Things have been a little slow on the VS tip. Didn't get to play last week due to my Boston trip, so I've been a little out of sorts for the past couple of days trying to get myself back into the VS frame of mind. What did not help this was the crazy amount of comic news that seemed to come out of nowhere from Wizard World LA over the weekend. That con never seemed like a big announcement con, but that sure was the case this year. Some highlights.
~ Matt Fraction announced that he is officially a Marvel exclusive now. This will not be getting in the way of Casanova, as all his exclusive really does is block him from DC (and presumably Dark Horse), and his creator owned stuff would not be affected. I honestly expected them to simply move Cas over to the Icon line, which could still happen, but for now it's staying at Image. Fraction's celebrating this by adding even more to his prodigious workload. It has been announced that his is going to start co-writing duties with Ed Brubaker on Uncanny X-Men beginning with issue 500. All I can say is goddamnit. I really didn't want to start buying an X book, but I go where Fraction goes. The June solicits have come out, and Fraction's all over the place on the Marvel side, which makes me happy.
~ Some artists are on the move, as Tim Sale is returning to Marvel comics to work with Jeph Loeb on their fourth "color" book, with Captain America: White. Terry Dodson also signed an exclusive for Marvel, and he will be joining Matt Fraction as he jumps on to art duties on Uncanny X-Men. Loeb does his best stuff when working with Tim Sale, and Dodson just adds to the excitement of Uncanny post 500.
~ The first issue of DC Trinity is going to be an extra sized issue, and the price point for the weekly series is going to be $2.99. For those that do not know, the major creative team is Kurk Busiek and Mark Bagley, with backups written by Fabian Nicieza. After the disaster that was Countdown, I wasn't planning to buy this one anyway, and I definitely don't like the idea of buying 52 $3 books in a year beyond my standard pull list. It could be good, and the creative team is good, but Dini is a great writer and he couldn't save Countdown. I think what will make the difference is how tied to continuity this book is planning to be. 52 worked because it was its own little corner of the universe and didn't have to worry about anything else. Countdown was too tied into continuity to the point that it either got repetitive (the Karate Kid/Batman fight) or gave away things that hadn't happened yet (the non-Parallax infused Kyle Rayner showing up prior to the end of Sinestro Corps). Either way, it didn't work. So if Trinity is out of continuity, that would be better, but do we really need any more Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman maybe, but the other two have plenty of books to fall back on.
~ Joe Pokasi, a writer on Heroes will be joining the Secret Invasion fray, writing the tie in miniseries "Secret Invasion: Inhumans" dealing with the reveal of Black Bolt's skrully nature and how the Inhuman Royal Family must deal with the fallout of their king not actually being their king. Now, I love the Inhumans as characters. Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee's 12 issue Marvel Knights series was fantastic in every sense of the word. I really loved Son of M. I haven't actually read Silent War because I'm missing the first issue, and while I've heard it wasn't very good, I'm still looking forward to reading it at some point. I'm jazzed like crazy for this. New Avengers: Illuminati #5 was my favorite issue of last year, and I'll be loving some crazy Inhumans skrully goodness.
That's all for now.
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miscellany. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Two Music Reviews
I've had two highly anticipated albums become available for musical consumption in the past few weeks (neither album is out yet, but both have been made available via streaming through their Myspace pages), so let's go over them, shall we?
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!
Once I truly discovered Nick Cave, I fell in love very quickly. My first foray into the man's work was the 1996 album Murder Ballads. It's a crazy album, with a lot of rich and literary imagery. Other albums I discovered (your Henry's Dream, your Tender Prey, your Let Love In) were all great listens. Then in 2004, Nick released the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. Now, this was true, transcendent art, and one of my favorite albums of all time. Everything clicked. Soaring musical passages, wonderful singing and lyrics from Cave, and a huge variety of styles. Nick then took a choice few of his Bad Seeds (including violinist and co-composer of The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford Warren Ellis, and no, it's not that Warren Ellis) and made the side project Grinderman, designed to be a more rock intensive album. With the ushering in of 2008, we get Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!, and to be honest, it just doesn't shape up.
