http://microcosmpublishing.com/catalog/zines/3171/

Microcosm has been doing a world of good these past few years, continuing to support and spread paper-zines in the age of the blog. They’re really helping to keep the art-form alive, so please support them through purchases, pleasant crayon drawings, and other such means. Even if you already have an issue of Nostromo, they have plenty of other cool publications and products worth your while.

Hopefully I’ll be publishing on this website more frequently now that the school semester is winding down. In case you’re wondering about a second issue, I’ve completed a bunch of writing, but it’s the illustrations that really take the most time. I would definitely expect to see it available by the end of summer, if not sooner!

Yesterday afternoon I was packing up my old bookcase in the big move to Maryland’s eastern shore. I’ve actually been living out towards Salisbury for several months now, but Kathleen are I will officially be married and moving into a nice apartment in less than two weeks. So I was fingering through all these old fantasy novels and semiotic textbooks when I found the Shadowrun novel The Terminus Experiment. I don’t know if any of you read any of these old things, but they’re kind of a riot. I don’t mean to make it sound like I didn’t enjoy reading it as a teenager. In fact, I wish that I had accumulated a few more of these novels. Basically, the plot might as well be a session of the Shadowrun RPG. There’s a stripper (obviously) who has a boyfriend who is abducted and pays some giant trolls to form a team and go after him. The catch? She decides to put aside her stripper career to carry a shotgun and join in on the action. The only problem? The captors are, in fact, crazy vampires in the cliche struggle to become day-walkers. I think that it ends with the boyfriend now being a vampire too so she shoots his face off with a shell full of wooden shrapnel! Classic. Needless to say, its packed to the brim with ridiculous adolescent sexual fantasy and–thankfully–a good measure of cybernetic sci-fi goodness. I think that it goes without saying that this one’s going to be on the summer reading  list.

Magic Makes Might, right?

“Nostromo #1: This is a sci-fi/cyberpunk zine, which are not really my areas of expertise, but I did enjoy the first essay about technology being romanticized in fictitious movies and TV shows like Star Wars and Star Trek. Other essay topics include sci-fi war gaming and Isaac Asimov’s novels. This zinester does a nice job of weaving his life experiences into his reflections on sci-fi, which I enjoyed. 6500 Sleet Ct., Frederick MD 21703, nostromozine@gmail.com, nostromozine.wordpress.com [$2 18S :15] –Katie”

I must be completely out of the gaming loop, but I was caught off guard by this brand-new AT-43 army. I stumbled upon news and photographs of the Oni while randomly sifting through table-top gaming blogs. I don’t really have much information to share with you at this moment, but the figures looked amazing enough that I couldn’t resist a small posting. Feel free to fill me in on the basic army-concept here. I know that the various troop designations are referred to as “zombies”, and some affect a sort of Borg (yes yes yes!!!) appearance. The Tac-Arms units look as thoughRackham grafted missle-launchers and others weapons of blastiness onto the body of an enlarged Borg drone, which has me more than a little excited. And here I thought that my AT-43 purchases were slowly coming to an end now that I’ve compiled a full and effective Red Blok force. I guess this is the way of things though. Now that Rackham is on the cusp of making six full armies available, I’m starting to see some of the breadth and diversity necessary to compete with a game like Warhammer 40,000. After all, when I first began playing second-edition 40k back in 1994, there were only seven armies–and some of these races were undeveloped by way of miniatures (like the Imperial Guard) or even being phased out-of-stock (the glorious Squats RIP). I’m definitely looking forward to more developments in this whole Oni realm. It looks as though the War Store (www.thewarstore.com) has already made the 2,000 point army box available for mailorder. Nice.

Unlike my usual routine, I did not roll out of bed and into the car to leave for work. Today I and my sister will be waiting an elegant dinner- complete with vest and tie and all that royalty business. I decided to celebrate my free morning with Mad Max: Beyond Thunder-dome, which is instantly viewable over the Netflix website. As the rest of you Netflix users probably know, instant viewability is perhaps the most delightful virtue of the service. Save, of course, when you think a movie should be on the instant list but isn’t, leaving you dissatisfied at the idea of having to wait several days for the blasted dvd to arrive in the mail. Like Predator 2! That’s a prime example of a movie that one would expect to be instantly viewable. Nope. You’re going to have to wait for that machine-gun spitting Danny Glover action.

Now, Mad Max: Road Warrior is clearly one of my favorite films of all time.  Between a spear-gun totting el comino, foot-ball pads, and wasteland fortress with flame-throwers, the reasons are obvious. Not only is the movie itself great, but it’s managed to inspire a number of fantastic science-fiction games. Where would the Fallout computer game series be without Mad Max? Would Games Workshop ever have created the tragically short-lived Gorkamorka? Be that as it may, I hadn’t watched Beyond Thunder-dome since childhood. I only really remembered Mel Gibson jumping around with a chainsaw and Tina Turner making the most of her earrings. I was startled to come away from this morning’s viewing pleased. Perhaps Beyond Thunder-dome deserves more credit than we typically give it. Unfortunately, most people seem to have a difficult time getting past the Tina Turner. I honestly expected her to break out in song at any moment, but the director managed to contain her. In all honesty, I was pretty impressed by her performance. Say what you will.

