Pilgrimage (2017)

Set in 13th Century Ireland, Pilgrimage sees Spider-Man (aka Tom Holland as naive young monk Brother Diarmuid) and The Punisher (aka Jon Bernthal as The Mute) team-up in a violent Medieval action-strewn road movie.

They are members of a party of monks tasked by The Pope with transporting a mysterious relic from their isolated monastery on the west coast of Ireland to Rome, as it is believed to have the power to sway the Crusades in favour of The Church.

Naturally, things don't go well.

Heavy on atmosphere, the film is a meditation on the power of faith in the face of adversity and superstition, but also a warning of the dangers of blind faith.

Told in multiple languages (ie. Irish, French, and English, with a smattering of Latin), Pilgrimage clearly demonstrates the ethnic diversity of the Middle Ages, something not always addressed in period films.

It also means plenty of subtitles, which I know puts some people off.

With Ireland torn apart by Celtic warbands battling Norman invaders, the monks are forced into an uneasy alliance with a Norman baron who offers to guard their caravan in return for absolution.

The ever-reliable Richard Armitage (of The Hobbit, Hannibal, Robin Hood et al) shows up as the baron's son, the sinister knight Raymond De Merville, who's working to his own agenda.

Although there are some brutal fight scenes and a splattering of gore, I'm not sure why Pilgrimage merits an 18 Certificate, we've all seen far worse in movies with lower certificates.

Pilgrimage feels like a small film, despite a large (all male) cast and wonderful, evocative Irish landscapes, portentous weather, and mist-shrouded scenery; it's the kind of film that actors make between Hollywood blockbusters.

Ultimately writer Jamie Hannigan and director Brendan Muldowney do a great job of focusing on the central message they were trying to impart, but at the expense of any greater depth.

Neither tragically poor or epically fantastic, Pilgrimage is a film you come away from thinking 'that was okay', and then move on to whatever's next in your queue.

The Magnificence of Ramayana Has Left Me Stunned

An ancient epic follows a young prince and princess whose marriage and subsequent exile mark the beginning of a legendary journey. Their story of love, duty and destiny sets the stage for greater challenges ahead.

The classic tale of Indian mythology has been brought to life in epic grandeur. If the trailer is to be believed, it is "the greatest story of all mankind".

Already, this is giving off strong "film of the year" vibes.

I want to see Ramayana more than 90 per cent of the material churned out by Hollywood these days (which I still love, but generally lacks the calibre of magical animals. gods and monsters depicted here).

THROWBACK THURSDAY: Following The Whispering Road Made Us All Both Storytellers and Gamers

Back at the tail end of 2018, the Tuesday Knights (our tabletop roleplaying gaming group) did something unusual: something that goes against my zealous protection of our precious, limited gaming slots. We played a one-shot. And I really enjoyed it. I mean I really, really enjoyed it. 

I'm still quite adamant that while we are bound to "one gaming session a month" (meaning a maximum of 12 a year, and we rarely achieve that for sundry health, family, and work reasons) I would rather play (or run) something with the potential to become an open-ended "forever campaign".

However, let's flashback to December 20, 2018, and see what I wrote in my gaming log:

This week's RPG session with the Tuesday Knights could, possibly, have proved to be a game-changer.

It was our first exposure to a so-called "storytelling game" - Brent Newhall's The Whispering Road - and I was anxious about getting my head around playing a game devoid of such traditional mechanical trappings as character statistics, hit points, armour class, experience points, equipment lists etc

Instead, our character's were made up of a number of traits (some were personality quirks, others minor abilities or powers) and a "need".

Further taking us out of our comfort zone, there was no definitive setting for the game and it didn't even require a gamesmaster!

Clare, whose game it was, took the role of "Architect", meaning she framed the story and set the scene, while Pete was nominated as "Driver", making it his job to ensure the story kept moving and we didn't get bogged down in rules discussions or non-gaming distractions (not, it turned out, that he needed to worry about that because we all quickly got on board with The Whispering Road).

Beforehand, via our super-secret Facebook group, Clare had nudged us to create a setting for the game: and we cooked up a snow-bound Medieval land (which in play veered between Celtic and Norse) where saints and demons walked the land, and everyone had a pet mouse as a companion.

