Brink - Book One

Picked Brink because of Dan Abnett and interesting premise. Liked his work in Lawless and Eisenhorn trilogy. This has one difference to those. Now he is not writing to existing IP. This is original world. Lawless and Eisenhorn books had everything set at the beginning. I knew what those were about. Brink starts slowly. After first third it felt just confusing. It gets better but beginning was hard to read.

Earth have been destroyed or otherwise uninhabitable. Mankind is living on spaceships. People have weird cults and use drugs. Two members of security force go to investigate potential new cult into another spaceship. This involves names making people puke and some other weird stuff. It takes about half of the book the get the story going on. Then the book ends with cliffhanger.

Can’t say what this is. It is mostly hard science fiction but there are weird parts also. Do people hallucinate or do their visions mean something? Brink is bit like Southern Cross with exception it is not clear during first book what weird stuff is and everyone is less angry. Not sure if I will commit to this. I will check next book to see where this is going. It could get good but first half was hard to get through.

Judge Dredd: Case Files 03

The Complete Case Files 02 contained two long story arcs and few shorter stories. Third contain only short stories. Longest being only four issues long. Only memorable story is one with first appearance of Judge Death and Judge Anderson. Stories are quite uneven from worst stories so far to some of the best short stories so far.

Maria and Judge Giant are no longer part of stories. Walter The Robot is still there but less in later stories. Judge Dredd starts to become more of a ideal judge than person with home and someone waiting there. More what I remembered from first time I read the comics. Writers are trying to figure this change out. It results quite uneven stories which don’t seem to have anything to say. It will get better later but I started to consider if I should read Dredd from Complete Case Files or get collections of best stories.

After this I know I prefer longer Judge Dredd stories. Binging shorter stories is exhausting. At least when quality is as varying as in this collection.

Sad 20220327

It has been rough couple weeks. Had problems with my shoulder. It is working now but it has been hard to get back into drawing. Part of it is motivation and part finding inspiring things to draw. I have drawn heads but don’t see improvement I would like to see. Might do another course to have some ideas what to draw. If there was face drawing course which helps drawing same characters over and over again I would take it.

I tried to draw something more complicated but it didn’t work. So this drawing is simple. Already skipped one week due shoulder problems. Couldn’t skip another.

The Ballad of Halo Jones

Halo Jones was first Alan Moore comic I have read. It was long time ago and it was translated version. It was original black and white version. This time I read it on original language and colored. Original language made it bit hard because it uses weird “future” language. Either I learned to understand it or there was less of it in last two books. There was outline for nine books but there is only three books which means we don’t get proper ending at the end of third book.

The Ballad of Halo Jones follows average 50th century woman Halo Jones. She is legendary figure in further future. These books don’t get to that point. In first book she lives on slum island called Hoop. She wants to leave. At the end of book she has had enough of Hoop and leave on space ship. Second book she works as waitress in said space ship. She want to go further in third. She gets recruited to army. Book tells her time on army. Book ends in what could launch long story arc.

Each book has complete story arc and own tone. There are interesting side characters like boy/girl who everyone forgets in few seconds and solder who is clumsy but extremely lucky. There is no long story arc. Second book has reference to first and third has reference to second. Both have one character besides Halo Jones from previous book. It is refreshing to have normal person as a hero. Halo Jones is bit like Forest Gump. She is regular person who happens to meet important people.

Downcast - issues 1-3

After Comixology’s changes I have found new places to get comics. Comics that were not on Comixology. Alterna left Comixology two years ago. So far new comics I have found have been good. Downcast included.

I wish Downcast would explain the world little bit more. This is what I got from first three issues. There is flying city where people live because earth is ruined. Criminals are sentenced to earth. Sister and brother try to free their innocent father who was sent to earth. Last one was obvious. Antagonist is senator who has religious cult as henchmen.

First issue was ok. Second worked better when I started to understand what is happening little better. Third issue started to become really interesting. If they continue the trend Downcast could become really good. I wish I see when next issue comes out. Last year had two issues. First issue came 2020. Next might take some time to come.

Mental Prison 20220313

It has been tough couple weeks with everything going on in world. This is again one of those just draw something to have something to publish drawings. I saw meme about having 1000 year jailtime in eight hours with biotechnology. Not sure is anyone actually promising they could do it. Meme said someone promises but not everything in internet is true. It is not that new science fiction concept. I think I have seen it used at least couple places.

Picture shows someone doing time this way. I thought it would be quite clinical setting with no shadows or anything. Just doctors or nurses or people like that following everything goes according the plan.