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#21
Prog / Re: Prog 2379 - Humanity on th...
Last post by norton canes - Today at 10:38:30 AMQuote from: norton canes on Today at 10:29:03 AMAquila is thrillingly epic - that nude scene's certainly an eye-opener! It's a shame my CBR reader displays the double spread as separate pages
Sorry, should just clarify that by 'double spread' I mean the face-off before the battle, not the nudity : )
#22
Games / Re: Gamebooks
Last post by Barrington Boots - Today at 10:38:00 AMSorry you didn't enjoy Nightshift, especially as I'm pretty sure I hyped it up.
I found it very compelling but you're right, the path through it is very tight and very Livingstone-y: I think I used a map from the authors website in the end to get through it as it's easy to get lost.
As a general rule I much, much prefer a gamebook with multiple paths through and where lacking items makes the book harder rather than the sort of Deathtrap Dungeon-y shopping list and if you're lacking one essential you lose... a bit like Master of Chaos really!
(You're right about the Dark Elf in MoC btw - you can find him in Ashkyros and if I had, it would have made the last encounter with him a bit more meaningful. He also gives you an item that can stop you getting beaten up in Rahasta)
Funnily enough I've been playing The Huntress books from Magnamund and they have so many multiple paths in places that I've found it a bit nerve-wracking. Having been conditioned by gamebooks to be following what is usually a very linear path to success, having a book constantly asking me if I've got things or have met people and then allowing me to continue without dying when I haven't fills me with a sort of dread that I've made an error somewhere and the axe is ready to fall.
I found it very compelling but you're right, the path through it is very tight and very Livingstone-y: I think I used a map from the authors website in the end to get through it as it's easy to get lost.
As a general rule I much, much prefer a gamebook with multiple paths through and where lacking items makes the book harder rather than the sort of Deathtrap Dungeon-y shopping list and if you're lacking one essential you lose... a bit like Master of Chaos really!
(You're right about the Dark Elf in MoC btw - you can find him in Ashkyros and if I had, it would have made the last encounter with him a bit more meaningful. He also gives you an item that can stop you getting beaten up in Rahasta)
Funnily enough I've been playing The Huntress books from Magnamund and they have so many multiple paths in places that I've found it a bit nerve-wracking. Having been conditioned by gamebooks to be following what is usually a very linear path to success, having a book constantly asking me if I've got things or have met people and then allowing me to continue without dying when I haven't fills me with a sort of dread that I've made an error somewhere and the axe is ready to fall.
#23
Prog / Re: Prog 2379 - Humanity on th...
Last post by norton canes - Today at 10:29:03 AMYeah once again the prog is firing on all cylinders. Okay, most cylinders (sorry, Indigo Prime). R&TWT&T takes a breather but I'm sure the action will be back soon, so I'll bear with it. I get Dredd's motivation for attacking their guide but I'm not convinced he'd eliminate them while they were all still trapped in the wilderness. While Moon is obviosly being shown as a resourceful cadet, it's important that isn't demonstrated by Dredd becoming stupid.
Aquila is thrillingly epic - that nude scene's certainly an eye-opener! It's a shame my CBR reader displays the double spread as separate pages. I'm sure that if I adjust the settings when I'll be able to put them together. Brink is for now just building the layers of intrigue, of course. It's certainly the only strip which could possibly finish on the cliff-hanger "You know we got golf here, right?".
Running out of superlatives for Proteus Vex.
Aquila is thrillingly epic - that nude scene's certainly an eye-opener! It's a shame my CBR reader displays the double spread as separate pages. I'm sure that if I adjust the settings when I'll be able to put them together. Brink is for now just building the layers of intrigue, of course. It's certainly the only strip which could possibly finish on the cliff-hanger "You know we got golf here, right?".
Running out of superlatives for Proteus Vex.
#24
General / Re: Mega City Book Club - a ne...