Our characters were:

• Ceitlen (Pete) - first born daughter of the chieftain, guardian of the clan's symbolic magical shield, whose motivation was protecting the shield and what it stood for (ie. the community);
• Torg (me) - third born (second son) of the chieftain, a trickster and troublemaker, who wanted to prove that he could be as good a hero as Ceitlen;
• Glau (Kevin) - a miserable farmer, gifted with a magical spade and the ability to see the future, who just wanted the snow to stop;
• Master Mouse (Erica) - the custodian of the clan's mice, and a mentor to all, who wanted people to listen to her advice;
• Sister Prudence (Clare) - a nun and fanatical follower of Little St Therese (patron saint of mice), who sought to stem the rising tide of secularism in the village.

After everyone described their typical day in the village, the story began with Glau coming to the chieftain with dire warnings that the snows were getting worse.

The village was whipped up into a frenzy, and, led by an army of mice to clear a path, headed up into the mountains to find the cause of the supernaturally worsening weather.

After being ambushed by dire wolves (not common in these 'ere parts), the bulk of the village were sent home for their own protection, leaving our small group of heroes to carry on.

I stumbled upon an old ruin (Torg, as a "rascal", had more traits than anyone else and these included a couple of doses of "dumb luck" as well as being the group's "magic-user"), from where we headed to an ice cave that actually turned out to be a frost giantess called Midhilda.

Before we knew this, she had rolled a giant boulder at us, which had crushed Ceitlen's shield and shattered it in to three pieces.

While the others were determined to talk to the giantess, Torg transformed into a mouse and started to scuttle up her leg, with a typically Viking-esque bloody plan in mind to kill her (thinking he would be saving the village that way and proving himself).

However, Master Mouse called out to him to stop because they had discovered that she was simply looking for her giant boyfriend Jordmund.

Unfortunately, giants' sense of time isn't the same as ours and we discovered he'd passed through this area hundreds of years ago.

During the conversation, she also revealed that her oversized enchanted sword had been shattered, and Torg suggested that he could magically repair it using one of the fragments of Ceitlen's shield.

Ceitlen, already upset over the loss of the shield (despite Master Mouse explaining to her that it was only a symbol and she was still protecting the community), was initially not happy about this.

But then she came round to the idea and tried to claim it as her own, much to Torg's annoyance. He lost his rag, which - in turn - freaked out the giant (who couldn't handle extreme's of human emotion) and so Master Mouse and Sister Prudence had to calm down Midhilda and Torg.

Assisted by a small coterie of mice summoned by Prudence, Torg then wove the pieces of shield and sword together with some colourful sorcerous hand gestures, and went on to proudly explain that this was also forging a bond between the frost giants and our village.

And, boy, was he feeling smug about all this... right up until the point where Midhilda declared that her new magical sword would be named after Ceitlen.

Torg's jaw hit the floor (and everyone - including me - around the table roared with laughter).

In return, Midhilda handed Ceitlen with a large fragment from her old broken sword, which could be reforged into a new shield.

We all returned to the village, satisfied that our story arcs had been achieved, the magical snows had eased, and Midhilda had opened a new pass through the mountains for us.

Writing up the adventure primarily from Torg's POV and my recollections, I haven't really done the evening's game justice.

It was a surprisingly layered escapade, with everyone's actions dictated by whether they were satisfying their own character's needs or those of others in the group.

When you're not spending 20 minutes on a fight sequence, it frees up time for character development and The Whispering Road was all about co-operation and working together to achieve our goals (even when they were pulling us in opposite directions).

Although I'm not a fan of listening to "actual play" recordings, part of me wishes I'd recorded the evening on my phone to release as a podcast.

From the initial group world-building, through the speedy character creation, right up to the hilarious climax of the story and the satisfying denouement, this really was a game unlike any we've played before.

I've always been fascinated by the simple idea of characters who are related by blood somehow, and the dynamic of Pete's Ceitlen  and my Torg unfolded brilliantly as both of us tried to one-up each other: Ceitlen with her strength and charisma, Torg with his tricksiness.

