Monthly Archives: September 2021

You Should Be Watching

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This was originally published in the Watch The Skies fanzine, September 2021 issue.

What If…

When I’ve worked on my recommendations for this little column each month I’ve tried to find things that are bent toward the (potential) interests of this group, but also slightly off the beaten path. These things might not be your preference, but should certainly be worthy of consideration. I’ve tried not to go for the obvious, splashy things out there.

This month is a break in that trend. The Marvel Cinematic Universe is pervasive in pop culture. The series of movies and shows that have the common, unifying thread of a group of comic book super heroes has been with us for a solid decade now. The story lines, the characters, the massive tent pole films that seep into all the nooks and crannies of the genre are familiar. Perhaps they are familiar to the point of apathy. The MCU could be running the very serious risk of over saturation with the sheer number of films and shows it’s dumping forth for mass consumption. The omnipresent super hero genre has kept me away, until now.

The house of mouse has an animated show based around the stories of these well known super heroes called “What If…” that gets directly to the heart of the science fiction and fantasy genre. The title of the show is the very essence of what makes SF/F great. The best stories always ask that question. What if? Can we go back and change things? How would that have worked out if one tiny thing changed (butterfly effect anyone)? It’s a terrific mental exercise. The MCU has now combined that concept with stunning artwork to make a series of short animations. These stories give us the characters we’ve come to know viewed in very different lights. Asking the simple question “What if…” and following through with things like having the Ravagers pick up T’Challa rather than Peter Quill or having a serial killer remove Avengers before they start their journey to being a hero.

Yes, viewing these episodes does actually work out better if you’ve seen and / or are familiar with the films that have been put out in the long series from Marvel. The stories are short (averaging about a half hour each) and only give us glimpses of what might have been. It’s those glimpses that make it work. The animation is at exactly the level you’d expect from a world leader. There’s a lot of great stuff in there. This series is definitely one you should be watching.

Check out the trailer here:

Still Creating

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I’m wondering about the scale of my lack of focus. I don’t think it’s ADD or ADHD or whatever initials that particular diagnosis have been changed to lately. I am looking at the pattern of my postings here and seeing that they tend to cluster when I have certain things going on and thin way out when I have other things going on. There is nothing consistent about what I’m doing.

Having said that, I realize that there IS consistency, just at a larger scale. The general things I am interested in, and the things I work on are in certain channels, but those channels tend to cycle. There will be times when I am working on art pieces, times when I am crafting, times when I’m writing and struggling along with that and times when I’m reaching out with other creative endeavors.

Lately my energy is being spent on one of those ‘other’ creative endeavors. Gaming. I have posted before about being a player in a role playing game that was streaming on Twitch and YouTube. That game hit a snag ~ the snag of course being that we are adults with lives and responsibilities. Schedule has killed yet another game… OR has it?

I asked my friend if he minded that I step in and take over running a game. He was agreeable and so were the folks playing the game. Since then I’ve shifted gears and dropped back into my Dungeon Master ways. I’m producing art, but it’s generally for the game or the video channel. I’m writing, but it’s centered around the next adventure. I’ve dropped off the crafting and painting a bit simply because we’re running this game virtually across 2 time zones.

In the end, playing Dungeons & Dragons has resurfaced as my hobby of choice. I’m having a great time creating the world and working with the players as they move through various parts of their adventures. We’re still on the Ether Network channel, just under a different “show” title. IF you’re into the story, you should check it out over on Twitch or YouTube: