Hurricane of Independence!

I have quite an interest in what I guess are called the Colonial, Revolutionary, and Young Republic Eras of U.S. history. I can't quite trace it back to what jump-started that interest, but about three years ago we visited Mt. Vernon and read James Thomas Flexner's biography of our first president, Washington: The Indispensible Man. For my birthday my wife had gotten me a gift certificate to a bookstore plus a night off from the kids to go find something I wanted to read. I sat and read the first chapters of 5 Washington biographies, and liked Flexner's prose best. It's quite good, and I recommend it.


Now I'm reading Tony Williams' Hurricane of Independence: The Untold Story of the Deadly Storm at the Deciding Moment of the American Revolution. It's not very good, at least not as a narrative of the hurricane of 1775 that hit the center of the British American colonies. There's not much to report there, apparently. Williams makes a lot of pedestrian references to high winds and rain and flooding and damage, but really it's all just kind of an excuse to write about what was going on in that area in the years leading up to and even after the hurricane. I get the metaphor and all, but my impression is that the hurricane did some serious damage to the Outer Banks of North Carolina and southeastern Virginia early on, petered out, and didn't really have much effect on the political and social upheaval that was going on. You'd think the damage to crops and to shipments on ships and docks would have affected the economy and put a fine point on the situation the colonists were in politically, but if it did Williams barely touches on it.


It's a pretty good look at that place and time, though, and covers a lot of ground without straining itself. His prose is pretty weak when talking about the hurricane as such, but he handles the rest of the material pretty well, and that's well over 90% of the book anyway.

The Shield Is On The Air! Prepare For Adventure!!

I did an interview with Sean and Jim of The Raging Bullets, a DC Comics fan podcast, last Thursday night. I love these guys, and I listen to their often hours-long show devotedly. They love comics, and they've got something interesting to say about everything they read - and they seem to read nearly everything DC publishes.

We talked mostly about The Shield - specifically the most recent issue, #7. We also digressed into comic book movies for a while, my work on Batman: The Widening Gyre for a bit, and a few other things.

Here's the Raging Bullets site. Here's the episode (#201). Here's the episode's topic thread on the RB forums. Man, that is one linkariffic sentence...

Even More Ether!

So, I listen to a lot of podcasts. I need stuff to fill the silence while I work. I love music of all sorts, but hours of music is no better than hours of silence, really. Even if it's classical music, you wind up listening to these tidy little capsules of music, which gets old after a while, for me at least.

I sit at my computer at home for 6+ hours a day, 5 days a week plus whatever nights or weekend hours I need to get my coloring work done. Well-read audio books, about something I care about enough to listen to for hours on end, seem to be uncommon.

Podcasts, however, are delightful! Every week, for most podcasts, you get a new installment. Some podcasts have new episodes daily! Depending on the podcast, episodes can be anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. There are podcasts for every and any interest or hobby, too.

And brother, have I got a lot of interests. This is part of the danger of my job: by moving my mouse an inch or so, I am suddenly no longer work, but on the internet playing link-wander.

So, having something engaging to listen to is essential to keeping me from looking for distractions. I sometimes put a dvd in the laptop and set that up right next to my monitor, but it has to be something I've seen often enough that I don't have to watch it per se. The visual stimulation is nice as a change of pace, but it runs the risk of catching my eye for too long. Still, I love dvd commentaries - and there are lots of dvd commentary podcasts! Sweet joy!

I will be adding links to this blog soon, so you can see - or rather hear - what I listen to.

More Ether!

...as in aether, as in the substance that, in certain antiquated 'scientific' hypotheses, fills the universe beyond the Earth and is the medium through which light travels, as in light travelling through fiber optics, as in high speed internet, as in hey, the latest episode of The Raging Bullets, a DC Comics fan podcast includes a ringing endorsement of The Shield! 


As a colorist, I sit alone for many hours on end, longing for things to occupy the parts of my brain not needed for coloring. So, I listen to a fair number of podcasts, many of them about comic books. Basically, The Raging Bullets helps keep me sane.


As the colorist on The Shield, said vociferous support - to quote Little Big Man's Old Lodge Skins - made my heart soar like a hawk. Thanks, guys! You can find mention of the book at the beginning and ending of that episode, but if you know what's good for you, you'll listen to the whole thing.


I got the first four inked pages for issue #9 today. I'll be starting on that next week, because right now I'm working on the first batch of pages for Batman: The Widening Gyre #6. It is full of surprises that I cannot reveal, on pain of death - probably at the hands of writer Kevin Smith's henchmen.

Gorillas Won't Leave Comic Books Alone!

Comix and gorillas go way back. Details of this sordid, simian phenomena can be found at Comic Book Gorillarama and in Wikipedia's Gorillas in comics article. 

"This article has multiple issues," the latter begins. 

I bet it does. 

I would, too, if I were a Wikipedia article about gorillas in comics.

Anyway, in keeping with that proud tradition, Gorilla Grodd, frequent thorn in the side of The Flash, appeared in issues #2 and 3 of The Shield, published by DC Comics. I've been coloring this series since the first issue - except for the Grodd-heavy issue #3! Woe is me! At least I got to do some color ape magic on the last page of #2. 

