Dad’s Coming Home

Now for some good news.

I just found out that my father is coming back home today after nearly five weeks in the hospital. He’s doing much better, although he still has a good stretch of recovery ahead of him. I’m just glad to have him home again. Thanks to all of you who offered your support!

James Perham Dies

I just learned that James Perham died on May 31 of heart failure. I first met James many years ago when he was working for Cliff “Gideon” Van Meter at Starchilde Publications (publishers of Justifiers and Guardians) and back in the late ’80s/early ’90s. He later spent time working in comics with Valiant and Acclaim and had the singular honor of being the last Acclaim Comics employee, going down with the ship. Still, he didn’t let that stop him.

I saw James at Gen Con a couple years ago. He was working with a company that was about to bring a South American collectible card game into America. I don’t know whatever happened to that game. Still, it was great to see James again and hear his laugh that one last time.

Social (Worker) Games

Last week, my wife Ann participated in a “poverty simulation exercise” for people who work with the impoverished. Ann is a school social worker who concentrates on helping out homeless students, so she sees a lot of this in her job. The Janesville Gazette ran an article about the exercise and how it worked. The paper ran a photo of Ann with the article, but the website is not graced with it.

As Ann described the event, I immediately recognized it as a live-action roleplaying game. It would not have been out of place at any gaming convention, with the exception that the players were there to learn rather than to have fun. This was a simulation, not entertainment. Coincidentally, Ann played a 12-year-old boy named Matt, and the irony ensued.

Free Battlestar Galactica Novel

Tor has been making e-books versions of some of their novels free for a week at a time over the past few months. This week, they actually have a tie-in novel available for free: Battlestar Galactica by Jeffrey A. Carver. Just go to Tor.com to register and get your copy.

Each novel is only made available for a week at a time, but Tor posts a new one each week, with a couple of gorgeous desktop wallpapers to go along with it.

Although Tor’s been at this for a while, this week’s offering surprised me because it likely meant that the licensor had to sign off on the free release. It’s one thing to persuade a novelist that putting up a free copy of a book is a good idea. It’s another to convince a major licensor that it’s okay too.

Blood Bowl Video and Charity

RumbleinjungleIf you’re new to the idea of Blood Bowl, which I’ve been going on and on about here, my old friend and former roommate Bryan Winter pointed me to a video that explains a bit about it. It’s less about how the game is played than why people play it, but it’s a fine introduction to that.

The most interesting part of the video is that I recognized one of the people in it. Frank Hill, who you see wearing a chainmail referee’s shirt, runs the annual Thrudbowl tournament, a set of Blood Bowl matches played for the benefit of Cancer Research UK. This year’s event is set for July 19—20 in Bognor Regis, UK, and I’ve donated signed copies of Rumble in the Jungle to the charity auction. If you’re in the area, be sure to check it out.

More BBKC Reviews

This is kind of fun. It’s hard to get a genre novel or a board game reviewed, but there are lots of sources for comic-book reviews it seems. I suppose comics are shorter, so it’s easier to review lots of them at once, whereas it’s impossible to read enough genre novels to keep up with them all.

Over at Comics Bulletin, Michael Colbert gives Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #1 another 3.5 bullets. My favorite pull-quote (and a good chance to test out block quotes in my website’s new theme) is:

Blood Bowl is good bloody fun. Pulling off the tightrope act of embracing and satirizing sports and violence is tricky, injecting goofball fun is even harder. For sheer maniac weirdness it scores points and bullets.

At NewsOK’s Nerdage, we have our first vodcast review. (Note that this doesn’t want to play in Safari on my Mac, but it works just fine in Firefox on both the Mac and Windows). The guys cover three comics this week–BBKC #1, Wolverine #66, and Trinity #3–which puts the book in very fine company. They call me “Mike” Forbeck, but as long as they like the book, I don’t mind.

To make up for all the love, though, John Hardick at PennLive mercilessly savages the book. Still, I’ll take that bad with all that good.

Killer Contract #1 Preview

Prv525 Pg2Comic Book Resources has posted a large preview of Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #1. This includes shots of all four covers, plus images of the first six pages of the issue. If you haven’t picked up the book yet, here’s an excellent way to get a good taste of it for free.

Also, over at Comics Bulletin, Kelvin Green gives the issue 3.5 bullets. At Rack Raids, Max gives it 3.5 Vikings instead. The book also gets a mention at Comic Mix, an endorsement from Evil Genius Comics, comments from ComiXtreme, and a staff pick from Rogues Gallery Comics and Games.