And now the tale is being told once more, superbly illustrated by Roberto Castro, and scripted by Arvid Nelson.  Nelson must be quite a Burroughs fan, or else he has decided to hitch his star to the Burroughs legacy, because for a little more than a year now he has also been doing an adaptation of Burroughs John Carter of Mars series.

Dynamite does an interesting and good thing, in my humble opinion.  They bring out the first issue of new titles at a very affordable $1 price, and they do multiple covers, with the rarer ones commanding collectible prices like 7.99 and 9.99.  I kind of think the collectible covers are a bit of a rip, and I won’t pay $9.99 to have a negative version of a cover, but I guess some people will.

The four covers for Lord of the Jungle #1 in January 2012.

Here’s a bit of an oddity.  The comic could not be called Tarzan, so they used Lord of the Jungle instead.  Burroughs used that title for one of his novels, but I don’t think ERB Inc. trademarked that phrase the way they trademarked Tarzan of the Apes.  We might have a Tarzan comic in which the word Tarzan never appears.  I’ll be interested to see how that works out.

The four covers are by Alex Ross, Ryan Sook, Paul Renaud, and Lucio Parrillo.  Ross is the only one I’ve ever heard of before, but all four artists are masters of their art.  Arvid Nelson has done an excellent adaptation of Tarzan of the Apes, and I will be buying this book as long as it comes out.  I can only hope that it wanders off and breaks new ground with original stories the same way his Barsoomian books have.  They deserve a blog, too.

Dynamite Comics has somehow stumbled into a slightly different way of doing comics.  Instead of maintaining one consistent superhero universe in the style of D.C. and Marvel, they are simply doing popular characters of the past–legendary characters including the Lone Ranger, Zorro, the Green Hornet, Flash Gordon, Vampirella, Red Sonja, Sherlock Holmes and many, many more.  Their art is always clean and realistic–their women are indescribably beautiful–their male heroes are classically heroic.  Dynamite pushes the envelope of sexiness and great storytelling with almost every issue.  I didn’t realize how many titles they publish until I started to do a little research for this blog.  As a comics fan I’ve always loved the stuff from D.C. and Marvel and Dark Horse, but the company producing, imho, the very best adventures in comics today is Dynamite.  If you’re a comics reader, they have something for you also.

Comics fans and Tarzan fans are invited to make comments here.  Do you like the Dynamite books?  If so, which ones are your favorites?  And why?

DarkCon, a Steampunk science fiction convention for Arizona.

The fannish new year of 2012 started off very well for me with DarkCon in Mesa, Arizona.  I live in west Phoenix, and it was a long drive back and forth, but still less expensive than getting a hotel room.  The Con Committee invited me to the show as a guest and were extremely nice to me.  Look at the great gifts they gave me, and the other Guests just for showing up.

This bag was packed with food, drinks, jewelry, the pocket watch you see, a treasure chest, a calendar, a special Dark Ones shot glass, and other goodies. The name tag isn't paper in a holder--it's a golden plaque. Wow! I have never been treated so nicely in my life, and other guests also got great stuff.

DarkCon ran from Thursday afternoon at about 2 p.m. until Sunday night.  They had 7 notable professional guests this year.  First was Jacqueline Carey, the Author Guest of Honor.  She has several fantasy epics to her credit, and I have to tell you all I consider her writing to be a little kinky–I like it.

There were 2 media guests: Ernie Hudson and Meg Foster, an actor and an actress, and they shared their experiences making such video entertainment as Stargate and Masters of the Universe.  These three people were the true stars of the convention.

Gaming guests were John Wick and Ken St. Andre.  Tod VanHooser, the master of the Laughing Moon system, was also there.  All three of us ran games for fans who wanted to play.  We also collaborated on a panel about Game Design on Friday afternoon.  The panel was well attended.  Many thoughtful questions were asked and answered.  John Wick and I wore our hats, and we advised Tod to get himself a signature hat if he wanted to make it big as  a FRP game designer.

John Wick and I are trying to look dynamic. We are good friends, and admire each other's work--at least I admire his.

