Where the Wheat Grows Tall zine on Kickstarter

Gaming Zine Quest Kickstarter post #2: 

Where the Wheat Grows Tall is an old-school fantasy adventure for low level characters inspired by Slavic myth. The adventure starts at an abandoned farm, and from there the player characters have a variety of options involving ancient spirits, long forgotten tunnels, and more across a map with twenty keyed locations.

I remember first seeing Evlyn's art on gaming blogs and the early days of G+, and I really like it. It has a whimsical look at first glance, although there is always much more under the surface and in all that detail work.

This zine will be unlike the usual Dungeons & Dragons adventure and well worth your time. I recommend that you check it out.

Godzilla: The Showa Era films on Blu-ray from Criterion!

The rumored, highly-anticipated announcement finally arrived yesterday. The Criterion Collection's spine #1000 milestone has a massive subject to match: Godzilla: The Showa-Era Films, 1954–1975. The fifteen original films and extras are spread across eight Blu-rays. Nine of these movies will be on Blu-ray for the first time in Region A! The discs are packaged in a 10" x 14" hardcover book with notes on each film and new full-page illustrations from sixteen artists.

The highlight of the set might be the inclusion of the Japanese version of KING KONG VS. GODZILLA (1962) in HD. This will be the first time it has ever been on home video in America (or anywhere else outside Japan, I believe).

I'll keep my Classic Media DVDs, and Media Blasters and Kraken Releasing Blu-rays of these titles for completeness, however. The US versions of GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS (1956) and KING KONG VS. GODZILLA are here, but the only other English dubs included are for INVASION OF ASTRO-MONSTER, SON OF GODZILLA, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS, GODZILLA VS. MEGALON, GODZILLA VS. MECHAGODZILLA, AND TERROR OF MECHAGODZILA. These are the Toho International dub tracks, not the AIP or Titra dubs many of us remember from Saturday afternoon movie matinees or TV showings.

Despite not being as complete as many fans would like, this is still a monumental achievement. Every Showa-era G-film is now on Blu-ray. Seeing an entire block of Godzilla films joining a prestigious film collection like this, and with the symbolic designation of #1000, should make all kaiju fans proud.

Gen Con 2018 Loot

 



I didn't have a big shopping list this time. In recent years I've been more on the lookout for limited items not available later or stuff that is heavily discounted for the show. My main goals were to pick up Mothership and Dead Planet, the art print, and The Hobonomicon.

• Art print by Stefan Poag of a isometric dungeon map, signed.
• The Hobonomicon #0 from Doug Kovacs and Stefan Poag for DCC, signed by both.
• The Free RPG Day modules for this year from Pelgrane Press (freebie in my GM bag).
• Gen Con program book (smaller, being the first year that event listings are not printed)
• Crystal Caste Gen Con 2018 d6 (green)
• Scotty's Brewhouse Gen Con 2018 d6 (red, Thursday)
• Mothership sci-fi horror RPG, signed by author/artist Sean McCoy
• Dead Planet (adventure module toolkit for Mothership), signed by co-author Donn Stroud
• Rackham Reversible Gaming Tiles Set D for Cadwallon, half-price at the Chimera Hobby Shop booth

Special "don't procrastinate" note:
I was at the Half-Price Books booth between games mid-day Thursday, and someone brought out two more packing boxes of DVDs and Blu-rays. Some good stuff, including a nice full set of Star Trek movie 2-DVD special editions. The one item that caught my eye was Anchor Bay's 2004 DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978) Ultimate Edition 4-disc DVD set -- sticker-priced at US$15. The DVDs were loose, scratched-up, and in rough shape, so I set it back to check on later. The next time I could get into the dealer's hall was 1pm Friday, and of course it was already gone. The set usually goes for north of US$100 on the secondary market.


Update: I completely forgot about the Count Dante-inspired DCC shirt I bought (in gray). It was packed with my clothes, not my gaming stuff. Now I'll need to get the rest of their "Deadly Hands" shirts.

My Gen Con 2015 haul

I didn't spend as much time browsing through the Exhibit Hall this year as I would have liked, but I did get to my top priorities -- and a few unexpected pieces.

Blowing Up the Movies by Robin Laws was a stretch goal for the Feng Shui 2 Kickstarter, and although I had the ebook version I wanted the print copy on my shelf.

Sigh Co. offers a ton of Lovecraft-related shirts, and their 1930s Prairie-style Miskatonic University T-Shirt stood out.

