit to work and home (these days not much of a factor, true).
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 31, 2020 3:13:38 GMT -5
I don't think my shop will have Hedra (I saw it in the releases and was interested, but the preorder system works against indie oneshots).
I did get another title:
X-Factor #1. Written by Leah Williams. Art by David Baldeon.
Summary: The new team is established on Krakoa to investigate missing and dead mutants.
Plot: Northstar senses that is sister Aurora has died. He asks the Five (for those who have not been reading X-Men this last year, mutants now live on Krakoa and the Five are five mutants who togeter are capable of resurrecting dead mutants) to resurrect her, but they need proof first (one of the big rules is that they don't want duplicates running around so all deaths must be confirmed). Sage, who is tasked with confirming those deaths is too busy with all different kinds of tasks to investigate, so Northstar investigates himself. Polaris sees him investigating and decides to help him out. She finds a couple of other available mutants to assist (Prodigy, Prestige (Rachel Summers for us oldies), Eyeboy and Daken invites himself along). The six together quickly solve the case; Aurora was in Vancouver meeting a date, but it was a setup by a mutant-hater to kill her. She dies in a car-accident, but the killer himself miscalculated and is hit by the car he sabotaged. Polaris provides her findings to the Council (the leading group of mutants on Krakoa) and establishes the need for an investigative team. The Five and the Council agree, but Polaris refuses leadership, nominating Northstar instead.
Art: Not the biggest fan of Baldeon, but his art is cartoony and works with the team, that despite the murder investigation is not a dark story with some fun elements.
Writing: I really liked the writing, Polaris for the first time in a long, long while gets a personality and is a healthy place mentally. Williams remembered that Polaris was the one who originally killed Krakoa, so there is a special bond between her and the island. Her experience with the previous X-Factor investigations makes her a valuable member for a team of detectives and most of the other characters are also natural investigators. The team's mandate gives them a good hook for further stories.
8/10.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 27, 2020 4:36:19 GMT -5
The art was good, I don't have as much a problem with the story (though I do agree that the plotting of the individual issues could use work. Seeley is a bit like Loeb where beginning and end of the story are planned, but he keeps forgetting putting in some individual steps to get from beginning to end. Also disliked Midnighter being depowered so Grayson can look better in comparison (or the misuse of other Wildstorm characters for that matter).
I did like Steve Orlando's Midnighter spin-off series a lot and consider it by far the better werk (also helped by Aco's artwork).
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 27, 2020 3:31:33 GMT -5
I subscribe to a bimonthly magazine called ANCIENT EGYPT MAGAZINE. I caught up on the April/May issue recently. There was an article about Anubis. Interestingly, and the magazine features some extremely knowledgeable writers, there has never been consensus on whether Anubis’ head is a jackal. Other “contenders” include wolf, dog and fox. I always presumed jackal, but it’s interesting to read that there is no consensus. The sheer range of canine creatures in that region - now and then - is all part of the confusion. Always good to see such things debated. A fox I kind of doubt, but it's clearly a canine. What is Seth, though? He kind of looks like an aardvark! Since Dave Sim ended his Cerebus series with a few connections to ancient Egypt, there might have been something there!!! Seth is a Set animal (that's seriously the name they have given it), which is either fictional or a composite creature. The hieroglyph voor Set shows a doglike creature with a forked tail though its snout does resemble an aardvark.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 27, 2020 2:57:37 GMT -5
Finished up Final Fantasy XV, which didn't take that long (it's still a long game, but in my memory the other games took much longer). I haven't completed all sidequest (there is still the optional Adamantoise with its 5 million HP, which just seems like such a drag to fight and various special dungeons.) The Windows versions comes with 3 of the 4 pieces of DLC (the last 2 DLC episodes were cancelled) and I played 2 of those (each of them focuses on one of your party members). The final DLC I haven't bought, but I think I will.
The story is pretty straightforward for a Final Fantasy: Prince Noctis Lucis and his entourage (bodyguard/trainer Gladiolus, butler/driver/cook Ignis and best friend Prompto) set off in his dad's car for the city of Altissia, to marry his fiancee, the oracle Lunafreya. On their way, the capitol gets invaded by the standard Evil Empire and his father, King Regis, gets killed. So Noctis has to stay out of the Empire's hands, avoid the various demons that come out at night and meet up with his fiancee and fulfill a prophecy to banish all demons while being manipulated by the Empire's Chancellor Ardyn. Also get some fishing done, because it's a JRPG.
