Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts
Showing posts with label recap. Show all posts

March 18, 2020

What Was 2010-2019 Like?





This one took awhile to get out of the gate, and here it is! I officially first moved to Berlin a whole ten years and about six weeks ago.

I'm just gonna post this with the huge implicit caveat that What 2020 Currently Is Like is a whole new dimension of ... you know what, I don't have the words. File "discussing the closure of public transit" and "socializing in parks and bars" under Things I Didn't Imagine Would Date This Comic By The Time I Finished It. (If you live in Berlin and are reading this, please avoid doing all of those things for the time being, so that we can all do them again together later!)

Stay safe, protect your community, stay at home, and stay in touch. And heythank you, Berlin, for being one of the things that keeps me happy, even now, especially now.



January 22, 2020

What Did I Do in 2019?




I also have a loooonng 2019 year in review / entertainment recap post up for my Patreon subscribers this month! Thanks to everyone who made the cool things this year possible.

And stay tuned here for more retrospective stuff, because it's still January and I don't make the rules I do make the rules.


if you like this comic, you can help me make more through Patreon!

February 1, 2019

What Was 2018 Like?


2018 was A Lot! Here's to 2019 also being A Lot, with possibly less weeping at concerts (although that's usually a sign of a good concert for me, so).

Per my tradition, I've posted a list of my favorite entertainment from 2018, over on my Patreon (it's a public post!)

And in lieu of my traditional blog post accompaniment song, it is nigh impossible for me to list all of the music I enjoyed in 2018, but here are 3 tracks from 2018 that I identified with:
Death Cab for Cutie, "Gold Rush"
Mike Shinoda, "Running From My Shadow"
Alex G, "Rhyme Reason"

If you like this comic, you can help me make more through Patreon!

January 30, 2018

What was 2017 like?




Also, in keeping with tradition, here are three songs I took away from 2017:


1. One More Light - Linkin Park

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If you liked this comic, you can help me make more by supporting me on Patreon!

January 5, 2016

What was 2015 like?



Happy New Year! One of my goals this year is to write more fictional comics, and I figured I would start the year off with these peeps. They have been hanging around in my sketchbooks for many years now. Onwards.


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Also: Master of Survival #3 (the final issue) is now available to buy online! Shipping from Berlin begins January 15. I will also be selling them at this year's conventions, which will be announced here as they are confirmed.

January 19, 2015

Mixtape Monday: Car Drive 2014 + Yearly Recap





Today's Mixtape Monday features the newest instalment of my yearly mix series, Car Drive - initially just something I put together to listen to in the family car, now pretty much a chronicle of the past year told through songs. If you had a year full of transitions, professional ambitions and the occasional instance of suckiness, this mix just might be for you! I got to give it a spin while driving up and down the coast of Northern California, which was pretty cool and didn't alienate too many family members.

You can listen to it (minus Cooper's "This Year") on Spotify.


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Also, due to time constraints, I'm not doing a recap comic this year, BUT below you will find an unsorted recap of stuff I did and enjoyed. Read on below the cut, if you are so inclined!


January 14, 2014

2013 Recap




And thus (pretty much) concludes the madness that was 2013!

I forgot to mention this, which happened while I was in Paris the second time:


(That's the current French Prime Minister and we were in the backyard of Matignon, FYI.)

In 2014, on the personal art front, I plan on continuing drawing Master of Survival and writing Noémie, aller-retour/hin und zurückI will also be traveling a lot for various things, which will lead to new travel journals, postcards and more exclusive art goodies to get your hands on! More will be announced in the next couple of months as travel plans unfold, so keep your eagle eyes open.

Also, as is my wont, I've compiled a small recap of the year in entertainment, visible below this cut. May 2014 bring new obsessions and hefty doses of doodling, the latter to rejoice over, the former to your possible dismay.

January 1, 2013

2012 Round-Up


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It's a new year! And, as every year, that warrants a written recap of the past year's entertainment, so pull up a chair, brew some coffee and ... let's begin.

TV and Film

Sherlock
My sister Laura has developed a knack for getting me interested in things. And it all began with the BBC's remaking of Sherlock, the second season of which began airing January 1st. Was it the unbelievable writing? The brilliant acting? The incredible photography? No, my dear bromantic pre-Hobbit sidekicks, it was all of it, and it served to remind me of my undying love and affection for storytelling. (I also love handsome actors with brains, but that's another story). Season 3 is such a very long way off.

Doctor Who
I had no idea that I could get this obsessed with a TV show steeped in sci-fi: I am not prone to spontaneously watching remakes of campy space travel, ever. Though my reaction to the first episodes, concordantly, was lukewarm, the series turned out to be thrilling, moving and funny enough to pay back a 60€ investment in the box set several times over. And then John Simm appeared in the Season 3 finale, and I basically lost it. (At the time of writing, I still have all of the Eleven seasons to go.) I wrote a comic about this personal odyssey here.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Apart from the fact that discussing the need for three movies is probably one of the biggest First World Problems in history, I found that Peter Jackson's first prequel was worth every 3D penny of that 13€ movie ticket. I've done a comic review for it here.

