singedsun

 Recently finished the graphic novel, Somna (link to Goodreads).

 

It's a story of witch burnings focused on our main character, Ingrid. She's married to Roland, the town's bailiff and their chief witch hunter. Ingrid is desperate for more out of her husband, wanting a more intimate relationship which he currently seems unwilling or afraid of giving her. In her dreams then, something comes to her, eager to give her what she's craving. 

Ingrid has a friend in town, Maja, who keeps her company in the woods during the burnings. She wants to be far away, despite Roland's invites to accompany him to the witch burnings in town. Maja is married, but is a little wild herself and has some interest in another man who's wife was recently declared a witch and burned. 

Still, at night, this creature comes to her. It tempts her, taunts her, and desperate as she is for touch and intimacy, she refuses to give in to him.

If you've never seen art by Becky Cloonan or Tula Lotay, you are definitely missing out. The beginning of each issue in this graphic novel have several pages of Tula's art which is quite realistic despite it's dream-like quality. Her faces are expressive and gorgeous. Becky's art takes up the majority of the other pages, and everything is just so crisp and emotive and makes it easy to understand what's happening in every panel. 

If Salem style stories are your thing, this one is definitely worth your time. Just beware that the adult nature of this story is going to back it good for high shelves if you buy it physically. 

I mentioned in my previous post that I've already watched all of Glow season 3 and Mindhunter season 2 in the time I've been home recovering. I don't have too much to say about either, other than that I really liked them both. I thought they were strong additions, although I'll admit that the choice for Mindhunter to more closely follow a single case for the majority of the season, leaving off a lot of the interviews like they did in the first season made it a little of a slower watch (for me) but I still enjoyed it. I'm also still getting a kick out of the small injects their doing of BTK, given the time period, and the link to the research that they're doing as they season progresses. I also like that they're picking cases that don't have these clear cut answers, so you get to see the application of their research and procedures, but that especially due to the time, there's no good way to have all the answers.

I've also caught up on a few movies that I hadn't been able to watch last year. I've seen Aquaman -- which I quite enjoyed. I really liked Jason Momoa's take on the character and despite the uncanny valley that is Amber Heard's wig throughout the movie, I liked it. I think DC does such a better job when they lay back from the super angsty hero take and have a bit of fun with the characters, it's certainly resulting in movies like Wonder Woman and Aquaman which are infinitely more fun to watch than Batman vs. Superman was.

I watched The Favourite, which I found... both interesting if a little boring. It was slower paced than I would've liked and without a satisfying ending. But I can see why it got such high praise for the acting and costumes because it was a beautiful watch with compelling characters. I don't know as much as I would like about Queen Anne's reign, but for what it was, it was enjoyable.

I've also just finished watching First Man, which while I finished it, I found boring af. Damien Chazelle managed to make Ryan Gosling a snooze to watch, and I get that's in part due to his role as Neil Armstrong. Of all the astronauts, Neil was not the interesting one, he was just the most reliable one. So centering the movie around him, makes it slow and disconnected and ...boring. I know not every movie about the beginning of the space program isn't going to be as exciting or as good as THe Right Stuff, or as compelling as Hidden Figures, but I'm not surprised at all this movie did so poorly in the theater. Mostly I kept it on as background noise tonight, so I don't feel like I wasted time specifically, but I'm glad I didn't actually spend money trying to see this in the theater. As an aside, I know a lot of people enjoy Claire Foy as an actress, I've only watched her in one thing before this and I can say that neither that or this has sold me on her. I really dislike her affected American accent in this but given how flat Ryan Gosling is playing Neil Armstrong, I'm willing to blame my dislike of her in this on the director/direction they had.

On my dad's recommendation during his own recent hospital stay, I picked up watching the show Black Summer on Netflix. From what he told me, it was an interesting and kind of scary, but low budget zombie show. Knowing it was low budget going in has helped me kind of keep my expectations low, but I'm about halfway through the first (and currently only) season so far and it's hard to keep with it. For one, I don't find any of the characters particularly compelling and for two, I really don't understand the sort of chapter-esque title breaks every few scenes. It makes it play out slower, especially when after the title break you continue following the same character/story line. Like I'm not sure what purpose they serve other than to slow down the action, which is NOT what I want in a zombie show. I know it's based on Z Nation, which I haven't watched or read, so I don't know if that's an aspect that's carried over from that or not.

Yesterday I finally picked up my copy of The Adventure Zone: Murder on the Rockport Limited graphic novel. It's a pretty quick read, and I thoroughly enjoyed it (as I expected I would). I love Carey Pietsch's artwork for these books and I like the way they've chosen to insert Griffin's GM asides. It definitely feels accurate to the podcast.

Today, I picked up Final Fantasy XV and started playing it for the first time since I got it for Christmas like two years ago. It's different that the Final Fantasy games I'm so used to, but I do like the way combat has changed. The story feels a little underwhelming, but what FF game doesn't leave something to be desired in the plot, really. It's a fun way to pass time, but I'm trying not to get too wrapped up in it for hours and hours at a time. I'm having to learn how to manage my time, especially since I get worn out so easily right now and I don't want to spend it all on video games. I might pick up another game at some point, a friend has been encouraging to pick up Hollow Knight and from what I've seen of that, it might be nice to have something that's kind of level based instead of open world to switch out with every day.