firehose

In the overwhelmingly male comic book industry, it has been a challenge for some editors and readers to see the ever growing number of talented women currently trying to make a name for themselves. With that in mind, ComicsAlliance offers Hire This Woman, a recurring feature designed for comics readers as well as editors and other professionals, where we shine the spotlight on a female comics pro on the ascendance. Some of these women will be at the very beginning of their careers, while others will be more experienced but not yet “household names.”

Today we’re talking to comic artist Yasmin Liang.  You may know Liang’s work from BOOM! Studios’ Steed and Mrs. Peel or anthologies like Shattered: The Asian American Anthology, and of course from ComicsAlliance’s Best Art Ever (This Week).

ComicsAlliance: What is your preferred form of creative output?

Yasmin Liang: I was trained as an illustrator first and foremost, so when I think about my process, the end result is usually a finished product. However, as a comic book artist, it’s quite exciting to stop at a certain part and let a colorist take over. Above all things though, in terms of what my preferred form of creative output is — I tend to appreciate and congregate towards storytelling just in general which is why I try to have some form of narrative in my illustration work.

CA: Do you work on paper or digitally? Why?

YL: I predominantly work digitally as I was given a tablet pretty young and really learned how to draw digitally before I ever drew on paper. I actually had to re-learn how to draw with a pencil on paper because it felt extremely foreign at one point. I try to mix it up and work both digitally and traditionally, sometimes combining the two. I’m actually looking forward to working with watercolor currently as I haven’t used it in a while and finally have some nice paper to play with.

CA: What’s your background/training?

YL: I didn’t have much training up until my late teens when I decided to do my thesis in watercolors. I took a few lessons from Lorette Roberts, a published watercolor artist known for her sketchbooks containing scenery from Hong Kong. After that, I attended the Pre-College Cartooning program at the School of Visual Arts as a summer course in New York. I enjoyed my three weeks in New York so much, I decided to apply to art schools there and attended Parsons the New School for Design. I graduated with a BFA in illustration and interned at Marvel for a few months as well. More recently, I was looking to get my masters in Character Animation at Central St. Martins based in London. I was there for an an eight-month winter, doing 2D and 3D animation, before I decided the course wasn’t for me and dropped out.

CA: How would you describe your creative style?

YL: Geez, that’s a hard question. I’ve been looking at my own work for so long, I don’t know what it looks like really. I feel like my work can be pretty consistent one day and then change the rest, but I bet a lot of artists feel that way. I try to simplify in terms of how many lines I put down on a composition, while still trying to remain grounded in some type of realism? That probably sounds a bit pretentious.

CA: What projects have you worked on in the past? What are you currently working on?

YL: I started out doing short comics for anthologies like the Kickstarter-funded comic anthology Before, After and In Between: A Comics Anthology and Shattered: The Asian American Anthology (Secret Identities).  In the mean time, I worked on my own webcomic which has sadly been on hiatus since I started doing professional work. I was lucky enough then to come onto BOOM! Studio’s Steed and Mrs. Peel title as the ongoing interior artist and stayed on until the last issue. Any new work of mine will be out next year but I can confirm I’ll be on Star Trek #29 and #30 at the very least and another title from BOOM! as well.

CA: Approximately how long does it take you to draw a 20-page issue?

YL: I can usually get it done in just under a month. Of course, it all depends on the script. If it’s highly-detailed, I tend to struggle because it’s a bit of a perfect storm. If a writer gives me a lot of detail (even detail that may not actually be necessary), I’ll try to get as much of it done as possible because I’m a real stickler for it. This can slow me down a lot unfortunately as I’m constantly trying to make perfect what the writer had in mind.

CA: What is your dream project?

YL: Well, I’ve always said that I’d like to do a Batman story and I think that’s pretty much still my dream project. I’d love to do a Batman, Superman or Catwoman book. Besides from that, more-likely possibility would be to do more covers for comics. I feel like I haven’t really had a chance to flex my illustrative skills as much lately so a cover presents a perfect opportunity.

