The third issue of DeadWorld is called Mississippi Queen, after the song from Mountain. I'm going to assume that you haven't haven't heard it before.
In the beginning of the issue the characters are listening to the song on the bus (I'm assuming on a tape player, since there aren't radio stations anymore and now CDs will never be invented).
This issue picks up almost immediately after the last, with the characters on the run after getting out of Slaughter, and filling up the bus with gas again.
I think that we get more hints that there is more to what is going on in DeadWorld than just zombies. Like the scene from last issue (with the character who I said would be important), the cover hints at magical creatures who aren't zombies. These impish creatures are definitely something weird and different.
The reason that this issue is entitled Mississippi Queen has to do with the characters finding a riverboat. It makes sense to hide out on a boat, right? Zombies can't swim after all. Right? Obviously nothing will go wrong with this plan.
One of the things that happens, once the characters get onto the boat, is that we get reminded that despite everything that is happening, these are just kids. We get one of the rare glimpses into seeing them be kids, rather than zombie killers.
The respite is a short one because King Zombie has found them again. I need to look a bit more closely at the first two issue now, because I'm not sure if he has been called anything other than "the motorcycle riding geek" by the characters. We know his name, as readers, but that might have just been because he was answering the letter column. Silly, I know, but still fun.
Zombies don't have to be able to swim.
When Dan encounters King Zombie, this might be where the characters first discover that he can talk, as well. These talking zombies are also able to exert control over the less intelligent zombies as well, calling the zombies to them and forcing them to act. The shore is swarming with zombies as King Zombie forces the boat back to the shore, surprising the characters with an attack of zombies that they have to fight off.
We get another interlude in this issue as well, and this time the "crazy" character who might have been hallucinating those fantastic creatures is given a name. We're still not sure if what he sees are hallucinations or reality, but the continuation of the combined with this issues cover hints that these may not be hallucinations.
Once again I am amazed at what Vince Locke is able to convey with his art. Yes, it is very cartoony in places (particularly this part where he is trying to cast doubt on the reality of the scene), but his art is just as instrumental in creating the new reality of the DeadWorld as is the writing.
Something is growing with these interludes. Were the zombies somehow intentional? It appears that this Deake (and people he knew) is somehow behind the zombie influx...but this seems to be saying that he might have been manipulated by outside forces into doing whatever happened that brought the dead back.
We still have a lot to find out.
The issue ends with zombies swarming onto the riverboat, the characters trapped. Dan is unconscious, perhaps incapacitated, and the characters face overwhelming odds while down their best fighter. What is going to happen next?
In issue two of DeadWorld we get a lot of violence and combat. It really isn't that much different from the violence and combat in the first issue, but much of this issue hits us with the fact that this is a story about survival. Not just this issue, but the DeadWorld comic in general.
The schoolbus runs out of gas after the "gang" flees the onslaught of zombies from the last issue. They have a plan, sort of, to get somewhere out West where there are fewer people and hopefully fewer zombies. Mike, the erstwhile leader of the group, goes into the closest town for gasoline and maybe a spare vehicle.
The characters not only need a plan, they need to be able to get along better with each other. This isn't because of worry over someone's feelings...this is a matter of survival. Keep in mind that, as far as the characters know, the group of them are the only survivors of this zombie invasion. They haven't seen any other living people yet. This is why Mike takes Dan with him into town. He knows that, as the leader, he has to find a way to get everyone cooperating and working together. If they can't trust each other, they are not going to survive.
The closest town? Slaughter, Louisiana, and (of course there are zombies).
There is also an interlude, a very psychedelic interlude where we are introduced to a character who is running through the woods and seeing things that may (or may not) be there. This is going to be an important character to the story, but I'm not going to give that away here. Not just yet. There is also a page that shows why Vince Locke is a great artist, even at this early stage in his career. If you really need a reason to pick up this issue of DeadWorld, this page will probably be that reason. This page also hints that there is something more to all of this than zombies. We will get to that as well.
The man from the interlude may (or may not) be being chased by these creatures. You aren't going to find monsters this weird in even the weirdest of the weird fantasy RPGs. This page is a bestiary all on its own.
However, this interlude is going to be very important to the overall story of DeadWorld. Just not yet.
After the interlude we go back to Mike and Dan in the town. Like any plan, theirs starts off working well...and then zombies. There are a lot of zombies in this town, more probably than could be accounted for by the dead rising. It is almost starting to look as if a lot of people have been transformed into zombies as well. Is this a plague of some sort?
The violence is cartoony at times in these early issues, but that's intentional. It seems to me that it is trying to make the situation of zombies being all over more "real" by notching up the violence to suit the surreality of the situation. I could also be talking out of my ass.
The boys make it out, and head back to the bus with a new truck and a bunch of gasoline. That mission is accomplished without any harm to Mike and Dan. Back at the bus we have the relationships developing more as the kid tells Chris that John (who has been unconscious since the last zombie attack) loves her.
Once again we get the blend of zombies, violence and relationships that will be a hallmark of the DeadWorld comics. There is going to be interesting development to our characters as they explore their new world and the people (living and non-living in it. Honestly, I think that is one of my favorite things about this comic, is that there is a story that is unfolding. It isn't an accidental either, as we'll see in these posts there is a plan to this book. We also haven't seen the last of the intelligent zombies either. They are very important to this story.
