MIDNIGHT CHANNEL THOUGHTS 2

they say if you watch the tv at a certain time on a blank channel you might see someone you know....

In the game Persona 4 there's a feature called "The Midnight Channel" that the plot of the game focuses on. As is counterpart, Persona 3 focuses mainly on the "Dark Hour" a hidden hour at midnight that serves as a mysterious and ultimately sinister twenty-fifth hour.

Persona 4's plot is openly more sinister for other reasons, though "The Midnight Channel" helps a great deal to lend to the mysterious atmosphere that the story evokes.

I like games that are mysterious because they make me think the most. A shortlist of games that are mysterious that I enjoy the most seem to have a common factor: An element of plot that is seemingly occult in origin that drives the rest of the story. Hotline Miami and the strange phone calls our protagonist receives, The later persona series and an underpinning fascination with mysticism.
The World Ends with You and the bizarre game that the dead are forced to play.

Midnight also happens to be when I've always found I have my best thoughts and the biggest drive to create things. When I was younger I was mostly overjoyed to get my own computer because it meant I'd be able to wake in the night at make things.

This is, surprisingly because of my adult-enforced apathy, an opportunity I kind of left squandered for a long time. So often in adulthood to we kind of lose track of the basic weird mysticism that we sort of unconsciously live our lives by that it can happen for a long time without us even noticing.

I haven't been playing Persona lately so it's kind of weird that I would realize this now. I haven't really even playing very many good videogames or reading that much lately period. I've been playing a lot of Enslaved on the PS3 and thinking about how the game relates to something like Nier, another game focusing on a sort of nameless man guiding someone through a dying world.

That's something I want to touch on later. This post is sort of meant as an outline or a plan of some things I want to do. At the top of that list is still my Devil May Cry features which I have a renewed interest in knowing that DMC: Dumpy Man Comboer is going to be getting a re-release with some added features.

Further down that line is whatever I feel like writing about Enslaved and Nier. I especially want to compare Nier to another title because it's really been written about as its own thing a lot so it'll be kind of handy to get more things drawing comparisons between it and other similar works.

Though it's kind of late for a new resolution its equally important we take some time to set out some goals, even if we're messed up dudes with no skin or organs!

In the coming year the most important thing for SKELETON PARTY is going to be having some more original fiction. There's something very exciting I want to do that's sort of meant exclusively for people who love videogames and the worlds in there.

Anyway, that's all for tonight. Midnight Channel Thoughts 2 might imply a first. Might conjecture a third.

typical february post

i haven't been reading as many comics lately as I feel like I need to to uphold some sort of Sacred Nerd Duty but okay here goes:

through the holidays I dropped off how much I was reading in general. I didn't really leave myself enough time to keep following Gamergate until recently diving back in because I was too busy kind of avoiding the internet altogether.

Here's What I Read:

The Ruby Throne
Wisely avoiding making any comments about how it existed before fantasy readers were ever concerned with the going-ons surrounding a particular iron throne. 

Elric of Melnibone is a holdover from an older era of Fantasy literature before it was mostly a genre that pandered widely to younger readers with occasional trips by much older authors to imbue fantasy worlds with some sense of political intrigue. The Ruby Throne chronicles one of the first (chronological) stories starring the titular Elric of Melnibone, who was doing the whole White Wolf thing years before Geralt of Rivia was ever put under pen.
The thing that other adaptations of Michael Moorcock's albino adventurer have missed is they had a tendency to make the Melniboneans more regal then they were depraved - often missing out on Moorcock's intentions of painting almost all figures of "royal" leadership as out and out sadists.
Brilliantly (and gorgeously) realized here is the Melnibonean empire in all of it's depraved glory. 

This is an adaptation of Elric that I only hope continues to stay this good as future volumes are released.

 
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man
Hey, remember Gail Simone's Secret Six, the series that was so good it even got picked up again late into the New-5?
The Superior Foes of Spider-Man is a similar pitch, but hinges on the idea that Spider-Man has enough C-list villains to make interesting.
Superior Foes has no real lynchpin character like Secret Six had Bane or Scandal Savage: Ultimately not one character is really likable enough to care about, but Superior Foes covers up how depressing it is by wielding sardonic humor that distracts you from how absolutely awful it would be to try and make ends meet as a supervillain in the Marvel universe. Despite bearing "The Superior" as a tagline it's not actually necessary to read The Superior Spider-Man in order to understand what this book is about. Heck! It's not even necessary to have any exposure to the characters to get this book - the last time I saw the Shocker in anything Spider-Man was still trying to catch him.

Green Arrow: Quiver (#1 - 10) 

RIP Kevin Smith, who couldn't go a single issue of Green Arrow without making a dick joke.
I think his favorite piece of human anatomy (maybe the only one he ever touched) is his own cock because he fills everything he writes with lurid "adult humor" whether or not it's creepy or not for the character in question to be talking in his "signature style"
This series hasn't aged well, but is interesting to look at for how it sets up the series that immediately would follow it. Kevin Smith only really made one solid contribution to Green Arrow canon in this entire run besides the
introduction of a new superheroine, so it's worth checking this out just to see a villain that fans kind of unanimously love.


Rocket Girl 

Rocket Girl is kind of like John Hughes directing a pulp adventure movie as given life by Harold Ramis. In reading about Rocket Girl, other writers have lended to saying the comic is inspired by manga - but this is 80's hollywood genre blending at its finest and it especially shows in the kind of relaxed way the plot developers and the characters interact.
Most of all, Rocket Girl leaves me wanting to see more of what the creators manage to come up with on future projects.

 Hexed

Hexed is one of my comic-store finds where I almost exclusively pick something by how much the cover manages to convey the subject matter and tone on the inside. Hexed reached out immediately with the striking lines of Emma Rios' art on the cover and is exactly the kind of supernatural story I like. Rather then take an old played out page and cast the protagonist as a wry and sarcastic (if tortured) occult detective, Hexed settles us with a selfless protagonist who always seems to be working towards some kind of greater good rather then any long-standing personal obligation or redemption. That's not to say the comic can't do moody or creepy well: It most certainly has that in spades, it's just not always that kind of comic.

SUNDOWNERS

Sundowners has left me still not entirely sure what to think about it. It's got a concept we've seen with superhero books before (the ol' "are they crazy or really superheroes" pitch and takes it a little bit weird by mixing in some occult stylings and H.P Lovecraft influence. What drew me in about Sundowners though was the way the artist works their use of colors and tones to not only set mood - but also remind me of Mike Allred meant that as soon as I flipped through the interior I had to pick it up. Artistic obligations have me still buying this whenever I see it, but I would hold off unless you're the kind of person who likes to read a book here and there just for the way it looks.




 and finally, C.O.W.L.

Being the only series that I researched before going out and deciding to buy, C.O.W.L. still stays among the standouts and is the most memorable thing I got into over the holiday break.
Kyle Higgins has cast a world with superheroes in a believable light by setting it in a world where the way these characters functioned was absolutely necessary to the peace and stability of how this world worked - and then introduces us to the characters and their various desires and failings through a story that is a slow burn in a profoundly interesting way. C.O.W.L. is a superhero book for people that don't usually read them that's peppered with takes on storytelling devices that comic fans have been devouring for years.