Bristol Comic Expo!

On Saturday, we went into Bristol with the intention of going to Grillstock for the day. A few days before hand, we realised (read: the boyfriend told me) the Bristol Comic Expo was in town on the same weekend. We realised we could quite easily go to both, as the expo started and finished earlier in the day than Grillstock did. And then the other half asked me why the name Anne Stokes was ringing a bell, as she was one of the guests at the expo. Once I finished squeeing at a pitch normally reserved for non-human hearing, it was decided we absolutely definitely had to go.

And it was awesome. I got to meet Anne Stokes and get a bunch of stuff signed by her. (And if you're not familiar with Anne Stokes, go check out her artwork on her website by clicking here. No, seriously, go now. This post will still be here when you get back.) She was very tolerant of me and my extreme fan-girl-ness. I have two amazing new signed prints to hang up on the walls, and a gorgeous dragon pendant that will no doubt become my favourite necklace ever.

We had a great walk around the expo, got to talk to a lot of cool people, see some amazing costumes (even had the kiddo pose with a stormtrooper and a clonetrooper for a photo!), and get some amazing stuff. I picked up an awesome print of Chel and Wheatley facing up against a dragon (I know it makes no sense, but it combines two of my favourite things, so that makes it awesome) from ReaperWorks. I also was introduced to a brilliant artist, Jess Bradley. Her stuff must be seen. (That's a hint that Jess's website is another one of those that you must go look at right now, and this post will still be here when you come back.)

The other major highlight of our time at the expo was meeting Mark Buckingham. For those of you who don't have a clue what that name means, he's an artist - in fact, the artist of one of my favourite graphic novel series, Fables. I not only got to have two of my books signed by him, but we got to sit and listen to him talk about various Fables and The Unwritten stuff in a panel straight afterward. He's a really nice guy, and it was a real pleasure meeting him.

Now, you may notice something missing from this post: pictures! I'm sorry, I meant to sit down and take a bunch of photos of all the stuff from the day, but haven't gotten around to it yet due to other life stuff. Pictures will be coming soon! Stay tuned!

Too much TV?

I've been watching an awful lot of tv shows lately. It's not that I'm just sitting there staring at the television - I'm doing other things, like looking at internet stuff(frequently), programming (often), or cleaning (once in a blue moon if it's on a Friday and the 32nd day of the month). But I like to have a bit of background noise, otherwise the quiet of the house drives me crazy.

The shows I've managed to zip through over the last month include Castle (up through the end of season four), Supernatural (up to current episodes), and Lie to Me (just finished season one). I've always been a Supernatural fan, Castle has been completely awesome and addictive, and Lie to Me - well, I went through the first thirteen episodes in three days. (When one considers my work schedule / life stuff, that's a bit scary.)

It's starting to make me think that maybe I'm watching a little too much TV these days. But then, if I wasn't having that going in the background, I would be... well, let's say less than perfectly sane. I don't handle silence well at all. So, yay for tv?

There was water, but a cattle prod is more fun...

This post is not anywhere near as dodgy as its title.

Okay, there's a little bit of dodgy-ness going on, but that's down to the game. It's not my fault.

You see, a group of us get together about once a month and have a whole day of role-playing fun. We're playing in the Doctor Who universe, with my other half acting as the Doctor and GM, and us as his "companions" along the way.

Except that the Doctor has a nasty habit of sending us out to do something, then disappearing on us and leaving us in the shit. Then we end up scrambling for ages trying to figure out what the hell we're supposed to do next, and end up making some mistakes, but mostly spending an awful lot of time arguing about what we should be doing.

Add to that the fact that we all have a seriously twisted sense of humour, and we end up situations that are... unusual. Situations that spawn the kind of comments that gave this post its title.

Yeah, that sentence actually came up. Because one of our characters got stunned and knocked out with a stun gun. We didn't have any smelling salts or anything truly useful to wake him up from it - except that he had been defending himself with a recently discovered cattle prod just before being stunned. (No, I don't know why there was a cattle prod on a spaceship.) So, naturally, rather than use the bottle of water in our pocket, the cattle prod became the tool of choice to wake the guy up.