Tod VanHooser in the Superman shirt is running a Laughing Moon adventure for some of his devotees. In addition to the game, there is Laughing Moon fantasy fiction available from him as well.

Artist guests were Madame M, and Mark Greenawalt.  Madame M was promoting her new book: CREEPY LITTLE BEDTIME STORIES.  Mark Greenawalt did a body painting exhibition that was most entertaining.  Alas, I had very little to do with the artists as I spent all my time gaming.

DarkCon is the brainchild of the Dark Ones, a Phoenix fan group with Steampunk and media connections.  Jeff Jennings and Nola Yergen are two of the ringleaders in that group–they are the two that I know best, although I really don’t know any of them very well.  The Dark Ones are an intensely social group, well known in Arizona for the great parties they throw.  Although there were parties every day, I really only attended the opening party on Thursday night and the Sunday Brunch at the Wrigley Mansion.  The food, drink, and conversation at both parties were truly excellent–I’d tell you more about it, but I don’t want you thinking I’m some kind of gourmand, and I don’t want you to be jealous.  (grin–but I will say I was treated to champagne with orange juice at the Wrigley Mansion–first time I’ve ever had champagne for breakfast.  Yum!).

Brunch at the Wrigley Mansion--living the good life! The empty chair in the foreground is mine. The two ladies on the extreme right are Jacqueline Carey and Nola Yergen. The man in the orange shirt is Chris Colbath, a friend of mine who helped make the con a lot of fun.

I really can’t tell you too much about the Con.  We held it in the magnificent facilities at the Marriott Hotel at 200 N. Centennial Avenue in Mesa, Arizona.  There was a huge space allotted for gaming, and we filled it up with every kind of tabletop game you can imagine.  There was computer gaming in a separate room, but I never found it, and frankly, I didn’t miss it at all.  In addition to the two games of Tunnels and Trolls that I ran,  I also got to play Ticket to Ride (Europe), Settlers of Catan, Thunderstone, Buffy the Vampire Slayer with me as the evil Master, Last Night on Earth (Zombies and Martians and Monsters, oh my!), Apples to Apples, and an ancients naval miniatures game with quinquiremes (for which Jay Nash and I made up a whole set of alternate rules–game designers tinker with everything–especially if we can see a way of doing the same thing that makes more sense.)

Jay Nash taught me how to play this game, and then I made him rewrite all the rules for it. I'm the guy in the hat.

Jay and I spent a good part of Saturday afternoon together, first playing his game, and then just hanging out during a meal at the hotel restaurant.  I showed him where the free Con goodies were at the DarkCon suite and the Green Room, but he preferred to buy something, and he bought me lunch too. Thanks, Jay.  The reason I mention this is because Jay is one of the chief organizers of Vul Con, a pure gaming convention which will be held Feb. 25-26 at the Phoenix Convention Center, and I will be a gaming Guest of Honor at that convention also.  (If you live in the Phoenix area, come say hi, and maybe game with me.)

Let me just rave about my enthusiasm for DarkCon for a moment.  Gaming!  That is what I like, and Gaming was well represented and attended at this Con.  The Arizona Men in Black (who promote Steve Jackson Games) were there, and running excellent games continuously.  I got to play The Stars Are Right, and had victory assured on my next turn when Jason Youngdale (who took most of the really good photos in this blog, and who is also setting up a gaming convention here for June called Con-Flagration) beat me to the punch.

Just one of the tables maintained by the Men in Black. This group, under the leadership of Jesse Foster, consistently runs high quality gaming events at Arizona Sci-fi and gaming conventions. Not only do they provide the games, teach people how to play, but they offer free prize support for them all. I love these guys! (in a purely platonic way)

The Arizona Guise Knights were also running games at the convention, and I played with their members more than once.  This is an indenpendent Arizona group not associated with a gaming manufacturer in the same way that the Men in Black are.  Excellent and friendly gamers however, and a credit to the gaming community.

Tiffany Branum ran the Game Room and did an excellent job of it.  Signing up for games was extremely easy.  She and her staff smoothed all obstacles.  Phoenix area gamers owe Tiffany and her husband Chris a lot for all the work they do in creating great gaming environments.

