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Friday, January 12, 2007
RIP: Robert Anton Wilson
I picked this up from Dorkland: Robert Anton Wilson passed away yesterday. Best of luck to Uncle Bob, wherever he may be.
I mourn for Jolli
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I have the coolest in-laws in the known universe. As supporting evidence I will offer up the fact that my brother-in-law and his wife got me a Star Wars trade paperback for Christmas. I've been interested in Dark Horse's A Long Time Ago... line since they came out in '02. In seven volumes this series collects the entire run of the old Marvel Star Wars comic from back in the day. The first volume, Doomworld, collates the first 20 issues. Issues 1 through 6 of the original Star Wars comic were a fabulous adaptation of the film. The remaining 14 issues in this book are something special. Basically, it's some guys over at Marvel going apeshit making up stories using just the stuff from A New Hope and their own imaginations. It's glorious. There are no worries about following canon, no heavy-handed Lucas oversight, just rocking adventure tales set after the Battle of Yavin and before Episode V was anything but some half-baked notes in a file folder.
In addition to being made of solid awesomite, this volume also solved a personal childhood mystery of mine. For years I've had a gap in the memory of my early childhood: what was my first comic? Most comic fans can tell you without hesitation, but for the longest time I couldn't remember. Well, cast your gaze to the right to see the cover of the first comic I owned: Star Wars #7, the first post-movie adventure. When I saw the cover it all came back to me in a flash. I got this comic off the magazine rack at Bart's Market, the only grocery store in Flanagan, Illinois (population 1000). I grew up on a farm about 3 miles outside Flanagan and Bart's was the nearest source of comical funnybooks. When they had any.Looking back I kinda understand why my memory was clouded for so long. First of all, I was only four years old when this comic came out in early 1978 and I can barely remember some things that happened to me in my twenties. But more importantly, this comic has long been filed in the Star Wars bin in my brain, which apparently is nowhere near the conceptual space wherein I keep my memories of comics. Growing up a nerd in the late seventies and eighties, that Star Wars bin is pretty crowded. I had action figures to keep track of and stuff.
Star Wars #7 is hella cool, by the way. For starters it stars the coolest guy in outer space and his big hairy pal. Other features include an alien priest trying to bury a dead cyborg, a 'Sikurdian' battle-axe wielded by a dude with purple tentacles for arms, disco Cantina babes, and space pirates. Boy, howdy, does this issue have space pirates. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce you to Crimson Jack and his girl Friday, Jolli:
Despite my dodgy memory those panels taught me a few things I will never forget. First, space pirates are awesome. This lesson would be confirmed later in '78 with the original broadcast of t
he Superfriends episode "Sinbad and the Space Pirates". Unlike Crimson Jack, Sinbad the Space Pirate wears pants. And a cool hat. Another thing I took away from this comic is that Crimson Jack is a fabulous name for a pirate captain. Seriously, you'll be hard-pressed to come up with a better pirate name. But Crimson Jack pales beside the sheer awesome-ness that is Jolli. She is both stone cold and smokin' hot.I know in this modern era of anime and Lara Croft knockoffs and whatnot that busty ball-breakers with weird hair colors are old hat, but back in '78 I had never seen anything like Jolli. She was wicked cool. And that beret is just perfect. I wouldn't lay my hands on another Star Wars comic until issue #13, "Day of the Dragonlords". And amazingly enough, Jolli is in it! Since last I had seen her it seemed that she has developed some feelings for a certain Captain Solo. Also, we get to see her gams.
That was the last issue of Star Wars I would read for a long time. But in the Doomworld trade I discovered that Jolli got a complete character arc of sorts. In her last appearance we find out that Jolli was the daughter of a space pirate. The old scallywag abandoned her and her mother when the Imperial forces came looking for him. Mom died in the resulting carnage, orphaning Jolli. So what does Jolli do? She grows up to become a man-hating space pirate and finds a substitute father-figure in the form of Crimson Jack. Sheesh. Genre stories are chock full of female characters with daddy issues, but this one takes the cake.
Jolli may have been a stock type , but it's worth noting by that point in the comic she has a more fleshed-out character history than either Han Solo or Leia Organa. More importantly, unresolved feelings about one's father are an important motif in the larger Star Wars story. Just as the House of Skywalker eventually laid Anakin's sins to rest, Jolli ends up with a sort of redemption. She rejects Crimson Jack and saves Han Solo, at the cost of her own life.
