posted by Chris on October 31, 2006 12:34 PM in Books
It's been 12 years since the release Scott McCloud's eye-opening bible on sequential art, Understanding Comics, and 6 since his follow up, Reinventing Comics. Since its release, Understanding Comics had achieved much acclaim for helping bring understanding to the comic world. Not so much for people who are already creating comics, but more as an argument for comics as an art form, directed towards people maybe unfamiliar with the subject. McCloud was able to put into simple terms how comics work, why they work, and why they should be regarded as more than just kiddy funny papers. He writes in a style instantly relatable to people, he is an explainer in the highest sense of the word. The ultimate teacher. In Making Comics, McCloud is able to express exactly what you need to know in order to make a comic work. Hit the jump for my full review, and to find out why not only is this an essential book for any aspiring (or currently successful) comic artist's collection, but an essential book for the art form as a whole.
posted by Mike on October 26, 2006 6:46 PM in Music
Today I'll start the first of a new Weekly Geek music miniseries. Most of us rabid gamers and followers of nerd culture grew up in the musically confusing decade of the 1980's. So once a month (until I get sick of writing about it), I'll be looking at some of the most enduring albums to make it out of the new-wave era gasping for air.
We'll begin with a record by a band best known for creating the song "It's My Life," which was later butchered at the hands of Gwen Stefani and No Doubt. Talk Talk made two incredible albums in the mid to late 80's: Laughing Stock and The Colour of Spring. The latter and more accessible of the two is more or less about a man having a crisis of faith- in humanity, in religion, and in himself. Solace for the narrator is only found giving in to reality and accepting the surrounding problems and trying to live a respectable life going forward.
Mark Hollis, Talk Talk's singer/songwriter, voices the album's theme in a very strange way. At times, he seems to be forcing and straining the notes out through the top of his head and bringing out all of his thoughts through osmosis. The opening song "Happiness Is Easy" is nearing on sarcastic. Hollis pokes fun at death and pretends that it's easy to put on a smiling face. He works through his doubts methodically in the piano and organ driven tracks like "I Don't Believe In You," and eventually finds comfort in the driving, percussive "Life's What You Make It."
You know when you are feeling sick, depressed or otherwise down you always turn to that certain pick-me-up game. Maybe its all rainy outside and gloomy, you're vomiting buckets and you need something to pass the time and keep you from killing yourself. Comfort games are a big part of gamer's lives, and here is the top 5 comfort games from The Weekly Geek. Enjoy!
Frodo
Katamari Damacy - Classic gameplay, easy to pick up and stop whenever you want to, and a soundtrack so familiar it might as well be the theme to my life. It's the combo of great gameplay and cozy j-pop that make this a comfort game for me.
Harvest Moon - It's hard to not find comfort in a game like Harvest Moon, where repetitive tasks become routine as you slowly build your farm empire. No action here, just all relaxing.
Animal Crossing - I used to fall asleep playing the Gamecube version and just leave the title screen on all night, with the music still going. Now with the DS version, I still fall asleep to it, but I don't have to lug a huge tv into bed with me.
World of Warcraft - WoW is just so easy to turn on and find something, anything to do to take your mind off of things. Check the auction house, do some crafting, or sit back and get into a 4 hour raid group. Tons of stuff to keep you occupied, and you can still be social while you are sick! Neat!
Final Fantasy 9 - Something about FFIX struck me the first time I played it. It was like FFVI all over again, great midieval storyline with well-defined characters, memorable soundtrack, lush landscapes and the tried and true Final Fantasy RPG random battle system. It's like coming home, everything is strangely familiar and cozy, like a hug. I think I will be the first person ever to describe FFIX as "a hug".
White Mage
To me a comfort game needs to be open-ended or one you can play over and over and it never gets old. Honorable Mention: Animal Crossing – Seeing as this game has no end, it is perfect.
Harvest Moon – I'm a newcomer to this series but the style is just right for a comfort game.
Tetris – I’ve been playing Tetris since I was 7. My childhood was a happy time and I played Tetris as a child; therefore the game is a good pick-me-up.
Wild Arms – This is a RPG series that never gets old to me. The original was the first game I ever finished and I have replayed/restarted it many times. The last time I was sick, I played through 30+ hours of Wild Arms 2. The music and the simple style of the series make these great comfort games.
