Impossible Realities

By TARA CHISLETT

chislett.taralynn@dailygleaner.com

Attention capital region comic book lovers: if you’re looking to pick up a unique addition to your collection while helping a worthy cause, the manager of Strange Adventures is hoping to see you at the shop this weekend.

The comic book and collectible shop, located downtown on York Street, will be auctioning off about three dozen comics with one-of-a-kind covers designed by Maritime artists Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. as a fundraiser for the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital Foundation.

Store manager Jason Arnold said the idea for the auction came in December, when the store received a number of comics with blank covers from Marvel Entertainment.

A relatively recent development in comic publishing, Arnold said the idea behind the blank, cardstock covers is that fans can purchase the comic and take it to conventions for their favourite artists to draw on. But, with Christmas around the corner, Arnold said he started wondering if there was a way the blank covers could benefit the community.

‘I started thinking about the kids who have to spend Christmas in the hospital and how miserable that would feel,’ he said.

‘It’s the little things that help out, whether it’s the decor in the rooms or the toys they’re supplied with or even the equipment that makes their stay shorter. Auctioning off comic books felt appropriate to me.’ Among the blank-cover Marvel comics Strange Adventures has available for the fundraiser are the first issues of two new Fantastic Four titles, Uncanny Avengers, Avengers, All-New X-Men and Deadpool.

After putting out the call to artists in December, Arnold said there’s a lot to choose from in the final collection. Most of the artwork was produced by local artists, but he said there have been covers donated by Nick Bradshaw, a Moncton artist known for his work on the Wolverine and the X-Men comics, and Kate Letch, an employee at the Strange Adventures Halifax location who is known for her comic, Kate or Die.

‘It’s a wide range from professional to amateur work,’ he said. ‘I’m not surprised we have this much talent in the region at all.’ The store has already started accepting bids for the comics online at its website, through Facebook and via phone and email, but the live, in-store auction will take place in the afternoon.

Arnold said 100 per cent of the money raised at the auction will go to the children’s ward at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital.

‘The store doesn’t keep a cent and there are no administration fees on the hospital end,’ he said. ‘It’s a great chance to get a oneof-a-kind piece of art while helping a good cause. It’s a win-win. Everyone comes out a winner in this one.’ For more information, visit strangeadventures.com or stop by the store at 68 York St.

It has been some time since we sent out a proper newsletter; we’ve been working away on products near and far. In the near category, you will soon see Atomic-Age Cthulhu in your friendly local game store, along with the recently-released Terror From the Skies.
Chaosium is also honored that Diehard Gamefan has awarded Tabletop Gaming Awards to two of our 2012 publications:

Cthulhu By Gaslight
Cthulhu By Gaslight won Best Re-Make / Re-Release. It was praised for the new content and quality of production. Everyone at Chaosium is thrilled to be part of creating great products. While we strive to publish books of the highest quality, our aim for 2013 is to publish more great quality works. We are working hard to ensure more releases for your enjoyment.
“Cthulhu By Gaslight wasn’t just the best re-make of the 2012, it was one of the best RPG books of the year, period.” — Alexander Lucard

Mythic Iceland
Mythic Iceland was also honored with an award, that of Best Campaign Setting. The monsters are truly terrifying, and the history and mythology is so thorough and interesting. Pedro Ziviani, the author of Mythic Iceland, put so much work into this project, we are thrilled for his success. We hope everyone who has picked up this book has found it as enjoyable as we do, and we hope many more people will pick it up soon.
“…It’s THE single most impressive release of 2012 for a myriad of reasons.” — Alexander Lucard
We want to send a sincere Thank You to Diehard Gamefan for choosing our publications. And thanks to our fans for supporting our books and games.

Mythos Horror in 1950s
NEVER BEFORE had the world faced a threat as potentially devastating as the A-bomb—and the even more lethal H-bomb that followed. Educational films showed how to “survive” a nuclear blast by crawling under a desk, as if a few inches of wood made any difference. In movie theaters, classic monsters of the ‘30s and ’40s were replaced by atom-spawned horrors. Unseen enemies were everywhere: from devilish rock-and-roll music to morally-corrupt books such as Lolita and Catcher in the Rye. Comic-books corrupted the minds of our youths, and godless Communists constituted a red menace to be stopped using any means necessary.