I gamed with the Guise Knights more than once, but Jason never got my photo with them.

If you look carefully at the pictures, you will see that many of us, including me are dressed oddly for a science-fiction convention where the usual attire is jeans and sf t-shirt.  The Dark Ones have an affinity for Steampunk–Nola Yergen is an expert costumer,

A beautiful young lady who I met at the Thursday night party in one of Nola's many amazing costumes.

and her work is often in the Steampunk genre.  I put together a modest steampunk outfit–vest, pocket watch, hat with goggles on it, and if you look carefully a demon-head pin that identifies me as a member of a secret magician’s society.  There were many better costumes than mine–in fact, most of the true costumes were better than mine–look at the Guise Knights picture again for an example of true elegance.  Such fannish conventions often feature costumes, and always have a masquerade in which the best of the costumes are displayed for admiration and prizes.  I’m sorry, but I missed the masquerade.  I missed the Memorial Barry Bard movie previews and free goodies dispersal also (and I really like to go to those just to keep my t-shirt collection fresh.)  I missed a ton of great stuff at DarkCon, and I was still as busy as I could be with the stuff I did.

Much more happened at the Con than I am able to convey in this blog.  I spent part of my time hanging out in the Green Room–a hospitality room for volunteers and guests.  The food and friendliness in that room kept me going even when I was tired, and especially when I was hungry.  I played Texas Hold’em on Friday night with a great bunch of riverboat gamblers.  I never won a single hand, but it was fun while I lasted.  I took some weapons training from the Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship–those guys really know how to use all kinds of swords, and thanks to their training, I know a bit, too.

I had a lot of fun.  I saw and talked to a lot of friends.  If you were there, you probably had a great time also.  If you weren’t, then you missed a really good time.  You can look up the Dark Ones, the Phoenix Society of Historical Swordsmanship, the Men in Black, the Arizona Guise Knights, and just about everyone else that I mentioned on Facebook, so I’m not providing any links.  This is going to be a great year for conventions in Phoenix.  I recommend that you try to attend some of them.  I will be there–you can count on that!

I like to spend time by water. It's so symbolic. (grin)

(a note about the photos and pictures used in this blog:  some of them are my own photos, others were taken by the stalwart Jason Youngdale, and a couple were lifted from Nola Yergen’s DarkCon page on Facebook–copyright and ownership of all the photos and pictures belong to the original creators.  I recommend searching DarkCon on Facebook.com to find many more pictures of the convention–it was a fantastic place and time for us.)

If you were at DarkCon this year, or wish you had gone, why not add your own comments below?

–end

"I wish this hole was full of water," said Clyde. "And I wish the waterfall ran all the time instead of just when the giant washes his hands and face," Nefertari answered.

This is the story of two hippopotami that came to live with me.  Came may not be the right word.  I brought them to live with me on a whim.  I passed a big yard sale one Saturday morning last November, and the only thing that really caught my eye there as a small blue pottery hippopotamus.  She is the color of lapis lazuli, and elegantly tattoeed with lotuses all over her body.  I knew at once that she was Egyptian, probably royalty.  The princess Nefertari, far from Egypt in Arizona.  She looked so serene and so out of place that I decided to take her away from all that squalor.  After a short negotiation, she entered my company, and went for a long walk.

As I walked I heard this tiny voice say, “Where’s Clyde?”  I knew at once that the hippo princess was talking to me.

“I left him behind,” I answered.  ”You are so elegant, and he is not.  That other hippo is the kind of guy that has birds on his butt.  He’s a bumpkin.”

“He is my only friend.  I will be so lonely without him.”

“I will see what I can do.”

As I walked home, I went by the yard sale again.  There was no sign of the second hippo, so I asked.  The sale coordinator said, “Oh yes, I was just about to give him to Good Will.  She pulled a large cardboard box open and extracted a brown hippopotamus.

“The blue one will be lonely without him.” I explained.

“Then you shouldn’t break them up,” she said.  Thus it came to pass that two pottery hippopotami came to live with me.  One is blue and one is brown–sky and earth personified, or maybe the word should be hipponified.