Final Fantasy Tactics – I started this game 9 years ago and I am still playing the same save file. I made a choice early on to level all my characters to their max before progressing (since I watched The Geek finish the game before I started my own). This made the game nearly open-ended. I have used this game for comfort in the past and continue to come back to it.
Azure Dreams – I rented this obscure game 9 years ago and got so hooked I had to buy it, even though The Geek and I were just dating and the Playstation was his. On your 15th birthday you decide to go earn your fortune in the Monster Tower. Every floor of the tower is randomly generated on each visit and you always start at level one. You search the tower for treasure to keep or sell and hope to find a monster egg. You can sell the eggs or hatch them and raise the familiars. Familiars gain experience in the tower and they keep the experience they earn (so you are level one when you enter the tower but your familiar may be level 10.) As you reach certain floors in the tower and earn money you are able to improve your hometown and woo girlfriends. Azure Dreams is an almost open-ended dating, collection, rpg, puzzle game that I am determined to finish someday.
The Geek
Tetris: - C'mon man, it's Tetris. Everybody likes Tetris. It's just a great simple game to just drop right into and zone out.
Halo 2: - I know, I know, Halo? Yeah, Halo. I'm talking about the online multiplayer. Between Xbox Live being such a good service and the fact that there's about 2 bazillion people playing Halo 2 online at any given time, it's a great game to just plop on the couch for a while, log in, and just shoot some people. And contrary to what ol' JT will tell you, shooting the hell out of a bunch of strangers online is very cathartic.
Katamari Damacy: - Roll the Katamari. Collect stuff. Get bigger. Roll the Katamari. Collect stuff. Get bigger. Roll the Katamari. Collect stuff. Get bigger. Smile.
Mega Man X: - MMX is a true classic in every sense of the word. I love the visuals, the music, the animation, everything. It's fun to just blast your way through levels and then use the right weapon against the boss. The thing I really love about that part is the fact that the weapon the bosses are weak against actually have a physical effect. Chill Penguin gets set ablaze, Spark Mandrill is frozen in his tracks, etc.
Super Mario World: - SMW is one of the all-time greatest platformers. And with good reason. Bright, beautiful visuals, fun level design, creative enemies, lots of hidden exits, smooth sprite animation, wonderful music, and still a decent challenge to boot. The best part about it that makes it a great comfort game is the fact that I can go back to any level at any time once I've cleared them all. Just a couple of weeks ago, I loaded up the old SNES with Super Mario World, hit the Secret Area to load up on some power ups and hitch a ride on Yoshi, and then just picked and chose some of my favorite levels to run through. And then I went and beat the game just so I could hear the end music. Man, I love that ending music.
Caspian
Any 2K Sports Hockey Game - I know I'm not in the company of many sports game fans here, but the top element of a comfort game for me is one that you don't really have to think about playing. There's nothing quite like smashing some CPU skaters into the glass, watching the red light go off when you fire a wrist shot past the goalie, or watching the zamboni sweep the ice clean on the intermissions. Pretty theraputic after a sucky day at work.
Final Fantasy IV - Classic Turn-Based RPG action is the best genre of comfort game, in my opinion, and I always go back to the one I first fell in love with. I'm gonna have to pick that one up on Game Boy Advanced.
Tetris - I have to side with The Geek on this one. Not only is it a fantastic comfort game, but with it on my cell phone, it's also a great "i have ten minutes to kill and I'm nowhere near a game system" game.
Any PS2 Grand Theft Auto Game - Sometimes there's something getting in the way of my comfort. And that's my intense ANGER and FRUSTRATION!!! Ahhhhhhhhh!!! (Shoots a cop.) (Punches a pedestrian.) (Rips off a Ferrari.) ... I'm feeling comforted already.
Reading a Book - Seriously. Pick one up. And yeah, I could only think of a Top 4 Comfort Games. Sorry guys.
posted by Chris on October 22, 2006 6:39 PM in Podcast
This week on THE WEEKLY GEEK'S VIDEO GAME AND GEEK CULTURE PODCAST!!!!!! Ranting abounds! Frodo rants about stupid people and bad business while The Geek is helpless but to listen! Toy photography is discussed, Wii updates are touched upon, and actual good Sony news is revealed! Shock! Horror!
Today's Freelance Review comes to us courtesy of Jay "Solid Squall" Kuskopf. Please listen quitley and maybe you'll get milk and cookies afterward if you're good.