Green Ronin had several boxes of older material for $2 each, so I grabbed the Revised Edition True20 rulebook along with the Warrior's and Adept's Handbooks. Fantasy AGE and Titansgrave had already sold out -- I flipped through their display copy of Fantasy AGE and it looks good.

Steve Dempsey generously chatted with us for a bit about Night's Black Agents and Trail of Cthulhu at the Pelgrane Press booth. Shortly after that, I picked up the Trail rulebook in anticipation of a future ongoing Gen Con campaign (along with a 13th Age Escalation Die).

The Goodman Games booth is where I spent most of my dealers' hall time this year, with two separate visits. On the first round I picked up a print copy of Black Sun Deathcrawl, along with  Sailors on the Starless Sea, Crawl #1 and Crawljammer Issue 1. The second time I got a great combo deal on the Wizard Van t-shirt and one of the last skull logo shirts, and the adventures Against the Atomic Overlord and The Rock Awakens. This gave me the chance to roll the giant d20 twice, for which I was rewarded with the 2013 Gen Con Program Book and...

my choice from a stack of foamboard-backed promotional posters, in which I found this poster of the Frozen in Time sketch cover. I had it signed by Joseph Goodman and artist Doug Kovacs, but I missed Michael Curtis (next year!). Also pictured are issues 2 and 5 of The Gongfarmer's Almanac, an in-house zine produced for Gen Con. The picture is missing the swag bag of free Dungeon Crawl Classics goodies, including a pad of blank 0-level character sheets.

Already thinking about next year!

Quick comments on A Red & Pleasant Land

Short on time recently for a full review, so here are comments I posted last month to RPGGeek:

R&PL raises the bar for all other small-press RPG publishers in terms of content, illustrations, and layout, and as a physical object. Looking at only the PDF version does not do this work justice.

It's designed specifically for ease of play and direct use at the table. The GM is given just enough information to create adventures in the setting through the use of bullet-point lists and tables. No dense text blocks or pages of back story that must be absorbed before playing the game. Sit down, break out this book and your favorite rules system, and start rolling for months/years of play.

Even better, it can be used as a toolkit for your own setting. How to deal with eccentric NPCs, interacting with the mirror world on the other side of the Looking Glass, the 3D spatial relationships of the castle maps, mass combat methods, instant location creation... all can be drifted into any campaign with ease.

R&PL is a new and totally unique take on a classic fantasy story, with plenty of room to make the setting your own.

Adding to the above, I had been following the previews, and considering the limited print run it was a day-one purchase for me. Check it out before they are all gone.

Ray Harryhausen was a Magician (including random tables)

(Part of the Ray Harryhausen Blogfest)

Ray Harryhausen was a magician. He took foam rubber and fur wrapped around a wire armature and made it come to life in dozens of feature films and short subjects.

Harryhausen's contributions to visual and photographic effects cannot be overestimated. His pioneering work in refining the art of stop-motion animation over the course of 50 years gave us defining moments in the history of science-fiction and fantasy films. His technical wizardry and attention to detail mark the work of a true professional of the craft. Several generations of film fans, filmmakers, and gamers have been inspired by his creations.

This should have been a story in honor of Ray Harryhausen's 93rd birthday in June. Instead, it is in memoriam for the filmmaker, artist and writer who passed away on Tuesday.

I don't remember the exact first Harryhausen movie that I saw. Many of my early memories of movies as a kid are mixed together. My best guess is that it was 20 Million Miles to Earth, about an alien creature loose in Rome; a late-night showing (9pm?) that my parents let me stay up to watch. I soon began to recognize his work in other movies over many more late nights and Saturday afternoons. They were known as "Harryhausen movies", as his special effects overshadowed the names of producers, directors, and often the actors. I wrote about one particular film, The First Men in the Moon, in this review.

To me, the battle with the skeletons in Jason and the Argonauts represents the pinnacle of Harryhausen's talent, even if he would go on to create more intricate models and complicated effects in later films. He spent four months animating the skeleton models, and the amount of synchronization required to match up models to the live actors is still astounding.



Although we can create all manner of wondrous effects, creatures, and whole worlds through the use of computer animation, I feel that sometimes we lose a connection to the real objects, like stop-motion models and the physical sets they inhabit. Their lack of slick perfection make them less polished and more uneven, but more immediate and ultimately, real.



