#i think i could stand to do better linework. more line weight and attention to the face would be good

[entropyvoid]

[oosteven-universe]

Colonel Weird Cosmagog #1

Colonel Weird Cosmagog #1 Dark Horse Comics 2020 Written by Jeff Lemire Illustrated & Lettered by Tyler Crook    From the world of the Eisner Award-winning Black Hammer series comes a bizarre sci-fi adventure origin story! Wacky space adventurer Colonel Randall Weird leaves Black Hammer farm and embarks on a strange journey through space and time for something that he's long forgotten with his sanity and life at stake!    I have been waiting for this to come out!  For whatever reason of all them the Colonel is just plain fascinating.  He’s forgetful, seemingly unreliable and has aged beyond any of the others and he’s remained as mysterious as they come while we enjoyed Black Hammer as they were on the farm he stood out among them.  So I was excited for this and ya know what this is everything I could have hoped for and oh so much more!  This is why we love these guys, follow their work and talk about it like we do.  Now no worries if you haven’t been reading anything else because this is a great stand alone as it is written and you’ll learn everything you need to so if you haven’t then you need to jump on board now!    I love the way that this is being told.  How the story & plot development come to life through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information while moving ever forward is brilliantly done.  The character development is everything!  How we see him and how we get to know him is basically the whole issue in and of itself.  This is fascinating, eerie and slightly spooky considering he acts much like someone with dementia or Alzheimer's and you can feel for him, empathise and connect with him on so many levels.  The pacing here is utterly fabulous and as it takes us through the pages revealing what this is about we cannot help but be swept up in his life.  How the story is being structured and how we see the layers within playing their parts make this such an extraordinary read.      I don’t know what it is about Tyler’s work but the more he does the better he gets.  The interiors that we see here are stunningly gorgeous.  The linework is phenomenal and how we see the varying weights and techniques being utilised to create the attention to detail is breathtaking.  Then how he’s able to enhance the detail work that we see through the way he utilises colour is just next level genius ability.  The way that backgrounds are utilised throughout do more than expand the moment and bring us emotions they provide us with depth perception, a sense of scale and this overall sense of size and scope to the book.  The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a masterful eye for storytelling.  The colour work we see is just mindbogglingly well rendered.  How we see the hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is extraordinarily well done.  The feelings and emotions the work is able to bring to the reader is sublime. ​    This is a spectacular journey through the mind and life of Colonel Weird and it starts to bring him to life in some truly unexpected ways.  That nothing about him is something that happens in a straight line is marvellous as he travels through time and space so often that he’s now unable to think in a linear fashion.  I knew this was going to be good but I had no idea it was going to be this good.  Jeff’s created a whole new full functioning universe filled with interesting and dynamic characters that far surpass their inspiration.  

[operationrainfall]

As of January 2019, there are currently over 1,200 visual novels for sale on Steam, many of which were developed by small teams with big dreams. One such title is Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death. This title serves as Igrasil Studio’s debut release and was added to Steam less than a month ago. Currently in its alpha/early-access phase, New Cycle of Death is act one of what is planned to be a three part series. It’s a murder-mystery visual novel with slice-of-life elements thrown in. It began its life as a Kickstarter campaign back in early 2016 and surpassed its funding goal by an additional $17k. Boasting nearly 30 hours of content and around 70 different decisions to make, Igrasil Studio certainly set its goals high for this one. The question is, was it able to succeed in reaching them?

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The core story revolves around a group of young detectives, all of whom are fresh out of school. As part of the non-governmental detective agency IGRASIL, they take on cold cases that normal organizations like the police are unable to solve. At the onset of the game, a string of bizarre murders has left the public afraid and the police baffled. Most of these have been attributed to a maniac known as “the Phantom”, whose work is both grizzly and grandiose. He or she leaves a series of clues behind with each murder, many of which seem to hold some form of symbolism. Among our group of detectives is the protagonist, Kazuki Koyama. Kazuki is relatively new to the IGRASIL team and makes it his goal to solve these puzzling clues and catch the Phantom before the police can. Along the way, we learn a bit about his troubled past as well. Having lost both of his parents in a fatal car accident just one year earlier, Kazuki seems to have found comfort in solving cases and helping others. He can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times and is often blunt with his teammates, but his heart seems to be in the right place. He’s joined by by fellow detectives Suzumi, Kaoru, Akito, and Aki, all of whom have ended up with IGRASIL under different circumstances. With the Phantom case being their first murder investigation, IGRASIL team (much like the development team) sets their sights high and aims to make a bigger name for themselves.

