Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 1 by Hope Nicholson

All the backlog of 2017 is finally done with books! Moonshot is the first book of 2018 to be read. I’m going through my book hauls from last year so Toronto Comiccon yielded this book and another that I have just started to read as I’m writing this up. AH Comics are the ones who put this compilation out of Indigenous stories told by various illustrators and writers. I had picked up this one and gotten Titan: An Alternate History, where you can check out that review HERE.

Moonshot: The Indigenous Comics Collection, Volume 1
by: Hope Nicholson

From traditional stories to exciting new visions of the future, this collection presents some of the finest comic book and graphic novel work in North America. The traditional stories presented in the book are with the permission from the elders in their respective communities, making this a truly genuine, never-before-seen publication. MOONSHOT is an incredible collection that is sure to amaze, intrigue and entertain! – Goodreads

Moonshot is a beautiful indigenous comics collection. The variety and the diversity of its stories really had a wonderful touch to the traditions and storytelling nature that the culture has been known for. For myself, there is a lot of unknowns since I have never dug deep however ever since I’ve played the game Never Alone, its somewhat peaked my interest in learning more because there is just so much to learn from the different tribes (if that’s the right world). Each story is preceded with a blurb about the story’s origins and the approach it takes. Some of them stay true to the roots and look at possibly one angle of retelling while some has taken a story and injected into a futuristic world however still managing to portray its essence. Its genuine and knowledgeable while being entertaining as well.

Moonshot is a collection of 13 stories and while I really don’t want to have to evaluate each of them, here are the few that I liked the most:

• Vision Quest: Echo: This story kicks off the compilation in such a creative way. It says in the beginning introduction blurb that its told uniquely in Indian Sign Language. There is a beauty of seeing the story unfold through elaborate pictures put together like a collage in some ways. Its a powerful and meaningful story told in such an effective way.
• Ochek: What grabs me the most about this story is its art style and how it tells the story with anamorphic creatures heading out to look for warmth to help their families survive the cold harsh winter. It links it to the well-known constellations which adds on a new meaning and lessons to this story.
• UE-Purcase: Water Master: A lovely twist of this story shows how lessons learned in these stories are timeless as this story is retold in the collection set in the distant future where people live out in space. The world here and the art along with the story is told so well.
• Strike and Plot: Also set in the future, Strike and Plot resembles a lot of the story of God of Thunder and Lightning because here the sons posses the power of lightning and electricity respectively. They are sent on a mission that comes back with an unexpected outcome. The art and the world is very nice and the story is engaging.
• Tlicho Nàowo: This story takes place on Halloween however, it is a story about paying respect to spirits and ancestor and the herds that feed them. The meaning stems deep and is a nice extension of how the indigenous Tlicho would celebrate their Halloween.
• Ayanisach: Ayanisach means ‘he who tells stories of the past’ in Cree. With that said, this story uses a brilliant art style set in the future to emphasize the importance of storytelling to learn the past to improve on their future. Also one of the final dialogue in the story.

To be fair, a lot of the stories here are very stylistic. Whether it is the way that they choose to tell it in their words and/or the art style. These six are really the ones that appealed to me the most however, I was impressed by all of them. Its an enjoyable read and one that is very educational and entertaining as we learn about different groups (tribes? not sure how to say that) from different places in North America and their stories. Its definitely a creative way to share it.

Titan: An Alternate History by Michael Tymczyszyn & Andy Stanleigh

I have been reading more graphic novels and comics lately. It is a much more relaxing experience and pretty fun to discover or rediscover cool stories. Some of you who saw my Toronto Comiccon haul will know that I got two books from AH Comics.

I remember AH Comics from the year before and remembering that I hadn’t had time to go back the year before. But this year, I just had to pick it up. Lets start with Titan: An Alternate History.

Titan: An Alternate History
By: Michael Tymczyszyn (author) and Andy Stanleigh (illustrations)

Traveling through four distinct periods in history, this graphic novel follows Peter Tytan, an unassuming archaeology professor until a brutal mugging leaves him broken, bloodied, and hallucinating. Through this alternate history he sees a world similar and yet very different from our own—from the Steppes of ancient Russia to the Crusades to the Industrial Revolution. With every hallucination Peter experiences his world spins further and further away from the one he recognized, creating astounding changes that overcome him, transform him, and ultimately make him a titan among men. – Goodreads

First of all, Titan is very unique. The first thing that will catch your eyes is the art. As we travel time and through different scenes, we start seeing a change in the style and yet still incredibly well-drawn. Of course, I’m rather new to the graphic novel world however, the art here appealed to me a lot. It created a different tone for each part. While I’m not very well-versed in history, the book features some characters that are widely known as general knowledge and jumps back into events that are also known to others. The idea here is in the alternate history where it is familiar to the readers and yet, seeks to show something different. The way it is presented, particularly the dialogue works so well here and makes it rather unique.