As the morning wore on, I got to thinking about the post-apocalyptic theme and whether it qualifies as Science Fiction. I always grouped it altogether without giving the category much thought. Fallout would obviously work as Science-Fiction because of advanced technology like the Power Suit, the Vaults, and numerous other examples. For the Mad Max movies, however, technology remains equivalent with our current level, if not regressing to a significant degree. On the other hand, does science-fiction have to show-case advanced, non-existent technologies? Perhaps it does qualify as science-fiction due to its speculative nature… a prediction of possible future time-lines. I guess I’ll defer to Wikipedia in this case, which does, in fact, acknowledge post-apocalyptic media as science-fiction.

I even once heard the Mad Max franchise referenced by a Maltese woman on the rooftop of a hotel in Calcutta, India.

Occupying the science-fiction aisle of our local Best Buy, I found myself faced with a familiar conundrum. I picked up the 5th Element dvd case and pondered my fate. Nine dollars and ninety-nine cents. Not a bad price. But why is it that I feel so compelled to own this movie? Why must I subject myself to it again and again? Granted, I’ve only probably watched 5th Element on five or six different occasions. But isn’t once enough? Let’s be honest- that movie’s patently ridiculous. Although packed to the brim with futuristic eye-candy, 5th Element is perhaps one of the most over-indulgent, questionably acted, and down-right… I don’t even have a proper adjective! At the same time, haven’t you been in the same place? For one reason or another, that movie is timeless in its seduction. I know that Chris Tucker is going to annoy the very marrow from my bones. I know that the entire product is solely based on flashing lights and the shameless eroticization of Milla Jovovich as the teenage nerdling sex-symbol par-excellance. But somehow I can’t look away….

I ended up opting for the first season of The Shield, but I know that my resistance can only last so long.

Two nights ago my brother and I sat down for a screening of Blade Runner, another pleasant science-fiction Christmas gift waiting to be experienced. Despite my obvious sci-fi expertise, this was only my second viewing of Blade Runner- and a different version at that. I was totally blown away by the ending, which cut out before Rachael-doesn’t-actually-have-an-expiration-date-hover-car-meadow scene. It’s amazing how snipping away a few seconds of film can completely and utterly change the atmosphere, vibe, and meaning of a product.

I think that people sometimes get too caught up in evaluating the value of a movie like Blade-Runner to really enjoy it. I’ve had a number of friends and family members say something like, “Well it’s cool-looking and all, but I don’t think it’s really all that great.” Although I don’t understand that opinion in any way, I know what it’s like to be faced with a “classic”. These movies (or paintings or novels) are held up to an incredible standard and scrutinized to a far greater degree than others. Then again, our culture seems to prize argumentative and contentious displays. Some people, myself unfortunately included, feel the need to prove their self-worth or intellectual prowess by thwarting the opinions of others. In my own case, I think that this tendency stems out from a number of sources. Most of all, I have an underlying jealousy of the creative and artistically successful, so I figuratively destroy that which my betters have built.

Sitting back and allowing Blade Runner to complete its course, I enjoyed this second viewing far more than the first. Knowing how much I thought of the film the first time around, I was free to stop analyzing the quality and just let the thing play. I think that my brother enjoyed it, though we didn’t discuss the movie at any great length. More than anything, he was frustrated at our trashy dvd player. I’d like to read the original novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? but don’t expect to have the time in the near or even distant future.

As close as Games Workshop came with the Imperial Guard “Ice-Warriors of Valhalla”, AT-43 actualized the soviet army in a way that remained an unfulfilled potential in table-top games like Warhammer 40,000 and Warzone. Now, I want to discourage anyone reading this post from taking my Rackham congratulations as any sort of political support for the historical Soviet Union, secret Soviet police, or Red Army. Far too many men and women were executed (particularly Orthodox Christians) under the Soviet regime to even begin to justify such sentiments, as popularized as they might be in the generally adolescent nerd-scene. Be that as it may, the appearance and military conventions of the Soviet army have undoubtedly left a deep and interesting mark in popular culture, consciousness, and even science-fiction. We have to admit that it’s something of a cool look… the fur hats and long coats.

The biggest problem with the At-43 Red Blok is that it fails to give justice to the, funny as it may sound, fashionable elements of the Soviet foot-soldier. In all honesty, the average At-43 Soldaty infantryman doesn’t look that different from the U.N.A. Steel Troopers (another AT-43 faction)… just more olive green and red paint. They throw around the quasi-Marxist collectivist ideology and leftist slang, allowing the player to delight him or herself with terms like “Motherland” and “Comrade”. But–as nice as job as Rackham has done with designing these interesting models–the Red Blok simply bungles the Soviet look, which could have been easily attained through the random fur hat, floor-length coat, and other small odes to the post-Revolution Russian army uniform. If only I could somehow combine the Valhallan Ice-Warrior figures with the Red Blok AT-43 concept, I would have the ideal science-fiction table-top force. Oh well.

