How Sorry Helped Me in The Game of Life

by guest blogger, C. L. Schock - 

I'm to understand that my husband has been attempting to entertain you with his musings and opinions for a while now. Contemplating this--my own first attempt to blog--I couldn't help but be a bit reflective. As my spouse has shared, he had been slow to launch any new posts in recent weeks because of a family tragedy. What he did not tell you was that the tragedy was the death of a close relative from my side of the family tree.

 

So it shouldn't surprise anyone that I've been thinking a lot about what my life was like growing up. There was nothing unusual about it, unless you count the fact that there was nothing unusual about it. I was raised in a very traditional nuclear family: no divorces, no crazy uncles living in the garage--not even a grandparent living in the spare room. My mom made dinner every night and, after we ate, we would typically line up on the sofa to watch a couple hours of television. But every once in a while, we would turn off the television, sit around the dining room table, and play a board game.

We didn't have a lot of board games at our house, especially compared to the still growing collection I maintain today. But I know we had a smattering of the classics--Monopoly, Clue, Battleship, and even Cooties. And I know we must have played them all on occasion. But the game that most often comes to mind is Sorry. It was a simple enough game--the object of which was to move your pieces around the board and to your goal while also impeding your opponents as much as possible. We enjoyed playing it, but I don't know that we played it any more often than the other games in our collection. For whatever reason, however, it's the game I think of when remembering game nights with my family. Simply put, it was fun in a way that made an indelible impression on my memory.

I don't recall exactly how often we played. I don't remember who won more games, or who lost more games. I don't know how old I was when we played for the first time, or how old I was when we played it last. But what I do remember is playing, spending time together, and enjoying each other's company as a family. And now I treasure those memories more than ever.

Just the other day, I was watching my daughter play The Game of Life with her cousin. The game started out like any other--with the two of them moving their pieces around the board while attempting to (A) get the jobs they wanted, (B) get married, and (C) have the number of children they wanted. I wasn't paying much attention to their game play until I happened to notice it diverging from the traditional narrative and success criteria. They had started to turn it into a sort of role playing game, elaborating on their pretend jobs and make believe families with growing detail and gusto. I don't believe that they ever got around to finishing the game. But I do believe that they had fun. 

As I reflected on what to write about in my first blog, I compared these two memories. And when I did, I concluded that sometimes the truth in a platitude is overlooked just because it comes from a platitude. But that doesn't make it any less true. Dozens of well-meaning friends and family members can tell you while in line at the funeral home that you will always treasure the memories of your loved one. Maybe they say it because they feel awkward and don't know what else to say. Perhaps they say it because they have seen it in countless memes and sympathy cards. But, perhaps the reason that they say it when they feel awkward is because it comes from some instinctive, deeply buried pool of knowledge. Perhaps countless memes and sympathy cards have the same message because the people who have lived through the pain already recognize the truth. 

So for those of you who have already lost someone close to you, I want to say I finally understand the platitudes. And for those of you who have yet to lose someone that close to you, let me give you some advice. Pay attention to the sentiments people share with you--however trite they might seem. Spend time with the people you love. Put down your phones and do something together. Play a board game. Go hiking. Have a picnic. Play basketball. It doesn't matter what you do; what matters is that you care enough to do it. Make the memories. 

I don't remember the details of playing Sorry with my family, I just remember that we played and had fun. And so I'm telling to you to take time to enjoy the Game of Life while you can. Yes, you should try to get a good job, meet someone special, buy a house, etc. But don't be afraid to go off script and expand the narrative. Elaborate on your story. Make some things up as you go. And know that, one day, when you reflect on your life, you may not remember who won which game. But rest assured, you will remember and cherish the fun.

Two Heads Are Better Than One--Unless Perhaps You're A Troll

In my last post, I shared an aspiration to become more regular and more structured about both these musings and my social media presence in general. Two days later, my family suffered a tragedy which, while not completely unexpected, reinforced for me how important it is to integrate everything I do with my role as a husband, brother, son, and father. Now, more than a month removed from those events, I think I'm ready to begin executing on several of those priorities.

First, this blog and my other social media posts are increasingly going to be joint efforts. My wife--sometime author C. L. Schock--is going to periodically share her thoughts and insights in this forum, occasionally substituting for me and occasionally acting as a counterpoint to my opinions. Look for an update to my banner in the near future reflecting this change, as Owl, Cowl and Blaster will then be more accurately described as "a couple embracing geek as performance artist and nerd as a verb." She and I have similar but not completely overlapping interests: she's an epic Potterhead and Whovian who also waxes nostalgic about some of my favorite 80's and 90's fandoms (Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel and DC Comics, etc.). Her tastes skew a little more towards the literary however--Tolkien, Martin, Lewis, and others--whereas I rarely find much time for pleasure reading these days. And her opinions of all of these works and franchises are by no means cloned from my own. So I think her contributions will help to add balance and texture to this outlet.

Second, I'm on the verge of aligning my various social media accounts to form a single multichannel voice and strategy.

• You can expect to find a new blog post in this space weekly--ideally on Mondays
• That post will generally serve to set the tone for our social media for the week
• Next week's installment will likely be an introduction to/from my spouse
• Springboarding from there, I will be maintaining a weekly schedule of regular posts to my Instagram account across the other weekdays
• Tuesday and Thursday will be posts of "Migratory Meeples"--fun and funny pics of game pieces shown outside of their usual context (i.e., combined with pieces from other games, on other game boards, in real-life situations, etc.)
• Wednesday will feature forays into "Life as an NPC;" picking up a topic I'd first introduced in November, I plan to create what will be--at least at first--some simple random encounter tables for the purposes of making minor decisions for that day or the week on the whole
• Friday's posts will represent a continuing stream of story starters; "Pencil Prompts" is the tentative label, but that could change
• Not at first, but perhaps within a few months, I also hope to add at least one new design--be it for T-shirts, phone cases, pillows, whatever--to my CafePress storefront every weekend.
• Additionally, I hope to convert an old Twitter account into a series of "Dear Universe" posts--a stream of observations and suggestions related to "pie in the sky" ideas I'd love to see someone make happen (theme restaurants ideas, movies or TV show ideas, etc.)--impressions too small to warrant a blog post

I'm sure these ideas will continue to evolve over time, but this seems like a good starting point for a reboot. And hopefully you won't find the resulting two-headed monster that is OC&B too terribly scary a proposition to follow along. After all, we're a tandem of husband and wife geeks with strong--and often differing--opinions about a plethora of nerdy topics. So what could possibly go wrong?

