by Christian Nonnenbroich

Aaaaaaaaaand we're back. And hey, remember 13 days ago, when I was like "I'm trying to dial back my comic-book-buying gradually at the moment"? Yeah... that was probably a lie. I mean, it wasn't, I really meant it in that moment, but... it didn't work out all that well. As you'll see to my endless embarrassment. Also embarrassing: Yesterday, I was scrolling through some of my older posts, and suddenly, there was a "You blocked this user!"-row in the comments, and I was like "Wait... who the fuck did I block? I never blocked anybody, did I?", and then I clicked on "Show anyway"... and who do you think it was? No, not Kirk. Not Greg. Not Fabian. Not Schaaf. It was... me. I apparently accidentally blocked myself. I didn't even know that was possible, but yeah, I did it. I think I know how it happened. I usually upload photos I take of basically everything via my phone, before then writing the accompanying post on the computer. And when I open the "Gallery"-page here on BGG on my phone, then nine times out of ten, suddenly there's a popup with my profile information, my avatar, my user name, quick links to my profile, stuff like that. And there's also a big red "Hide User's Posts"-link there, which is kind of close to the "Upload images to your gallery"-button, and... apparently, I've tapped that. Whoopsie. I've since unblocked myself, although it was kind of nice to not be subjected to my combative posts in the comments all the time. Oh well. Maybe I'll block myself again, if it becomes too much. So anyway, here are board games:

Two of them, to be precise. For... dubious reasons. I recently had to order something from Amazon, an HDMI-splitter, to be precise, because I weirdly wrecked my old one, and then they told me "Hey, if you buy three other things from this list, you save 5% on all of them", and I was like "I'll be damned if I give Lex Bezos more money, so I'll buy more stuff to give him less, relatively speaking!", because I'm an idiot. And then I looked through whatever qualified, and found some things that we could use for L., and also there were some board games on that list, and one or two didn't seem fucking excruciating.

The first one of those was Duel for Cardia, which I had previously noticed as something that was on BoardGameArena, I'm fairly certain, but never truly investigated. It was published by Hans Im Glück after all (and seems to be a HiG-original, not something licensed from somewhere else), and they don't usually make games that I like very much. But the decent enough rating here on BGG intrigued me, and so I went to BGA and tried to get into a game or two with some randos... and then I bought this. And I've since also gone to eBay and bought the mini expansion, alongside the stuff for the four-player-game, because that doesn't sound all that bad. I've played it a couple of times now, and I'm probably gonna cover it in an "On the table"-post soon. It's interesting. More on that in the near future.

The second one I'm really not proud of. Nah, it's not that bad. It's the German version of Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, a solo-only-game. Yes, I've slagged those off quite a bit in the past. For good reason. Deck of Wonders seemed like an interesting idea, but it fundamentally didn't work in any satisfying way, shape or form. I did play a bunch of original Gloomhaven back in the winter of 2020, though, and I played it exclusively solo, and I had been meaning to maybe get back into it since then, but I never did. So this small version seemed like something that might... I don't want to say "do it for me", but it seemed like something that might be interesting to try out at the very least. It cost next to nothing (well... roughly 17€, maybe that's not "next to nothing"), comes in a tiny box, and... yeah, I'll try it out soon. When exactly? I don't know. Maybe yesterday? This "preparing posts"-thing is confusing.

Okay. Let's check in on the comics-front... What do we have here?

Well, comics, I guess. Twelve of 'em, to be precise. So let's go through them top-left to bottom-right.

