First, let's look at a couple of comics:
Swords of the Swashbucklers- Dynamite Entertainment is looking to print a collection featuring the original graphic novel and the 12 issue series. This is a pulpy and beautiful SFF series, so if that's your thing...
Family Man- This is another reprint, this one a crime comic from the unfortunately short lived Paradox Press. It's not seen collection before, as it was a three mini-volume story, and didn't see the explosion Road to Perdition or A History of Violence did.
OK, now, onto some games:
Button Men is coming back, the new version being launched with cards. This is an old two player dice combat game, and is ridiculous quick fun.
Aces & Eights: Reloaded is a new edition of Kenzerco's Western RPG. There's also rules for a minis skirmish game.
Commands and Colors: Tricorne from Compass Games is Richard Borg's C&C engine applied to the American Revolution. Compass Games strictly is a wargame publisher, and this is a good light one. I state this based on my experience with other C&C games.
Fuedalia appears to be an interesting upgrade on the Deck Building mechanic, integrating some resource management as well.
TerrainCrate- If you've got an RPG, or need a diorama for a minis tournament, this has some great looking pieces for you at good pricing, provided you want at least one box.
Farsight- Well, I just found this and it is PRETTY. We've got mechs, artillery and 2-4 players. Yeah, it's not Battletech or Robotech, but it is setup as a boardgame.
I've looked through the fiction, anthology, and periodical categories, and nothing has struck me as noteworthy/trustworthy.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Sunday, April 30, 2017
Thursday, April 27, 2017
Calling Independent Operators
Tuesday, April 25, 2017
Injustice Quick Reviews 2.6
Cower not, fierce reader! Today, I am pleased to present to you the books that helped maintain my sanity during the reading for my last book review. There's no Pulp entry in this review set, due mostly to indecision. But, we do have a great collection of stories to behold.
Wraithkin by Jason Cordova- We've got interstellar war, racism, eugenics, the utopia/distopia dichotomy, and enhanced suits to turn the unwanted into terrifying soldiers. There's also love, brotherhood, sacrifice, and political intrigue. Major crime: Fitting all that coherently into a small package. When's book 2 due? 8 of 10 fell deeds.
War to the Knife ; and Forge a New Blade by Peter Grant- The Laredo Trilogy(only tow books so far) takes place in the same time/space(relatively) as The Maxwell Saga. The writing's a little tighter than the early Maxwell books, and the story is vastly different. We've got a small planet resisting conquest, lots of political intrigue on all major locations, and of course, a good amount of war. Good stuff, and one more to go. 8 of 10 fell deeds.
The Old Man and the Wasteland by Nick Cole- Yeah, I haven't gotten through all 3 yet, but let me tell you: the first story is pretty good. In many ways, it's an obvious take on The Old Man and the Sea, and it knows it. There's plenty of apocalyptic goodness here though, that built Mr. Cole's reputation, and his writing has grown since, so there's good stuff both ways. 7 of 10 fell deeds.
Cartwright's Cavaliers by Mark Wandrey- A shared universe mech/armored suit series with a complex set of alien cultures and a solid coming of age story? Yeah, we've got that and more. A great start for a Hero's Journey tale, and I really want more of Cartwright and Co. 9 of 10 fell deeds.
Asbaran Solutions by Chris Kennedy - Yeah, it's the second book in the world. Different author, so different review. This story is radically different. There's a ton of loss of life, and while there's great motivation for the characters, I can't imagine who'd want to join Asbaran given their death toll. Yeah, great revenge story, though. 7 of 10 fell deeds.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Wraithkin by Jason Cordova- We've got interstellar war, racism, eugenics, the utopia/distopia dichotomy, and enhanced suits to turn the unwanted into terrifying soldiers. There's also love, brotherhood, sacrifice, and political intrigue. Major crime: Fitting all that coherently into a small package. When's book 2 due? 8 of 10 fell deeds.
War to the Knife ; and Forge a New Blade by Peter Grant- The Laredo Trilogy(only tow books so far) takes place in the same time/space(relatively) as The Maxwell Saga. The writing's a little tighter than the early Maxwell books, and the story is vastly different. We've got a small planet resisting conquest, lots of political intrigue on all major locations, and of course, a good amount of war. Good stuff, and one more to go. 8 of 10 fell deeds.
The Old Man and the Wasteland by Nick Cole- Yeah, I haven't gotten through all 3 yet, but let me tell you: the first story is pretty good. In many ways, it's an obvious take on The Old Man and the Sea, and it knows it. There's plenty of apocalyptic goodness here though, that built Mr. Cole's reputation, and his writing has grown since, so there's good stuff both ways. 7 of 10 fell deeds.
