August 2024: A Summation
Up and Down and All Around
August has been one hell of a month. Extreme highs have been coupled with very deep lows. I’ll just get into it.
Writing:
Yep, The History of SEGA is done. Completed. Submitted to the publisher.
It’s been probably a year, give or take, from start to finish. It feels strange for it to be done, but also like I’ve achieved something pretty big. I’m feeling relieved, excited, nervous and a little melancholy all at once.
Nervous because the publisher will now be going over it, seeing what they think and letting me know if anything needs to change. The original word count I was give was 60,000. However, when I started I didn’t realise that included the intro, acknowledgements and bibliography. With all that added the final work count is a little over 68K. 😬 I’m really hoping they don’t ask me to cut anything as I’ve no idea what I’d cut - there is already a lot I’d have liked to include but couldn’t - as I feel everything in there is pretty essential to telling the story of SEGA. They might decide to lower the number of images in the book instead (it was originally 100) which I’d much prefer.
The images presented their own problems as they wanted them at 300dpi. However, these are old games and they simply don’t output at that resolution. I can kind of “fake” them having that rez with something like Gimp, but I think that would just make them all blurry. I’ve sent them as-is so we’ll see what the publisher says.
As for melancholy, well, it was a fun project. Although it was a little stressful at times, I really enjoyed the process of researching and writing the book so I’m kind of sad it’s done. Still, it allows me to move on to other things.
Those other things, at the moment, involve a short story I’m currently working on and figuring out where to take this substack now that I’ve moved all the worthwhile articles over from Medium. It was rather cathartic deleting that account as I felt Medium had become nothing more than a harbour for shills pushing their get rich quick schemes. In fact, I wrote a satirical piece on just that. I didn’t re-post it here, but I have backed it up, if you’d like to have a read.
Reading:
I knocked over a few graphic novels this month. Firstly I finished off Tales of the Amazons which is a companion piece to Trial of the Amazons. Tales gives some background on and acts as a epilogue to the characters' and events in Trial. To be honest, I did not enjoy most of the stories contained within, with only Artemis: Wanted really feeling worthwhile. Some of the art is lovely, though.
Next I tried reading The Last Book You’ll Ever Read. This is written by Cullen Bunn and is basically a less interesting version of John Carpenter’s In the Mouth of Madness. Reading it, it felt like Bunn had a check list of every horror trope and was ticking them off as he went. I didn’t bother finishing it.
I also read Raven Girl by Audrey Niffenegger, which I also did not really care for, and Doctor Strange by Jed Mackay Vol.2: War-Hound of the Vishanti which saw Strange facing off against yet another alternate version of himself (I think this makes three or four now?). While not bad in any way, it also did not feel like it really pushed the character anywhere. The story was fun and the art pretty great, but Clea remains the most interesting character since Strange died and came back a few volumes ago.
Currently, I’m reading the Warlock by Jim Starlin omnibus released via Panini UK. While I’ve read a bit of Starlin’s work previously (Infinity Gauntlet and Doctor Strange mostly), his work here is absolutely nuts! I’ll say no more as I plan to write up something on the collection once I’ve finished it.
Playing:
As part of my goal to crack my back catalogue, I again tried my hand at the Monster World games, in particular those in the SEGA Vintage Collection release. I’ve never got on with these games, having tried them several times before and given up. I thought I’d give them once last go and…had the same reaction. It’s safe to say it just isn’t a series for me.
A game that very much is for me, however, is the absolutely brilliant Thank Goodness You’re Here. I feel this would be a love-it-or-hate-it game for many, but I firmly fell into the former camp. An excerpt from my review of the game on Grouvee reads as follows (oh, the Cockney slang is there because it is very much a British game);
…Instead, it's more akin to taking a ball of chalk (walk) through some of the Mae West (very best) British sketch shows. Like The Goodies, it's irreverent and charming. Like Monty Python's Flying Circus, it's full of slightly connected scenes with bonkers situations and biting commentary. There's the utter batshit Patrick Swayze (crazy) surrealism of Mighty Boosh and more innuendo than a whole season of Are You Being Served. And, like all great British comedy, it's got some utterly mum and dad (mad) ding dongs (songs) that you'll be wanting to re-listen to over and over.
I also knocked over The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow, and astounding point-and-click folk horror title.
Right now I’m playing through Yakuza 0. I’ve not played any of the other games in the series, and decided to try it based pretty much on the fact that I’d read and heard many people compare it to the seminal Shenmue. While I don’t think it quote reaches the highs of Yu Suzuki’s classic, and it has quite the problem with depictions of women, I am enjoying it.
I’m about 20 hours in which, judging from playtimes recorded by others, is roughly half way. Unless something drastic happens in the last half it’s not inspired me to play the rest of the series, but I do have Yakuza: Like a Dragon on X-Box which I bought in a sale so I’ll at least try that out.
Collecting:
It was a pretty good month for collecting, which is good as it might be a while before I have such a good haul again (see the news later in the post).
Due to stress, I decided to take a mental health day from work. Rather than just sitting at home, I decided to go out for a few hours and found myself at the Whitely shopping precinct. You’ll probably be unsurprised to know I spent quite a bit of time in The Entertainer (that’s a toy shop for those unaware). I was able to pick up several Sonic figures not yet in the collection for only £30 total. Pretty good haul.
The on-line SEGA merch store was also having a sale on their Tails advent figure. My wife gifted me the Sonic advent figure two years ago, but it was much cheaper on release than the Tails one. I think most of the extra cost went into the box as it’s beautiful and sturdily made with nice pull-out shelves that contained all the parts. I’ll certainly be holding on to this to use for other purposes.
In a rather nice surprise, my wife picked me up the Hasbro Marvel Legends Danny Ketch Ghost Rider with Hellcycle figure. While I already had a Johnny Blaze Ghost Rider figure, it didn’t come with a bike, and Danny’s bike is by far the coolest. I’ve not yet decided where this will go on display, but I’m very excited to get it out of its books. Look at it; it’s just so cool!
The last bit of collectables new is that in my constant search for better comic book storage options (read “more appealing than a heap of white boxes”) I believe I have finally found a solution. I found on Ikea’s website these Uppdatera boxes that fit roughly 100-120 issues. The comics aren’t wide enough to take up the whole width of the box, so I can use that space to store bags and boards. As you can see, they look pretty good on a cubed shelf, and that extra space will allow for graphic novels! I just hope Ikea doesn’t run out of these before I can get more.
So what was that bad thing that happened this month? Well, I got fired from my job. Apparently, I wasn’t at the “level expected” in the five-ish months I had been there. Personally, I think that five months is nowhere near enough to completely learn a brand new job in an industry you’ve absolutely no experience in (which they knew when they hired me), especially when the “training” consists of someone sitting in front of a computer saying “you do this, then this, then this…”
Ah well, I wasn’t particularly happy there anyway, and it was not a job I planned to stay in for longer than I had to. Just, you know, money. It means many of the plans my wife and I had for our house, holidays and others things will have to go on the backburner.
Still, at least we finally got the trailer for Sonic 3.
TTFN
Wishing you best of luck in the job hunt! Hope you find something that you enjoy doing and pays you well.