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Messages - Barrington Boots

#1
Games / Re: Gamebooks
Today at 11:54:51 AM
I played through Dead of Night a little while ago - I wasn't excited to get to this one, because frankly the title and cover art are totally boring, but had loads of fun playing it which shouldn't have been a surprise because it's written by Jm Bambra and Stephen Hand who know a few things about rpgs!
You play a paladin-type holy warrior on a mission to defeat your demonic arch-rival and rescue your parents into the bargain, travelling through a corrupted, Warhammer roleplay esque low fantasy world where demons and horrors lurk at every turn. Everything here is down at heel, dirty and broken: there's a element of being a witchfinder about it, as corruption could (and often is) lurking in most locations, although your character is very much a hero and not a cruel witchburner type - keeping your own goodness up by doing the right thing is a major plot point. There's some nasty little tricks in it to trip you up along the way as things aren't always what they seem, as well as a dose of body horror with a living demonic factory, plenty of undead and superstition, and multiple paths to the ending that reward good play and decisions. Gorgeous artwork from Martin McKenna only enhance the dirty, Oldhammer-y atmosphere.

No playthrough on this one from me, but here's how I bit the dust (repeatedly):

  • Killed by the possessed corpse of a necromancer I'd previously dispatched, having failed to prevent a ritual from summoning something horrible and tentacled into his body.
  • Dissolved by a pool of sentient sludge after foolishly wading into it.
  • Battered to death by an ogre after some bad dice rolls.
  • Eaten by the huge demon on the cover as, instead of running away I wasted my turn using my 'demon sense' power to see if it was real and not an illusion (it was indeed real)
  • Stabbed by a bazillion floating knives trying to nab some magic armour

Despite all this, loved it.

I'm now playing, on and off, the new Huntress books from Magnamund which are a Lone Wolf prequel of sorts.
#2
Creative Common / Re: Cover Puns
27 March, 2024, 03:26:49 PM
That's great!

Ace of Spades

Its poker of the very highest stakes for Ace Garp. The winner gets the very best shovel in the galaxy... but the loser gets castrated!


#3
Creative Common / Re: Cover Puns
27 March, 2024, 09:24:58 AM
Amazon Prime

Hippolyta, one time Amazon Queen and daughter of Ares and now Sceneshifter for IP, is stranded in an alternate reality Brazil where she must deliver mysterious parcels in the jungle to stop the collapse of reality.
#4
Definite annual vibes from the cover! I thought billing this one as a 'new readers start here' one was an odd decision given it has the last episode of Thistlebone, two stories midway and the reasonably high concept Proteus Vex - not new reader friendly at all I'd thought! Stoked to see Alec Worley will be writing Hawk The Slayer.

Dredd is pure setup, but reading comments above about Dredd / Logan it does highlight their deteriorating relationship in their interaction. Interested to see what's next.

Full Tilt Boogie Cool stuff, pushing the story forward with some new elements, I'm a fan of this run!

Thistlebone wasn't the ending I predicted either and dare I say it, felt a little anticlimatic for all its gruseomeness - although I suppose the weight of the ending should be less Camerons fate but more that final panel? This has been an unusual series - parts of it have been stellar, and in both that final panel and the panel where Thistlebone appeared on celluloid we've had more evidence than in all the previous series put together that it might be an actual entity. Other bits of it I felt weren't as strong as the previous series, although it did capture more of that 70s schlocky feel. I'm a huge fan of this thrill though and looking forward to it coming back.

Indigo Prime also really enjoying this - it's hugely meta and weird and fascinating. Vista's explantion about reality changes had a little nod, for me, of how the change of writer has changed up the cast. As ever this looks terrific.

Rogue Trooper - this was pretty poor imo. It did feel like an old annual episode - or indeed, one that could have been written for Regened as it was very lightweight. Paul Marshall definitely not up to his usual standards on the art, nothing to the story, still don't understand why there are civvies on Nu-Earth. I'll happily admit I'm not a huge fan of Rogue - the concept is awesome, but take out the revenge story and I find him very bland: he works best, for me, when the environment or the antagonists really drive the story and here it didn't: possibly because all those stories have been told already?