Atomic-Age Cthulhu brings Lovecraftian horror roleplaying into the post-war golden age. Here you find background and history that led to the development of the 1950s world, along with new skills and professions for your investigators. A number of Sinister Seeds are included to help you grow your own ‘50s horrors, but seven complete adventures are ready for you to spring on your unsuspecting players.

TERROR FROM THE SKIES
A Race to Save Humanity From a Dark Future: In Terror From The Skies the investigators race to save earth from malevolent creatures in this Call of Cthulhu supplement. Set in 1920s England, the adventure is rife with plot twists, mini-adventures linked to create a sizable campaign, and formidable foes. Investigators are lured into the campaign with a tale of local mystery, slowly unfolding into a heart-pumping time-sensitive race for humanity!
This campaign intertwines historic events with mythos themes, creating a captivating experience for keepers and players alike. Terror From The Skies includes 10 chapters, an array of NPCs, and a variety of maps and handouts.

Should be a short, and weird, winter!
The Folks at Chaosium

Saturday, March 9, 2013 at 9:00am – 11:00PM at Chinese Commerce Centre, Saint John, NB
A full Day of Gaming for $10
Parking lot accessible from Peters St
The annual tradition of a day of gaming after March Break continues. As always, we are at the Chinese Commerce Center (Kent Theatre). The cost for a full day of fun is $10!

Here is the tentative schedule as of Jan 8th, to be added to as we gain more volunteers:

9:00AM-1:00PM
… Star Fleet Battles – Joe Hatfield
Infinity – Peter Darling
GURPS: Steampunk Adventure – Heather Cato
Battletech – Darren Drew

2:00PM-6:00PM
Demon the Fallen Larp – Chris Fougere
Magic booster draft ($10 cost) – Rob Watters
Munchkin – Heather Cato
AD&D 2nd Edition – Donna Nutter

7:00PM-11:00PM
Vampire the Masquerade (LARP) – Steve Henderson
Call of Cthulhu – Dana Betts
Zombie Dice/Cthulhu Dice – Heather Cato

Vendors and guests include:
Andre Myette (artist)
Kadi Oram (L00T jewelery and novelties)
Tina and Amber Vautour (crafts/oragami)

More to come. Check out or Facebook event page for up-to-date news!

At the Chaosium Online Store you can fill your last-minute gaming needs. We are offering GREAT PRICES on items across our catalog. You can find DISCOUNTS FROM 10% to 30% on games, supplements, and miniatures including the following great titles:

TERROR FROM THE SKIES
A Race to Save Humanity From a Dark Future: In Terror From The Skies the investigators race to save earth from malevolent creatures in this Call of Cthulhu supplement. Set in 1920s England, the adventure is rife with plot twists, mini-adventures linked to create a sizable campaign, and formidable foes. Investigators are lured into the campaign with a tale of local mystery, slowly unfolding into a heart-pumping time-sensitive race for humanity!
This campaign intertwines historic events with mythos themes, creating a captivating experience for keepers and players alike. Terror From The Skies includes 10 chapters, an array of NPCs, and a variety of maps and handouts.

BIG FANTASY FLIGHT STOCK-UP
Just in time for our holiday special, we received a bunch of cool new things from our friends at Fantasy Flight Games, including an array of painted miniatures for use with Call of Cthulhu, Arkham Horror and Mansions of Madness. We also have Forbidden Alchemy, the Mansions of Madness expansion, and a slew of expansion packs for the Cthulhu Card Game.

LICENSE TO SUMMON
“Like Fighting Fire with a Molotov Cocktail”
Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, happy the town whose wizards are all ashes, and happy the line manager whose wizards hath filled in their timesheets for this Sabbat-night.
The Laundry — that top-secret, bottom-drawer branch of British espionage — was founded to ensure that magic is kept under control, and that no one summons the Great Old Ones ahead of schedule. The best way to fight magic is with more magic, which is a little like fighting fire by hitting it with a molotov cocktail.
License to Summon explores the dark side of Computational Demonology and arcane science within the Laundry, as well as the magic of other agencies… and other entities.
• New spells, new gadgets, new ways to end the world!
• The game of Lovecraftian spy thrillers, with a touch of zombies, long-lost Nazis, terrorist cults, foreign agents, and Her Majesty’s Civil Service
• Fans of The Laundry Files novels, by Hugo-award winning novelist Charles Stross, will love this game; fans of Paranoia will dig the touch of geeky, The Office-style humor
• Compatible with Call of Cthulhu, and with a ton of crossover sales potential!
Have a great season!
The Folks at Chaosium

