Rick and Morty vs. Dungeons & Dragons: Deluxe Edition by Patrick Rothfuss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is the definition of a niche product. The only people I think would enjoy this are the intersection in the Venn diagram of D&D fans and Rick and Morty fans. I know I’ve been watching Rick and Morty since the first season and I can’t imagine that I would find this collection if my kids hadn’t gotten me into D&D a year or so ago. Almost all of the humor comes from D&D jokes and Easter Eggs.

I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): They were awesome at Warped Tour - I can’t wait until they go on the Projecet Atma tour. Manufacturing delays at the vinyl plant meant that the album was delayed. Still don’t have it - should be in my hands in December.

Jonathan Coulton, Greg Pak, and others – Code Monkey Save World (music and comics): Still missing the new music and The Princess Who Saved Herself. To be fair, the latter wasn’t promised until early 2015.

The Mocking Dead Volume 1 by Fred Van Lente

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Parodies are hard to do well. The worst parodies are unbearable, the best deconstruct the tropes. I was afraid The Mocking Dead would be the former, but since I got it as part of a huge Humble Bundle, it was nearly free for me to check out. Luckily it turned out to be less Scary Movie and more like something Mel Brooks would put together.

Wizzywig: Portrait of a Serial Hacker by Ed Piskor

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book is a commentary on the sad state our country has been in since the 70s and 80s when it comes to computer crime. Although there should always be consequences for skirting the law we have often taken it a bit too far. This graphic novel was sad to read in the wake of Aaron Schwartz’ suicide when threatened by law enforcement.

Comics: A Global History, 1968 to the Present by Dan Mazur

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Disclosure: I received this book as part of the Goodreads.com First Reads program in which the winner recieves a copy of the book in exchange for a review. (It’s slightly more complicated than that, see the Goodreads First Reads terms for all the details)

I love reading these types of histories about culture. I have read similar books about photography and animation published by Taschen. This isn’t my first time reading about the history of comics, I also read 10 Cent Scare and Grant Morrison’s Supergods. Anyone who’s been reading my reviews for a while knows that I love comics and actually run a comics analysis site, www.comicpow.com.

This’ll be a semi-recurring blog post highlighting some of my work on other websites. (Most often, but not necessarily, other sites I own/run)

Race Flipping in Comic Movies over at Comic POW! in which I discuss Johnny Storm being cast with an African American actor in the new film.

Autobiographies: Swimming Part 1 over at I’m not Mad in which I take a stab at autobiographical comics. It’ll be a little bit until Part 2 - probably around May when this semester ends.

I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): Things are on track with IFD. They are posting awesome videos of the recording process. It’s already March so as long as there aren’t any more delays, the album will be here in a few short months! Also, they’ll be on the Van’s Warped Tour, so I’ll be attending Warped Tour for the first time to go see them (and quite a few other bands I really like)

It’s December and I should have gotten all of my Kickstarter products by now. But that’s not exactly what happened. Every single one of my Kickstarters was late except the one I had the least faith and relationship with - Random Encounter’s Let Me Tell You a Story.

I Fight Dragons – Project Atma (music): Holy COW! This band - my first Kickstarter - nearly disbanded over the Kickstarter! I thought they were the surest bet. They’d self-published their first few albums and they had rented a studio and had a producer and everything. However, they clashed over the direction the producer was taking them and almost broke up.

I’m writing this in late August - by the time this post appears I should have received all of my Kickstarter goods or they should be in the mail. Interestingly, even though the Kickstarter backer cycles were spread over about a three month period, they’re all supposed to be delivering the product at around the same time - 4th quarter of this year. As of the time of this writing, this is the status of my Kickstarters:

Those of you who have been reading this blog long enough know that I often write my blog posts during my lunch break at work and set it to post at some point in the future. I’m writing this post almost 1 month before it is to appear on the blog. So in the middle of July I find myself in what many who have backed projects probably experience as the Kickstarter Lull. I backed a project by I Fight Dragons and interviewed them about it here and I backed a comic project by Greg Pak and Jonathan Coulton. During the backing period as a way to drum up support there was a constant stream of both updates and digital goodies. IFD, in particular, gave backers 2 albums (live concert recording and a conceptual album) and a concert film. A little while after the backing period was over, the projects contacted us for the info they needed to fulfill our backer rewards. Since then I haven’t heard from either of them. On the rational side, I’m glad they’re focusing on creating what we paid them to create. But after the constant communications it just feels odd to have “radio” silence. Now we just wait for the products to be created. In the case of these two projects, the members involved are all veterans: IFD put out records before having a record company contract and Greg Pak has already done about a half dozen Kickstarters. So, outside of catastrophe, I don’t fear for my money. I could see where this silence might be more disturbing with an unproven team.