Author: Luke M.

Luke Matthews is a writer, board gamer, beer drinker, and all-around geek. He currently lives in the Seattle area with his wife, two cats, and two German wirehaired pointers.
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On Endings and New Beginnings

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For most of my life, I’ve failed to get along with my older brother. Our relationship, even when we were kids, was… strained. One of the clearest memories I have of him from my childhood was from just before Christmas, 1989, when I was eleven. Like all kids do, we were searching around our house for our carefully hidden Christmas presents, and I happened to find mine, tucked away in the bottom of the closet of my parent’s camper-trailer. It was a Nintendo GameBoy, the original one, the year it launched.

I had fiddled around with a GameBoy at a local video store and had been begging for one for months. I was out-of-my-mind excited for it. In my euphoria I confided in my big brother about what I’d found. He seemed to share my excitement, telling me how cool it was. That night, I was pulled into our dining room by my parents and dressed down for having looked for and found the presents. My mom was crying – they’d put a lot of planning into this and were disappointed that I ruined the surprise. They contemplated the idea of returning the gift rather than giving it to me. My brother had told them what I’d done.

It might give you an inkling for the direction of this post, when that’s one of the strongest memories I have of my childhood relationship with my brother. For an eleven-year-old, I felt a profound sense of betrayal. I’d looked up to him before then – who doesn’t look up to their big brother? – but I rarely ever trusted him after that point, especially not during our childhood. That event set the tone for our relationship for years to come, and gave me a harsh lesson in the care I must take in choosing who I can trust. If not my own big brother, then who?

Over the years, our relationship had never been what you’d call good. He wasn’t really around for most of my junior high years, having shipped off to the Air Force after graduating high-school. Even after he’d been discharged a few years later and was living somewhat close by, I didn’t spend a whole lot of time with him. When I did, it invariably spiraled into some sort of argument. I remember, when I was in high school, almost coming to blows with him in our house in central Oregon one day, barely dodging out of range of one of his punches.

My brother’s relationship to our family was never very tight. The older he got, the more embittered he became, which led not only to his own constant state of unhappiness but seemingly endless attempts to infringe on the happiness of the rest of our family. More times that I can count, my father or I would have to comfort my mother after he’d made some particularly horrendous comment to her, or railed against some decision or other that my parents had made through the course of their lives. In spite of everything my parents had done for him, there was always another poisonous comment or graceless barb waiting in the wings.

His was an attitude of “I didn’t ask to be born; the world owes me.” That attitude, combined with a constitutional lack of the ability to agree to disagree, poisoned every single relationship my brother ever attempted, from minor acquaintances to significant others to the closest of family. In his world, it is not possible for someone to differ from his opinion without that person being naive, ignorant, fascist, or some combination of the three.

We hung out more often through the late 90’s and early 00’s, but the more time we spent together, the more tense our relationship became. The pressure of our incompatibility would just build and build until finally exploding. Through most of our adult life, our interactions were punctuated by long periods of no contact, inevitably precipitated by some horrendous, un-winnable argument. Over the years, the arguments got worse and worse, not only in intensity but in content. The last truly major argument we had, he was blaming my ailing father for the death of our mother, who passed away from an accidental drug overdose due to a faulty medicine patch (needless to say, it had nothing to do with my father at all).

After that incident, our relationship was basically irreparable. Less than a year later my father passed away, and we made some superficial attempts to be somewhat brotherly again. The idea was a doomed one, unstable because of his dislike for me and my distrust of him. The tragedy of my father’s death brought us back into each other’s presence, but never really brought us closer. I’d realized this, but made the attempt anyway, out of an overinflated sense of family obligation that was never reciprocated. Everyone with whom I confided told me to not bother making the attempt, but I did it anyway because… well, because he was my brother.

Over recent years, not only had we grown apart because of our differing political opinions and underlying mistrust, but he continued to fall down a rabbit hole of borderline racism, blatant homophobia, and excruciatingly ingrained misogyny. But amongst all of that, the thing that I could no longer stand was simply his treatment of the people in his life. The pedestal upon which he placed himself never allowed for anyone to rise out of the muck he perceived them to wallow in, which resulted in a wild and never-ending disrespect for everyone around him.

We’d had yet another falling out a couple of years ago, mostly over political ideals. I asked him to stay away for a while; I needed a break from him if there were ever going to be a chance of repairing what little bond we still clung to. I’d seen him only a handful of times over the last couple of years, mostly on holidays. After spending a mostly nice and only slightly awkward Christmas together this year, he trod all over our relationship once again.