Our Kickstarter project to revise and re-imagine our classic Horror On The Orient Express adventure for Call of Cthulhu has been a great success. Virtually every ascept of the campaign has been improved. We have met about a dozen stratch goals, and we encourage you to click on the image above and give our project a glance.
Thanks–
The Folks at Chaosium

Well, this certainly has taken longer than expected! We thought electrons moved faster than this.

The Chaosium website has moved to a new server; a process proving more troublesome than expected. The little green men gnashed their teeth when moving our old website, muttering about broken databases. They stomped their feet when upgrading our shopping cart software. They flailed their hands in the air when making the final move, redirecting name servers and MX records, IP addresses, mail processes, and server and firewall ports.

We just shake our heads and sigh.

Anyway, the move to the new server is finished, but not all of the changes we will make are completed. We are still working out kinks and would appreciate you letting us know what is not working. Here are a couple of differences you will notice in the new software:

Chaos Points: we have enabled a system whereby you can earn Chaos Points, good for discounts on future orders. You can earn Chaos Points for posting reviews, tweeting about Chaosium titles, “Like”-ing us on Facebook, placing orders, and referring friends. Chaos Points are tracked in your account, and you can choose to apply them to your order. There are certain limits that are explained here.

Visual Verification: as part of the upgrade, we enabled a simple code you must enter when engaging in some website functions. Take our links section, for example. Without visual verification we had an overwhelming 24,000+ link requests, most from sites of dubious provenance (and made by robot programs). Entering that simple code foils such robots. We were able to have all 24,000+ requests flushed.

It was more than we could do to troll through those many thousands looking for valid requests. So, if you submitted a link request to Chaosium in the last year or so, you should re-submit it. If we think it is appropriate for our audience we will add it our our growing collection of links.

ENNIE NOMINATIONS

We are extremely pleased to have our recent release, Cthulhu By Gaslight nominated for two ENnies: Best Art: Cover and Best Supplement! We would like to extend a special thanks to authors Kevin Ross and William Barton for the excellent work they did on the book. It is certainly deserving of those awards, so click and VOTE.

1875 NEW MEXICO!

ACES HIGH: NEW MEXICO, Dark Days in the Land of Enchantment, is a companion book for Chaosium‘s Aces High BRP supplement. ACES HIGH: NEW MEXICO is split into two sections; the first section is concerned with historical, geographical and societal issues that will allow the Master to explore some of the land of New Mexico during the appropriate period. The second section is the “Incident at Alice” scenario which will allow the players to interact with some of the people and creatures that live here. The print edition will be here in just under a week.

A MODERN MILITARY ADVENTURE

A Chinese nuclear submarine bearing a dozen missiles, each with a nuclear warhead, reported a major mechanical malfunction and would return to port. The ship is late.

World governments receive a broadcast from the captain of the lost submarine, demanding that Japan, Taiwan, and South Korea surrender to the Peoples Republic of China by midnight — to be absorbed into that great nation.

If they refuse, a random city in those countries will be destroyed each hour thereafter. Civil panic has overwhelmed the government’s ability to deal with this terrorist threat.

A NATION RANSOMED is a modern-day military adventure for Basic Roleplaying, one of the winners of the second BRP Adventure Contest. The print edition will be here in just over a week.

MYSTERIES OF IRELAND

From the hills the fairies whisper to lone strangers, “come join the dance”. Watching from beneath the waves are the Merrow, the dwellers of the deep.Strange noises and half-heard screams ring at night from the cellars of the towns and cillages. The unwary go missing in the wilds, the locals say “Pooka”, and shake their heads.Fires are lit on the mountainsides and bones are cast into the flames; a young woman sits in a trance as ectoplasm oozes from her mouth, and she speaks of times-past in a voice that is not her own.

All these things and more are waiting on this Celtic Isle. This is a land of roaring seas, deep lakes, green pastures, barren bogs, and heather-topped mountains.