Next week we will see what happens next, in issue three.
If you like this post, click on the link at the beginning of it and buy the issue in electronic form from from DriveThruComics. It is an affiliate link, so it will help out the blog and you're making a purchase from the creators...so that helps them out as well. It's only .99 cents, and for that you get the incredible Vince Locke page earlier in this post. That alone is worth almost a dollar.
So, every Friday now I am going to post about an issue of the Grant Morrison comic The Invisibles. Part of me wants to just pick issues at random and talk about them, but I'll be good and stick to talking about the run in order. I'm going to be honest, despite having loved comics like The Doom Patrol and Sebastian O, I was not a huge fan of this comic at first. The first story arc just didn't connect with me like some of Morrison's previous work had done.
I read the first story arc and decided that the book wasn't for me.
Then months later I read about the controversy surrounding the book in the comic press (back in the days when we read magazines to find out about what was going on in comics). DC Comics had some dialog changed in the book, in one case a line spoken by the Marquis de Sade was changed so that it would not sound as if children were being "used" in the story, and in another case a reference to Walt Disney was blacked out. What is interesting is the fact that both bits were restored to what Morrison intended in the collected editions.
However, the article that talked about the censoring also talked about the second story arc Arcadia, and the article intrigued me enough to pick the book back up and start reading it again. I didn't stop until the book ended its run.
The Invisibles has received a lot of press and critical thought over the years. I am not sure what this series is going to contribute to that body of work, but we will see. My intention isn't to be scholarly or to compile annotations. I am just going to go through each issue, give my thoughts and impressions and talk about what I saw in that book. Breaking down all of the magical symbolism will probably take a stronger mind than mine.
Beetles and Beatles play an important role in this first issue. Beetles play an important part in the symbolism of birth and rebirth, and that is the running theme of this first story arc (and most of the run of The Invisibles as well). Dane McGowan must be reborn into his role of Jack Frost in order to save the world from Armageddon. This is a theme that Morrison uses often. His JLA run dealt with the Earth's super-heroes running up against the ultimate Armageddon in the form of the sleeping God Weapon Mageddon. This wasn't an unusual theme around the millennium.
John Lennon is the other Beatle toplay a part in the story. Dane see him talking with Stuart Sutcliffe on the banks of a Liverpool river, a moment of soft time when the past and the future were able to touch. Later in the issue Lennon is adapted in Chaos Magick style into a psychedelic Godshead and summoned by King Mob as an augury of the future.
Is Lennon actually being summoned, or it is just a metafictional trick of King Mob's unconscious mind, telling him what he already knows to be true? In a book like The Invisibles the answer can go either way.
For a lot of people, Grant Morrison is a fairly incomprehensible writer. He certainly doesn't write the typical comic book stories, whether he's working on a book like The Invisibles or comics like New X-Men or JLA. He has a certain psychedelic style (of which the above page is fairly representative) and an enthusiasm for the medium that I find contagious. I may not like everything that he does, but when he is on I think he is one of the best writers in comics.
The antagonists introduced in this issue show two of Morrison's influences writ large: Williams S. Burroughs and H.P. Lovecraft. The reason that I use the more generic term of "antagonist," because I am not always convinced that King Mob and his Invisibles cell are always the hero of this story. Even as the "good guys," they do a lot of things that don't set them that far from the antagonists.
Control is bad. Freedom is awesome. It is Michael Moorcock's Law versus Chaos, D&D great, eternal conflict, done up in comic book form. This isn't anything new, really. DC Comics has used a version of Moorcock's Law vs. Chaos for decades in their book. This won't be the only time that Moorcock's influence will show up in this book.
I think that for me, a big part of the appeal of this book (once it really had my attention) was the fact that it took a lot of the things that I was interested in: Moorcock, Lovecraft, Burroughs; and wrote about them in a new context. Throughout the run we will see visits from the Divine Marquis, Borges and P.K. Dick on the evolving story as well.
One thing that I will likely get to in one of these posts was the Grant Morrison Versus Warner Brothers story that happened, as Morrison claimed that the movie The Matrix took some of the concepts of The Invisibles without crediting him for them. As we will see, the theme of initiation (so important to occult thinking) will be important to this first story arc, and as initiation is a fairly universal literary/mystic theme it is not unusual that stories that deal with the theme will have some points of commonality.
Corridors are an important theme as well, as they are symbolic of journeys and traveling. This is something that will pop up more than once as we go through these comics.
Let's get down to the nitty gritty. How did this comic hold up? I almost wish that I hadn't read these comics in a long while, so that I could come at them with a fresher perspective. That said, I do still think that they hold up fairly well. Grant Morrison's The Invisibles is part of a British cultural "invasion," not all that different from the invasion lead by The Beatles in the 60s. Morrison's work represents a comic/literary aspect, falling in step with musicians like Blur and Oasis, of a movement that took the popular culture of the past and synthesized it into something that was representative of the (then) current times. A lot of the fears and insecurities that The Invisibles comments upon are still plaguing the world as well.
