IDW has a lot to live up to now that it’s acquired the rights to bring Godzilla over to American comic readers. The Big G has been through the wringer twice before: first, in a widely beloved, if short-lived, stint in the Marvel Universe, and once again, courtesy of Dark Horse Comics, which produced some of the most enjoyable adventures starring the King of the Monsters yet, owing to an incarnation that far exceeded the House of Ideas’ degree of faithfulness to the source. This time, IDW hopes to one up these previous efforts by bringing over, not just Godzilla, but the entirety of the kaiju eiga franchise’s rogues gallery.

Finally, Godzilla will get to tangle with the comic book counterparts of the likes of Mothra, Rodan and King Ghidorah, and IDW’s marketing strategy points towards showcasing as many of them as possible, all at once.

Diving straight in, the work opens with a brief note about how it provides a ready-made, populated location for gamemasters to use, or useful background for players whose characters are scumborn or belong to a scum faction… and just in case you are not sure what that means, it then launches into an introduction to the whole concept. Briefly, a scum swarm is a space-faring community with a very democratic – even anarchic – approach to everything: collective decision-making, consensus… and little regard for rules or reverence to what more settled societies may find important.

From such generalities, the narrative turns to a specific group, the Stars swarm. Born out of industrial unrest in turbulent times, the swarm began with workers in lunar orbital facilities taking control of the resources around them… just when the situation back at headquarters took a turn for the worse, and so nobody was in a position to object as the collective upgraded propulsion systems and took off, gathering many other refugees as they departed. Rather more ordered than some swarms, they now follow a set route around the system, trading as they go but still adhering to their original libertarian collectivist lifestyle.

“In Los Angeles in the year 2064, the dead have risen and corpses live again, cohabiting among us…well, somewhat. As a zombie apocalypse engulfs America, we follow a group of friends on a their journey to start a little business of their own…zombie catchers!”

It is not as often as one would think that a comic book has what I consider to be the perfect pairing of artist and writer, however The Zombies that Ate the World is one of those books. I have been a big fan of Guy Davis from his early days on Baker Street. So it is no surprise to me that I really love the look of this book. However the perfection in the pairing comes in when you get to see how well his style fits the storytelling.

David Agranoff’s Hunting the Moon Tribe is an interesting and well-thought out coming of age story that spans the globe. It starts us out in China with a soon-to-be-former Red Guard, Yuen, and his wife, Elsa, at the time of the birth of their son. Without much warning, they are attacked and this sets up the story of a centuries-old war that will eventually lead to California and the life of a young man that is about to awaken to his destiny.

Vampires of a different sort, martial arts, dreams and difficult choices take center stage. Enrich is a bullied American high school student. He decides to learn martial arts to combat the daily attacks, but what he doesn’t know is that he is training for the biggest battle of his life.

Blair Witch 2 holds a special place in my black heart. No so much because of the movie itself, it happens to be the first movie my wife Lilly and I went to see together (somewhere along the lines of a 3rd of 4th date.) We were both fans of the 1st film (me more so than her), and as it was the autumn/ Halloween season so seeing a scary movie seemed like the thing to do at the time. It was incidentally the inaugural “dinner and a movie” date ritual that became a cornerstone of one of our favorite things to do together to this day. During the few times I’ve watched it since, I get a twinge of nostalgia, and did so again during this last watch for reviewing purposes. But does nostalgia a good movie make?

“Shadow Hunters is the new supernatural comic book that revolves around the lives of 3 teenage girls. As they seek vengeance on the dark demon that wiped out hundreds of lives, they encounter both a vast array of darkness that dwell around them and a shadow army that combats it. This is a new series from Scattered Comics that is written by Jason Dube and drawn by Benjamin Jordan. It is a comic that is recommended for more mature reader with its heavy themes of death, mature subject matters, and violence.”

The Gumshoe mechanic gets tested on a new genre: sci-fi. In Ashen Stars, players enter the Bleed where they play Lasers, law enforcement of sorts. This heavy (305 pages) book is a stand-alone game that fully details Law’s sci-fi setting and delivers the Gumshoe rules. I have enjoyed the previous Gumshoe setting, particularly Mutant City Blues and Esoterrorists, so I was intrigued to see what the future held.

The layout and artwork of the book holds the same feel as Trail of Cthulhu and MCB. Bordering is neat, but doesn’t attract much attention. Sidebars are tight. The artwork has more hits than misses, though nothing really stands out as excellent. One thing I do like is the full color splurge on the book. It makes reading a volume of this size all the more pleasurable.

This ambitious Savage Worlds setting mixes Norse and Pre-Columbian Native American lore into a sword and sorcery setting I find damn interesting. First, the artwork and layout of the book is an outstanding mix of watermarked images, detailed artwork, and fresh creativity. I’d love to see this book in color, which is really my only complaint about the book. Consider me spoiled.

There are few times that a supplement supersedes the production value of its core work. This is one of those times. The artwork of this book easily bests the majority of Savage Worlds releases, including the core book. The writing is excellent, providing a rich background for players to explore.

A man’s purchase of a used computer leads to an unfortunate discovery. Soon, he’s on a mission to save his fiancee from the clutches of a madman and an insidious cult. But in the small town where she’s held captive, he discovers that nothing is exactly as it seems. Once he crosses paths with a father and son monster-hunting team, his world unravels. Death and dark magicks lurk around every corner.

The characters are pretty solid. Donald, the protagonist, is believable as an ambitious and caring, if somewhat bumbling, man that eventually finds the strength to fight evil.

“A stunning full-color celebration of the eye-catchingly original artwork creator Roman Dirge, the first anthology of his work available anywhere. This lavish hardback includes an introduction and background commentary information on the imagery by Dirge himself, plus previously unpublished artwork, covers and strips, and paintings. The book also includes fold-out pages, displaying Dirge’s work in its full glory, and some brand-new pieces created just for this book!”