Now, this isn't as much of a misstep as Nocturama was, but I can't shake the feeling that this is more of a Grinderman album than a Bad Seeds album. Sure, Nick's at the front of both, and he still wrote all the lyrics, and maybe I've gotten so used to and obsessed with AB/TLOO (wow, that's a really clunky acronym) that my standards were simply too high and lofty. Here's a perfect example of the kind of fundamental difference between the two most recent Bad Seeds albums. On Abattoir, Cave is backed by his band, as well as a full choir. On Lazarus, whatever parts would potentially be sung by the choir is instead replaced by the rest of the Seeds singing backup. Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing. Those parts don't sound bad at all. But when you look at the difference between "Get Ready for Love" from Abattoir and "Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)" from Lazarus, you can't help but notice the difference in scope. There isn't a single moment like the grand crescendo at the end of "Hiding All Away" or the bridge of "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" or the entirety of any live rendition of "Tupelo" that strips away the outside world and envelops you in a chaotic tidal wave of sound.
And that's the odd thing about this album. Nothing about it is bad. All the songs are interesting and well constructed, but I still found myself being somewhat bored listening to it. It's a more intimate, stripped down and primal album, but it somehow lacks the immediacy of Cave's other work. I'm not advocating that he just recreate the feel of Abattoir on every album he records from here on out, but one of the things I've always loved about Nick's albums was the variety from song to song. And with both Grinderman and Lazarus, that variety is stripped back for more straightforward song crafting. Sure, it's better than most of the stuff you'll find out there that masquerades as music, and it's a great way for someone without knowledge of Nick Cave to acclimate himself to the type of music the Bad Seeds play. But for those seasoned veterans like myself, it just keeps coming up short. Every great Nick Cave album has had that one (or multiple) moment where everything just kicks into another gear and chills run down your spine. I couldn't find a single moment like that on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!.
The album will be out in the States on April 8th. The Myspace page currently has six songs available to listen, which gives a good cross section for what to expect.
Firewater - The Golden Hour
Here we have another band that hasn't put out any original music since 2004 (they released a cover album in 2005, entitled Songs We Should Have Written). I've already expressed my love for Firewater in a previous post on this here blog, and I was very anxious to see just what we would be getting from their next output. Tod A. took a abbatical from the United States after he finished his Firewater touring schedule in 2004 due to being disgruntled by the reelection of President Bush. What followed was a three year journey across the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. While on the road, he often got together with local musicians to play and record music. Nearly all of that music became the foundation for The Golden Hour. And what we've gotten is a very distinct musical piece that fits in perfectly with everything Firewater has released in the past.
Indeed, in many ways this is the quintessential Firewater album. It takes the eastern European and Middle Eastern musical influences of Get Off the Cross...We Need the Wood for the Fire and melds it with the groove intensive, upbeat and catchy as hell hooks of The Ponzi Scheme to create what just might be the best Firewater album to date. It doesn't waste time, opening with the politically charged escapist fantasy "Borneo." The music Tod recorded while out of the country is very apparent here and in the two tracks that follow, "This is My Life" and "Some Kind of Kindness." The mood of the album follows a sort of cosine curve, starting wild and boisterous in the early tracks, and mellowing down during the middle of the album for some cooler and more introspective songs ("6:45" and "Paradise"), before ramping back up right around the best track of the album, "Electric City," kicks in. I can't heap enough praise on "Electric City." It has a couple of those great Tod A tricks of the phrase ("You don't have to be a soldier to fight/But you gotta have a killer in ya/You don't have to be a poet to die/It's the little things that kill ya"), a bouncy bongo/conga/tabla groove and a killer guitar riff to end the song. It's no wonder that most of the musicians Tod played with while abroad predominantly play music designed for belly dancers. You can just feel it.
While The Golden Hour may not have some of the extreme highs from other Firewater albums (nothing quite approaches the greatness of "Refinery," "The Circus," "Dropping Like Flies," "Dark Days Indeed," or "7th Avenue Static"), this is very easily their most consistently great album. There isn't a dull moment throughout the thirteen tracks, and it's very tough to listen to such undeniably fun music and not have a huge smile pasted across your face. It really is a testament to Firewater's power as a band to have such an upbeat album come out of Tod's complete and total emotional upheaval. The album is set for release in April (no specific date as of yet) and every track is available on their Myspace page. Check it out, and be sure you try to see them on tour in May. I've just bought tickets to the May 23rd show in Boston to go along with my Philly tickets two days later. The idea of seeing them twice in such a short time just makes me happy. And isn't that what music is all about at the end of the day?
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!