Where am I going with all of this? It starts here:

A few weeks before Christmas I’d watched this video, and it got me thinking. Thinking about the strain of my relationship with my brother, and the impact it was having on my life. Thinking about how often I talked about some shitty comment or other that he had made, thinking about how much of my thought-space he was occupying even without being directly involved in my life. Thinking about how stressed I was every single time I thought about him coming over and spending time in my home, or spending time with him in public.

Ash Beckham’s speech resonated with me deeper than I thought it would, pointing out my own “closet” – that hard conversation I’d had yet to have. Every time I’d had a falling out with my brother, I’d somehow let him back into my life. In most cases, it required an ever-escalating reason to overcome the initial transgression, the final time being the death of my father. I found that my reasoning was always something to the effect of “he’s the only brother I’ve got”. Over time, I began to realize (but didn’t want to admit) that that reasoning wasn’t good enough. It wasn’t enough to overpower all the negativity that came with just being in my brother’s presence.

A few days after Christmas, he lobbed the grenade that finished our relationship. It wasn’t anything that much worse than things he’d done in the past, but it was at a time when I’d finally come to grips with the fact that my familial bond with my big brother just didn’t exist. When, in one fell swoop, he disrespected one of my best friends, my brother-in-law, myself, and even the nice Christmas I’d organized for our family, I couldn’t hold the load anymore.

My brother’s M.O. has always been to act inappropriately and expect an apology after-the-fact to erase his actions. When he attempted his half-assed apology this time, I made the conscious decision not to accept it. I told him it was time for us to go our separate ways. I was oddly serene about it – I wasn’t angry or hurt or upset, I just wanted it over with. I was angered by his actions toward one of my friends, but I wished him no ill-will and simply told him that we’d be better off not being around each other.

In his final act of our relationship, my brother began by taking offense at my “tolerance” of him, and then proceeded to insult almost every portion of my life from my “oversensitivity” to my political stance to my career choices to my marriage, and in the course of that rant provided perfect and final justification for my decision to divest him from my life.

“Family” and “blood” are not synonymous. Whether you’re related by blood or you’ve taken the leap to accept someone as your family, there has to be limits to how far that idea will protect them from consequences. If someone has a cancerous presence in your life, you absolutely must have the will to excise them, regardless of any artificial constructs you may be using to support the idea that the relationship is necessary or unbreakable. We don’t have enough time on this earth to for those ideas to give someone carte blanche to infringe on our happiness.

It took a lot of years and a lot of heartache, stress, tears, and hand-wringing for me to learn this lesson. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’ve freed up both the mental and emotional space that was occupied by my relationship with my brother, and it’s amazing how relaxed it’s made me. I know that this wasn’t a one-way street – he didn’t get along with me just as much as I didn’t get along with him – so hopefully he’s found the same sort of peace from this parting that I have.

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Comic Book Review: Revelations #1

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This is a comic book review I wrote for Geekerific.com on January 3rd, 2014.

revelations_coverUntil I began doing some research for this review, I had absolutely no idea that Revelations is a re-print of a six-issue miniseries that was originally published by Dark Horse Comics in 2005. Which is surprising, because I love Humberto Ramos. I loved his work on Spectacular Spider-Man, DV8, Runaways, and even his vampire comic Crimson. His style is one of the most unique in the industry, and I find him sorely underused. Which is why, when I saw his name on the cover of Revelations #1 at my local comic shop, I picked it up with no prior knowledge.

In Revelations, writer Paul Jenkins crafts the story of the death of Cardinal William Richelieu on the grounds of the Vatican. Although the case seems cut-and-dry when ruled a suicide, Cardinal Marcel Leclair recruits his long-time friend, Scotland Yard investigator and self-proclaimed “prolapsed Catholic” Charlie Northern to take a look at the case. I am a bit curious why a Scotland Yard investigator is allowed any jurisdiction in Vatican City, but I’ll just let that one go for now.

Charlie Northern’s acerbic, chain-smoking, conspiracy-theory-loving detective plays a lot like a cross between Robert Langdon and John Constantine, in a very good way. He’s not as unlikable as Constantine nor as pretentious as Langdon, so it’s easy to get caught up in his distaste for his former religion and its trappings when he gets dragged to the seat of its power. Northern is really the only fleshed-out character in the first issue, and he’s surrounded by a somewhat one-dimensional supporting cast. I expect to see more from characters like Marcel and the antagonist Cardinal Toscianni, but the focus of issue one was squarely on Charlie.