"Little Bird: The Fight For Elder's Hope" by Darcy Van Poelgeest is actually the one I'm reading right now. It's about a weird, post-apocalyptic future, where the remnants of Canada try to resist the theocracy from the New Vatican, which is located in the "United Nations of America", and at the forefront, there's a girl and her big, hulking... grandfather, I think? He's a huge, musclebound guy, with a big fuckoff axe (and he's also called "The Axe"), and he uses it to splatter the pages with some really messy gore. It's a bit weird and I don't know yet how much I like it, but... it's brazen, I give it that.
Next one is the first TPB of Brian K. Vaughan's "Saga", which is apparently really good. This thing has been going on for a while and isn't finished yet, the first 72 issues have already been collected in TPBs, so... I don't know, I thought to myself "Maybe I should just buy the first one and see what this is all about". And maybe I will. And then maybe I'll buy more. Or not. Who knows?
"Head Lopper" by Andrew MacLean caught my eye, because it's apparently relatively classical sword-and-sorcery-fantasy-stuff in comic-format, and I was looking for something like that. It's apparently also quite violent. I mean... the main-guy is called "Head Lopper". For reasons, I guess. This one isn't finished yet either, but there's only four collected volumes thus far, so... that's not as big a commitment, I guess.
And then I wondered "Are there comics based on board games?", and apparently, there are. Some. A few. So since this is still kind of a board-game-blog, I thought I should buy the ones that exist. And then I got myself the comic based on Clue. And it's called "Clue". And was written by one Paul Allor. What's more to say about that?
Next row, we've got volume one of "A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance" by Rick Remender, who also did "Seven To Eternity". And yes, the guy on the cover looks a lot like Benedict Wong. That's not an accident. Remender and Wong worked together on the series "Deadly Class", and so when Remender did "A Righteous Thirst For Vengeance", he asked artist André Lima Araújo, whether he could draw the main character a bit like Wong, so that if there's a TV or movie adaptation, Wong could play that part. That hasn't happened yet. But I thought it was interesting.
Then we've got something that isn't based on board games, but at the very least board-game-adjacent. It's "Days Of Endless Adventure", a collection of three comics written by Jim Zub, which are set in the Forgotten Realms. You know? D&D-stuff. Could be fun.
"Step By Bloody Step" by Simon Spurrier, Matías Bergara, and Mat Lopes is apparently a comic completely without text, so I don't know what Spurrier did, but... I might find out soon. It'll probably be a quick "read" because of that.
And then I got the big, super deluxe hardcover version of "Local Man" by Tim Seeley and Tony Fleecs, because it was recommended to me by someone whose judgement I trust a bit. Although I just noticed that he liked the recent "Superman"-movie, so maybe I shouldn't? Anyway, it's apparently a very unique idea for a super hero comic, and it has a weird numbering-thing, where this version consists of issues one through thirteen, and then issue 25, because issues 14 through 24... don't exist? I don't know. It's heavy. So... I'm not looking forward to reading it from a physical point of view, but maybe it's good.
Third row, we have "A Star Called The Sun" by Simon Roy. This is a collection of interconnected sci-fi-short-story-comics that was also recommended to me by the aforementioned person, and since it's a 2026-release, I thought that it could be something relevant I could discuss at some point in time. So I'm gonna do that. At some point in time.
"Bad Dreams In The Night" is also a collection of short-story-comics, this one by Adam Ellis. Kirk recommended that, I think. That's the adamtots-guy from Instagram, I guess. I actually ordered two books by him, but the second hasn't arrived yet. I might check this one out as a "read in between bigger comics"-thing when I'm done with the first "Army Of Darkness"-omnibus. Or maybe I'll read "A Star Called The Sun" first. I don't know.
More short stories! Well... maybe not super-short. "Tapping The Vein" is a TPB collecting I think eight adaptations of short stories from Clive Barker's "The Books Of Blood", illustrated by a variety of people. I already had issue one sitting on my shelf, but I thought that if I'm such a huge fan of Barker, maybe I should get the whole thing. And then I did that. These things are really verbose, though, so they probably aren't quick reads. We'll see.
And the last one I actually had to buy twice. When I first got "We3" by Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly, I noticed that I had been sent a French version of the comic, and while I don't NOT speak French, I don't want to read comics in French. Especially not American comics. Or Scottish comics. Or whatever. Anglophone comics. That's the word. Anyway, this is about three cyborg-dogs who want to go home, or something like that. Sounds good to me.

"But these were only twelve, and in your previous post, you had fifteen, so you ARE dialing it back, right?" someone might say now. Well... sorry to disappoint you. BUT HERE'S SOME MORE!

Not all of these things are comics, but yeah, the eight additional ones bring the tally to twenty. Fuck.

So anyway, there's "Gutter Magic" by Rich Douek and Brett Barkley. I don't know what that is. It's apparently not great. But it was cheap. Fuck. I'm doing it again. Yeah, six of the eight comics here, I bought alongside "A Star Called The Sun", because a) they were cheap, and b) I wanted to save on shipping costs.
Not the next one, though. That's the "Moon Knight" TPB by Jeff Lemire, Greg Smallwood (any relation to Karl?), and Jordie Bellaire. As mentioned recently, I thought to myself that I might have fun reading some DC or Marvel-stuff that can be enjoyed relatively detached from the mighty canon, and this collection of "Moon Knight" often came up as something that is that. Also it's by Lemire again. The guy seems to keep following me...
Then I got "The Last Siege" by Landry Q. Walker, Justin Greenwood, and Eric Jones. "Spaghetti western storytelling meets Game Of Thrones atmosphere" some blurb said. I don't know what that means. It's apparently also not great. But it was decently cheap, so... might as well check this out. It's relatively short, so if it's not great, not much harm done.
"Chicacabra" by Tom Beland apparently IS quite good. Say 79 people on Goodreads, and when have THEY been wrong last? It's about a Puerto Rican girl who is secretly a Chupacabra. That sounds... like something that could be in a comic. Also it was cheap.
Ditto "The Dark Room" by Gerry Duggan, Scott Buoncristiano, Tamra Bonvillain, and Joe Sabino. That one apparently gets a sequel this December, so it can't be THAT bad. Right? RIGHT? Yeah, also makes it one that might have some contemporary relevance. Great. I should read it before December, then. And if it's good, I might get volume two.
"Captain America: Winter Soldier" by Ed Brubaker is another one of these "I want to read some Marvel-stuff"-situations. This is apparently a very good comic, which is probably undermined just a bit by the fact that it has (sort of) been adapted into a movie more than ten years ago, and therefore everybody knows who the titular "Winter Soldier" is. But I like that movie (and the "Winter Soldier"), so I thought it would be interesting to check out the inspiration for it.
I kind of wanted to get "Fight Club 3" by Chuck Palahniuk and Cameron Stewart. Not because I thought it would be great. It's probably gonna suck. I hated "Fight Club 2", but apparently, "Fight Club 3" is even worse, and that shit I gotta see myself. So since it was available at a pretty substantial discount (I spent 12.50€ on the hardcover), I was like "That probably makes sense in some way, shape or form" and bought it. It's gonna be so fucking bad. But you did it again, Chuck. You got my money. Or something like that.
And the final comic book is "Cult Classic: Return To Whisper" by Eliot Rahal. Apparently the first part in a series of anthology-horror-comics? I don't know. It was cheap. What do you want from me?

