Nevsky

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Everything posted by Nevsky

  1. Comics Extravaganza - Pow Bang Smash!

    So... I thought I'd share some horrifically cheap Halloween deals on digital comics: 1) The latest Humble Book Bundle is a horror special, including amongst other things the first volume of Joe Hill / Gabriel Rodriguez's Locke & Key (which completely passed me by, but I've heard some strong recommendations for it recently), the first two issues of Afterlife With Archie and the first omnibus of Dark Horse's Buffy comics, all for $15 with more to come - https://www.humblebundle.com/books 2) Speaking of Afterlife WIth Archie, the first volume is currently only £1.49 on the Kindle UK store and, by the looks of it, $2.40 on the Kindle US store. ...which should give you plenty to read on Friday night if you're that way inclined.
  2. Books, books, books...

    Popular or academic? Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is the major crossover work of film history. It tells the story of the New Hollywood Generation as a sort of modern-day epic. It's a bit soapy, but a great read. Also, randomly from my bookshelf - The Undeclared War by David (Lord) Puttnam. A history of the rivalry between Europe and USA for control over the cinematic medium, and how Hollywood won out.
  3. Books, books, books...

    Massive, resounding ditto on the Saga front. My favourite comic of the moment. Guess the first trade should be out pretty soon, too!
  4. Comics Extravaganza - Pow Bang Smash!

    Yes! The film's also great, too. Comics for new readers? Depends what angle they're coming from. The comics-journalism work of Guy DeLisle is accessible, yet engrossing, tackling massive political topics with a delicate touch. His new book, Jerusalem: Chronicles from the Holy City, has just come out. I've just had a whale of a time reading through the most recent 30 issues of The Walking Dead, but it's a serial / soap opera at heart, so don't expect any resolution whatsoever, even after 100 issues - just pure, unrelenting misery. Well-written misery, though. For literary, geeky types there's always the work of Adrian Tomine, who mostly works in shorter comic fiction, but his Shortcomings novel is as bitter, scathing and navel gazing as the best mid-80s Woody Allen films. For more fantasy-literary types, there's always Sandman, which is Neil Gaiman's sprawling masterwork. If crime is more of your thing, check out anything by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips. They've collaborated on a bunch of series that take noir conventions and shake them up. There are six volumes of Criminal, which are (sort of) standalone stories with a crime fiction flavour, and they've just finished the first book of Fatale, which is a mix of film noir, pulp and Lovecraftian horror. And so much more. Also, yes, Phonogram. Especially the second series, which has little relation to the first, and is better in every regard. Good shout, Subbes!
  5. Plug your shit

    Looks really interesting, Nachimir! Hopefully I'll get to go!
  6. Plug your shit

    Thanks Rodi/Thunderpeel! Sure, we could have been more on-the-nose. There's definitely the intention in there to skewer both the superficial mainstream view of games, and how new GTAs can only be so different. I think the other writer just enjoys being silly, too, so we ping-pong a lot - and get quite a varied response as a result! The next few sketches are much less pointed (apart from the news-room pastiche), and much more silly. More driven by the collision of video games and broadcast journalism. We'll see how they work out!
  7. Plug your shit

    Nice work, Miffy! Unfortunately, I had computer problems all last week, so missed out on this completely. I have one thing to plug, though, and that's VIGIDEN, the new webseries I've been developing with the same guys who did Behind The Bytes over summer. It's both a broadening of the scope and a honing of the form. BTB was a mockumentary series about the scandalous lives of video game characters, VIGIDEN is a sketch show based around a video game news network. The first sketch went live on Friday. Here it is. pJZdnda6uQw It's a very silly series.
  8. Obligatory comical YouTube thread

    Actually it only aired on September 13th. I had no idea there was a new Looney Tunes series on air. Wow.
  9. Movie/TV recommendations

    That's weird, there was an English-language release over here back in April, and the DVD/Blu-ray came out in August. I missed out on seeing it, sadly, but heard it was good from critic pals. Were CIFF touting it as an English language premiere? Ooh, but they're showing Kill List, too. That's a good one.
  10. General Video Game Deals Thread