Unintentionally, as Kevin pointed out, this developed into a perfect Thor/Loki dynamic.

The whole adventure was contained to a single, two-and-a-half hour session, but - because the game was structured into scenes (with prompts for The Architect) and acts - the story we freestyled together really felt as though it came together like a movie.

I backed The Whispering Road on Kickstarter, in early 2014, on behalf of Nick and Clare, thinking it might make an interesting introductory RPG for my godson Alec (it's inspired by Studio Ghibli films, which Clare is a great fan of, and doesn't revolve around killing things that look different to you and then stealing their stuff).

Little did I realise that it would actually serve as The Tuesday Knights' introduction to the weird and wonderful world of Story Games!

I was so impressed by The Whispering Road and the story-crafting techniques the game subtly deployed throughout, as well as Clare's first stint at running a roleplaying game for adults (as opposed to her children).

There were simple dice-rolling mechanics for resolving conflicts (for instance, in a fight the roll would say whether you won or lost, not dictate a blow-by-blow account of the battle), complementing the system's aim of creating a thematic narrative, driven by the characters' needs and desires.

We weren't restricted - or bound - by the rules, in fact they encouraged our creativity and communal storytelling skills.

What's happening to us? Are we becoming New Age gamers? Are we waving goodbye to the Old School Renaissance and becoming Story Game aficionados?

I think it's a bit early to be binning all our d20 rulebooks, but I can definitely see us returning to The Whispering Road.

The evening ended with talks of a 'sequel movie' to our adventure, but, as much as I really liked all the characters the Tuesday Knights had cooked up, my mind was racing towards other settings and environments I'd love to explore via the game's very open mechanics.

It was a shame Simon was unable to make our final gathering of 2018, as it was a grand send-off to another fine year of gaming.

I Can't Help It: I Really Like Religious Horror

In her country home, a religious zealot takes a filmmaker captive, claiming her sadistic rituals will change him into a god.

When her dementia patient begins behaving strangely, a nurse suspects things are not what they seem. As the night unfolds, she soon discovers she is trapped with a demonic presence seeping through the cracks of the old home.

Titanic Return For The King of Atlantis

Although he has already appeared alongside Conan in the Cimmerian's own title, Robert E Howard's Kull is getting his own four-issue miniseries early next year from Titan Comics.

Howardverse I.P. holders Heroic Signatures has revealed that Mark Buckingham - of Fables, The Sandman, Miracleman, Batman; Shadow of The Bat etc fame - will be the illustrator of this series, with colours from Dave Stewart.

The comic will be written by The Mask and B.P.R.D. scribe John Arcudi.

Assassin's Creed (2016)

Not being a video game player, I came to Assassin's Creed (the film) knowing next to nothing about the franchise, and after sitting through this 100-minute movie I still know next-to-nothing.

This poorly scripted adaptation of the popular computer game managed to somehow be overstuffed with exposition and simultaneously obtuse in its plot and goals.

The script felt like it had been produced by either a troop of monkeys flinging their own shit at a wall to see what sticks or someone transcribing the stream of consciousness ramblings of a young child telling a story ("Then this happened, then this, and whoooosh, then this person came in...").

Or maybe a bit from column A and a bit from column B.

The wonderful Michael Fassbender stars as condemned killer Cal Lynch, who sits in prison under sentence of death.

Only, his execution turns out to be a fake, and he wakes up in an experimental facility in Spain, where he is soon plugged into a machine called The Animus.

This allows him to experience - but not influence - the life of his ancestor, the 15th Century assassin Aguilar.

The secret society operating the machine, modern day Knight's Templars', headed by Jeremy Irons's Rikkin and his daughter Sofia (Marion Cotillard), need Cal to find out what Aguilar did with an ancient artifact they are after, called The Apple Of Eden.

This object (and there's even a fleeting hint that it might be a remnant of Ancient Alien technology, which got me all excited) supposedly contains the DNA code to free will (the evil Templar scientists want to end violence by removing free will from mankind; there's a nice line about how religion and consumerism have failed in this task, so why not science?).

