Michal Wojcik's Blog, page 9
December 30, 2017
Episode 36 – Year in Review, 2017 Edition
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So little of 2017 left, but just enough time to post our year in review! We discuss media we enjoyed this year, whether it was objectively good or not, including the University of Alberta murder-mystery-but-not-really-a-murder-mystery The Next Margaret, Haruki Murakami’s slow melancholy, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (again!), Roger Zelazny’s fiction, and more.
https://ia601505.us.archive.org/24/items/OLSP362017Wrapup/OLSP36_2017Wrapup.mp3Download the Podcast (archive.org page)
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December 26, 2017
Farewell to 2017
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The year is winding down, and the best I can say is that humanity hasn’t ended in a nuclear conflagration just yet. I have no personal accomplishments to really crow about this time either—no short story sales, very little work done on my still-in-progress necromancy novel, and a general feeling of creative malaise towards the written word.
However, I did turn my efforts towards art, and it’s been a fantastic year on that front. I started seeing some marked improvement, in part because I’ve...
November 10, 2017
November 5, 2017
Ecological metaphysics: Miyazaki’s Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
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Few people put Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind at the top of Hayao Miyazaki’s filmography, though there is a sizable contingent who absolutely love the film. At the same time, while Miyazaki’s first original feature-length film has been eclipsed by what he made under Studio Ghibli, you can’t deny the importance of that first work in the pattern of his career. Nausicaä contains the seed for all the work that came after: the visual sensibility, the treatment and choice of characters, the pa...
November 1, 2017
Inktober Postmortem
I took part in Inktober this year, a challenge created by artist Jay Parker. The premise is simple: 31 ink illustrations in 31 days, with an optional prompt list to provide some inspiration. The goal is to improve your inking skills.
I don’t know how much better I am at inking, but I did see subtle improvements in my art as the month wore on, gained a new appreciation for thumbnail sketches, and overall, had a lot of fun with the exercise.
Click to view slideshow.
October 21, 2017
Interregnum Aesthetics
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Video games are often less than the sum of their parts. For me, all the time and effort that goes into crafting individual elements is often impressive but never seems to come together as a cohesive whole. However, sometimes one or two well-executed individual elements in a game can still make the whole thing worth playing.
Dishonored (2012) hardly counts as recent, but it’s the last title I played out of the modern game development era. While I enjoyed it as a dip back into the gameplay mod...
October 5, 2017
Episode 35 – Unfinished
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In which we speak of books we never finished, or wish we had never finished. Normally, I would provide a list of the novels we talked about. But this time, I think it’s better if you go in blind.
https://ia601502.us.archive.org/34/items/OLSP35Unfinished/OLSP35_Unfinished.mp3Download the Podcast (archive.org page)
September 20, 2017
Entering a Radiant State, Part II
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Stalin, Stalin, wherefore art thou Stalin?Alasdair: But even the Lodka cannot outrun Rizhin forever. As Lom searches the abandoned Lodka for Chazia’s secret archive, he is followed inside by Rizhin’s police agents, tasked by the President-Commander with demolishing the building. Despite the best efforts of the vyrdalak sisters, they succeed in their mission, and the Lodka, the final landmark of old Mirgorod, goes up in flames. And yet there is something curious about this event. In s...
September 14, 2017
Entering a Radiant State, Part I
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There is only the futureAt long last, we’re down to the last volume in Peter Higgins’ Wolfhound Empire trilogy, 2015’s Radiant State, and Alasdair Czyrnyj’s back for another round of discussion.
Six years have passed since Truth and Fear and the Vlast is a very different place; the nuclear shenanigans have spirited away the multi-future seed of the Pollandore and changed its fundamental nature, but have also sealed the stone archangel within the borders of the endless forest along with its...
September 6, 2017
Episode 34 – The Rule of Names
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We settle down to talk about another classic work of fantasy: Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, specifically the first three novels, A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan and The Farthest Shore.
Also: dragons.
