New Star Wars, Rot and Ruin, Fire and Stone, Pathfinder, Plus More!

Happy Valentine ’s Day everyone! I certainly hope you had a great day with your significant other yesterday!

Hey, while you’re at it, why not treat every day like Valentines? No, you don’t have to go out and buy chocolate or take your lady to see ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. Just remind the one you love how important they are to you and treat them the best you can.

I’ve been married to my girl for over 22 years and each passing year we just grow stronger and closer.

Anyhow, I’m sure you don’t want to read about my love-life or stuff like that. You’re here to see what I’ve been up to and possibly read some mini-reviews.

I hope my friends and readers in the Northeast part of both Canada and the States are staying warm and comfortable. Here in Calgary we’re enjoying really nice weather for the middle of February, but you guys are being hit time after time by snowstorms!

This week saw the complete chapter 4 of ‘Buck Who?’ and it has been posted. I’ve even got a jump on Chapter 5, so hopefully by the time I’m ready to post it on Friday, I’ll be well into Chapter 6.

I’ve decided that I’m going to start writing up game material for this book. I will probably post it on here, but I might end up holding off and turning it into an issue of ‘Wisdom from the Wastelands’.

I’m even thinking of going as far as doing up a regional map, using googlemaps. We shall see with that.

And that’s the extent of my creative process this week. Pretty dull, I know.

Sadly there were no new releases from Skirmisher this week, so I can’t promote anything there. Although I will promote my top five list of GM’s I will not play with. It’s pretty simple and to the point. Worst type of GM period is the killer GM.

And the boys had a little bit of fun at my expense, since I mentioned GM’s that like to kill players instead of characters. Heh, good one, I never really thought about what I wrote. I think I’ll leave it as is, just because you guys made me laugh.

Check out the D-Infinity live podcast if you want to see what happened.

This week I read quite a few comics. I finished off Jonathan Maberry’s five issue Rot and Ruin comic.

It was a nice little interlude, although I wasn't too impressed with the art. That doesn't mean anything though, as I have pretty high expectations when it comes to art.

Then again, I can barely draw stick-figures so who the hell am I to criticize?

Still, it showed another aspect of the survivors and what they are doing to cope and rebuild.

And it made Benny and the rest take another look at themselves, to see if what the survivors were doing was really so horrible, and who was the monster in the story.

Well written, and I wouldn't have expected anything less from Jonathan Maberry

Certainly hope to see more in the future!

I also finished reading all 17 issues of the Fire and Stone series from Dark Horse Comics. It ran their iconic comics, four issues each for Prometheus, Aliens, Aliens Vs.. Predator and Predator. There was a single unifying and finishing issue called Omega as well.

First, the art wasn't all that bad. In fact it was pretty damn good in several of the comics.

A far cry from some of the terrible crap they produced way back in the late 80's, that's for certain.

As for the overall story, there were aspects that I both liked and disliked about it.

I'm not entirely sure how close to canon it is, having several other planets in the same system as LV 426. The story is set on LV 223, where the movie Prometheus took place.

I don't like how an android is able to be mutated the way it was. To me, they are not organic. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never really got the feeling the androids in the franchise were supposed to be organic.

Also I really did not care all that much for how the android reacted, and how his reaction changed over the issues.

I did sort of like the idea that quite a few survivors managed to escape 'Hadley's Hope' on LV 426 though. Not canon, but still enjoyable.

One aspect that I really did like was the way LV 223 evolved in only a few decades, how life mutated and changed on the planet.

Ending of the four books did leave me dissatisfied, I won't lie. But I guess there is supposed to be a new series starting soon.

Would I recommend it? Yeah, I guess so. But read it in the following order. Aliens, Prometheus, Predator and AVP.

Finally I've had a chance to read the first two issues of Marvel's new Star Wars series.

I've also read the first issue of their 'Darth Vader' series.

And I'll probably pick up the 'Leah' series and the new 'Rebel's' as well, when they come out over the next month.

Initial impressions - I LOVE the art. Anyone who knows me knows that art is very important. I need visual stimulation as much as a good story to keep me interested.

I was also quite intrigued to discover that both comics take place shortly after the end of 'A New Hope'. It does not draw on any of the events from the other five movies, at least as of yet.

And it does not have all the baggage that comes from the former 'expanded universe'.

For me, this is a very nice and refreshing change. I wanted to read the various Star Wars comics from Dark Horse, but with their track record of crap (you've all heard me complain about their 'Aliens' comics) I've always been exceedingly skeptical.

I have high hopes for the new series from Marvel. I don't need to be familiar with all the various novels and other comics now.

And I DO like them. Here's hoping they continue to impress me.

Lastly I finished the latest 6 issue ‘Pathfinder: City of Secrets’ published by Dynamite.

The characters continue to grow, and I do appreciate the fact that they don’t stick to typical RPG style rules when it comes to writing and showing combat.

The art was very well done, and the story had the group split up, with the potential for losing one of the members to a larger association. I don’t want to say too much about it though as I don’t want to spoil it for the readers.

I am sort of on the fence though when it comes to the free battlemap and scenario that is presented in each issue. I do like the game statistics that are provided. Not only does it make for a nice comic, but it is useful as a game aid.

That covers it for this week.

As always please like my personal author Facebook page and follow me on Twitter!

Until next week, stay warm, stay happy and remember, Spring is getting closer!

Peace!

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook  Creatures of the Tropical Wastes  sourcebook, co-author of its  Wisdom from the Wastelands  game supplement and contributor to the  'Sword of Kos: Hekaton'  Anthology.