All exposition aside, how’s the writing? Well, it varies. I enjoy murder mysteries and stories that incorporate a variety of religious elements, so to that end I was pleased. The story as a whole is interesting, but its main problem stems from that fact that it doesn’t seem air-tight. Some loose ends are to be expected when your game is separated into multiple acts, but a number of existing pieces didn’t seem to mesh. For one thing, I’m fairly certain that certain scenes were either missing or pulled out without changing the others. There is a “side-quest” of sorts that is introduced about half-way into the game which involves a character named Bradley. If the dialogue between the characters is to be believed, Bradley should’ve been introduced earlier in the game. All of the characters (including Kazuki) seem to know him and reference meeting him a few days prior. As far as I can recall though, he was never introduced. My assumption is that an earlier scene was removed, either by accident or to quicken the pace of the story. There are other instances where characters are introduced and then never mentioned again. In cases like that, perhaps I simply didn’t make the right decisions. Still, having these character interactions just exist without further context was a bit disappointing.

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Stranger still are the points where story elements will change without warning. Towards the beginning (before you meet him), the new police officer in charge of the Phantom case is referred to as General Akiak. When you go to meet him though (and from that point forward), he inexplicably becomes General Coya. I think it’s safe to assume that his name was changed at some point during the game’s development cycle. Finally, the game’s description indicates that player choices can lead to multiple different scenarios, but during my playthrough most of the decisions didn’t seem all that important. There were some larger ones to be made, but the majority of them revolved around choosing to spend time with Kazuki’s teammates or blowing them off. This did seem to affect romantic options with characters, but most didn’t appear to be story-centric. I did read some user comments on the Steam page which seemed to indicate that decisions would carry more weight in acts II and III, but I can’t vouch for that since those are not out yet. There are some romantic moments available, but it would seem that more will follow in acts II and III. My first suggestions to the developers would be to flesh out the story a bit more, make sure all the scenes fit together, and find a way to convey the importance of each decision. Perhaps a flowchart of events or an easier way to return to these decision points would help.

The English voice acting is also mixed in terms of quality. The only options are English or no voices at all, so I chose to stick with the English voices. The voices for the main team of characters aren’t too bad, but some characters’ voicework is better than others. All in all though, the main characters’ voices grew on me over time. Additionally, I could tell just by listening to them that the actors all had a really great time recording their lines. What I wasn’t as impressed by was the difference in pronunciation between characters. Some of the voice actors would address people or things using one pronunciation, only for another actor to immediately pronounce that person or thing differently. The most standout example of this is the way in which the team addresses Kazuki. Some pronounced his name as “ka-zu-key” while others would pronounce it as “kazoo-key”. While I eventually got used to this, it was a bit grating at first. As for the other characters (those not imperative to the story), the voice acting was not nearly as polished. Some of these characters didn’t even have voices at all, but those who did were not voiced as well as the main characters. My second suggestion for the developers is to revisit the voiced dialogue as well as provide more where gaps exist. This goes for both the main and supplemental characters.