I don't understand how our characters have lived this long when we put ourselves in these positions...

Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi...

Okay, so I'm not actually going to run around quoting Leia. Which is a bit of a shame, because I got something very cool from the other half today. It's a Princess Leia bathrobe! Check it out!

Yep. I have one of those. Complete with duo hair buns on the hood. It's made of awesome.

Awesomeness: xkcd, GU comics

This week's awesomeness is brought to you by xkcd and GU Comics.

Simply put, xkcd is an amazing webcomic that focuses on pretty much everything that says "geek", including maths, language, computers, gaming, science, and so on. Oh, and it's also entirely drawn with stick figures.

The beauty of its limited, simplistic art is that the content of the comic has to be that much better. The humour of it must stand for itself, rather than relying on pretty images to carry it to the next page. I will admit, there are sometimes jokes that go right over my head - quite a few of the science ones, and the more hard-to-grasp maths ones - but most of them can be enjoyed by just about anybody. There's also the occasional romantic page, which helps balance the overall feel of the comic quite nicely.

Oh, and don't forget to hover your mouse over the strip itself to get additional commentary and jokes.

Moving on to GU Comics! This one, interestingly, I've not been aware of particularly long. I love gaming, I love comics (well, certain comics are not good friends with me, but that's not really the point here...). Yet it took me ages to become aware of this one, which focuses entirely on popular video games, the game industry, and the gaming community.



While reading the various pages, I find myself nodding with some, grinning at others, and genuinely laughing out loud at a few. Then I find myself nodding yet again when I read the blog posts that accompany each page. All in all, it's a great place for game enthusiasts to read a good comic and some clear opinions about the industry.

That's it for this week! More awesomeness to follow next Friday.

Awesomeness of the Week

It's not the greatest title, but it'll do until I can think of anything better. There are so many awesome things on the internet, and I want to be able to share them with anyone who has not yet discovered them. You may find them just as awesome, you might hate them, but they will still be here. So let's get started, shall we?

Ctrl+Alt+Del
This is a webcomic I've been following for quite some time. What I love about it is that the author doesn't stick to strictly gag-of-the-week humour. He often has long-running plot lines, even if they are incredibly over the top and ridiculous (talking penguin, anyone?). He also is not afraid to take the comic to hard places, as he showed when one of the main characters suffered a miscarriage. I remember that particular strip as one of enormous impact, largely due to the lack of any dialogue in that page whatsoever.

That said, most pages are aimed to entertain, and he usually succeeds. The current storyline sees Ethan, who is normally off-his-head crazy, suffering a concussion due to electrocuting himself. The result has made him into a perfectly normal guy - possibly the strangest thing this comic has ever seen - and turned his housemate Lucas and his wife Lilah into... well, crazy-Ethans. The switch is, in my opinion, highly amusing, especially when Ethan's only aid comes from his talking X-Box.

Ravelry
This one is aimed at anyone who likes knitting or crocheting. Ravelry is an enormous website designed to help people find patterns, yarns, and like-minded people online. It's such a simple description, but I promise you the site is so much more than that. Just about every published pattern you can think of is listed somewhere in Ravelry's database. Many of them are free, many of them are available to download straight off the site instantly. You can purchase some patterns from Ravelry directly, or if the pattern can't be gotten from the site, they can at least tell you where to find it. It also has a massive database of yarns. Got a question about the particular thickness of a yarn? Not sure if it will work for the pattern you have in mind? Look up the yarn in the database, and check out other people's comments about it. Doing this has saved me from using a beautiful yarn that falls apart as soon as it's knitted, amongst other mistakes. It's also introduced me to new yarns to look out for.