But wait, we've got more. Because in the final row, we have two TTRPG-books. Four Borg, which is a tongue-in-cheek-adaptation of MÖRK BORG, and Mörk Org, which is similar to but different from Corp Borg in some way. I don't know in which way. But it's one more MÖRK BORG-product for my shelf. Great.
I've also bought a DVD AND a BluRay. The BluRay is "Ghost Shark", which is one of those shitty low-budget-shark-movies that were popular ten to fifteen years ago. I recently read the book "Motherfucking Sharks", which was shit, but then because of that, I saw some GIFs from "Ghost Shark", because there are some similarities, and they looked so dumb, that I thought I could spend some money to watch that whole thing. It's about the ghost of a shark that can basically emerge from EVERY body of water to kill people. Sounds fun. The other one is "Torrente", which is apparently a very popular movie in its country of origin, Spain. It was written, directed, and is starring Santiago Segura, who I knew beforehand as "Speedball" from "Beyond Re-Animator", but then when I recently watched "El Dia De La Bestia", I began to notice that the guy apparently is a household name and very popular in Spain. For example, he's one of the hosts of the Spanish version of "LOL". Weird coincidence. He also made these "Torrente"-movies, where he is a stupid, sexist, homophobic policeman, who... probably does something. I don't know. And these movies are apparently the highest grossing Spanish movie franchise of all time. So I thought that maybe I should get the first one and watch it. And maybe I'll do that. Fingers crossed that it's good.
Also this month's sock-subscription arrived. It's called "Exctinct", and it's better than most of these subscription-socks. Many are just a uniformly colored background with some images scattered across it, but these ones? They look nice. Of course I also have the matching shorts. So that's... something you probably didn't want to know.

And that's it. That's what came in recently. And FUCK. Tomorrow is the 26th day of the month, and I had intended to do a "Do you know...?" about a movie, but now, because of the DVD and the BluRay, I have to categorize this post as "Media: Movies & TV", and I can't do two posts in the same category back to back. It's against the law or something. Only... rules are made to be broken, right? So... fuck it, I'm gonna tell you about a stupid movie tomorrow, and nobody can stop me! You can look forward to that. See you then!

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by Bifford [White Hare Games] (Sam)

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On DCC
by [username=Bifford]Bifford[/username]

Dungeon Crawler Carl seems to be everywhere at the moment. I've seen people calling it DCC. For me and a lot of people DCC will always stand for Dungeon Crawl Classics by Goodman Games, and I do not understand why they are letting this happen.

The first word is identical, the second word is basically identical, and the third starts with the same letter. It would be like someone releasing a game called Dungeons & Deities and wanting to call it D&D. Or Call off Cats, while shortening it to CoC. If that ever happened WotC and Chaosium would be up in arms, filing "Cease and desist" paperwork and basically having a go. So why isn't Goodman Games? DCC is synonymous with them and their game.

Anyone want to enlighten me?


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by anglotiger

$16.00 for RPG Item: Pendragon Starter Set
Condition: New
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by Rachel Carpenter

Dell SupportAssist ran today! Yay! My laptop is definitely nearing the end of its life, but today was a good day. I'm hoping to get a few more months or service out of it and still haven't figured out a replacement...

Stressing. That seems be my default these days. Given today's maintenance. I'm hopeful of getting more actual work done tomorrow and then, we'll see. Pretty sure my end of June deadline for ordering my next batch of proof copies is going to get pushed to mid-July. Not much I can do but just keep working and hope something catches on. No real progress to report on pitching. Soooo Game Crafter is the plan for most of my games. For now. Plus, I need to get back on top of the active contests and get some new projects going...

I'm doing pretty good at staying on top of my non-BGG socials, I'm a bit behind on SGOYT, and I need to work on the next few Mythic Monday posts too...

Busy, busy

Happy Wednesday and happy playing!
-Rachel

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