Author: matthewephotography@yahoo.com
Creating the most attractive town at the foot of Mt. Yotei, known as Hokkaido’s Ezo Fuji ︎ Expand your land with limited manpower, win bids using potatoes, and develop your town. ︎ There are multiple paths to victory. The person who maximizes the charm of their city and collects the most “attractive points” wins! Set in Niseko, a breathtaking region of Hokkaido, Japan’s northern island, this board game brings the local landscape, people, and wildlife to life. We paid special attention to environmental sustainability by using Hokkaido-sourced wood for our tokens, while the artwork created by talented Japanese illustrators is…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com In Street Fighter Masters: Karin, the latest installment in the one-shot series, the titular rich girl faces off against fellow wealthy heiress and punk Olive Ong. It has the intentionally creepy tone that Udon nailed with his Street Fighter comics, and as you’d expect, it’s packed with great action sequences and gorgeous art. I’m a big fan of Udon’s video game licensing output, and they’ve proven themselves to be masters when it comes to Street Fighter. There are few other publishers that have animated fighting game series, not just Street Fighter, so well and for…
Image credit: Red Wolf Comics A baron loyal to Henry II is forced to make an impossible choice during a conflict between the king and Richard the Lionheart. He wants to do the right thing, but he may have little choice but to engage in horrific acts to force the enemy’s hand. Written by Bruno Catalino and illustrated by Jaka Prawira (with letters by James Reid), Family & Honor is a truly charming medieval drama. Deliberately shifting tempos reveal the stakes at the heart of the story, before the second act becomes a gripping two-handed affair, paving the way for…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com I enjoyed the mainline Speed Racer series so much that I thought I’d buy a physical copy of the spin-off series, Tales from the Road. A series of one-off stories that examine and expand on the Speed Racer universe, Tales from the Road has a little more room in terms of style and characters to feature. In Two Princes, Racer X is tasked with taking down a warlord known as the Vikings, and a chase across the city ensues. A backup story sees Splittle and his monkey best buds take Speed Racer’s Mach 5 car…
Image credit: IDW As the battle for Master Splinter’s soul continues, Mikey learns firsthand how thin the veil between the world of the living and the world of the dead is. This problem is totally crazy. Wall-to-wall action, beautiful character moments (this is a really big deal for Michelangelo fans), great apparitions, and shocking cliffhangers. This is a great piece of work by Freddie E. Williams II and Ferro Peniche who put a very unique spin on the artwork. If there is a weakness, it’s that it feels like there are too many balls being juggled at once, and the…
Image credit: Mad Cave Full disclosure: I have never watched the Speed Racer anime. My only exposure to this series was the live-action adaptation by the Wachowskis, but I thought it looked great, at least visually, and I understood what they were going for with their incredible animated style. But since I’m not the biggest fan of this movie, I had ignored this comic book reboot from Mud Cave. Still, something drew me in. Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of this movie and had never seen the original animation, something about it still drew me in. So I…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com After reading the Marvel crossover (Deadpool/Batman #1), it’s time for DC’s Batman/Deadpool #1. The first story in this anthology is very exciting in theory. A quintessentially meta, heart-wrenching story from comic book legend Grant Morrison. There are a lot of cool ideas and concepts here, and Morrison seems to be letting himself loose here, but there are some parts of the story that end up being a bit of a pretentious mess in places. Still, it’s far ahead in terms of ambition for any Marvel issue, and it’s beautifully portrayed by Dan Mora. Of course,…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com In the aftermath of the attack on the Daily Planet, Jimmy Olsen and Perry White go on a very strange journey. Discovering a somewhat reversed version of their world, they meet a particularly bizarre variant of Superman: Bizarro. This first issue of Bizarro’s origin story, co-written with Kevin Smith, is, well, certainly taking a while to get everywhere. It’s primarily about a young reporter, Jimmy Olsen, and his boss, Daily Planet editor-in-chief Perry White, as they argue, argue, and rant, page after page repeating explanations and details that don’t really go anywhere. This would all…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com While rummaging through the treasure trove of long boxes at the Resurrection Comics stall at the recent GoSport Comic Con, I came across a stash of ’70s Tomb of Dracula comics. I’ve always been a fan of Marvel’s melodramatic take on Bram Stoker’s vampire lord, and this epic melodramatic story takes place mostly in modern times. Marv Wolfman (an apt name for one of Marvel’s leading horror comics writers) and Gene Colan were the main creators of the series, which delivered 70 issues of spooky, thoroughly crafted vampire fun for most of the 1970s (from…
Image credit: Jason Brown, midlifegamergeek.com So, I’m a bit of a sucker for crossovers, especially crossovers between companies. Being such great rivals, Marvel and DC have only worked together a handful of times, and Deadpool/Batman (not to be confused with Batman/Deadpool, which followed a few months later) is the first crossover between the big two in decades. That alone is pretty exciting, and an absolute flood of disguise covers and reprints keeps this title on comic store shelves. Will it live up to the hype and expectations? In the first story, Deadpool goes after Batman, while the Dark Knight has…