However, the only thing that I did have some minor issues is was the transition between scenes. Perhaps the novel-reading me takes over in this department but there does seem to be gaps. For sure, these are hallucinations and yet, there’s something that doesn’t always piece together well enough. It may have to do with the fact that this is a short graphic novel. However, there is still an indie charm immediately apparent when reading Titan. There’s heart and some fun ideas thrown together along with no barriers to what can be accomplished and achieved.

While, there were some moments that pulled me out of the story a little, the art and the dialogue and even the characters has me intrigued to see where this continues. The best achievement here is being able to smudge the line of reality and history in terms of Peter Tytan.

What’s Up…#2: One of Those Days…

It has been a while since one of these What’s Up things. Actually, I had been putting them off as a buffer thinking that it had been so recent. Apparently, I was wrong. Either way, I was supposed to have a double feature go up today for Violet & Daisy and The Gift but it isn’t done. This week has been odd. Busy and crazy and yet not really  motivated to do much when I get home especially after working on my family’s income tax since I’m the numbers person in the house. It isn’t particularly complicated, just time consuming, especially when my real life job is of the number-crunching variety and it has been super busy as well.

Aside from that, this morning has been just really ridiculous. I don’t want to complain but its one of those, “Can I just crawl back into bed?” days. However, I do have one other post that needs to get up in a timely fashion for Game Warp stuff. If only Google Drive app didn’t want to be stupid this morning, it probably would have been fine. Okay, I’ll stop now.

Anyways, not really sure what to do for this What’s Up segment but let’s give it a go!

Watching & Binging

My Neighborhood

Riverdale

Riverdale is in its last few episodes before Season 1 ends. I’m really looking forward to writing up that post, while I have a feeling, I need to rewatch Season 4 of Gilmore Girls at this point. I’m getting all the seasons mixed up together and its why those recaps aren’t up yet. The Client List is still happening but I took a break because I need to write Season 1 recap and Season 2 is having a pretty slow start. For something more light and fluffy, I’m watchingt his Hong Kong series called The Neighborhood. Its not great but it is a ton of fun to watch and a change in pace from the norm. Especially as I wait to go home and watch the next episode of Riverdale tonight. Actually, I haven’t finished Gotham Season 1 yet but I haven’t watched that for over a month, not sure it still applies as binging it 😉

Reading

Freshly started reading this graphic novel this morning! Titan: An Alternate History from AH Comics and also one that I picked up at Toronto ComiCon. So far, I’m about halfway through and it is pretty good. Very creative and the art is fantastic. There’s this really cool contrast. Anyways, not reviewing it now. I’ll do it soon once I’m done. It has been quiet on the reading front mostly because I’m waiting for my f-ing books to arrive and its one of the reasons that has me a little down. Although I’m a little better now. #firstworldproblems, am I right? 😉 Anyways, the resolution now is a replacement order which I’m going to pick up at an Indigo store myself because apparently our postal service can’t get these orders to me without any hiccups.

No complaints…I’m taking a deep breath…let’s continue! I am thinking of starting Ready Player One and Cinder now. However, there are 3 books that take priority to it because some of our darling bloggers and writers were kind enough to send them to me to review so I’m stoked about that.

See, I told you this would get positive. 😉

Playing
(and the list is so much longer…)

I’ve been absolutely obsessed with PinOut which is a mobile pinball game on a time limit. I actually beat it just the other day and went into overtime, which I have no idea what that means but I’ve been jumping back into it and trying to unlock a few more achievements plus its just a really nice game to pass short bits of time. On the other hand, I’ve been spending lots of time on Steam. April’s Game Warp featured game is Guacamelee: Super Turbo Championship Edition and I only have just a bit left. Battleblock Theater is one I finished Chapter 1. I don’t think I can do chapter by chapter playthroughs as it gets harder but the first chapter was decently fun and simple.

However, I did get a stream for Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series – Episode 1 which was released on Tuesday. I actually posted up the playthrough. I had to remove songs because it turned on copyright claims so I’m sorry if its boring and if you sometimes hear me snickering in the background. It was the footage from the stream.

I’ll be doing an overview and quick review of Episode 1 over at That Moment In soon. Its been a tad busy and a few things to roll out before.

Listening

I’m still following The Voice Season 12. There’s some pretty good talent although a good part of the ones I like are gone. My fave is Johnny Hayes who unfortunately got cut. How I stay positive is that even though he is cut at least I now know of his existence and that he actually is in a band and I’ll be following that. His voice and style is awesome. Seriously love it! 🙂

That’s it for today!
Writing this up has been fun and honestly, I’m feeling a lot better. But its time for a little chill session.
One of the reasons for some structural change here is to make it stay fresh and fun.
I’ll make up for the missing segments in the next weekend. Gotta get some of the backlog out.