    The Company of Heroes games are also 80% off on Steam, and the Gold pack is £2.99. Sounds like a deal to me. Edit: Actually, here's an interesting quirk. The 'Complete Pack' for CoH - which gets you the main game and the two expansions - is slashed to £5.39, which is 2p dearer than buying the three games individually, and, weirdly, 39p more expensive than getting the Gold Pack + Tales of Valor. Pennies! Although Tales of Valo(u)r doesn't seem to be rated that well, so I might drop that and throw in Alpha Protocol instead.
  11. anime

    I'm currently in the middle of writing 15,000 words on fansubbing. Watching Azumanga Daioh (or, failing that, watching over and over) is all that's saving me from complete mental meltdown*.*Some would say that watching the Azumanga Daioh opening credits over and over is a symptom of a complete mental meltdown.
  12. Plug your shit

    I've resisted spamming you all with the episodes of Behind The Bytes as we've been releasing them, but here's the finale, where we, er... go off our rockers a little. Basically, we break every rule of the series. This is less of a talking head mockumentary, and more of an absurd thriller - all about Nintendo's shady doings. Have a look. klQjWXynmYU
  13. Movie/TV recommendations

    I interviewed the director last week. This is what he said about his ideas for the sequel: Emphasis on the word 'ideas', as I don't think there are any plans in place yet anyway. PS. Hello!
  14. Left 4 Thumbs - The Homethumbing 2

    I'm at a meal on Sunday evening, but if I'm back in time, I'll definitely be up for it.
  15. General Video Game Deals Thread

    I'm intrigued by today's offer of the Tomb Raider games for cheap. I've already played ...& The Guardian of Light, but I've heard that the more traditional Crystal Dynamics games are worth getting, too? Is there much that separates the three of them, apart from Anniversary being a remake? The reviews seem to be consistent across the series. Oh, I've got my new bank card now. Gulp.
  16. Books, books, books...

    An odd one, this, but Warren Ellis has just worked on a new comic with D'Israeli and a design consultancy / mad scientist firm from London called BERG. It's called SVK. Here's a blurb from the site: Sounds pretty fascinating. The price is a little steep for what is one issue, but that's one hell of a gimmick. And I've heard from the precious few that saw BERG's test copy that it's quite special.
  17. General Video Game Deals Thread

    I loved that one session of L4D2 I played with Thumbs. More, I say!
  18. General Video Game Deals Thread

    So far I've bought the two Bit.trip games. Luckily (I guess), I've lost my wallet, and had to cancel all my cards, so I'll miss out on the majority of the sale. Although that didn't stop me asking a friend to gift me Fallout: New Vegas yesterday...
  19. Plug your shit

    That really is fantastic. Thanks for sharing, Hermie!
  20. Portal 2

    Well, I particularly like noisy, rhythmic, slightly industrial electronic music. And I loved the sonic character they gave to the faith plates themselves. So it's quite an obvious one for me.
  21. Portal 2

    I really, really like .
  22. The great Valve re-play

    For a moment I thought you meant Science & Industry, and got all excited. Damn, that was a fun mod. But R&D looks very interesting. I think I'll check it out, too!
  23. Portal 2

    Bought. Read through half of it over Easter on my dad's iPad, so I'm glad to throw my own cash at it for the other half. Has this (ie an app based around reading a text article) been done on Steam before? If it does well, it could be a good avenue for someone like Kill Screen.
  24. Movie/TV recommendations

    Liv Ullmann? She's great... when she does Swedish films... (Interesting discussion topic, though. Why have the Swedish and Danish film industries pumped out more internationally-renowned films/actors/filmmakers than the other Nordic countries?)
  25. Movie/TV recommendations

    I saw a trailer for that when I was in Finland last year. It looked to me like an Apatow rip-off, so I'm intrigued to hear it's good. Hopefully it'll be picked up for international distribution!