CA: Who are some comic creators that inspire you?

YL: So many! So, so many. David Mazzuchelli, Chris Samnee, Kris Anka, Ming Doyle, Karl Kerschl, Lucy Knisley, Dean Trippe, Adam Hughes, Darwyn Cooke, Alison Bechdel, Olivier Coipel, Tim Sale, P. Craig Russell, JH Williams III — the list goes on. Outside of comics, I hold a great appreciation for the Golden Age illustrators and the masters.

CA: What are some comics that have inspired you either growing up or as an adult?

YL: I get asked this question a lot and I hope people aren’t getting sick of the same answers. I grew up reading mostly newspaper strips like Calvin & Hobbes, Dilbert and The Far Side. Carl Giles’ work held a special place in my heart and his work still influences me to this day. I graduated later into reading mostly DC titles, like Catwoman and Batman. From there, I devoured anything I could get my hands on. My graphic novel collection is ever growing now that I’ve given up on collecting singles — just too many boxes!

CA: What’s your ideal professional environment?

YL: Quiet, clean and with sustenance nearby in case of hunger or thirst. I mount the heads of my enemies on my wall to motivate myself.

CA: What do you most want our readers and industry professionals to know about your work?

YL: I feel that my work is still evolving and with each new project, I’m beginning anew. It’s exciting and scary but I love the collaboration of putting forward and sharing a story with readers. There’s nothing quite like it.

CA: How can editors and readers keep up with your work and find your contact information?

YL: I’m all over the internet but my contact information is on my website at http://www.yazmeanie.com.

If there is a woman you’d like to recommend or if you’d like to be included in a future installment of this feature, drop us a line at comicsalliance-at-gmail-dot-com with “Hire This Woman” in the subject line.

CyanogenMod arrives in Google Play store with one-click installer for your Android phone | The Verge

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All

One of the newest deck building games that has been generating buzz is Trains.

Trains, simply put, is "Dominion with a board."  (If you haven't heard that phrase yet, then you probably haven't heard much about the game at all.)  Each player starts with a train track in a single city on the board, as well as a very basic starting deck (consisting of "Normal Trains" which are money, and a few cards that allow you to interact with the board).  On each player's turn, he is allowed to buy, play actions, lay tracks and build station improvements as many times as his cards allow (based on icons and available money).  When buying cards, they simply go into the player's discard pile.  When performing board related actions, the active player will also collect "Waste."  Play continues in this manner with players attempting to lay tracks to connect different cities while also building stations in those cities until one player has exhausted their supply of track, all of the stations are built, or four piles of cards are exhausted.  At that point, whichever player has the most points based on what they have built, what they have bought, and what they have played is the winner!

The first pro that I have for Trains are the Waste cards.  Every time you do anything beneficial, you gain a Waste.  Want to lay track?  That's a Waste.  Want to improve a station?  Waste.  Buy victory point cards?  Waste.  Go where another player already is?  Extra Waste.  Granted, the Waste cards slow down the game by causing each player's deck to be suboptimal, but Waste management is also a nice addition to the genre.  In previous deck building games, there have been bad cards that clutter up your deck, but in Trains, dealing with these cards is a central facet of the game.  Additionally, there is a rule built just for this - a player has the option of passing his entire turn and simply trashing all of the Waste in their hand.  (Seems fitting to trash waste, doesn't it?)

Building multiple stations can be valuable

The next pro that I have for Trains is that there is quite a bit of replayability to the game.  The board is double sided, and there are 30 different piles of cards to choose from each game.  (These are called "kingdom cards" in Dominion, but do not appear to have a specific name in Trains.)  Of these 30 options, you only use eight piles per game.  Thus with the double sided board and 30 different options for available cards, there are a large number of different setup choices.  This will allow people who fall in love with the game to play it repeatedly without worrying about it growing stale.

