Vigilant in death

I spend a lot of time on Deviant art following some really amazing artists, It's great to see the things they do with their own characters and even some of the ones I've grown up with, btu what is absolutely best is when some of these artists go through all the trouble of creating fully fledged comics and having them released.
It was great when the artist couple/duo of Adam Withers and Comfort Love created their first comic series, Uniques (I bought every issue), and published it themselves.
And it's great now when Stjepan Šejić (AKA Nebezial) released his first completely independent comic series, published by Image and Topcow.
Now Stjepen is a well known comic artist in the comicbook world, having leant his particular style to series such as Army of Darkness, Battlestar Galactica, Darkness, Witchblade (and a whole host of its spin offs) and more recently a relaunch of hte 1996 series 'Aphrodite IX'.
He's worked with Zenescope Entertainment, Virgin comics, Radical Publishing, Arcana Studios, Dynamite Entertainment, Marvel but he's most well known for his work with Image/Topcow who have brought his most recent projects to the people.

Stjepen has worked within the comics industry for a long time, worked on a lot of incredible projects and he's very actuive on his deviantart account, giving fans of his a great insight into him and his humor (Doctor batman Wwoommmmmb). But to the best of my knowledge (and feel free to correct me) he's not before written, designed and drawn an entire comic himself.
And Death Vigil makes me ask; Why not?
It's damn good.
The story flows really well, the characters are incredibly well written and, of course, the art is spot on.
Death Vigil is an interesting new take on the after life, workign with the idea of some people being chosen to continue their life after their death in the form of agents for the reaper. It follows the story of at least two members of an ancient order of post-dead people as they join up with the reaper to fight necromancers. In this world the Reaper - Bearnie - is the protector of peoples lives, of peoples souls.
The comic opens as the first character - Sam 'The Digger' - dies trying to save a young woman from being mugged in an alleyway. Stjepan shows the process that Bearnie goes through to make him into a member of the Vigil and then transports the readers twelve years into the future to show sam, a now veteran of the Vigil, waiting in a cemetary for the preverbial shit to hit the fan. Which it does a mere few minutes later, when a full necromancer opens a portal to hell in front of his fahter's grave.

Necromancers use their gifts to break the barriers of life and death and call forth incredibly detailed and well drawn monsters from the depths of hell. The Vigil was created to stop that from ever happening.

All in all it's a great start to a comic series. It introduces the main characters, shows how everything works, gives the player an insight into how people develop over time and even some lead up to the main story arc.
The layout as much as the artwork itself gives the reader a great sense of the action, speed and tone of the current scenes. Using picture in picture style captions as well as full page and constantly changing panel sizes, and structures. Not to mention that the characters and scenes themselves have been well designed and developed into a practical perfection.

Issue one is available now from most retailers in the states and from Forbiddenplanet.com, it's also available at comixology. So get out there and read it.

Tubage
- James

AMURICA FUNK YEAH!

Literally 2 weeks today I get to go to america!
So I decided to give you all a look at my schedual! Sadly I didn't get tickets to Comic con, however I will still be visiting San Diego on the Sunday and enjoying the ambience!

So I set out on Thursday the 24th, my flight leaves Heathrow at 7 in the morning which will make for very early departure, I most likely wont even go to bed on Wednesday night so I can sleep on the plane. I will be getting to Chicago at 10:45 and leaving again at 12:45 for the final leg of my journey arriving in Salt Lake city - three months late for their comic con - to meet up with Elizabeth and her almost 6 month old son Sherlock!
Most likely we'll ride back to theirs, pick up her husband from work and grab dinner, then watch the Pioneer day fireworks... all while I try not to fall asleep on everyone!
When we wake up the next day, the twenty fifth, we will spend most of the day chilling out at Elizabeth's house while her husband is at work, playing games, watching movies and tv shows, the usual nerdisms. When he gets off work however it's the first leg of our journey down to Anaheim! We'll drive to a stop off in Saint George to rest for the night and eat and rest some more.
The 26th sees us driving the rest of the way through to Anaheim, passing through Vegas (but not stopping) possibly dropping by Calico ghost town before heading on down to our hotel in California; Hotel Pepper Tree.
Day 4, the 27th! Comicon Sunday. Sure I don't have a ticket but my friends do and I'm looking forward to looking around and enjoying everything going on around the outside of comic con!
28th and 29th will be devoted to all things Disneyland. We're gonna try and hit both Disneyland and California Adventure, but I'm a super wuss like wimp and I don't know how well I'll do on any of the rides. FYI I'm allergic to pineapple but I'm totally gonna pig out on dole whip in the tikki room.
Wednesday the 30th  is LA in the morning and Vegas in the afternoon and evening, topped off with a show at the Rio; Penn and Teller! You have no idea how excited I am for Penn and Teller, not to mention my suite at The Luxor. I got a deluxe tower suite. It has it's own freaking wet bar. a living room and a separate bedroom. I could easily spend the whole holiday in that room, but I wont, we'll be in Vegas on the 30th to the 1st when we'll be driving back up to Saint George. At some point in Vegas I'm planning to go to a club or two just to have a bit of fun, but I think that'll probably be on the second night. We might go see another show (Circe Du Soleil?) but no plans as yet.
On the 2nd we will be heading out for a nice long hike in Zions National park - by the way if you havent seen it google it, it looks incredible.
Followed on the 3rd by more hiking in Kanarraville Falls and Bryce Canyon on the 4th. All of which are amazing and I can't wait to get some amazing pictures.
Then back to Payson to hang out at Elizabeths for three days. We're planning to visit a bunch of things while we're chilling including a drive in cinema, a shooting range, some badass DnD sessionage.
Then I will spend the last day, friday the 8th crying a little because its going to totally suck coming home after spending two and a half weeks out there.