Overview
Splinter Cell: Double Agent for Xbox 360 is the latest stealth/action game in Ubisoft’s Splinter Cell franchise. For those people who have never played a Splinter Cell game before, here’s the rundown. You play as Sam Fisher, super spy extraordinaire, working for the National Security Agency’s most secret department, Third Echelon. As a 40 year old veteran of the spy business, Sam is the guy that gets the toughest and most important missions around. Usually tasked with either stealing documents and information, or assassinating high priority targets, this latest game sees Sam taking on the job of infiltrating a terrorist organisation know as John Brown’s Army, to gather intel and sabotage their operations from the inside. Over the course of about 10 hours, you and Sam will embark on an adventure full of shooting, stabbing, choking, maiming and stealing. Good stuff. Also included in the game is a highly enjoyable multiplayer mode, but more on that later.
Overview:
It's Mortal Kombat. Featuring all 60 fighters from every Mortal Kombat game, this is the one to own. It also features a "Kreate a Kombatant" character creation mode, a wacky cart racer (inexplicably called "Motor Kombat" instead of the more obvious "Kart Kombat") and a lame story mode. But you don't play Mortal Kombat for the story! You play it for the FIGHTING! Read on to find out why this game is generic, but awesome.
Overview:
Mercury Meltdown is the latest in a series of puzzle games by Ignition Entertainment for the PSP. You control a board much like in Super Monkey Ball, and a little blob of mercury rolls around on it. You must take your blob to the end of the level, solving whatever puzzles are in your way, and retaining a pre-specified amount of your mercury. You can change colors, shape, forms, split in two, split in many parts, have parts fall off and get attacked by creatures that like to eat the liquid metal. It's a puzzle game that feels like The Incredible Machine meets Monkey Ball meets Marble Madness, but there's so much more. In a time where great PSP games are few and far between, Mercury Meltdown is a welcome sight. Click the jump for the full review.
posted by Chris on October 19, 2006 9:45 AM in Music
Sufjan Stevens's Come on Feel the Illinoise was the highest rated album of 2005 according to Metacritic, and with good reason. His song writing is amazing, and unlike many bands, his live shows parallel if not exceed his studio recordings. This past week, Caspian and I had the awesome privlidge to see Sufjan Stevens live with opening act My Brightest Diamond, and we decided to do a dualing review!
This past weekend we did some pumpkin carving, and of course being a gigantic geek I had to do some game related pumpkins. So here we have my wife's generic pumpkin, my Katamari pumpkin and my ode to the Triforce. You can see my repositioning of the pumpkin's stem to the Prince's antenna. Also you can make out the Sharpie™ marks from where I cut the pieces out. I probably should have used non-permanent marker...
Back on the radio we used to do these things called "Top 5 Lists" which are named thusly because 5 is better than 10, naturally. We'd go down a list of what we thought was the best of the best and we'd like to bring back the tradition with this week's list:
Frodo
5. Online Distribution We are really just seeing the beginning of this innovation in gaming, but I believe that games aren't going to be sold in physical form in the very near future. The ability to purchase and immediately download a game is incredibly convenient, both for consumers and developers. It saves on production and packaging costs and allows for smaller developers to get their feet wet by not having to cater to big retail markets.
4. Experience Points The ability to level up your character in a game, get stronger and learn new abilities was a huge leap forward. It helped with immersion, you became more invested in your character and the satisfaction of learning a new skill or getting to the highest level is excellent.
3. Battery Save Adding a battery save feature to home games allowed for longer games in general. With the console revolution, game developers no longer had to make games ridiculously difficult in order to sap quarters out of kids. Now they had to make games that would last, that people would want to play for long periods of time. These games required many sittings, and wouldn't be possible without the convenience of the battery save.
2. Serious Narrative Who would have thought that games could make you cry? Squaresoft did when they released Final Fantasy for the NES in 1990. Adding an actual storyline taken seriously was a huge step forward from the days of fighting generic aliens or jumping on anthropomorphic mushrooms (sorry, Mario).
1. Home Gaming When the arcade was brought home, the joystick was turned into a d-pad and we no longer had to pump quarters into the machine to have our fun is when the true gaming revolution started.
The Geek
Honorable Mention - Downloadable Content: This one barely missed making the list because while it's totally awesome to be able to get new content for a game and therefore adding to its value, many times developers take this as a liscense to push out incomplete games and then charge you for the bits and pieces that they're missing.
