Category: Blog

Blog

Dogs of War: 3 Comics About Canine Courage in Combat

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

Dogs of War by Sheila Keenan and Nathan Fox is a new book coming out at the end of October.  It collects three comics about dogs in wartime, starting with the trenches of World War I, Greenland in World War II and ending with memories of the Vietnam War. It’s a good book and has already gotten passed around our household.  Writer Keenan has produced two straight-forward adventure stories and one a bit more melancholy, given that it is set after its war, back home in the States.  Artist Fox does some really solid work and the coloring is great …

Blog / Comics

Return of Kukuburi

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

Some unexpected good news today — Ramon Perez blogged that he intends to return to updating his fantasy, coming of age webcomic, Kukuburi.  Perez is such an amazing artist, I love his expressions and the shiny vitality of his characters.  He’s done a ton of work in the last couple of years on several projects for other people; it’s great to see him return to his own story.  Frankly, this might be something where a kickstarter is in order, because if the fans want to see this finished, Perez is going to be giving up other paying work to do …

Blog / Comics

Ava’s Demon

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

What a beautiful comic.  Ava’s Demon is gorgeously art’d up and the story, while a little clunky to start is setting up a potentially powerful narrative pull.  And the art!  It’s on hiatus now until the end of 2013 but there’s quite enough in the archives to get hooked on it.  Did I mention the art?

Blog / Words

The Long Read

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

I picked up The Long Earth when it first came out, excited to see another novel from Terry Pratchett.  It has a great world-building concept; a series of parallel earths that can be reached by “stepping” from one world to the next.  And the stepping is triggered by an invention straight out of a typical Pratchett novel.  Unfortunately nothing after feels anything like Pratchett.  Which means the book must be a lot more Stephen Baxter than Terry Pratchett. (But I haven’t read Baxter so I don’t know if it’s all him or the sum of the two authors is just …

Blog / Comics / Games

Clash of Civilizations

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

I have a love hate relationship with the game Civilization. The current version is Civ 5 and coincidentally I’ve been playing a bit of it this summer too.  It does lend itself to some historical mismatches from time to time though as illustrated by the very recent installment of Awkward Zombie:

Blog / Culture

Bookmark: Keith Olbermann

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgrlqL2vmGA?rel=0] Keith Olbermann remembers a story of talking to his father about sports and civil rights that is quite moving.  I get it that Keith is a big personality and a bit of a diva at times in his career.  Even I don’t actually watch him regularly most of the time (some of the time though).  But he’s got a talent for talking to the camera.  Not necessarily a talent for getting along with management or owners but… I lived in Southern California when Keith got what had to have been his first really big job doing Sports for …

Blog / Culture / Video

Bookmark: Spaced

Xaviar Xerexesby Xaviar Xerexes

I finally got around to watching the first season of Spaced, the British TeeVee series featuring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost and directed by Edgar Wright. I have to say, it is really funny.  Perhaps a little too targeted to my life experience in terms of age and pop culture; it makes me wonder how well it will hold up over the years. Director Edgar Wright is pretty heavily influenced by Sam Raimi and everyone Raimi was influence by.  He’s very inventive and you can see the style he employed on Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, Scott Pilgrim and …