For the first 10 chapters, the game is Open-World game (with two seperate maps, the Kingdom of Lucis and the island of ALtissia) and still looks really good. It's a lot more actiony than the previous FF's who tend to be turn-based games. From the end of chapter 10 onwards, you're on rails to the end (though you can return to previous places from safe points and clean up quests that you still have left open). Sidequests are usually pretty simple and many are not worth the time. I enjoyed some of the hunts, but I rather have just a few interesting hunts than the 100+ hunts we have now where >50 or just slightly stronger versions of existing monsters. Controls are annoying (I advise to get the PC version, because it allows you to remap buttons. Somebody in development thought it was smart to bind jump and interact to the same button on PS4/X-box. On PC you get run&interact default on the same button which is also not great).
Storywise: the DLC has done some lifting to fill in some gaps in the story. The main criticism I've seen is that all important events seem to happen off-screen. I can agree with some of that, though I do think that having Noctis not present, but away from home when it gets destroyed by the Empire and having to find out through newspapers, works well. I like the more straightforward story, though it's clear that the game was rushed to be published due to its enormous costs making the later chapters feel rushed and sparse.
Overall I liked it, but it's not my favourite FF (those are 6 and 12), it's about in the middle for me.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 21, 2020 4:30:47 GMT -5
So I’m watching Community, one of the geekiest, smartest sitcoms ever made. Late in Season 3, character Ben Chang boasts, “I ate my twin sister in utero.” This seems to be a blatant allusion to Grant Morrison’s 2002 X-Men story in which Xavier Killed his twin sister in a prenatal struggle.This got me wondering what other specific comic book details had been taken into TV and movies. Not just general character mentions like “strong like Superman,” but something more specific that showed a deeper knowledge of our hobby. Dwight Schrute says the same thing in The Office, which is more likely what they are playing off of. As for where he got the reference from, who knows? Vanishing Twin is a thing in real life and is pretty common (like 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 odds with a twin pregnancy, so common that most parents never realised that the mother was pregnant with twins). The "I ate my twin" is a thing that has been going around for a long time (probably taken from biology, there are other species, like sharks where it actually is a common occurence), in reality a dead twin is probably absorbed by the mother if it dies during the early stages.
John Constantine also had a twin that died/was killed by him before their birth (according to who you believe in his story).
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 20, 2020 3:57:57 GMT -5
Personal favourites
Matt Wagner is usually the writer/artist on Mage and Grendel, though in case of Grendel he had some guest artists.
Alan Davis was writer/artist on some of Excalibur and all his Clan Destine issues and his JLA: The Nail mini-series.
Stjepan Šejić is writer/artist on Sunstone, Death Vigil, some of Ravine, Switch and for DC on Harleen.
But there are so, so many.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 14, 2020 3:47:47 GMT -5
.rar en .cbr are exactly the same thing (just like .cbz en .zip are the same thing). It's just a rename of a .rar to a .cbr to link make CDisplay or equivalent be the program to default open it, while you can still user your compression/extraction software to default open the .rar en .zip files.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 13, 2020 3:51:50 GMT -5
What Comic Book Reader software do folks here prefer? When I updated to Windows 10, I had to download CDisplay again but for some reason it doesn't function the same as my old copy. This makes me wonder if I was using something other than CDisplay previously and simply forgot what I ad. I need something that can read .cbr, .cbz and .rar files. Cei-U! I summon one of my most frequently used tools! I use Honeyview, which had some features that CDisplay was lacking at the time (I switched about 10 years ago I think). Differences did take a bit of getting use to.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 9, 2020 4:23:05 GMT -5
Hellblazer; I never got back into the series after it left Vertigo, so can only comment on those first 300 issues but recommendations (also John Constantine was introduced as a character in Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, so might want to check out some of that):
- Hellblazer: Original Sins by Jamie Delano will get you an intro to John as a solo character. There are some references to the events in Swamp Thing and this are mostly short standalone stories.
- Hellblazer: Family Man by Jamie Delano.
- Hellblazer; Dangerous Habits by Garth Ennis is probably the most popular Hellblazer story.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jul 6, 2020 6:59:23 GMT -5
Oblivion has been a couple of things since DeMatteis Iceman, mostly in Gruenwald's Quasar, where Oblivion was coupled to the villain Maelstrom through his avatar/herald Deathurge. In the 2005 GLA series Doorman replaced Deathurge as Oblivion's right hand man, so it makes sense that he plays a part in the new series as well.
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