Once I truly discovered Nick Cave, I fell in love very quickly. My first foray into the man's work was the 1996 album Murder Ballads. It's a crazy album, with a lot of rich and literary imagery. Other albums I discovered (your Henry's Dream, your Tender Prey, your Let Love In) were all great listens. Then in 2004, Nick released the double album Abattoir Blues/The Lyre of Orpheus. Now, this was true, transcendent art, and one of my favorite albums of all time. Everything clicked. Soaring musical passages, wonderful singing and lyrics from Cave, and a huge variety of styles. Nick then took a choice few of his Bad Seeds (including violinist and co-composer of The Proposition and The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford Warren Ellis, and no, it's not that Warren Ellis) and made the side project Grinderman, designed to be a more rock intensive album. With the ushering in of 2008, we get Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!, and to be honest, it just doesn't shape up.
Now, this isn't as much of a misstep as Nocturama was, but I can't shake the feeling that this is more of a Grinderman album than a Bad Seeds album. Sure, Nick's at the front of both, and he still wrote all the lyrics, and maybe I've gotten so used to and obsessed with AB/TLOO (wow, that's a really clunky acronym) that my standards were simply too high and lofty. Here's a perfect example of the kind of fundamental difference between the two most recent Bad Seeds albums. On Abattoir, Cave is backed by his band, as well as a full choir. On Lazarus, whatever parts would potentially be sung by the choir is instead replaced by the rest of the Seeds singing backup. Now, this isn't inherently a bad thing. Those parts don't sound bad at all. But when you look at the difference between "Get Ready for Love" from Abattoir and "Lie Down Here (And Be My Girl)" from Lazarus, you can't help but notice the difference in scope. There isn't a single moment like the grand crescendo at the end of "Hiding All Away" or the bridge of "Papa Won't Leave You, Henry" or the entirety of any live rendition of "Tupelo" that strips away the outside world and envelops you in a chaotic tidal wave of sound.
And that's the odd thing about this album. Nothing about it is bad. All the songs are interesting and well constructed, but I still found myself being somewhat bored listening to it. It's a more intimate, stripped down and primal album, but it somehow lacks the immediacy of Cave's other work. I'm not advocating that he just recreate the feel of Abattoir on every album he records from here on out, but one of the things I've always loved about Nick's albums was the variety from song to song. And with both Grinderman and Lazarus, that variety is stripped back for more straightforward song crafting. Sure, it's better than most of the stuff you'll find out there that masquerades as music, and it's a great way for someone without knowledge of Nick Cave to acclimate himself to the type of music the Bad Seeds play. But for those seasoned veterans like myself, it just keeps coming up short. Every great Nick Cave album has had that one (or multiple) moment where everything just kicks into another gear and chills run down your spine. I couldn't find a single moment like that on Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!!.
The album will be out in the States on April 8th. The Myspace page currently has six songs available to listen, which gives a good cross section for what to expect.
Firewater - The Golden Hour
Here we have another band that hasn't put out any original music since 2004 (they released a cover album in 2005, entitled Songs We Should Have Written). I've already expressed my love for Firewater in a previous post on this here blog, and I was very anxious to see just what we would be getting from their next output. Tod A. took a abbatical from the United States after he finished his Firewater touring schedule in 2004 due to being disgruntled by the reelection of President Bush. What followed was a three year journey across the Middle East, India and Southeast Asia. While on the road, he often got together with local musicians to play and record music. Nearly all of that music became the foundation for The Golden Hour. And what we've gotten is a very distinct musical piece that fits in perfectly with everything Firewater has released in the past.
Indeed, in many ways this is the quintessential Firewater album. It takes the eastern European and Middle Eastern musical influences of Get Off the Cross...We Need the Wood for the Fire and melds it with the groove intensive, upbeat and catchy as hell hooks of The Ponzi Scheme to create what just might be the best Firewater album to date. It doesn't waste time, opening with the politically charged escapist fantasy "Borneo." The music Tod recorded while out of the country is very apparent here and in the two tracks that follow, "This is My Life" and "Some Kind of Kindness." The mood of the album follows a sort of cosine curve, starting wild and boisterous in the early tracks, and mellowing down during the middle of the album for some cooler and more introspective songs ("6:45" and "Paradise"), before ramping back up right around the best track of the album, "Electric City," kicks in. I can't heap enough praise on "Electric City." It has a couple of those great Tod A tricks of the phrase ("You don't have to be a soldier to fight/But you gotta have a killer in ya/You don't have to be a poet to die/It's the little things that kill ya"), a bouncy bongo/conga/tabla groove and a killer guitar riff to end the song. It's no wonder that most of the musicians Tod played with while abroad predominantly play music designed for belly dancers. You can just feel it.
