Musings of a Wandering Game Mage
I have a concept for a card game swimming through my head, and it needs some mad scientist types. I could do your standard “Victor Von” tropenstein crap, but I want to see more lady types in games. And everything. Cause ladies rock.
So, here’s Victoria, or Vickie as she’s known to her assistants:
Starting on the 19th of December, Skyrgámur descends from his mother’s volcanic cave and wreaks havoc on the poor, humble folk that leave their Skyr unattended. Skyr. Mighty cultured dairy product of the gods. It’s like thick yogurt, but less intensely flavored.
Skyrgámur, like all of the Yule Lads, loves to menace the common folk. His prefered brand of menace seems a little passive compared to, say, Stekkjarstaur, who loves to harass sheep. Skyrgámur just likes to break into people’s houses and eat all of their skyr. His name literally means Skyr-gobbler. I’m starting to think old Gryla was running out of ideas for terrible deeds for her sons to commit by the time Skyrgámur came around. Then again, he does have a brother who licks spoons, so maybe Gryla just has a skewed sense of menace.
Still, I imagine if Skyrgámur came calling with his assembled brothers and that infernal Yule Cat, things might get a little freaky.
Rogue One knocked my literal socks off. Well, kind of. The day after we saw Rogue One, I was told by a man claiming to be a doctor that I had pretty severe bone spurs on my right foot, so I haven’t been able to put socks on in a few days. Here, for those of you who like pictures of hideous freaks of nature, is an x-ray of my emergent mutant powers:
Enough about me, though. STAR WARS. I have loved Star Wars since I was a sad little kid who wanted to see the Rescuers so badly that he cried when his dad took him to see some stupid Space Movie instead. I was furious. I was livid. I was hooked for life.
Yesterday I drew two Star Wars characters I haven’t drawn yet, the Gauvian Enforcer, and then Bobbajo, the cool little merchant dude that wanders around Nima outpost. These were a lot of fun, and there will definitely be more to come!
According to Icelandic tradition there are a bunch of nasty spirits that start wandering the land on the 12th of December. Today is the 18th of December, and I missed a few days. But I’ll make up for it with one of my favorites, Hurðaskellir. His name literally means Door Slammer. Old Hurðaskellir is the reason why doors slam shut, especially late at night.
Hurðaskellir is one of the Yule Lads, and he comes down from his mother’s cave on the 18th to harass people and scare naughty children. He is occasionally accompanied by the Yule Cat, a very nasty feline that eats really wicked kids.
So, be extra kind this holiday season… That slamming door you hear tonight might just be Hurðaskellir, coming to scare you in your sleep!
Hurðaskellir painting from The Yule Lads: A Celebration of Iceland’s Christmas Folklore by Brian Pilkington
This time of year is a little odd in our house: My wife, the Sainted Rachey Klabe, is a Christmas traditionalist, and I am a fan of turning convention on its ear. Luckily, she’s been patient this past quarter century, and not found too many reasons to give me the boot. Except on Saint Nikolaus Day, when I guess our footwear is supposed to spend the night on the porch.
My absolute favorite thing about the Holiday season, though, is how people celebrated them in the past. Hyperallergic has a great collection of Victorian Christmas cards, and as you can probably deduce for yourself, I freaking love them.
The look on this kid’s face says it all: “Glory me, mumsy sure left me the plumpest oranges for DEAR CHRIST A GOAT!!!” Really makes you wonder what kind of vagrant goat problems the Victorian English had to contend with.
And then there’s this little ditty:
WHO WOULD (other than me) give this to anyone? Poor froggies! And this isn’t the only morbid frog card in the collection!
Seriously, do yourself a favor and check out the rest of the cards at Hyperallergic. Definitely worth your hard-earned Holiday time!
I’m hawking my wares again! Just a friendly reminder that my coloring/story book, Grimmleigh’s Beastly Oddities is available on Amazon, and eligible for Prime shipping. I may be biased, but this is the perfect gift for that person in your family that goes bump in the night. Here, for your sampling pleasure, is a sample page:
There is a story attached to this guy, too. It’s called “the Yeti that hates Beaches.” It’s probably the coolest story about a yeti that hates beaches you’ll ever read. And you’ll be supporting an independent artist! ME!
And if you already have purchased this book, you are amazing, and I love you for that.
I used to manage the entire overnight operations of the banking arm of a Fortune 500 company. I was promoted to the position because I could see inherent flaws in certain types of operational practices and came to the table with multiple solutions that might work to solve that problem. Said company was impressed, and thought “let’s give this guy a team comprised of student loans specialists, as well as a smattering of investment ninjas from the consumer banking department.” There was a parade, balloon animals, and all was good in the world.
That was, to put it bluntly, the second worst decision made in any of my vocational arrangements. The first worst decision was me accepting the job. I am not in any way a Leader of Men. I don’t have a lot of compassion for people who don’t want to work, and I have little patience for laziness. I work my ass off, and if anyone is working with me, I expect the same. I don’t work well in the traditional American Corporate Management structure because I don’t want to babysit, coddle, or motivate anyone… I just want to get the job done. Quickly, and in a preferably efficient manner.