The plotline plays much like a Dan Brown novel, as well – a crime thriller with a religious focus and high-conspiracy underpinnings. I’m glad I get to go into it without any knowledge of the previous publication, because it looks to be a fun ride.

And oh man, the artwork.

I’ll preface this by saying that if you already don’t like Ramos’s style, you’re not going to like it here. This book is VERY Humberto Ramos, but with a twist. In much the same way that Matteo Scalera’s art is transformed by Dean White’s painterly colors in Rick Remender’s new book Black Science, the coloring team of Leonardo Olea and Edgar Delgado take Ramos’s lines and create an entirely original look, dominated by pastels and colored pencil style sketch lines. The result is, while thoroughly steeped in Ramos’s exaggerated figure construction, a stunning and different direction for his art. This book looks absolutely fabulous.

The relative lack of information about the original publication may very well be why Boom! Studios chose to reprint it, especially with the talent attached. Although, it might also generate the question “Why reprint this?”. It’s rare for a company to re-serialize a book when they acquire it, so maybe they’re attempting to reach a wider audience and build hype prior to continuing the series beyond this first 6-issue arc. At least, that’s what I can hope.

I don’t know how the original print run sold, or even how many copies were printed, but I’m hoping it turns out to be a hit for Boom! Studios. I really enjoyed this first issue and love the potential it sets up. If you’re not turned off by a story set in the Vatican and all that that entails, go pick this one up.

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Review: Revelations #1

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revelations_coverUntil I began doing some research for this review, I had absolutely no idea that Revelations is a re-print of a six-issue miniseries that was originally published by Dark Horse Comics in 2005. Which is surprising, because I love Humberto Ramos. I loved his work on Spectacular Spider-Man, DV8, Runaways, and even his vampire comic Crimson. His style is one of the most unique in the industry, and I find him sorely underused. Which is why, when I saw his name on the cover of Revelations #1 at my local comic shop, I picked it up with no prior knowledge.

In Revelations, writer Paul Jenkins crafts the story of the death of Cardinal William Richelieu on the grounds of the Vatican. Although the case seems cut-and-dry when ruled a suicide, Cardinal Marcel Leclair recruits his long-time friend, Scotland Yard investigator and self-proclaimed “prolapsed Catholic” Charlie Northern to take a look at the case. I am a bit curious why a Scotland Yard investigator is allowed any jurisdiction in Vatican City, but I’ll just let that one go for now.

Charlie Northern’s acerbic, chain-smoking, conspiracy-theory-loving detective plays a lot like a cross between Robert Langdon and John Constantine, in a very good way. He’s not as unlikable as Constantine nor as pretentious as Langdon, so it’s easy to get caught up in his distaste for his former religion and its trappings when he gets dragged to the seat of its power. Northern is really the only fleshed-out character in the first issue, and he’s surrounded by a somewhat one-dimensional supporting cast. I expect to see more from characters like Marcel and the antagonist Cardinal Toscianni, but the focus of issue one was squarely on Charlie.

The plotline plays much like a Dan Brown novel, as well – a crime thriller with a religious focus and high-conspiracy underpinnings. I’m glad I get to go into it without any knowledge of the previous publication, because it looks to be a fun ride.

And oh man, the artwork.

I’ll preface this by saying that if you already don’t like Ramos’s style, you’re not going to like it here. This book is VERY Humberto Ramos, but with a twist. In much the same way that Matteo Scalera’s art is transformed by Dean White’s painterly colors in Rick Remender’s new book Black Science, the coloring team of Leonardo Olea and Edgar Delgado take Ramos’s lines and create an entirely original look, dominated by pastels and colored pencil style sketch lines. The result is, while thoroughly steeped in Ramos’s exaggerated figure construction, a stunning and different direction for his art. This book looks absolutely fabulous.

The relative lack of information about the original publication may very well be why Boom! Studios chose to reprint it, especially with the talent attached. Although, it might also generate the question “Why reprint this?”. It’s rare for a company to re-serialize a book when they acquire it, so maybe they’re attempting to reach a wider audience and build hype prior to continuing the series beyond this first 6-issue arc. At least, that’s what I can hope.

I don’t know how the original print run sold, or even how many copies were printed, but I’m hoping it turns out to be a hit for Boom! Studios. I really enjoyed this first issue and love the potential it sets up. If you’re not turned off by a story set in the Vatican and all that that entails, go pick this one up.