Cartwright's Cavaliers by Mark Wandrey- A shared universe mech/armored suit series with a complex set of alien cultures and a solid coming of age story? Yeah, we've got that and more. A great start for a Hero's Journey tale, and I really want more of Cartwright and Co. 9 of 10 fell deeds.
Asbaran Solutions by Chris Kennedy - Yeah, it's the second book in the world. Different author, so different review. This story is radically different. There's a ton of loss of life, and while there's great motivation for the characters, I can't imagine who'd want to join Asbaran given their death toll. Yeah, great revenge story, though. 7 of 10 fell deeds.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Monday, April 24, 2017
Updating without reimagining comics
I know there's been a LOT of talk of the major comic book publishers making comics not fun. They've been doing this by recreating characters in their own images, and taking them away from their roots. They've created new characters solely for virtue signalling, and written blatantly political material, alienating half of the comic book buying population.
Well, I'm going to tell you about two new books that (so far) aren't pulling that garbage. Dynamite Entertainment generally takes the properties it's working with very seriously. Part of this is because of the number of licenses they deal with. Unlike IDW, they don't shove everything into a crossover every few months meaninglessly.
They've got two books now that are both technically crossover books, though it's a bit hard to see them as what most companies would consider such. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: the Big Lie; and The Greatest Adventure are the titles I'm covering now.
Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie is a serious noir story. The characters are still the same ones from the books, albeit a touch older. They still are pursuing truth, and tricking their enemies along the way. They are going without any support from an authority figure, and we see them in what could become real danger. There's the sudden turning a small town will do on a prominent figure if given what appears to be reason. I suspect this mystery and conspiracy goes to deep and high places, and will put the characters into moral quandries.
Like I said, serious noir.
The Greatest Adventure is a nontraditional crossover. ALL of the protagonists are creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan, Korak, the Mucker, Ulysses Paxton, Jason Gridley, and a lot more are here.
While only one issue of this has shipped(and it's a setup issue), I have some high hopes for this. Bill Willingham is writing this(Fables), and the artist is pretty solid, with only a couple of mediocre panels, one of which being a roll call type panel. I'm going to guess that the characters aren't going to be updated even, but merely adapted for working together to stop the threat that caused Tarzan to bring them together. Besides, snowflakes hate ERB, falsely calling him all the names they shove at conservatives and libertarians in SFF.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Well, I'm going to tell you about two new books that (so far) aren't pulling that garbage. Dynamite Entertainment generally takes the properties it's working with very seriously. Part of this is because of the number of licenses they deal with. Unlike IDW, they don't shove everything into a crossover every few months meaninglessly.
They've got two books now that are both technically crossover books, though it's a bit hard to see them as what most companies would consider such. Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: the Big Lie; and The Greatest Adventure are the titles I'm covering now.
Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys: The Big Lie is a serious noir story. The characters are still the same ones from the books, albeit a touch older. They still are pursuing truth, and tricking their enemies along the way. They are going without any support from an authority figure, and we see them in what could become real danger. There's the sudden turning a small town will do on a prominent figure if given what appears to be reason. I suspect this mystery and conspiracy goes to deep and high places, and will put the characters into moral quandries.
Like I said, serious noir.
The Greatest Adventure is a nontraditional crossover. ALL of the protagonists are creations of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Tarzan, Korak, the Mucker, Ulysses Paxton, Jason Gridley, and a lot more are here.
While only one issue of this has shipped(and it's a setup issue), I have some high hopes for this. Bill Willingham is writing this(Fables), and the artist is pretty solid, with only a couple of mediocre panels, one of which being a roll call type panel. I'm going to guess that the characters aren't going to be updated even, but merely adapted for working together to stop the threat that caused Tarzan to bring them together. Besides, snowflakes hate ERB, falsely calling him all the names they shove at conservatives and libertarians in SFF.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Saturday, April 22, 2017
Injustice Book Review: Spinal Tap Edition
Cower not, fierce reader! Today I'm going to approach our text a little differently than normal. For those perhaps unaware, or just wanting to refresh their knowledge of what this review will entail, I present this scene of cinematic history:
You might ask yourself, "What on Earth did our host read to prompt such reviews?" The answer is simple. I took one for the cause of Injustice, for I knew I must give a fair try to one of the most SocJus authors there is: John Scalzi and his book, The Collapsing Empire. First, the fun reviews, then something a bit more serious.
