Well, you can't have Zombie knife fights every week - and sadly, after the great episodes we got so far I was kinda expecting a slower one. So strap in, we've got an uninteresting brain of the week, our manchild CEO, and the return of an old character I'm calling Papa John's Commercial here on out.
To the recap!
We open on a pretty, white lady with the creepiest eyes I have ever seen getting attacked by the world's most bumbling assassin. While trying to kill her with the power of Cheeto palms, they both fall off the cliff. He should have studied under Major first, because holy shit is that guy scary out of nowhere. Remember when he was just the goofy councilor who kept getting beaten up by Lenny the zombie?
Turns out the assassin, whom I named Beardy, posed as a realtor to kill our brain of the week. He originally worked at a car detail and thief emporium. Ravi quips: "Thief posing as a Realtor. Seems like a lateral move."
Clive assumes it's the spouse because he always does. "When rich wives get killed it's either about money or sex." Meanwhile Liv's gotten clingier than usual, wanting to spend Friday hanging out with Ravi and Clive which they imply has happened before. I'd love to have been a fly on that wall with Ravi spinning quips at the napkin dispenser, Liv crumbling from her last lunch, and Clive groaning into his beer wondering who cursed him.
Can we take up a collection to send him on a nice vacation? He's earned it.
Since the brain of the week is about as exciting as white bread in a white room during a white sale, we're also watching Major continue his downward spiral to becoming a Batman villain. He's been crossing names off the list by sensing who isn't really a zombie and letting them live. Gilda gets to him by mentioning that Von's original plan was to just send letters to all the alleged zombies, get 'em on a boat and sink it. Though, given her cut-throat nature and gleam in the eye I kind hope it was actually her plan. I fear they're softening her up for reasons coming up, but Von - while ruthless - feels a bit like watching a toddler with all the money in the world. Gilda being the cold, heartless one would be so much more fun.
Major understands her threat and finds himself another zombie to off. Because half of this show is trying to destroy the guy - after he drugs the man (Von must have given him a deal or something), the zombie wakes up in his trunk begging Major to not kill him or his dog. Major does one of those, and dumps the guy into the Dead Body River. Clive, I know you're busy dealing with whatever weird shit Liv's into now, but you might want to notice the body's piling up in the drainage system. It's starting to smell.
They do tie our brain of the week to Von, turns out her husband sits on the Max Rager board. Does Max Rager own Seattle or something? It's like the Wayne Tech and Star Labs of iZombie but instead of creating - in theory - helpful tech or medicine it only produces energy drinks and zombies. Damn, that's dark.
Clive and Liv go to ask Von some questions about Taylor (our brain of the week), and Liv gets her first flashback that I think we'd all like to burn out of our brains. Bleach is in the second cabinet below the sink! Seems Taylor was screwing Von, which he's quick to deny because he's not a moron - though his brain seems to be stuck at age 21 in a frat house.
Apparently he's Seattle's most eligible bachelor because the rest of the options are hipsters. He and Liv had an entertaining exchange where, after talking about Taylor and Terrance's marriage, he says "There's a reason you won't catch me getting married ."
Liv cuts back with: "Because you can't legally marry your own reflection?"
"Burn." This is why I'm hoping it's Gilda that's the true brains, because you just don't want your super genius CEO to go around spouting memes at the drop of a hat. Have I mentioned yet that I miss Blaine?
On the way out, Liv runs into Major in Von's office. She rightly freaks out, then less rightly slaps him. He takes it like a kicked puppy, though Von's entertained as hell. At least with Major knowing the truth Liv can kinda try to explain it as brains making her act weird except Major never ate any. He has no idea about zombie vision, so...Eh, he's so broken I'm sure he'll forget about it.
READ THE REST HERE
Sunday, October 25, 2015
Sunday, October 18, 2015
Dwarves in Space: Taliesin's Job
Here's a little preview of a job my elven assassin Taliesin's sent on. A little something to pass the time on this fine Sunday afternoon.
Friday, October 16, 2015
iZombie: Zombie Bro
iZombie either does episodes that are light on the murder and heavy on their awesome zombie mafia/breaking Major/evil Red Bull CEO or it's all the brain of the week with little of the best parts. This episode, however, was somehow an almost 50:50 mix and it worked.