;)

Unresolved: A Geek Dad's Argument For New Year's Aspirations Over Resolutions

You wouldn't think that the end of the year could sneak up on you, but it pretty much always sneaks up on me--even during the best of times. Life is so hectic in general--a continuous churn of family and work activities--that it warps my perception of the passage of time. And then one day I stop to take a breath and I see that New Year's Eve is just a few days off. In those moments, I feel like Ralphie from A Christmas Story in that scene where he's being pushed down the slide after failing to ask Santa for a Red Rider carbine-action BB gun. A voice--though not Jean Shepherd's--starts screaming "WAKE UP STUPID! YOU'RE BLOWING IT! YOU'RE BLOWING IT!"

In many past years, I've reacted by bargaining with myself. I start to list all of the things that I'm going to do differently in the next year. My list of resolutions has probably been fairly average in length and it's typically touched on the types of issues that most of us care about--spending more time with family, living healthier, carving out some time for myself, etc. That the list has remained relatively static isn't a great reflection on my success.

So this year, I've decided not to make any deals with myself save one--to enter the year with an open mind and an overarching aspiration to get more out of life in general. Rather than committing myself to make major changes that work and circumstance are going to actively undermine, I'm going to slow roll it by picking liberally from an eclectic list of small, achievable goals that will enrich my life one nerdy experience at a time:

• Getting Out to Game: Several years ago, my family and I joined a gaming club now attached to our local library. We met a lot of new people in the process, and many of those people make up the core of our friend group today. One of my fondest recollections of those earliest days of the club was going out to a nearby Panera Bread to grab sandwiches and play Resistance right there in the restaurant--allowing us to simultaneously both enjoy and advertise our hobby. With the founder of the club having moved away in the last year, I'd like to step up and initiate more events like this. Maybe a winter week night at one of our many fine pizzerias in some corner booth? Seems doable.

• Nerding It Forward: If you've been reading my blog from the beginning, you know that I've been buying graphic novels on the cheap--usually at comics conventions--to subsequently donate them to our local library. I plan to continue doing so, and have also considered expanding to comics-themed novels. (Shortly after my wife and I married, I read Diane Duane's trio of Spider-Man novels featuring the then-relatively-new character Venom and I'm thinking they would probably still hold up pretty well. While the story is set during a time when Peter Parker is married to Mary Jane Watson, I think it can still be timely given the plot of the enormously successful Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse now in theaters.) But beyond helping to populate our library with the comic arts, I'd also like to expand my efforts through the promotion of other nerdy activities--including bringing classic sci-fi movies to our local community theater. I've already proposed that they screen Forbidden Planet, and I hope to initiate a crowd-funding campaign sometime in 2019 to bank roll the endeavor--ideally as the start of a continuing summer movie series if I can swing it.

• Being More of a Maker: I love the feeling of achievement I get when I make something. It doesn't really matter whether it's something I make with my hands--like sketches--or something I make on the computer--like some of the T-shirt and cellphone case designs I've been marketing on CafePress.com. But everything I tend to do in that arena is something of a one-off--not part of a larger whole or strategy. So in keeping with the sentiments mentioned in the bullet below, I'd like to be more methodical and effective in how I use my limited opportunities to express myself creatively.

• Being More Organized About My Social Media: I've been giving it a lot of thought, and I'd like to be more thoughtful about how I schedule and drop posts across the several platforms I traffic--with emphasis on this blog and my Instagram account. I don't have the specifics worked out--again, I'm trying to focus on small steps rather than committing myself to large deliverables--but I do plan to publish a schedule of specific post types that I want to attach to particular days of the week and weeks of the month going forward. I hope that will help to keep me both accountable to myself and also to those of you kind enough to take the time to look at what I have to share.

So how about you? What kinds of things are you hoping to do in the coming year? And how confident are you that those goals are achievable?

Tell me/us about them in the comments section below, and have a great start to 2019!

And to All a Good Night: Some Random Geeky Reflections on the Night Before Christmas

I'd hoped to continue my experiment with using random encounter tables to plan free time this month, but it's December and--like many people--I find that free time isn't something I need to worry about much during the holidays. Rather, it tends to be a blur of planned engagements and commitments--and that's true even in a normal year, which this isn't. While I won't right now dive into all of the reasons why this year has been more difficult and trying than others that come to mind, I feel strongly about not losing my momentum where it involves this blog; so I'm going to keep things going with some quick thoughts and reflections here as the season almost literally flashes in front of my eyes.

Cookies! As I've noted before, I enjoy baking cookies as often as I can find the opportunity. Since Christmas offers not only the opportunity but the outright expectation of cookies, I invariably squeeze the task in--though I did cut it pretty close this time around, having only just delivered on the promise before lunch this morning. Doing so in volume, I usually don't have time to customize every individual cookie. But I typically hand-slice or hand-mold the designs for the last tray. This year, I was inspired to create the lightning bolt, dragon eggs, and Death Star shown here.

Games! When family gets together, we enjoy playing a variety of games--with favorites including titles such as Ticket to Ride, Dixit, Catan, and Quirkle. I'm not always a fan of card games--but I also particularly enjoy playing Twelve Days around the holidays and have for the last couple of years. Noting that, I noticed something for the first time in picking through the deck just the other day. Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that Mrs. Claus looks fierce? I mean, Santa looks like Santa but Mrs. Claus--an hour of Sweet Grenadine hair color and she's out clubbing, right? Mr. Kringle, I think you need to stay on top of your game--that's all I'm saying.

Robots! Yes, robots. I couldn't bring myself to put them into storage after Halloween, as I really liked
how that project turned out. But I've also always just made an association between Christmas and robots dating back to around when I was seven. For some reason, all through my childhood, robots were really prominent on all my gift lists. There was the Transformers phase, which I suppose was fairly common. But another really deep cut--one that I will write about more comprehensively in a later post--was when I desperately wanted Raydeen from the Shogun Warriors.

