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All the pretty things...
Aug. 17th, 2015 01:39 pmI've been rereading Lucifer, the comic series by Mike Carey, recently - and it's still really good. The storyline gets rather complex over 11 volumes, but it develops in really interesting ways and is very absorbing. Lucifer has always been a fictional character I've liked, in lots of different forms - but I think this iteration of him is my favourite. The only thing that confused me, though, was that the whole arc plot came to a very satisfactory conclusion just before the end of the last volume, and then there was another short story from much earlier in the timeline, tacked on afterwards, which rather diluted the impact of the ending. But hey, there's plenty here to get involved with - Mazikeen, daugher of Lilith who loves and serves Lucifer but has anger management issues; Elaine Belloc, not just any little girl, who fulfils an amazing destiny; Gaudium, the fallen cherub, ever wisecracking; the centaurs of River Holt - the list goes on. Wonderful stuff.
Then I tried the first collected volume of Grendel stories, by Matt Wagner. The back story is interesting - teenage prodigy makes money from writing novels, but is also a highly skilled hitman and crime boss, his one weakness his love for his ward, a little girl with a tragic past. The stories in and of themselves were well written and very effectively drawn, using only black, white and red. But they were too short and too fragmented - they were all stand-alone, so there was no sense of development or depth to it, and it all got rather repetitive well before the end.
We went to Llandudno for a weekend of games, and I played one I hadn't ever seen before - Abyss. It was beautifully designed and lovely to look at, and I also really enjoyed the gameplay (not just because I won by a large margin!). It's basically about collecting sets of "money" cards in order to purchase other cards that give you points. It's not complicated, but there's enough subtlety to it to make it interesting, and enough variety in the cards for it not to be boring after a couple of plays. It's sea-themed so there are lots of tentacles and fins, but the art is beautiful, and there was enough to it that I think I could play better next time.
Then I tried the first collected volume of Grendel stories, by Matt Wagner. The back story is interesting - teenage prodigy makes money from writing novels, but is also a highly skilled hitman and crime boss, his one weakness his love for his ward, a little girl with a tragic past. The stories in and of themselves were well written and very effectively drawn, using only black, white and red. But they were too short and too fragmented - they were all stand-alone, so there was no sense of development or depth to it, and it all got rather repetitive well before the end.
We went to Llandudno for a weekend of games, and I played one I hadn't ever seen before - Abyss. It was beautifully designed and lovely to look at, and I also really enjoyed the gameplay (not just because I won by a large margin!). It's basically about collecting sets of "money" cards in order to purchase other cards that give you points. It's not complicated, but there's enough subtlety to it to make it interesting, and enough variety in the cards for it not to be boring after a couple of plays. It's sea-themed so there are lots of tentacles and fins, but the art is beautiful, and there was enough to it that I think I could play better next time.