We also got a nice twist on the brain of the week that I didn't see coming.
So let's get to it.
We open at a frat party (yeah, I know, but bear with me). Apparently Netflix must have just gotten Animal House because these 20 somethings all decided to recreate it, even going so far as having our brain of the week dressed as Caesar. But, out of nowhere a blue muskrat wearing a sea captain's hat shows up and stabs Caesar to death. Round up that Captain and maybe Tennille as an accomplice.
While standing over the body Ravi says: "He came, he saw, he was stabbed several times by a small cylindrical object."
This is why you don't dress like Caesar, you're just asking to get stabbed forty times in the back. Come on frat guys, you should really use common sense and have a friend watch your back for stab wounds during the night. Maybe if you didn't dress so roman emperory, people wouldn't feel the animalistic urge to stab you in the back. I'm just giving you sound advice here.
Back at Blaine's Mortuary and Buffet, my all time favorite villain is plotting how to expand his utopium business. Seems there's someone named Mr. Boss? (possibly Voss, though Mr. Boss is better. He's so awesome he doesn't care he's got a stupid name) that's got the entire town under his drug running and other evil machinations thumb. It's Kingpin but without the pathos or Vanessa.
Blaine's got a bunch of new drug runners to do his work while he stays in the shadows, and after assurances that he'll watch out for them, he sends them out into the wide world. Don E's back, confirming my suspicions that this was our poor Scott E's twin brother. Blaine, probably bored, asks why Don E had Scott E (not a single Star Trek joke? Not even now. Sadness) committed.
Don E: "He thought zombies were running around Seattle."
Blaine, while introducing Don E to a zombie noshing on a corpse's brains: "That's just silly, sometimes they loiter."
Back to the brain of the week, which has Liv shouting Dude and Bro a lot (I wouldn't make a drinking game out of the bro count unless you are mortal enemies with your liver). Clive's doing his thing and figured out that our dead Caesar was normally named Chad because of course he was. Nothing good comes from someone named Chad. This Chad was particularly horrific with his love of "pranks" or as the Geneva convention calls them "cruel and unusual torture."
He buttered some guy's floor so he'd fall and probably fracture a few bones just for daring to have a higher body fat content than other people. We also get our first zombie vision of Chad doing a keg stand and having one of the frat brothers run up and say he ruined his life. Seems our prankster had the kid, as a pledge, jog naked in front of an elementary school, so now he has to register as a sex offender.
This was a quick red herring as it was mostly to establish that Clive is one of the best detectives on tv. Really. I feared most of this episode would be them figuring out Caesar was stabbed by wacky costume and Liv would have to zombie vision it, but nope, Clive just flicks through naked joggers instagram photos and figures it out himself. Sometimes I think he just keeps Liv around because Clive's a masochist.
As they're leaving the house, after Liv's practically high fived all the dude bros, he says to her: "You're like that box of chocolates in Forrest Gump. I never know what I'm gonna get."
READ THE REST HERE
We also got a nice twist on the brain of the week that I didn't see coming.
So let's get to it.
We open at a frat party (yeah, I know, but bear with me). Apparently Netflix must have just gotten Animal House because these 20 somethings all decided to recreate it, even going so far as having our brain of the week dressed as Caesar. But, out of nowhere a blue muskrat wearing a sea captain's hat shows up and stabs Caesar to death. Round up that Captain and maybe Tennille as an accomplice.
While standing over the body Ravi says: "He came, he saw, he was stabbed several times by a small cylindrical object."
This is why you don't dress like Caesar, you're just asking to get stabbed forty times in the back. Come on frat guys, you should really use common sense and have a friend watch your back for stab wounds during the night. Maybe if you didn't dress so roman emperory, people wouldn't feel the animalistic urge to stab you in the back. I'm just giving you sound advice here.
Back at Blaine's Mortuary and Buffet, my all time favorite villain is plotting how to expand his utopium business. Seems there's someone named Mr. Boss? (possibly Voss, though Mr. Boss is better. He's so awesome he doesn't care he's got a stupid name) that's got the entire town under his drug running and other evil machinations thumb. It's Kingpin but without the pathos or Vanessa.