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My concerns with the voice acting and the subtitles go hand-in-hand. Spelling and grammar were indeed an issue. I’d say 75% or so of the subtitles were okay, but the other 25% could use some heavy spelling/grammar updates. Given that the game is still in early-access, some spelling and grammatical errors are to be expected. Having said that, there were a number of other issues outside of these simple ones. The largest issue was the placement of the subtitles. More often than not, I’d read the subtitles while listening to the voices and the two wouldn’t sync up. Part of this was likely due to slight variations between the script and the subtitles, but another part was simple misplacement of the subtitles. Not all of the main character lines are voiced of course, so I can see how this mismatch may have occurred. One major example relates to a scene in which your teammate Akito talks with his mouth full after eating some donuts. This audio is played again several scenes later and paired with unrelated subtitles. There are also times when the opposite is true. This issue was peppered throughout the game and I found myself trusting the subtitles more than the spoken lines (though the spoken lines didn’t have translation issues). To their credit, the development team does make mention of possible translation issues when the game first boots up. Since they seem aware of the spelling and grammar issues, I’d suggest that they also take a look at the subtitle pairings and make sure that they sync up with the correct audio.

In terms of art style, I must once again say that it has its ups and downs. Hands down, the best aspect of the artwork is the main character designs. All character portraits are hand drawn and the irises of their eyes really stuck out to me. Each character is uniquely designed and has a distinct personality, which the portraits do a great job of conveying. While not all of the other, supporting characters have portraits, those that do are generally not as detailed as the main characters. All of them are still hand drawn, but the eyes aren’t as detailed (for the most part) and the linework isn’t as neat. Given that some of these extra characters don’t even have portraits, I’m assuming that most of the focus was dedicated to the main characters. While not a huge deal, I would’ve preferred a bit more continuity between the designs. Character portraits aside, there are also times where scenes will break away to chibi art renditions of the characters, complete with matching backgrounds. These were a nice change of pace and, while infrequent, were all very well done. Lastly, the backgrounds for the normal scenes were nice, albeit unassuming. None of them stuck out as overly unique or memorable, but they certainly got the job done and fit well with their associated scenes. In looking at the original Kickstarter images, there have been some noticeable changes since the game’s inception. Having said that, many of these changes aren’t necessarily for the worse. In my opinion, the largest changes exist with the character designs. As far as the main characters are concerned, these changes are merely stylistic and the new designs look really nice.

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The music and sound design as a whole didn’t really stand out to me. That’s not to say that there was anything wrong with it, but I only found myself paying attention to one or two of the tracks. The opening song and the track played during melancholy points of the story both stood out as really nice. As for the other tracks, while I can’t say that I found myself jamming out to them, each fit the mood of the game pretty well and I have no complaints. You can actually buy the soundtrack itself through Steam as a separate purchase if you’re so inclined.

While we’re on a more positive note, let me briefly touch on the game’s sense of humor. When Kazuki and the gang aren’t tracking down leads on the Phantom or looking at gruesome crime scenes, they’re either harassing one another or having a good laugh at the Red Dragon restaurant. Akito and Aki are siblings, so they have a tendency to pick on each other and get into childish arguments. Suzumi and Kaoru on the other hand seem content with picking on Kazuki for his laziness and stubborn attitude. Of course, all of this takes a back seat to Akito’s goofy behavior, which all the characters take part in laughing at. Akito is definitely the comic relief of this game, so emphasis is often placed on him during light-hearted moments. Interactions like this helped break apart the more serious parts of the game. I actually tend to prefer serious moments over comedic ones, but I can appreciate the way that they are handled here. Also, I didn’t just mention that Red Dragon restaurant at random. It seemed like after every other scene the characters would all head to a restaurant for food, usually the Red Dragon. They would even take the time to discuss what menu items to order once getting there. I’m being serious here; someone on the development team must really love food and I’m not knocking that.

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Looking into the future, there is also a bit of bonus content in the works for this title. The full release will see the introduction of IF Mode, which will include four unlockable episodes. These episodes will each center around a different member of IGRASIL and will feature some form of adult content. There is also a beach-themed episode planned, which will be packed with fan service. The menu options exist for both of these options currently, but the content itself won’t be available until the final release. Also keep in mind that this is but act I of III, so two more games will expand upon the content that is already there.

