Top Ten Favorite Comic Stories #9: Stardust

Stardust has been released in several incarnations now, including a novel and a mediocre movie.  I highly recommend the original though.  Not a pure comic book or a pure prose work it is a fascinating mixture of text and illustration that uses whatever medium is most appropriate to tell the story at that moment.

I'll never forget the first shot of the faerie marketplace.  After several pages of primarily prose with a few illustrations Duncan steps into the market place and right into an amazing double-page spread.  I point to that scene alone as an example of what true masters of comics medium can accomplish.

In many ways Stardust is a "perfect storm" of writing and art.  Neil Gaiman's writing has a faerie tale quality to it even when he is not writing one.  Similarly, Charles Vess' art captures both the beauty and horror of the land beyond Wall so vividly that you would swear he has visited it personally.  Together they have made a truly memorable and unique work of art.

Come back tomorrow for #8 on my Top Ten Favorite Comic Stories.

Universal buys the rights to Wheel of Time

Apparently Universal has bought the film rights to the Wheel of Time series.  Granted, just because the acquired the rights doesn't mean that they are going to option it, but with the popularity of fantasy novels being turned into movies right now, it may be a no-brainer to at least make the first one and see how it does.

If it is a success, they then have enough books to make movies for the next couple of decades.  Granted, they may have to recast a few times, but if James Bond can do it, why can't they?

I do have to admit it must seem like a daunting task to adapt these novels to any potential director and screenwriter.  But if the Lord of the Rings movies have taught me one thing, its never say never.  The right director with a proper love and respect for the source material might be able to make this into the biggest hit Universal has ever seen!

Or they could cast a Wayan's brother to play Mat.  It really is kind of a crapshoot.

Top Ten Favorite Comic Stories #10: Batman: Holy Terror

A co-worker of mine was complaining that Digg.com is being overrun by pointless top ten lists.  I agreed with him and had a long talk about how such lists only exist because they are easy blog fodder for lazy writers.

So of course I have decided to add to the pile with my Top Ten Favorite Comic Stories.

 Batman: Holy Terror comes in at Number 10.  It is kind of an odd choice for me because I am normally not all that into alternate universe "Elseworlds" stories.

The premise is that Oliver Cromwell didn't die when he did in our world and this small change led to a world where the United States never came to be.  There is no separation of Church and State, and both England and its colonies are firmly under the control of a repressive religious regime.

In this world, a young Bruce Wayne is about to take his sacred vows when he finds out his parents were not killed in a random mugging like he believed.  Instead, they were tried in absentia and executed as enemies of the church.  The revelation shatters the young man's faith, and he decides to get revenge the way only Bruce Wayne can.

That is just the jumping off point and the story proceeds to take some interesting twists and turns along the way.  While it is a bit heavy handed with some of the points it makes at times, it still manages to make some interesting points about government, religion, and faith.  Which is why I am such a big fan of it.

It also probably doesn't hurt that it was illustrated by Norm Breyfogle, one of my all-time favorite Batman artists.

Come back tomorrow for #9 on my Top Ten Favorite Comic Stories list.

Whither art thou, oh mighty D&D Podcast?

As a man with a long commute to work every day, I have acquired a great love for podcasts.  While the quality can vary, it is more than worth it for the low price (free) and the amazing diversity of topics available.  Personally, I listen to many podcasts on the TWiT Network, The Classic Tales, Grammar Girl, Legal Lad, The Spider-Man Crawlspace Podcast, and several others.  Not to mention I am a frequent participant of the Lords of Tyr Podcast.

I am also a fan of the D&D Podcast.  Unfortunately it seems to have disappeared.  Perhaps Wizards of the Coast saw the podcast as a marketing tool for 4th Edition, and now that it has shipped they no longer see the need.  Perhaps the D&D Podcast was the pet project of one or two staffers (like Mike Mearls and Dave Noonian) and they have simply gotten too busy since the release of 4th Edition.  Maybe the marketing department didn't like a conduit of information being out there that they didn't fully control.  Who knows?

In any case, I think it is really a shame that it hasn't been around.  I found it to be an incredibly useful conduit of information.  Listening to the podcast often gave me insight into what the developers were thinking when they developed a new rules supplement.  It's amazing how often that made a difference in whether I would purchase a product and if I would allow a new rules supplement to be used in my game.

Especially now, the podcast should be an invaluable conduit of information of information for Wizards of the Coast.  Updates on DDI, answering customer questions via the mailbag, and of course, selling us on the new system and why we should be buying upcoming books.