Blaine's got a bunch of new drug runners to do his work while he stays in the shadows, and after assurances that he'll watch out for them, he sends them out into the wide world. Don E's back, confirming my suspicions that this was our poor Scott E's twin brother. Blaine, probably bored, asks why Don E had Scott E (not a single Star Trek joke? Not even now. Sadness) committed.
Don E: "He thought zombies were running around Seattle."
Blaine, while introducing Don E to a zombie noshing on a corpse's brains: "That's just silly, sometimes they loiter."
Back to the brain of the week, which has Liv shouting Dude and Bro a lot (I wouldn't make a drinking game out of the bro count unless you are mortal enemies with your liver). Clive's doing his thing and figured out that our dead Caesar was normally named Chad because of course he was. Nothing good comes from someone named Chad. This Chad was particularly horrific with his love of "pranks" or as the Geneva convention calls them "cruel and unusual torture."
He buttered some guy's floor so he'd fall and probably fracture a few bones just for daring to have a higher body fat content than other people. We also get our first zombie vision of Chad doing a keg stand and having one of the frat brothers run up and say he ruined his life. Seems our prankster had the kid, as a pledge, jog naked in front of an elementary school, so now he has to register as a sex offender.
This was a quick red herring as it was mostly to establish that Clive is one of the best detectives on tv. Really. I feared most of this episode would be them figuring out Caesar was stabbed by wacky costume and Liv would have to zombie vision it, but nope, Clive just flicks through naked joggers instagram photos and figures it out himself. Sometimes I think he just keeps Liv around because Clive's a masochist.
As they're leaving the house, after Liv's practically high fived all the dude bros, he says to her: "You're like that box of chocolates in Forrest Gump. I never know what I'm gonna get."
READ THE REST HERE
Friday, October 9, 2015
iZombie: Grumpy Old Liv
How was your summer? Good good. Only a few alien invasions and one attack by catapult werewolves with mange? None of that matters because iZombie is back!
If you missed the amazingballs of last years season finale you can read the long recap here. Or here's the short short short version.
Major breaks out of his ice prison, goes full on Rambo but without the mullet, blows the shit out of Meat Cute then gets stabbed by Blaine. While he's dying, Liv jabs Blaine with her zombie cure then later cures Major too because she's great at thinking ahead. It ends with her brother getting blown to smithereens because the police Lieutenant had the same "explosions are awesome" bug as Major.
Without wasting any time, we're back in the hospital. Despite refusing to give her brother her blood for zombie related reasons (and Medicaid won't cover undead transfers), he still made it through the first surgery and is on the docket for more. It turns out Liv had been trying to visit him for the four months the show's been off the air (and he's been in the hospital the whole time? I would not want to see that bill), but he's refused her. Both her brother and mother blame Liv for not giving up her blood and sharing in the awesome zombie virus.
Of course this leads to the "I must hardened my heart and walk alone" trope which I just got an hour of from the Flash. Sigh. I squirmed at this point because seriously, enough with the damn lone wolf who's dangerous and can't let people near them plotline? Barry's moping seemed even more outlandish compared to the two women on the show who lost a fiance and husband respectively but seemed to have moved on! He's too busy being the Batman, I mean lone Flash crime fighter who something something, I don't know. I expected him to smear on eyeliner and wear all black.
I'm mostly bringing up the Flash for compare and contrast purposes, so bear with me. Seriously though, enough with the Man Pain!
Having established that Liv and her brother yet live, it's time for the brain of the week. Sorry guys, it's pretty pointless but barely mentioned so...
We get the weirdest brain of the week beginning as a woman decides running in a suburban area at 2 in the morning is a great idea. She spots an old lecherous guy working on his car and then a pair of kids playing hockey. At night. At 2 in the morning. If this isn't a remake/update of children of the corn I'll eat my straw hat.
Anyway, turns out the dead person isn't the runner from a hockey stick stabbed into her brain, but the old guy who got smashed below his car. Our first red herring rolls up in her scooter, and she talks about how the dead guy, Wendell, was her brother in law and a cantankerous old bastard. They try to give some reasoning because of illness and his wife leaving, but after a few decades do those excuses count anymore?
MAN PAIN! LONE WOLF!