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Obligatory New Year’s Post

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I’ve never quite subscribed to the “newness” of beginning a new year, because it’s really just another day. I do, however, understand the idea of finding reasons for a fresh start. Whether I think it’s an artificial construct or not is immaterial – if it’s helpful, it’s helpful. I’m using the start of this new year not (entirely) to change old bad habits, but instead to reinforce good ones and continue the new path I set myself on at the beginning of 2013.

2013 was a fantastic year for me. In truth, I have to encompass November and December of 2012 into my “2013”, because that’s when my wife and I bought our first house. We just celebrated our first full year of home-ownership, and that feels fantastic.

The purchase of the house has allowed me to rekindle some interests that had fallen by the wayside. I’m an avid poker player, but my home game had suffered for a few years. In the new space I’ve been able to breathe new life into the game, and now it’s a weekly Friday night fixture. Being huge geeks, as well, we’ve started the same thing for our waning board game habit. We absolutely love traditional games – board games, card games, RPG’s, and their ilk – but struggled to get any regular group together to play. That’s starting to change now, and it feels great.

We celebrated our 15th anniversary in November, and did so in style, spending almost a month road-tripping through Australia from Sunshine Coast (about an hour north of Brisbane) to Port Campbell (about 3 hours southwest of Melbourne), before wrapping up the trip in Melbourne and Auckland, New Zealand. It was, without question, the best vacation of my life (just edging out a two-week trip to Europe we took in the summer of 2012).

I finished writing my first novel and sent it to beta readers, and am now incorporating their feedback into the fourth draft. I began work on the second novel in the same series, and have begun querying agents in an attempt to get traditionally published.

For the first several months after leaving my day job, I concentrated really hardcore on writing, and succeeded in finishing, revising, and re-revising a novel. In the last several months of the year? Not so much. It’s now my time to find not only the creative juices that drove that push, but to reinforce the daily writing habits that helped it to be successful. I’ve begun building a routine at home for maintaining our house and being a stay-at-home husband. Every chore I complete is one that my wife doesn’t have to, so now that she’s bringing home the bacon, I repay her by giving her more free time away from work. I’ve been able to concentrate more on Trade Secrets, my comic book podcast, so that we are on a more definitive schedule and don’t have nearly as many interruptions. All of these are habits that I want to reinforce, and they all basically boil down to concentration, devotion, and routine.

Of course, these good habits were balanced by one fairly bad one.

Over the last year, I found myself more and more inured to the instant gratification provided by social media feedback. I put out a post, and instantly get Likes or Favorites or Shares or ReTweets, and that gratification almost became an addiction. My attention span shortened and I became unable to wait for delayed gratification of any kind. I’d be reading a book or playing a video game, and find myself pausing every 20 minutes or between every chapter to check Facebook or Twitter, breathlessly waiting for the refresh to show me that I had new Notifications or Connections.

Those little micro-gratifications were becoming an outright interruption to almost everything I did, and eroded my sense of accomplishment in anything real or lasting. Tasks began to take longer because I needed to check my feeds with regularity, and constantly stepping away from long-form tasks to log into Twitter screwed with my ability to focus. It was almost like developing ADHD.

I don’t want it to seem like I’m putting down social media. I love it. LOVE IT. It’s given me the chance to interact with people I never would have before, and I’ve made some genuine friends online whom I never would have met otherwise. I’d never give it up entirely, but I found that my patience, focus, and attention span were all severely suffering. And those are pretty much the three most important things for a writer to be successful.

The one thing I know about my personality is that if something isn’t working for me, I have trouble easing off. It’s easier for me to quit things cold-turkey and slowly re-introduce them after their influence has been lessened or broken. So that’s what January is for me: my cold-turkey social media detox. I’m going to take a month to re-learn what it means to wait for things and accomplish goals without constant interruption, all the while reinforcing the traits and habits that made 2013 so great for me. Hopefully when February rolls around, I’ll be able to reintroduce Facebook and Twitter in small increments, and eventually find a real balance with them back in my routine.

I’ve had some really shitty years in the past. Between 2007 and 2010, I had lost a couple of friends and hit some really rocky patches with others, had been passed over for several jobs, had lost my way creatively, I had lost both of my parents, and I was mired in the fallout from those deaths. If 2013 has taught me anything, it’s this very simple lesson:

It gets better.

