Saturday, May 25, 2013

ECBACC 2013 "Journey of a Black Geek"

The East Coast Black Age of Comics Convention (ECBACC)

I've been a geek pretty much all of my life. My mom was a fan of Star Trek the Original Series. This is compounded by the fact that my dad would bring home circuit boards from his job for me and my brother and tell us that they were from spaceships. Thus the seeds for a science fiction fanboy were in the making.

As everyone in the geek community knows, it's only a hop, skip and a jump from scifi to the world of comic books. Like alot of us, the tales of modern mythology captured my attention as well as my imagination. My parents always instilled in me to not get too engrossed into anything that where there wasn't any representation of people who look like you. As a black person (African American to those so inclined.), I grew up seeing a plethera of white faces doing tremdenous acts of heroism and feats of superhuman ability.

Fortunately for me, I hit my teens during the nineties. It was a time of pan-Africanism as well as neo Black nationalism. For those of us who were geeks, it meant that where were a number of Blacks invovled with the independent comic scene.

I remember my mom excitedly telling me about a Black comic book that had made the local news "Brother Man." With a bit of a sigh and groan, (really you couldn't come up with a better name than that.) I was even more dismayed when I saw that it was that iconic graffiti style art that I simply wasn't that into. That said I eventually picked up an issue and fell in love with the book. To this day, it remains my ideal of what a comic book about hero without any powers should be.

There were of course Black heros in the big two (Marvel and DC). Marvel had heroes like Falcon, Jim Rhodes (he wasn't War Machine yet), Storm, Black Panther and Cage. DC had it's own line up with John Steward Green Lantern, Black Lightning and Cyborg. DC turned it up a notch however when it started it's Milestone Media line.

For me, it was love at first sight... I mean first reading. An entire Universe of heroes as told from a primarily (altho not exclusively) non white perspective. There were white heroes and characters, of course, but the stories were more reflective of a diverse world view. Certainly, Marvel and DC as well as others (who didn't love Frank Miller's Martha Washington) tried their best. Yet, still the characters didn't quite feel authentic. Often, I felt conflicted. On the one hand, it was like Black people don't act like that. And yet on the other, you had to give them credit for the attempt.

Obviously, I don't exclusively read comics by black artists/ authors or about black characters. It is nice to see a well done comic with a well thought out story that features non white characters. Ok so the noteable exemption is Manga, but you get my point. So when I was friended by the East Coast Black Age of Comics (ECBAC), I thought oh goodie I'll hopefully get to find out about more Black Comics. However, like many things on the Book of Faces, I quickly got sidetracked by the myriad of distractions and it faded to the recesses of my FB stream only to be periodically visited from time to time.

It wasn't a surprise when I was invented to some event or another. I mean, how many of us on the Book of Faces get an invite to some event that we couldn't possiblly get to. What caught me off guard was that ECBAC was holding a convention in Philadelphia. In my head I was like. AWESOME!!! Ok ok so there is that comic something or another every year, but that somehow always sneaks up on me and I forget about it.  However, thanks to my mild addiction to the Book of Faces. I was constantly reminded of the event.


ECBACC is the first actual convention that I have been to. And I had a blast. In part two I'll talk more about what I saw while I was there. Stay tuned...

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Gundamn 40k: AMBUSH!

Sooo... I got out my 1/300 Gundam figs, Gundam 40k rules and got a game in on Friday night (May 10th). We continued our on going campaign in Africa. This time we set up an ambush scenario. I let him pick the terrain and the deployment zones. (Well it wouldn't be much of an ambush if I didn't now would it?)

I took two GMs, a Type 74 and a Ground Type Gundam. He had a Dom, Gouf, and a Zaku II. The 100mm MG continued to hurt me with it's measley strength of 6. This time I did take a Beam Spray Pistol (strength 9). The Dom had a heavy bazooka, but fortunately for me spent most of the game missing its shots. The Zaku had a 120mm MG and I forget what the Gouf had.

The objectives were really simple. It was only an ambush designed to keep Federation units operating on their toes so he really didn't have to kill all of my units. My objective was simply to fight him off and get the heck out of dodge.