Love is blind. These hippos move around. I never know what they will be doing next.

Now they live by my restroom sink–the watering hole.  Today they came out to the new computer to inspire me and make certain that I told their story properly.  I have done what I can.  I don’t really know their stories, just that they belong together.  Nefertari is elegance and complacency.  She is demure, solid, and wise.  She looks down all the time.  Clyde is lean, athletic, plain, and friendsly.  He must be friendly to allow a family of birds to perch on his buttocks.  He is alert, and his eyes look up at the sky.  His ears are continually perked upwards.  The two of them really don’t fit together very well, but fate has united them, and one without the other would be so incomplete.

I imagine them at night turning on the faucet and lowering themselves into the water hole to take a swim.  Sometimes I think they are in different positions when I wake up in the morning.  Nah, couldn’t be, could it?

The End

I forget why Liz made this really nifty picture, but it seemed likd a good cover for my new Monsters! Monsters! game.

Way back in 1977, when Tunnels and Trolls was new–way back when roleplaying itself was new, a man called Howard Thompson, who ran a company called Metagaming, asked me to design a role-playing game for him.  What I came up with was sort of the flip side of Tunnels and Trolls–a game in which the characters played the monsters and competed with each other to do more monstrous havoc than the other players.  The mechanics were pure Tunnels and Trolls–same combat system, same magic system, same saving roll system, but all seen from the other side of the fight–all seen from the monster’s viewpoint.  Players could be Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Dragons, or whatever they wanted.  The adversary victims would be Men, Elves, Dwarves, etc.

And Elizabeth Danforth (Liz to her friends) who had become my main T & T artist at the time did this stunning painting for the front cover of the game.  I don’t remember who paid for the artwork, probably Thompson, but somehow I wound up in posession of the actual painting, and it rested in my back room, quietly undisturbed for decades.  I think I must have paid Liz some money for it, but I have no idea now how much.  Maybe she just gave it to me.  We were close in those days.  I moved away from my old home of the last 3 decades, and as I move my stuff out, I keep discovering things–treasures!  This (and a whole ton of other art from the Day) is one of the best of those treasures.  Now, I just need to get it framed and hung.  I wish I knew how to do that.  I guess it’s time for an internet search.

–Ken St. Andre
–Jan. 3, 2012

Way back in 1977, when Tunnels and Trolls was new–way back when roleplaying itself was new, a man called Howard Thompson, who ran a company called Metagaming, asked me to design a role-playing game for him.  What I came up with was sort of the flip side of Tunnels and Trolls–a game in which the characters played the monsters and competed with each other to do more monstrous havoc than the other players.  The mechanics were pure Tunnels and Trolls–same combat system, same magic system, same saving roll system, but all seen from the other side of the fight–all seen from the monster’s viewpoint.  Players could be Orcs, Trolls, Ogres, Dragons, or whatever they wanted.  The adversary victims would be Men, Elves, Dwarves, etc.

–Ken St. Andre
–Jan. 3, 2012

Greek mythology--the ancestor of heroic fantasy

Immortals is a 2011 3D fantasy adventure film directed by Tarsem Singh and starring Henry Cavill, Freida Pinto, and Mickey Rourke.^[3] The film also stars Luke Evans, Kellan Lutz, Joseph Morgan, Stephen Dorff, Alan Van Sprang, Isabel Lucas, and John Hurt. The film was previously named Dawn of War and War of the Gods before being officially named Immortals, and is loosely based on the Greek myths of Theseus and the Minotaur and the Titanomachy.

It was released in 2D and in 3-D (using the Real D 3D and Digital 3D formats) on November 11, 2011 by Universal Pictures and Relativity Media.