Frankly, I am baffled as to why WOTC would toss aside such a valuable tool just when they need it most!  I guess I will just keep my fingers crossed that we will soon see the triumphant return of the D&D podcast.

The silence (15-ft r) has been broken

A few news items: Cats and dogs are living together, Brett Favre is a New York Jet, and Wizards of the Coasts has released some information on their digital initiative.

Wait, information on DDI?  Can that be right?

Indeed it is true believer!  About time too.  Prior to the launch of 4th Edition, WOTC would take every opportunity possible to hype how the digital initiative would revolutionize gameplay.  Since launch, the silence has been deafening.  Some of my friends in the Lords of Tyr game group speculated that DDI would be stillborn, especially when the death of Gleemax was announced.  I held out hope, and that hope has been rewarded.  Well at least sort of.

A few thoughts on what the article has to say:

I am very happy at the announcement that WOTC staffer Randy Buehler is going to be providing weekly updates on DDI.  Early in the article he says "I’m just going to focus on facts since I know you guys are starved for information right now".  He is absolutely right and it is encouraging that WOTC realizes this.

As for the status of the digital tools, the news is not as encouraging.  While they will be debuting the Character Builder and Visualizer in kiosks at GenCon next week, it sounds like their actual release of these tools on the website is still a ways off.  From the wording, I would guess that the absolute soonest these will be released is 4th Quarter of this year.  The Game Table seems even further off, probably sometime in 2009. 

They also announced a few minor tools like an ability generator and an encounter generator that will be debuting soon.  I personally don't expect much from these, as they sound like the kind of thing that they used to provide on the site for free. 

The big news was the announcement of DDI's pricing structure.  Only $7.95 a month, or $4.95 for 12 month.  That sounds good, but the caveat is that this price only includes Dragon and Dungeon Magazine, the Rules Compendium, and the bonus ability and encounter generator tools.  So we can expect the price to go up as the rest of DDI is rolled out.

Still, they probably got me as a subscriber, at least on the short term.  Five dollars per month is the equivalent of skipping a meal at McDonalds, so its definitely something I can budget.  As for the rest, well I guess I will wait and see.

But at least they are telling us something now.

When did Manual of the Planes become interesting?

There are a lot of interesting books coming out this year for 4th Ed D&D.  The Forgotten Realms Campaign Guide comes out this month.  The Adventurer's Vault is out in September and Martial Power comes out the following month.  Oddly though, the month I am really looking forward to is December, because that is when Manual of the Planes comes out.

I know, I find it hard to believe too.  Mostly because since the 1st Edition Manual of the Planes, I have always had a "take it or leave it" attitude towards the book.  This is probably because of two main reasons.

1. I have never been big on planar adventuring.  With all of the often poorly thought out rules for different planes I always found it more trouble than it was worth.
2. Never been a big fan of the traditional D&D Cosmology aka "The Great Wheel".  Some later campaign settings used their own cosmology (especially Eberron), but the default setting was still predominant.

Thankfully, the game has changed (literally) for this new Manual of the Planes though.  First off, the radically new cosmology of 4th Edition D&D guarantees that there will be a lot to talk about.  This will be their first opportunity to go into any depth on places like the Feywild, Astral Dominions, and Elemental Chaos.  That alone will make it an interesting read.

Perhaps more importantly, the planes in 4th Edition were designed with the express purpose of being playable adventuring environments.  This may not seem like much at first, but there is now a reason to adventure on every plane in the new cosmology.  Gone are planes like the Positive Material Plane.  Not only was there nothing to do there, if you did visit it you would explode in a matter of minutes from "too much life". 

Of course no positive and negative energy planes means we will miss out on cool monsters like the Xeg-Ya and the Xag-Yi.  Oh wait, they were never cool anyway.

All of this makes me much more excited about the Manual of the Planes than I ever have been before.  December can't come soon enough.

In case you are wondering where I went this weekend...

After a long hard week at work, I decided to spend the entire weekend playing Age of Conan.  I managed to bring my character from level 23 to level 31, which shows how much I was playing.

This is still nothing compared to my wife, who is currently completely addicted to the game.  She was raiding with her guild this weekend.  The raid went well.  So well, that they actually made a video of it, put it to music, and placed it on YouTube.

So gaze in amazement at my wife and her guild taking down Kylikki.

I am not sure whether to be proud or horrified.