Comics
Best Whatever of 2011
As is traditional, here are a few of my favorite things (from 2011). Best Album: Bon Iver by Bon Iver Bon Iver’s first, For Emma, Forever Ago is still one of my favorite albums ever. Bon Iver could easily have been a letdown but it’s the exact opposite: a second album that establishes that For Emma wasn’t a [...]
DC’s New 52 Week 4
Last week, and maybe the weakest lineup. All Star Western was the real standout surprise for me, other than that there weren’t too many hits. All Star Western #1: Beautiful cartoony art, on-genre dialogue, nice unobtrusive tie-ins to the greater DC universe while still being a western. The plot was a little predictable but the art and writing [...]
Women of DC in the New 52
Just wanted to drop some data here on how DC’s new 52 faired with reference to their handeling of female characters. In week 3 of the new 52 DC released 3 comics with female leads (Catwoman, Supergirl, Wonder Woman) and three ensemble books with notable female characters (Birds of Prey, Legion of Superheroes, Red Hood [...]
DC’s New 52 Week 3
And once again it’s time for my thoughts on this week’s New 52: Batman #1: Well written, servicable art, and a more detective-y Batman than the other New 52 titles. That said, I’ve had a new Batman title each week for the past two weeks, this one didn’t stand out too much. I guess that’s [...]
DC’s New 52 Weeks 1 & 2
Collecting some thoughts from twitter and other locations on the first two week’s of DC’s relaunch. These are unedited from my initial responses, my feelings on a few (especially Detective) have changed. Action Comics #1: Buy it. Reflects an earlier take on Superman but maintains the core. Animal Man #1: Skip it. It’s not bad, [...]
Meet The Agency
For our last playtest session John Harper mocked up some early character sheets that focus on one of my favorite bits: drawing your hero. In Powers For Good, each character sheet has a different silhouette already drawn on it, so you can turn that unique outline into you hero. As a completely art-inept comic fan, [...]
Superhero Genres
Part of my issue with the vague focus of most superhero games probably comes from the first two Mutants and Masterminds games I ever tried running. M&M came out about the same time I was finding all the great comics that sit just a bit off the beaten path, so the first game I ever [...]
Continuity
The “lonely fun” of making characters and villains ahead of time has, for good reason, got somewhat of a bad rap. Showing up to a new game with a character you made months ago doesn’t do much to help the group as a whole setup a fun game together. I’ve been exploring an idea for [...]
Good Comics and Bad Comics
As part of my minor freakout about having actual funding for a game and people expecting it, I started to wonder if the things I noticed and called out in good comics were also in bad comics. If all those structural niceties and story conventions were in crappy comics too, are they really worth imitating? Back home over [...]
The Human Scale
Does a game about superheroes need a way to represent normal human abilities? Depending on the current writer, Clark Kent is either an excellent reporter who’s skills help even when doing Superman stuff (like in Waid’s Birthright) or a crappy reporter who uses his superhuman abilities to rewrite stories hundreds of times in a few [...]