And here's one of the major problems with the film. The sequences where Cal is "living the life" of his ancestor are a 'film within a film'.

And we're often watching him watch this "film".

Although Cal is 'acting them out', while attached to the Animus, he can't change anything that has gone on in the past, so although they are spectacular sequences (and the rooftop escape is stunning), that's all they are. Spectacle.

Except for eye candy, these extended sequences add nothing to the contemporary sci-fi story, where all we - and the evil scientists - are interested in is the end result.

Storywise it would have made more sense to 'insert' Cal into Aguilar's life nearer to when he disposes of The Apple.

We just wouldn't have had so many fight scenes and rooftop chases...

Now, I try to make it a rule not to criticise films for what they don't do, and instead focus on how well they do what they do.

However, Assassin's Creed feels like two disjointed films forced together by Hollywood/video game science. And both of these could have done a better job on their own.

I'll be honest here: I'd have a preferred a film set entirely in 15th Century Spain following Aguilar and his fellow members of the Assassin's Creed trying to steal the Apple Of Eden from The Inquisition and The Knight's Templar.

Those sequences - which were sadly fewer than I was expecting - were the highlights of the movie.

All the modern sci-fi nonsense simply diffused and distracted from the excitement of these "flashbacks".

All the plot holes, clichés, and groan-worthy moments of Assassin's Creed come in the contemporary parts of the story (for instance, why did the Templar scientists operate The Animus in a building where they also allowed all their Assassin's Creed prisoners' free rein?), which then all got wrapped up in a very hurried ending that left me mentally shouting at the TV screen: is that it?

But I'm guessing all the weaker parts were essential elements of the video game's mythology and so had to be there for it to be an Assassin's Creed movie, rather than a straight-up thrilling Medieval action romp.

And the bizarre thing is, this film has a cast to die for: as well as Fassbender, Irons, and Cotillard, Brendan Gleeson, Charlotte Rampling, and Michael Kenneth Williams all put in not insignificant appearances.

Either this was some bizarre Hollywood dare; they are all fans of the video game (or have relatives who are); or they all needed some pocket money, but I can't believe a coterie of such calibre could all agree to take part in a film so clearly riddled with inconsistencies and brazen silliness.

First Trailer for Children of Blood and Bone Adaptation

In the epic fantasy world of Orïsha, a young woman goes on a quest to reclaim the magic that was violently stolen from her people. She and her brother ally with the daughter and son of the king to fight back against his brutal rule.

Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, Children of Blood and Bone features a stellar cast including Thuso Mbedu, Damson Idris, Amandla Stenberg, Tosin Cole, featuring Academy Award nominee Cynthia Erivo, Lashana Lynch, Zackary Momoh, Richard Mofe-Damijo, Academy Award nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor, Academy Award winner Regina King, with Idris Elba and Academy Award winner Viola Davis.

The First Rule of Monopoly Club Is...

Le Mans-themed Monopoly

What some of you may not realise about me is that my gaming interests aren't limited to just roleplaying games and skirmish wargames. Rachel and I also host a (supposedly) monthly Monopoly Club.

Joining us at the table are Clare and Pete, making this a kind of spin-off from the Tuesday Knights (our roleplaying group).

Pete is an insatiable collector of the many, many themed-Monopoly sets and so every time we get together we play a different iteration of Monopoly.

In the three-and-a-half years we've been going, we've traded property and bankrupted each other in the worlds of Looney Tunes to Stranger Things, Indiana Jones to The Simpsons, and Ghostbusters to Jaws.

This week we were playing on a Le Mans-themed board that Pete had purchased earlier this year at the actual Le Mans endurance racing event in France.

Our little group not only keeps a running league table of our various victories (and defeats) but also a table of our gradings of how well produced and how innovative these reskins of the classic game are. 

If you want to learn more about our adventures in board gaming (or just check out some of the eccentric hacks of the classic original board game), then please visit this blog's little sister site: Don't Talk About Monopoly Club (it's the first rule of Monopoly Club).

Who Knew Yoga Could Be So Dangerous?