Now I won't disagree if you point out that picking one man's affections over another is not the most fufilling way to track Jolli's self-actualization. But the important thing here might simply be that Jolli made a choice. And when push came to shove she chose the possibility of a scoundrel's love over the domination of an authority figure. When I first encountered Jolli in 1978 she was a titillating but two-dimensional character, but somewhere along the way she became something a little bit more.
Rest in peace, Jolli.
On a completey unrelated note, remember how awesome it was the first time you saw the Falcon jump into hyperspace in Episode IV? In the comic version that moment is almost better.
The use of color here is fan-frickin'-tastic. Until I saw this panel I would have told you that Fantastic Four #290 was the coolest comic portrayal of FTL travel I had ever seen.Thursday, January 11, 2007
art project: 100 Demons
When I want to read a serious, non-explosion based comic I turn to Lynda Barry, the master of what she calls "autobifictionalography". Her book One Hundred Demons is one of the reasons I've started drawing recently, even though I suck at it. (If you're looking for more people to blame Scott McCloud and S. John Ross' Encounter Critical were my other two big inspirations. These three helped me ignore my internal critic and just draw some stuff, no matter how inept or juvenile the results.) Anyway, One Hundred Demons was itself inspired by an earlier work, a 16th century Zen monk who painted a long scroll with a hundred demons running across it. Barry decided to try a similar project.
Barry urges her readers to try drawing a hundred demons of her own. Strangely, she takes the brush and ink she uses very seriously and instructs fellow travellers to use a similar set-up. Then she notes that for paper she uses any old thing. Newspaper, yelow legal pads, whatever. Weird. Personally I'm going to ignore her suggestions for writing utensils and use whatever is at hand. Here are my first four demons, done with magic markers and crayons on printer paper.
Don't expect much more sophistication than this, folks. I'm using this project as an excuse to play with my daughter's art supplies.
Barry urges her readers to try drawing a hundred demons of her own. Strangely, she takes the brush and ink she uses very seriously and instructs fellow travellers to use a similar set-up. Then she notes that for paper she uses any old thing. Newspaper, yelow legal pads, whatever. Weird. Personally I'm going to ignore her suggestions for writing utensils and use whatever is at hand. Here are my first four demons, done with magic markers and crayons on printer paper.
Don't expect much more sophistication than this, folks. I'm using this project as an excuse to play with my daughter's art supplies.
Winter War Preview: Sunday Afternoon
This is it, folks! The last installment of my Winter War preview series. For all my regular readers who have not commented over the last few days, let me thank you for putting up with me devoting my energies to purely local matters.
Here are the links to the previous entries in this series: Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, general update, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. Now let's get down to business.
Sunday, February 11th, 2pm
I expect the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk rooms to still be active through the final few hours of the con. But since the ASL room is devoted to one big tournament I suppose it is theoretically possible they could be done before this session starts.
Other boardgame events include more sessions of Formula De and Feudal. Tim Gritten will be running Power Grid. That's a fun game and Tim Gritten is a good ref and instructor. In addition to Feudal, Tom Hendricks offers some Axis & Allies action, with a variant allowing for more special weapons to brought into play. That sounds fun. I love the special weapons in A&A but they don't get much screentime in a regular game. Speaking of variants, El Nyberg will be running Rail Baron with ramped-up starting trains. My personal pick for the Sunday afternoon boardgaming would be Al Conrad's Aliens game. Based upon the movie of the same name, Aliens offers a some fun tactical play with awesome special rules, like the "Oh crap! Acidic alien blood just ruined my face!" rule or the "Oh noes! I just fell down an inexplicable bottomless pit!" rule. And playing with the flamethrowers is always fun. If tactical xenomorph slagging doesn't ring your bell, go with Tim Gritten's Power Grid session.
In the minis area four events are scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Two of them, Ken Vreeman's Advanced Civilization game and Russ Hartley's 25mm fantasy affair, are continuations from Sunday morning. Given it's the last day of the con and people might not want to spend 8 hours at a single game, it might be possible to get into one of these two events anyway. Ask the ref at the table but always make sure to clear special situations like this with the front desk. The con staff are always keen to know these things, not because they want you to jump through hoops to play, but because they need to know which games are popular and which aren't.