I hope you all had a great 2013. If not, then I hope you’re looking forward to 2014 and beyond. Happy new year!

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Weekly Pulls, December 11th

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Okay, so I completely failed to get a weekly pulls article out last week, so I’m going to include some info on what I picked up on December 4th. Trillium is just over halfway through its run and is some of Jeff Lemire’s best work to date. Suicide Risk isn’t Mike Carey’s best writing (Lucifer still holds that title, for me), but it’s a fun take on superhero stories and it’s gone in a direction I never would’ve seen coming from the early issues.

six_gun_gorilla_6_coverSix Gun Gorilla ended last week, and what a great original story it’s been. Si Spurrier and Jeff Stokely have created a unique sci-fi world in which they’ve set a story that simultaneously comments on consumerism, the evolving nature of entertainment, the detriment of “reality” TV, understanding how we view the world around us, and the cultural importance of stories. It’s a spectacular story wrapped in a weird and sometimes goofy setting that has an odd way of just working, sometimes in spite of itself. If you can’t get ahold of the individual issues, pick this one up as soon as it comes out in trade form. And then there’s…

velvet_2_coverVelvet. I don’t know how better to describe this book than “WOW”. Ed Brubaker takes his considerable skill at crafting noir stories and applies that energy toward the superspy genre, telling the story of a spy-turned-secretary-who’s-still-a-spy in a classic double-cross storyline. His extensive experience working with Steve Epting works perfectly for this book, and the first issue was one of the best edge-of-your-seat openings to a spy thriller as I’ve encountered in a long time. This is a great mix of James Bond, The Fugitive, and The Bourne Identity, with one of the best female leads in comics right now. Go find the first issue, and then pick up #2 and subscribe.

THIS WEEK I’m picking up a few more books, including one brand new title. Three is an interesting historical tale by Keiron Gillen, set during the decline of Sparta well after the battle of Thermopylae. Uncanny is a fun sort of modern noir tale with a super-powered twist, and one of Dynamite’s best books right now. This week also sees the release of issue 36 of what remains my #1 favorite comic book, Cullen Bunn and Brian Hurtt’s The Sixth Gun.

lazarus_5_coverLazarus, for my money, is one of the best comics on the shelf right now. Greg Rucka does what he does best in creating yet another awesome female lead in Forever Carlyle, a genetically engineered enforcer for a powerful family whose lands form a futuristic fiefdom in a beautifully realized post-apocalyptic tale. Michael Lark’s artwork is the perfect compliment to Rucka’s sci-fi epic, and I find myself anxious for every new issue upon finishing the last. What a great book, and one that everyone should be reading right now.

dead_body_road_1_coverDead Body Road is my new venture this week, a brand new title from Luther Strode writer Justin Jordan. The Legend of Luther Strode was one of my favorite mini-series from last year, and when I heard that Jordan was teaming up with Black Science‘s Matteo Scalera to craft an old school revenge tale, I couldn’t have been happier. Sign me up.

Here’s the Diamond Previews list of this week’s NEW RELEASES. Get you to your local shop on Wednesday and pick up some comics!

Luke’s Picks for December 4th, 2013: Trillium #5, Velvet #2, Six Gun Gorilla #6, Suicide Risk #8

Luke’s Picks for December 11th, 2013: Dead Body Road #1, Lazarus #5, The Sixth Gun #36, Three #3, Uncanny #5.

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Weekly Pulls, November 27th

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As you guys are likely well aware, virtually every comic I read regularly is a creator-owned book. I no longer collect anything from the Big 2 (not counting Vertigo or Icon). In my not-so-humble opinion, the creator-owned space is where all the real innovation in the industry happens and where all the best stories are being told. While Marvel and DC are busy trying to figure out what new world-shattering event they can put together to tie in with their other media properties, the best creators in the industry are shaping extraordinary books like Sheltered and Fatale and Sex Criminals.

I don’t fault anyone who’s into the capes books from the Juggernauts. If you’re one of them, though, I suggest two things: a) Take my list of weekly picks with a grain of salt. I’m not saying there aren’t good Marvel and DC books coming out this week, I’m just saying I don’t read them, and b) take a leap on some of the creator-owned work that you may not normally read. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised. And, for more well-rounded discussions and opinions, give the Trade Secrets Podcast a try. I’m our creator-owned guy, Eddie is clearly our DC fan, Anne promotes the hell out of little-known indie works, Joel is our Marvel guy, and Andy… well, Andy will read damned near anything.

