As a fan of Shearwater, I was understandably full of anticipation when I heard that they were to release a new album. But how would they follow up their masterpiece triptych of Palo Santo, Rook, and The Golden Archipelago (collectively known as The Island Arc Trilogy)? Would the new album have the same magnetism and power; would the band maintain their ineffable musical presence? Thankfully, Animal Joy did not disappoint. This album embarks down a new path for Shearwater, leaving me not just impressed, but actually excited by what I was listening to. Animal Joy is Shearwater’s eighth studio album…
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“Colonel Steve Austin. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.” If you grew up in the mid to late ’70s then you probably watched The Six Million Dollar Man starring Lee Majors. I missed out on watching the series by a few years, but eventually watched it in syndication and the television movies that followed.  As a kid, Col. Steve Austin was a favorite of mine and a character I pretended to be every chance I got as a kid playing with friends. I have always had a place in my heart for this…
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You’re Kyle Hyde, an ex-cop who never managed to let go of that one final case. Now working as a door-to-door salesman for a small company, your job has you staying in a small crappy hotel in the middle of nowhere in a room that’s rumored to grant the wish of whoever stays there. It looks like it’s going to be a long night at Hotel Dusk: Room 215. The Nintendo DS has had many unique titles come and go during its lifetime, but not many of them reach the level of characterization that Hotel Dusk managed to get down….
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Brian Lee O’Malley may be best known for the Scott Pilgrim series, but Lost at Sea (published in 2003) was his first original work. I recently stumbled upon a 2008 second edition which turned up in the library where I work. I love the Scott Pilgrim film but wasn’t overly impressed by the graphic novel series, as I thought it was far too drawn out and featured (like life, I know) too many inconsequential elements. Lost at Sea is a smaller, self-contained story with an intriguing premise, so I thought I should give it a go. Our protagonist is a…
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Name one game where you search for a Holy Macguffin with the help of your father’s diary, you fight an evil nemesis, choose sides in war between hippies and frat warriors on a mystical island, eat a Grue, get a sex change in a sleazy back alley, and defeat a naughty sorceress? Only one game has all these features wrapped up in one? For shame. Then again, not every game is as crazy as the Kingdom of Loathing. The Kingdom of Loathing is a web-based (mostly) single-player RPG. One that, unlike most web-based games, does not feature any referal rewards….
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For better or worse, you can thank Ghostbusters for the ginger haired caffeine addicted bearded wonder you see typing before you. Viewing it for the first time all those years ago was one of the more profound “ah HA!” moments I have had over the course of my life, acting as the catalyst for the comedy nerd I was in high school and the horror hound I have become over the last couple of years. For those reasons, you can understand why I was a little hesitant when IDW announced they were making an ongoing Ghostbusters comic. I read the…
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The DIY approach in making and releasing music surely has its merits. The lo-fi production makes it more raw, gritty, and honest while maintaining full-control on how it gets out to people. Yet, Chad Matheny manages to take the DIY approach to a brand new level. Under the pseudonym Emperor X, he’s played in unconventional settings such as a tunnel on a busy street and a laser tag arena, recorded his music with only a tape recorder, and has “released” his music by burying them and having fans go out on a treasure hunt to find it. These methods are…
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It can’t be easy being a werewolf in popular culture. Whereas their blood sucking pointy fanged brethren have invaded movies, television and comics the lycanthrope has languished. Sure they have a couple of notable contributions under there belt: An American Werewolf in London, The Howling, and Wolf (Which is awesome until the last thirty minutes) but those are films. What about comics? If I dig deep I can think of two off the top of my head: Marvel’s Werewolf by Night and Archaia’s recent miniseries Feeding Ground. Now Famous Monsters of Film Land is adding to this furry little corner…
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First of all, I’m not married, and probably won’t be anytime soon. However I am in a long-term relationship, and after noticing that this book’s topics included “How to Drive Together in Peace,” I thought, “Oh baby, that I need to know.” Eric San Jaun’s Stuff Every Husband Should Know, from the always-entertaining Quirk Books, is a guide for the domesticated man. Where many similar tomes are packed with useless, outdated relationship maxims, this handy pocket-sized compendium gives you practical problem solving methods for spats with your spouse. But it doesn’t stop there — San Juan goes on to provide a…
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Eisner award-winning, Earthworm Jim-creating Doug TenNapel is some kind of twisted counter-culture genius who works tirelessly in a fantastic bunker twenty miles below sea level to bring us brilliantly demented comics, video games, TV shows, and webisodes which ignite our imaginations and refine our perception of morality in one fell stroke. Creature Tech, published in 2003 by Top Shelf Productions, is no different. Creature Tech is the story of scientist Michael Ong, a loose avatar for TenNapel himself. Ong is enthralled by his craft and by the pleasures of material society, but his reality is thrown for a loop when an undead…
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