Bonus: Two d12 tables for random Harryhausen monsters in the fantasy role-playing game of your choice.

Small Creatures

1 -A Roc hatchling

2 - Skeletons

3 - Pterodactyl

4 - Giant bee

5 - Harpies

6 - Selenites

7 - A homunculus

8 - Animated ship's figurehead

9 - Centaur

10 - A chess-playing baboon

11 - A mechanical owl

12 - Medusa

Large Creatures

1 - Giant ape

2 - Rhedosaur

3 - Giant octopus

4 - Triceratops

5 - Cyclops

6 - Giant crab

7 - Talos

8 - Hydra

9 - The Avatar of Kali

10 - Griffin

11 - Troglodyte

12 - The Kraken

Happy birthday, Frank Frazetta

Yesterday would have been the 85th birthday of American fantasy and science-fiction illustrator Frank Frazetta, whose work graces the iconic cover of Conan the Adventurer in the blog header above. The following is part of a post that I wrote when Frazetta passed away in 2010:

...a few words about an artist who has had such a profound effect on my own imagination and ideas about art in general.

I can't pinpoint exactly my first encounter with Frazetta's work. I've always been a big fan of fantasy and science fiction, for as long as I can remember. I do have the memory of seeing the Lancer (and later Ace) Conan and Edgar Rice Burroughs paperbacks with Frazetta covers in bookstores, especially the prominent display in the Waldenbooks upstairs at Scottsdale Mall. I also remember seeing samples from, and the ads for, the Ballantine Fantastic Art of Frank Frazetta books in Starlog Magazine in the early '80s.

Later, after more time and reading, I learned more about his extent of his work -- not just cover paintings but pencil drawings, ink work, comic book art, movie posters and album covers... on and on.

What I think makes his work so powerful and popular is how dynamic it is, how much is going on in that single snapshot of time. In some works, we see the moment before something happens. In others, it's the aftermath. But in all of them, there's the quality and artistry -- visceral, raw energy, in every brushstroke or line of ink. Pure magic.

"Happy little trees": Bob Ross' 70th Birthday

If you watched any daytime PBS programming from the mid-eighties to the mid-nineties, you're certain to have seen The Joy of Painting with artist Bob Ross. Google celebrates what would have been his 70th birthday today with a Bob Ross Google Doodle on their main page.

My own artistic talent is confined to three-dimensional work such as gaming miniatures and terrain. Starting with a blank canvas and creating a scene is a huge challenge for me. If you watched Bob's show -- or attended his painting classes -- he encouraged you and made you believe that anyone could create art and love the process.

I think it's particularly fitting that the "g" in the Google art is blue. I can remember him saying on the show many times,"Perhaps a little more Phthalo Blue here... Phthalo Blue..."

Always upbeat, always engaged with the viewer, and always full of wonder for the beauty of the natural world, he created miniature worlds in his landscape paintings, and invited you to do the same. What I will remember is that optimistic joy, love of animals, and genuine passion for life that he projected on every show.

Bob Ross passed away in 1995.

Mental Floss has a great list of "5 (Happy Little) Things You Didn't Know about Bob Ross."

South London Warlords Wargaming Club

Somewhere around 6th or 7th grade, I got a copy of The Encyclopedia of Military Modeling, published in London by Octopus Books in 1981. It was on a bargain books table at Ayr-Way (which later became Target). Building model kits was a hobby of mine as far back as I can remember -- even if I wasn't very good. Lots of cars, tanks, planes, the USS Enterprise (and the bridge kit, and Mr. Spock firing a phaser at the alien snake creature) and others were hastily assembled at my house in those days.

When I saw The Encyclopedia, then, I was naturally intrigued. This was relevant to my interests, and did it ever deliver. Many a day was spent pouring over the color photos, reading about the histories of model kit and figure manufacturers, and the instructions for creating detailed dioramas.

This was right before I had my first experiences with The Gaming Hobby™, and it's easy to see how this prepared me for it. Step-by-step instructions are given for scratchbuilding models, conversions, creating molds and casting. I studied the two-page spread on model scales when I started to look at what kinds of military model kits I could use for my own Warhammer 40K conversions.