The Shogun Warriors was a short-lived comic book series and toy collaboration between Mattel and Marvel back in the late 70s. But what was weird from my perspective was that the crossover between the toys and the comics seemed to be only partial. While I'd have been happy to own any of the two-foot tall figures based on the giant robots from the comic, there was only one crossover character--Raydeen. Unfortunately, it was also the most scarce of the figures in my area--presumably for the same reason.

It's only been in recent years that I learned that these robots were actually separately featured in Japanese animation in their own respective titles; the Marvel comic simply reinvented and repackaged them for an American audience. So the Great Mazinger that my parents eventually got for me--the one I ungratefully treated as a consolation prize--would have been warmly welcomed in thousands of other houses. While not featured in the Marvel comic, Mazinger was the subject of multiple anime series and even a recent animated movie. A cultural juggernaut several thousand miles away, he was greeted by an upturned nose and a sniffle at my house where I was a little boy who didn't know what he had.

Is there a Christmas message in there? Something to ponder as we bob and weave our way through various holiday traditions and obligations? Perhaps. In the meantime, I will simply wish you and yours happiness both in the midst of and in the aftermath of your celebrations.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a geek life. :)

See You in the Funny Papers, Stan Lee: A Thankful Reflection on His Works and Imagination

I was working from home last Monday--in part, thinking about the random encounter table mentioned in my last post--when my wife came into the dining room and informed me of Stan Lee's passing. I can't say it was a surprise given his recent health issues, but it was nevertheless saddening. The surprising part was the wholly inappropriate dialogue that followed in the media, questioning not only his legacy but frankly our right--as individuals--to value the brand of entertainment he revolutionized.

Stan was a huge part of my childhood--a favorite uncle, even though we never met. He introduced my Saturday morning cartoons in a way that made me feel like he was speaking directly to me--that he'd created characters like Spider-Man and The Hulk just for me. My allowance money might as well have been direct deposited at the local drug store where I was continuously buying what my grandmother called "funny books." Her choice of words didn't reflect a language barrier, mind you. She didn't call them "funny books" because she couldn't remember the term "comic book." Rather, she called them that because of a generational bias--as she'd grown up thinking of the melding of cartoon art and newsprint exclusively as a vehicle for sophomoric comedy. But I knew that comics could be a portal into other worlds filled with action and adventure--and I also knew that I had my boisterous, colorful "Uncle Stan" to thank for many of those worlds.

To be sure, Stan didn't invent comic books or superheroes. And while he did usher in "The Marvel Age of Comics"--a decades-long era of dominance by that brand and its characters--it would also be appropriate to note that numerous other writers and artists contributed to building the brand and its success as well as the multimedia empire to follow. But there can be no denying that he was the harbinger of, and the spirit of, a revolution in his industry and art form. And despite several recent protestations to the contrary, what he and his peers created was indeed art.

I'm not going to try to sell you on the idea that the Marvel comics of the 60s, 70s, or 80s were the Shakespearean plays or Greek mythology of our day--though they were paradigm-shifting. That said, there has always been a tension between what people choose to label as "high culture" and what they choose to label as "low-brow." Historically, those distinctions have often had a lot to do with socioeconomic class--with the wealthy and educated using such labels to devalue the preferences and pastimes of the lower class. Today, it appears to have more to do with various traditional media outlets wanting to regain control of the narrative--to re-establish themselves as taste-makers even as new media continue to drown out their voices.

In both cases, their arguments stem from a logical fallacy--which is to suggest that you can use value judgments to rank cultural phenomena. You can like jazz or you can dislike jazz--which is a subjective decision. Alternatively, you can compare two jazz performances using generally accepted and highly standardized criteria--ones recognized by jazz musicians and aficionados--and rate one as better than the other according to those criteria. But what you can't do is to say that jazz is better or worse than rap--because you can't really stack art forms against each other without introducing a ton of subjectivity. In essence, how you rate them says more about how you value the people who like them than it does about the intrinsic value of those pastimes.

And that may be the oddest thing about the recent backlash against Stan Lee's legacy--as his fandom is diverse, multi-generational, and relatively well educated. It would be a stretch to call those fans--their feet planted firmly in the mainstream--a fringe group. So their rejection of the subjective value judgments of those railing against the "infantilization" of pop culture is every bit as valid as the assertions of Lee's detractors.

In many ways, I think I've grown to like and understand Lee even better as I get older--as he was never one to act his age. While he'd been part of the comics industry for many years, he was heading into his 40s when he created many of his signature characters--the Avengers, the X-Men, and more. He was recording voice-overs for cartoons in his late 50s. My children recognize his voice from some of their favorite video games of recent years--games created when he was in his 80s and 90s. And we have yet to see the last of his cinematic cameos.

Dylan Thomas famously wrote "Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rage at end of day." While the admonition is general, how each of us chooses to act on it is deeply personal. And if you take Lee's own most famous admonishment just as seriously, then it's also true that with great power comes great responsibility. For most of us, the greatest power we wield is in the shaping of our own life stories--in exercising the responsibility to decide where and how to spend the limited moments of our lives. It is therefore one of the more peculiar aspects of modern life in America that we have a ceaseless interest in telling other people how to live, effectively usurping both that power and the associated responsibility.

For my part, I've found that being a comics fan has helped me relate to my children and my nephews--a source of endless conversation and familial bonding. And I can't count how many times it's been an ice-breaker among new acquaintances and colleagues who either enjoyed comics as kids or have since become hooked on Marvel movies and TV shows.

So if you like to fish, then fish. If you like to sail, then sail. If you like to immerse yourself in the works of creators like Gene Roddenberry, George Lucas or J. R. R. Tolkien, then go ahead and do that. It's your journey--your course to chart. And if an incredibly enthusiastic pied piper with greying temples, sunglasses, and a broad grin happens to lead you down a path full of green giants, wall-crawlers, and super soldiers, you can follow with confidence. It may not be the road less traveled, but it's not such a bad place to end up after all.

Excelsior.

Life as a NPC (Part 1): My Adventure with Random Encounter Tables as a Way to Plan Free Time

Most people who know me are aware that I'm a planner. It may be my defining trait, in fact, though I'm too close to the subject to say for sure.