With The Invisibles, Morrison gives us a millennial view of Britian in comic book form, not dis-similar to what Jamie Delano gave us in the 80s with Hellblazer, the first John Constantine solo comic. Both of these comics are an attempt to look into the psyche of the nation of their respective times. In a way, it builds upon the British comics culture started by magazines like 2000AD and creators like Pat Mills.
As we will see, more even than mainstream books like JLA or even Aztek, The Invisibles will show us the heights and depths of Morrison's powers as a creator. Some of his greatest storytelling is going to happen in these pages, and we are going to go along for the ride.
Why should you read The Invisibles if you haven't already? Well, if you like any of the authors that I have listed as being influential on this comic then you might like this comic as well. If you are looking for a comic that makes you think, is more than just a passive form of storytelling, and that deals with more than just comic book super-heroes, you should check out The Invisibles. Sometimes horror, sometimes fantasy and sometimes science fiction, this comic is most likely the story that Morrison was meant to tell in comics. So, even if you have only read his work on Batman, or Action Comics, check out a couple of the early issues of this on Comixology or pick up the first trade from your local comic store (or your preferred internet seller) and give it a try. There's a lot in here for gamers to find as well. If you're looking for something new for your modern horror or adventure campaigns, you could do much worse than to tap into the energies of Grant Morrison's The Invisibles.
Next week we will be back with a look at the second issue.
Now, since music was an important influence on Morrison's writing I am going to close with an unrelated music video. I think that it ties in well enough with the story of Dane that I named this post after a quote from it.
Today I start my series of commentary and criticism on the DeadWorld comic. I am going to be focusing mostly on the original run of the series, published originally through Arrow Comics and eventually finding its home with Caliber Comics. If you want to read along, you can pick up this issue of DeadWorld through DriveThruComics for only 99 cents in electronic form. Yes, that is an affiliate link, I hope that you will support both the original creators and the blog.
Warning, there are spoilers.
As a disclosure, I really wasn't a fan of DeadWorld at the time that it came out. I was a late comer to the comic. A few years ago, when I was part of another RPG publisher, I approached Caliber publisher Gary Reed about the rights to Baker Street for role-playing, unfortunately they weren't available but as we talked about his other properties we came to DeadWorld. We talked and made a deal to bring DeadWorld to role-playing, but (as with many things in this business) it did not work out. Caliber Comics published some incredibly rich world, and hopefully one day they will end up in a role-playing game from someone.
The short version of this story is that, while researching the book for the writing of the RPG, I came to be a big fan of DeadWorld. While I am going to be talking about the classic run, the book is still out today through IDW and you can probably still find the Image Comics edition trades in comic stores.
What made DeadWorld so cool, right out of the gate? Two words:Vince Locke. The cover from the first issue of the comic almost lets you know what what you are getting in for with this comic. Zombies, of course.
The story starts in Louisiana. We don't know why, and this is mostly because the main characters don't know either, but the dead have risen and the world is in chaos. Fans of the original Night of the Living Dead will recognize this set up. In fact, this first issue has George Romero's finger prints all over it. The characters are fighting for survival. The geography is very limited. Characters get hurt. However, it manages to keep above being a pastiche and rapidly becomes its own thing.
Right off the bat you start to get an idea of who the characters are, and some of their social relationships. While some of these people were friends before the zombies came, some of them were also thrown together out of a need for survival.
In this page we have the introductions of Dan, Donna, Mickey, Joey (Spud), and Dan. In just a few panels Stuart Kerr, the writer, gives each character a personality and starts to set up the interpersonal dynamics of their relationships. We know that the dead rising didn't just happen, but it is still recent enough that no one really knows yet what to do about things.
One of the things that fascinated me about this, coming to DeadWorld after the fact, was the fact that this is a world where the internet did not yet exist and where the media was not as ubiquitous as it is nowadays. This actually adds a layer of authenticity to the comic for me, and helps support why people don't really know what happened. There were no embedded reporters going down to the zombie onslaught on live television, or streaming internet video. This makes DeadWorld almost an alternate past of what the world could have turned into, if zombies had destroyed civilization 30-some years ago.
And then, of course, zombies attack:
For many, this is going to be the meat of the comic. The thing is that it isn't. To be honest, particularly in hindsight, a horde of attacking zombies isn't any big deal. The really important part of the story, the thing that was scary and intriguing for me, came a few pages before the zombie attack.
That's right. These zombies are organized, and their leaders cannot only talk...but they cane think as well. These panels gives us our first look at King Zombie, an important character who will come up in future issues (and posts). And not only can they talk and think...they can ride motorcycles.
How metal is that?
Of course, the motorcycle-riding zombies scare the hell out of the characters, who have never seen or heard of such things. This is also, for me, what sets DeadWorld apart from other zombie comics out there. They weren't afraid to do things that you wouldn't expect. Over the course of these posts we will see more of these intelligent zombies, their plans and their actions.
Kerr and Locke hit the ground running with this first issue of DeadWorld. We already have an idea of what the world is like (the characters are forced to scavenge and forage for food and materials, zombies are pretty prevalent in the world, society's infrastructure has collapsed) and then they pull the rug out from under the readers and the characters by showing that there might be an intelligent force behind all of this, guiding things.