The two new minis games are Tom Reed with another Desperado Wild West shoot-out and Chris Fawcett with Full Thrust. Recommending one game or the other is a tough call here. Cowboys versus Indians in 25mm reverberates with the childhood of many a gamer who remembers the golden age of the cinema Western. But Full Thrust is one of the best rules-light sci-fi ship-to-ship games ever written. I have to give the nod to the Desperado game simply because referee Tom Reed is such a fun guy to game with.
As things are set right now the role-playing department offers you two choices. I'll be running a session of dungeon-delving using the 1981 Basic D&D rules. That's the one with the awesome Erol Otus cover. Meanwhile Chris Fairfield will be running Pentatastar. I don't know anything about that game but Chris has run it before at least a couple of times. I can't really offer you a recommendation here other than to say this: you're either interested in a dungeoneering game where Elf is a class and only Thieves (not Rogues) have skills, or you're not. I think you'll probably have a good time at either table.
Here are the links to the previous entries in this series: Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, general update, Saturday evening, and Sunday morning. Now let's get down to business.
Sunday, February 11th, 2pm
I expect the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk rooms to still be active through the final few hours of the con. But since the ASL room is devoted to one big tournament I suppose it is theoretically possible they could be done before this session starts.
Other boardgame events include more sessions of Formula De and Feudal. Tim Gritten will be running Power Grid. That's a fun game and Tim Gritten is a good ref and instructor. In addition to Feudal, Tom Hendricks offers some Axis & Allies action, with a variant allowing for more special weapons to brought into play. That sounds fun. I love the special weapons in A&A but they don't get much screentime in a regular game. Speaking of variants, El Nyberg will be running Rail Baron with ramped-up starting trains. My personal pick for the Sunday afternoon boardgaming would be Al Conrad's Aliens game. Based upon the movie of the same name, Aliens offers a some fun tactical play with awesome special rules, like the "Oh crap! Acidic alien blood just ruined my face!" rule or the "Oh noes! I just fell down an inexplicable bottomless pit!" rule. And playing with the flamethrowers is always fun. If tactical xenomorph slagging doesn't ring your bell, go with Tim Gritten's Power Grid session.
In the minis area four events are scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Two of them, Ken Vreeman's Advanced Civilization game and Russ Hartley's 25mm fantasy affair, are continuations from Sunday morning. Given it's the last day of the con and people might not want to spend 8 hours at a single game, it might be possible to get into one of these two events anyway. Ask the ref at the table but always make sure to clear special situations like this with the front desk. The con staff are always keen to know these things, not because they want you to jump through hoops to play, but because they need to know which games are popular and which aren't.
The two new minis games are Tom Reed with another Desperado Wild West shoot-out and Chris Fawcett with Full Thrust. Recommending one game or the other is a tough call here. Cowboys versus Indians in 25mm reverberates with the childhood of many a gamer who remembers the golden age of the cinema Western. But Full Thrust is one of the best rules-light sci-fi ship-to-ship games ever written. I have to give the nod to the Desperado game simply because referee Tom Reed is such a fun guy to game with.
As things are set right now the role-playing department offers you two choices. I'll be running a session of dungeon-delving using the 1981 Basic D&D rules. That's the one with the awesome Erol Otus cover. Meanwhile Chris Fairfield will be running Pentatastar. I don't know anything about that game but Chris has run it before at least a couple of times. I can't really offer you a recommendation here other than to say this: you're either interested in a dungeoneering game where Elf is a class and only Thieves (not Rogues) have skills, or you're not. I think you'll probably have a good time at either table.
an experiment: 5 links, 4 random
http://www.randomwebsite.com/ - used to generate the four links below
http://www.oneeyedcleric.com/ - one of those fakeout search-results based jobbies, but kinda cool nonetheless
http://www.evado.net/ - those crazy kids and their 'hacking the matrix'!
http://www.streetstudio.com/ - An interesting photography project.
http://www.marrowmonkey.com/menu.html - "interactive art works"
http://www.oneeyedcleric.com/ - one of those fakeout search-results based jobbies, but kinda cool nonetheless
http://www.evado.net/ - those crazy kids and their 'hacking the matrix'!
http://www.streetstudio.com/ - An interesting photography project.
http://www.marrowmonkey.com/menu.html - "interactive art works"
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Winter War Preview: Sunday Morning
For those of you just tuning in, I've been spending some time giving my chatty opinions about the upcoming Winter War gaming convention. In its 34th year, Winter War is Illinois' oldest local boardgame, miniatures, and roleplaying convention. About 300 souls gather for a long weekend of dice-slinging and general fun. This year Winter War will be from Friday, February 9th to Sunday, February 11th at the Hawthorn Suites in Champaign, IL. If you like cons that focus on games and gamers, not publishers and celebrities, then Winter War might be your kind of thing.