The game also plays smoothly.  But, instead of spending time fleshing out that, let's move on to an element that I haven't decided about.  There has been a strong tendency in the games that I have played to ignore the board.  How does this work?  Well, instead of gaining points by connecting cities and building stations, you can also gain victory points by purchasing certain cards.  The crux of this strategy lies in Waste management.  Whereas improving a city multiple times and connecting different cities on the board may gain a player 5-10 Waste cards, buying a victory point card only nets a single Waste.  Therefore, it is much easier to build a deck that can buy a lot of victory point cards than it is to build a deck that can utilize the board efficiently.  In the games that I have played, I have not seen anyone win while completely neglecting the board, but there does seem to be a strong strategy around ignoring the board for the first half of the game.

This leads to my first con.  If you have improved several cities and built your infrastructure, it is far too easy for other players to connect to your cities and earn the same points - and this can be very frustrating, as there is nothing that you can do to stop them.  At the end of the game, cities score full points for each player that has built a track in them.  To build where another player already has track costs some extra money and gains extra Waste, and building in a city that has been upgraded also costs extra money.  However, there are cards that allow you to ignore each of these extra costs.  So, it will happen that one player will improve several cities, and another player can swoop in and claim equal credit - and do so much more quickly (and inexpensively)!  I wish that there were at least an occasional option (possibly one of the card piles) that allowed a player who was already in a city to prevent other players from being able to build in it.  I would imagine that something like this would be coming in future expansions.

Here are your basic currency: worth 1/2/3 money

My second con for Trains is that it feels a bit too similar to Dominion.  Essentially, it feels a bit like a re-themed expansion to me: "Dominion, the Board Expansion!"  Whereas I think that Dominion is a brilliant game, the similarities cause Trains to conjure up thoughts about Dominion throughout the game.  Then, Trains can start to feel a bit incomplete as it has not had the time to build the vast array of expansions that Dominion has.  I will freely admit that not everyone will share this con, and many people will like Trains much more than Dominion as they will feel like they are doing something with their deck, instead of building a deck just for the sake of having a deck. Yet for me, I don't know that I can play Trains without thinking of Dominion.

My final con is simple.  I cannot shuffle the cards in Trains (which is really annoying in a deck building game).  I have actually played on two different physical copies, and when I shuffle the cards, they clump together.  Now, when I say this, please keep in mind that I have been shuffling cards for 20 years or longer, as I have been playing games of some sort my entire life.  Each of the individual piles of cards seems to be the same height, but I think that some of the cards are a fraction of an inch different than others - which causes this problem.  And, now that I've said this, also be fully aware that many people that I have played with think that this is all in my head.  I'd be curious to see if other people have experienced what I'm talking about here - please leave a comment and let me know if you have noticed this, or if you can shuffle the cards with no problems.

Overall, I give Trains an 8.0/10.  I think that it is a very well made game, but (as you're tired of hearing), it is so similar to Dominion, that I don't see myself pulling it out instead of Dominion, except for with friends that really didn't like Dominion.

If Trains sounds interesting, you might also check out these deck building games: Nightfall, Puzzle Strike (which is actually "chip building"), and Quarriors (which is "dice building").

I would like to thank AEG for providing me with a review copy of Trains.

By Robert Florence on November 12th, 2013 at 9:00 pm.

Hello youse!

It’s Tuesday night, and from now on that means CARDBOARD CHILDREN and it means BOARD GAMES. And card games too. And pen and paper RPGs. And gamebooks. And stuff like that. You know the drill. Anyway, the point is – it’s Tuesday night from now on. We all cool with that? Good. Now…

Krosmaster: Arena is quite the game. It’s a tactical miniatures game, styled after the kind of Japanese SRPGs that you PC Master Race people never get to play in your supposedly perfect worlds. I don’t feel at all prepared to adequately talk about Krosmaster either, because it’s a game that you’d need months and months to dig deep enough into. But man – it’s time to pull the trigger on this recommendation stuff, right? Read on.