Last post by Sean SD - Today at 09:55:41 AMEnjoyed that episode Eamonn.
Got a digital copy of the book off Amazon.
Looking forward to checking out some more 70s comics
Got a digital copy of the book off Amazon.
Looking forward to checking out some more 70s comics
Quote from: Eamonn Clarke on 21 April, 2024, 08:26:08 AM
Colin Maxwell joins me to discuss a recent reprint of the first Codename Warlord stories from DC Thomson.
Find the collection here
https://www.dcthomsonshop.co.uk/commando-comics-codename-warlord-book
And the episode here
https://megacitybookclub.blogspot.com/2024/04/259-codename-warlord.html
And here
https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/mega-city-book-club/id1116473423?i=1000653081464
#25
Film & TV / Apple TV Neuromancer Series.
Last post by IAMTHESYSTEM - Today at 09:45:13 AMApple TV is about to gamble on producing a version of William Gibson's Cyberpunk landmark book Neuromancer. The blurb includes one of the confirmed actors.
https://collider.com/callum-turner-cast-neuromancer/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox-CL&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3FZGdUbYPZsFfxIVOd0EXkEYSU3E8f0lWA27AEAVTj1PrN2n0cVQZX1Mk_aem_AeDRr8ZYfSUkz3TU8wDbfeuYgDtDCUdIqxQLlOGt8S3RecRAYkjyE2-lwrIWTb9zxWXUlOai8094VNk_PnD1spmT#Echobox=1714033042
https://collider.com/callum-turner-cast-neuromancer/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_campaign=Echobox-CL&utm_medium=Social-Distribution&utm_source=Facebook&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3FZGdUbYPZsFfxIVOd0EXkEYSU3E8f0lWA27AEAVTj1PrN2n0cVQZX1Mk_aem_AeDRr8ZYfSUkz3TU8wDbfeuYgDtDCUdIqxQLlOGt8S3RecRAYkjyE2-lwrIWTb9zxWXUlOai8094VNk_PnD1spmT#Echobox=1714033042
#26
General / Re: Forthcoming Thrills - 2024
Last post by AlexF - Today at 09:38:25 AMHonestly, I am both excited by the Sci-Fi special mash-up idea, exactly the sort of thing Sci-Fi specials should be for,
and also tickled by those instant AI efforts, Funt! But I'm aware it's going to be a rather steep slope from me pointing and laughing at the AI crudeness today, to me licking the (rust-proof) boots of a robot master tomorrow.
I'm gently predicitng that AI art and writing will be fashionable for a couple of years, and then human creativity will come back to the fore, and then we'll settle down into a sort of hybrid thing where we all accept that a human prompting and tweaking an AI generator is still art.
and also tickled by those instant AI efforts, Funt! But I'm aware it's going to be a rather steep slope from me pointing and laughing at the AI crudeness today, to me licking the (rust-proof) boots of a robot master tomorrow.
I'm gently predicitng that AI art and writing will be fashionable for a couple of years, and then human creativity will come back to the fore, and then we'll settle down into a sort of hybrid thing where we all accept that a human prompting and tweaking an AI generator is still art.
#27
Announcements / Re: The 2000 AD Thrill-Cast - ...
Last post by Le Fink - Today at 08:53:51 AMI'm listening to the Lowborn High creator interview. It was commissioned specifically for Regened as "a working class Hogwarts". I was surprised to learn Tharg commissioned those 20 page episodes as 20 page episodes.
#28
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Colin YNWA - Today at 07:31:38 AMPart 2 - Not on the list Uncanny X-Men
His run worked to a formula and he worked and manipulated that to move with the times that his exceptional run covered. He experimented with ideas and character rosters, restlessly playing with that formula, though never really moving too far from it. As a teenager introduced to his work in the mid 80s these comics spoke to me so much and outside Daredevil, these were my favourite of that time.
Yet now, for all that, I can barely read them these days.