So, this is our first DeadWorld Monday post. I may periodically supplement these with gaming related posts as well, but mostly I am going to talk about the comic, what makes it cool and why I think you should find it for yourself. Go back up to the top of the post and click on the link and buy your own copy of the comic.
Looking for some cool, handmade dicebags to move your dice from place to place? Look no further than +Michael Althauser and Greyed Out Productions. You can order through their Etsy store, or contact Michael for custom orders. Michael sent a couple of his bags to me to review, and I have to say that I am impressed.
First, some pictures of the bags...
The bags that I received were the Dungeon Map Bag and the Dwarven Anvil Mini Bag. Both bags are made of good quality fabric. The Dungeon Map Bag was lined with suede, while the Dwarven Anvil was lined with a linen material. I'm not sure if the camera on my cell phone does them justice because these are some really good dice bags. The stitching is strong, straight (a very important quality to stitching I am told), and the cords will definitely hold a bag full of dice.
Of course, the first thing that I did was fill them with dice, so we could get some dice porn...I mean see how they look. To help demonstrate the sizes of the bags, I put the same dice into both bags.
I was able to fit two full sets of dice, two sets of Fudge dice, and an assortment of percentile, d20s, odds and ends dice and my hit location die into both of the bags. I was also able to put my Fudge dice bag (with six sets of Fudge dice in it) on top of the Dungeon Map bag and even close the bag.
I really like these dice bags. The Dungeon Map bag will become my new dice bag of choice, and it is good for traveling. I then crammed the rest of my dice that weren't in the Dungeon Map bag into the Dwarven Anvil bag, and it took the durability test like a trouper. This bag is coming with me on my trip to Las Vegas next week, which will give me a great chance to check out its durability.
Now, the Dungeon Map Bag is $20 and the Dwarven Anvil mini bag is $13.99 (plus shipping). Would I pay for these dice bags? Hell yes. To be honest, I've used the same old dice bag that I got back in college in the 80s, and it has really seen better days. Every gamer needs dice bags, and these are stylish and very well made. Go to the link at the beginning of this post for the Etsy store, or contact Michael through G+ (I linked his Google+ profile at the beginning of the post as well). Order a bunch of bags and tell them that the Dorkland! blog sent you!
Every now and then I'll nose around what the people in my Google+ circles are doing outside of that site. A kind of recent follower of the last few months has been the +& Publishing Group. They do a zine (electronic only, it seems) about AD&D. Not OSRIC, or any of the many retroclones. They talk about AD&D and their AD&D games.
I downloaded the first issue (they're up to seven issues at the time of this writing) and gave it a look. You can see the cover to it in this post. This zine is geared towards the OSR fan, and those who might want to become fans of the OSR.
The layout of this issue of & Magazine is simple and utilitarian. I don't consider this a negative, on the whole, but in this case it does make the reading a bit monotonous on the screen. I will have to look at some other issues another time in see if this has improved. The issue about the Inner Planes does look like it would be right up my alley.
The focus of this issue is low level and starting characters. This is something that I would like to see tackled more often because the fragility of old school D&D/AD&D characters at low levels can be a hurdle for some, particularly those who have never played old school games. Advice from those experiences with play of the game is even more handy.
The article "Tactical Studies Reviews For Novices" has some practical advice for creating low level parties. Combined with the "Keeping 1st Level Parties Alive" article, you get some great advice on how to put together a group of adventurers that will survive (at least their first level) and at least survive to another day. The advice ranges from weapon to spell selection that will optimize your party's chances of survival. Since not every group may have that special player who can do this for the group (as +Josh Thompson does in our weekly group), having someone explain these procedures will really help a lot of starting old school players. Obviously, some may not like some of the advice (like "pull your punches against the characters") but, honestly, this is an activity where everyone is gathered to have fun. I doubt that "fun" for a lot of players entails the wholesale slaughter of their characters over and over. When we were playing Swords & Wizardry I kept things from getting fatal on a number of occasions. or I would at least provide the tools for recovery (if the players saw fit to use them). Of course I have also been gaming for almost 35 so I know when to fold up, and when to hold up, in a game.
Death happens in role-playing games, but I am of the opinion that when it does it should be because of heroic sacrifice or something similar, and not because of stupidity or randomness. I am, however, weird in this regard.
However, as I said, I really liked giving this advice to players and GMs. I would like to see more "primers" on old school play that address survivability in this manner.
One flaw, particularly in the "That Savage Kobold" article, is something that is much too prevalent among elements of old school gamers. That is the whole "grognard" (a word that I don't use in a positive way) idea that "these new kids don't know what they are doing." Combined with a fundamental lack of understanding of how businesses work (which is at least missing from this article) can create a toxic environment. Change is good, my friends. While this article is well enough written, it seems to take its entire basis from a number of misconceptions that could otherwise be done away with.
The article on point buy character creation was also a good one, and fit well into the theme of making survivable first level characters. I like the handling of purchasing high ability scores, it seems like it would help fight min/maxing at that level of the character creation. Balanced? Well, we know my feelings on "balance" in role-playing games. Balance is really just a myth, and a lot of what gets bandied around as being a discussion of balanced character creation has a lot more to do with spotlight time than anything else. There are always going to be occasions when a character is better at something, this is part of the nature of niche protection in games of the D&D stream. Despite this, the article is a good one, and has some interesting ideas that can be integrated into people's games. For people who do not like random ability score generation, point buy can be a good alternative to that, when handled properly.