After Liv noshes on some spaghetti and brainballs we do a little catching up with our ex-zombie rat. Liv calls her Final Hope, but Ravi insists it's New Hope, not Final Hope because that name's too dark.
"If I wanted to give her a depressing name I'd have called her Phantom Menace."
I've missed you so much Ravi. How is there not already a section of Tumblr the size of Alaska dedicated to that man? Quippy, hot, and kinda nerdy? Come on ladies of tumblr, I'm counting on you.
The other reason I love Ravi is because he often says what we've all been screaming at Liv as he tears into her for wasting the cure. It's an excuse to explain to the audience that yes there were only two samples, and yes she wasted them on her mortal enemy and ex-fiance but it needed to happen. No letting our hero off the hook for being sorry because she may have doomed them all to a zombie apocalypse.
It's also establishing one of the main concerns of this season. In order to make more cure they need the same samples of the tainted drug Utopium from the boat party. And the only person likely to have it is our favorite zombie godfather, Blaine!
Don't go thinking our don-undead's vanished into the night and is reduced to eating rats in the alley. Nope, he's gotten himself a new job at a mortuary where he's just as delightfully creepy as always. Though, I have to question his choice of nom-de-plumes. John Deaux? Really. I expected better from you, Blaine.
Liv goes to confront him at his new house of the dead where some great banter happens. He tortures Liv by eating a piece of chocolate and extolling the virtues of having living tastebuds. She spits back:
"Are you eating that or impregnating it?"
Because Blaine is the Lex Luthor of zombies, he's used his thinking bones to figure out that since Major wasn't mentioned on the list of dead from Meat Cute going to Pun Heaven then either the Ken Doll's running around as a zombie, or most likely she wasted the cure on him. Liv demures the fact, then turns back around on Blaine admitting that they just injected a couple rats, one of which died after a few days. Who knows how long or if the cure will last. So it'd be really useful if he got her some of that same tainted Unobtanium.
READ THE REST HERE
If you missed the amazingballs of last years season finale you can read the long recap here. Or here's the short short short version.
Major breaks out of his ice prison, goes full on Rambo but without the mullet, blows the shit out of Meat Cute then gets stabbed by Blaine. While he's dying, Liv jabs Blaine with her zombie cure then later cures Major too because she's great at thinking ahead. It ends with her brother getting blown to smithereens because the police Lieutenant had the same "explosions are awesome" bug as Major.
Without wasting any time, we're back in the hospital. Despite refusing to give her brother her blood for zombie related reasons (and Medicaid won't cover undead transfers), he still made it through the first surgery and is on the docket for more. It turns out Liv had been trying to visit him for the four months the show's been off the air (and he's been in the hospital the whole time? I would not want to see that bill), but he's refused her. Both her brother and mother blame Liv for not giving up her blood and sharing in the awesome zombie virus.
Of course this leads to the "I must hardened my heart and walk alone" trope which I just got an hour of from the Flash. Sigh. I squirmed at this point because seriously, enough with the damn lone wolf who's dangerous and can't let people near them plotline? Barry's moping seemed even more outlandish compared to the two women on the show who lost a fiance and husband respectively but seemed to have moved on! He's too busy being the Batman, I mean lone Flash crime fighter who something something, I don't know. I expected him to smear on eyeliner and wear all black.
I'm mostly bringing up the Flash for compare and contrast purposes, so bear with me. Seriously though, enough with the Man Pain!
Having established that Liv and her brother yet live, it's time for the brain of the week. Sorry guys, it's pretty pointless but barely mentioned so...
We get the weirdest brain of the week beginning as a woman decides running in a suburban area at 2 in the morning is a great idea. She spots an old lecherous guy working on his car and then a pair of kids playing hockey. At night. At 2 in the morning. If this isn't a remake/update of children of the corn I'll eat my straw hat.
Anyway, turns out the dead person isn't the runner from a hockey stick stabbed into her brain, but the old guy who got smashed below his car. Our first red herring rolls up in her scooter, and she talks about how the dead guy, Wendell, was her brother in law and a cantankerous old bastard. They try to give some reasoning because of illness and his wife leaving, but after a few decades do those excuses count anymore?
MAN PAIN! LONE WOLF!
