Powers

I just read the first arc of Powers, "Who Killed Reto Girl?".

Entertaining. The dialog was maybe too sharp (not everybody is a great fucking communicator) and a couple of plot elements were a little loose, but they are really minor issues. I like these characters and the book has it's heart in the right place.

The art on this book has that great property, that the more you look at it the better it gets. Tons of great expressions, body language and subtle visual cues. The lighting and colors are great.

It's a bit of a double edged sword, I looked at this book for years and thought a solid "meh". Even though I knew the artwork was doing a lot, it just didn't immediately pull me in. Oh well I figure this is more my problem than the books. I like candy.

Bottom line, I am gonna' be reading a lot more of these.

New X-Men

Don't have time for a long post.

I just finished all of Grant Morrison's X-Men (New X-Men, whatever) run.

I had read the first arc (114-116) a while ago, but just hadn't gotten around to the rest (117-154). Themes, ideas, characterization, were all very good. Plotting not so tight.

The final arc consisted of a story that would never happen because the characters got the Phoenix Force to basically prune them from the timeline. It all looked super-cool from our perspective, but from where those characters sit (Beak's grandson-never-to-be Tito, for instance) I doubt it would seem so hot.

Better than good art delivered throughout by (off the top of my head) Quitely, Kordey, Bachalo and Gimenez.

Bottom line, tons of fun, really enjoyed it.

Anna Mercury

Bottom line, awesome.

Bad Planet

This series started out super-strong, ended... weaker.

The plot degenerated into some wacky crap about the "alien with no name" attacking a tesla coil with an axe, waittaminute' what am I saying? That sounds awesome!

I hadn't read any Steve Niles before, because I am freakin' sick of vampires.

Interior artwork was solid. Covers were stellar, featuring the likes of Mark Schultz and Dave Stevens.

Bottom line, good fun, glad I read it.

Global Frequency

This was a solid series, cool, interesting. Characterization was limited, but plots were tight, lots of mad ideas (as Warren Ellis would say).

The structure guaranteed it would be hit-or-miss, each issue was self-contained and had a different artist... ballsy. Anyway it paid off.

Bottom line the good ones more than made up for the weaker ones.

30!

Another post about another role-playing milestone. I started playing DND 30 years ago this year.

I know that I started in 1979 because my grandmother Annabelle gave me my 1st ed. ADND books that year for my birthday. Whenever my grandmother gave a book as a present she signed and dated it.

Earlier that year in the summer, the kid from across the street (we were 11 at the time), asked me if I wanted to play a game called Dungeons and Dragons.

There were weird dice. I was a half-elf. I had a magic sword. In an underground cavern next to a lake I fought a terrible monster. I slew it and got a magic ring. It turned you invisible.

I remember walking across the street to go home that evening. A thousand fantastic thoughts raced through my head and one real-world concern, "How was I going to get to play again?". For the next four years of my life that would be my central preoccupation. If I wasn't playing DND I was trying to figure out how I would get to play again.

In the years since, that overwhelming urge to play has waxed and waned. I have gone many years without playing at all, while at other times been completely immersed again.

These days I am playing regularly and starting to share the game with my children. Despite all my years spent in fantasy land, that's something I never dreamed of.

Changes

I made some changes to the blog today. While exploring various things I found that some old Blogger features had been improved. I decided to take advantage of the updates and streamline some things:

The Labels tag cloud is now just the default Labels widget with the cloud option turned on.

I added the search widget (actually did that a while ago).

I removed the Blogger Navbar since it's functionality was now redundant.

I changed the colors of the title area.

Overall I think it looks a little cleaner.