The rest of this issue is rounded out with the usual fun things: equipment. new magic items and monsters. In this regard, the magazine does not disappoint. I enjoyed the ecology (even though I rarely use these sorts of things in my dungeons) and writeup for the carrion crab. From a GM's view, it seems like a fun little monster to bedevil characters with. I loved the idea of the equipment packs. This is something else that more old school games should embrace. There is nothing as tedious as combing through the equipment lists trying to find the right pieces of equipment and balance out the encumbrance. Bam! Buy a pack...you know what is in it and get a pre-figured weight. Your character is ready for spelunking.
Over all, this was a solid issue and a good start. I look forward to browsing through the site's archives and seeing what else & Magazine has to offer. With solid writing, backed by the experience of play, this magazine has a good foundation to start from, and the few shaky philosophical misconceptions can be worked around. You definitely need to check & Magazine out and download some issues.
Hell Bent is Devon Monk's newest novel, a continuation of the setting from the Allie Beckstrom books that features supporting characters from that series in a leading role. Shame Flynn and Terric Conley have been promoted to the stars of the new Broken Magic series.
You don't have to have read the Allie Beckstrom books to understand or appreciate this book because they fill in the bits and pieces that you need to understand the story. That said, if you haven't read Monk's Allie Beckstrom books, I am very disappointed in you. You need to read them. Now.
I will admit that I have had trepidations about this book, since I first saw it announced. I liked Shame, as a supporting character, and Terric was never really developed enough to my taste to be a lead character. Of course neither really was Zayvion Jones.
Regardless, I picked up the book and gave it a chance. My trepidation did not go away immediately. I found the first half of the book to be slow paced and muddied by inconsistent characterizations of the leads. It seemed to me that Monk was having a difficulty with getting into the mindset, the maleness, of her characters, particularly Shame. The action and the characterizations did pick up around the middle of the book, and she seemed to be getting a much stronger read on the voice of Shame. It was still inconsistent, but it did better. By the end of the book her portrayal of the character did get legs, but it still seemed to be a bit of a struggle. The slowness of the first part of the book didn't bother me as much, the first couple of Allie Beckstrom books could be slow burners, until she got a hold of the overarching plot of the series.
Shame's romance in the book is obviously setting the tone for the rest of this series, but it wasn't like there needed to be more reasons for the "heroes" of the story to chase down the bad guy. All of that was set up pretty strongly in the Beckstrom books.
Before thinking that I am only negative on this, I did enjoy the book as a whole. Once the plot settled into place and the new bad guys appeared on the stage, the book really took off. It wasn't as breakneck as the plots in the last few of the Beckstrom books, but it was still a good, solid, enjoyable plot. The new supporting characters of Dash and Dessa are well-fleshed out, even if Dash's full name is a bit silly.
I would recommend picking this novel up. Not as quickly as I would recommend the Beckstrom books, but it is still an enjoyable and diverting read. Hell Bent is an entertaining book, and I look forward to the next book and the further developments of Shame Flynn and Terric Conley.
I do include the book on my list of holiday gifts on our last Geeky Voices Carry vblog/podcast.
I haven't talked about music in a while on here, so I thought that I would mention a couple of new CDs that have come out in the last couple of weeks. In this post I am going to talk about Arcade Fire's Reflektor and Diane Birch's Speak A Little Louder. What do the two have in common? Not much, but they are two strong records. Let's talk about why.
It has been three years since Arcade Fire's last album, The Suburbs. I have to admit that I was a late adopter of The Suburbs, but it really grew on me. It was a haunting, in places, reflection on urban and suburban life in the early 21st century with cyberpunk dystopian overtones to it. Once the record grew on me, I would have thought that it would have been hard to top. The Suburbs has spent so much time in my car stereo that it might be getting grooves in it.
Reflektor manages to be a follow-up to a strong album without going back over the same ground again. Fans of The Suburbs will definitely find songs on this that they will like (mid-tempo slow burners like Afterlife, Here Comes The Night Time II and Supersymmetry are all reminiscent tracks) on this, but it is much more than The Suburbs II. Reflektor, the opening track, starts the record with the expected Arcade Fire flourish. It is a catchy and upbeat track that draws you into the album. This song is just one remix away from being a strong danceable track. We Exist follows up with the sort of indie pop/dance track that you would expect from Arcade Fire, and Flashbulb Eyes flirts with the lyrical approach that the band is known for, with a sound that fuses their normal sound with an almost Tropical vibe.
I was not a big fan of Arcade Fire before The Suburbs, but something about that album really clicked with me. On Reflektor, the band takes everything that I liked and cranked it up into a record that is probably going to be a favorite of mine for a while (at least until they put out something new that manages to surpass this).
Reflektor is a solid album, and a great follow-up to The Suburbs. If you haven't given this band a chance yet, you should check out this record. So far, this record feels like it will have the same infectious multi-listen groove to it that The Suburbs does, making me want to keep playing this disc. Definitely check it out and pick it up.