I don't really enjoy these comics as an adult at all. Why is that? Well for me they are so of their time and indeed my time then, but they don't hold up to my older eye. I see the formula, can't read past the cracks and the hookey dialogue. I see that crafted formula exposed so clearly and it isn't for me any more. The fact that they were so perfectly crafted for his audience of the time and age they were, means they simply don't translate to me as the reader I am now. There is no room in them to entertain the different reader I have become.
In my entry for Power Pack I talked about how I felt the characters there were honest, they felt real and I trusted them and their place in the story. It truly felt like the characters came first, the story developed from there. With Claremont's X-Men I just don't feel that any more, I don't trust the characters as drivers. The craft and skills behind them shows through, but not in a good way. In the way that makes me see what strings they are trying to pull, what aspect of the audience they are playing to. How they are being used to key into some element of teenage life that will make them appeal to the target audience.
I mean it's done brilliantly, it really works and it worked like billio on me when I was that audience. Now however I feel I see behind the curtain and the characters feel almost cynically built to pull certain emotional triggers. A large part of that is possibly the dialogue as well. I find it almost impenetrable these days. It's almost as bad as Stan Lees, it's hyperbolic and there's just so much of it. But written in a way that feels like it's sculpted to evoke a specific response, rather than feeling natural and evoking that response organically.
Fair to say all dialogue, all story will do this, I just feel with Claremont's work I can now see how he's pulling the strings. As said as well there's just too much of it, so many words, often not saying that much. It feels so written and underlines points which could have better been served by 'show not tell'. I do wonder how good it might have been if John Wagner had been a script editor and just chipped away at things to expose the essence of what was being said, not underline it three or four times.
It's a real shame as one thing Claremont does better than almost any superhero writer is craft combat to do just that. To evoke tension and excitement in very deliberate ways. With his action pieces though he gets away with it much better as he whisks you along at pace, whereas the dialogue drags the character moments back. In the combat sections you genuinely feel our heroes are in danger and the fight is hard and they have to be creative to win the day. Or often not, defeats happened and so the danger in these superhero tussles was palpable. Not so with the character moments where nothing feels earnt, to me at least these days.
I accept I'm very much an outlier on this and folks either see past the cracks that I perceive to glory in the great plotting. Or the stories have such a foundational part in their reading they don't care. OR they see the craft as so good they don't even notice what I perceive as forced characters I don't trust. I mean none of us can ignore the countless dangling plot threads, but they never really mattered, they were part of the fun wondering when some long forgotten idea would spring back to life.
My not liking Claremont's Uncanny run is another case of the reader bringing different desires to the table and therefore getting a different reaction to what they read. I do completely get what folks see in them, but they are just not for me these days. And for me this one is a case of not just thinking these comics are good, just not that good. Rather I just don't get on with them anymore at all, wonderful art aside.
It doesn't matter how important you are if I don't trust you, you're not getting my vote.
His run worked to a formula and he worked and manipulated that to move with the times that his exceptional run covered. He experimented with ideas and character rosters, restlessly playing with that formula, though never really moving too far from it. As a teenager introduced to his work in the mid 80s these comics spoke to me so much and outside Daredevil, these were my favourite of that time.
Yet now, for all that, I can barely read them these days.
I don't really enjoy these comics as an adult at all. Why is that? Well for me they are so of their time and indeed my time then, but they don't hold up to my older eye. I see the formula, can't read past the cracks and the hookey dialogue. I see that crafted formula exposed so clearly and it isn't for me any more. The fact that they were so perfectly crafted for his audience of the time and age they were, means they simply don't translate to me as the reader I am now. There is no room in them to entertain the different reader I have become.
In my entry for Power Pack I talked about how I felt the characters there were honest, they felt real and I trusted them and their place in the story. It truly felt like the characters came first, the story developed from there. With Claremont's X-Men I just don't feel that any more, I don't trust the characters as drivers. The craft and skills behind them shows through, but not in a good way. In the way that makes me see what strings they are trying to pull, what aspect of the audience they are playing to. How they are being used to key into some element of teenage life that will make them appeal to the target audience.