A reimagining of masala cinema [multi-genre Indian films], Namaslay is a pyroclastic, genre-smashing horror satire that eviscerates the appropriation of Yoga in the West — proving culture is the blood that keeps the dead alive.

Stateside, Namaslay debuts in Los Angeles and New York City on August 6, before expanding nationwide on August 13.

Age Of The Dragons (2011)

Imagine the elevator pitch "Moby Dick, but with a dragon".

Concepts don't come much higher and much more sublimely brilliant than that.

What a shame then that Age Of The Dragons ultimately fails to meet these expectations.

Now I've never actually read Moby Dick, but I know enough to recognise the character names have remained unchanged - Ahab (Danny Glover); Ishmael (Corey Sevier); Starbuck (David Morgan); Stubbs (Vinnie Jones), Flask (Larry Bagby), Queequeg (Kepa Kruse) - and that large chunks of dialogue are either lifted almost verbatim from Herman Melville's classic novel or, at least, are very close.

There are some great fantastical touches, like having Ahab's small crew serving on a land barge that wouldn't have looked out of place in one of Philip Reeve's World of Mortal Engines novels.

Unfortunately, the tense atmosphere of the hunt is undermined by shoehorning in of a stupid romantic subplot with Ahab's adopted daughter Rachel (Sofia Pernas) and the dumb revelation towards the end that Ahab knows exactly where the Great White Dragon nests... turning it not so much into a hunt as just a journey.

In the book, it should be noted, Rachel is the name of the vessel that ultimately rescues Ishmael from the sea - so you can see what they were trying to do here, it just comes across as a bit heavy-handed.

There are other plot holes as well, but there's enough monumental scenery chewing by Glover as the scarred captain, haunted by dreams of his youthful failure to save his sister from the White Dragon, and dramatic, cod-Shakespearean dialogue, to carry the story through these choppy waters.

The CGI effects are quite primitive as well, giving the movie the feeling of a slightly upmarket Asylum production, but the snowy scenery and rumbling landship provide adequate compensation in this department.

Surprisingly, I'd say this hour-and-a-half film needs to have been longer, with more plot development, some better explanations of the various characters' motivations, Rachel should have been cut from the story totally and the White Dragon should have been rather harder to track down.

Besides that, it's great!

Oh, and the movie could have done with a better title than the rather bland and generic Age Of The Dragons.

Although there are no traditional extras on the DVD, it actually includes - unmentioned anywhere on the DVD box - an entire second dragon-themed movie, Dragon Hunter which, if memory serves me right, isn't much cop at all. But still, a nice surprise nonetheless.

Ahab's "ship" The Pequod

Yaga-Dabba-Doooo!

All I ask is that Yaga embraces its supernatural side and avoids the anticlimactic True Detective cop-outs.

Words To Live By?

Conan & Dragonero #3 (Titan Comics)

In this month's issue of the non-canonical crossover comic, Conan & Dragonero, our Cimmerian protagonist delivered a throwaway, mid-combat, line that rather caught me by surprise.

"I don't worry about anything until it happens".

I am, by no stretch, a Robert E Howard scholar or expert on his most famous creation, but I guess this has always been Conan's philosophy - even though I don't recall him specifically spelling it out like that.

Perhaps, in all my years of consuming the adventures of Conan The Barbarian in various media, I've never really given this much serious thought.

To be honest, I'm not one hundred percent sure that this statement is a sensible approach to life as, taken at face value, surely that means a total absence of forward planning... and yet Conan is a master of the cunning trick and unpredictable battle strategies.

However, though the lens of stoicism, he is right. Only worry about things within your control. 

There's no point worrying about the possibility of wild wyverns slashing the balloon of your airship and sending you plummeting to the ground... because that's out of your control. 

Fighting the monsters that are in front of you, though, is within your control.

I wish I could adopt this mindset.

I've always been quite an anxious person, but since the sudden aortic aneurysm that struck me down out of the blue a couple of decades ago (and the stroke I suffered during the emergency, life-saving surgery), my PTSD-fuelled anxiety and general nervousness has gone through the roof.

Things that used to bug me or worry me can now reduce me to a blubbering wreck.

