JohnMcMahon

I see volume 25 has just been solicited, taking the collections up to #291 so I guess the whole of Hellblazer will be available by the end of the year!

I have up to vol 18 on my shelves.

Do you follow any model channels on Youtube ?  I'll dip in and out on occasion but most of them appear to be 40K based rather than WHF, or I guess AOS as it is now.

Finished Veitch's run on Animal Man and quite enjoyed it though it takes another run at changing the character's origin story which felt unnecessary and rather silly. 

Veitch is followed by Delano who overseas the shift from DC to Vertigo by immediately killing off the character and getting his weird on with the introduction of The Red, though I don't think it's actually called that in the story.  Just as important as Delano however is the arrival of Steve Pugh on pencils, a man whose art I love but haven't actually read much of unfortunately.  His style is a weird mix of sexy and ugly and weird and strange for me and I dig it!

I fear if I had an artistic talent at all that I'd have long since beggared myself on buying and painting models!

Finished Dragonslayer and enjoyed it, while telling stand alone stories the G&F books are now a lot more interconnected as the threats for the next volume were introduced here and a proper supporting cast is now in place.  Daemonslayer led into Dragonslayer which in turn leads into Beastslayer. 

The dwarves have reached a pretty decent tech level here as not only do they have a fully functioning airship with fighters but they've effectively got Gatling guns and rocket launchers too!

All of those are fantastic bug again the highlight is obvious - the chaos toilet!

I went through a brief phase of picking up White Dwarf even though I never played any of the games or collected the figures.

You're giving me the thirst for a Hellblazer re-read.

I hope that's the official name for that guy cause it's wonderful!

I can see the skaven working as an unseen threat, a kind of urban legend used to terrify children who won't go to bed but I guess the nature of Warhammer is that, eventually, two big armies have to go at it and the sight of 20000 rat men skittering across the battlefield's going to scupper that!

On 4/16/2021 at 12:41 PM, dogpoet said:

They've dumped the thing with the Empire insisting that there aren't any skaven and people are just imagining things, or is that another of the historical series?

They're a known and acknowledged threat in the Gotrek & Felix series anyway.

All of those models/figures are great but I particularly love the last one - what a fab little guy!

I hear you, I used to drool over the little metal figure blister packs - never played the wargame or the RPG but they just looked cool.

Believe that trilogy is Skaven vs The Empire.

They look awesome - my first experience with the Skaven came via Advanced HeroQuest -

Have a copy of The Skaven Wars omnibus there that I probably won't get to till next year, looks pretty serious -

You think ?  I enjoyed it but don't think it set the world on fire - we're not up to like The Losers 8 or dealing with a Losers Cinematic Universe or anyhing!

They're treated very seriously in the Nagash books, their war with the necromancer was a protracted affair with a horrific death toll. 

Gotrek & Felix feels like a series that is maybe getting more serious as it rolls along but as the Skaven were initially portrayed as more of an amusing distraction, even when they were the main antagonists, they haven't quite moved with the tonal times!  

I just love the Skaven aesthetic, so much cooler than orks!
 

On 4/9/2021 at 12:50 PM, dogpoet said:

Thanquol's great, but he's a bit too much of a cartoon character to take very seriously as a threat, sadly.

I wonder if it would be worth setting up a separate thread for this sort of RPG talk?

I think we're good here, there's only the few of us so we won't complain about straying off topic!

On Thanquol's seriousness, or lack thereof, I agree - it's a 'problem' that extends to how the series has treated Skaven throughout the series so far.  We get it, they're treacherous, maybe dial the comedy dial back a notch or two!  That said, he did pull out some impressive magic early in Dragonslayer so at least he's gotten a moment or two in the sun!

Speaking of, really enjoying Dragonslayer so far - the extended cast, in particular Max and Ulrika, add so much and the early fight between the airship and the chaos dragon was ace.

Wonder what Andy's up to these days, his wiki's a little light (also the first match on his name is now a character from the Green Arrow TV show).

