--7/9/24--
Been drawing a lot lately, working on my comic effort which has got me into a mood to read some comics.
Also, I kind of accidentally wandered into the library, Alice in Wonderland style. Like... we were walking down a dirt path near the post office when suddently we emerged into the library parking lot and were like... hey what the heck, and went inside and got library cards and bunches of books.
One thing I checked out was Jeff Smith's RASL. It's a really great comic with some deep scifi elements that borrows a lot from film noir. Jeff Smith's art style is itself very cinematic and his linework lends itself to intense action sequences.
And while RASL is an amazing piece of comic work, what it really made me want to do was crack open and dive into his other work for the 132nd time.
Bone might be my favorite comic of all time. It's incredibly well written and so much fun to look at.
It stars the titular Bone cousins, Fone Bone, Phoney Bone and Smiley Bone, who are essentially Mickey, Donald and Goofy. They are thrust into a Lord of the Rings style epic fantasy setting of ancient powers and political dramas.
The story starts out light-hearted enough, but as things unravel and everything unfolds, the stakes get higher and higher it gets to be an intense read. Jeff Smith's art is very animated and the characters move around the pages expressively and the writing grabs you and won't let go.
At around 1,300 pages, it is a veritable tome of a comic. The front cover calls it a "cartoon epic" which is apt. Whenever I sink into it it becomes a regular part of my routine that I look forward to every day, the loud thunk of setting the book down in my lap or on a table becoming a comforting, familiar sound.
(not my hand)
I really do love these characters. I feel like you have to have a certain appreciation of old-timey cartoons and a certain slapstick, Loony Tunes style of comedy. But I feel it works so well when you make characters like that take their surrounding a little bit more seriously (or make the serious surrounding act a bit more goofy). It's like a fantasy epic version of Space Jam, with funny cartoon animals drawn into the real world.
Anyway, just wanted to blag about this wonderful piece of work. It's near and dear to my heart and I'm glad it exists and you should be too.
Cheers!
-milo :)
--6/9/24--
I've been playing through some Sonic games lately...
Sonic has been my favorite thing ever for my whole life basically, so the days I'm not playing a Sonic game are few and far between. Lately I decided to see if I could get Sonic Generations running with mods on my Steam Deck, which was mostly a huge success! The mods ran fine, but I had to exit and restart the program if I wanted to switch between classic and modern or else the game would crash. Worth it, though! Vanilla Sonic Generations is fun, but modded is funner. ;)
Anyway, after I beat and had my fun with that, I moved onto Sonic Colors Ultimate and I realized how much I freakin' love that game.
As far as Sonic games go, I could take or leave the story... I don't care about Sonic's motivations, or his friends... All I wanna do is play a blue bouncy running boi who is a cool hedgehog. So one of my favorite things about Sonic Colors is its small, contained story compared to some of the other more, uhhhh... expansive narrative efforts from the series.
The writing is not bad, so the cutscenes are actually bearable, if even funny at times!
Other than that, I love the setting. A theme park is perfect for a Sonic game, which works best, imho, when the levels are disconnected from each other and serve only to be well-designed platforming stages. Each area in "Eggmanland" is differently themed and expertly crafted. I think my favorite is Planet Wisp. I really like the whole "overgrown machinery" trope, and this level has it in droves and it looks incredible.
As for the gameplay, it takes the "boost" formula introduced in Sonic Unleashed and polishes it to near perfection. The control and platforming is tighter than it's ever been and Sonic feels good to move around... which can't be said about all his outings.
I missed this game the first time around on the Wii, so I was super excited to pick up the Ultimate edition when that came out in 2021. Coincidentally, the game released a week before a trip to Disneyland, so I got to peruse a virtual theme park before setting out for a real one. Neat!
Anydangway... Thanks for reading my mini review of Sonic Colors. When I start posting full game reviews, this might be one of the first.
Cheers!
-milo :)
--5/28/24--
I've been hard at work in my spare time continuing to cobble the site together.
I added some art and games to their respective pages, so now there's stuff to look at!
King Gizz has been leaking potential new songs live and that's exciting so I'm gonna share one here with you now.
Cheers!
-milo :)
--5/25/24--
Thanks for checking out my little corner of the internet.
This site is born of my love of the old web, HTML, and of a need to start housing my creatove efforts and thoughts and such. It sounded like a fun idea.
At the moment, there are some games to play if you click on the appropriate button over there to the left. The rest of the links don't go anywhere yet, but that will change hopefully soon. :)
Thanks again! Cheers!
-milo