A to Z Reaction and All The Things in April!

Last week we finished up the April A to Z blogging challenge, with 26 Character Studies! We hope you enjoyed them; we certainly had a good time writing them. Welcome to all our new followers from the challenge, and thank you to everyone who stopped by and were reading and commenting!

Of course, what this also means is we have a whole month of things that have been happening that we have left pretty much untouched. We did a post for International TableTop Day, but otherwise it was the challenge. 

And then we went on a weekend trip to Seattle, to visit our friends and occasional guest bloggers @Odorunara and @Briantific. They each did a great guest post – Leah on Hannibal, which we now have to watch (sounds pretty good!), and Brian on ESO, in which he has gotten much further than we have and has taught us much of what we know about the game. Thank you again to them, and make sure you read their posts!

So we have a ton we want to talk about and want to catch up on and share with you and we didn’t really know where to start. So, here’s some thoughts on things that have been going on we want to talk about, or will be soon!

This Month (and beyond!) on Comparative Geeks

I think this calls for a bulleted list. Or a few. Onwards!

Movies:

• Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Okay, I did write a bit of a post about this last week, but there’s still a LitFlix I owe you, about the movie versus the comics. I saw the movie again (twice) this last weekend, so it is once more fresh in my mind – expect this soon!
• Amazing Spider Man – Between rewatching the first film, and the second one being out, there will at least be a LitFlix for this one, as well. We haven’t seen this one yet, but expect it coming up too!
• X-Men: Days of Future Past – With this one coming up soon, there’ll be the LitFlix… but I also want to try to rewatch X-Men Origins: Wolverine and do a post like my one on X-Men: The Last Stand. And maybe X-Men: First Class as well. I also want to consider a bit the ridiculous hype engine around this movie, cross promotion, advertising in all sorts of ways, and how this is setting the movie up… I kind of want to write that before the movie is out, so that it is speculative!
• Jodorowsky’s Dune – We saw this documentary in Seattle, and it was great! They really do their best to get you thinking about what they called “the greatest movie never made.” If a science fiction movie of that magnitude had come out before Star Wars!…

Video Games

• Bioshock Infinite – We’re thinking that this game may have finally passed the statute of limitations where we feel like we can talk about it more, and we both have things we want to say about it! Expect more to come. And hey, the whole Burial at Sea DLC is out, so we have that to finish up and discuss as well.
• Lightning Returns – We have not beaten this game yet, but we’re hoping to do so at some point, I’m sure. And given our expectations and hopes for the game, there should be plenty to talk about!
• Elder Scrolls Online – I think for now we’ll let Brian’s review of the game stand, but this is the main game we were playing in April. It’s been remarkably stable for the first month of an MMO. They really did not think of players with a data cap on their Internet, though, and downloading a copy of the game meant we didn’t feel like we could play the game for the last week and a half of the month. Thanks guys. We’re still playing, though, so we’ll have some thoughts in the coming weeks and months!
• Borderlands: The PreSequel – A new Borderlands game was announced, and it’s something like game 1.5, set between the first and second. It will stand alone, with its own characters and classes, and new weapons and things (I saw frost in the trailer!), but it will also keep up with its existing system and fanbase. Their best move: deciding to make the game only for the “old” consoles, and not the new ones – because that’s where their fans already are. Smart business. Actually, that might be all I have to say about that for now.

TV Shows

• Arrow – This show has been great! Loving season 2, we’re along for season 3, we’re excited for Flash, just keep it coming. Because I am not done saying it yet: this is DC’s best bet for getting the Justice League together.
• Agents of SHIELD – As to the other superhero/comic world show, OH MY GOSH. That show spent a whole season twiddling its thumbs and waiting for Winter Soldier to come out. Thankfully they didn’t lose all of their audience (we’re still watching…) or get cancelled during that wait. It’s been worth it… but it also could have been handled a lot better.
• Believe – This new show has really sucked us in. Not necessarily an idea we haven’t seen before (X-Men, Heroes, Push, Carrie), so it’s the characters who are going to draw us in and keep us coming. And that they have pulled off. The irony: Kyle MacLachlan can’t see the future and other characters can. That was a Dune reference…
• Almost Human – Sounds like they cancelled this show? So disappointing. We’ll have to commiserate what could have been, or what went wrong.
• Game of Thrones – It’s back! We’re watching it. There will be posts, I’m sure. And what were they thinking with Season 4 Episode 3? I mean, come on.

Comics

• Locke & Key – We’re still waiting on Volume 6 from the library (it only came out a couple months ago!), but then we’ll definitely have to do a more spoilery review. We have a recommendations post you can read here.
• ComiXology – There was a big change this month with Amazon purchasing ComiXology, which was the great online portal for reading independent comics, as well as Marvel and DC. Marvel has its own app, but DC doesn’t that I’ve seen, so overall, ComiXology was and is an important portal. Unfortunately, it’s an important portal where you now can’t actually browse or make purchases. Amazon seems to be thinking of it like the Kindle – just as a reader. Hopefully they integrate a store back in somewhere, like maybe even in the Amazon app and store. On the other hand, you can’t buy Kindle books in the Amazon app, so I’m a little worried about the future of this app.
• The Scribbler – I got my hands on this graphic novel, to prepare for the LitFlix for the movie that I don’t actually see evidence has come out on the day IMDb is telling me it is. But I’ll read the comic, anyway, and let you know!
• More Jonathan Hickman! – I have been reading other Jonathan Hickman comics besides his Marvel work – and getting Holly and Brian to read some too – so we’ll likely have some thoughts to come on The Manhattan Projects, East of West, and God is Dead. Oh, and probably one on the Illuminati.

Other Posts

• The EMP – We went to the Experience Music Project Museum (the EMP) in Seattle, and we saw some great exhibits – on Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror. We will share some of our thoughts and pictures from those as well!
• Feminist Friday – The Feminist Friday posts over on Sourcerer and on other blogs have been active and still running, all through April, despite the challenge! We may get in on the ongoing conversation, especially with something on education, probably harkening back to a topic like Girl Rising.
• Ongoing Post Types – With all the rest of this going on, we’d still like to talk about Time Travel, Science Fiction Today, Geek 501, Science Fiction and Religion, Comparative Opinions, and all the rest! So while we might give some Character Studies a bit of a break after the challenge, that just means more of the rest for now!

I think that’s enough for now, but there’s that and more in the weeks to come! So I guess this was a taste of our blog for those of you who have found us through the challenge, as well as an acknowledgement that we’re working on getting back to business as usual, and have a lot to say!

Have any thoughts on what you really want to see, or recommendations for more? Let us know in the comments below!