I have never reviewed an art book before, so I guess it is only fitting that I start with an artist whose work I love. Now being an art book please note that this book contains tons of GORE-Geous pictures.

Anthologies like The Unspeakable Oath are a mixed bag. Dragon, Dungeon, White Wolf Magazine, Eden Studios Presents, and others are testament to this. Sometimes a great collection of talent can make the uninteresting (to me) fascinating. The other is likewise true. No particular title is safe. You have to take each edition as a singular creature.

First off, I find that the included art to #20 is top notch, particularly the cover artwork by Todd Shearer. The interior illustrators offered a surprising volume of artwork to the collection. The layout ranged from the scribbled nonsense (fine for the subject matter) to smooth looking black bars. Some ads are scattered throughout the book, even put into the columns of articles. It’s a smooth fit.

There is a terrific amount of material in this installment, much of which is aimed at Delta Green (fine by me).

Where has the time gone? Knowing this game has been out for twenty years seems wrong to me. There are gamers in my group who were ONE when I was thumbing through my
first copy of the original edition. Wrong, so wrong! Rather than share my Vampire recollection here, I’ll instead talk about this massive (529 pages) winner of the (I assume) 2012 Origins award.

One aspect to the book that is unchanged is it’s layout. The book looks identical to the 2nd release in terms of fonts and structure. Mixed with art both new and old, this makes for a strong sense of nostalgia. The look of the book–fenced in borders, eye-catching headers, and more–was excellent twenty years ago and has aged well. If anything, they have enriched it by adding much-needed color to the mix.

Story: A desperate pilot takes a shady job from an even shadier employer. Before long, he realizes that there’s a not-too-pleasant future in store for him. It kind of reminded me of a segment out of the original HEAVY METAL movie. A scared pilot and weird locale = an interesting mix.

Characters: Solid. The dialogue reveals a lot about the personalities of each individual, without being tiresome. Descriptions of mannerisms, etc., are vivid but minimal, allowing the story to flow naturally.

I had no idea what I was in for a year ago when I rented “Trick ‘r Treat” on Netflix. I‘d hear nothing about this film from anyone, but I read on the Netflix site that it starred Anna Paquin, Brian Cox and Dylan Baker (three actors whom I dig mucho) and the story description went like this: “In writer-director Michael Dougherty’s fright fest, Halloween’s usually boisterous traditions turn deadly, and everyone in a small town tries to survive one night in pure hell … but who will still be alive in the morning? Several stories weave together, including a loner fending off a demented trick-or-treater’s attacks; kids uncovering a freaky secret; a school principal — who moonlights as a serial killer, and more.” To me, this sounded like a potentially good time and I added it to the list.

Josh, Renai and their 3 children are the typical middle class American family. In what feels like a cliched setup, the Lambert family has just moved into a house, only to learn soon enough that it happens to be haunted. Various staples of ghost story elements follow, which are seemingly set up to where you feel a “poltergeist” clone coming on. But then… the entire feel and angle of the film is turned on its head, creating one of the best ghost story films released in years!

I intended to review INSIDIOUS when I saw it at the theater months ago. I so dug the hell out of this flick, so much so that I went to see it twice, which was a big deal as I’m currently a full time student who really has to mind his funds.

In a modernized spin on the classic story “Pigeons from Hell” by Robert E. Howard, we are following two African-American sisters and their friends into the murky swamplands to check out their inheritance: the old Blassenville manor. They quickly start to sense that something isn’t quite right in that ramshackle of a house, and things soon takes a sinister turn when one of the male characters falls through the rotten stairs and breaks his leg. After a failed attempt of getting out of the swamplands, they are being forced to stay the night in the manor.

Roleplaying game scenarist, short film maker, podcaster, and graphic designer Ross Payton adds a new laurel to his crown with Zombies of the World: A Field Guide to the Undead. At only 112 trade-paperback pages, Payton does not aim for completness, but for richness. And between his light authorial tone, his slamming graphic design chops, and his slavering hunger for the topic, he shoots his target square in the head.

Zombies of the World presents itself as a kind of all-in-one reference book, from a world in which the walking dead are, if not common, relatively well documented. If Dorling Kindersley published a zombie book, it might look something like this.

There are only a few films from my childhood that fills me with nostalgic glee every time I reminisce about them. The 1981 made-for-TV horror movie “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” is one of those movies. There are a lot of movies that I can sort of remember watching the first time, but I can still recall in vivid detail the first time I watched this one, and it’s a good memory for me.

I was at my best bud Ken’s house, who’d seen DNS a year earlier with his folks, and was so taken by it that the boxer puppy they adopted a few weeks later was named after the main character (Bubba). I recall watching his dad lighting the fireplace (it was a chilly October already) as Ken and I got ready for the movie.

Remember my Neverwinter Nights on Facebook review? Dungeons and Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter is a huge step up. It has music! And awesome graphics!

Okay, here’s a run through:

I create a new character. Choices are arranged by height: Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, Rogue and Custom. Curious, I click on “Custom.” Although I can create my own character and stats, I opt to go with an Eladrin Wizard.

The Introduction begins with an overview of the Druid class – a divine spellcaster drawing on the limitless power of the natural world, and with Wisdom as his primary ability. Special abilities include Wildshape, the ability to change form; whilst druids need to concentrate on the things they are good at with their spells – controlling the natural environment, participating in combat and acting in concert with their animal companion. This page is illustrated with a delightful sketch of a Welsh Archdruid from the 18th century, a time when romantics tried to recreate ancient practices, something that led to the establishment of the Gorsedd and the Eisteddfod, something completely different from Druidism as practiced within a fantasy game!