I got a Goodreads profile and while it's taking a while to calibrate my recommendations towards mostly books I want to read, I have already bought several Kindle books on the strength of its suggestions. Fun times. Come join my profile if you're into Goodreads.

I read between 50 and 100 books a year, not including graphic novels and comics and so forth, so I won't review them all - not a hope! - but I'll review a few, like the lovely, lovely graphic novel I read today,

Nelson

Nelson is Rob Davis' and Woodrow Phoenix' ground-breaking collaborative project, inspired by attending a recent English Comic Book Convention and the range of talent they saw on display. Taking more than 50 English and British-based Cartoonists, Artists, Webcartoonists, Illustrators & Graphic Designers that result in the wide sampling of talent on display in this excellent graphic novel.

The book tells the story of Nel, a British girl (woman) through the styles of the 54 creatives involved. Each creator turns in between 1 and 5 pages, using them to chronicle an event or a moment in Nel's life. The neat twist, or added effect, in the book is that each event is in a seperate year of her life, following Nel from birth, through childhood, a roving, reckless very British adolescence and on to... well, no spoilers.

The snapshot, compilation-tape, family-album, anthology nature of this collection is so essential to its power and its British nature that it has to be mentioned. You see a few pages from each year, seeing just a little moment, and through incidental dialogue you get to experience the overall shape of her life passing by. It's a powerful way to tell the story, giving the reader a lot of credit, trusting you to be smart enough to follow along in its path.

There is so much to enjoy here. I mention family-albums as part of its style because the book is all about family and like any family there are highs and lows, laughs and tears. This is one of the sweetest graphic novels I have ever read and so much more cohesive in theme and tone than you would imagine from it's exquisite-corpse style story-telling. Buy it, its amazing. And some of the book's profits are going to charity, so you can feel good about a purchase you will get so much out of.


donalfall out.

My Dark Souls playing has taken a back seat for the time being. I got distracted - first by Uncharted 3 (not great - sequel fatigue, am I right?) - and now by Skyrim. Holy Moly you guys. I haven't had much free time this last week cos of work but I've still put in serious time in that game and therefore not a lot of time in my efforts at sleeping. 5 star game you guys. It's a Bethseda RPG - wide and deep - but with waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more than ever before packed in, and a tiny, tiny fraction of the usual open world jank problems.

There's a great POW! Challenge going on at ConceptArt that I am sub-moderating as usual. Worth checking out. I had a fairly okay finished entry in the last one that I must post up here. Must post more art. Also hoping to go to a life drawing class this evening, so I'll post that too if I have any luck getting home from work in good time this evening.

Just checking in,

donalfall out.

I've been playing Dark Souls on the PS3. A lot.



So the thing was that I won this 100 europe voucher from a raffle in work and there was only about 2 places I could use it and I couldn't get change... so I bought Batman:Arkham City and Dark Souls. I don't want to disparage Batman at all. It's probably the game I looked forward to the most this year, its predecessor, Arkham Asylum is an absolutely amazing game of so much depth with the best combat system every developed and it follows that up in every way, but.... I got through the main story and started on the Riddler Challenges. Shortly into that, I put it down and will probably never go back to that game again. Damn, but those challenges are irritating. They're doable, I can see how to do them, but I can also see the hours of not-quite-getting-it-right-do-it-again that have to be sunk into it. So I rang out.

Ironically, I rang out to Dark Souls. The guys from Giant Bomb have me warned, and I saw enough of Demon Souls to know how it went down, but you die. A lot. You go in, you don't quite get it right, you die foolishly, you load it up and do it again. It's kind of the same flaw as Arkham, but it comes out as frustrating and challenging instead of irritating. I've now sunk 24 hours into my Female Thief and I've only just managed to ring that first bell in The Undead Parish. That means nothing to you if you haven't played it, but it's not very far in at all. :)

I'm not putting down the controller on this one though. It's so deep and so complex for a game that only has 2 attacks, 2 blocks and an item button. Combat is so rich - you have to gauge each new enemy and how they fight as well as each weapon and shield combo you try to use and how they work against the enemies fighting styles. The stats go on and on and on with only vague guidelines as to what they actually do.



These dudes will kill you.

I'm going to have more to say on Dark Souls if I remember to use this damn blog more often, but there is interesting elements in its depth and scope that remind me of playing Vagrant Story on the PS1 - a game whose experience I've been trying to find again for more than 10 years now. It's not the same, but its enough like it to catch my fancy. Dark Souls - a great, deep open world experience. A single-player MMO, as they say. 5 stars, if you like a challenge. Probably 0 stars if you don't.

Batman Arkham City - absolutely AMAZING during the story & most of the challenge modes - 5 stars. Once you're done with the story, 3 stars if your experience of the puzzles are like mine (and they probably will be).

donalfall out.

So the 1st of November was International Self Portrait Day! So much fun. And you should follow that link through, there's some crazy talent on display.

Here was mine -



I didn't have as much time as I'ld like, but those are the breaks. :)

I forget to do things. Quite frequently.

Comics:





(they're for this - POW! 50)

I have been writing some reviews.... of comics and books and so forth... maybe those would be worth posting?

I'll have a think about it.

So I didn't quite finish that last moleskine for the 20th of March, but I did for the 20th of April! Not too bad, but not ideal. I've also been getting distracted by a new forum to go to, more details on that on my next post. Also, as per my last post, I've had the new CA contest to think about.

Here's a taste of the end of the book -









Ciao.

So ConceptArt.org has finally made a new uber competition, like the Newborn contest last year (or the year before?), and the legendary Thunderdome. This time round, we need to collaborate, and my partner is the awesome Droid!

Check out the announcement thread here, and feel free to register and find a partner, anyone can compete!

(stolen wholesale from Droid's blogpost on the same topic)...

So I didn't quite fill the last moleskine by the end of March, but I'm very close now. Here's a few scribbles from the most recent pages:





I've been very busy with getting posts done for the Pub Scrawl & our new group blog at Galway Skeptics. I'll now make a tentative resolution to post here more. You can probably disregard. :)