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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 21, 2018 3:25:45 GMT -5
So a lot of good comics this week (some older ones, but all came out in recent months) Elric #3 (The White Wolf) by Blondel, Cano, Recht and Telo (and off course by Michael Moorcock): The adaption continues. What is there to say? This is Elric, which most of you already know. Is this a new release in French or an English translation of it from Titan? I've gotten the first 2 in English from Titan, as my French is really, really rusty (though I may give the upcoming Conan books from the same publisher a shot if I can get my hands on them since they cannot sell them in the American market). -M It's a translation, but not in english. Haven't seen the translation listed yet on Titan's website, so it may take some months. edit: it was released in France late september 2017 and translation in dutch came out in January 2018. Don't know how long it would take Titan to release it. The introduction was written by Neil Gaiman, so I'd expect a translation sooner or later.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 20, 2018 18:40:45 GMT -5
So a lot of good comics this week (some older ones, but all came out in recent months)
I got Valerian and Laureline "Shingouzlooz Inc." by Lupano and Lauffray. I like it! Christin and Mezieres are a tough act to follow, but this one is a good oneshot. The plot is initially simple: The Shingouzlooz have sent a probe to claim potentially profitable planets. Due to the timetravel technology used in the probe, it went back in time and they inadvertently are now the owners of Earth. Except they are not, because they sold it already. Now Valerian and Laureline have to try to reclaim Earth's freedom while also taking care of their original mission. The parameters of the mission change several times to make things interesting. Artwise, I liked Lauffray's work on Long John Silver, but this one is even better.
Les Vieux Fourneaux #4 (my french is not quite good enough to translate it. Both the german and dutch series are basically The Old Geezers or something like that) by Lupano (again) and Cauuet: The awardwinning series of 2014/2015 continues. The third main character takes a backseat for most of this book as it focuses mostly on Sophie, Antoine and Pierrot. The village is disturbed as the long-expected expansion of the local factory runs into problems: a rare species of grasshopper is found in the fields nearby and environmentalists block the expansion. Our old guys are on opposite sides: one sees the expansion of the factory as the only way for the aging village to get some future, while the other wants to protect the grasshopper to stick it to the Man. As always this series is fun and full of charm. No worldchanging events, just people living their live in a beautifully drawn village in France.
Elric #3 (The White Wolf) by Blondel, Cano, Recht and Telo (and off course by Michael Moorcock): The adaption continues. What is there to say? This is Elric, which most of you already know.
Spirou de "Il s'appelait Ptirou" by Verron and Sente. Sente is the writer that took over Thorgal and XIII from Jean van Hamme (though he has left Thorgal already due to creative differences with Rossinski, the artist), Verron took over Boule et Bill from Roba. Didn't get a chance to read this yet, but it looks very very promising. This series has been hitting it out of the park on just about every of its ..13 now? issues. The first 2-3 issues where artists poking around a bit where they could go with this, but after that it's been a great ride. This time it looks to be a period piece/romance type story set in 1929 during a transatlantic crossing. Hints of Titanic when I look at it (and the story around it seems to imply that this is not Spirou, but a bellboy that inspires Rob-Vel with his creation). Eagerly looking for a long, quiet moment to get around to reading this.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 19, 2018 12:16:26 GMT -5
X-Men Gold Annual #1 Script: Mark Guggenheim and Leah Williams. Art: Alitha Martinez. Cover: Alan Davis (Backup story by Monty Nero, Djibril Morissette-Phan and Michael Garland)
Summary: Kurt, Kitty and Rachel are invited by the Braddocks to their old lighthouse (now rebuild) as Meggan has given birth to their first child, Maggie. Meanwhile, Starhammer, a D'Bari survivor, wants to take this moment to get revenge on the Phoenix by wiping out Earth.