^{So much for the credits.  The story is confused, although if you blither long enough you get the gist of it.  A crazed king named Hyperion has decided to conquer the (known) world, which at the time around 1250 B.C. consisted of the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt.  To do this he wants to find a divine weapon called the Epirus Bow, a godly weapon that fires energy arrows.  In his ruthless quest for the weapon he callously cuts the throat of the hero’s mother–thus gaining the eternal enmity of young Theseus, supposedly a Greek peasant with an unknown father.  Also, there is a group of really nasty immortals called the Titans who are imprisoned within Mount Tartarus by the gods led by father Zeus.  Should the Titans ever break free, there would be a dreadful war between Gods and Titans that might destroy all life on Earth.  The Epirus Bow is the appointed instrument of Titanic liberation.}

^{Having said all that you can see where the movie has to go.  Theseus and his friends–there are always friends and second banana sidekicks in these movies–fight the incredibly evil forces of King Hyperion.  At one point Theseus gains the Epirus Bow.  A bit later King Hyperion’s forces manage to take it away from him.  There is lots of bloody combat along the way–it’s special effects blood–but it does spray in all directions–I can only imagine what that must be like in 3D.  I saw it in 2D as usual.  Finally Hyperion frees the Titans.  Then Zeus and the Gods must intervene.  More combat.}

^{The combat scenes are incredible.  For a really peaceful kind of guy, I have an unholy love of combat for its own sake.  As a relatively sane and intelligent guy, I know better than to get myself involved in physcial combat, though I had my fights when I was a kid, and I studied combat arts like fencing and archery in college.  That’s what I like about sports–I see them as ritualized combat, not games.  The swing of a bat or a hockey stick is symbolically the same as swinging a sword.  That’s what I like about games–they are a form of mental combat.  However, I know full well that in real physical combat such as Theseus or Conan participate in, I would be one of the dead guys in very short order, and since I enjoy life, I tend to avoid things like combat that would get me killed.  If you enjoy combat, then you want to see Immortals.  Forget about the incoherent plot.  All  you need to know is that there are bad guys and good guys, and they fight each other.}

^{When I first saw Theseus, I thought he was the reincarnation of Gordon Scott.  Scott was a muscular bodybuilder and film star of the 50s and 60s, best known for playing Tarzan in several movies.  Scott was smooth in a way that few other Tarzans were.   Here’s a picture of Gordon Scott, followed by one of Henry Cavill.}

^{So much for the credits.  The story is confused, although if you blither long enough you get the gist of it.  A crazed king named Hyperion has decided to conquer the (known) world, which at the time around 1250 B.C. consisted of the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt.  To do this he wants to find a divine weapon called the Epirus Bow, a godly weapon that fires energy arrows.  In his ruthless quest for the weapon he callously cuts the throat of the hero’s mother–thus gaining the eternal enmity of young Theseus, supposedly a Greek peasant with an unknown father.  Also, there is a group of really nasty immortals called the Titans who are imprisoned within Mount Tartarus by the gods led by father Zeus.  Should the Titans ever break free, there would be a dreadful war between Gods and Titans that might destroy all life on Earth.  The Epirus Bow is the appointed instrument of Titanic liberation.}

^{Having said all that you can see where the movie has to go.  Theseus and his friends–there are always friends and second banana sidekicks in these movies–fight the incredibly evil forces of King Hyperion.  At one point Theseus gains the Epirus Bow.  A bit later King Hyperion’s forces manage to take it away from him.  There is lots of bloody combat along the way–it’s special effects blood–but it does spray in all directions–I can only imagine what that must be like in 3D.  I saw it in 2D as usual.  Finally Hyperion frees the Titans.  Then Zeus and the Gods must intervene.  More combat.}

^{The combat scenes are incredible.  For a really peaceful kind of guy, I have an unholy love of combat for its own sake.  As a relatively sane and intelligent guy, I know better than to get myself involved in physcial combat, though I had my fights when I was a kid, and I studied combat arts like fencing and archery in college.  That’s what I like about sports–I see them as ritualized combat, not games.  The swing of a bat or a hockey stick is symbolically the same as swinging a sword.  That’s what I like about games–they are a form of mental combat.  However, I know full well that in real physical combat such as Theseus or Conan participate in, I would be one of the dead guys in very short order, and since I enjoy life, I tend to avoid things like combat that would get me killed.  If you enjoy combat, then you want to see Immortals.  Forget about the incoherent plot.  All  you need to know is that there are bad guys and good guys, and they fight each other.}

^{When I first saw Theseus, I thought he was the reincarnation of Gordon Scott.  Scott was a muscular bodybuilder and film star of the 50s and 60s, best known for playing Tarzan in several movies.  Scott was smooth in a way that few other Tarzans were.   Here’s a picture of Gordon Scott, followed by one of Henry Cavill.}

Tarzan (Scott) looking grim.