KROSMASTER: ARENA

Now, apparently Krosmaster comes from some kind of PC F2P MMO thing or something. I dunno, but that sure was a lot of capital letters back there. The worlds of Dofus and Wakfu can be entered ONLINE right now, it seems, if you’re that way inclined. “I can’t come to bed, darling. I’m busy in the world of Wakfu.” I have no idea what I’m talking about here. Let me show you a screenshot.

Okay, what is that? No idea. Any of you cheapskates played it?

In fact, Krosmaster: Arena itself can be played online too. I haven’t done that yet, because I like board games and also this is a board game column and also just shut up I just haven’t. I want to talk about the board game and the board game alone.

HOT LOOKS

Oh my goodness. Krosmaster: Arena is a gorgeous board game. In the box you’ll find eight bug chunky miniatures, each of them fully painted. The board is a big cartoonish, colourful thing in the JRPG style. There are 3D cardboard trees and bushes and crates. It’s all so cute. It really pops off the table. Not literally! That would be annoying.

I love how Krosmaster teaches you how to play. The rulebook is split up into tutorials, just like you might find in popular video games of the year 2013. Each tutorial unfolds a little bit of the game system, and you can play it out right there in the book. Yeah, just stick your miniatures onto the page of the book and run the tutorial. The first tutorial is all about moving and punching. That’s all. That’s how slowly the game teaches itself to you. That’s a GREAT thing.

A great rulebook.

How does the game actually work? Easy. Movement points, Action points, Hit points. Every character has its own unique attacks, and maybe some special abilities. You roll dice to see if you cause any critical hits, and roll dice to see if your armour deflects any damage. You roll dice to try to LOCK characters adjacent to you (that pretty much means you keep them engaged, grapple them, strip all their movement and action points) and you roll dice to try to dodge a lock.

That’s pretty much it. Where the combat just flips the fuck out and expands like crazy is in the fact that every character plays so differently.

LEMME FREESTYLE ON THIS CHARACTER SHIT

One character might like standing way at the back, pinging off arrows, and basically being impossible to catch.

Another character might like to throw water balloons into a crowd of enemies. Right? And then in a separate attack, leap back while shooting the water balloon, making it explode to soak all the enemies. Causes damage and strips away action points that does. Brilliant.

Another character might like to summon lots of little ducks that can be moved independently. And those ducks can be sent to surround enemies and kiss them. Yes, kiss them. And then the summoner can do an attack that is enhanced by the amount of those little duck dudes that surround the target. MAGIC.

Oh, and another character might be able to leech health. And do a cool attack that pierces armour, but only hits on the roll of a critical attack on a die.

Another character might have a special ONCE PER GAME attack that blows an enemy character across the board and hits them HARD with a poisonous PUFF of I dunno what.

Another character might be able to do weird grappling assaults that inflict damage but also swap positions with enemy characters. So, like, just off the top of my head, you could use this character to assault an enemy and switch them into position beside a water balloon or a crowd of little Tofu ducks.

Is this sounding brilliant yet?

IS THIS SOUNDING BRILLIANT YET?

No, I’m asking you. Is this sounding brilliant yet?

In the Arena matches, the main way of playing the game, it’s all about the Gallons of Glory tokens. Each player starts with 6 of these GG tokens. You win the game by stripping your opponent of GG, until he has none left. When you kill an opponent’s character, you take from the opponent a number of GG equal to that character’s level. But that’s not the ONLY way of getting GG.

I told you this felt like a video game, right? Well, there are little coins lying all over the map. These are called Kama coins, and your characters can spend an Action Point to pick one up. Once you collect ten of these coins, you can visit special Demon Tiles on the board and spend the ten coins to claim a GG from your opponent. Ah, but wait. You can also spend coins at these tiles to buy cool shit. You can buy one-time use spells, or equipment, or even whole armour sets that will customise your character. How fucking amazing is that? It’s like visiting the shop in a video game. It’s more decisions piled on top of all the other decisions. And games with decisions are great games.