Well, it turns out I got another crack at the Groddster in issue #8, due in stores April 14th. It's just a flashback, so don't get all excited. Wait, no - do get excited! Get very excited! Better yet, go buy it! A lot.

I include here the very first ever sample of my work as a comic book colorist to be featured in this blog. Enjoy...

Echoes of Ghosts of Ghost/Echo

So, I didn't mention how that Ghost/Echo game went.

It went well!

See you next time!

...

To elaborate: The game provides a short list of player character "nicknames" (as well as locations, non-player character names, and the like). We picked nicknames from the list for each other ("I think Simon should be 'Hull'!"). The players were then left to figure out why their character had that name and why, and in doing so pretty well sketched out what their character was all about and what sorts of things they do.

I like this game. Afterwards, we talked about the game and the system. It occurred to that with a little extra use of the bonus dice to "pulp" it up, the risk/reward seesaw would emulate something like the Indiana Jones films quite well, wherein the hero regularly gets captured, injured, or otherwise "loses" in a scene, but just as often gets the upper hand and gets what they want out of a scene.

It's a very dynamic little game. You barely even need paper and pencil to play it - writing down basic notes about who your character is and what setbacks or injuries they've suffered is all that's necessary. Similarly, the GM only needs paper and pencil to scribble down dramatic elements pertinent to a scene and lay the note(s) out on the table so everyone knows they can get extra dice and extra danger if they want.

I'd play it again. Constructing a campaign might require some fleshing out of the system, but not much. Our GM for the night, Chris, joined our long-standing group a couple of years ago, and has since pointed out that most of the players in the group seem to have little use or need for detailed rules in a role-playing game. We just need enough to hang our hats on, as it were, so Ghost/Echo provided us with a night of fun.

Ghosts of Ghost/Echo

So, last night one of the most reliable members of the Tuesday night group, Chris, ran Ghost/Echo. Yes, I know: last night was Wednesday night. I started Art's Gaming Salon and Emporium of Tabletop Delights so that we could try one-shot or short-run games without interfering with the weekly Tuesday night game. Tuesday night is for longer-run, on-going games that usually last a few months to a even a year or more sometimes. The Gaming Salon is for once-a-month or so gaming experiments.

"Ghost/Echo is a quick-play aetherpunk adventure module [...]". That's what the website says, and that's a pretty good description. It's an rpg in the sense that there are rules for making characters and for task-resolution, and there is a structure for the kinds of things that are likely to happen. However, the rules as represented are built for one kind of adventure: the characters are looking for something in the ghost world and are ambushed because someone betrayed them and their are wraiths on their trail, too. How one interprets 'ghost world' and 'wraiths' and 'loot' and a lot of other things is pretty wide open, leaving the details of the characters and the world up to the players and gamemaster as they play. As a result, it requires a group of fairly mature people to keep it from becoming a free-for-all.

The Ghost/Echo site consists mostly of a free, two-page pdf with everything you need to play. It's not a complete game in the traditional sense, but there's enough dynamics in the rules that it would be really easy to use them to run any game in which substantial risk to the characters and their goals is desirable. This risk could be offset by increased use of the extra dice which the rules as written allow for in certain situations. I'd describe the rules more, but in the time it would take you'd be better off just reading the wee pdf. Heck, some of the two pages is filled by three very nice, evocative images, so it's even less that 2 pages. Check it out.

Thanks for reading!

Why I Game

So, I play role-playing games. I'm not ashamed to admit it, especially in this new, sparkling age of geek-culture prominence. I some times have to explain to people what role-playing games are, and even then it's hard for some people to get their heads around. Like most things, the ability to grasp a concept depends to a large degree on what your experiences have been and what you have exposed yourself to. 


By role-playing games I mean table-top, pencil-and-paper games. The most famous of these is Dungeons and Dragons, but there are RPGs for every taste and fancy, and they cover pretty much every genre, setting, or historical era one can imagine.


I think I play RPGs for a number of reasons - if reason is the right word. The first that comes to mind is that when gaming, I get to sit around a table with a bunch of fairly like-minded people and make up a story. Collaborative creativity is a wonderful thing, and something I very much enjoy. As a professional colorist, I get paid to be creative - and that's a marvelous thing for which I am thankful - but I do it alone. My general introverted nature and propensity for detail is what makes that possible. Most weeks, our Tuesday-night game is the only social, non-family thing I do.


There's a lot of banter at the gaming table. This is my big chance to chit-chat about what's happening in the lives of the people gathered, about movies, tv shows, comics, recent news, and whatever someone is reminded of by something that is happening in the game. We're pretty respectful of why we all came together, so that doesn't derail the game itself too much.


Unusual sorts of things that happen in RPGs. I guess that's kind of the point! Accumulations of scenarios and challenges and the abilities and traits of the characters we're playing and the things those characters succeed heroically or fail spectacularly at can produce situations that are so far outside the normalcy of life that one hears things at the gaming table that would not, even could not, be heard anywhere else - and they are often hilarious. I look forward to my own tear-inducing laughter every week.