Theseus (Cavill) looking grim.

I don’t suppose the resemblance to a 20th century bodybuilder makes any difference.  Immortals is an action/special effects movie, and no matter how good (or bad) the acting is in such films, nobody ever remembers it.  Sometimes the film makers try to do something sneaky, like put ideas into the film as well.  I suspect that happened with this one–there are certainly things one could talk about, such as Are the Gods justified in interfering in the life of mortals, or should they be strictly hands off?  What about the brutality of the world?  There are scenes in the movie that just make you sick if you stop and think about them at all.

I haven’t read any official critics on this movie.  I wonder how they feel about the hideous distortion of Greek mythology presented here.  The legend of Theseus–hero of Athens, slayer of the minotaur–has been completely changed.  The hero does everything a hero can be asked to do except one–he doesn’t find a way to survive the final battle against overwhelming odds.  He dies, and Zeus takes him to heaven.  The Gods of ancient Greece seem surprisingly mortal at the end–several of them die fighting against the Titans.  This is just confused and wrong in so many ways.  Somebody tell the director that Immortals don’t die.  Definition of immortal–somebody who never dies.  That could be literal or metaphorical, but IMMORTALS DON’T DIE!

I would watch Immortals again just to revel in the action, but I’d wind up just as frustrated and revolted at the end.  I wonder if Immortals would benefit from a Director’s cut edition–they have all the elements for a good movie there.  Somebody just needs to go in and do something with the story to make it make sense.  Maybe go back to the original legend of Theseus–something not as epic, but more satisfying. Leave the gods on Olympus, and tell the story of men.  Men and monsters–that’s all you really need for a heroic fantasy movie.

If you have any opinions or insights about Immortals, please put them in the comments here.

end

Ceifu talks about old friends and new friends and how we students are all babies in Tai Chi, taking baby steps. Thus my image of myself as a baby tiger. Strange for an old man like myself to be a baby, but then, I want to be young, so I can dream myself as a tiger cub.

Tiger Mountain

          Reconstructed by Ken St. Andre

The sun rose over the mountain.

The moon sank into the sea.

Clouds sailed through the sky.

(The Goddess was there.)

From clouds She wove

Heaven and Earth.

Then the Tiger (attacked)

(and) Brought the Horse

To its knees.

He saw the Twin Peaks

And Crossed the stream

Where herons lifted their wings and Pushed

 (Meditate, Relax, Do it again until it flows.)

So many forms to learn, and when we do, still we know almost nothing.

It doesn't look much like anything that could actually fly.

 

While Richelieu is the mastermind behind the plots, the one person who makes the movie work, is superspy Countess de Winter.  She is by far the best looking, most athletic, and all around smartest person in the film.  An adventuress, you get the feeling that she does the (evil) things she does simply for the thrill and challenge of doing them.  She is magnificent, and not the heartless witch you would expect.  She saves D’Artagnan from death at Rochefort’s hands early in the film.  She gives them the safe passage note that she got from the Cardinal knowing full well that they would need it in order to survive.  She is really everyone’s agent, and thoroughly unbelievable–a super heroine, or perhaps a super villainess in a class with Wonder Woman.

But what brings the movie-goers in are the flying ships.  There have been at least 30 different versions of the Three Musketeers made as films since 1905.  And the charm of them all has been headlong action and the tale of friendship triumphant.  These two aspects of the story came through in this modern special-effects extravaganza.  I hear it was even better in 3D.  I saw the 2D version–really can’t afford 3D.  Sure wish I was rich enough to see all these movies in all their modern technological glory.  oh well . . .

The battle of the two airships is almost the climax of the film.  It is certainly the piece-de-resistance of the epic.  The movie is worth its admission price for that magnificently plotted sky duel alone.