That's not to say that I can't have fun. But like my work, the fun things that I do are typically planned well in advance. Theme park and amusement part trips, movie premieres, gaming events and comics conventions--almost all of them occur on a continuously updated and thoughtfully prepared schedule.

However, where my preparation tends to fail me is in those inevitable moments of unplanned free time between commitments: that half day at the end of a long weekend when you've made better-than-expected time in getting home, the morning or early afternoon of a Saturday when the first of your planned activities doesn't occur until midday, the afternoon of a sick day when you find yourself at home and feeling better, etc.

Even then, I'm not stymied by a lack of interests. Rather, I'm confounded by the abundance of them. I like to write. I like to read. I play games. I like to draw and make things with my hands. I like to watch TV and movies and listen to podcasts. My fandoms are numerous: science fiction, fantasy, comics, and other pop culture franchises. And my family shares most of them.

So when I have time on my hands--but only a little bit of it, perhaps a few hours at most--that's when it can be difficult to choose. The debate that ensues is generally unfocused and can often occupy so much of the available time as to render any resulting decision meaningless. Just as often, the conversation doesn't go anywhere and we end up turning on the TV. (I may or may not be developing an unhealthy devotion to Destination America shows like Mountain Monsters and Alaska Monsters.)

Then it hit me one day recently that I needed to plan not to plan. That is to say, I needed to plan for spontaneity. And I already had a mechanism to model after--the random encounter tables common to role-playing games.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept, random encounter tables are printed tables in game modules or other RPG resources that allow a game judge to insert story elements into a campaign based on a die roll. How simple or complex they are depends on the number and type of die being rolled. The number of table options depends on the number of die faces or combinations available. So a random encounter table based on a single six-sided die could have a maximum of 6 outcomes--fewer if the creator of the table decided to assign an outcome to more than one die face (i.e., the roll of a 5 OR a 6). These tables can also be chained together to drive more complex outcomes--with a result from one base table leading to rolls against other secondary tables.

For some people, even just the idea of putting their free time into fate's hands would create no small existential nightmare. However, I'm a peculiar (and, I think, uncommon) mix of anal retentive and whimsical. So the idea of taking the time to not only catalog the various things I enjoy doing but to also value weight them is actually pretty appealing to me. And while I'm still trying to wrap my mind around exactly how I want to use the table, I'm skeptical that I'd do much more than use the die roll to expedite conversation by providing a proposition to either embrace or reject.

Of course, just creating a table presents challenges. I have eclectic interests, and not all of my pastimes will lend themselves to a spur-of-the-moment decision. To be viable for a random encounter table, activities will need to conform to the following conditions:

• They can't require planning or preparation that would require more than a small fraction of the available time--which would typically be no more than a handful of hours
• They likewise can't require travel that would require more than a small fraction of the available time
• I'd likely assign a monetary cap--$50? $100?--since I'd want to control costs associated with any completely unplanned short-duration activity
• It also seems like I'd want to exclude the continuation of any ongoing, longer-term tasks--as it feels like a truly spontaneous act would be undertaken without those kinds of entanglements

So what do you think? How spontaneous would you be willing to be? And what kinds of activities would you put in a random table of your interests?

If you'd like to see what kinds of activities I include--and the logic I'll have used--please join me for Part 2.

All Over but the Screaming: Transitioning from Halloween to the Holidays

I can't speak for anyone else, but I know that I, for one, always find it difficult to switch from celebrating Halloween to preparing for Christmas. When my children were younger, it was one of our traditions to go trick-or-treating at the local mall on the last Friday before the 31st. What we encountered--especially in those years when Halloween was just a day or two away--was a strange and surreal juxtapositioning of incompatible images. The mall was primed for Christmas--their high season--and they just wanted to get Halloween out of the way. The department stores were already swathed in red bows and bunting even as young associates dressed as zombies, vampires, and black cats sat on folding chairs handing out candy to the tune of "Monster Mash" and "Beware the Blob." Invariably, we'd end up walking out of the mall with a flyer reminding us that Light Up Night was coming--sometimes the very next Friday.

I'm pretty stubborn, so we don't flip the switch quite so quickly in my house. Cobwebs and skeletons and monsters usually continue to lurk around every corner of our home until at least the next Sunday following Halloween. And if things are very busy at work, it could even linger a day or two beyond that. But moreover, the mood lingers. We rarely manage to fit in all of our favorite Halloween movies and TV shows in the days leading up to the 31st, and my interest in them doesn't evaporate at the stroke of midnight on November 1st. The same thing is true for any books I might be reading (or, more likely, listening to on my long commute) or any podcasts I might be enjoying.

I don't/can't hold out forever, of course. Like that last man in his lonely farmhouse fighting off the zombie hordes clawing through his boarded-up windows, I will eventually succumb to twinkle lights and carols and the anticipation of Christmas. But if you, like me, are still fighting the good fight, here are some suggestions for how you can extend a spooky autumn feeling through the first few days of November.

What We'll Be Watching...

We managed to fit in the original Ghostbusters, Cabin in The Woods, Alien /Aliens, Shaun of The Dead, and the 80's version of The Thing in the days leading up to and through Halloween. We also watched a decent amount of TV--mostly Travel Channel and Destination America reality programming about ghost hunts and cryptids. But there are still several things I hope to watch in the next week (or maybe two, if my interest hangs on that long):

• Stan Against Evil - We stumbled across this offbeat comedy on IFC at the beginning of last week. It stars John T. McGinley (from Scrubs) and Janet Varney as sheriffs fighting off witches and demons in modern small-town New Hampshire. We just finished binging season one and season three started on Halloween night.
• Stranger Things - This show is so good, you really shouldn't have to justify watching it at any time of the year. I'm not sure I'll have opportunity to watch both seasons again, so I may just have to settle for the overtly Halloween-themed second season.
• AMC Documentaries - Yes, AMC has more programming than just The Walking Dead--though I must confess that my family does watch A LOT of TWD (and its after-party show, The Talking Dead.) That said, I've watched selected episodes of both James Cameron's and Eli Roth's respective documentary series about the masters of the sci-fi and horror genres. I'll likely fill in the gaps here over the next few nights.

What We'll Be Listening To...

