TV Review: Agent Carter, Series 2 and Star Wars Rebels, Series 2

Quick catch-up time for two shows that finished their second series in the last week or so. I'm afraid it's heading into that time of year where season finales start to snowball up, and even keeping up is getting difficult. At least Star Wars Rebels is on a Saturday morning, and we watch it with the kids, so it doesn't come out of "grown up TV time". It's interesting to see both seasons change and build on their respective firsts, and whilst I'm a lot more confident of seeing more Rebels than seeing more Agent Carter (dammit) they both build solid foundations to go forward with. So lets start with the LA adventures of Peggy Carter, shall we?

TV Review: Marvels' Daredevil, series 2

It's funny how fans can affect your perception of a character. For example, I've never had any time for The Punisher, despite hardly reading a single issue of a comic he's in, largely because way back in the day I knew a couple of big Punisher Fans who put me off him. Their genuine enthuiasm usually translated into a love for a character because of sweary ultra-violence, a one note bullet-hose of a character who didn't have any truck with "softer" heroes, and even back then I was never really into that sort of thing. I've always liked my heroes, well, heroic. Still do. So I may have been one of the few fans of Daredevil Season 1 who wasn't looking forward to his appearance in Season 2 with a great deal of enthusiasm. 

Yeah, so I was wrong. 

DVD of the Week: Kingsman: The Secret Service

Early Spring seems to be the time when Hollywood drops a supposedly "edgy" and "growed up" comic action movie on the eager public who have suffered through the post-xmas rush of Oscar Fodder. This year we have Deadpool, and in past years we've had Watchman and Kick-Ass in the same slot. They tend to do pretty well, too, and I'm not going to claim that I haven't enjoyed all or part of these films. Last years was Kingsman: The Secret Service, which seemed a little divisive, some seemingly repelled by it, others entraced, and that divide seemed to break down in unpredictible ways, too. But with a lot of talent both in front of, and behind the camera, I was largely expecting to enjoy it. And i did - with reservations. 

Best of 2015: Books and Comics

So to finish off our trilogy of 2015 reviews, we come to the written word. This year I've managed to read 30 books, which I think is a record for recent years, and I'm quietly pleased about it. It's been skewed in some strange ways (more on that for a minute) but its also broadly diverse in others. I've rolled comics into this post as there has been a more "steady as she goes" feel to my comics reading, but even there I think I've done alright. Lets get to it.

A Year in Review: 2014

So Farewell, then, 2014, and don't let the door hit you on the way out. There seems to be a general consensus that its been a bad year in many, many ways, especially if you spend any sort of time in online communities, which have felt like a magnifying glass for all the horrors of the world at times, albeit one that occasionally shows you cute baby animals too. Its also been a year when this negativity seems to have spilled out into everything - there is hardly anything that has been popular that has not been subjected to careful scrutiny for negative messages, secretive agendas or bias of any kind, from all corners of the political spectrum. Not that this sort of thing is an invalid process - I'd argue its a necessary process, in fact - but at times, to quote one of my favorite films this year, it just wanted to suck the fun out of everything. 

Personally, I just want to like stuff, to applaud what is done right. So here, in no particular order, are my "top three" entertainments of the year by largely arbitrary categories. Other Opinions are available! 

Comics Review: Fatale and Gunnerkrigg Court

And so we come back to the sporadic round-up of things we bought at Thoughtbubble, but seem to be taking forever to read through. Indeed, a month on, there are still two or three things left to read, sat up on the sideboard with my 2000AD backlog, which is at least a sign that I got good value for money in terms of buying "stuff" this year. Part of the joys of cons is discovering new things - ongoing series you know you want you can pickup any time, really, but usually when at a con I try and focus on small press stuff, which doesn't get the exposure it often deserves, or more off-beat stuff a natural conservatism would pass over in, say, an actual shop. These two however were things we went intending to buy, so I guess count in neither of those categories. Hmmm. 