I mean it's done brilliantly, it really works and it worked like billio on me when I was that audience. Now however I feel I see behind the curtain and the characters feel almost cynically built to pull certain emotional triggers. A large part of that is possibly the dialogue as well. I find it almost impenetrable these days. It's almost as bad as Stan Lees, it's hyperbolic and there's just so much of it. But written in a way that feels like it's sculpted to evoke a specific response, rather than feeling natural and evoking that response organically.
Fair to say all dialogue, all story will do this, I just feel with Claremont's work I can now see how he's pulling the strings. As said as well there's just too much of it, so many words, often not saying that much. It feels so written and underlines points which could have better been served by 'show not tell'. I do wonder how good it might have been if John Wagner had been a script editor and just chipped away at things to expose the essence of what was being said, not underline it three or four times.
It's a real shame as one thing Claremont does better than almost any superhero writer is craft combat to do just that. To evoke tension and excitement in very deliberate ways. With his action pieces though he gets away with it much better as he whisks you along at pace, whereas the dialogue drags the character moments back. In the combat sections you genuinely feel our heroes are in danger and the fight is hard and they have to be creative to win the day. Or often not, defeats happened and so the danger in these superhero tussles was palpable. Not so with the character moments where nothing feels earnt, to me at least these days.
I accept I'm very much an outlier on this and folks either see past the cracks that I perceive to glory in the great plotting. Or the stories have such a foundational part in their reading they don't care. OR they see the craft as so good they don't even notice what I perceive as forced characters I don't trust. I mean none of us can ignore the countless dangling plot threads, but they never really mattered, they were part of the fun wondering when some long forgotten idea would spring back to life.
My not liking Claremont's Uncanny run is another case of the reader bringing different desires to the table and therefore getting a different reaction to what they read. I do completely get what folks see in them, but they are just not for me these days. And for me this one is a case of not just thinking these comics are good, just not that good. Rather I just don't get on with them anymore at all, wonderful art aside.
It doesn't matter how important you are if I don't trust you, you're not getting my vote.
#29
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Colin YNWA - Today at 07:31:03 AMPart 1 - Not on the list Uncanny X-Men
Not on the list - Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont
While we're talking about 80s Marvel comics let's talk about probably the biggest of them of all and why
Copyright Marvel Comics
Doesn't make the list.
Chris Claremont took over the then recently relaunched Uncanny X-Men (then just X-Men actually. It always surprises me how late the 'Uncanny' was added - actually issue 142 I think) from issue 96 in 1975 and started a 16 year run on the title covering well over 300 issues across all X-titles. I ain't going to try to work out how many issues, there were, like, almost 200 issues of Uncanny and countless Annuals, Specials, minis, spinoff titles and Xavier knows what else! These comics have a very good claim to be the most important in mainstream US comics beyond Action Comics 1, Detective 27 and say FF 1. Let's not get into that debate. Suffice to say this run fundamentally reshaped the comics landscape for Marvel and DC and those that followed in their wake.
His run played heavily into the outsider feeling many comics fans feel. It built a soap opera around the superhero shenanigans in a way that built on what Stan, Jack and Steve did and laid the template for almost all the comics from the 'big two' to follow. He understood how to engage and speak to his teen audience like few others, to appeal to a need for thrills and spills, bolstered by 'real' human stories to connect with his readers.
He did this supported by an astonishing line of artists who define for so many what good comic book art should look like. This run with John Byrne is seminal. He has a short time with Paul Smith that is insanely popular with those in the know. He then moved onto my favourite, John Romita Jr to continue things, before Mark Silvestri and Jim Lee blew fans' minds in the late 80s early 90s. Amongst all that there were numerous other fantastic artists involved. For me most significantly there are some stellar comics by Barry Windsor Smith dotted about, which even today stand out as the highlights of his tenure.