While The Golden Hour may not have some of the extreme highs from other Firewater albums (nothing quite approaches the greatness of "Refinery," "The Circus," "Dropping Like Flies," "Dark Days Indeed," or "7th Avenue Static"), this is very easily their most consistently great album. There isn't a dull moment throughout the thirteen tracks, and it's very tough to listen to such undeniably fun music and not have a huge smile pasted across your face. It really is a testament to Firewater's power as a band to have such an upbeat album come out of Tod's complete and total emotional upheaval. The album is set for release in April (no specific date as of yet) and every track is available on their Myspace page. Check it out, and be sure you try to see them on tour in May. I've just bought tickets to the May 23rd show in Boston to go along with my Philly tickets two days later. The idea of seeing them twice in such a short time just makes me happy. And isn't that what music is all about at the end of the day?
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
There's a Light at the End of the Tunnel
From Thursday to Sunday of next week, I will be making my first trip up to Boston since last June. I had always considered Boston (and by extension, Massachusetts as a whole) my home away from home. The family has had friends that live on the Cape for as long as I can remember. We've made at least one trip up there a year for as I can remember. It doesn't come as a surprise that come college time, both my brother and I ended up in the Greater Boston Area, with him at MIT and me at BU. I only lived in the city for three and a half years, and ever since I left, I've counted the days until my grand return. This trip will be enjoyable enough simply because I'll be in Boston the weekend of St. Patrick's Day, but at the same time, I have ulterior motives. While I'm there, I will finalize the details of my true grand return, when I move back to the city full time come September.
As with any giant life changing decision, there are good points and bad points. The good heavily outweighs the bad in this case, as I will be returning to the city I love and living in an apartment/house with my three best friends on Earth. We've already got plans to start a podcast once we all get settled. I'll be close to my beloved Boston Red Sox and Boston University Terriers. I'll once again be surrounded by colleges on all sides, which will give me ample opportunity to enroll part time in programs in order to earn M.A.s in English and Philosophy, as well as become a certified secondary school teacher. I'll be within walking/T distance of bars and clubs. Concerts. Baseball games. Walking the Common on a beautiful fall Saturday afternoon. Comicopia, one of the best comic shops I've ever been to, which is right down the street from Nuggets, my personal favorite used record store, which is in turn right down the street from the Boston University Pub, purveyor of all things yummy and beer flavored. All of these are good things.
What is a little bittersweet, however, is that most of the bad has a direct impact on my ability to play VS System. World's will pretty much be an impossibility on my budget if it is anywhere beyond driving distance. Not on the Northeast Corridor? Not going to happen. I'm still going to MegaWeekend New York, but it may turn out to be a farewell of sorts from competitive VS play for at least a while. Considering how expensive Boston as a city is, I'll be operating on a vastly reduced disposable income budget. I wouldn't expect myself to be getting more than two boxes of Marvel Universe, if I buy any at all, and considering the size of the set, it's doubtful two boxes is going to cut it. I'll also lose touch with the handful of people I actually get to play the game with on a semi-regular basis.
Does this mean I'm quitting the game, throwing my hands up to the sky and selling off all my money rares? Hell no! I named this blog VS System is LEGION for a reason. You can't just walk away. I can't get all the cards? I'll make proxies or use Magic Workstation. No one I know in the area that plays? Boston's a pretty big city chock full of college kids and graduates in the 18-30 age bracket. I'm sure there's a whole bunch of VS players out there. I just have to find them. Plus, I'll be living with (at least) three bright, like minded guys who I can personally run VS experiments on. I expect that between bar nights and Rock Band nights, I'll have us drafting old boxes of Marvel Knights on the cheap within two months.