In the introduction, there is some discussion of the wargaming hobby. What really struck with me -- and one of my main memories of the book -- is the photo of an example wargame in progress. I'm not sure if it captures a actual moment of the game -- it strikes me as being posed for the photographer. Even so, what I love about it is the overall feeling it conveys, encapsulating much of what I remember about seeing historical wargamers at conventions around that time. Even better, I wanted to think that there were cool gaming clubs out there where players wore ties, or sweatshirts with club logos.

I had a little story about the photo that I made up in my head early on. I got the sense that the gent in the suit jacket and tie is measuring the distance to move his unit of figures, while the fellow next to him is pointing out a place in the rules that counter-acts what the first is trying to do.

"I'm going to move this unit 15cm forward!"

"Hmmm... according to the rules, that unit can only move 12cm!"

This matched up with what I saw on our own 40K tables at various times.

I also love the "British-ness" of the book, if you will excuse the term. It uses those spelling conventions of course (influential on a young impressionable American lad) and mainly covers the military modeling hobby in England, reinforcing my idea about it being a place where everyone took part in intellectually stimulating hobbies like military modeling and wargaming. The Encyclopedia of Military Modeling, along with Warhammer 40K, White Dwarf Magazine, 2000AD and others ensured that my early days in the hobby were heavily influenced by the British gaming scene.

The South London Warlords are still an active group and run Salute, the largest wargaming convention in the UK (the 40th anniversary show is later this month). You can read a short history of the club, with more great photos, on their blog.

Ralph McQuarrie, RIP

My friend K. reflected that, concerning the appeal of Star Wars, Ralph McQuarrie is at least the equal of George Lucas. I have to agree.

Lucas invented the characters and story and hired conceptual artist McQuarrie to create art and designs to show 20th Century Fox. These designs and storyboards convinced skeptical executives to greenlight the project.



My own understanding and visualization of the Star Wars universe is based heavily on three sources: the original film, the Marvel Comics series, and Ralph McQuarrie's art. I never followed his career as closely as I should have, as much as some other favorites. However, I have a strong and distinct memory of seeing those images from his imagination on the pages of Starlog Magazine and others. Some of the designs made it into the films intact, some were changed like the Millennium Falcon design, and others -- such as "Luke Starkiller" and the original Chewbacca design -- were dropped from early drafts. But they all have that great, grand feeling of adventure and they tell stories. You want to know who these people are, where they are from, what the source of conflict is.

Ralph McQuarrie designed concepts for many films and other projects, including Battlestar Galactica and the "Planet of the Titans" Star Trek film project, part of an outstanding visual legacy that will be long remembered.

Friday Photo-palooza

Grading homework assignments has been keeping me busy the past two weeks. In lieu of something original today, here are some images of interest. Identify them all and win a shiny new No-Prize!

 

 

Monster Stock Art & Minis project on Kickstarter

I'm sorry to see the Monster Stand-Ins project at Kickstarter has been cancelled. However, the new project might have a better chance of being funded.

 

Monster Stock Art & Minis is a library of stock art covering the most common creatures from the 3.5 SRD. Backers can get a PDF of the art designed for printing as paper miniatures, and laminated cardstock miniatures are available at another level. The creators hope to include more SRD monsters depending on the funds pledged.

 

This project is close to the funding threshold and appears more likely to succeed. Best of luck to the project designers!

A preview of the upcoming Conan: Queen of the Black Coast comic adaptation

There is a new 2-page preview on io9 for Dark Horse's new Conan 25-issue comic series by Brian Wood and Becky Cloonan, an expansion and adaptation of one of the best Conan stories, "Queen of the Black Coast".

The io9 story also includes the regular and variant cover art for the first four issues. I know Brian Wood's work but I'm not as familiar with Becky Cloonan's art. The preview pages have been good so far. I'm eager to see how it turns out in the actual book.

Five golden links

How BIG are gold pieces? (includes pictures)

James Bond retrospective: Goldfinger (1964)

Unsafe at any level: XP for gold

Tales of the Gold Monkey episode guide and photos

Lost Dutchman's Gold Mine

OK, here's a bonus link... you've been good this year.

D&D gold statue treasure image search

Monster Stand-Ins

I missed out on some interesting Kickstarter/IndieGoGo gaming projects: Far West, Stealing Cthulhu, Crypts and Things, and Writer's Dice. One project that's really caught my attention but hasn't closed yet is Monster Stand-Ins. This is a project by Joe Wetzel, the talent behind Hexographer, Dungeonmorph Dice and others.