Comics Review: Grandville Noel

It's been a couple of weeks since Thoughtbubble, and I'm still slowly but steadily reading through my loot pile, held up thanks to visitors, house decoration and the usual distractions of parenthood. Also, it's a fairly big pile containing a lot of stuff, so I've been reading them through in order of excitement, or in some cases, mood. First off the pile was unquestionably Bryan Talbot's Grandville Noel, which wasn't actually out, officially at Thoughtbubble, and sadly Bryan wasn't there to sign it either, but a couple of stalls had advance copies and I snapped one up as my first purchase. I am an unashamed Bryan Talbot fanboy, and Grandville in particular has always been exceptionally good value to me.

Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy

First, a confession; For a long time, I really didn't see how Guardians of the Galaxy could succeed. Sure, Marvel Studios are in a solid groove now, with a good reputation for delivering at the minimum solid, at at the best really excellent, blockbuster entertainment, but this just seemed like a step too far. Outside of comics fans - and not all of them at that - who has heard of StarLord and the like? This is the age of pre-loaded franchises, dammit, of playing it safe with established characters, not sailing off into a strange corner of the Cosmic Universe to play with a Talking Raccoon. So lets just say, for the record, that I was dead wrong.

Rambling: Super-Diversity

Well, this feels like sticking my head into shark tank. There seems to be a running debate about the moment about diversity in superhero-land, and sometimes it feels dangerously insane. I'm not talking about the headbanging idiots that seem to think that their toys are being taken away, more that it feels increasingly less like a debate and more a complex series of battlelines designed to facilitate the throwing of insults between people who mostly agree. The latest outbreak seemed to be sparked by Marvel's announcement that the next Thor would be a woman, and the next Captain America would be a black guy, but San Diego Comic Con, and its array of white-guy leading roles let it all simmer along too. Like everyone else, it seems, I have opinions, although they're somewhat contradictory in places, which makes them ill-suited for 140 characters or less.

On Writing

Some time ago now I wrote up some words on how I felt about claiming to be a "writer", in an age when it may never have been easier to do so, whilst paradoxically perhaps increasingly hard to make a living at it, at least relatively speaking. The sort version of it was whilst I certain write, I'm light on objective validation of any sort of quality, and most of my "published" work is reviews and magazine articles, as opposed to the fiction that I want to write and so far have only accumulated some polite rejections. However, you keep plugging away, if only stop the ideas overwhelming you. The thing I've never thought to try my hand at was comics, but after a conversation on Dissecting Worlds one evening I got an idea that I couldn't shake. And as of this week, you can actually go out and buy it.

Comics: Thoughtbubble Round Up!

It's been a couple of weeks since Leed's annual Thoughtbubble Convention, which is one the highlights of my year, not least because its in my Home City and I can spent lots of time there without having to worry about transport, hotels and the like. But it's also a fantastic atmosphere to be in, with a open, egalitarian spirit to the tables, panels and general con culture that makes it such a pleasure. And each year I go with a wodge of cash to spend with as little an idea on what I want as possible, just so I can pick up stuff that grabs my interest. So this year, these are the results:

First Impressions: Marvels Agents of SHIELD

Here is the thought for today - how many shows were great straight out of the gate? I mean, I can name a few (Battlestar Galactica's "33" was one of its all-time greats, for instance) for every one I can think of a flood of shows with weak-to-terrible starts that went on to be something far better. I remember sitting in a convention screening room watching pilot the of Babylon 5 being laughed off the screen, and Encounter at Farpoint, which relaunched the Star Trek franchise on TV is just bloody embarrassingly bad. Fringe, the show that captured and then broke my heart (repeatedly), and went on to be my favorite show of the last decade, was so un-exceptional at first I simply stopped watching, and had to be persuaded back to it. So I find the current trend for snarky write-offs of Marvel's Agent of SHIELD a little premature.

Comics Round Up!