I kinda view this game like Kudzu. It looks harmless at first, but once things start spreading and you can't see your shoes anymore, you realize that maybe your little bottle of spray on weed killer isn't going to do too much damage against that botanical juggernaut. Hell, it's probably more accurate to think of this game as the antagonist from the 1971 Genesis song "The Return of the Giant Hogweed" (yes, I'm under 40 years old): "They are invincible. They seem immune to our herbicidal battery." I can't really explain the plant references. There are some places my brain goes when I'm not fully paying attention that defy all rational means of logical thinking. Still, oddly enough, the reference seems apt. Many people, some of which are very vocal, seem to think that UDE considers VS System to be a neglected weed that's popping up from between the two slab of sheet rock known as "World of Warcraft" and "YuGiOh" in the sidewalk of life. I personally do not believe these sentiments, but I do like the idea that we as a group and an ideology refuse to die. We're stubborn. They take away our PCQ's and Sneak Previews? Whatever. They cut out the money and the Pro Circuit, watch the high profile pros leave for other games and expect us to die on the vine? Screw that. We've only gotten stronger. I suddenly have this picture in my head of this giant, spreading, lush foliage completely taking over the WoW piece of sheet rock (because let's face it here, that YuGiOh slab is made of fucking Kryptonite) and spreading onwards and outwards. If such an undeniable OP upheaval didn't kill this game for us as a community, why the hell would moving 350 miles up the coast kill the game for me? It doesn't make sense, so it won't happen.
As I said earlier, there's a light at the end of the tunnel. And it's shaped like the Citgo Sign. Rock on.
Sunday, March 2, 2008
Musings on a Music Scene
Those of us who fancy ourselves music fans often have a band they can call their own. It may not always be their favorite band, but something about them keeps us coming back and creates in us a strange sense of ownership. Whether it be an unabashed love for the musicianship, quality of lyrics, or just being so damned catchy that it's impossible to ignore, music has that special immediate place in our hearts. It cuts through the mind's reason receptors and heads straight for the realm of instinct. For the past twelve years, I have had such a band with that sense of undeniable immediacy. That band is Firewater.
Firewater is not a band that ever reached the point of mainstream success. It was formed out of the ashes of Cop Shoot Cop, which was led up by bassist/vocalist/lyric virtuoso Tod Ashley (Tod A. to the world) and featured a gaggle of musicians from New York's indie scene pieced together into a deranged nomadic carnival. Their first album, Get Off the Cross...We Need the Wood for the Fire came out in 1996, and was accompanied by an opening spot on Soul Coughing's national tour. This of course made sense, considering the drummer of Soul Coughing, Mr. Yuval Gabay, was doing double duty for Firewater on their first album. My brother went to that tour stop in Philly, and couldn't stop gushing about this Firewater band when he came home that night. I listened to the album, and have been hooked ever since. The music is this wonderful mix of 1980's Tom Waits carnival music (think Rain Dogs) and eastern europeon klezmer music. In any given song, expect to hear the standard trappings of a rock band tinged with interludes of violin, accordion, horns, balalaikas, clarinets, and any number of other instruments. It is one of the most distinctive sounds I've heard from a band, and was instantly recognizable as something different and special.
All that gushing, and I haven't even had a chance to mention the lyrics. It's obvious that Mr. A. has had a colorful life, and his lyrical flourishes are wonderful. Take, for instance, this verse from the song "7th Avenue Static":
Bring out the Gin, and the small violins
I'm a raging success as a failure
And it's colder than hell in this cardboard hotel
Which I share with a chronic embezzler
So I beat my retreat down Collister Street
To one of my holy places
And they tangled my wings with wire and string
And I'm spinning in a whirlpool of faces
And I'll take what the dumpsters are giving
But I'll do my best to survive
Because I still think that life's for the living
Yes, I still think that life's for the living
It's just breathtaking. Powerful, clever, well designed phrasing and rhyme schemes. The lyrics paint these evocative pictures that come to life in the mind's eye. That doesn't happen for me much. Tom Waits is that good of a lyricist. So is Pete Townshend and the other greats of the British Invasion. But beyond that? I'm hard pressed to think of anyone with such a grasp of the English language and the ability to manipulate it to serve his whims and excite the populous.
Shortly after releasing their fourth album, The Man on the Burning Tightrope in 2004, they announced a national headlining tour. I was a sophomore in college at Boston University at the time, and they happened to be coming to the Paradise Rock Club, which happened to be on BU's campus. This was, quite possibly the best concert I have ever seen in my life. 8 musicians on stage having a ball. Nearly every song was extended in some way to include an extra improvisational solo of some kind. I never wanted it to end. And when the pre-encore finale, a ten minute rendition of the dirty jazz tune "Another Perfect Catastrophe" kicked into high gear, I had what was probably the closest thing to a spiritual experience in my still short life. It was a once in a lifetime scene.