But these are - nearly always - things that are out of my control.

I'd love to have a modicum of Conan's stoicism. I shall endeavour, next time an appropriate situation arises, to tell myself "not to worry about anything until it happens".

This reminds of another phrase I heard last year that I try to put into use when I can.

In the brutal Netflix Western serial, American Primeval, Taylor Kitsch's character tells a kid with a broken arm: "It's only pain."

A simple, little phrase, but one I now repeat to myself when I'm going to the doctor's or the hospital for a procedure that involves sticking needles into my tiny, elusive veins.

I still hate it, it doesn't stop me screaming out or crushing Rachel's hand, but - at the end of the day - it is "only pain". It's not going to kill me, and it will pass.

So, who still thinks that comic books and television aren't good for you?

"She Has Come To Do You Some Evil"

With only two episodes left in this season of House of The Dragon, tensions continue to ratchet up as plans unfold within plans and the Rightful Queen's hold on the Iron Throne is looking a bit shaky.

Up top we have a trailer for the penultimate episode of this season, while down below are spoilerific, behind-the-scenes features on this week's episode:

Prisoners Of The Lost Universe (1983)

Three years after creating the most Dungeons & Dragons film of all time (Hawk The Slayer) Terry Marcel and Harry Robertson reunited to try and recapture that 'lightning in a bottle' magic with Prisoners Of The Lost Universe.

The chances are your impression of their success can be gauged against how well you feel George Lucas recaptured the magic of the original Star Wars trilogy in the Ewok movies.

Even bringing back Peter O'Farrell and Ray Charleson in essentially the same roles as they had in Hawk, a roguish dwarf and a gifted elfin creature, doesn't really help.

TV presenter Carrie Madison (Kay Lenz, best known as Thursday from the classic western The Great Scout & Cathouse Thursday) and handyman Dan (Richard Hatch aka Captain Apollo from the original Battlestar Galactica) find themselves shunted from our world to the primitive parallel world of Vonya. There the warlord, Kleel (a slumming-it John Saxon) is using his stash of Earth weaponry to maintain a brutal grip on the nomadic locals.

Kleel takes a shine to Carrie (because of her blonde hair and feisty nature) and it's up to Dan and the adventuring party he soon gathers (an elf, a dwarf, and a giant... sound familiar?) to rescue her.

As with Hawk, there's a strong whiff of Dungeons & Dragons in Prisoners Of The Lost Universe, with its abundance of random encounters.

But the cheesy monsters our heroes cross swords with are more reminiscent of the Italian low-budget sword-and-sandals fare such as the Hercules movies, Conquest etc that were being made around the same time.

Unfortunately for gamers - and neutral observers - all the humanoid monsters met are simply interchangeable, disposable goons in different costumes with no discernible differences in their abilities beyond their different outfits (be they midgets with glowing eyes, subterranean cloaked critters, or the Jason Voorhees-like waterbeast).

If Hawk The Slayer was Marcel and Robertson's Robert E Howard, then Prisoners Of The Lost Universe is their Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Despite the '80s opening on Earth and the presence of firearms, the sci-fi vibe that's suggested by the film's advertising (see poster/DVD cover above) is largely trampled by the fantasy elements, giving the film a micro-budget sword-and-planet John Carter of Mars flavour more than anything else.

Although Dan The Handyman is no John Carter!

On top of clunky dialogue and bargain basement effects, there's also a quite heavy-handed attempt to force humour into the mix by injecting some odd, comedy sound effects, which are totally cringe-worthy.

Trying too hard to lean into "camp charm", when such elements should be allowed to blossom naturally, it doesn't take long to realise why Prisoners Of The Lost Universe never gained the cult following that their earlier work did.

Reimagined Resident Evil Will Get Pulses Racing

From the mind of visionary filmmaker Zach Cregger (Weapons, Barbarian) comes a thrilling - and terrifying - reinvention of the Resident Evil franchise.

In an all-new story, Resident Evil follows Bryan (Austin Abrams), a medical courier who unwittingly finds himself in an action-packed, non-stop race for survival as one fateful, horrifying night collapses around him in chaos.

