And Skip a Few More…

Journal 147: 28 April- 11 May 2025

These last couple weeks have been a blur to be honest.

Last weekend was Free Comic Book Day (FCBD) and everything revolved around it. My schedule was up ended and I really don’t have much to show for the last two weeks.

I barely watched any dramas, I did read and catch up on some of my comics, and even most of my game nights were canceled or put on hold. So, what the hell did I actually do all that time?

FCBD

This was my 6^th FCBD and it might be the last one ever. As the main distributor of comics has been sold off and split in two. Diamond Distributors was the impetus behind FCBD day, it was their idea, there marketing, and it was probably the most profitable day for a comic shops across the country.

At least at my shop it has always been the busiest day of the year. Usually with sales surpassing the rest of the week combined, and this FCBD was exactly that. We’ve been participating in them since the very first one.

Now that Diamond has been sold to a new company (two companies) we wonder if the new owners will continue the promotion. We’ve already started to plan our own event for the day if FCBD doesn’t happen next year. A sale and artist signing, with some extras still being discussed.

Media Consumption?

So, that was the middle of the last two weeks, FCBD was the 3^rd of May… what about anything else?

I picked two k-dramas that are all right, but not super exciting to me. Well, that’s not fair, one is not very exciting and the other is great but I fell like taking breaks from it a lot.

Jinxed at First is the first show, it’s a bit of a romcom but its weird. I like the actors from other shows, but here I’m just ok with them. I’m not excited to watch the show and I might drop it.

The Devil Judge  is the perfect near future dystopian story. I really love the actors and when I do watch it I usually get through 2 or 3 episodes. But for some reason I usually stop after two. I think the fact that the episodes are nearly 90 minutes each might be the problem. It’s 16 episodes but 24 hours long to get through.

I’m also watching Kamen Rider Geats on bluray. Since I can only watch that when I’m home in my room… just haven’t had the time to get in more episodes. And I picked up some more dvds and blurays for my birthday and I’m looking at the stack of them.

Movies

I did get in a couple movies and another short series in the last two weeks. I watched Companion, Havoc, and Devil May Cry, all on Netflix.

The first was fun and by the last half it had gone batshit crazy. Not my favorite by and far, but Jack Quaid is always fun, and he spirals out of control during the movie.

Havoc is a must watch if you like Tom Hardy, crazy action/gun sequences, dirty cops and gangsters, and stuff like that. I will admit there is a level of stupidity involved in the plot that makes me think almost all the characters are just assholes and idiots. But I don’t think it will bother the casual viewer as much as it bothers my writer’s brain.

And the last one, I don’t play a lot of video games, only a handful, and I thinkni only played DMC3 or 4? I don’t even remember which one it was I just know it was late in the series and PS3? Maybe. In any case, the show was fun to watch, the White Rabbit is an awesome villain… visually cool but actually well-written. If you know you know, but a really good villain is one where you can understand where they are coming from. Maybe even agree with them, and by the end, I agreed with the White Rabbit, even if he was a little insane.

Reading, Comics and…

So, if I wasn’t watching a bunch of subtitled kdramas, and I didn’t have three games a week… what else did I do?

Not much.

I did catch up to April comics. I was about 8 weeks behind in my reading and now I’m about three weeks back now. Not counting the 80+ trades I have to read (or 600+ novels in my room as well and that is NOT hyperbole).

Recently—back at Christmas and this week—I got my hands on some Fighting Fantasy books and other solo RPG books. I’ve looked over the rules, and how they wrok as each series has different mechanics and I’ve played around with them a little.

Webtoons. A bunch of the k-dramas I like to watch are based on webtoons, and my Discord group gave me a link to read some of them. So, I went down an online comic rabbit-hole. Lost a couple days to that.

And that literally covers the last two weeks.

Oh Wait…

I also Put a lot of time into trying out more actual play groups on YouTube.

I spent an entire week listening to episodes of Into the Darkness playing various Call of Cthulhu scenarios, including the first 12 episodes of Horror on the Orient Express and the BEST, comedic CoC scenario I have ever seen, There is a monster at the end of the scenario.

I then tried out Natural Six and their “Session Zero” which was NOT a session zero and was OK. It’s a bunch of British voice actor and YouTube people playing DnD… but it also has the problem of no one really knowing the game that well.

I don’t mind if some of the players are completely new and you’re using their star power to draw people, but when the DM is unsure of the rules and what they’re doing…. He is a great story teller and wrote some good passages to intro scenes and setting. And he knows all the basic rules, but then he drops the ball on very specific things.

I then tried out the first episode of Tales of Avantris… and then is interesting as well. I know this group has tons of clips that show up on my Instagram. They seem really fun, and this show is literally a normal group of REAL gamers just sitting around their table playing the game and swearing.

It feels like my friends and like I could just sit down and have a good time with them. I also assume that after 6 years they improve where they play and the cameras and all of that. The only drawback is that the first video is seven hours long and the rest are close to that or four hours later on. Which has the critical role problem of I need to watch the episode over several days.

In any case, it’s the most realistic DnD outside of Glass Cannon… and maybe Into the Darkness, though those channels DON’T play DnD they play other games. I probably should have said the most realistic “roleplaying at a table.”

Outro

I don’t know what else to talk about and have a bunch of things going on this morning… including mother’s day. Got to go. Sorry I have nothing else to talk about.