Mysteries of Ireland is a source book for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game.It is a guide for playing games and running scenarios in 1920s Ireland. The print edition will be here in just over a week.

THE WORLD IS YOUNG,
MAGIC IS FRESH,
AND THE GODS ARE STRONG

The Nordic and Celtic peoples who settled Iceland in the 9th century came from lands with rich traditions of folklore, where the mythical and supernatural were part of daily life. They found an island of striking beauty, with inland valleys, richly grassed and forested lowlands, massive glaciers, and impressive volcanic mountain ranges. They also found a land teeming with spirits of nature and mythic creatures.

Mythic Iceland offers Basic Roleplaying players the experience of living and adventuring in the Iceland described in the Sagas and in Icelandic fairy-tales. In Mythic Iceland all the creatures of myth and all the magical aspects of life really do exist, and they play a major role in people’s lives. The elves, or hidden folk, exist hidden from the eyes of the common folk, and sometimes meddle in their affairs. Those travelling through the highlands risk being attacked by trolls, and often curses and spells are laid on neighbors and enemies.

Pardon our e-dust!
The Folks at Chaosium

WOW. It’s been a very busy few days since Harbour Con-Fusion wrapped up and we’ve already been asked many times if we would be able to host a COSPLAY and costume event. Tentatively we’re working on making that happen (courtesy of the HCF panel), and there’s rumours of a dance and midnight movies for the all night crowds. If all goes as planned, Impossible Realities will be even more for everyone. As we know, we’ll post.

Chaosium (of course!), Blue Panther LLC, PEGINC.COM and Flying Buffalo have provided support packages for you, our players. Is that love or what? More coming!

PIYA SINHA-ROY

REUTERS

LOS ANGELES – Comic-Con International rolls into San Diego this week for its annual pop culture convention, and high on the list of must-see events is film footage of what actor Elijah Wood promises is a bigger Hobbit than fans can imagine.

Comic-Con, which kicks off on Thursday and is expected to attract more than 125,000 people, is the biggest event of the year for many fans of comic book superheroes and science-fiction lovers. And TV networks and Hollywood’s major studios stage elaborate promotions to showcase upcoming films and programs.

Actors Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner will put on their vampire fangs and werewolf claws for the last time to discuss The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 . Hollywood veterans Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger will be on hand to promote The Expendables 2 .

Perhaps the greatest sense of anticipation this year is reserved for The Hobbit , a Warner Bros. film based on the novel by J.R.R. Tolkien that follows the trilogy of blockbuster films based on his Lord of the Rings book series.

Wood, who catapulted to fame with his role as Frodo Baggins in the Rings trilogy and has reprised his character for The Hobbit , will be back at Comic-Con this year, a decade after he accompanied director Peter Jackson to promote the first film.

“The scale of The Hobbit is larger, the anticipation is potentially greater, everything feels a little bit bigger,”Wood told Reuters about the movie, which hits theaters in December. “For so long, people didn’t think there would be a film, so the fact that there is finally, people have been anticipating this for a long time.” So far, details about The Hobbit have been kept under wraps with only one trailer released last December, but the studio will finally show extended film clips and Jackson himself is expected to turn out to meet fans and answer questions.

Other films holding panels will include Total Recall , Resident Evil: Retribution , Looper , Elysium , Django Unchained and Iron Man 3 .

PARENTS, KIDS AND THE WEB

Comic-Con is now in its 43rd year, and recent editions have become sold-out events that bring an estimated $75 million to the city, according to San Diego Convention Center. Attendees dress up as characters from movies, TV shows, science-fiction books, comics and graphic novels.

This year, TV’s Cartoon Network will be taking over The New Children’s Museum to host fun events for kids. The makers of animated film ParaNorman , about a boy who can converse with the dead, will show film clips and host a panel with cast members Anna Kendrick and Christopher Mintz-Plasse.

Although the film is aimed at children, directors Chris Butler and Sam Fell said they were expecting a varied audience.

“Fanboys have kids now, and the convention has become more mainstream because generations are growing up with it,” Fell said.”This movie has mainstream appeal … but it comes from the love of the fringe exploitation of pop culture, and we’re playing to the home audience.” While much of 2012′s event will be similar to previous years, one new wrinkle is the growing number of Internet series being promoted here, and another Lord of the Rings actor, Dominic Monaghan, is back to support his latest venture.