This is a middlin’ week for me as far as volume is concerned, with five books coming in. Revival is consistently good. Rat Queens is one of my favorite new books, especially for anyone who’s played D&D since they were a kid like I have, and Letter 44 is a really interesting concept that has me hooked enough to pay attention for a while. There are two books I’d like to focus on this week, though:

pretty_deadly_cover_smallPretty Deadly rocked the creator-owned comics world last month by selling out in two days, of a print run that was wildly larger than even the creators expected. And the brainchild of Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios did not disappoint. Haunting visuals and a lyrical writing style make Pretty Deadly one of the most unique offerings on the market right now, and well worth your three bucks. I’m looking forward to issue two almost as much as I’m looking forward to…

black_science_cover_smallBlack Science. There are few comics that have ever held as much hype for me as Rick Remender and Mateo Scalera’s new offering. Touted as a spiritual successor to Remender’s magnum opus Fear Agent, the early reviews for Black Science are glowing. There is no better way to advertise one of Remender’s works than to attach it to Fear Agent, which is one of my all-time favorite comics. Black Science looks astounding, and knowing Remender’s deep-seeded love for pulpy science-fiction, this first issue can’t get here fast enough.

In addition to my normal subscriptions, there are two must-buy hardcover collections coming this week: 100 Bullets Deluxe Edition Vol. 5 – the book that completes the entire run of 100 Bullets now in hardcover – and The Sixth Gun Deluxe HC Vol. 1. The Sixth Gun is, without question, my favorite comic book, and this will be the fourth different version of the first eleven issues I own. And I’m not sorry for that.

Here’s the Diamond Previews list of this week’s NEW RELEASES. Get you to your local shop on Wednesday and pick up some comics!

Luke’s Picks for November 27th, 2013: Black Science #1, Pretty Deadly #2, Rat Queens #3, Revival #15, Letter 44 #2, 100 Bullets Deluxe Edition Vol. 5, The Sixth Gun Deluxe HC Vol. 1

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The End of a Small Era

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Today marks the end of a small era in my life: the publication of the final episode of the After The Fact podcast.

2009 was a really rough year for me. Amongst a terrible work/life balance, personal issues with people at my job, and general life stresses, we had taken in my terminally ill father to live with us so we could care for him. For part of that time we were also letting my brother – whom I do not generally get along with – stay with us. The last few months of that year were the most stressful of my life. My job sucked and my creative life was nonexistent. My brother and I had a terrible falling out. All of this was putting strain on my marriage. And then my father passed away on Christmas Day.

I was not in the best mental space of my life. The next few weeks were just a haze of trying to figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. I was desperate to find something to concentrate on to take my mind off of all the bullshit.

That same year I’d had an idea to do a podcast about classic video games, a subject I was (and still am) fairly passionate about. I have some pretty pointed opinions about older games – especially about the effect of nostalgia on coloring our opinions of a game’s actual quality – and I wanted to talk about that very topic. It had only been a passing notion until the beginning of 2010, when I decided to do whatever I needed to do to make it a reality.

At the beginning, it was a distraction; something to keep my mind occupied so that I wouldn’t just fall into despair. It was a proof of concept for cheap, homemade podcasting that could compete in quality with the high-end shows from 1up and IGN and Destructoid. It was really hard. And, for something that I was doing as a hobby, surprisingly rewarding.

The show never had a hell of a lot of fans. There were a few dedicated followers that loved the show as much as we loved to make it, but I don’t think our real human downloads ever broke 600 for any episode. But it didn’t matter, because we were more interested in the discussions than whether or not we had a huge fanbase. We just loved doing the show. I, especially, took solace in my time preparing, producing, hosting, and publishing After The Fact. It not only allowed me time to heal from quite possibly the worst year of my life, but rekindled a creative spark within me that had been dormant for a long time.

Over time, the show became more and more difficult to maintain. Gaming podcasts by gaming journalists are easier, because it’s those journalists day-job to learn, know, write, and talk about games. The podcasts they do are practically just recordings of their day-to-day work conversations. Our prep for After The Fact was more difficult only because it was layering another time-consuming hobby into lives that were already basically full.

While I never got “burned out” on the show, in the traditional sense, the burden of its production had become taxing after a while. When it all started it was a distraction, but we had pushed so hard for it to become quality entertainment that I very quickly grew to love the show and every minute I was on it. But as I switched to a more intense job and my wife’s work ramped up, and then we expanded into more podcasts on Geekerific.com, it became harder and harder to maintain the quality bar we’d set for ourselves. So we decided to end the show on in high note.