5.Cel Shading When we moved from sprites to polygons, it was more of a new technical improvement for just more detailed graphics. But the use of cel shading gives game developers the ability to be truly artistic with their visuals instead of just more photorealistic.
4. Wireless Controllers Now that I own my own living residence, I prefer to sit back on the couch instead of the floor right in front of the TV. Wireless controllers give me the ability to really sit where and how I want. Plus, I don't have to worry about someone tripping over the cord. And I'm talking about the good ones developed in recent years, like the Wavebird. Not those crummy old IR ones for the NES that had a range of about 12 inches and had to pointed directly at the receiver at all times.
3. Portable Gaming The ability to take good, quality games anywhere you go is just plain awesome. Stuff like Game and Watch or those old Tiger Electronics games were more of a novelty, where as true handheld gaming units such as the GameBoy really brought the medium into its own.
2. Online Multiplayer From the early days of MUDs and old games like Doom or Command and Conquer, being able to play with complete strangers at a moment's notice or to connect with a friend across town, online gaming really expanded the reach of video games, even if it was just over a screechy 14.4k modem. But now that Microsoft has almost perfectly refined the experience with Xbox Live, online gaming is almost it's own seperate entity instead of just a neat way to play 2 Players without having the other person in the room. Many games are centered solely around it (MMOs), and some games have a fully fleshed out secondary game that are just as good as the single player(Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory).
1. The D-Pad Most people really don't appreciate how the simple Directional Pad has changed the way games are played. Being able to control your up/down/left/right function with just your thumb freed up the rest of your dexterity because your left hand wasn't completely wrapped around the joystick, and your right hand wasn't holding the joystick base any more. That lead to the availablity of more buttons for more functionality for both of your hands. And the ability to just easily slide your thumb around on the D-Pad allows for more precise and fluild controls than trying to yank a joystick back and forth.
White Mage
5. Rumble It added another dimension to the gaming experience.
4. Wireless controllers No one likes to be tied down.
3. Online gameplay Text RPGs on Compuserve, Yahoo!Games, MMOs, Xbox Live, Nintendo Wi-Fi, whatever form it takes. It allows access to more games and interaction with strangers who share your interest.
2. Music Having music with a game and not just sound effects.
1. Save Nothing frustrated me more as a kid than having to start over from the beginning every time I wanted to play Super Mario Bros. Then came The Legend of Zelda and my world changed.
Caspian
5. High Definition Gaming We have yet to see the full potential of this, and PC gamers have been playing with better resolution for ages, but for Consolers, this might be a revelation of sorts as the NextGen games start getting more intense.
4. 32 & 64 Bit Graphic Systems This really opened the flood gates for more 3D rendering in games. People started looking more realistic, environments started looking more rich, gamers started smiling.
3. The "More-Than-Two-Button" Controller Sega Genesis and Super Nintendo both were responsible for this. Let's face it, NES was awesome, but we all wanted more options than A & B.
2. Gameboy Even though all you could really do was play Tetris on it, it was still frickin' cool that you could take your gaming on the road.
1. The Atari Any previous gaming systems really didn't match the fun or necessity of their arcade counterparts until Atari came.
What's your Top 5 Innovations in Gaming? Do you think some of our lists are completely retarded? Post your opinions in the comments!
posted by Chris on October 16, 2006 6:48 AM in Podcast
This week, The Geek and Frodo discuss Wii preorders, Red Steel multiplayer, Clover Studios being shut down, G4 being absorbed by the gelatinous blob that is E!, Blizzard stealing money from people, video game halloween pumpkins, eventually seeing scrotum, Mortal Kombat: Armageddon, Mercury Meltdown for the PSP and more. Have some delicious show notes.
posted by Mike on October 12, 2006 6:55 PM in Music
This month will be three years since Elliott Smith committed suicide. He was a beautiful artist unable to overcome the demons of being abused as a child. His musical flare often recalled the Beatles, but he made the same sweet melodies by himself that it took four of them to craft.
I first discovered his music in 2000 when a friend was playing a tape of Figure 8 in her car. Upon first hearing the honesty and humility in his voice, I was instantly magnetized. No matter how many studio layers were piled on, his vocals always pierced as if he was singing to you in the same room.
There are many famous artists who have taken their own lives in their musical prime, but Elliott Smith was the only one that I honestly felt robbed to lose.