Plot: This was bad, this was very, very bad. I got succered in by the cover, I haven't been reading X-Men lately, only Wolverine's solo-series and Grand Design (though I may be picking up X-Men Red), but an Excalibur reunion is something I'd enjoy. The problem is that Guggenheim and Williams are in a hurry, so we get multiple issues worth of story in 1 issue at a breakneck pace. There are some good ideas here: Meggan's daughter Maggie (I'll get into that name later on), is a supergenius (as all superhero children tend to be) and is able to have intellectual discussions at only 3 months old. Meggan never received any proper education, because of her appearance as a child, and therefore feels that she can't be a good mother to a child that can already read better than her and is depressed. Understandable, but it's resolved 1 panel later by Rachel and Kitty talking to her, but not really addressiing the point. There are many bad ideas here: The Starhammer plotline basically rehashes creatures from space coming for Jean/Rachel once again to punish them for the actions of Dark Phoenix. Rachel shouts: "I was not even born back then.", but with no result. Brian just seems very stoked about being a new father and takes everything in stride. He's basically a beard with a smile this entire issue. The beard looks terrible though. Meggan and Brian asks the three if they could be godparents to Maggie... I'd expect him to ask Betsy first, really. Things I did enjoy: Kurt is pretty good with small children, I enjoy the way he's written here.
Art: The art is pretty basic all around, there are worse artist, but nothing of the art really stands out and the storytelling is off. Made worse by the Alan Davis cover, because it raises expectations.
3/10
Lesson to be learned: Don't judge a book by its cover.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 16, 2018 9:06:55 GMT -5
If you are a straight white American male who was really into superhero comics, than comics in the 70s and 80s were probably better. If you are interested in other things there were some possibilities back then, but there is a lot more available these days.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 13, 2018 8:06:12 GMT -5
Blacklisted by Marvel? What's the story on that? I don't have exact stories but back when he worked for Valiant, Shooter claimed that none of the big two would hire him. Of course thats over 20 years ago and times change. I would love to see him take on Conan one last time. He did some work for Marvel in the early 2000s, so if it was true, it doesn't appear to still be valid.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 10, 2018 17:14:43 GMT -5
Saw this tweet about this series and it just seems to fit so well:
edit: it just seems to hide the URL for me?
Plain text then..: Todd VanDerWerff @tvoti
"David S. Goyer also came SO CLOSE to literally saying, “Everybody knows Krypton blows up. What this story presupposes is, maybe it didn’t?”"
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 9, 2018 10:24:36 GMT -5
I was quite out of Anime in recent years with all my ongoing series ending.
Thanks to partly Netflix (got it recently) and in a large part to Team Fourstar's FourstarBento channel on Youtube, I've been trying out some anime series again.
For those not familiar with Team Fourstar, they are a group of (formerly amateur, by now professional) voice actors who redubbed and recut Dragonball Z (and a few other series) to make it shorter and more of a parody of the original series (but in many ways also making it a better adaption of the series than the original anime with its long stretches of nothing). The Bento channel was set up by them to do reviews of anime series and movies. They have recently done a series where they picked 10 different anime series that started last year and did a survival game with them. The indepth discussions they had made me pick up 2 of the series they really liked (Inuyashiki and Ancient Magus Bride) and I'm looking forward to see if I can watch MMO Junkie somewhere, another series they really liked.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 4, 2018 14:40:33 GMT -5
Haven’t seen it mentioned yet (or maybe I glossed over it), but when Yoda shows up, why the hell is he acting like crazy Yoda that was testing Luke when he first lands on Dagobah in ESB? Not a major complaint, but it was still pretty goofy. Probably as a way to shake Luke out of his funk. Luke was dour and so sure of himself, Yoda needed a way to get question himself.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 4, 2018 8:38:48 GMT -5
There is 30 years between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens. I don't know how old Kylo is supposed to be (Adam Driver is in his mid 30s, but I assume Kylo is younger than that), but if Leia and Han waited 20 years, Kylo would be 10. So unlikely. Luke and Leia are in their mid 50s during The Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. If it was 10 years after Endor, Leia would be in her early 30s. Not that weird an age for a woman to become a mother for the first time, especially one with a busy career. Time can be elastic in movies I guess! Kylo's character makes more sense as a 19 year old than a 35 year old, even without the "robbing the cradle" aspect. I'd put Kylo at early 20s. So the timeline would be: Star Wars: Luke and therefore also Leia are 19 years old. Return of the Jedi: Leia is 23 years old (3 year between Star Wars and Empire Strike Back, one year between Empire and Return of the Jedi) Return of the Jedi+10 years: Leia is busy with being part of restoring the Republic, negotiating with various planet, probably taken responsibility for finding a home for any Alderaan refugees, still being their princess. Gives birth to Ben at age ~33. A Force Awakens: Leia is 53, Ben/Kylo is ~20 years old. Fake edit: I just googled it, Kylo Ren apparently is 29 years old during The Last Jedi. One of the novels has Ben being born shortly after the Battle of Jakku, which took place a year after Return of the Jedi. I'd have moved that up a bit (I'd think that wrapping up the remnants of the old Empire would take more than 1 year), but that is apparently the current canon.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 4, 2018 7:54:26 GMT -5
There is 30 years between Return of the Jedi and the Force Awakens. I don't know how old Kylo is supposed to be (Adam Driver is in his mid 30s, but I assume Kylo is younger than that), but if Leia and Han waited 20 years, Kylo would be 10. So unlikely. Luke and Leia are in their mid 50s during The Force Awakens and the Last Jedi. If it was 10 years after Endor, Leia would be in her early 30s. Not that weird an age for a woman to become a mother for the first time, especially one with a busy career.