And I think we’ve succeeded. In the middle of 2012 we had a meeting about what the final 10 episodes of the show would look like. Our list of games we wanted to cover expanded to 15 – ending the show at episode 80 rather than the initially-planned 75 – and those last 15 shows turned out to be some of the most solid in our run. And some of the most interesting, for me, because they contained some of the most fun games in the show’s four-year run.

And now, it’s over. I just posted the finished, final episode to the web, and that small-but-important era of my life comes to a close. I’m extremely happy with the quality of the show we produced over the last four years, and I’m glad we decided to end the show before it fell apart on its own. But as I posted the final episode I couldn’t help but look back at the terrible time in my life that stood as the impetus for its creation, and everything the show has grown to mean for me over its span.

The show helped me through a difficult time, re-sparked my creative fire, solidified some of my best friendships, introduced me to some new experiences, taught me a ton of new skills, and was some of the most fun I’ve ever had. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t very sad to see it go, but now it’s time to move on to new things. I’ve already started the “next phase” of my life, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it takes me.

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Review: Sex Criminals #1

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I’m pretty lucky when it comes to spoilers. I’ve somehow managed to cultivate a group of online friends who are very spoiler-sensitive, so rarely does anyone randomly ruin my favorite comic or TV show. I still haven’t seen the finale to Breaking Bad, and I still don’t know anything about it.

Sex_Criminals_1_coverThis is important when it comes to Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky’s new comic Sex Criminals. Going into this one blind is, without question, the best way to experience it. If you know nothing but the title and the creative team – which is how I walked into it – the experience of having each little bit of the bulky opening issue’s story revealed without any foreknowledge is astounding. Which makes this review somewhat hard to write if I am to keep it spoiler-free (which I will). So, I’ll tread gingerly around story elements in the book and just stick to my opinions and my experience with it.

I love Matt Fraction’s work, for the most part. I love Casanova, his run on The Mighty Thor is stellar, Hawkeye is amazing, and Five Fists of Science is a must-read (but only if you like good comic books). Which is why I was disappointed when I read the first two issues of his other new Image book, Satellite Sam, and found it unapproachable and (for me) kind of boring.

So, after being stung, I was pretty wary going into Sex Criminals. Fraction is normally a writer whose work I’ll try out sight unseen (which is why I read Satellite Sam), but that experience gave me pause. Not enough to not try out his new book, mind you, but enough to make me reign in my expectations some.

This, combined with my complete lack of knowledge of the premise, made for one of the best comic book reading experiences I’ve had in a very long time. The premise of Sex Criminals – which I won’t reveal here in the hopes you can walk in un-spoiled – is simple and fun, and very adult. The combination of Fraction’s elegant and poignant writing and Zdarsky’s colorful and nearly-cartoony art-style make for a book that’s as funny as it is intriguing.

My only warning is that – as the name implies – it contains quite a bit of explicit content. So, if you’re not comfortable with the sexytimes, you might not enjoy this one.

I had a blast with the first issue of Sex Criminals. The hook is perfectly paced, the cliffhanger hangs at just the right point, and I am fully invested in Suzanne. Go check it out as soon as you can, try to walk into it with as little information as possible, and I think you’ll be as pleasantly surprised by it as I was.

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Review: Rat Queens #1

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I’m just going to get this out of the way right off the bat: I already love this book. See, I’ve been a gamer for most of my natural life. I was ten the first time I played a game of Dungeons & Dragons. It’s been a while since I’ve played it regularly, but even at 35 I’m still a huge fan and some of my fondest memories of gatherings with friends come from long D&D sessions.

rat_queens_1_coverMy history burdens me with a natural predilection toward fantasy stories. And although I love very traditional high fantasy fare, I can’t help but be tickled by anachronistic stories like The Princess Bride and Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. In the comics world, it’s why I love Skullkickers so much, and now Rat Queens fits right into that canon for me.

Kurtis J Weibe, author of the critically acclaimed Peter Panzerfaust, hits all the right notes in this opening issue. The story centers around a group of mercenary ne’er-do-wells who, in order to avoid a dungeon sentence for destructive activity in Palisade’s town square, take on a simple sweep-and-clear of goblin caverns outside the city. What should’ve been a simple job turns complicated quickly, and that little twist is where we’re left hanging at the end.