Thanks for the music Elliott. "I'm gonna talk in my sleep tonight 'cause I don't know what I am. I'm a little like you, more like Son of Sam."
posted by Chris on October 9, 2006 4:52 PM in Games
As promised from this week's podcast, here are the official Weekly Geek Mii avatars. Post your own Mii in the comments! Here is the link for Mii creation. Get to it!
posted by Chris on October 9, 2006 6:46 AM in Podcast
Welcome to this week's geek culture and gaming podcast show notes! How are you today? Great. This week, The Geek, White Mage and Frodo talk about how Sony is delusional again, naked wii photos, mii customization, the downfalls of console bashing and being a fanboy, in-game advertising is awesome buy Mountain Dew, Nerf game controllers, the Daily Show, The Evil Dead Musical, halloween tips and stuff! STUFF! IT'S EVERYWHERE!
I've been sick the last two weeks so Thursday was the first SRA3 raid I was able to attend in a while. It was definitely a lucky night to be back. During the course of our eight boss run, twenty-six epic items dropped. Twenty-six! I won two items! I received my Lawbringer Boots and Lawbringer Belt. Now I’m just one piece away from having my full Tier 1 Raid armor set. Can you tell from the picture which one? ;)
Starting next week, SRA3 will be adding two additional Onyxia kills per month. We will also be moving on to Blackwing Lair, where several Tier 2 Raid armor set pieces are dropped, after we have killed Ragnaros on Mondays. Upwards and onwards!
posted by Mike on October 5, 2006 12:01 AM in Music
CD Review: "The Information" by Beck
We all know Beck is a genius. He's shown us over his career that he can be a funky dancer, a shoe gazer, a singer/songwriter, and a rapper. So when you've done all that, and have come down off the cloud of the amazing Spanish-Influenced Guero, where do you go? What do you do if you're Beck? It's hard to say. But his producer Nigel Godrich had some ideas.
For the first five tracks of The Information, you're coerced into thinking the album is going to be a laid-back rehash of the solid grooves found on Midnight Vultures. At first, you're really pleased with the progress. Opener "Elevator Music" has Beck rhyming over heavy, thumping bass, dry snapping drums before opening up into a shimmering synth-laden chorus. Second track, and arguably The Information's strongest "I Think I'm In Love," borrows the playful bass from the song before, but employs a ringing U2 reminiscent piano and gorgeous vocal harmonies. Third cut "Cellphone's Dead" bounces between a Donna Summer 70's flashback and slapping Moog hits on the verses. The voice over of "One by one I'll knock you out" permeates your thought and you start to get the feeling this album is going to be an absolute classic as it continues. It switches over to "Strange Apparition" and you're pulled in further. The slow piano-clanging breakdown in the middle houses some of Beck's most earnest and bluesy singing in years. Number five is where you start recognizing that The Information is about to take sharp turn to ambience. Still, "Soldier Jane" is nice and warm, and the pads in the background smolder like a fire carrying the heat of Beck's somber melody to your heart.
Six is where the album really goes awry. Whether for good or bad, I've yet to decide, but "Nausea" shows an odd irritation in Mr. Hansen's voice and it fades shortly into "New Round." This song reveals producer Godrich's idea of creating a swelling, slow hum of a record. The tracks start all sounding like forgotten B-Sides of Sea Change and other Beck records. Occasionally, the rhythms return to the disc, but from this point on, they're all subdued and Beck's voice seems distant, lost in the blur of compression. The relentless floating is only once broken up by the bombastic flow of "1000 BPM," and The Information winds slowly and methodically to the somber 10 minute ending track, capped off by creepy spoken word passages about space travel.
Then the realization hits you that Nigel and Beck have tricked you into delving deep into an atmospheric, post-Apocalyptic wasteland and given you a strange choice. Maybe this was the plan all along. Very much like Radiohead's Kid A, Beck brings you to this foreboding crossroads after the immediately accessible Guero.
Ultimately The Information is what you make of it. It can either be a deep masterpiece, or garbage depending on your listening devotion, but it's quite possible I will decide that before I decide which stickers to put on the "Make-Your-Own-Album-Cover."
posted by Mike on October 5, 2006 12:01 AM in Music
CD Review: "The Crane Wife" by The Decemberists
Ever since the first note of Castaways & Cutouts, The Decemberists have made it a point, not to make any points, but to craft lovely melodies and tell stories of lore, of sorrow, of happiness, of shame. At times, the ideas for a thousand books seem present in each album. No matter how thin though, Colin Meloy threads the most minuscule of strings through each of his musical volumes.
