Saga

Saga is pretty hard to define. High-fantasy Sci-fi? A sprawling epic about becoming parents for the first time? A hilarious comic that tries it's best to break your heart? It's diverse, is what I'm trying to say. The bizarre universe filled with magical spaceships, robot-princes and animal people, played completely straight, reminds me most of Doctor Who. But the tone of the setting, whith its grey versus grey morality, and conflicts in which you could root for either side is more Game of Thrones. And despite the ghosts and the monsters and the magic and the spaceships the plot revolves around personal stories, full of genuine emotions, where it finds a balance between humor and drama that brings to mind the dialogue of Buffy: the Vampire Slayer.

By the way, if I ever do a list of my favorite tv-series, Doctor Who, Game of Thrones and Buffy will all be on it. So... this is going to be quite the positive review. You have been warned. If you still dare to go on, click for more!

Khans of Tarkir

Magic: the Gathering has brought out a new expansion recently. (Which is not that surprising. Given how many cards they produce each year, you could say that almost anytime and be correct.) And what do we do when a new Magic set comes out? We review it of course! Unfortunately, I'm not much of a tournament player. I just do some drafts for fun and play a whole lot of Commander. Thus I'm not very well equipped to review the power level of the new set. Instead, I thought I'd focus on something else: the design as a whole. Not that's something I find very interesting! I designed my first cards about a week after I was first introduced to the game, and have gobbled up any behind the scenes info Mark Rosewater has revealed about how to make cards. And what better way to get better at this design stuff then to pull apart an actual set?

Check the Khans of Tarkis set review, after the jump!

The Incal

I'm trying to broaden my horizons. I know quite a bit about American comics, and have quite a few classics from that side of the Atlantic in my collection. But my knowledge of Manga is not that deep, and though I grew up with European comics, I mostly just know the gag strips and the boy’s adventure comics like Asterix of Spirou. Which is of course disgraceful for an internationalist and multiculturalist like myself. Hence why I googled for a couple of "best off" lists, and picked up a few classics. Among them The Incal.

So what did I think about it?

Uhm… I'll tell you after the jump!

Baffling genuis in a gag comic: De Psy

Here's a comic strip I wanted to share with you. I found it in an old Robbedoes collection. And I absolutely love it. Unfortunately it is in this crazy made-up language we in the Netherlands insist on speaking, but the art is pretty expressive, so you should be able to follow most of it, and I'll translate the dialogue were it's really necessary (And besides, if you're reading this you're probably a close personal friend of mine)

  

Translation and analysis after the jump!

Discworld: Raising Steam

(Just so you know, these first few posts are articles that have languished half-finished on my hard drive for a while, so they are not the most topical of texts)

Is the new Discworld novel any good? 

There was a time when you wouldn’t have to ask that question. Every book was as splendid as the last one. The biggest complaint anyone could level at them was that they didn’t feature their favorite character, but they were all amazing. But with the last couple of books people have had problems. And people know where to put the blame. The negative reviews started around the time Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. But the change of opinion among the fans was far to sudden. Alzheimer's is slow, creeping. If it had influenced mister Pratchett's writing style the decline should have been much more gradual. Which made me wonder, was the quality already in decline, but were people just not willing to admit that until there was something they could blame it on? Or did the diagnosis confront people with the fact that their favorite series will one day end, and does that knowledge influence their enjoyment of the books? Actually, I did not see much of decline myself. Granted, Unseen Academicals didn’t do much for me (but then again, it was about football) and Dodger was a real misfire, but the other recent books of mister Pratchett were still as amazing as ever, certainly the Moist von Lipvig novels and the Long Earth books.

But anyway… Raising Steam.