The Collapsing Empire: The Collapsing Career
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi is a morass of retarded sexual obsession and sycophantic virtue signalling, matched only by the lack of anything resembling a compelling story.
The Collapsing Empire: As a substitute for firewood, it is functional but overpriced. I recommend continuing the use of L. Ron Hubbard novels until such time as the price has imploded.
It's good to know that Wil Wheaton is the reader for this. The pairing makes a perfect addition to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners' soundtrack.
Tor has a copyeditor. Who knew? Not Sanderson readers.
Now, more seriously.
If this book were half as good as the SocJus forces state, I would not have needed most of a week to get through 300 some pages. From the Scooby Doo opening to the lazy finish, this book is dissatisfying, and quite often painful. The ships are given creepy song based names. The major nobility of this space opera are merely virtue signalling to Brianna Wu and N K Jemisin, with large amounts of sexual obsession. The "cathedral" in this thing claiming to be a book has no loft for musicians, as though it were designed by someone who had never stepped into a church with an organ loft, and the accompanying balcony for musicians. This author also denies the existence of truth, and the draw of religion being repentance.(He claims people want to be coddled spiritually rather than called to repent. See mainline Protestantism for refutation.)
There's a narrator infodump; by that I mean the narrator actively inserts itself to provide the information. Never have I beheld such poorly written and ham-handed delivery of complex information supposedly crucial to the plot.Unfortunately, I can count the times this book made me laugh: 1. While Tor proved quite definitively that they have a working copyeditor(I didn't find any misspellings or homophone errors), John Scalzi has yet to prove to me he can write out of a paper bag. For the laugh, I generously grant this book 2 of 10 fell deeds.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
You might ask yourself, "What on Earth did our host read to prompt such reviews?" The answer is simple. I took one for the cause of Injustice, for I knew I must give a fair try to one of the most SocJus authors there is: John Scalzi and his book, The Collapsing Empire. First, the fun reviews, then something a bit more serious.
The Collapsing Empire: The Collapsing Career
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi is a morass of retarded sexual obsession and sycophantic virtue signalling, matched only by the lack of anything resembling a compelling story.
The Collapsing Empire: As a substitute for firewood, it is functional but overpriced. I recommend continuing the use of L. Ron Hubbard novels until such time as the price has imploded.
It's good to know that Wil Wheaton is the reader for this. The pairing makes a perfect addition to the Guantanamo Bay prisoners' soundtrack.
Tor has a copyeditor. Who knew? Not Sanderson readers.
Now, more seriously.
If this book were half as good as the SocJus forces state, I would not have needed most of a week to get through 300 some pages. From the Scooby Doo opening to the lazy finish, this book is dissatisfying, and quite often painful. The ships are given creepy song based names. The major nobility of this space opera are merely virtue signalling to Brianna Wu and N K Jemisin, with large amounts of sexual obsession. The "cathedral" in this thing claiming to be a book has no loft for musicians, as though it were designed by someone who had never stepped into a church with an organ loft, and the accompanying balcony for musicians. This author also denies the existence of truth, and the draw of religion being repentance.(He claims people want to be coddled spiritually rather than called to repent. See mainline Protestantism for refutation.)
There's a narrator infodump; by that I mean the narrator actively inserts itself to provide the information. Never have I beheld such poorly written and ham-handed delivery of complex information supposedly crucial to the plot.Unfortunately, I can count the times this book made me laugh: 1. While Tor proved quite definitively that they have a working copyeditor(I didn't find any misspellings or homophone errors), John Scalzi has yet to prove to me he can write out of a paper bag. For the laugh, I generously grant this book 2 of 10 fell deeds.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
Tuesday, April 18, 2017
More branding.
Dawn Witzke has allowed us the pleasure of another design, using the end tagline. I'm only putting this in villain colors, since they're going to paint you as the bad guy anyway.
Two quick notes: 1. Wash these inside out, the white will wear quickly in the wash. 2. Per tall sizes, I looked and couldn't find a POD shirt company with tall sizes reliably available. That said, if cryptofashion decides they want these, I'll gladly partner with them(doubtful, but I can hope). Tall sizes are an add on there, and they special order those, as they aren't regular stock.
Oh yeah, here's the shirt:
Yep. Pretty cool. More soon, also.
You know what? Just read the shirts. They got it covered.
Two quick notes: 1. Wash these inside out, the white will wear quickly in the wash. 2. Per tall sizes, I looked and couldn't find a POD shirt company with tall sizes reliably available. That said, if cryptofashion decides they want these, I'll gladly partner with them(doubtful, but I can hope). Tall sizes are an add on there, and they special order those, as they aren't regular stock.