The game started off not completely horribly for me as he let me have initiative for the game. (not that it helped.) The first turn was uneventful as only his Dom had a clean shot, but missed. Round two saw my MS Team mixing it up with the Gouf and Zaku II.  At the beginning of  round 2 a transport helicopter entered the battlefield. It was mostly ignored as the Mobile Suits slugged it out. Only minor damage was inflicted. A shield lost here. A Glancing hit there.

I tried my best to sneak my Type 74 off the field in an effort to at least get one of my units off the field. This was for naught as it was tag teamed by the Dom and Zaku. By this point of the game, the Gouf and one of the GMs were engaged in melee combat. The Gundam had made a play for a flanking manuever on the Dom. And the second GM tried unsuccessfully to engage the Zaku II. As the Zaku II finished off the Type 74, I tried to get my Gundam off the board. My opponent saw right through this and pounced. It really is amazing at how fragile the mass produced Gundams are.

With the Gundam out of the way, the Zeeks took a pot shot at the helicopter and was able to knock it out of the game only to crash somewhere in the distance as a brillant fireball. The Gouf finished its dance with the GM equipped with the 100mm MG and managed to turn it into a pile of  scrap (thankfully salvageable).  Down to the my final GM. I decided to make a break for it for it an get the heck out of dodge. Unfortunately, even with jump packs I was fourteen or fifteen inches from the edge of the board where I could escape. I was sweating bullets as Zeon Suits swarmed me like stink on crap, but everything was a miss and I at least had one guy escape.

At the end of the game, we rolled some dice to determine the outcome of some of the events in the game.  I had the high roll and informed the Zeon player that the missing ace was in the helicopter that he shot down. The look on his face was worth losing the game. HA! Wait that wasn't nice now was it... anywho.

The Type 74 really doesn't do much and I really haven't been able to use it's special ability of being able to pick one of my units with clear line of sight at the beginning of the game to get a free attack on my opponent. It probably would make a good spotter as it most likely won't be doing any shooting. Other than that it's pretty much a waste. I plan on getting some Type 61s. At 50pts each, they could make good filler or even maybe a good swarm army to take if reinforced with Mobile Suits.

All in all I continue to have fun with Gundam 40k. And it is helping me become better aquainted with the rules. 40k really does seem better suited for smaller scales. And Gundam 40k has me thinking about picking up an epic army and playing 40k with the movement cut in half, but leaving the weapons ranges in tact.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Wiskey Tango Foxtrot, Batwing!



So I've been following Batwing for the better part of a year now. And I have to say that while it had it's been a mixed bag. On the one hand it's always awesome to see a new Black superhero, especially one that's not a throw away character. On the other, it's been fustrating to read a book with so much wasted potential.  I really enjoyed picking out the parallels between Batman and the African Batman. (let's just call a spade a spade here.)

When they critically injured Batwing's Alfred, Matu, in issue 18. I was like WWWHHHAATTT!!! I was so excited to see what Batman would do if anything ever happened to Alfred. I'll tell you what he'd do. Apparently, he'd get mad, beat up some people and then wuss out and quit being Batman. Because that's what Batwing did.

My only consolation is that Bruce Wanye left the door open for David Zavimbe to return as an agent of Batman, Inc. Which brings us to the new Batwing, Luke Fox... that's right LUCAS FOX'S SON! I would have been excited if he had been the first choice or if Batman had brought him in to assisst (they kind of wrapped up the Zavimbe). The whole thing just seems forced. I'm not sure if they were going to go this way eventually. I mean on a certain level it feels that way, but they way they did it was rushed. And just when Zavimbe was getting good. It was nice to see Batwing take on organized crime in Africa. I mean that's what Batman is supposed to do right?

So as Batwing takes on it's THIRD creative team. I only hope they bring back Zavimbe in some form. Oh did I not tell you. They put the new Batwing in Tinisha the same city where the old Batwing took roost. If you're wondering why they don't just pull the plug on the book, it's because of the 52 books that DC releases every month Batwing and Katana are the only two nonwhite characters that have they're own stand alone books. Which is pretty sad given the number of Batman (just batman not the Batman family of books) and Superman books there are.


My final thought:
I thought it would be interesting if Batwing and Black Panther would meet up in some kind of wierd crossover. It's painfully clear that's what they were going for. You tell me if DC isn't trying to get it's own version of the Black Panther in the DC 'verse.