So as you can imagine; I'm super stoked. Super excited and I cannot wait. I realised today that there are fewer days until I go than I will be spending there. fourteen days left. Sixteen days there.
SO EXCITED!

VIDEO!
-James

Wild FAQ Star

Don't worry, for those of you who don't care in the slightest about Wildstar, MMOs, Games or Sci-fi in general this isn't going to be turning into a wildstar blog - however if you don't like any of those things I'm not certain what your even doing here. Do you even Geek?

Since playing wildstar I've noticed that a few questions come up more than any other in the zone and advice chat systems so since I am still verymuch infected with the Wildstar bug I thought I'd write yet another post about it with these questions answered.

Question 1
"How do I change my costume?"
Answer!
You've been playing for a little while, huh? found a sweet outfit that you think you want to keep wearing, but it's stats just don't do it for you anymore? Well that's fine because wildstar has costumes!
Unlike in the beta there is no longer a button or a menu to bring up anywhere in the game that allows the player to change their costume on a whim. There are now NPCs in all main hubs called Protostar Appearance Modification Vendors (or Stylists). These NPCs are protostar employees with a special symbol in the shape of an eight point star with a falling drop of ink in the middle above their heads.
Since launch the player can go to these friendly Protostar employees and change their costumes.
Last thing though: the player must be level six in order to use them and level fourteen to dye their clothes.

Question 2
"How do I get a mount?"
Answer!
It can be tiring running around all day on the thing at the ends of your legs. With this advanced a society it seems quite ridiculous that anyone should even have to think about walking or running on the ends of their legs. Thankfully the exiles and the dominion both came up with a solution to that: Mounts! That's right, they came up with the same idea at the same time and implemented it simultaneously. See? there's more that unites than divides. but its still fun to blow up each others faces.
At level fifteen the player unlocks their riding skill, and if you've been scrimping and saving since you landed on nexus you should be able to afford one! Alas you will not be able to use your beta reward or your deluxe edition reward hover boards as they are locked until level twenty-five, but you will be able to go to the mount vendor in your capitol city and buy a mount for the low, low, low price of ten gold, sixty-seven silver and fifty-two bronze. You do get some really nice options that are different for Dominion and Exile, but at this point in the game it's unlikely that you'll be able to afford a mount, especially since you'll have just spent all your money on your house at level fourteen.

Question 3
"How do I get a house?"
Tired after a long day adventuring? after making Nexus a safer place for those around you? Then you probably want somewhere you can lay down. Somewhere you can relax. Somewhere you can hang your hat and all the other décor items you've looted off of big bad monsters!
At level fourteen your likely not quite leaving the first big area of gameplay yet, but that's the level you can first use housing. You get it from the main hub, either by ignoring the quest line that pops up when you first spawn in your faction hub, or by following it. I suggest following it as it gives you free décor items to use in your brand new Protostar house!
At fourteen you can use a taxi to travel to your faction hub and a quest com will come up from a protostar housing representative. It will lead you to where you get your housing plot and explain a little about the housing system and transforming your tent into a fully fledged house.

Question 4
"How do I form my guild?"
You've been playing with these guys for a login time, just playing together, working together, levelling up together, its almost as if your a little gang all of your own! Well why not make it official? Make a guild!
At Level twelve, with ten gold in your pocket head on over to your faction hub and go looking for your friendly neighbourhood guild registrar, ask a guard for directions. Its as simple as that. Go to a registrar, Put in your new guild name, create your insignia and your good to go.
Invite players either by going into the guild menu (social menu with O, then switch to guild tab) and press invite and insert their name or type /ginvite [playername]
And that's it, enjoy your guild.

Hope that helps!
Anything else you want to know leave it in the comments and I'll post another!

Love-The-Quickness-Of-The-DLC-Drop
- James

Dresden Files... Review... ish... thing?

First of all: I apologise for not posting last week, especially after that post about posting.

So just to re-cap I did a very short piece on the Dresden files as a part of the 'of 52' series that I started and totally intended to finish but never got around to. It was under 'Jim Butcher' since I really like the Codex Alera books as well.
But I really love the Harry Dresden books, more and more every subsequent book I read... or listen to.