After Liv noshes on some spaghetti and brainballs we do a little catching up with our ex-zombie rat. Liv calls her Final Hope, but Ravi insists it's New Hope, not Final Hope because that name's too dark.
"If I wanted to give her a depressing name I'd have called her Phantom Menace."
I've missed you so much Ravi. How is there not already a section of Tumblr the size of Alaska dedicated to that man? Quippy, hot, and kinda nerdy? Come on ladies of tumblr, I'm counting on you.
The other reason I love Ravi is because he often says what we've all been screaming at Liv as he tears into her for wasting the cure. It's an excuse to explain to the audience that yes there were only two samples, and yes she wasted them on her mortal enemy and ex-fiance but it needed to happen. No letting our hero off the hook for being sorry because she may have doomed them all to a zombie apocalypse.
It's also establishing one of the main concerns of this season. In order to make more cure they need the same samples of the tainted drug Utopium from the boat party. And the only person likely to have it is our favorite zombie godfather, Blaine!
Don't go thinking our don-undead's vanished into the night and is reduced to eating rats in the alley. Nope, he's gotten himself a new job at a mortuary where he's just as delightfully creepy as always. Though, I have to question his choice of nom-de-plumes. John Deaux? Really. I expected better from you, Blaine.
Liv goes to confront him at his new house of the dead where some great banter happens. He tortures Liv by eating a piece of chocolate and extolling the virtues of having living tastebuds. She spits back:
"Are you eating that or impregnating it?"
Because Blaine is the Lex Luthor of zombies, he's used his thinking bones to figure out that since Major wasn't mentioned on the list of dead from Meat Cute going to Pun Heaven then either the Ken Doll's running around as a zombie, or most likely she wasted the cure on him. Liv demures the fact, then turns back around on Blaine admitting that they just injected a couple rats, one of which died after a few days. Who knows how long or if the cure will last. So it'd be really useful if he got her some of that same tainted Unobtanium.
READ THE REST HERE
Thursday, September 10, 2015
All Hallows Read Posters 2015
September is the stepping stone to October and we all know what that means. Time to get ready for All Hallows Read. What better way than with a free poster or five?
This is my fifth year making free posters for anyone to share and use to advertise All Hallows Read. Free! So I decided, why not make one more to go with the usual lot. Instead of four I've got five for people to pick from.
I'm trying something a bit different by hosting the files at dropbox. They're also at deviantart, if that's easier to download off of.
I don't put a year on any of the posters, so you can reuse any of the old ones you'd like such as:
2014 - Raven, Grave Reflection, and more
2013 - Fairy Witch, Tentacle, and others
2012 - Spiders and Bats and Mummies
2011 - Universal Hammer Monsters
You can download the whole lot for this year from a file here right now if you'd like:
Now let's get to the new ones!
Black Forest - even the trees are warning you to "Read!"
Planet Read - to honor all the excitement over Pluto's time in the sun this year
Haunted Globe - I told you not to shake it, now we've got specters.
Frankie - The cover may not look the best but this book wants to be your friend.
Batty - Reading can be an emotionally draining experience.
Once again just click and save. They're all free for anyone to use for whatever reason you want.
Enjoy!
This is my fifth year making free posters for anyone to share and use to advertise All Hallows Read. Free! So I decided, why not make one more to go with the usual lot. Instead of four I've got five for people to pick from.
I'm trying something a bit different by hosting the files at dropbox. They're also at deviantart, if that's easier to download off of.
I don't put a year on any of the posters, so you can reuse any of the old ones you'd like such as:
2014 - Raven, Grave Reflection, and more
2013 - Fairy Witch, Tentacle, and others
2012 - Spiders and Bats and Mummies
2011 - Universal Hammer Monsters
You can download the whole lot for this year from a file here right now if you'd like:
Now let's get to the new ones!
Black Forest - even the trees are warning you to "Read!"
Planet Read - to honor all the excitement over Pluto's time in the sun this year
Haunted Globe - I told you not to shake it, now we've got specters.
Frankie - The cover may not look the best but this book wants to be your friend.
Batty - Reading can be an emotionally draining experience.
Once again just click and save. They're all free for anyone to use for whatever reason you want.
Enjoy!
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