• Podcasts - I listen to a lot of them on my drive to work. 
• This time of year in particular, I favor Aaron Menche's Lore--though his bi-weekly deep-dives into folklore and legend are really great anytime. (The Highgate Cemetery episode from a couple of years ago is my favorite around Halloween--if you're looking for a place to start.) 
• If I'm in the mood for something lighter, there's always the "Beyond Belief" segment from The Thrilling Adventure Hour--featuring reluctant paranormal investigators Frank and Sadie Doyle (played outrageously by comedians Paul F. Tompkins and Paget Brewster). 
• As for horror fiction, there is no shortage of anthology series--such as the No Sleep podcast--available to recall old radio shows like The Inner Sanctum.
• Books - I haven't read much Stephen King since I was in college, but I did take the time to listen to the audiobook version of From a Buick 8 a couple of years ago--largely because it was set nearby in Western PA--and I found it pretty engaging. I figure it's probably not on most people's radars, so I thought I'd clue you in. And if you're not willing to make the time commitment to listen to a full novel, there are also King's short stories--including those compiled in anthologies like Skeleton Crew and Four Past Midnight. (I find Matthew Broderick's reading of "The End of the Whole Mess" to be simultaneously chilling and touching--as well as, in some ways, very timely.)
• Music - I'm not sure where they've gotten to, but I know I had two different Mannheim Steamroller Halloween albums on CD. (Yes--you read that right. On CD.) I'll likely break them out this week as well. Admittedly, that one's kind of a gimme--as listening to their Halloween offering is clearly one short hop away from the numerous Christmas albums.

What kinds of things do you do to keep a spooky vibe in your daily routine through the short days and long nights of mid-autumn? Are you a hold-out too, or do you dive gleefully into the Christmas season as soon as you douse your porch light on Halloween night? Let me know in the comments section below.

Assorted Tricks and Treats (Part 4): Rainy Days, Turnips and How to Make the Most of a Mid-Week Halloween

Every Halloween is unique. So while my family has observed a variety of traditions over the years, we rarely find that we can fit in every activity every year. This year was no different in that regard, though I will say that we had a little less luck in dodging the elements this go-round. And the fact that Halloween is falling on a Wednesday created some logistical complications as well.

But while we've had fewer opportunities to enjoy day-long outdoor expeditions this year, that's simply forced us to dig a little deeper into our bag of tricks. So if you're looking to eek out a little more Halloween fun here in the last few hours of the season, here are some ideas we've entertained.

Carve a Turnip

I'd been wanting to do this for a while, after having watched a lot of unconventional carving techniques on shows like the Food Network's Halloween Wars. The original jack o'lanterns were carved from a variety of crops including potatoes, rutabagas, gourds and turnips, and I've been intrigued by the challenge posed by these other media. I won't say my first attempt was a home run (see picture at right), but I'll definitely try this again in coming years. 

Bake Cookies
I normally associate this activity with the winter holidays, but you can make cut-out sugar cookies anytime. And if your goal is to make say a monster claw, well then I suppose you don't really need the precision of a cookie cutter, do you?

See the Sights
Lots of people really lean into Halloween decorating, and they'd love nothing more than to have you enjoy the frightening fruits of their labor. So take a walk through your neighborhood--and not just while trick-or-treating. Do it tonight. Do it during the day tomorrow. Take the long way home from work or school.

Graze Don't Binge
During those times when there isn't time to watch a movie, you can always hop across the Halloween-themed episodes of your favorite TV shows. For our part, we've been jumping around our favorite Michael Schur comedies--watching the brilliant Halloween episodes of The Office, Parks and Recreation, and Brooklyn 99.

Book It
For the first few years after my wife and I were married, we moved around a good bit and we didn't have cable TV. So our Halloween night viewing options were usually fairly limited--though I will confess to remembering some great televised stage plays on PBS during those years (i.e., Sweeney Todd, Dracula, etc.). So we spent a lot of time reading. Have you ever read "The Cask of Amontillado" or "The Tell-Tale Heart" aloud? To your kids, perhaps? If you've got even a little bit of a ham in you, you should try it.

In the end, the most important thing is to enjoy your life and the people who share it with you. So go out of your way to make the next couple days the best that they can be. And then check back here at the end of the week for some ideas on how to sprinkle more spooky goodness through the rest of your autumn.

Have some fearsome fun!

Assorted Tricks and Treats (Part 3): 31 Days and 31 Monsters

As I did last year, I decided to pursue my own take on Inktober this October by creating a whiteboard sketch for each day--31 days and 31 monsters.

My initial aspiration was to avoid using reference--to develop creatures based on memory. And I was able to do that at first--with several of the images featured here falling into that category. But inspiration ultimately failed me after while and I began to sprinkle in poses and likenesses pulled from other sources. (In the end, I think it'll end up around 70/30 skewed towards fully original concepts.)

Like most people, I think, I found the project easy to start but difficult to commit to on a daily basis--especially once I got into the middle of the month. As a matter of fact, I ended up deferring posts to this blog on a couple of occasions because I needed the time to eek out various sketches.

Looking back on the images I chose--and thinking about the handful I have yet to deliver--it's an interesting review of where my head was at through this Halloween season. I included the Flatwoods Monster and the Mothman--both cryptids from neighboring West Virginia--because of proximity and also because of their inclusion in Fallout 76. (I think I'll finish off the set by sketching a Snallygaster sometime before Wednesday.)
In general, I'd wanted to avoid repeating any sketches from last year--though I did cycle through the usual suspects from classic horror (i.e., Frankenstein's monster, a werewolf, Dracula and a vampire bride, etc.). But these were fresh takes on those creatures and some of the sketches I ultimately liked the most once done.

I also tried to stick to black on white, though I needed--just because of availability of materials--to do two of the sketches in red. Leaning into that, I made respective images of The Blob and Marvel's Carnage which may ironically be the two best of the series.

One thing I did this year that I didn't do last year was to weed out some of the work before pushing it to Instagram. I'm not sure if that's really in the spirit of Inktober, but I feel that I've become more critical of my sketches over time and have less patience if certain projects don't seem to be fleshing out the way I'd envisioned them. In particular, I know I scrapped a scarecrow that I may revisit before the end of the month--because I still have a distinct vision, an itch left to be scratched. I don't know if that means that the quality of the work is better overall. I suppose that's left to you to decide.