For me, miniatures make any game better. I enjoy miniature gaming and using minis in RPGs. It is frustrating to not have all the minis that you might need for a scene, or not the matching minis. Pre-painted plastic minis have helped with this issue, but even with super-cheap common figures it can be expensive to get a solid collection of monster minis.

The Monster Stand-Ins are a set of over 150 fantasy monster images scaled to 28/30mm and printed on plastic flat tokens that can be stood up on bases. Foamboard is included with the plastic flats for creating the bases. I don't mind flats at all -- I like using printable PDF flat figures such as those from One Monk -- so I don't see that as an issue. And no cutting and gluing required! Flats are much easier to store and transport too, with removable stands. The plastic should hold up very well with use.

150 creatures on plastic card for $30, plus the PDF file? Sign me up.

My GM Merit Badges

I didn't take up the Better GM Challenge posted at the Hill Cantons blog, mostly because I'm still trying to figure it out some best practices for myself. Every campaign I run could be considered an experiment in technique, trying to build on past successes to run the best game possible.

On the other hand, the excellent set of GM merit badges that Stuart at Strange Magic made are great shorthand symbols, and I think I can easily put together a set that represents my own GMing style -- or at least what I aspire to when I run.

• My games will tell an interesting Story. It may not be the story I intend to tell, but it's the one I hope the players want to be in.
• My games will be Scary -- or at least I try. I usually sneak in Lovecraftian things-man-was-not-meant-to-know whenever I can, even outside of Call of Cthulhu games.
• My games focus on Exploration & Mystery. I enjoy setting up places for the PCs to explore and mysteries for them to solve.
• I will Mirror back player ideas I think are interesting in the game. I am very open to player input, and I try my best to encourage players to add to the narrative, whether that means describing attacks in detail, monologuing, embellishing the current scene or adding NPCs and places to the world.
• The GM is In Charge and "Rule Zero" is in effect. For this, what I mean is that I reserve the right to ignore the rules as written, but only if it's for the overall fun of the group. If it seems like a rule will prevent a PC from doing something awesome, that rule is getting in the way of the fun. I also hope that I have the trust of the players to know that I make decisions as fairly as possible -- most of the time in their favor.
• My games use a pre-made Map and pre-scripted content. I like to have locations and scenes planned in advance like movie set-pieces whenever possible, and plan and follow a loose flowchart for the overall campaign storyline. These could be invented or from published material. Which leads into the seemingly contradictory badge...
• My games rely on a lot of Improvisation rather than pre-scripted content. I like to throw out several plot threads and let the players pull on whichever ones they like. Because of this, I'm trying to plan more loosely and take a more improvisational approach to let them roam where they wish.
• My games focus on interesting Characters and Drama. I try to populate the game world with NPCs that will be interesting for the PCs to meet, ally with, plan against, fight, and sometimes exist just for background and local color. I hope that these interactions create strong connections that will then lead to conflict and drama.

I wouldn't say that this is locked in, and would vary depending on the system, the setting and the group's own play style. If I am running Call of Cthulhu or a distinctly horror-related setting, I'd add the Run! badge.

Thanks to Stuart for a cool idea!

Upcoming books of interest

Actually, this first book is available now. I should have mentioned it earlier. Edited by Otto Penzler, The Big Book of Adventure Stories purports to be the largest and best compilation of adventure stories inside one cover. It certainly contains the top names of pulp and adventure fiction: Jack London, O. Henry, H. Rider Haggard, Alastair MacLean, Harold Lamb, Talbot Mundy, Cornell Woolrich, Baroness Orczy, Rafael Sabatini, Philip Jose Farmer, Sax Rohmer, Louis L’Amour, H.G. Wells, Clark Ashton Smith, Fritz Leiber, and Robert E. Howard. Whew!

Check out that table of contents: the story that introduced The Cisco Kid; a Zorro story; the complete Burroughs novel Tarzan the Terrible; "To Serve Man"; and the first appearance of Buck Rogers.

The Conan story selection is intriguing. "The Devil in Iron" is good, but "Iron Shadows in the Moon" is a better, similar story. Penzler is legendary in the field, so I am interested in reading his justification for choosing "Devil".

A second book I'm looking forward to is Conan the Barbarian: The Stories that Inspired the Movie. This is an official publication by Del Rey, publishers of the Howard trade paperback library. It's due for release at the end of July as a mass market paperback listed at 304 pages. I wouldn't expect it to be illustrated except for perhaps a frontispiece and a map. So far, the contents haven't been released. Knowing the page counts of the stories and the expected page count of the book, there's some good guessing of the contents going on at the official forum. If it does turn out to be a true "best of Conan" compilation, it should make a great inexpensive entry for first-time Howard readers.