In short, Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death is an interesting visual novel that shows potential, but its absence and/or misuse of story, voice, and art assets leaves a lot to be desired. Missing assets aside, the fact that many of the existing ones don’t sync up is something that will definitely need addressed before the official release. Bear in mind that there’s still time for the developers to fix these issues and they seem dedicated to doing so. In fact, as I was writing this, several fixes were already put in place to improve the opening chapter (among other things). The team aims to make update announcement each week, so it’s safe to say that the game will continue to see refinement. Some of my more minor suggestions include tightening up the story a bit and making player decisions seem more important (and appear more frequently). I like the idea of having decisions that carry over to acts II and III, but would’ve liked to see some immediate changes in act I based on my choices. Lastly, I would’ve liked the game to last just a bit longer. I put in right around 22-23 hours, but there were a number of things that I would’ve liked to see play out further (namely interactions between non-IGRASIL characters). The game is set to see a full release in mid-February of this year, so there is still time for some of the kinks to be worked out. If you’d like to give the game a try yourself, head over to its official Steam page. It is currently listed at $24.99 USD, but the price will see an increase once the game has officially released. Assuming that all of the above points get addressed and the game releases with all of its content in sync, I look forward to seeing what acts II and III have in store.

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IMPRESSIONS: Bloody Chronicles – New Cycle of Death As of January 2019, there are currently over 1,200 visual novels for sale on Steam, many of which were developed by small teams with big dreams.

[oosteven-universe]

Hardcore #2

Hardcore #2 Skybound/Image Comics 2018 Written by Andy Diggle Illustrated by Alessandro Vitti Coloured by Adriano Lucas Lettered by Thomas Mauer     The Hardcore program has been compromised, leaving its top operative stranded in another country, his mind trapped in the body of one of America's most wanted. Now he has 72 hours to escape hostile territory, with no allies--only a Lamborghini and a license to kill! Kill! Kill!       I like the idea of this whole concept of the story and the way that it’s being executed. We have seen mind-swapping before or someone taking over another’s body but I don’t think we’ve seen it done quite like this. That originality to the story is what draws the reader in. Almost as if the promise of what we see although tinged with the familiar is foreign enough so that a spark of imagination has been lit in the reader. This is what the power of storytelling is all about and why it has power in and of itself.        There is something about the way that this issue opens that pretty much sets the mood and tone for the entire issue. And by the by can I live in that room please though the empty bookshelves are scary but those windows with the trees sigh. On a personal note Alessandro, Esteban needs to be shirtless a whole lot more! Seriously though the conversation that we see and how the events are unfolding is what really grabs your attention and not in the ways you think. It has this really edgy smartness to it that Andy just seems to be able to nail with perfection.       So last issue Drake ran inside the machine and escaped Markus’ reach temporarily. With his people all dead and the machine untouchable Drake’s time to inhabit this body is counting down. It has all the excitement of a Tom Cruise Mission Impossible but better, because there’s no Cruise. The fact that we are left with more questions than answers at the moment is another level of excitement that I wasn’t quite expecting and I have to say that it makes the readers mind work overtime to come up with their own scenarios as to how something is achievable here. This is why I love Andy and the work he is capable of doing, there’s this simplistic complexity to the work whose layers are layered and it looks straightforward but in reality nothing is straightforward or simple.     Oh my sweet Georgia peaches the interiors here are bloody gorgeous and the way that we see the linework manipulated though their varying weights is magnificent. The subtlety and boldness that mix and match all around are so well done and the fact that we don’t just see backgrounds here but some absolutely amazing foreground work too help to take this from standard 2-Dimension illustration and bring it closer to a 3-D effect. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels shows off a brilliant eye for storytelling. Adriano’s colour work is equally as strong and the control over what we see through shading, gradation or as reflections and whatnot really completes this book and makes things pop at the right time and in the right way. ​      This is precisely what we need to see right now, this science fiction, action/thriller who’s technology isn’t far off from being a reality and yet far enough away to make it seem just fictional enough. This is a fine line to straddle folks and like Strawberry Wine straight from the vine it could be bitter or sweet. The writing here is divine and the characterisation, story & plot development are so strong which goes with this pacing and stellar interior artwork to create one of the most interesting stories without anything else like it on stands today.