I can be quite weak-willed when it comes to new things. Always have been. Its one of the reasons I stopped buying "floppy" comics, because that weekly trip to the comic story inevitably lead to purchases over and above whatever I was subscribed to at the time. I just couldn't walk into a shop full of geek catnip and then walk out empty handed. That was a few years back, and my range of collected editions has expanded happily, mostly bought safely over the internet where the smarter bits of my brain get time to kick in and stop me spending money I don't really have. However, recently that changed, because I signed up to Comixology, and now I have subscriptions again. Here's a quick run down of what I've subscribed to.

Comics Roundup!

I've been caught saying that I don't really buy comics anymore, having sold or given away my old long-boxes a few years back, but all thats really meant is that I now have half a large bookcase full of graphic novels and collected editions. Currently I seem to be buying a two or three a month, so apart from being easier to store the only real difference is that I'm 6 months or so behind on any given storyline. On the plus side, I tend to be able to work on recommendations, so at least I'm buying less rubbish. 

Anyway, some thoughts on my recent reading....

SF Weekender Post-Con-Review-Round-Up-Thing

So, this weekend we headed to North Wales for the SF Weekender. We went last year, when it was the SFX Weekender, but this year it was without the "X" after Future Publishing apparently decided that big media cons weren't the sort of thing it wanted to do anymore, and the organizers of previous years carried on without them, and their fancy "X". Overall it was a good weekend, but not all roses, as we shall see.

DVD of the Week: Dredd

Anticipation is a dangerous thing. It sets you up for dissappointment half the time, when whatever you're watching or reading doesn't live up to that expectation. The Phantom Menace is a bad film, but to hear some people talk it's a hate-crime against their collective childhoods, over and above any merits it may not have. That is anticipation, turned to ashes. On the other hand, it can make you overlook the flaws in something, see a film you want to see, not that a film that is. This is the logic that makes The Return of the King the 9th best film ever made, according to IMDb's Top 250, and really? No, I don't think so. Which brings us to Dredd, which may be one of the biggest Fan Films ever made, and a hotly anticipated one at that. 

Reading Plans, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love my "To Be Read" Pile

First up, the comics world seems to be buzzing with the news of Gail Simone's removal from Batgirl over the weekend. In some ways I don't have a dog in the fight, as I don't read Batgirl (or any other "Big Two" comics) but two thoughts leap to mind. First, firing someone by email is shitty and cowardly, even if they are the tea-boy, never mind one of your flagship writers. Secondly, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the decision, an industry sector with a growing image problem regards female characters and female audiences, should probably think really fucking hard before adding female creators to the list of the disenfranchised.

Anyway, to what I was actually thinking about.

I've been thinking a lot recently about what to read next year. You see, several years ago I had the shock the realisation that I didn't read anymore, and that was a bit of a kick in the self-image. I'd always been a reader, I'd always had a book on the go, and suddenly, I wasn't and I didn't. So in an attempt to force myself back into a pattern, I came up with the idea of reading lists - planning a list of themed books and reading through them (and blogging about them) as a way of getting back in the habit.

So first I picked 12 "Great American Novels", and then I moved onto 20 Crime Novels. After that, I did Fantasy novels - a genre i'd never got on with - and the folks at Geek Syndicate let me post them up on their site, which was pretty cool. After that I did post-apocalypse novels and this year I'd done Horror. The tourism into different genres has been wonderfully broadening and I heartily recommend it. Its too easy to just read the same stuff, and think that's all that's out there. However, now I'm hitting an unexpected side effect of these projects, which is causing me a few problems.

I'd like to read more Hemingway. I want to read all of "The Dark Tower". I should probably give Scott Lynch another go because many of my friends rave about him and I want to make sure I'm not missing something there. I've not read much Science Fiction - my first literary love - for a long time and want to go back to it, but not sure I could do a year of it. I've unread novels by James Ellroy, Adrian Tchaikovsky and David Brin to get through. I'd asked for at least two History Tomes for Christmas.

So, yeah.