Proteus Vex Great to have this back with a long episode. The world seems so fully formed now that it feels like the strip could continue even without Vex himself so a Vex-less episode is no problem! Amusing to see not-Tharg and his 2000ad allstars appear (and get eaten off panel, I assume).
#5
General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2024
25 March, 2024, 09:11:49 AM
That Rogue announcement is deeply underwhelming - Geoffrey D. Wessel's Rogue in the Christmas Prog wasn't a good one.
Alec Worley on Hawk sounds potentially great however!
#6
Film & TV / Re: Last movie watched...
25 March, 2024, 09:08:31 AM
I watched Ghost World before I read the comic and I definitely saw the ending as a suicide one - the bus the old fella is waiting on represents death and Enid decides to seek it out after her life falls to bits. Very dark ending.

I think the comic is superior, mainly for the excellent reasons Colin explores above, but I still find myself favouring that ending - perhaps because it was the original ending for me, perhaps because of how it resonated with people I knew at the time. I think it's a strong and sad interpretation, which is one of the reasons I haven't seen it for a long time!
#7
Prog / Re: Prog 2374 - A World of His Making!
18 March, 2024, 02:42:23 PM
That cover is indeed totally awesome and does have very little to do with the story inside!

I found this a very quick read this week. News of more Rogue Trooper... yeah, reserving judgement on this one. The recent Goddard / Ennis tale was terrific and I'd be keen to read more from them, but otherwise its a big 'meh' from me: that story is done and has been diminishing returns for a long, long while.

Dredd - thought this was a pretty forgettable Dredd rehashing stories we've seen several times before. Not bad in any way, but very filler-y.

Indigo Prime - trippy installment that channels the weirdness of this series, but only really feels like it moves the story forward at the end. Great end to the episode though!

Full Tilt Boogie - slightish this week, but it's a middle of the story episode setting up next weeks episode, when a lot of the revalations from this week should presumably have more significance. 

Deadworld - feel like this is roundly back on track after losing its way a bit, and seems a good move to have the various factions at play join up: the fact that half the comments on this series show readers are confused are to whats going on highlights how the broader spread of the tale ended up showing us a sequence of events, whilst losing the actual story. Hopeful this comes back with a focus on what made it good initially: horror and not elseworlds or the Sidney version of Death.

Thistlebone - Very good again. It struck me today how this feels written for the weekly format, as opposed to, say, FTB which feels a lot more decompressed: almost every week on Thistlebone we've had a cliffhanger-esque ending which hints at something truly awful happening next week, only for the tension to relax a little before ramping up again. This time, things look a lot more serious however.
#8
Quote from: Fortnight on 17 March, 2024, 01:19:09 PMThere's no such thing as peak, er, impactful? music, only peak preference. And I don't think anyone actually has said that.

Yeah sorry, sent on my phone and typing gibberish with my stupid fat fingers!

I disagree with the points made here re.innovation and impact in music vs other art forms.
Could comment more when not on phone!
#9
With respect, if you guys think impqctdul music development and innovation peaked in tbe 60s and 70s you're listening to the wrong stuff.
#10
General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2024
14 March, 2024, 09:57:56 AM
The Crime Genie is such an awesome name.
#11
My run of Saturday Progs has come to and end and this dropped yesterday. Nevertheless I really enjoyed this Prog.
Really great, moody cover. A touch of Akira on the red bike, or is that just me?

Dredd was indeed very slight but perfectly enjoyable, whether it leads to a recurring character or not. Was always going to be a bit of a 'death slot' following a depressing mega epic so this story was well placed to handle that.