Oh yeah, here's the shirt:
Yep. Pretty cool. More soon, also.
You know what? Just read the shirts. They got it covered.
Monday, April 17, 2017
Pulp Comics: The Rocketeer
Fierce readers, when you want pulp characters in comics, the biggest names came straight out of the pulp era: The Shadow, Doc Savage, Tarzan, Conan, and more. The Rocketeer fits right in there with them, despite coming into existence far later. I am not talking about the Rocketeer movie by Disney, though that is a fine take on the character that is a pretty good adaptation, though some changes were made to enlarge the audience and appeal of the story.
For the curious, I'm strictly concerning myself with the original works by the creator, Dave Stevens. There are quite a few more recent works published by IDW and other artists and writers; what I've read was pretty good, but it's not Dave Stevens work.
This is going to be SPOILER HEAVY!
Our hero has lady troubles. He's a pilot in a flying circus scraping by, and his girlfriend Betty is an "actress" getting attention from a Hollywood photographer. The photographer, Marco of Hollywood, is a real piece of scum. Can't really blame anyone for looking, though. She's, um .... let me find my words...
Yeah.
Anyway, some Nazis try to steal his plane, and have left the prototype pack in it. He of course, starts finding trouble right after using to save a friend. Like I said, the movie adaptation is pretty good.
So yeah, we've got Nazis, government spies, the most storied recluse millionaire there is, and little Cliff Secord trying to save the day so he can get the dough to feel like he can keep his girl.
Mr. Stevens only finished two short story arcs, though, and the second ties this far more to the world of the pulps. Betty is on a plane to catch a boat to Europe with Marco, and Cliff is trying to catch up to her to get her back.
Once he gets to New York, he gets a job offer from an old buddy who helps him find Betty. Then, of course Cliff confronts her, his jealousy foremost in his mind right now. After a brawl interrupted by a very obvious tribute to the Shadow, that skirts the edge very closely, but there's never any use of hypnosis, black outfit, the laugh, etc.
Cliff's broke, so he takes a job for our "Jonas" that involves some carnival workers that Cliff used to work with being killed. Yeah, we've got a nice little Shadow short filled with danger, death, and revenge. Cliff heads back, but before he gets home:
End.
Now, since then, there's been a myriad of crossovers and a good amount of other stories. He's worked with Captain America, Batman, The Spirit, and more. The costume is popular as crazy for some cosplayers, though it's not as Cliff, but as Betty wearing the outfit.(not in Steven's work, by the way).
In other news, try to keep an eye out for a special anniversary Injustice Book Review later this week.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
For the curious, I'm strictly concerning myself with the original works by the creator, Dave Stevens. There are quite a few more recent works published by IDW and other artists and writers; what I've read was pretty good, but it's not Dave Stevens work.
This is going to be SPOILER HEAVY!
Our hero has lady troubles. He's a pilot in a flying circus scraping by, and his girlfriend Betty is an "actress" getting attention from a Hollywood photographer. The photographer, Marco of Hollywood, is a real piece of scum. Can't really blame anyone for looking, though. She's, um .... let me find my words...
Yeah.
Anyway, some Nazis try to steal his plane, and have left the prototype pack in it. He of course, starts finding trouble right after using to save a friend. Like I said, the movie adaptation is pretty good.
So yeah, we've got Nazis, government spies, the most storied recluse millionaire there is, and little Cliff Secord trying to save the day so he can get the dough to feel like he can keep his girl.
Mr. Stevens only finished two short story arcs, though, and the second ties this far more to the world of the pulps. Betty is on a plane to catch a boat to Europe with Marco, and Cliff is trying to catch up to her to get her back.
Once he gets to New York, he gets a job offer from an old buddy who helps him find Betty. Then, of course Cliff confronts her, his jealousy foremost in his mind right now. After a brawl interrupted by a very obvious tribute to the Shadow, that skirts the edge very closely, but there's never any use of hypnosis, black outfit, the laugh, etc.
Cliff's broke, so he takes a job for our "Jonas" that involves some carnival workers that Cliff used to work with being killed. Yeah, we've got a nice little Shadow short filled with danger, death, and revenge. Cliff heads back, but before he gets home:
Now, since then, there's been a myriad of crossovers and a good amount of other stories. He's worked with Captain America, Batman, The Spirit, and more. The costume is popular as crazy for some cosplayers, though it's not as Cliff, but as Betty wearing the outfit.(not in Steven's work, by the way).
In other news, try to keep an eye out for a special anniversary Injustice Book Review later this week.
When you play Social Justice, the world loses.
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