Resident Evil takes a bite out of cinema audiences from September 18. While still namechecking Raccoon City, this is clearly not your father's Resident Evil - there's no Milla Jovovich, for starters!

I suspect the saviour of Raccoon City will turn out to be Jimothy. Just putting it out there.

Keep Calm And Carrie On

She just wanted a friend. They gave her a fight. All episodes of Carrie, a new series from Mike Flanagan, premiere on October 7 on Prime Video.

Mordenkainen Headlines New Dungeons & Dragons Comic

Main cover art by Esad Ribić

Gary Gygax's wizard Mordenkainen stars in a new ongoing Dungeons & Dragons comic coming from Dark Horse in November.

Powerless in the face of a draconic apocalypse, the story follows:

"... Mad Mage Mordenkainen as he assembles Faerûn’s most legendary heroes, including Volo, Tasha, and more fan-favourite adventurers, for a high-fantasy epic that spans the Forgotten Realms!"

Each issue will also include roleplaying-themed backmatter penned by RPG "personalities" or D&D gaming material.

Issue one will feature an essay by Erika Ishii, voice actor and actual play participant in the YouTube show Dimension 20.

The Dungeons & Dragons series will be written by Eisner-nominated creators Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly (Star Trek: The Last Starship, Captain America, NYX), penciled by Ibraim Roberson (Star Wars, Weapon X, Thor Annual 2023), inked by Arabson Oliveira, coloured by Dan Brown, and lettered by Haley Rose-Lyon.

Issue one variant cover gallery:

MUSICAL MONDAY: Oi AG! (Atarashii Gakko!)

Oi AG!, the latest release from the peerless Atarashii Gakko! It's also the opening track on the band's new album, From Tokyo With Love.

A Good Soul In A Bad Place

Main cover art for issue one by Tyler Crook

It feels like recently I've been focusing on comics that put All-American nice guy Archie Andrews through the wringer, but tonight's announcement takes the biscuit: Archie is going to Hell!

A collab between Oni Press and Archie Comics, the first issue of the new ongoing title Archie in Hell is due to be summoned in November.

Written by Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees' Patrick Horvath, with art from Harrow County's Tyler Crook, this series weaves "a blood-stained trail from Riverdale’s dark colonial past to its all-too-sunny streets in the modern day!"

I'm a sucker for Archie's horror tales, and Archie Goes To Hell sounds like it has great possibilities (and not just because it features Sabrina and Salem!).

They say that every small town has a secret.

Well, in the case of Riverdale, it’s one heck of a humdinger: An ancient order of cultists has infiltrated its townspeople, bent on using human sacrifice to usher a demon lord into our mortal plane. And they’ve finally identified the final target they need to bring a century’s worth of planning to fruition: hometown football champion and all-around good guy Archie Andrews.

But this secret cabal never dreamed that actual witches walk Riverdale’s streets... and when cult and coven clash in the final stages of Archie’s secret ritual sacrifice, the consequences will be cosmic... and young Archie Andrews will find himself damned to something far worse than Hell’s inner circle.

Unstuck from time and space. Bound to a terrible curse. Late for school.

Things are about to go from bad to downright diabolical as Horvath and Crook unleash Archie in Hell #1, the most malevolent and merciless Archie Comics tale ever told... and, truly, you’ll never ever expect what happens next!

Here's a preview of pages from the first issue:

Apple TV Is The Place For Top Quality Sci-Fi

Callum Turner stars in the cyberpunk series adapted from William Gibson's genre-defining 1984 novel. Streaming on Apple TV on January 22.

Based on the best-selling novel by Blake Crouch, Dark Matter is a story of the road not taken. In season one, the series followed Jason Dessen (Joel Edgerton), a physicist, professor and family man who — one night while walking home on the streets of Chicago — is abducted into an alternate version of his life.

Wonder quickly turns to nightmare when he tries to return to his reality amid the mind-bending landscape of lives he could have lived.

Season two picks up with the Dessens as they settle into a quiet life in a world that finally seems safe until the unimaginable forces them to run once again.

Dark Matter Season 2 — August 28 on Apple TV.