If 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.

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.

Russell Burlingame of Comic Related interviewed me last night about Blood Bowl: Killer Contract. Speedster that he is, he’s already posted the results. The questions were excellent, and the interview should give most readers a new insight as to how the whole project came about and then came together.

Comic 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.

The fine people at Comic Related made Blood Bowl: Killer Contract #1 their “Hot Shot of the Week.” As part of that item, they also have a gallery of huge shots of both the A and over-the-top B covers, unobstructed by logos. Woot!

ETA: The comic also got a kind notice from Famous Monsters of Filmland. Plus, Chimera, a cool pop culture shop in Derbyshire, UK, made the book its “Comic of the Week.”

The fine people at Bibliotheque Interdite have translated Blood Bowl (my first novel in the series) into French! If you parlez Francais, here’s your chance to read a culturally specific set of running jokes written by an American author for a British publisher and now published in French.

I wonder what will happen if the Blood Bowl novels ever get translated into German. Would they change all the joke translation names (Dunkel Hoffnung, for instance, is German for Dark Hero) into English or leave them as they stand?

Seriously, I’m thrilled to see another of my novels translated into a different language. It only makes me wish I could read more languages so I could see how the books transform. Many thanks to my stalwart editor Mathieu Saintout and my brave translator Olivier Fanton!