I suspect I'll still try and put together a list this year, but one without theme, just an aspiration of books and authors I want to read, books and authors I'd only discovered from the previous years lists. But no matter what I end up reading, the important thing is this: I'm a reader, once again.

ThoughtBubble 2012 Comic Round-Up

So, finally got chance this weekend to sit down and finish off the comics haul I got from last weeks rather fantastic Thoughtbubble Con. As ever, I had a pretty great time, caught up with a good bunch of people I rarely see, and spent far to much money. I also bought this lot:

Not Shown: The Rainbow Orchid. Which I bought on the Sunday. 

Rant: Fake Geek Girls and other such crap.

So, like a turd that just won't flush, the "fake geek girl" debate - although calling it a "debate" honours it more than it deserves - came up again yesterday after this particularly incoherent rant from artist Tony Harris. Twitter and the Blogosphere and so on exploded into righteous fury, and many words have written on the subject. And in many ways it was heartening to see, that this sort of crap is stood up against, and reading through yesterday there was some optimism to be found in the idea that the visceral response is a good sign for geek community being open and inclusive, and y'know, not deep down just a bunch of gynophobic basement virgins with too much access to the internet.

And then the more I thought about, I started to feel genuinely angry about it, because although there are many, many, good people standing up against this sort of behavior, it still keeps happening.

Rambling Randomly

Sometimes I just have collected thoughts that don't coalesce enough for a coherent post. This is one of those posts!

Diablo 3 and the Agency Problem
Since writing up Diablo 3 a while back I've played it a bit more in co-operation with friends, and finally managed to nail down something that has been bugging me and I wasn't able to articulate. And thats the strange thing about it's story. Most games put the player at the centre of the action - after all, it's you shooting those bad guys, or you saving the kingdom, or you stacking those blocks. Even where the story calls for a defined central character, by and large you are playing that central character, even when the story allows you no choices and pre-written cut-scenes, usually you are in charge of that main character within the gameplay. It's called "agency" and is one of the more unique things about storytelling in computer games, and a lot of games in the RPG genre particularly are experimenting with the limits of this agency when it comes to emergent stories.

The thing is with Diablo 3's story, is that you actually have no agency. Sure, you run around the world killing monsters and looting their shiny things, but whenever the story crops up one of the NPCs is there to actually do the thing that needs to be done. You're not saving the world, you're getting lesser creatures out of the way so that other people can save the world. Other characters tell you where to go, read ancient manuscripts and perform ancient rites. In the end, your character may get to kill newly trans-sexual Diablo but the celebratory cutscene is Tyrael's triumph, not yours.

It feels like such an odd way to write a story - as if they were too attached to their characters to let your disposable killer get in the way.

Graphic Novel Round-Up
My current comic reading is limited to the two or three graphic novels I buy each month, largely on recommendation. Sure, I'm always behind, but the quality is pretty solid. This month I picked up Orbital vol 4 and Long John Silver vol 3, both from Cinebooks, who translate the european comics scene for English-speaking audiences. Orbital is a space operatic police series, and LJS is a sequel of sorts to Treasure Island, set around a search of a South American city of gold. Both are fantastic, great art, great stories, but these volume are the last currently in print and the next volumes look to be available sometime in 2013. Which isn't fair; I'm used to being so far behind there is always another volume!

I'm also finally starting to read Hellboy. Its the sort of thing I knew I will like, and of course I do. My reading is slightly plagued by lack of availability of some volumes, which I guess is the downside of being so far behind!

Dragons in Dungeons, Oh My! 
After many years of being a role-player, I am finally playing a proper, dungeon crawling Dungeons and Dragons Game. I'm a cleric, with the stupidly fantasy-tastic name of "Radia Lightsalve". She's Neutral Good, reads tacky romance novels, and is nice to everyone. Yes, my tongue is in my cheek throughout. That said, I've rather enjoyed it so far - it sort of is and isn't what you'd expect, by which I mean it's mechanistic, combat heavy, and a bit too much down the "boardgame" line for my usual taste in RPGs, but despite that it's pretty good fun....