The Comics Journal now online and the Frazetta family feud

This week, the new online edition of The Comics Journal went live. It's sad to see another long-running print magazine disappear from the rack, although in this case it's still going in another medium.

I was surprised to see that the lead story for the first online "issue" was a piece on the on-going turmoil between the children of artist Frank Frazetta. I've written about his work here save for the family troubles after his wife's death and his passing. The situation was just too fluid for me to get a handle on although I tried to read the ongoing articles from the Pocano Record website.

I was very glad to read Levin's article "Goodbye To All That" as it's one of the best summations so far of a confusing mess, and I consider it a must-read for anyone interested in Frazetta specifically or even 20th-century illustration in general. I liked the parallel with the Barnes Museum fiasco, the idea of artists' wishes for their works, and I also generally enjoy autobiographical pieces when the subject at hand is contrasted with the feelings and events in the life of the author. On the other hand, I felt, like many others, that it was lacking. The author disclosed his lack of knowledge about his subject and, although Levin seems to have done some good research, it was puzzling to me that a leading comic book industry publication would assign such an article to someone without further knowledge or contacts.

Be sure to check the comments. One can assume that what was expected from some of the readership for this article was a more objective and up-to-date journalistic piece. The tone and voice changed at several points in the article. The most recent event noted was the sale of "Conan the Destroyer" in July 2010. Any word on what has happened with the family or the artwork since then? That may be the reason for the disappointment.

I might also suggest that the author's opinion of Frazetta's work may have discouraged some readers. For myself, I was taken aback by this comment:

"There was no indication that, even in his private moments, Frazetta accessed the quirky, personal corners of the mind that, for me, made art tingle."

Certainly the author is entitled to his opinion, but I'm not sure that the samples shown on the museum website should be representative of the artist's work as a whole. And these qualities were not seen in the published materials consulted for the article?

The books consulted for this piece may also play a role here. The original Ballantine collections are good, but, aside from the documentary DVD (2003), the most recent book in the list was published in 1994. The three volume retrospective from Underwood published from 1998 to 2008 should be the beginning point of any serious look at Frazetta's life and work.

Happy (Belated) Birthday, Bruce Timm

I didn't realize until this weekend that February 9th was the fiftieth birthday of comic artist and animation designer Bruce Timm. He has been involved in animation as an artist, writer, director and producer going back to Blackstar in 1981, but he is probably best known (and justifiably so) for his work in character design for Batman: The Animated Series beginning in 1992.

His sparse, angular retro-1960s style is extremely influential in both animation (The Incredibles is one example, also any of the other DC/Warner Brothers animation that has followed Batman) and comic book art. He can create tone, mood and action using a low level of detail, very similar to a couple of my other favorites, Alex Toth and Jack Kirby. I'm not an artist, but I believe this is referred to as "economy of line". Compare this to artists such as Todd McFarland or Jim Lee, who will fill a panel with an abundance of lines and detail to achieve the same effect. I find Timm's work just much more stylish.

Best. Team-Up. Ever.

What I love about his work is that it's timeless and still rooted in history. He know the history of the characters that he draws and uses it to great effect while still bringing a freshness to the work. He's influenced by many of the same things that I find appealing: comic books, movies, movie poster art, animation, monsters, pin-up art, and pulp fiction.

If the Avengers movie is half this entertaining...

Bruce Timm does not appear to have an official site or any real presence on the web despite his popularity. Not surprisingly, there are quite a few pages where his work is posted. A few highlights:

Fifty-one favorite Bruce Timm illustrations
A Halloween-themed post with many of Timm's monster-related art
Gallery at Comic Vine
The ladies of Bruce Timm's art (site NSFW)
Comic Art Fans gallery (some art NSFW)
A site whose name is probably NSFW...

10 Unconventional Winter Holiday Movies (link)

If you want to watch a Christmas movie, but you are tired of the more traditional fare, Wired Magazine's GeekDad blog posted a link to ten unconventional holiday movies -- titles like Die Hard and Batman Returns. I may have to dig up my VHS copy of the MST3K version of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.

Also, in the spirit of the holidays, take a look at a model of Serenity... in gingerbread.