In Review - Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here→

The sequel (of sorts) to the original Poorcraft graphic novel, Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here covers how to have a vacation when you don't want to spend a lot of money. The content of the story is again presented by Penny (with help from Nickle) to her friend Mil.  This time, Penny and Mil have planned a vacation together.  But trouble is brewing from the start when Mil struggles to carry in her bags.  From this point on, Penny presents Mil with plentiful advice about vacation and travel on a budget, while still having loads of fun.

Art

Diana Nock returns to illustrate this sequel, and the art is similarly humorous in the comedic sections and more clear cut in the informative sections.

Story/Content 

Similar to the original, Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here has a simple plot that serves the purpose of introducing the key learning concepts.  In this case, Ryan Estrade presents guidance for everything from packing and transport, to how to find safe, comfortable, and affordable accommodation, to how to have all sorts of fun while you are away from home without getting suckered by exploitative tour organizers.  Estrada does a good job in continuing the conversational style set by the original Poorcraft.  

Overall

Poorcraft: Wish You Were Here lives up well to the precedent set by the original.  If you ever travel anywhere, and I know that most of us do, you should definitely pick up this book, once it is available to the wider public (I backed the Kickstarter, and so have earlier access to it).  Keep an eye out at Iron Circus Studios for Wish You Were Here to go on sale.  

Google Pac-Maps

Google has become kind of known for their epic April Fools events. And 2015 seems like it will be no different. This year if you go to Google Maps you will see a button in the lower left that looks like a Pac-Man map. Clicking on it zooms you to the current road maps you have open and turns it into a playable Pac-Man game complete with ghost spawns, power pellets, and fruit. Is this awesome? Yes! Is this an incredible feat of automatic programming? Yes! Will this coast business a few million in productivity? Most likely!

Denver Comic Con 2014 - Reading Rainbow Panel with LeVar Burton

Oh, hey, so I found this old article in my unpublished folder.  Apparently, I am terrible at finishing things.  Anyway, you can still read this if you are interested.  At this point, we here at the Gameslave are gearing up for a new convention season, so look for a news post related to that in the near future.

---

On Friday, I attended a panel with LeVar Burton discussing the plans for the future Reading Rainbow project. The panel included a number of touching stories about how Reading Rainbow helped people learn to read.  I, personally, did not watch RR that much as a kid.  To a degree I didn't need it, since I was fortunate to have parents that valued reading, and encouraged me to find books that I enjoyed at the library.  But it was really touching to hear all of these stories about lives changed by a television program.  At several points, Burton appeared to be rather misty-eyed hearing these stories.

This panel happened to take place during the final hours of the Reading Rainbow Kickstarter campaign.  Those of you who followed it may recall that it was hugely successful, raising $5.4M to develop an new application and online delivery mechanism for the series (really an entire literacy program).  They have now launched the first new episode of the series on YouTube.

End of story, in person, LeVar Burton is such a genuine and caring individual, and the Reading Rainbow project is looking like an awesome program to promote literacy in a new generation of children.

In Review - Gekkan Shoujo: Nozaki-kun

So, I started this article several months ago, and I managed to forget to post it all.  Anyways, here's my review of my favorite anime of the last year.

---

What do you do when your high school crush is clueless, and treats all human interaction as a chance to research for his monthly shoujo manga?  If you are Chiyo Sakura, you go over to his house and start helping him draw his manga.  This is what happens in the first episode of Monthly Girls': Nozaki-kun, when Chiyo attempts to confess her love to her classmate Umetaro Nozaki, but instead tells him that she is "his biggest fan".  Nozaki gives Chiyo an autograph, and invites her to come to . During the rest of the series, we see the development of Chiyo and Nozaki's friendship, as well as an exaggerated look at the life of a manga artist.

The animation quality in the series is great, and the character designs are intuitive and believable.  So far the series is only available subtitled; the Japanese cast is great, so don't let that turn you off.  The soundtrack is generally unremarkable, playing a supporting role, while not being terribly notable.  The series is great fun, and probably the best recent entry to the high school comedy genre.  Overall, I give this series a 4.5 / 5.