However, I went to the movie because I wanted to see the sword fighting.  I have always loved sword fighting, and I did some fencing when I was young.  I was never any good, but I do know what it feels like to thrust with epee or saber, to swing a claymore, to guard oneself with a broadsword.  If a movie features swordplay, I will happily go see it.  I don’t care if the plot is ridiculous, or the acting corny.  Give me two or more people hacking and slashing at each other with bladed weapons and I’m happy.  D’Artagnan’s final duel on the rooftops of Paris with Rochefort was magnificent–perhaps the best piece of sword choreography I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen all the best of them, from Robin Hood vs. the Sherrif of Nottingham to Wesley fighting Inigo Montoya in the Princess Bride to the light-saber duel between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in The Empire Strikes Back.  (The fight with the Cardinal’s Guards when D met A, A, and P wasn’t too shoddy either.)  I’d happily pay $7 just for the sword fights.

In my humble opinion, this was the best sword fight ever. I'd like to see it again, perhaps in slow motion.

About 9 or 10 years ago–it’s hard to remember that far back–I decided to scrap my old Tunnels and Trolls web page and start something new–an online club for all T & T fans.  It didn’t take much thinking to come up with the name TROLLHALLA–a combination of the word Troll with the word Valhalla.  And that is what the place would be–a sort of Valhalla for T & T players–a place to get together with friends, both for fun, and also to promote T & T.

An internet search showed that the name Trollhalla had been used once before at least–for a guest cottage in a tourist resort in Norway.  Not much conflict of interest there.  So, I used the name and for roughly 9 years Trollhalla was mine.

Then Alf Seegert, who had done a  Bridge Troll board game earlier, decided to send his trolls plundering on northern seas, and came up with the name Trollhalla for his new board game. I have Google search words like Trollhalla for me every day, and when I heard about it, I wrote him a pained letter complaining.  He and Z-Man were doing a game that swiped the name of my gaming club.  It’s not a direct conflict, but it’s certainly a lot closer than the guest house connection. Too late!  The game and the boxes for it were already in production.  He couldn’t change the name.

Alf and I made a deal.  He gave me a copy of the game, and he joined Trollhalla as a member (haven’t seen much of him in 2011 though), and he explained the confusion between the names very nicely in a few places around the web.  Ugh!  I’m not real happy with the way that worked out–I kinda feel that Trollhalla is my name, but I didn’t trademark it or anything, and ideas should be free, and he certainly uses the word in a different sense than I do.

Anyway, it’s an amusing board game, complicated enough that it takes some real study, or two or more playings to fully understand it–simple enough that you can stagger through a game and have fun even if you do get a few rules mechanics wrong on the first try.  The trolls in the game are indistinguishable from 10th century vikings–yo ho, yo ho, a viking’s life for me!  Sail from island to island, grab as much loot as you can, try to frustrate the efforts of other players.  An hour later you’re done. Somebody won.  It was probably close.  You had a few laughs along the way.

Trollhalla the board game is fun and funny–at least I enjoyed it when I played it.  Seegert is an accomplished game designer, and board gamers should look for his work for some lighthearted entertainment.

Ironically enough, for a game about ocean-going trolls, it doesn’t stand up to water very well.  The first time I tried to play it, I accidentally knocked over a glass of water, and pretty much ruined half the paper components of my game.  Arrrrgh!  I can still play Trollhalla, but it is certainly the worse for wear.

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If  you have played Trollhalla the board game, or are a member of Trollhalla the gaming society, go ahead an leave some comments here.

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Thor, Iron Man, Steve Rogers--no longer the best of friends

I read a lot of comics.  Because of the availability of graphic novels at the public library, I read far more than I could ever afford to buy.  Let me tell you, comics fans, the public library is your friend when it comes to comics.  Whether you like American superheroes, Japanese manga, European sophistry, or the Independents, the Library is your best friend when it comes to getting an entertainment fix without breaking the bank.  Of course, you could always just stand around the comics shop and browse through stuff on the rack, but really, who has time for that?  And, it is hardly fair to your friendly local comics dealer.