But beyond the incredible database, is the amazing community. There are millions of Ravelers, as some call them, from all over the world. The forums are constantly active, which is brilliant when you have a question or need help with something. There are smaller groups to join as well, such as Nerdy Knitters, or groups aimed at people in particular local areas. You can find just about anything in the forums - and the few things that aren't there already won't take long to be discovered and discussed! If you have any interest at all in the world of knit and/or crochet, go have a look. You'll love it, I hope.

That's it for this week's awesomeness!

Tomorrow: Free Comic Book Day!

Yep, it's that time again! Tomorrow marks this year's Free Comic Book Day! Wherever you are, whatever you do... wait, I sound like I'm going to break into song...

Anyway. Tomorrow, look for the nearest local comic shop and show your support! Each shop will probably have their own rules, but what it boils down to is completely free comic books. I personally will be showing my support for Proud Lion in Cheltenham, where there will be live music and awards for people in cosplay. There are a lot of different comics in the selection this year, from Peanuts to Transformers to Avengers to MouseGuard to... well, you get the idea. There truly is something for everybody, so please, please find the time to help out local comic shop owners!

Portal stuff

It may have been mentioned once or twice that I'm a big fan of the Portal games. (If it hasn't been, then I will hang my head in shame, insist that I do in fact love the Portal games, and move on as if that fact was never in any doubt.) I've played through them a handful of times each, and if there were enough hours in the day, would probably play them again. But since there aren't, and my list of games to play is long enough as it is, I will look for the next best thing.

Portal STUFF.

I mean, who wouldn't want LED flashlights in the shape of turrets and Wheatley? Or bookends with the classic man-shaped-thing-running-through-orange-and-blue-portals on each side? Or the completely awesome Portal cookie cutters? (Clearly they saw my sweet tooth coming, though neglected to consider that the kitchen and I usually end our interactions with disaster.) these things are amazing. Who comes up with these things, and why aren't they providing me with these items on a daily basis?

Oh, there is another thing that has caught my eye and is making it a struggle for me not to buy it. Inflatable turrets. I want one. In every room of the house. And by the front door to scare away all the cats and neighbours. Oh yes, I could have great fun with a set of these.

...Marketing and merchandise are aimed specifically for people like me, aren't they? Hmmm.

Squirrely wrath!

"And so I'm a squirrel, and you're not. How pathetic you are..."

Do you recognise this line? If you do, you already are familiar with the awesome-ness that is Foamy the Squirrel. If you're not, you've been missing out, and that really should be corrected. Foamy the Squirrel is the main character in a web cartoon called Neurotically Yours, created by Jonathan Mathers of Ill Will Press.

To really get the feel of what makes Foamy so awesome, you really should just watch one of the episodes. This one, for example, "Zip Codes", is one of my favourites. (WARNING: Foamy is NSFW. It's also NSFPODS (Not Safe For People Of Delicate Sensibilities). There is swearing, sexual references, and a truckload of inappropriate content in these cartoons. If you can't handle that, don't watch. Seriously.)



Foamy is known for his many, many rants on multiple subjects. All of these, particularly the brilliant early rants, can be found on his YouTube channel. There are far too many good ones to post them all here, so I'll leave you with one more that is among my favourites.



Not everything in the world of Foamy is great. I will admit that one of the long-running story arcs, that of Germaine, the human Foamy lives with, was very much out of my taste. A number of episodes over the course of this story arc (in which Germaine becomes a whore so she can afford to continue living in New York) have background animations that were distracting and, in my opinion, not really necessary. There are some episodes that are also quite strange, and seem more like filler material to get to the good, funny episodes. I do love the few musical episodes ("Squirrel Songs"), in which Foamy sings while Germaine plays the guitar in hopes of raising money for various causes, such as the Church of Foamy.

The most interesting thing I find is that Foamy has recently undergone a "reboot". The art style has been changed to be more consistent. The creator has also decided to combine the characters of all his web cartoons (which can also be found on the Ill Will Press site) into a single series, and enable them to all live in the same world. So far I'm liking it, but we'll have to see where it leads.