Indigo Prime Good episode. I'm following this just fine - IP's never been one of my favourite strips but one thing I've always enjoyed about it is that it feels ever so slightly incomprehensible in the way events and things are referenced without explanation and that adds to the uniqueness of it. This was weird, violent and looks beautiful, digging it.
Agree about the Scanners reference though! Needled me too and not needed.

Filt Tilt Boogie Enjoyed this a lot more than last week. I also am not sure on the scene with the coin (blind luck or something else?) but appreciated the slightly comedic aspect of the assassin missing and getting beaten up. I've enjoyed this so far - and it feels like this is a perfect all ages strip, especially with its bright, manga-influenced art which is likely to appeal to more younger readers than put off older ones based on what I know. My only complaint is how decompressed the storytelling has been so far.

Deadworld feels a lot tighter since we shifted back to Jess & co and away from the Sovs and Skeletor Sidney. This is grotesque and exciting stuff, especially as I'm more invested in these characters and we don't know who the protagonist is (Jess? Fairfax? Whatever Byke is?) so anyone or indeed everyone could die here - although I suspect Fairfax won't, from what Jess said. 

Thistlebone Cool as ever, although I was hoping for more happening after the tree page last week. Atmosphere building and building to something dreadful.

As to the Regened debate... NGL, I'm happy it appears to be done but I don't want the Prog to bleed readers without bringing in more until it fades away. As when it launched I just have to trust Rebellion who should know more about marketing strategy than anything anecdotal I might have. The format - having the issues so spread out - definitely had me thinking it was more of a try out for strips with a view to moving them into the Prog and then getting a collected edition out of them meaning the best stuff consistently vanished from its pages to be replaced with stuff that often felt filler-y, especially in the latter issues, and fwiw I found the content of a lot of the stuff weirdly pitched: seemingly unsuitable for younger readers in many ways whilst being unengaging for an older reader. I was very surprised that more established or veteran creators in the kids comic field weren't used.
At the end of the day I hope it did some good!
#12
Film & TV / Re: Nostalgia TV
11 March, 2024, 05:23:26 PM
One king. Wan-King!
I think they got in more hot water for the apostles sketches than the sneaky swearing. I'm sure one of the most complained about things they did was the sketch where someone slaps Jesus (although that might have been on Fist of Fun).

My wife, who didn't see it at the time, hates it: she doesn't like the fact that by the time you're a few episodes in, half the jokes rely on repetition of earlier jokes. This is one of my favourite things about it.
#13
Film & TV / Re: Nostalgia TV
11 March, 2024, 02:53:01 PM
Huge fan of this as well. It's amazing what they got away with on daytime TV. Used to watch this every week with my gf and some mates and I remember when 'Rod Hull' dropped his pesky meddling twats line we were all shocked and delighted.

Some of it has definitely dated and I don't know if it's the nostalgia but some of it is still amazingly funny. I still make Histors Eye jokes to this very day. And cress.

#14
Unpopular opinion I know, but I found Brass Sun to be something so unengaging I would read it each week but then have the contents of each episode slip from my mind like water. I literally can't remember seeing any of those pages before.

I keep thinking about going back to the progs for focused a re-read of the whole thing. It's so highly rated by so many that I must be missing out.
#15
Prog / Re: Prog 2372 - Escape Pod!
08 March, 2024, 10:02:54 AM
This is a really good discussion!

I really wanted some change coming out of this story and what we got was the jackboot - it left me feeling quite down, but reading all this has cheered me a lot.
The ending is bleak, but there's still the possibility of some hope. That's tempered by the fact that we didn't really see too much change after stuff like DoC and the IP is presumably too valuable to mess with too much. But 2000ad has never been a publication to shy away from risks with its tales.
What's very interesting about this time around is that I feel Dredd is not part of the solution but part of the problem. His inaction in tackling the larger issues, time and time again, whilst slinging his judgement at those who do is grating.
I don't know how much of this is shaped by being seen through the lense of a longtime reader though. It'd be interesting to get a new readers perspective on all of this.

It's the hope that gets you, I suppose.