This is what I wrote before on the Dresden Files:
"The Dresden files are about Harry Copperfield Blackstone Dresden. A wizard in Chicago who advertises in the business section. He mostly specialises in murders, but he helps out with other things as well.
I like to describe the Dresden Files as 'Harry Potter, if Harry was a homicide cop' but since he doesn't work specifically for the police in the books it’s a little inaccurate.
The first book is your average detective story (but with magic). It's good, really good even, but they get great as you keep reading. The first one is a standalone book but the rest have continuing plots, in the background at least. Events unfolding that are related to previous books and future events. It's really cool and you have to pay attention. I consider myself good at figuring out plots but a lot of the time I've not managed to figure out what's going on. Sometimes I do, but I prefer not guessing."

Now all of this is true but I'd like to Elaborate on it.
First of all; The Dresden Verse
The whole series is set in it's own little world of magic, with it's own little rules and laws. It draws from a lot of different sources. From legends, myths and folk tales to rumors, real world events and history. It uses these sources to create a fantastical yet believable world of fae, men, monsters, gods and a ton of courts of everything in between. Among them are some well known faces such as Hades, the billy goats gruff, Cat Sith, A merlin, Angels and demons, Valkyries, Odin and even Santa Claus- the latter two of those by the way turn out to be the same person.
The books use an assortment of different nasties ranging from Vampires and were wolfs to much less mainstream creatures like Naagloshii which is a shapechanger from native American culture (or something Jim Butcher did a real good job making up to sound like it was from native American culture.
But more than just being interesting; its believable. Okay, no I don't read it and think there are genuinely fae and wizards and fallen angels running around the world just out of sight where we don't see them... mostly.
What I mean is that if all of this was real this is a very realistic way that it would work. this is a very realistic portrayal of how a world that had all these things would govern, how it would have to govern.

And there's Harry Dresden stood in the middle of it all.
Harry Dresden had a crap life up to the point we meet him. His mother died in childbirth, his father died later. He grew up in an orphanage until he was adopted by the dark wizard Justine DuMorne. Justin trained Harry in the ways of magic with brutal and often cruel methods, playing on Harry's sense of loneliness and uncertainty to keep him in check.
It isn't until Dumourne turns Harrys long time best friend and girlfriend into a thrall and tries to do the same to him that he finally breaks free and goes on the run, eventually finding himself in a stand off with his former master.
Of course Harry wins the battle, kills Justin and is taken before the White council of wizards, who fun the wizarding world, and Harry didn't even know existed. He was almost executed then, as a child because he killed someone with magic, but he was spared as he was defending himself against the man.
Ever since then he'd been dogged by the policing arm of the council, the Wardens. Just waiting for him to slip up and prove that he should be executed.
And that's where we meet him.
Even before the first story starts Harry has already been through a hell of a lot and he's only going to start going through a lot more. One of the things I like about Harry is that he goes up and down, he goes through hell and heaven but he never loses sight of what's right. He might think he has. He might worry about whether he's doing the right thing... but he always stands true to his convictions.

Harry is amazing but he's nothing without the people around him. Throughout the books -at this point there have been sixteen and I think the story is about half done -Harry meets a myriad of different people and beings that become his friend and help him out. From the no-nonsense cop Karrin Murphy to the teen wolf William Borden. From the spirit of intellect 'Bob' the skull to the free fae toot toot.
There are a ton of amazing characters, so many that I'd either not do any of them justice or I'd be writing forever, so I'm just going to list them so that you can Google them yourself.
Molly Carpenter, Michael Carpenter, Uriel, The Archive, Waldo Butters, Kincaid, Lash, Anastasia Luccio, Marcone, Gard, McAnally, Ebenezer McCoy, Thomas Wraith, Donnar Vadderung, Susan Rodriguez and Carlos Ramirez. That's only naming cool characters that appear in multiple books And failing to mention a handful of characters because their existence is spoileriffic.

But I think one of the reasons I love this series so much is because it's the only book series I read or have ever read as an audiobook. So not read as the case may be.
The Dresden Files audiobooks are read- no, read is too pedestrian a word. They are performed almost exclusively by James Marsters.
I mean he doesn't just read Harry Dresden, he becomes Harry. It works so well. The books are written in first person so it feels like its the character explaining what happened. It feels so nice, and works so well. In my mind Harry Dresden is James Marsters. He looks like him, sounds like him and acts like him. When I've been stuck with reading a copy of a book instead of listening (only twice, now I just wait for the audiobook) I hear James Marsters voice in my head.

I recommend anyone who likes either fantasy or detective novels to read these nooks, and I recommend anyone who has access to it to listen to the audio books.
And also I recommend never ever, ever, ever watching the tv series. Ever.

Wild-tube-age-thing
- James

P.S. I think I'm going to have to go back and listen to them all again now.