He took newly introduced characters created by others and shaped those rough drafts into some of the biggest superhero names in comics. Wolverine is the obvious one, but everyone who read these comics will have a favourite, Nightcrawler was mine, so many love Storm or Kitty Pryde, a few stand by straight edge Cyclops, I'd guess a few even have Professor X as their fav. All those characters spoke to someone. Not resting on his laurels though he'd go on to create a host of others that would reach similar levels of acclaim and adoration.
Not on the list - Uncanny X-Men by Chris Claremont
While we're talking about 80s Marvel comics let's talk about probably the biggest of them of all and why
Copyright Marvel Comics
Doesn't make the list.
Chris Claremont took over the then recently relaunched Uncanny X-Men (then just X-Men actually. It always surprises me how late the 'Uncanny' was added - actually issue 142 I think) from issue 96 in 1975 and started a 16 year run on the title covering well over 300 issues across all X-titles. I ain't going to try to work out how many issues, there were, like, almost 200 issues of Uncanny and countless Annuals, Specials, minis, spinoff titles and Xavier knows what else! These comics have a very good claim to be the most important in mainstream US comics beyond Action Comics 1, Detective 27 and say FF 1. Let's not get into that debate. Suffice to say this run fundamentally reshaped the comics landscape for Marvel and DC and those that followed in their wake.
His run played heavily into the outsider feeling many comics fans feel. It built a soap opera around the superhero shenanigans in a way that built on what Stan, Jack and Steve did and laid the template for almost all the comics from the 'big two' to follow. He understood how to engage and speak to his teen audience like few others, to appeal to a need for thrills and spills, bolstered by 'real' human stories to connect with his readers.
He did this supported by an astonishing line of artists who define for so many what good comic book art should look like. This run with John Byrne is seminal. He has a short time with Paul Smith that is insanely popular with those in the know. He then moved onto my favourite, John Romita Jr to continue things, before Mark Silvestri and Jim Lee blew fans' minds in the late 80s early 90s. Amongst all that there were numerous other fantastic artists involved. For me most significantly there are some stellar comics by Barry Windsor Smith dotted about, which even today stand out as the highlights of his tenure.
He took newly introduced characters created by others and shaped those rough drafts into some of the biggest superhero names in comics. Wolverine is the obvious one, but everyone who read these comics will have a favourite, Nightcrawler was mine, so many love Storm or Kitty Pryde, a few stand by straight edge Cyclops, I'd guess a few even have Professor X as their fav. All those characters spoke to someone. Not resting on his laurels though he'd go on to create a host of others that would reach similar levels of acclaim and adoration.
#30
Books & Comics / Re: Completely Self-absorbed T...
Last post by Colin YNWA - Today at 07:29:50 AMQuote from: Barrington Boots on 24 April, 2024, 09:28:23 AMQuote from: Tjm86 on 24 April, 2024, 07:12:06 AMEarly 80's Marvel does seem to be its hey-day. By the late 80's they seem to have crawled up their own backsides before completely losing the plot in the speculator boom of the 90's. (trillion's of covers, holograms, card covers, die cut covers, cover covers ...)
This is my feeling on Marvel too, although I did wonder if it was nostalgia telling me this. It's nice to see others of this opinion!
Nostalgia could well be a part of this, but look at what sustains and the quality of experimentation and innovation that fuels any nostaglia and I do reckon there's something there.
Quote from: Party-Pom-pom on 24 April, 2024, 03:03:21 PMHi,hope no-one minds me putting this here,but if anyone wants to buy or trade for a collection of Powerpack comics then let me know,I have a bunch of them in the attic that will have to go as recycling or charity shop
Thanks
Matt
Obviously with deals etc to consider this is an offer defo worth checkin' out... as I'm about to say why not trade in those old Uncanny comics for something more interesting...