Next up is Speak A Little Louder, the third release from Diane Birch. If you have not yet heard Diane Birch and her soul-infused, almost Southern gospel approach, go back and get her two earlier releases The Bible Belt and The Velveteen Age (in collaboration with The Phenomenal Handclap Band). Be particularly certain to catch her infectious cover of The Sisters of Mercy's This Corrosion.
Are you back now?
Speak A Little Louder definitely has its ups and downs, and while nowhere near as strong of a record as her debut, The Bible Belt, it still is a showcase for Birch's great voice and piano playing. On tracks like Lighthouse, Love & War and UNFKD Birch is at her strongest on this release. Pretty In Pain and All The Love You Got all also both good songs. Birch channels her inner Ann Wilson to good effect in Frozen Over.
I am torn on this because, while Birch's singing is still excellent, it doesn't feel like the writing on this record pushes towards the potential of her voice. It is a solid record, but most likely one that will not be burning up any one's Best of 2013 lists. Give this a listen or two, and then go back to The Bible Belt for the good stuff.
There is a lot of pre-judging that goes on in the geek "community" towards shows on the CW Network. True, there's a lot of crap on the network, but it is television and there's a lot of crap everywhere. However, the existence of crap doesn't mean that everything is crap. I've never quite understood the feelings of vocal segments of the geek "community" towards the network, particularly when most of them claim to not even watch the programming. That is something that I really don't understand. I suspect that a lot of these feelings come from CW's programming targeting a younger demographic, other than these "communities."
Regardless of the sour grapes, I have been excited because a favorite show from my childhood is getting a revamp from the network: The Tomorrow People. I have been excited about this show since I heard about it during the summer. I hoped that it would honor the original program, while at the same time making it into something contemporary and relevant to audiences today. Like I said on someone's Facebook feed last night, who really wants to see a show about pacifistic space hippies nowadays? The original UK version of The Tomorrow People was a wonderful show that inspired my childhood (and a long time love of psionics in role-playing games as well), however I don't want my nostalgia for the past to get in the way of something new and wonderful in its own way. Nostalgia can be as much of a curse with fandoms, causing people to be conservative and want the exact same thing out of new revamps that they got out of the originals. I'm not the same kid who watched reruns of the show on Nickelodeon back in the early 80s, and I don't want the exact same show. I want an homage, yes, but I want something new and spectacular as well.
Guess what? I got that last night as I watched the pilot of the new version of The Tomorrow People. I loved the show. This is the best revamp of an SF show since Christopher Eccleston pulled on a leather jacket to become the Ninth Doctor.
We still have the basics of the original show: a conflict between Homo Superior and Homo Sapiens, the Tomorrow People being unable to kill, and a talking computer named Tim. To be honest, I didn't even expect all of these things out of the episode. I certainly didn't expect that Tim would be in the new show. That bit made me particularly happy.
Yes, the violence is a bit more than in the original series. While unable to kill, the Tomorrow People can still get into fights and beat the crap out of other people. To be honest, the fact that they can do that is a bit less dickish of a plot element than the "kids" keeping around some "saps" to do a bit of the old ultraviolence on their behalf.
I really want to talk about Mark Pellegrino's and speculate about what I hope that the character will be, but that is too much of a spoiler...so I will wait. I will likely talk about that character and my hopes on our next Geeky Voices Carry podcast regardless. By then I'll also have a few episodes of the show under my belt to discuss, so if you want to hear more of my opinions in a more spoiler-laden environment, you'll have to wait until then.
Overall, I liked the show. The pilot turned out to be much better than I expected it to be, and I will keep watching. The CW has delivered a show that is an homage to the original, while creating its own thing at the same time. It is new and fresh, with new spins on the ideas, while still be reverent to the source. I recommend watching this show, and I really think that the people who won't watch CW just because it is CW need to get over themselves because they are missing a great new show.
Have you heard of Hermes Press? I will admit that I had never heard of them, until an announcement on one of the comics websites talked about a new Buck Rogers comic written and drawn by Howard Chaykin. Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a bigfan of Chaykin's work. While I still haven't had a chance to get the comic that set me on to this path, that one article lead me down a collector's rabbit hole that lead me to one of my favorite comic characters, King Feature's The Phantom.
In addition to "traditional" floppy comics, Hermes Press also does a number of high end collector's restored editions of various comics and comic strips. These aren't cheap books, or trade paperbacks, because they feature high end restoration processes and high end printing and materials. I checked out Hermes Press' The Phantom: The Gold Key Years Volume 2. Gold Key Comics should be familiar to comic fans and collectors. In the 50s, 60s and 70s they did a number of licensed comics adapting characters like The Phantom, Flash Gordon, the television Tarzan, Star Trek, The Green Hornet and many more. They also brought us original characters such as Doctor Solar, Magnus, Robot Hunter and Turok, Son of Stone.
The reason that collectors and fans remember Gold Key Comics after so many years is because of their quality art and storytelling. That's no different with The Phantom stories, and Hermes Press brings this quality to the forefront with their new reprint.
Yes, there are some goofy bits to the comics, like The Phantom's "secret identity" being him wearing an overcoat and hat over his costume, but those touches were established in the original comic strips as well. The art is a bit two-dimensional, compared to current comic art standards, but the art does not detract from the story.