I hardly ever buy Marvel, not because I don’t like Marvel comics–for the most part Marvel publishes high quality good stuff.  It’s just that my finances are strained to the breaking point already in keeping up with the books inspired by Robert E . Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Michael Moorcock, and a few other notable purveyors of swords and sorcery, sword-and-planet, or jungle/lost worlds adventures.  Conan, Kull, Tarzan, John Carter, Elric–these are the titles I must buy as they appear.  Throw in the occasional Justice League or Green Lantern or Ka-Zar, and my finances are overstretched.

But, just as I love the Justice League, so do I also love the Avengers.  And, last week I read the best Avengers tale ever.  Here is a brief teaser for it:

They were friends, brothers and teammates through all of Marvel’s greatest adventures, but recent events turned them into the bitterest of enemies. In the wake of the siege of Asgard, Thor, Iron Man and Steve Rogers are brought together on the same side once more – but these great heroes can’t truly trust each other yet. They better start soon, because something only the Big Three can handle is tearing their world apart. This all-new, grand and dangerous adventure – uniting comics legend Alan Davis with Avengers scribe Brian Bendis for the first time – will catapult our heroes into the explosive Heroic Age! Collecting AVENGERS PRIME #1-5.

I’m going to sum up the story very quickly.  The old Asgard is gone–I don’t know why–I’d better go catch up on Thor’s adventures at wikipedia.org.  Thor has been rebuilding the Realm Not-So-Eternal in the boondocks of Oklahoma.  Norman Osborn goes nuts and attacks it with his coalition of supervillains disguised as superheroes and government goons.  The Avengers and other heroic types gather to defend it.  That all takes place in other comics.  Somehow, Thor, Iron Man, and Steve Rogers (not Captain America at the moment because Bucky Barnes–whose survival story is at least as strange as Cap’s–is wearing the wings and toting the shield) get transported to one of the other nine worlds–the world of elves, giants, trolls, and dragons.  And none of them like Thor, or his friends–a fact that both Tony Stark and Steve Rogers are a little slow to appreciate.  Thus they meet with hostility wherever they go.  Throw the ever-beguiling Enchantress and the Death Goddess incarnate, Hela, Queen of Hell, into the mix and our boys have women trouble.  Big trouble!

Green seems to be the color of evil in the Marvel universe.

I’m not going to go into the plot, the struggles, the heroics of the big three.  They are heroes.  You know they will prevail and make things right by the end of the book.  Apparently, it was a 5 issue mini-series, but I like it better all collected into one graphic novel.  How they do it makes for one of Bendis’s best stories ever.

Because, while most comics make me smile, sometimes even laugh, this one made me cry–or almost.   I was so choked up at the end of it that it took me 10 minutes of walking to get my emotions back under control.  You see, Bendis wrote a story of triumph, but it was shot through with sadness.  A giant helps Tony Stark in his moment of need, and for that good deed, the giant is immolated by the dragon Fafnir.  I identify with that giant who personifies the saying, “No good deed goes unpunished.”  A beautiful Elf healer girl falls in love with Captain America.  Without her help they would not have made it to the endgame.  She is abandoned–her love was hopeless.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Thor has to shoulder the burden for every inequity ever commited by Odin and the gods of Asgard, and also take a sword thrust through the gut.  He’s a god.  He survives it.  But it had to hurt a lot.  No good deed goes unpunished!

Bendis might not have been trying to say “No good deed goes unpunished.”  He was telling a story of the triumph of heroes over incredibly hellish difficulties and tremendous odds.  He was talking about the renewal of friendship and the failure of evil to triumph.  Those are noble themes, but my heart went out to the secondary characters who suffered in order to achieve the final triumph.  Gods and heroes walked away happy.  Lesser characters, mortals like you and me, suffered and died that the gods and heroes might triumph.  I was left feeling incredibly sad, because I am not a god or a hero.  It wasn’t my triumph.  I know I would have been one of the dead ones in that story.

No good deed goes unpunished!  Great story, Mr. Bendis.  Terrific art, Mr. Davis.

If you have read The Avengers Prime, I’d love to see your comments on the story.

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