If you'd like to check out my sketches, please visit my Instagram account and let me know what you think (Find me here: Owl Cowl and Blaster on Instagram.) Especially let me know if there are any concepts I should cram into these last few days of October.

Happy haunting!

Assorted Tricks and Treats (Part 2): Horror-Themed Board Games as a Halloween Season Week Night Filler

With the explosion in tabletop gaming options, there are lots of choices when it comes to Halloween-themed entertainment.

If your family is like mine, weekends fill up pretty quickly. From September through December, that's especially true. In the weeks leading up to Halloween, there are fall festivals at local amusement parks, hayrides and pumpkin picking at local farms, parties and parades. But since virtually all of those activities occur sometime between Friday night and Sunday afternoon, that still leaves a lot of the week open for additional seasonal entertainment.

As I mentioned in my previous post, spooky movies can definitely be a great way to fill much of that time. That said, tabletop gaming can offer an additional, more active dimension to your toolbox of family fun. And thanks to the recent Renaissance in board games, there are plenty of options from which to choose. In fact, sifting through the choices may be the biggest challenge.

Below, I break out several of the games that my family will be playing (and have been playing) throughout October--as well as a wish list of games that we hope to add to our collection in coming months.

What We're Playing

• Zombie Dice and Martian Dice - These two dice games from Steve Jackson Games are pretty simple and very accessible. (I think we bought the former of the two at Target.) Both are "press your luck" games--one that places you in the role of a zombie trying to gobble up brains and one that places you in the role of an alien invader acquiring livestock for experimentation. There's no role play, so neither game is very "deep"--but the game play is very quick and you can play with relatively large numbers of people. (It can often be difficult to find games for more than 6 players--so these can be especially helpful as filler games at gaming events when people are rolling off other games at different intervals.)
• Gloom - I can't help but think of the Addams Family whenever I play this card game--which is, I'm sure, the creator's intention. A great storytelling game, it puts you in charge of a family of misfits whose dark backstories you get to flesh out as you plot their untimely demise. Whoever can weave the best tale of woe--and sink their family's morale the lowest--wins.
• Dead of Winter - I know there are a lot of zombie games out there, but I feel that this one uniquely captures the dread of a post-apocalyptic dystopia filled with the walking dead and desperate survivors. It eschews all camp and uses clever game mechanics--including the indefinite possibility of player defection--to generate genuine suspicion and dread.
• King of Tokyo - I almost considered leaving this game off the list because I view kaiju as more science fiction fodder rather than horror. That said, when one of the game pieces is a virtual doppelganger for a creature billed as "King of The Monsters"--well, I couldn't really exclude it. That said, this is a fun game and the most kid-friendly option on the list. It allows you to take on the role of a giant kaiju throwing down with other monsters in a winner-take-all battle in and around the city of Tokyo.
• Mysterium - This game had topped my wish list coming into last weekend, and we subsequently snatched it up on a trip to our local game store on Saturday morning. (They're super-nice there--a place called "Mr. Nice Guy Games" in Monroeville, a nearby suburb of Pittsburgh.) Cooperative in nature, this game asks players to take on the role of a group of psychic detectives attempting to solve a murder with the assistance of the deceased's restless spirit. It has a vibe similar to Dixit, as the ghost must use imagery to point the investigators in the direction of the killer. It seemed fun when we saw it played on Wil Wheaton's TableTop series (on YouTube) several months ago--so we're eager to try it out.
• Betrayal at House on the Hill - Last but most definitely not least, here is the entry I most immediately associate with the season--as it may be the best Halloween party game I've played. The idea is simple--several friends walk into a creepy mansion and suffer through a variety of terrifying encounters culminating in one of them ultimately being revealed as a traitor. The mansion is always different--built out by the explorers through the turn-by-turn laying of room tiles--and the circumstances of the inevitable haunting and betrayal are always different. The original game came with 50 different haunt scenarios--terrors ranging from vampires to ghost brides to werewolves--and an expansion added 50 more. When you consider that any player could randomly turn out to be the traitor and that the layout of the house is quite different every time, the replay opportunities are virtually infinite. We've played almost a dozen times thus far, and every game has been completely and delightfully unique.

Some More We Hope to Buy in the Near Future

As I've noted above, there are tons of games out there--and we're still relatively new to the hobby. So this list will continue to grow over time. That said, here are the Halloween-themed games we're most eager to add to our collection as of today.

• Whitechapel - Similar to the last item on my list below, this game pits several investigators against a single opponent playing the role of Jack The Ripper. We almost picked this one up last weekend before we stumbled across Mysterium.
• The Thing, Infection at Outpost 31 - They had me at "The Thing"--as that's perhaps my favorite horror movie. And can you think of a better social deduction scenario? Oof.
• Mountains of Madness - Based on the story by H P Lovecraft, this cooperative game has some unusual mechanics--as players are forced to survive not only an unforgiving Antarctic landscape but also challenges that mimic threats to their sanity. At times, you can't talk. On other occasions, you might be forced to sing or speak only in rhymes. We saw it played on a Dice Tower video (again, on YouTube) and it appeared to be very challenging.
• Fury of Dracula - If I was going to run out and grab a game today, it would be this one. One player takes on the role of Dracula attempting to spread his influence across Europe while avoiding detection; meanwhile, his opponents take on the roles of the vampire hunters from Bram Stoker's famous story (Mina Harkness, Dr. Van Helsing, etc.), traveling by horse and train across the continent in a frantic search to find and kill the vampire king. From what I've seen, it seems to be a well-balanced game that captures the flavor of the gothic horror novel--and therefore an ideal pastime for the later evening after all your trick-or-treaters are in for the night.

So what do you think of our list? Are there even better Halloween-themed games we should be considering? If you can think of any you want to recommend, please let me know in the comments section below.

Assorted Tricks and Treats (Part 1): Seven Lesser-Known Movies You'll Want to Add to Your Halloween Season Watch List

Prominent on my wall and in my heart, Forbidden Planet is one of several movies you can use to usher in the season.