Weibe doesn’t bother with stilted language or the typical medieval trappings of the fantasy genre, instead peppering the pages with modern language and hilarious epithets. At one point, Hannah uses a magical communication device that operates like a cell phone, receiving a poorly-timed call from her parents.

And it all works. Rat Queens knows what it is right from the start and doesn’t try to be anything else. There’s never a point where the story feels stilted or traditional, so you’re never really worried about the language or the modernized bits, because you just expect them to be there. The story revels in what it is without claiming to be something it’s not, and that makes it a wonderfully fun read.

rat_queens_1_inline_1Roc Upchurch, whose previous work includes the Image title Vescell, is a perfect fit for the style of Rat Queens. While I could go on for a while about the dynamism of his action scenes or his beautiful and unique renderings of each of the Queens, I’m going to focus for a moment on what I think is the most important aspect of his work: facial expressions.

There is so much sarcastic comedy in this book that would completely fall apart if the artist weren’t capable of rendering the appropriate expressions, and Upchurch just nails them all. From Betty’s dreamy-eyed remembrance to Violet’s mild annoyance to Hannah’s well-practiced bitchface, everything is right on key without being over the top. Rat Queens is littered with these little subtleties, and Upchurch’s renderings knock Weibe’s comedy out of the park.

Issue #1, and I’m hooked.

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F**k the Kindle Battery Life Chart

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I didn’t think I’d ever write a full post about this, but it really irks me and I have to get this out.

I love my Kindle Paperwhite. It’s the best reading device I’ve ever held. The light is amazing, the text is nice and crisp, and now they’re coming out with a refined version that solves some of the minor problems with the current-gen version that might actually get me to upgrade.

But there’s one thing that really fucking pisses me off about the way Amazon advertises the Kindles: their portrayal of the battery life. Here’s the chart they show on the Kindle Paperwhite product page (which can be found HERE):
kindle_battery
There are a great many things wrong with this chart. They’re comparing one unit of measurement (weeks) to a completely different unit of measurement (hours), which is a violation of Bar Graphs 101. They’re also applying a different set of criteria to the bar for the Kindle than they are applying to the other devices, which makes this bar graph so misleading as to be useless.

Their criteria for the laptop, tablet, and smart phone is straight up battery life: turn on the device and wait ‘till it dies from use. There is no “per day” qualifier applied like there is to the Kindle. If they applied the same qualifier to the other devices – 30 minutes of usage per day at mid-level settings – here’s roughly what the chart would look like:
kindle_battery_weeks
The chart looks much the same if you take away the “30 minutes of reading per day” criteria and simply list the Kindle’s battery life by the hour:
kindle_battery_hours
Look at the charts above. They still look phenomenal compared to other devices. 28 hours of battery life is spectacular for a handheld device.

Avid readers – those who would be most concerned with the battery life of their e-reader – read far more than just “30 minutes per day”. Using myself as an example, I generally use my Kindle between 1-2 hours on an average day, and as much as 6 or 7 on days when I’m really in the mood to just curl up and read.

Furthermore, many Kindle Paperwhite users report much higher battery life figures than what Amazon lists at their settings, with some with some users reporting as much as 47 fucking hours at Amazon’s settings, and 13+ with every single thing turned on at full blast.

And those figures tend to jive fairly well with my experience. I rarely remember to turn wireless off, and I always have the light set to 24 (the highest setting) and I can usually go about a week or so before having to charge. And that’s with about 2 hours of reading per day.

What aggravates me the most about this whole thing is not only that it’s misleading – it’s that it’s pointlessly misleading. Isn’t twice the battery life of any other device enough? Why make us jump through hoops to figure that out? And once someone actually does the math and figures it out, we (read: I) end up almost feeling disappointed that it’s actually “only” 28 hours – even though that mentality is preposterous.

But it’s bred of the original misleading chart. I’m sure they constantly wow people with that “8-weeks” figure, but it’s fucking frustrating to a guy like me that actually pays attention. I immediately see “weeks” compared to “hours” and the qualifier at the bottom and think “Hm… I wonder how many hours that translates into.” And then I do the math. And then I get pissed off at the misleading nature of the chart. And then I write a ranty blog post about it.

For fuck’s sake, Amazon, stop using this bullshit apples-to-oranges comparison. Ugh, that’s not even the right metaphor. Stop using this crates-of-apples-to-individual-apples comparison… oh, for fuck’s sake just stop being needlessly sleazy about it, okay?