Today I'll be talking about the events on the pre-registration schedule for the Sunday morning of the con. For earlier events, check out my previews of Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening. And don't miss this update to the Friday and Saturday events.
Sunday, February 11th, 9am
Sometimes at cons (including Winter War) the Sunday morning events can be a little underwhelming. Alot of people game or debauche heavily the night before. But there are several good events on the schedule for Sunday morning run by straight shooters who will show up on time and run a fabulous game despite any festive activities the previous evening. As mentioned in every previous installment, the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk people are expected to still be doing their respective things. Personally I can't play the same game for 2 and a half days straight, but different strokes for different folks.
The boardgame area features three guys running five games. Clark Barthel offers newbies a chance to try out Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, a racing game that is totally new to me. Tom Hendricks (I really need to find out if this is the same Tom Hendricks I used to game with. That guy is cool.) offers another session of the chesslike game Feudal and also a board full of Shogun. My brother-in-law Jim will be running both Mississippi Queen and Puerto Rico. Both these games are good, clean fun and Jim is a great guy to have running a game. And I'm not just saying that because he's my wife's brother. Jim's great. Both of Jim's games are listed as 'newcomers welcome' but if you're new to both of them I suggest going with Mississippi Queen. While Jim can handle teaching Puerto Rico to newbies, that game takes longer to really grasp. Pick Mississippi Queen if you're going to the event to play a game, but go with Puerto Rico if you're there to learn a game. If you already know how to play Puerto Rico, then that's my pick for the Sunday morning boardgames. Great game, excellent game moderator.
Over in the miniatures depaartment we have six games on tap. '40K At Its Finest' is billed as a game where you show up, pick an army, and smash it against an opponent. This no-frills straight-to-the-point action is provided by Mr. Jake Welch. (I first read that name as Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of General Electric. I bet he'd play the Imperial Guard.) If you like your elves without lasers, then look to Russ Hartley's 25mm Victors of the Realms session, which promises hot human-on-demihuman action. Ron and Shawn Ralston offer a second session of Starmada Compendium, once again in a slot that makes the game unavailable to me. SC is one of those games I enjoy so much I bought an extra copy of the rules so that multiple people could reference stuff during play. Not that Starmada even requires that much page-flipping. The mechanics are simple and rock solid, delivering fun space-operatic capital ship shoot-em-ups.
Ken Vreeman, subject of much praise in previous installments in this series, will be offering an Advanced Civilization game. Advanced Civ is a much-beloved boardgame, but this event is slotted in the miniatures area. I presume this is because Mr. Vreeman will be using one of his large, elaborate custom boards with 25mm figures replacing the counters. If you like the idea of playing out some alternate history, consider 'The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming', a 6mm micro armor look at a speculative Russian invasion of West Germany in 1948. The rules for this scenario are Cold War Commander and the referees are Steve Massey and Terrance Haas.
In my opinion the most intriguing event in the miniatures area would be Chris Fawcett's French Foreign Legion event, 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste'. An emphasis on player interaction and secret agendas makes this event look like one of thos proto-RPG things that usually make for a great con game. If I wasn't running a game Sunday morning I'd probably be at the Starmada game, but don't let my personal obsession with exploding starcruisers keep you away from 'The Last Remake'.
Speaking of me running a game, as I type this I have the entire RPG room to myself Sunday morning. The RPGA folks will still be doing the voodoo that they do, but they usually get their own room. My event is entitled 'The Revenge of Obiwan Shinobi' and will be run using something resembling S. John Ross' faux retro sci-fi/fantasy freak-out, Encounter Critical. I ran EC last year and we all had a frickin' blast. If you like wild gonzo games with things like elf ninjas and robots that worship Satan, come and play Encounter Critical with me. This year Obiwan Shinobi, the newly-rebuilt robodroid warlock IG-666-A, and a new crew of adventurers will attempt to infiltrate the Crawling Chaoskeep of Darth Viraxis!