I recently had the opportunity to sit down for lunch at a fast food restaurant I used to haunt as a kid. Just a couple of blocks from my parents' house, it was our default option whenever we didn't have time to cook. While it's gone through several renovations over the years, the layout--the dining room, the atrium, the booths and tables--is still quite similar to what it was when I was nine years old and my little sneaker-clad feet swung lazily above the tiled floor. In many ways, it's a time capsule--for my Halloween memories in particular.

While most holidays are steeped in tradition--national, regional, personal--Halloween rivals Christmas and Thanksgiving in terms of the range and texture of traditions that people observe. And those traditions change and evolve as generations cycle through different phases of life. When I was a kid, I remember that Halloween was similar to Christmas in that it was preceded by a long season of anticipation. Some of that was driven by environmental change--cooling temperatures and the changing of the leaves--and some of it was driven by the gradual peppering of autumn sights and sounds into the flow of daily life with pumpkins, corn stalks, and plastic decorations springing up in front of most houses, stores and restaurants.

Through the fourth grade, I attended a relatively large red brick elementary school reminiscent of the one depicted in A Christmas Story. It was just a few doors down from my house, and I remember how I'd walk home from school and immediately begin to peel the little ghost, witch, and pumpkin stickers off my tests and quizzes--presumably to decorate my book covers and notebooks--while gazing out the window at the bright red and yellow foliage on the hillside. On some level, that will always represent Halloween to me.

In the intervening years, I've had the chance to see the holiday from several other angles and in several other roles: as a teenager, a college student, a newlywed, a dad, etc. I've enjoyed the season through hayrides and ghost tours, trick-or-treating and theme parties, and through the consumption of music, books and lots and lots of movies. While that hasn't bestowed on me any special insight into what the best pastimes are--as that's always going to be subject to personal taste--I'll be using my next couple of posts to share some of my favorites on the chance that there might be places where my own list doesn't match yours and may help to expand your horizons.

Seven Lesser-Known Movies You'll Want to Add to Your Halloween Season Watch List

The easiest place to start is with the silver screen. In today's smorgasbord of hundreds of cable channels and on-demand streaming entertainment, these outlets provide access to a huge seasonal catalog of horror movies throughout the month of October. Some movies and franchises are always very deservedly prominent in that offering--Friday the 13th, Alien, Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street and Scream franchises, the works of John Carpenter, George Romero, etc. Also popular are horror comedies like Ghostbusters, Hocus Pocus, Young Frankenstein and Shaun of The Dead. But even with all of the slots available to be filled, some movies never quite climb out of obscurity--living on the fringes of fan consciousness. Below are several such films--some you'll have heard of, some of which might not ring a bell, but all of which are worthy of your consideration for your fall watch list.

• Fright Night - I recently had the good fortune to catch a reunion of the cast of the original 1985 movie at a local Pittsburgh comics convention, and I loved the way that Chris Sarandon described this horror comedy as having "had fun with but not made fun of the vampire genre." Think Rear Window meets Dracula with some of the teen angst (i.e., "no one believes me") of The Blob. I actually like the 2011 Collin Farrell remake too even though it's quite different, so you could always watch both and compare.

• Something Wicked This Way Comes - The most family-friendly offering on the list, I don't know how many people are actually aware of this 1983 Disney adaptation of a book by famed science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. The story is set in a turn-of-the century mid-western town suffering a series of strange disappearances coinciding with the arrival of an unusual but charismatic carnival owner (Jonathan Pryce) and his troupe. BTW - If you find you like this one, I'd also suggest the 1988 film Lady in White. While the story is quite different, I found it to have a similar setting and feel.

• Sleepy Hollow -Your interest in this film will likely depend on your opinion of Johnny Depp. But if you do choose to give it a try, you'll find this one--like his several other collaborations with Tim Burton--to be a visually striking movie. Note that you need to throw your expectations out the door in the first few minutes--as Burton transforms the quaint Washington Irving tale about a school master and his romantic rival into an unabashed supernatural slasher film. Nevertheless, if you're able to set that discontinuity aside--including the idea that Burton's Ichabod Crane is a police inspector--you'll be treated to some fantastically atmospheric set design and visual effects in keeping with the season. 

• Event Horizon - The scariest and most intense film on this list, I've always liked this 1997 Laurence Fishburne/Sam Neill movie because it takes the haunted house trope and transplants it very successfully into an outer space setting. Sometimes exploration needs to be bound not by where we can go but rather where we should go.

• X The Unknown - The oldest movie on my list, you can probably find this one on YouTube--as the copyright on it has lapsed. A 1956 offering from the same Hammer Studios that would later be responsible for Christopher Lee's many Dracula films, this movie holds a slot that could easily be filled by the likes of Fiend Without A Face, Children of The Damned or other early science fiction movies that retained the mood and trappings of gothic horror. Looking and feeling a lot like an episode of "Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits"--neither of which is a bad thing, mind you--this is the tale of a group of scientists led by Dean Jagger (the general from White Christmas) chasing down a blob-like energy vampire across the forests and moors of the English countryside.

• The Day of The Triffids - Given assembled geekdom's ongoing fascination with dystopia, this might scratch that itch for you in a way that scores of zombie movies cannot. Unlike The War of The Worlds--which is still worthy of a viewing in its own right--this 1963 film involves invasion from an unlikely quarter, the plant kingdom. Carnivorous alien plants sprout up across the world and--following a plague of blindness that sweeps the globe--begin to munch on the now-helpless survivors save for small bands of holdouts who have retained their sight.

• Forbidden Planet - As will likely become a running joke on this blog, I could probably add Forbidden Planet to any favorites list I compile--for while it's one of the great early science fiction films, it has enough horror beats to be in this count too. The moody, otherworldly score should hook you within the first few minutes. Plus, it's (kind of) Shakespeare--as it loosely adapts his play "The Tempest."

Enjoy! And let me know in the comments section if there are any favorites of yours that I should consider.

Next time: Games to weave into your pre-Halloween entertainment

Betting on Black: Marvel's Venom and The Problem of Creating Villains with Staying Power in Serialized Fiction

It took me a long time to warm up to Venom. I'm not referring to the movie starring Tom Hardy--now in theaters. Rather, I mean the character itself.