So why talk about Firewater when I should be musing on cardboard superheroes? Well, Firewater is putting out their first album of original content, The Golden Hour, is to be released in April, with a World Tour to follow. I already have tickets to the show at the North Star Bar in Philly on May 25th, and I can't wait to see the boys do their thing again. I implore any of you who came to thing blog to read up on some VS and decided to read through this article to check this band out. Buy The Ponzi Scheme off the iTunes music store. Order the albums off Amazon. Use whatever means you see fit. You won't be sorry.
I'll be getting us back to our regularly scheduled VS conversation tonight or tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the music you brave souls who want to take a chance.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
Comics: The End of an Era
Last week marked the 50th and final issue of Marvel's Cable & Deadpool ongoing series. Of course, with Cable's apparent death in issue 42, the comic became increasingly inaccurate in its title and morphed into what can only really be described as Deadpool Team-Up. Often, the cover art would feature this special guest prominently (whether it be Wolverine, Captain America, The Fantastic Four, and so on), with his/her/their name replacing a hastily crossed out Cable. Many fans of the comic seemed to have been turned off by this change, but I quite enjoyed it. Indeed, the cover to Cable & Deadpool #45, featuring World War Two era Bucky Barnes standing next to Deadpool in his own version of a Captain America outfit carrying a backpack with about 25 guns poking out of it, was what got me to pick up an issue in the series in the first place. I was obviously late to the party, and while the giant 50% off the entire store sale at Wild Pig Comics in Kenilworth, NJ last October allowed me to pick up issues 34 to 43 for 50 cents apiece, I still haven't read any of the earlier portions of the run. Even still, the charm of Fabian Nicieza's writing (good luck on your part in that weekly series over at DC there, Fabian) was irresistible, and I grew to really enjoy the series overall. It's a wonder such a quirky book made it all the way to 50, to be honest.
But what about the comic itself? Well, it was a lot of fun. Picking up right at the end of issue 49 with Deadpool accidentally teleporting quite a lot of dinosaurs from the Savage Land into the middle of New York City during a Venom virus outbreak (as seen in Mighty Avengers #7-8 and New Avengers #36), and creating some particularly ferocious Venom dinos. It was a star studded issue, featuring cameos from the Mighty Avengers, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four. Antics ensue, including the standard fourth wall digs at One More Day, Deadpool's non-involvement in Messiah CompleX, some of the less recognizable Mighty Avengers, and the general cool factor of fighting giant alien dinosaurs. It was a really good issue. Pretty much everything you expect out of a Deadpool book, with a surprising amount of heart (well, that's a relative term when Deadpool's involved, but the last scene had some nice moments). It was an extra sized issue with some nice back matter, including a double sized Dear Deadpool, some comments from Fabian and the Editor, and other goodies. It was a fitting way to end a series at right around when it probably should have ended. We're going to be seeing a new Deadpool ongoing that will apparently be headed up by the current creative team of Wolverine: Origins. Deadpool's in the current W:O story arc, and it seems like Daniel Way has a good grasp of the character, so there's no reason not to believe he'll do the Merc with a Mouth justice.
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
You can't stop the signal, Mal...
I've decided to throw my hat into the ring of VS System themed blogs. Now, I know there are quite a lot of us popping up, especially with the changes to the main VsSystem.com site as pertains to articles, but another can't hurt, right?
I think the main motivation for my creation of this blog stems from my current situation as relates to VS System. My local card store technically doesn't exist. Tournaments are run every Friday by our pseudo-store owner Dan, who operates out of his house and rents out space at an obedience school about ten minutes from my house. It's safe to say that this isn't exactly the most glamorous setup, but I can play cards there, and that's what matters. The sad thing is, hobby league doesn't exist. On a week to week basis, there are two of us that play VS, and the other player also plays WoW and judges YuGi. I still show up every week and usually get two to three games in, and we still get outsiders to come out for release celebrations and City Champs, but it can get a little frustrating at times when you're basically playing the same decks against the same guy week after week. But who am I to complain? I still get to play.
