The description of the book is as follows:

Planet Jurassica is under siege. The sinister space pirates have raided the Imperial palace and stolen the famous Jewels of Jurassica. This looks like a job for . . . Captain Raptor!. . . hero of a thousand space missions; champion of truth, justice, and dinosaurs in space throughout the galaxy. If anyone can track down those marauding space pirates, it's Captain Raptor and the fearless crew of the Megatooth!

I have always loved Neil Gaiman’s stories. They possess an accessible amount of horror and whimsy while making incredibly niche settings easy to understand by any reader. There is no level of condensation to his narrative, and this book is a great example of it.

The story turned out to be a melancholy post-apocalyptic world where the three protagonists wandered around a destroyed world for food.

For me, it read like an episode of the show instead of a self-contained story.

Nostalgia abound! Much like other branching novel books, this is written in a second-person point of view. How this is different than other books, this is also mainly a solo roleplaying game. The reader first creates the character statistics. I love how this particular branching novel roleplaying adventure makes it extremely portable and accessible anywhere.

I really appreciated Khouri’s artwork, with its heavy linework. This book also shows how important color is to a story, for mood and setting. The entire book was presented in a warm palette of yellows and oranges, which insinuated to me, a planet with a different type of sun.

This past week I read ‘Aster and the Accidental Magic’ by Thom Pico and Karensac. What a fun book. Thom and Karensac created a great world for the protagonist, Aster to explore. I really love this type of youth-oriented graphic novel genre that has characters interacting with their day-to-day magical surroundings.

It is exciting to see the writer and the artist world build together and seemingly work so well as to play on each other’s creative strengths.

I mentioned on my Instagram that this book had some innovative storytelling through mapping and engineering designs, which I found interesting. Ying also sets up a grand backstory that is hinted at in the book, allowing the reader to feel satisfied while wanting to explore this world more.

It was a very fun and quick read, and much like all children’s books, it had a nice moral to its story.

I really enjoyed how Perreault weaved minimalistic frames with more detailed pictures. His style is also accessible enough for a reader to emulate.

Erica does such a great job developing the personalities of the three sisters in the book, allowing them all to have their own distinct and relatable journeys and emotional story arcs.

This past week I read the ‘World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King’ art book. I have been doing some research on character designs and background settings. I cannot think of a better way of doing world-building research than looking at art books for games and other sci-fi and fantasy settings.

It is a fun book about a janitor that travels to a new land with his dog. It is a quick 10-minute read and has great illustrations. I also really like Egielski’s way he uses picture borders to give the reader a sense that there is more outside the illustrations.

It was a fun book with its chapters split into separate stories. It read like 15-minute episodes of a nickelodeon cartoon. I got the impression that Knetzeger had a lot of fun scripting and drawing out the stories. The characters felt innocent, curious, and adventurous. Personalities that are found in early teen kids.

I have always been a cat person, so I found the game itself a delight to read. I do not know Bellingham personally, but it is greatly apparent that he loves cats and the magic system he created for cats is fun and creative.

I really appreciated how the writers and artists utilized Baum’s original series and did not rely on the more well-known film version of the characters. The writers of the stories also understood many of the characters and lands in the 13-book series, including people like the Shaggy Man and Ozma.

The setting is interesting and unique, allowing games to only take place in Americana Literary settings. I found the book a fun read and very rules-light. It almost seemed like a party game in its design and intent than a traditional tabletop roleplaying game with long campaign settings.

It is amazing to see how true to the story that Shanower is in a comic format, and Young’s art is beautiful, personalized, and true to the imagination of how the characters are described. It is clear that the creative team is avid fans of L Frank Baum’s work.

On the surface, the similarities between both systems are player-driven and are heavy into creating consensus in telling a story.

Where the FATE system has strength is in its simple dice system of plus and minus and allowing the player to build their character, allowing them to fully understand who their character is at the beginning of the game.

The Brickley Sisters have a great concept about a children’s book about a bookshelf. The innovative character concept, matched with a heartfelt message to young readers: “Everyone has a story” makes this book an instant classic and must-have in every library.

The game is part of the original White Wolf ‘World of Darkness’ game line. The players take on the roles of ghosts and try to navigate the horror and hope of finding purpose and peace in the next stage of existence.

It was a great read and highlights the struggles of Chinese immigrants to the United States during the 1800s. it was a powerful story, educational, and inspiring. I am so happy to discover more graphic novels that tell stories that we all should be reading.