Be that as it may, I am rather pleased with the Red Blok army box that I found waiting beneath the Christmas tree this year. I’m looking forward to taking on my fiance’s little brother, which will undoubtedly be an epic struggle. I do wish that Rackham included more literature in the box, but I realize that they’re trying to encourage further consumption by leaving out the Red Blok army book. Well, at least I have the statistics and army point values. I can pick up the army book one of these days. If there’s anything that table-top war-gaming companies excel at, it’s squeezing Sci-fi nerds out of every dime.

Well, I’ve decided to break my lengthy electronic hiatus. I don’t really know why I stopped writing, but I do know why I’ve decided to post. Namely, the Alien Vs. Predator franchise. Now, I’ve only seen the AVP movie once, though I think that they might have produced a second titled Requiem. I actually screened this film while working at a local Regal (then R/C) movie theatre, which probably accounts for my memory loss. It was pretty sweet to get paid for watching movies between job tasks, but there are certainly more comfortable situations for taking in a film. Generally, I saw every popular movie of the summer but broken up into chunks of thirty or forty minutes. I would see the last hour of The Village (groan) and twenty minutes of the middle of Anchorman all in one shift. Needless to say, this unintended style of movie-watching wasn’t exactly conducive to retaining or getting much out of the cinema. Perhaps this is why I enjoyed Alien Vs. Predator more than most of my friends!

Last night I broke open my old box of comic books- a collection which hasn’t seen an addition since 1995 at the latest. Poking through the old Valiant line of comics, I was pleased to see a variety of space and science-fiction themed books. There was Magnus: Hunter of the Machines, Solar: Man of the Atom, the Armorines, and my then-favorite XO Manowar. In my favorite XO Manowar comic (complete with crazy foil cover), an ancient European tribesman struggling against the Roman Empire is abducted by tentacle-faced extraterrestrials. He then goes on to escape with a sweet power-suit that seems to be comprised of a sentient, organic alien life form. And what’s that? He escapes into the twentieth century? Alright!

Anyway, the real point here is that I stumbled upon my one and only issue (number four out of four) of the Alien Versus Predator comic series by Dark Horse- a product line that hit the shelves many years before the AVP movies. In fact, some of us may remember the Alien Vs. Predator Genesis (or was it SNES?) video game. Again, I only ever rented it once, and my friend up the street hogged the controller most of the evening. Of course, that’s probably because he was the one who rented it, and the Genesis was his game system. Still, you can imagine my frustrations as I watched that little Double-Dragon-esque screen-scroller with the Predator hunter spearing aliens left and right. Well, mostly just right because that’s the only direction that the screen generally moved in those days. The point is that my Alien Vs. Predator comic book is totally sweet, despite my non-interest in the comic book hobby. There’s little in the way of speech-bubbles relative to alien violence. At one point there’s even a robo-suit (perhaps with human inside? I didn’t read that closely) burning multiple alien xenomorphs with a flame-thrower. Somehow there’s a female human dressed in Predator gear, who somehow saves the day for the humans caught in the middle of this war. This premise, of course, reminded me of a long-forgotten dream of my friend (the controller fiend) and I at age ten: that Predators would come to earth, recognize our awesome potential, and train us aboard their ships in the ways of the Ninja… I mean predation. Then we’d fly all around the galaxy collecting skulls from Celenite and Tyranid alike. Ah, to be ten.

I recently returned to the fifth issue of Steampunk Magazine with my fiance Kathleen while she visited here in Frederick for a few days. Before she had any chance to recognize why I was bothering her for participles and overwrought adjectives, the two of us were embroiled in a pleasant game of Steampunk Madlibs. The following is an excerpt from our mad tale “On the Construction of the Tesla Coil”, originally penned by Margaret Killjoy and Usul of the Blackfoot. Enjoy!

“My fortress in hand, towering determination in mind- for a genius such as mine, once set in motion, can no more easily be stopped than the 8 o’clock locomotive bound for Montreaux- I went to the trunk and withdrew my oven as well as a bottle of ground all-spice. I pulled a hammer from the pocket on my brassiere and went about to my task.

After clearing my inventory of cups, plates, and saucers, I finally had everything I needed. I connected the gear to the orb and set off to spend time at shooting to allow the device adequate time to power up.

“Fi!”, I declared upon my return, “My mouse-in-a-go-kart is not so complete as I had begun to hope!” I walked my shin for a solution, but to no avail. “Hurray! Perhaps I need to replace the bolts with seven kettles.”

Of course, I can assume that the burnished reader is acutely aware of the mistake inherent in such a haphazard workaround. For instead of alleviating the problem, I had only exacerbated it! I had no choice: I decided I must visit the dandy and impose upon him to borrow his monocle.

Three hours later, I had what  I needed. Having installed the monocle into the contraption, I threw the switch!”