I was a kid when Marvel did the unthinkable and changed the look of their most iconic superhero for the first time by swapping out his traditional red-and-blue duds for a solid black costume with a white spider logo. Spider-Man has changed costumes several times since then and has even been re-imagined as part of an expanding Spider-verse of additional web-slingers. Nevertheless, this first redesign will always be among the most memorable--especially given the then-shocking revelation that the costume was sentient, an alien Klyntar symbiote intent on taking control of its host.

When the costume passed to another wearer, I didn't think much of it--or of that character--at the time. It did seem like a natural progression within the story they were telling, but I was a bit underwhelmed by Venom in his initial appearance in ASM #300. And the fact is, I really just viewed Spidey's rogues gallery as set. You need to remember that, even back in the mid-80's, Spider-Man had been around as a character for more than 20 years. As the comic line's most popular character, he'd been featured in multiple ongoing titles and had been opposed by a seemingly endless list of villains--many of which simply weren't A-listers.

It occurs to me that the rogues gallery supporting any given pop culture franchise is often an interesting ecosystem. While a rogues gallery need not have a finite number of slots, there are effectively only so many villains that you're likely to recall when considering the foes of a particular hero. And I believe there are usually predictable rules governing which characters stick and which characters quickly fall out of mind.

If you're interested in becoming someone's arch-enemy and achieving a place of honor in their rogues gallery, I suggest you do the following:

• Get There Early
• Be There Often
• Make It Personal

Characters tied to a popular hero's origin or early story arcs obviously have a leg up when it comes to staying power. Let's be honest: in many cases, backstories, costumes, and other quirks (like alliterative names, i.e. "Otto Octavius") that would be considered cringe-worthy in the development of a new character are quickly forgiven where "classic" villains are concerned. As long as successive creative teams can evolve these characters over time--updating them with new looks and increased power levels--any references to past costumes or plots are done with reverence or as an inside joke for long-time fans.

Of course, that doesn't mean that all of the most significant villains in a hero's roster are the oldest. As I note in my second observation, a newer foe can climb the ranks by posing an ongoing threat to the hero--though I suppose that involves an element of displacement. So a newer villain effectively needs to make up ground on older foes--as heavy emphasis on a new villain typically means that some number of older characters are receiving less exposure. Not exactly a zero sum game--but close.

The third imperative I imagine is easy enough to defend. The greater the impact to the hero's personal life out of costume, the greater the likelihood that an arch-nemesis will be born. We've even seen that factor into reboots--such as in Oscorp having bred the spider that bit Peter Parker in recent re-tellings of Spider-Man's origin. And so while I might not have had a defined checklist in mind back then when considering the place of Venom in Spider-Man canon, I'm sure I intuitively weighed several of these factors at the time--and found the character wanting.

Eddie Brock's obsession with Peter/Spider-Man had some clear Cape Fear overtones to it. Brock viewed Spider-Man and Peter Parker independently and collectively having ruined his life--and he found a kindred spirit in the rejected symbiote. So that did give him somewhat unique motivations among the wall-crawler's coterie of villains. But he still seemed at first like a one-note villain operating under a now familiar handicap--he was just a dark reflection of the hero.

One of the most common complaints about the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) is that its most prominent villains are always just what I described above--a dark mirror version of the franchise's most popular heroes. (Abomination = bigger Hulk. Iron Monger = bigger Iron Man. Etc., etc., etc.) So Venom wasn't there at the beginning with Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Vulture and the like. His shtick was that he was a bigger, meaner wall-crawler. And he was being inserted into an almost literal menagerie of foes that had more than two decades of a head start on him. I wouldn't have put money on the character being a keeper--let alone one of the top two or three villains who come to mind when you think of the Spider-Man mythos.

If I'd have considered a character more likely to become a stand-out in Spidey's rogues gallery, it would have been the Hobgoblin. Having been introduced a few years beforehand, Hobgoblin had taken up the mantle of the seemingly deceased Norman Osborne (Green Goblin). It was hinted that this mysterious villain was someone with ties--either close or casual--to Peter Parker, and that the thief had stumbled across Osborne's costumes and weapon cache, using them to generate a similar but distinct persona for himself. While many found the resolution of the mystery unsatisfying--as well as later attempts to retcon that resolution--the way it unfolded was entertaining at the time. (Basically the same way that I view the first few seasons of Lost.) The (ultimately multiple) Hobgoblins seemed to have a much better chance of being the memorable rogues gallery addition of the 80s.

Then Venom got teeth...

And I don't mean that the character got traction. I mean he literally got a big jagged mouthful of teeth.

In his first appearance, Venom generally looked like a larger, more muscular version of the black-suited Spider-Man. One notable difference was that his mask revealed a disconcerting smile--presumably Eddie Brock's smile. In retrospect, as I look back on the artwork from that first issue, it occurs to me that the teeth were a bit big--but that didn't really strike me as odd in the context of Todd McFarlane's art style. They were still human-looking teeth. Within a few years however--as part of a transformation that you can view either as progressive creative license or an in-universe adaptation--Venom can be found sporting huge razor-sharp fangs.

That was the trump card, as the aesthetic and attitude of Venom ideally suited the grim and gritty direction of comics for more than a decade to come. In some ways, he was the poster child for comics in the '90s--a savage villain popular enough to be recast as a "lethal protector" alongside the likes of Wolverine, Ghost Rider, and the Punisher. Amazingly, Marvel was even able to straddle the line of moral ambiguity such that Venom could throw down with Spider-Man at any given moment while still being portrayed as a more-or-less sympathetic anti-hero in his own title(s).

So I suppose that's the fourth and final element to whether a new villain can break his or her way into the upper echelons of fandom--capturing the zeitgeist. Venom was the right creation at the right time--clawing and elbowing his way past older characters like Tarantula and Hammerhead to achieve parity with mainstays like the members of the Sinister Six.

Whether the character is strong enough to be the tent pole in an MCU-adjacent cinematic universe remains to be seen. The fact that the character has made it this far--has developed an identity that can survive independent from Spider-Man given these beginnings--is, in and of itself, rather remarkable. Seeing previews of the Venom symbiote minus the now-iconic white spider logo is a bit jarring, though it could be viewed as the capstone of an evolution that started shortly after the character's introduction.

I know this much--I won't bet against this wall-crawler a second time.