Despite the lack of hobby league, I can't stop thinking about VS on a daily basis. Being a pretty big comic fan, superheroes have a tendency to be on my mind for a good part of the day as is, which will usually end up crossing over to some crazy VS deck idea that leads to me creating way too many decks, but it's a good way to keep my interest up. Indeed, that's my main motivation for the creation of this blog. I'm basically going to use this as a dumping ground for deck ideas, as well as some commentary on how those decks work in practice either at my pseudo hobby league or Magic Workstation (if I ever actually start playing it online, which should start happening soon).
Some quick background on myself as a card player. I started in the wonderful world of collectible cardboard in late 1993 with the Unlimited release of Magic. I played nearly every card game under the sun for a couple years, from Magic to Jyhad/Vampire to Net Runner to Illuminati: New World Order to On the Edge to all kinds of other stuff. I took a break for a while due to silly things like college and the need to save money, but came back to the gaming scene with the release of the World of Warcraft CCG. It's an ok game, and I enjoyed my time playing it, but I always thought something was lacking there. To be honest, I think they made it a bit too open ended with the turn sequence, but that's neither here nor there. Around April of last year, I wanted a bit more of a challenge, so I switched over to VS, starting with the Heralds of Galactus set and moving forward from there. I fancy myself a deck builder first and foremost, as I don't get many opportunities to practice my sealed and draft skills. Not much else to say there due to my relative inexperience compared to those that have been playing since go.
I think the first deck I throw up here will be the preliminary build of my first crack at a Future Foes deck, namely one that focuses on the inclusion of the new 4 drop Injustice Gang Felix Faust that burns your opponent for two every time they discard. Look for that most likely tomorrow, and I might throw up my current JLA and Skrull builds in the near future.
Wow. I must be tired, as I usually consider myself to be a better writer than this post would indicate. Note to self: write when awake. I'll also let everyone know when I get fully set up with Workstation as to my username and all that jazz. Until a later date, we are legion, and VS will never die.
I think the main motivation for my creation of this blog stems from my current situation as relates to VS System. My local card store technically doesn't exist. Tournaments are run every Friday by our pseudo-store owner Dan, who operates out of his house and rents out space at an obedience school about ten minutes from my house. It's safe to say that this isn't exactly the most glamorous setup, but I can play cards there, and that's what matters. The sad thing is, hobby league doesn't exist. On a week to week basis, there are two of us that play VS, and the other player also plays WoW and judges YuGi. I still show up every week and usually get two to three games in, and we still get outsiders to come out for release celebrations and City Champs, but it can get a little frustrating at times when you're basically playing the same decks against the same guy week after week. But who am I to complain? I still get to play.
Despite the lack of hobby league, I can't stop thinking about VS on a daily basis. Being a pretty big comic fan, superheroes have a tendency to be on my mind for a good part of the day as is, which will usually end up crossing over to some crazy VS deck idea that leads to me creating way too many decks, but it's a good way to keep my interest up. Indeed, that's my main motivation for the creation of this blog. I'm basically going to use this as a dumping ground for deck ideas, as well as some commentary on how those decks work in practice either at my pseudo hobby league or Magic Workstation (if I ever actually start playing it online, which should start happening soon).
Some quick background on myself as a card player. I started in the wonderful world of collectible cardboard in late 1993 with the Unlimited release of Magic. I played nearly every card game under the sun for a couple years, from Magic to Jyhad/Vampire to Net Runner to Illuminati: New World Order to On the Edge to all kinds of other stuff. I took a break for a while due to silly things like college and the need to save money, but came back to the gaming scene with the release of the World of Warcraft CCG. It's an ok game, and I enjoyed my time playing it, but I always thought something was lacking there. To be honest, I think they made it a bit too open ended with the turn sequence, but that's neither here nor there. Around April of last year, I wanted a bit more of a challenge, so I switched over to VS, starting with the Heralds of Galactus set and moving forward from there. I fancy myself a deck builder first and foremost, as I don't get many opportunities to practice my sealed and draft skills. Not much else to say there due to my relative inexperience compared to those that have been playing since go.
I think the first deck I throw up here will be the preliminary build of my first crack at a Future Foes deck, namely one that focuses on the inclusion of the new 4 drop Injustice Gang Felix Faust that burns your opponent for two every time they discard. Look for that most likely tomorrow, and I might throw up my current JLA and Skrull builds in the near future.
Wow. I must be tired, as I usually consider myself to be a better writer than this post would indicate. Note to self: write when awake. I'll also let everyone know when I get fully set up with Workstation as to my username and all that jazz. Until a later date, we are legion, and VS will never die.
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