If nothing else, that's a well written article and answers the one question I had going in -

In the end, the question remains: was this worth it? Yes, the auction raised over $5,000 for a worthy cause, but was the environmental cost of the minting of the Mind MGMT NFT outweighed by that donation? A post on Medium from December of last year estimates that a single NFT’s carbon footprint is “equivalent to a EU resident’s total electric power consumption for more than a month, with emissions equivalent to driving for 1000Km, or flying for 2 hours.” It seems unlikely that $5,000 will be enough to offset that footprint.

Hope you and yours have been keeping well, Ade.

It's cool hearing you talk on that period with some knowledge - his bio mentions his various WHF books (G&F, T&T) as well as a 40K series and some work for the Warhammer magazines (White Dwarf and Inferno).

Daemonslayer expanded the cast with the introduction of Max, Ulrika and a host of dwarves including Snorri which was much needed.  And of course there's their nemesis - Thanquol!   

One of the short stories included in the first omnibus

which was poorly placed as they're currently a member of the recurring cast in the 4th book proper!

Wrapped that first omnibus, short stories were all pretty good - impressed by the chap who managed to get a full story done in three pages!

Was going to jump onto something else in the same setting next but Daemon Slayer ended on a semi-cliffhanger so decided to roll right into the second omnibus.

Love the LOTR passion, Avaunt!

Finished Daemonslayer, a dwarf heavy entry in the ballad of Gotrek & Felix though also noticeable for an appearance by Ulrika Magdova who - unless my book shelf is lying to me - has an interesting future ahead of her! 

Overall it's another entertaining if slight read.  I am finding it super weird that there have been no real conversations between Gotrek & Felix themselves over the course of three full books.  It's almost like they never actually talk to each other!

Anyway, couple of short stories left to get through before wrapping the first omnibus.

Finished reading through 68, starts as zombies in the Vietnam war before eventually migrating to zombies in late 60s/early 70s America.  Overall, pretty good - was kind of bummed with the sudden jump to America but they do get back to resolving the story threads lefts in Vietnam so fair enough.  As mentioned elsewhere, lot of racial slurs thrown around which I guess was in keeping with the times but even still it did feel a little excessive at times.  

Definitely felt a bit rushed towards the end, especially in the art department but yeah, glad I read it.

Finished Skavenslayer, kind of an odd read between the amusing antics of the treacherous Skaven and the terrible violence inflicted by all and sundry to all and sundry! 

Enjoyed it but would've preferred if the Skaven threat had been treated a little more seriously.  I did like Felix's little character arc and the story ends with Gotrek being summoned off somewhere so hopefully we'll get to learn a little more about him in the ominously named Daemonslayer!

I actually saw that as a younger lad and the striking visuals of the orcs stuck with me - that's a great clip, love the depiction of Aragorn as more native American in appearance.

I do have the movie trilogy on Blu Ray, if that counts ?

It looks like books will manage to outlast the concept of owning a physical copy of a movie!

I still only have the copy of Fellowship that we got with the graphic adventure game for the C64 back in the day, after finishing it I borrowed a great big single volume tome from one of my uncles that collected the entire trilogy.

It almost feels sacrilegious not to have a copy of the full trilogy on the shelf!

I've gone back to Fellowship too many times to count now but it's been at least a decade since my last foray - I've never gotten very far into a reread, finding the prose far too dry and the story far too familiar to hold my attention for long.  

Same boat as Christian, haven't actually reread many books, could probably count the number on one hand.  That said, I've found that Audiobooks provide a great way to revisit old favourites as they don't take up any 'real' reading time (listen when out and about).

Chunk of the way into Skavenslayer and can confirm that it's one ongoing story this time.  Also Felix still has his magic sword, so I can sleep easier at night now.  While the violence is brutal, the Skaven are written with a nod to the funny, with their scheming ways and not being half as clever as they think they are.  Gotrek hasn't gotten much screentime in either book so far, Felix is very much the POV character.

Finally got around to finishing Troll Slayer, fun read but it's less a novel and more a collection of loosely connected short stories - almost like a procedural TV show, "This week, on Gotrek & Felix...".

A little ways into Skavenslayer and it looks like it'll be focused on an ongoing conflict with...yes, you guessed it....the Skaven!  First chapter/story was good though Fellix appears to have lost his magic sword between books!