Crackle.com, which is backed by Sony Pictures Entertainment, will premiere The Unknown on Friday, a six-part web series in which Monaghan plays a blogger attempting to uncover and solve supernatural and unexplained cases.

He said the series’ makers decided to launch at Comic-Con because it attracts hard-core sci-fi fans who then go out and tell their friends what’s new and upcoming.

“We’ve really started to change the way we watch all types of media – films and television especially,” Monaghan said. “If you don’t support that groundswell at the start, then it’s going to be difficult pretending you’ve supported it all along when it becomes something established.”

We live in an age of speed-up, which may explain why the Spider-Man franchise feels the need for a reboot only 10 years after its first picture, and five years after the most recent one. In its broad strokes, The Amazing Spider-Man is a remake of Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man (2002), but it’s not the broad strokes we care about. This is a more thoughtful film, and its action scenes are easier to follow in space and time. If we didn’t really need to be told Spidey’s origin story again, at least it’s done with more detail and provides better reasons for why Peter Parker throws himself into his superhero role.

Parker is played by Andrew Garfield (Never Let Me Go), who at 28 looks too old to be in high school, but then movie teenagers usually do. His key quality is likability, which he shares with his predecessor Tobey Maguire.

As his classmate and girlfriend, Emma Stone (The Help) plays a well-grounded girl who needs some persuasion to bond with Peter.

That’s partly because Garfield’s take on Spidey is sometimes a few strands short of a web. He’s not above show-off stunts in high school, and takes chances with his newfound superpowers. This is the first Spider-Man who can leap off a skyscraper and make us wonder if he has a plan in mind.

The origin story takes at least an hour to tell, and I enjoyed that, because it seems to me that CGI superhero films often go on autopilot during their big action climaxes. We learn how Peter lost his parents and came into the care of Aunt May (Sally Field) and Uncle Ben (Martin Sheen). Finding his dad’s old-fashioned briefcase in the attic, he comes across brilliant scientific work about cross-species interbreeding, and that leads him to the Manhattan skyscraper of Oscorp, your typical comic book mega-corporation with a madman at the top. The screwball scientist is his dad’s old partner Dr. Curt Connors (Rhys Ifans). He has lost his right arm and obsesses about regenerating it by injecting himself with the genes of lizards, which can replace lost limbs (almost instantly, it appears).

Connors overdoses himself on lizard juice and expands into the hyper-violent Lizard, who goes on rampages and knocks cars off bridges with its tail. Meanwhile, of course, the cops blame a midtown trail of destruction on Spider-Man, and wouldn’t you know that Gwen’s father is police Captain Stacy (Denis Leary). This sets up various close calls and reconciliations, and the movie’s single best action scene, when Spidey rescues a young boy from a burning car dangling from a bridge. The kid is able to assist in his own rescue after putting on Spidey’s face mask; I doubt the mask has magical powers, but simply provides a psychological boost.

That may also help explain why Peter/Spider-Man spends so much time not wearing the mask. That, and the fact that Andrew Garfield is very good-looking and the mask reminds me of Hellboy wearing a screen door.

The best of all the Spider-Man movies remains Raimi’s Spider-Man II (2004), with the best of the series villains, Doc Ock. This one is probably the second best. The Lizard is not especially inspired, and seems limited to the dramatic range of a Godzilla. Luckily, the climactic battle atop the Oscorp Tower is intercut with parallel action involving the plucky Gwen, who risks her life in an attempt to immunize all New Yorkers from becoming lizards. Director Marc Webb is aware that effective CGI action must be slow enough to be comprehensible, and although the Lizard sometimes thrashes about in a rage, Spidey’s action makes sense.

A technological footnote. Peter/ Spidey depends on cellphones, which save the day when Spidey urges Gwen to – quick! – find the blue serum! Peter Parker is still a photographer (and still using rolls of film), but although we see a front page proving The Daily Bugle is still being published, Peter doesn’t seem to freelance for it anymore; no doubt he’s been downsized. The credit cookies promise a sequel, and I suppose by the time they make it, Peter will have switched over to making videos for YouTube.

Roger Ebert is a Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic. His reviews appear each week in Metro.