Seth Harris

Comic Book Review – Superman by Geoff Johns Part Two

Superman: Escape from Bizarro World (2008)
Reprints Action Comics #855-857, Superman #140, DC Comics Presents #71, and The Man of Steel #5
Written by Geoff Johns, Richard Donner, Otto Binder, E. Nelson Bridwell, and John Byrne
Art by Eric Powell, Wayne Boring, Curt Swan, John Byrne, and Dick Giordano

Superman: Secret Origin (2009)
Reprints Superman: Secret Origin #1-6
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes (2008)
Reprints Action Comics #858-863
Written by Geoff Johns
Art by Gary Frank

It was Escape from Bizarro World where I started to think Richard Donner wasn’t as involved in Geoff Johns’s Action Comics run as suggested. Something about the story beyond Eric Powell’s art makes me believe The Goon creator had more of a hand plotting the story. It makes sense because his tone to Bizarro’s cube-shaped version of Earth feels very similar to his cult-hit comic book series. The Donner involvement was likely little more than he and Johns talking on the phone over coffee about plots, which generally served as a good marketing tool to bring readers to Action Comics at the time.

31 Days of Character Creation #25 – Savage Worlds

Savage Worlds is a game I’ve known about for over a decade, but just have never sat down to play. In solo tabletop RPG circles, I see it being written about often and decided to go through character creation to get a feel for the system. Savage Worlds doesn’t have an official setting, but many creators have made settings that add elements to character creation.

31 Days of Character Creation #24 – G.I. Joe

Ironically, I was a huge G.I. Joe fan as a kid. Jump to 43 and I think the U.S. military is one of the most evil institutions on the planet. Life is funny that way. I decided to make a character for the G.I. Joe, but with my take. I wanted this to be G.I. Joe as if it was continuing on in 2025 after being started in the 1960s. In this political climate things are not so black & white.

Movie Review – Ariel

Ariel (1988)
Written and directed by Aki Kaurismäki

The more I watch Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki’s work, the more I warm up to him. I haven’t seen a considerable amount so far, only Le Havre, Fallen Leaves, and now Ariel. I found myself adjusting to his tone & style in Le Havre and would probably enjoy it even more if I rewatched it. I loved Fallen Leaves, and Ariel is my favorite of all the films I’ve seen. It is also Kaurismäki’s personal favorite of his films thus far, the middle of what he labeled his Proletarian Trilogy.

31 Days of Character Creation #23 – Runequest 6e

I am conflicted over the Basic Roleplaying system, the engine that runs things like Call of Cthulhu and this game. I see these character sheets and my eyes just glaze over because it’s so much stuff. I’ve found the layout for the character creation process in these books is…not great. I think perhaps I’ve been spoiled from rules light games and systems with great flowcharts. I think I created this character correctly, but I’m not editing this. Took me three hours.

Movie Review – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford (2007)
Written and directed by Andrew Dominik

I have watched the films of Andrew Dominik in a slightly odd order. First, I saw Killing Them Softly, his third film. Then I watched Blonde, his dismal adaptation of a Joyce Carol Oates novel about Marilyn Monroe. Now I come to his second film, the one that garnered him attention in the States, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. It was an excellent film; kept its focus on the characters and never got caught up in the tropes of cinematic Westerns, which is the point.

31 Days of Character Creation #22 – Mutant Year Zero

After trying out The Electric State I became a big fan of the Free League model of games. Most of them use a variation on their proprietary Year Zero Engine which is fairly quick and easy to play with. I’d be eyeing this game as I have been on the lookout for something post-apocalyptic that wouldn’t be a resources number crunching chore to play. I like the way this game feels, so I think it may be what I was looking for.

31 Days of Character Creation #21 – His Majesty the Worm

Like I said a few days ago, fantasy dominates the tabletop roleplaying game world because of Dungeons & Dragons. However, we are in a golden of age of really creative fantasy/dungeon delving systems that do a lot different than the old classic. His Majesty the Worm is bleak and grim, just like Darkest Dungeons and has some interesting things going on in it.

Solo Tabletop RPG Review & Actual Play – Everspark Part Two

Read the first part of this actual play here.

I decided there were a lot of pieces generated in my last session, so I needed to sit down and flesh them out a little more to have a sense of what has happened so far and the kind of immediate situation I would be dropped into.

For our adventure I had generated this sentence:
Qazid Icebreath wants to conquer the Crown of Titans, located in the Whispering Mountains. I must explore The Goblin Kingdom of Murkspire for a solution, otherwise Icebreath will assume control of all the colossal beasts in the land.

31 Days of Character Creation #20 – Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation

I’ve run through this character creator twice before and it is one of my favorite ttrpg tools I’ve ever played with. The characters you create are full of interesting hooks, conflicts, and contradictions. I decided to forgo building a whole Call of Cthulhu character as it is a little more time consuming than I would like. Here you’ll have a very strong foundation to stat out the character as you see fit.