The Crane Wife is a bunch of unrelated stories packed tightly around two vignettes based on a Japanese Folk-Tale. Surrounding a man who finds a wounded swan that transforms into a woman as he nurses it back to health, you'd expect to find pillowy materials to buffer the fragile legend. Instead the lovely Crane Wife is held hostage by abrasive narratives describing the gruesome "Shankill Butchers," Babylonian grain sustaining soldiers in "When The War Came," and snipers lining up a well-dressed man for the "Perfect Crime 2."
Through all the topics purveyed, the consistent, self-assured notes of the band and Colin's resolute voice glue, staple, bolt, screw, and nail Crane Wife's frame together. At the end, you're left believing it was skillfully carved from a single piece of the purest wood.
For their first record on Capitol Records, The Crane Wife seems free from all pressures normally brought to independent bands who sign to majors. None of these songs appear forced. Every song that could be a potential hit single carries symbols of past Decemberists' beauties. The first single "O Valencia" is very polished and nonchalant sounding (much like "16 Military Wives" on the album previous). Carried along by the galloping hi-hats and chiming guitar chords, it's not worried at all about how it will be received. The instruments all serve to brighten up the dark storyline (A woman taking her family's bullet for her lover) perfectly.
The last song on Crane Wife, "Sons and Daughters," leaves the sweet taste of cinnamon (as the lyrics suggest) and the beautiful vocal rounds bounce around in circles to your ear. The only option is to put the thing on repeat and bask in its radiance once more. Calculated or not, The Crane Wife is an artful continuance of Picaresque's path, and a much affirmed step for these road-tested Portland darlings.
Overview: DEFCON is a stylish global thermonuclear war simulator. I can't say it any more simply than that. So I'll try to say it more complicated-like. Take the movie WarGames, blend in just a little Tron, pour into a strategy skillet, cook on high until you can hear the screams of the dying and you get DEFCON. Starting with just a map of the world as your template and, indeed, only interface, you take the role of supreme commander of any one of 6 global superpowers. Gameplay is simple but addictive - deploy radar, silos, airbases and ships, scan for your enemies and then wait for someone to push the button.
As you horrible people may or may not know, The Geek and I once did The Weekly Geek on an actual radio station, and back in the day we interviewed a bunch of completely awesome people. These interviews have been uploaded and are well worth a listen. I'll put them on the rss feed and the iTunes feed over time, but if you want to download them now, feel free! Here are The Weekly Geek's interviews, for your listening pleasure.
Personally, I don't mind in-game advertising as long as it is believable. If I am meant to think that I am in a real city or something, I fully expect there to be Coca-Cola billboards and a Starbucks on the corner. That is immersion. On the other hand, it would be completely out of place in, say, World of Warcraft. While I don't think we should be forced to collect Mountain Dew cans in all snowboarding games, I think that a little bit of believable advertising is great. As long as it fits. What do you think? Have you seen some horrible advertising in games in completely innapropriate places? Post in the comments!
posted by Chris on October 2, 2006 8:31 AM in Podcast
Join The Geek and Frodo on this week's geek culture and video game podcast as they discuss freelance reviews, the Gamestop trade in bonus, mega man, okami, DS Lite Cracks and Weird Al's new album. You will join them. You cannot stop the joining.
The Weekly Geek is done on a zero budget, with no funding other than ads and merch. Help support the site with a donation! Consider it like tipping your waiter. We also give gifts for larger donations.
It's been 12 years since the release Scott McCloud's eye-opening bible on sequential art, Understanding Comics, and 6 since his follow up, Reinventing Comics. Since its release, Understanding Comics had achieved much acclaim for helping bring understanding to the comic world. Not so much for people who are already creating comics, but more as an argument for comics as an art form, directed towards people maybe unfamiliar with the subject. McCloud was able to put into simple terms how comics work, why they work, and why they should be regarded as more than just kiddy funny papers. He writes in a style instantly relatable to people, he is an explainer in the highest sense of the word. The ultimate teacher. In Making Comics, McCloud is able to express exactly what you need to know in order to make a comic work. Hit the jump for my full review, and to find out why not only is this an essential book for any aspiring (or currently successful) comic artist's collection, but an essential book for the art form as a whole.
A recent video game survey sponsored by 