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Post by Dizzy D on Jan 4, 2018 5:23:31 GMT -5
She had a job in government and a family, she probably just not had the time to train as a Jedi next to that, because that seemed like a full-time commitment. Also Luke had Obi-Wan and Yoda to train him, Leia only had Luke who was still figuring out how to be a Jedi himself and who remembered Obi-Wan's warnings ("I took it upon myself to train him as a Jedi. I thought that I could instruct him just as well as Yoda. I was wrong.") and Yoda initially refusing to train Luke because he was too old.
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 31, 2017 12:37:06 GMT -5
Playing Mafia III after I picked it up in a Steam sale earlier this year. I like the Mafia series, but they are marketed wrong, so people compare them to sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto. In fact they are narrative focused games that take place on a large city map like Grand Theft Auto, but outside the story missions there is little to do. The attention to detail in these games to recreate the time periods they take place in, is great.
Gameplay wise they have some issues: it's been ages since I played 1 and 2, but 3 has a stealth system that is functional but there are few missions that can be accomplished completely by stealth (or you have to be a far better player than I am *shrug*). The stealth can be used to get the jump on one or two guards, but soon you will run into a cluster of enemies or an ambush where you can't pick them off one at a time. You can only carry 2 weapons at a time, both with very limited ammo and so you don't really become stronger during the game. You gain a little more health and ammo as you go along, but you will not get enough of either to just go for frontal attacks against your opponents. Cars can be quite difficult to destroy in the few missions where you are required to do so.
Overall I enjoy the game though, the need to be clever during fights and the storytelling make it for me.
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 31, 2017 12:16:10 GMT -5
I think I'm in the minority here, because I watched this movie last Friday and I loved it. I also liked the Force Awakens a lot, so perhaps that is a requirement to like this one.
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 24, 2017 5:03:33 GMT -5
I liked Aaron's Strange, but I found it to be the wrong direction for the character. The filler episodes were mediocre to bad, but I'm liking where Cates is going. I also really like the recent incarnations of Loki, so this was a nice follow-up to those issues (kinda missing the Ewing version and Verity though).
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Post by Dizzy D on Dec 22, 2017 9:12:02 GMT -5
X-Men Grand Design #1 Written by Ed Piskor Art by Ed Piskor Summary: The Watcher recounts the story of mutantkind to a Recorder, going back to the fight between Namor and the original Human Torch and ending this episode at the formation of the original X-Men with Jean Grey joining the team. Plot: Been a while since I did this, but this one was interesting. It's printed on the old newspaper (or rather a facimile I think?) and deals with a lot of the original backstory. There is no overarching story, it's connecting the stories of the various mutants together. It changes some of the smaller plotpoints, but as an old school X-Men fan, I was really enjoying the comic. Art: Ed Piskor is an underground comic artist and it shows. For fans of classic superhero art, the art may be offputting, but I'm loving it. Grade:8/10 (note it's pretty expensive at $5.99, so give it a look before you buy it. It's 46 pages though, so per page it's not more expensive than regular comics).
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