I like French, comics, books, podcasts, (board and roleplaying) games, biking, and trains. I try to stay organized and in good (physical and mental) shape.
Moi, j'aime le français, les BD, les livres, les podcasts, les jeux (de plateau et de rôle), le cyclisme, et les trains. Je fais de mon mieux de rester organisé et en forme (physiquement et mentalement).
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🔗 linkblog: NFTs Are Here To Ruin Dungeons & Dragons'
Hard to think of a worse use of the OGL than this. I’m already grumpy about NFTs, but this is making me mad.
📚 bookblog: Factory Summers (❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤)
I found this translation of Delisle’s latest graphic novel at the Jessamine County Public Library and decided to give it a try. I don’t remember how I discovered Delisle, but I love his book Pyongyang, I’ve read a couple of his other books, and I loved this one.
Delisle’s art is great—his style is consistent, simple, and appealing. I like the way that he did color in this book, which is mostly monochrome but with bursts of yellow here and there.
📚 bookblog: Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book One (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I’ve owned this comic for a while and have been meaning to read it the whole time—especially since reading All of the Marvels and the first volume of Christopher Priest’s run on Black Panther.
Anyway, I finally got to it and I mostly liked it, but it wasn’t as mind-blowing as I hoped it would be. Coates does some really interesting things challenging the idea of Black Panther as an ideal monarch by questioning if such a thing even exists.
📚 bookblog: Billy Stockton (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This volume went back to blah. On one hand, it’s interesting for the way it gives a backstory to a relatively minor character. On the other, it falls into the same trap of wanting to give series villains gruesome backstories as some sort of Freudian excuse.
Truth be told, I preferred the minor character as just that. I don’t know that this backstory was consistent with his original portrayal, and it didn’t help me appreciate him any more.
📚 bookblog: Steve Rowland (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I think this might be the best of the series so far, even if it’s not quite good enough to bump it up to four hearts.
First, this is probably the most serious consideration of the far right conspiracy in the series as a violent, racist conspiracy and not just a plot point.
Second, while it’s as chock-full of references to other characters and events in the series as previous volumes, I feel like this volume does a better job than any of the others of trying to weave them together into a coherent whole rather than simply stuff references into a volume.
📚 bookblog: Colonel Amos (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
This volume was better than the last two, probably because it had a more interesting plot than just a series of cameos and because it was less egregious than the others in terms of trying to do social justice but falling short.
At the same time, this continues the series’s predilection for making sure that all of the characters are related to each other in some way, and that gets tiring after awhile.
📚 bookblog: Little Jones (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
Like the last volume, this one seems to exaggerate the things I like least about the XIII series while ditching the things I like most (the art and the French, though that’s a function of my reading a translation.
Jones is an interesting character and the authors contextualize her childhood in interesting ways, but there’s something off-putting about (presumably) white French people trying to tell the story of the U.S. black civil rights movement and throwing racial slurs in there for good measure.
📚 bookblog: Irina (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This series continues to be interesting, but kind of dumb. I feel like I’m a kid again, reading all the Star Wars books I could find at the library, filling in all the details between the main parts of the story, not always in a quality package.
This volume in particular exaggerates the problems that already exist in the XIII series related to women. In a sort of half-hearted feminism, Irina is portrayed (like other women, including Jones) as capable, action-oriented and violent, but ultimately an objectified sex symbol.
📚 bookblog: The Mongoose (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I love the XIII BD even though it’s dumb, but reading the translations gets on my nerves for some reason. I think a lot of the appeal of the series for me is practicing my French, and a slightly stilted translation obviously doesn’t provide that appeal.
I still enjoy the universe for all its dumbness, though, and I started reading this spinoff series on Hoopla several months ago before turning to something else.
🔗 linkblog: Stromae’s Music Delves Into Dark Topics. His Return Is Right on Time. - The New York Times'
Pleased to see Stromae reviewed in the NYT—by someone who liveblogged Eurovision no less. Will be listening all afternoon, I’m sure.
🔗 linkblog: Tabletop Designers Rally to Support Trans Kids in Texas'
Shut up and take my money! This is why itch is one of my favorite game-related places on the internet.
📚 bookblog: Black Panther: The Complete Collection, Volume 1 (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)
I don’t think I’ve ever read any Black Panther before, but I loved the movie from a few years ago, and Christopher Priest’s run was recommended in All of the Marvels, so I decided to give this a try.
I see why this run was recommended, and there was a lot in there to like, but at the end of the day, I’m not sure it worked for me. I enjoy comics a lot, but it felt really continuity-heavy, and maybe I prefer graphic novels and self-contained short runs to issues that try to sit in the middle of everything Marvel’s ever published.
📚 bookblog: Out of the Dark (❤️❤️🖤🖤🖤)
This was… a bizarre book. I’ve read plenty of David Weber’s writing before and the premise of the book seemed pretty close to Harry Turtledove’s Worldwar series, so I thought I might enjoy it.
Te premise of the book is that Earth has been invaded by a species that is clearly superior in the grand scheme of things but comparable to human technology other than space travel, giving humanity somewhat of a fighting chance.
📚 bookblog: All of the Marvels (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
Walk read 27,000+ Marvel comics to write this book, an attempt to trace the most important part of the Marvel universe over the past ~60 years.
I love the book for a few reasons. First, it takes comics—and Marvel Comics in particular—seriously, examining their sense-making and stories. Second, there’s a deep love of comics that’s evident in the book. Not a stilted, defensive love, but a mature one that knows what’s wrong with them but champions what they get right.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'How Board Games Handle Slavery'
Came across this while explaining Puerto Rico to my games and learning class. I love board games, but we have to critically evaluate them just like any other medium.
📚 bookblog: Dear Ann (❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️)
I probably would not have read this book on my own but it was selected as the 2022 Kentucky Reads selection by Kentucky Humanities. I noticed that in a headline somewhere (probably the Herald-Leader) and decided it was worth giving it a shot.
I ended up enjoying the book a lot! It plays with themes of nostalgia and wondering if the past could have or should have been different. I’ve been thinking about both of those things a lot recently, including in the context of my faith transition.
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Belgium's new passport features comic faves | Boing Boing'
Anyone know an easy way to get Belgian citizenship?
🔗 linkblog: just finished 'Netflix Reveals New Wallace & Gromit Movie, Chicken Run 2 Cast'
More Wallace and Gromit is always welcome.