The first realization that they had made a terrible mistake was when they had me take the Carnegie Strengths in Business test. The typical Strengths that a strong manager would have were WAAAAAAY at the bottom of my list, whereas problem solving traits were towards the top. Something called Ideation was the giant cherry on top.
What is Ideation? Well, it’s a mindset that is always thinking of new ways to do something, or just new somethings in general. I do it all the time. I am doing it right now. Imagine, now, working for someone who isn’t in the slightest bit worried about how your work performance is today, because he’s thinking of ways to streamline the way you do your job in the future? It’s a trainwreck scenario for a call center. For a creative job, though, it’s pretty cool. It’s the kind of thing that turns a mundane afternoon of reading history into the life and times of vampire Andrew Jackson.
I am self employed. I get to make decisions that could make or break our business, and that keeps me pretty motivated to stay on task and keep things moving. The only time it gets bad, though, is when my brain starts working on something else altogether. We might be working on new menu items for the restaurant, but my brain is trying to figure out how to work a gear on a puppet. I don’t make puppets, but my brain is trying to work it out. I have to shove that aside right now, and focus on the task at hand.
Here’s the problem, though; I have this idea for a game literally rampaging around the brain right now. Yesterday, it was a variation on the traditional Rummy card game, but instead of face cards and number cards it would have been body parts and sabotage cards, with the goal of laying down a stitched together monster before your opponent can sabotage your lab. Today, it’s a deck building game. (I don’t know anything about deck building games…) Tomorrow, it might be a traditional board game with dice and pawns. By next week, it might be a fully interactive RPG using puppets (what is the deal with freaking puppets this week?).
This is the curse of the creative process. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. It’s a huge part of what makes me who I am, and part of how I go from drawing a graphic novel in July to having a published coloring book in August. The creative ammunition is crammed in there, waiting to be fired off. I just need to aim a bit.
The wonders of the internet, folks. Seriously. I have been slogging through Shopify for the last few days, uploading art files for shirts and other goodies. When I got to this one, though, I just had to share! I am actually buying this for my own phone… I LERVE IT.
It’s already one of my favorite pieces that I have done, and being able to protect my super-sweet iPhone with it? SOLD.
Anywho, Shopify is pretty cool. It might be the smoothest, easiest to set up, goofball proof system I have played around with. I would seriously recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good plug and play e-Commerce solution. I’ll break it down a little more in a later post.
If you’re interested in this item, or some pretty cool Gorinka shirts, please feel free to click the “Grimmleighs Custom Tees” link on the right. I will be posting new stuff there weekly!
During the earlier part of November I was able to fulfill a long-standing, bucket-list level personal wish and spend a few hours wandering through Guillermo Del Toro’s collection of monster and comic book ephemera. It was, to put it mildly, a life changing experience.
We arrived at the LACMA early on a Saturday morning, and were greeted by a statue of this fellow:
That was just the beginning. A whole wing of the museum had been set aside to showcase the collection of my absolute favorite director. I saw props from movies going back to the beginning of the art form. Wax statues wearing actual costumes from movies like the Bride of Frankenstein, Crimson Peak, and Hellboy.
I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off. It was like something was following me around the building, but I couldn’t put my finger on it…
There where original pages from comic books going back to the 1960’s, and statues of genre giants like Ray Harryhausen, H.P. Lovecraft, and Edgar Allan Poe. The Poe statue was pretty cool, and the room he was in was full of Victoriana. And a really weird wax of someone I couldn’t place. He was propped up against the wall, like some sort of diminutive, vaguely Asian Tor Johnson wannabe. He was also one of the few standing waxes, and the only one propped against a wall.
I got a little closer to the Poe, trying to figure out who the dude against the wall was. I needed to be a little sneaky, since there were super cool film nerds all over the place, and the last thing I wanted to do was let on that I didn’t know who this guy was. Just look at him, though: He had to be someone…
I got closer to the guy, and right when I was about 5 inches away, he reached up, scratched his nose, and went back to sleep. I choked back a scream, and tried to act like my sudden ability to levitate was perfectly natural.
My wife pointed out his ID badge, and really, it should have been a pretty strong clue to his being a real, live human being. Then again, he looks like a freaking wax statue, and if there is anything I have learned from Westworld, I really shouldn’t take any chances, right?
Regardless, it was the visit of a lifetime. I wish we had more time, and that the building had been empty. It was really hard to stand and gawk at everything for the appropriate amount of time. I could have spent an hour looking at these guys alone:
As mentioned before, I love apes. This handsome dude is the second in my series of Gorinka tee shirt designs, and features a stunning, eye-patched Gorinka in a space suit with stylish rockets and stars.
Grimmleigh's Lab 