Here are some sample pages that I dug out...
The vibrancy of the original art is maintained and brought to a vivid life by the careful work of the reproduction artists. It makes you feel like you are a kid again, and eagerly flipping through the pages of your favorite comic book. Now, these old stories aren't for everyone. As I said, compared to contemporary comics the art isn't as sophisticated and the writing isn't as complex, however despite that I thought that these comics held up remarkably well. Reading the stories brought a smile to my face as I flipped through the pages.
Do I think that this is worth buying? I'm going with an unreserved yes. The original stories are still fun, and the people at Hermes Press have created a quality product that will appeal to collectors. It isn't cheap, as the books put out by Hermes Press range from $50-$100, but if you want quality you sometimes have to pay for it.
The Twice-Robbed Tomb is an adventure module written by Perry Fehr and published by Purple Duck Games for the Labyrinth Lord system. The module suggests "4 PCs of 3rd level, or 6 or more of 2nd level." The asking price is an easy $2. And, to get the last of the technical bits out, it comes in at 10 pages, including the front cover and an OGL page. The eight pages in-between are packed full of material, more than enough for a single adventure over one or two play sessions.
So, how is it all? Well, the adventure could fit in easily with any campaign or setting (it uses a desert, but could easily be replaced with anything else). If I would have one slight problem with it, it is that the opening hook for the adventure might be a little too suspect. As a gamer, it would make me highly suspicious – which might be its intent – but it could work for your group, or with just some slight editing. There is also a section on rumors from the villagers near the Tomb, which may help get the PCs curious.
Apart from those two little sections, you have the tomb – the bulk of this adventure. I will note that the module does provide two maps – one for players and one for the GM, both in the module and separate printable copies – which are easy to read and use with or without any battlemats. As I mentioned before, this is an adventure you can play through in about one play session as the tomb is not terribly big. However, it does have a trick or two up its sleeves that may keep the party busy for a bit – or even lead to a really out-of-this-world adventure.
Story-wise, this can be placed into an on-going campaign without interrupting anything, used to help further it (with a tweak or two), or as a starting point for a campaign based off what happens within the tomb. As to the story in the module, on its own, it’s a simple, complete story. Nothing terribly complex, but realistic to a fantasy setting.
The part the party cares most about – loot – is present in decent quantities here. A few magical goodies, though not a massive amount – you may want to add a little more to it, depending on preference.
I will take a moment to touch on the art – there are a few pictures in the module to illustrate the monsters and one of them does feature some nudity. The store page for the module mentions this, as well. So, that could be a positive or a negative for you. Maybe both, somehow.
And, lastly, the part the GMs will care about – how quick and easy would it be to run? The answer: very quick and easy. The module has everything you would need – maps, monster stats, flavor text, and plenty of instructions. The flow of the module is also easy to follow and, since there are not tons of pages, getting to the part you need is quick. The tomb is a little linear, but has the potential for the party to “go off track” and find some interesting things. Overall, the prep-time should be minimal, so it’s a good option to pick up right before game day.
I know that you've heard of nerdcore music before, and while that can
be cool I am really only going to listen to so much hip-hop music. I
was then surprised to discover that there was a nerdy band (doing music
inspired by gaming and D&D stuff) that had more of an "indie"
rock sort of vibe to them. Think of The Lumineers or Of Monsters and
Men (maybe with a harder edge at times) singing about their D&D game, and you have an idea of what the band Chamber Band sounds like.
Photo by Jay Hoffman
You should check the band out at their Bandcamp page and pick up their digital record Deities in your favorite digital music format. I really got into the songs Lawful Neutral and Shapeshifter. Asmodeus
is well worth a listen as well. The production values on this record
are slick and hold up to comparison with any mainstream or big label
release you might be listening to. I am a fan of bands with boy/girl
harmonies with their vocals, and Chamber Band delivers on that with
crisp singing of well-written lyrics that you don't just have to be a
nerd to want to listen to.
Photo by Lauren Bilanko
Seriously, if you haven't already clicked on the link to their Bandcamp page
and bought this, you need to do that right now. Gaming is about the DIY
approach to things, and now bands can do the same thing (with sites
like Bandcamp and many others). Just like how gamers can put together a
game book that they want and need and put it up on sites like Lulu.com
or RPGNow/DriveThruRPG and get it out to the people that it will connect
to, musicians can do the same thing. This is something that we should
all support, because that cool virtual garage band of today could very
well be the next big thing, and Chamber Band definitely has the talent
to be that thing. All that is needed is that missing piece...you.
Tell
me what you think of this record once you have it. I'm curious to hear
your takes on it as well. This record should be the soundtrack to your
next D&D game.
As you know, about a month or so ago I received a shipment of classic Arduin material from Emperor's Choice, the current publisher/rights holder of Dave Hargrave's Arduin game and setting. Even with just a few of the books in the line, I have enough gaming material to keep me busy for a long, long time.
As I have been discussing the Arduin stuff on Google+, one of the things that I brought up was that I wanted to see Hargrave's first attempt at a game (the early Arduin Grimoires were really intended as supplements to OD&D) as a stand alone game. Called The Arduin Adventure, this boxed set was a simple, OD&D inspired set of rules for fantasy gaming that could be expanded upon with the Arduin Grimoires. And now, The Arduin Adventure is available in PDF from RPGNow/DriveThruRPG.