What have you been watching, reading, playing and/or listening?

Toronto Comicon Weekend Haul!

This past weekend was a fantasticLly awesome one as I headed out to Toronto for Comicon (just like last year). Its been a crazy process getting back and having everything cleaned and put away and getting back on routine so today, I am doing a simple one to talk about my haul.

I will take a few days this week (probably two) to share the Toronto experience because just like last year, as something of a reward or whatnot, I met up with Drew to hangout and visit Toronto and Comicon together. And just like true movie bloggers, we got in a movie as well amd even made it to a party (comicon related) as well as a sightseeing location. Lots of fun and a packed schedule but I think it turned out pretty great. Look for those posts while I get those new segments finalized (something I ran out of time last week for).

Lets check out what I picked up both before and at the Toronto Comicon.

Before the Comicon, I had a little bit of time before Drew arrived so I went out for a little shopping. I had a few stores on my list to hit and they were:

HMV
(because they are closing out of Canada so lots of discounts)

Disney Store
(never been to the one at Eaton Centre)

David’s Tea
(spontaneously remembered  was running out at home)

Toronto Comicon was a weekend thing and we bought the weekend pass so we went on Friday to scout out the show and then did most of our shopping on Saturday after all the Q&A panels. Here’s what I picked up:

Movies & Video Games

I got a super sweet deal for Uncharted 4 at Iceman Video Games which was also there last year. I’m pretty happy about it. They had some awesome choices and selection.

However, I really want to talk about Raven Banner where we stopped by to look at horror movies. They were fantastic and we had a great talk about horror indie films in general. Not sure they’ll read this post but that chat was a highlight of the ComiCon for myself. It really defines why we do this movie blogging thing and meeting people who are equally passionate about this. It was a fun and enlightening chat.

Novel and Comics

Let’s look at this from left to right.

• Toronto Comics‘ Yonge at Heart is a Canadian comic author that sets in Toronto. This is a free preview to get a snippet of their comic for their Kickstarter campaign running right now till beginning of April, I believe. I saw them on Twitter before the trip and really liked the art style and the idea of using a Canadian setting. You can check out the Kickstarter here.
• Remy’s Dilemma by Andrew Snook is a novel with this plot below from their website. A part of selling your work is being passionate about it. And Andrew does a great job at it. To be honest, his enthusiasm as he told his story and the joy he had recounting the story was so genuine that I could feel the awesomeness in the story. I haven’t started reading it yet but this looks like a fun journey with Remy especially when its set in two provinces in Canada that I’ve visited numerously  and live in.

The world is coming to an end. That’s what Remy believes, anyways. While double-checking his lifelong to-do list to ensure he has led a rich life, he realizes he hasn’t come close to completing his goals. Panicked and short on time, Remy embarks on a chaotic road trip to complete the most important item on his bucket list… – Snook Books

• Moonshot & Titan from AH Comics: Moonshot is an Indigenous Comics Collection (Volume 1) with various stories from different artists. With the purchase of this one (inspired by my peaked curiosity after my playthrough of Never Alone a few weeks ago), they also gave the gift of their graphic novel Titan: An Alternate History, which is great because then they saved me having to decide on which one to get with my purchase.

Artwork

Foiled Art makes this beautiful little pop culture pieces. They do a lot with gold or silver (or both for limited edition) but I honestly thought that this galaxy one looks superb. It really brings out the art and pops. This is going right over my work station at home because its so fantastically awesome!

Howl’s Moving Castle by Chasing Artwork

I love love love Miyazaki art and Chasing Artwork is a great artist. There are two comics out currently which I passed up on but these pieces are so atmospheric and creative. I actually stood there pondering which to get. He also has one for Nausicaa which just took my breath away. I’m personally a huge fan of Howl’s Moving Castle so this one is great.

Betty and Veronica by Dan Parent (with autograph)

For those of you who don’t know (which you might not because I don’t review comics), I love Archie comics and really I haven’t looked much at the newer ones although they do look cool but these traditional ones. I know I have a few volumes sitting in a box after we moved. I just can’t remember where so I couldn’t take it with me but Dan Parent was there who does a ton of these illustrations. I particularly loved this print and look he signed it also. Consider me a little star strucked when I saw him because I wanted to say a ton and just couldn’t.

The haul could have been so much more. There was so many great writers and artists that the choice was hard to make. However, I retain the idea of picking up stuff from the ones that I skipped but has an Etsy shop or other form of online retail. I have to say this was a pretty successful weekend!

What do you think about the haul? Anything that catches your eye?