Additional mentions: The Avengers for additional geekery; The Dark Knight Rises for putting the "kick-ass" back in "villain".


Music

Finch - Say Hello To Sunshine (2005)
Finch made one of my favorite albums as a high schooler, the slickly produced post-hardcore (or something) What It Is To Burn. I didn't care much for their second (and final) album until I came across it on Simfy in early 2012; I then proceeded to use "A Piece of Mind" as a cleansing agent during a particularly stressful time. Still works a charm, probably alienates my housemates.

Linkin Park - Living Things (and A Thousand Suns)
Though they were another mainstay of my teenage years - and I am convinced that deep down inside I am still 17 - I became frustrated with Linkin Park after Minutes to Midnight, where they seemed to have crawled down the melodic pop hole for ever. (Nothing wrong with melodic pop, except that other people can do it too.) I didn't pay attention to 2010's A Thousand Suns as a result, and when they put out Living Things in May I only cottoned on after the "Burn It Down" single appeared on German television during the European soccer championship (what?). It took tweets from a couple people and some repeated listens on Simfy to rekindle my interest.
When I explained to friend blogger James  that my favorite parts on Living Things were the themes in "Castle of Glass" and "Roads Untraveled", he suggested I give A Thousand Suns a listen, which was one of the best things I've done all year. On the whole it's just a very good concept album with a healthy dose of aggro and some shining moments of songwriting; but it also convinced me of the importance of fighting for your own creative ideas, no matter what the external circumstances might be.

Muse - The 2d Law
The same summer my sister introduced me to Doctor Who, we watched Muse perform their new song "Survival" onstage during the Olympics Closing Ceremony. It was put forth that Matthew Bellamy is actually a rock-and-roll version of the Tenth Doctor, which as a theory comes even more to life when you listen to the shenanigans present on The 2d LawI am of the unshifting opinion that Muse sort of just sit down and put out awesome albums and make it look completely effortless. Not only does The 2d Law prove this with its bursts of melodic and arrangement awesomeness, it makes it okay that the closing "instrumentals" and bassist Chris Wolstenholme's songs are pretty much tacked onto the end of the album. I cannot fathom how many times I've played this record or danced to the Panic Station riff in my bedroom - perfect "get out of bed, face the world and kick heinie" music.

Tegan and Sara - "Closer" & "I'm Not Your Hero"
Friends and family are no strangers to the fact that Tegan and Sara are one of my favorite artists. I've been a fan since I came across a blurb in the August 2007 issue of SPIN Magazine; ever since their album The Con, they have consistently been reference points for me in the areas of creativity and artistic partnership (despite my mixed feelings about their 2009 album Sainthood).
When they came out with their new synth-driven single "Closer" this fall, my initial reaction was: "Ohhh, they've gone and applied those dancefloor extracurriculars, good for them!" My second reaction was, "Um... Are they ever going to make The Con again?" But the reason I had been hooked on The Con (and So Jealous) in the first place was the inspiration Tegan and Sara provided: raw lyrics, well-developed arrangements and catchy tunes that seemed to reach into my own tiny 20-year-old heart and put words to the exact things I was feeling at the time (mostly emo-ing on a complicated relationship). And though "Closer" was a grower, it was the YouTube release of "I'm Not Your Hero" that sealed the deal. Four years on, they had done it again: put words and melodies on the growth that I associate with the past several years of my life. Still no idea how they manage it.


Books

Natalie Nourigat, Between Gears
Natalie is one of the cartoonists I found myself following during my final years of university; while I was off in Nantes and Berlin finishing my Master's degree, she took it upon herself to chronicle her senior year of college in a diary comic form, an exercise which she was very good at. When the paperback collection came out in February I was amongst the first in line to order. It's been an incessant source of inspiration to me throughout the year and I can only recommend it most highly.

Additional mentions: Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games (I downed the latter two books in three days and cried during the movie); Stieg Larsson's Millennium (see above, and also here.)


Bloggers

Lauren and Max Andrew Dubinsky
I'm usually loath to use Christian jargon on the internet, but I see Lauren and Max Dubinsky as a testimony of God's grace. Perhaps the most obvious proof of this is that they met on Twitter, but the ways they each apply their gifts as creatives and writers are equally powerful reflections of the God I intend to serve, myself. Lauren is a self-described "tech and arts girl" who founded the Good Women Project, aiming to encourage young girls and women; Max is a writer with a collection of short stories,  a unique narrative experience and an associated novella under his belt. They deserve your attention (and Max' stories deserve a read).


And that's all for 2012. In 2013 I plan to see more Benedict Cumberbatch, play Tegan and Sara's new record until the CD falls apart, get my hands on a brand-new stack of comic books and watch every single TV show this guy has ever played in. Catch you on the flipside!