Okay, folks, only one more preview to go. Next time I'll go over the events scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the last session of Winter War.
Today I'll be talking about the events on the pre-registration schedule for the Sunday morning of the con. For earlier events, check out my previews of Friday afternoon, Friday evening, Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday evening. And don't miss this update to the Friday and Saturday events.
Sunday, February 11th, 9am
Sometimes at cons (including Winter War) the Sunday morning events can be a little underwhelming. Alot of people game or debauche heavily the night before. But there are several good events on the schedule for Sunday morning run by straight shooters who will show up on time and run a fabulous game despite any festive activities the previous evening. As mentioned in every previous installment, the Advanced Squad Leader and Living Greyhawk people are expected to still be doing their respective things. Personally I can't play the same game for 2 and a half days straight, but different strokes for different folks.
The boardgame area features three guys running five games. Clark Barthel offers newbies a chance to try out Detroit-Cleveland Grand Prix, a racing game that is totally new to me. Tom Hendricks (I really need to find out if this is the same Tom Hendricks I used to game with. That guy is cool.) offers another session of the chesslike game Feudal and also a board full of Shogun. My brother-in-law Jim will be running both Mississippi Queen and Puerto Rico. Both these games are good, clean fun and Jim is a great guy to have running a game. And I'm not just saying that because he's my wife's brother. Jim's great. Both of Jim's games are listed as 'newcomers welcome' but if you're new to both of them I suggest going with Mississippi Queen. While Jim can handle teaching Puerto Rico to newbies, that game takes longer to really grasp. Pick Mississippi Queen if you're going to the event to play a game, but go with Puerto Rico if you're there to learn a game. If you already know how to play Puerto Rico, then that's my pick for the Sunday morning boardgames. Great game, excellent game moderator.
Over in the miniatures depaartment we have six games on tap. '40K At Its Finest' is billed as a game where you show up, pick an army, and smash it against an opponent. This no-frills straight-to-the-point action is provided by Mr. Jake Welch. (I first read that name as Jack Welch, the ex-CEO of General Electric. I bet he'd play the Imperial Guard.) If you like your elves without lasers, then look to Russ Hartley's 25mm Victors of the Realms session, which promises hot human-on-demihuman action. Ron and Shawn Ralston offer a second session of Starmada Compendium, once again in a slot that makes the game unavailable to me. SC is one of those games I enjoy so much I bought an extra copy of the rules so that multiple people could reference stuff during play. Not that Starmada even requires that much page-flipping. The mechanics are simple and rock solid, delivering fun space-operatic capital ship shoot-em-ups.
Ken Vreeman, subject of much praise in previous installments in this series, will be offering an Advanced Civilization game. Advanced Civ is a much-beloved boardgame, but this event is slotted in the miniatures area. I presume this is because Mr. Vreeman will be using one of his large, elaborate custom boards with 25mm figures replacing the counters. If you like the idea of playing out some alternate history, consider 'The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming', a 6mm micro armor look at a speculative Russian invasion of West Germany in 1948. The rules for this scenario are Cold War Commander and the referees are Steve Massey and Terrance Haas.
In my opinion the most intriguing event in the miniatures area would be Chris Fawcett's French Foreign Legion event, 'The Last Remake of Beau Geste'. An emphasis on player interaction and secret agendas makes this event look like one of thos proto-RPG things that usually make for a great con game. If I wasn't running a game Sunday morning I'd probably be at the Starmada game, but don't let my personal obsession with exploding starcruisers keep you away from 'The Last Remake'.
Speaking of me running a game, as I type this I have the entire RPG room to myself Sunday morning. The RPGA folks will still be doing the voodoo that they do, but they usually get their own room. My event is entitled 'The Revenge of Obiwan Shinobi' and will be run using something resembling S. John Ross' faux retro sci-fi/fantasy freak-out, Encounter Critical. I ran EC last year and we all had a frickin' blast. If you like wild gonzo games with things like elf ninjas and robots that worship Satan, come and play Encounter Critical with me. This year Obiwan Shinobi, the newly-rebuilt robodroid warlock IG-666-A, and a new crew of adventurers will attempt to infiltrate the Crawling Chaoskeep of Darth Viraxis!
Okay, folks, only one more preview to go. Next time I'll go over the events scheduled for Sunday afternoon, the last session of Winter War.
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