Dave Hargrave's Arduin and Steve Perrin's "Perrin Conventions" were influential in creating the West Coast style for D&D back in the late 70s and early 80s. Both of these lead to a style of play, and a style of game worlds that were different from the "mainstream" D&D that TSR was selling. This West Coast style lead to The Arduin Adventure and also to Runequest. There are references to DMs and designers like Perrin and Greg Stafford throughout the Arduin Grimoires. Like Bigby and Tenser in the OD&D rules, there are spells and monsters named for both Perrin and Stafford.
So, what is the Arduin Adventure? It is a fantasy role-playing game, class and level-based, very much in the mold of OD&D. In fact, these codified rules owe a lot to the Holmes boxed set for D&D that helped to codify and mold those rules into something cleaner and clearer. The influence of Holmes' rules, however, are filtered through the imagination of David Hargrave.
If D&D is Tolkien's Middle Earth and Moorcock's Young Kingdoms as filtered through the imagination of Gygax and Arneson, then Arduin takes those influences and a number of science fantasy ones (Star Wars being very important to Hargrave) and pulls them through the psychedelic experience that was the mind of Dave Hargrave. I consider this to be very much a plus because Arduin definitely has a much stronger voice to it than D&D did at the time, perhaps because it was the vision of one person instead of a growing committee. Don't get me wrong, D&D is a great game (I play one of the retroclones of OD&D on a regular basis), but it does not have the voice to it that Arduin has. For some this might be considered a weakness, but I think that it was a strength of the game. I believe that Arduin was the first RPG that was as much the vision of its author, rather than just a way to come up with some rules that could be used within a certain genre. I think in this way, Arduin is the spiritual father of games like Kevin Siembieda's Palladium Fantasy and Rifts. There are a lot of similarities between Arduin and Palladium Fantasy to me (but that is probably something for another post).
Now, while The Arduin Adventure has everything that you need to play, it is really not a complete game. Much like how the Holmes version of OD&D covers only the first three levels of play, so does The Arduin Adventure really only cover the equivalent for Arduin. You have enough to get play started, and play for a bit before having to "upgrade" to a fuller version of the rules in order to continue. If you have The Arduin Adventure and the first three (at least!) Arduin Grimoires you can fill in a lot of the gaps and play for a while. If you're interested, Emperor's Choice does offer a print version of The Arduin Trilogy that contains the first three of the Arduin Grimoires and The Arduin Adventure. This thick book will give you a lot of gaming, whether you use Arduin's native rules, or plug them in to D&D or some retroclone of it. If The Arduin Adventure whets your appetite for Arduin, then I really recommend getting the Trilogy in print.
All of the things that are familiar to OD&D players will make Arduin easy to pick up. The classes are basically the same, races are handled in a similar manner, and spells and advancement are very similar. Moving between the two games would be ridiculously easy. Picking up Arduin will not be difficult, if you already have a familiarity with OD&D or various OSR games that duplicate the experience of it. If you aren't already familiar with the "old school" approach to fantasy games, Arduin may cause some problems for you because it does assume a familiarity of that style of play. However, at 66 pages, reading Arduin and picking up the rules shouldn't be that much of an investment of your time. Whether you want to pick up Arduin in order to learn about an old school game that you may not have known about previously, or if you want to pick it up because you want to supplement your OD&D/OSR games with some new material, I think that you should be picking up The Arduin Adventure (and then moving on to as many other of the Arduin Grimoires that you can find). You will not be disappointed.
Combat is a bit more complicated in Arduin than in OD&D. Dave Hargrave liked his critical hit and fumble charts. Each weapon hits differently, depending upon the Armor Class of a character's opponent. This looks more complicated, but the combat tables in The Arduin Adventure and The Arduin Grimoires make this process much simpler than it should be. Regardless, this is still OD&D at its heart, and that game really only gets so complex. Some may see this added complexity as a boon in their old school games.
On the negative side, this is an ugly PDF, however as it is a reproduction of the original game (layout warts and all), I don't know that I can hold that too much against the publisher. Much like with the older edition D&D PDFs available, this book is an artifact, a reflection of its time. If pretty and shiny is a requirement of your role-playing games, then The Arduin Adventure may not be for you. However if you like rough and tumble RPGs that do at the table what they say they will, you will want to pick this up for your gaming library. And then, go to the Emperor's Choice website and buy more Arduin stuff.
All in all, if you like old school style D&D and you haven't already experienced Arduin, you should buy The Arduin Adventure and kick the tires. I think that you will like what it can bring to your gaming table, even if it is as a supplement to your OD&D/OSR game of choice. Go out now and get your copy.
I still have some more Arduin posts in me. There's a lot of material in the books that I have, and a lot to talk about. I may try to run Arduin, or perhaps an Arduin-influenced Swords & Wizardry game. Really, I think that the only thing that I could ask of the publishers of Arduin to do is to open up some of the content of the game (spells, monsters, maybe even some of Hargrave's original races) under the OGL so that homebrewers and hobbyists and pull Arduin into our games, and maybe even share what we've done with it.