Oh, and there’s another way you might LOSE those GG tokens. At the start of a player’s turn, he’ll have to roll two dice. If the same symbol comes up on each die, the TENSION rises. That means that each player has to throw away a GG token. It makes the game accelerate towards the finish. The pace of the game is never certain – it certainly keeps you on your toes. And when you roll those two tension dice you can also use the dice to give your characters special powers, or claim some coins.

There are a lot of little moving parts in this game, but none of them are fiddly or overly fussy to deal with. It really clicks together quickly. But wow – this is a game with a lot of replayability. Just seeing how the characters work with each other is delicious enough, but once you start figuring in all the upgrades you can buy during the game, you’re starting to see possibilities stacking upon possibilities. It’s a very clean game too. A lot of it feels like common sense stuff. Stand on a crate and you have better reach for your ranged attacks. Bushes don’t block line of sight. Trees do. You KNOW all this stuff.

TOYS

Ah, and it’s like toys. It’s like having beautiful little toys. The game is hugely expandable. You can buy booster sets with new characters, and I admit that I have fallen for this madness. I got a set with a cool cat dude who has playing cards in his hand and a smile and aw and I love him. You don’t NEED to buy any of this stuff – what’s in the box is plenty. It really is. Worlds of plenty. But it’s likely you’ll look at some images of the other characters and feel like dipping in. It has that much charm. Oh! Another cool thing. The expansion packs come with little single-player scenarios. Little puzzles you fold out, with a grid and such, and you’re given a certain amount of turns to complete some objectives with your new characters. It all flows into the “VIDEO GAME ON A TABLE” feel of the whole thing. They totally nailed that. Credit to them.

AND SO

And so it’s easy for me to recommend Krosmaster: Arena. It’s a lovely thing. Lovely to look at, lovely to learn, lovely to play. 2-4 players can pick some miniatures and fling themselves into an arena, collecting coins, powering up, and beating the shit out of each other. I haven’t even NEARLY finished with it. I haven’t even settled on my favourite team yet. There’s just so much stuff to mess around with. And with all the available characters out there, and the new boards incoming, I can see this being a game that really lasts for me.

Check it out. Might be great for Christmas! Did you know that it’s Christmas soon?

See you next Tuesday for the start of all the end of year coolness. Lists, buying guides, weirdness. I got you covered.

STAY DICEY.

Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va) is introducing legislation today that would put streaming videos services on similar legal footing to traditional cable services, potentially prohibiting anticompetitive practices. Under the legislation, online video providers would be given the same protections that satellite providers were given in the Cable Television and Consumer Protection Act of 1992, which was made to stop cable companies from blocking competition from satellite providers.

My legislation will help foster a consumer-centric revolution."

Rockefeller's legislation, the Consumer Choice in Online Video Act, would also place "reasonable limits" on contract agreements that restrict streaming services from accessing the content within a certain timeframe. Though the act wouldn't directly bar providers of both cable and internet service from using their position to stifle competition, it would direct the FCC to ensure that their billing practices weren't anticompetitive.

"Consumers must be able to benefit from online video's promise of decreased costs, increased choice, and higher-quality video content," Rockefeller says in a statement. "And I strongly believe that my legislation will help foster a consumer-centric revolution in the video marketplace."

The act doesn't directly change the situation for Aereo — a service that allows which viewers to stream broadcast TV online — either, though it could down the road. According to Variety, if Aereo were found by the courts to be a legal service, Rockefeller's legislation would then clarify that it doesn't have to pay retransmission fees.

As chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, Rockefeller certainly has an advantage when it comes to introducing this type of legislation, though there's little doubt that opposition would be heated. Senator John McCain (R-AZ) also introduced legislation this year that would push back against certain practices of cable providers, though according to Variety, it hasn't moved forward. Rockefeller too will be addressing a contentious issue — one that cable providers would rather see change in their own favor.

Smell the glove (Photo Credit: HackThings.com & Phil Kast)