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Month: January 2015
EVEn MMOre: Issue 2
Welcome to the second blog devoted to my gaming habit in Eve Online. Another week has trickled by and I am learning so much about the game. Each day I am taking on new skills, ships, and activities in the game.
I have graduated to two accounts, each with three characters. I have my main who has close to 5 months’ worth of skills, a second guy close to three months’ worth of skills. Along with these guys, I have a set of alt characters each with about 6 weeks of skill training. All of them are in a small corporation of friends. I then have two relatively new characters, one on each account that has less than 4 weeks of skills. It truly does not take much skill training to make characters proficient in scouting, planetary interaction, mining, and perhaps even combat. The two latter, and newest to my entourage, are outside of my main corporation in their own two-man outfit. It’s often good to have some characters outside of your normal corporation, so in times of War Dec (open conflict between two companies) you can still move around – picking up new skills, selling ore, buying and trading PI materials. All of my characters mine and perform planetary interaction to some degree, but it’s my primary guys that have the most skills in mining. My last two guys have reached and soon will surpass my other characters in PI ability – presently they are at five planets and one
My main characters are miners, first and foremost. Many players have problems with mining, essentially because it is perceived as being repetitive and boring. I find that dual boxing with mining barges and drones can be soothing. I can also easily busy myself with PI, setting up new mining and trimming my builds with ease. Rats, and the subsequent use of scavengers, also can add a bit of business to the effort, and once again gives a great source of additional income. All of my characters have some skill in mining, but it is imperative to focus and hone skill learning to get the greatest yield and value. My two mains are at 63.5% processing yield which I do not know if it’s good or not, but much better than my lesser alts.
I have my third set of characters that are outside of my primary corporation. They have their own corp and are specialized in PI. I may spend two additional PLEX next month to earn the 5th level skills in Interplanetary Consolidation and Command Center Upgrades. They also suffer in a bit of lack of knowledge in Planetology but this will also be rectified soon. Each character has five planets of resource gathering and helps in production of the primary and secondary characters on their factory worlds. I am unsure how others do PI, but for me I have four worlds producing resources and a fifth world that pulls all the refined resources together. It is a bit more costly in the importing and exporting of resources and raw materials through the Customs Office. I always use a Launchpad to put the resources in the orbital Customs Office rather than simply blasting it into orbit with a bookmark to its location. In the long run it’s cheaper to use a Launchpad.
I am currently running my PI on a mixture of Wormhole planets, HighSec, and Lowsec. I have yet to make up my mind if it is truly worth putting worlds in Lowsec since losing even one ship due to rumbustious players will make the yields far less than the very safe Highsec planets. The yields of planets in Wormholes are incredible. Did I say how incredible the yields are in wormholes! My goal is to make T5 or end PI solutions such as Nano-Factories, Organic Mortar Applicators, Recursive Computing Modules, and Self-Harmonizing Power Cores. I can achieve a modicum results with 6 characters and can without effort make 50 million isk a week (although this is not profit). I am still refining the process and hope to increase the yield and also cut the costs by 25% in the coming week.
Organization is the key in PI. The problem that I have is that I don’t want to waste time with spreadsheets because that becomes too much work…which leans to becoming work. I still want to have fun in the game versus worrying over all the minutia of making isk with PI. My aspiration is to make enough and have fun doing the PI process. At this point, I am achieving this goal. I certainly enjoy spending isk and with PI you can do so in glee. Throwing around 2,000,000 isk is easy in this aspect of the game. In the end I am unsure if I am making a lot of money but it is still very fun.
My secondary characters are a pair of females. I see a lot of women characters in the game but think 99% of them are just guys like me. It would be interesting to know the psychology behind why we make female pilots. I tell people because it may give me that extra 1 second I need to warp out if someone is ready to blast me into hell. Do other pilots consider gender before attacking? I am not sold on this idea but it certainly sounds good. In any event, both my girls are learning skills to pilot battlecruisers. It’s my goal to get them trained as powerful starship warriors. They are also learning some minor skills in PI and mining, one becoming very proficient in Gas Cloud Mining.
I am using +1 learning queue between my second and tertiary characters, turning on and off skill training for 30 days to get the most out of new skill acquisitions. In a single month of training you can get a great number of basic skills but the second month allows you to hone those early abilities. The third month is when you start hitting the 4 or 5 day learning cycle, which quickly leads to the 20 to 40 day learning tree. On my main guy I am waiting on a 20 day skill—boy that is excruciating!! Most of the 5th level skills are at least 20 days long or longer.
Use implants that grant you +1 to +4 in attribute bonus to decrease skill times. In the most basic form, each skill requires X amount of learning points to achieve. A bonus to a particular attribute conveys that bonus into the learning points. So if your character has a 20 Memory and a 21 Perception and the skill requires these two attributes you are gaining 41 per cycle. Adding a +4 bonus to each, increase the learning by 8 points per cycle. This is greatly simplified but you get the idea of how implants work. Implants are a must – however I met a guy who has played for 6 years that never used them. Also note that if you are podded (your pod is destroyed after your ship) you lose all your implants. And lastly, implants can cost easily 30,000,000 isk. It’s a bonus at a big cost.
Next week I will get more into PI, Gas Mining, and my exploits into Wormhole space. Please add my blog to your favorites, add a comment, or send me an email that you like my blog as it always makes me feel good.
~Troy
EVEn MMOre: Issue 1
Welcome to my first weekly blog to Eve Online. I must say up front that I am still such a newbie when it comes to this game, although I have more than 20 years of MMO experience. I recently came to this game looking for something new. I had tried the game 2 years ago and could not find my place in it. Recently because of some gaming friends leaving old MMOs and my desire for more player controlled, sandbox experience I thought I would try Eve Online again.
I have been an altoholic from the very beginnings of playing Everquest 1. I thought I had found a game that I could just play 1 character but during Christmas they gave all players a free 20 day second training bonus. Normally you can only train one character at a time in the game. With the holiday bonus, it was possible to have two characters training simultaneously. Perhaps it was nothing more than a lure for players like myself who have never tried it — but now I am hooked and have already invested 2 PLEX into continuing two more character training slots.
I created a second account and have another set of guys already. Unlike other MMOs, Eve Online requires two separate computers to run the games together. Other MMOs simply needs to create another instances of the game and then ALT-TAB between them. This is not possible in Eve. To play another account you need a second computer — perhaps you could have a virtual second computer on the first but not sure how sound and graphics would work on that*. Luckily there are many 3rd party programs that allow you to have 1 keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers. I also need to point out that any MACRO software is forbidden to be used by the EULA of the game. I use Synergy to control multiple computers: http://synergy-project.org/ — It works great. There is a trick to getting both applications to run full screen without minimizing but it is just a setting.
[Edit: *I have been since told that it is very possible to run two Eve accounts on one computer. The instructions can be found across the web or you can go here: https://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Multiple_clients — Thanks Nick for pointing this out.]
I original thought of doing a PODCAST for Eve Online and I have a few friends who would like that. The main reason I have not done that is time and money. I can write up EVEn MMOre blogs at work and during lunch time while a blog requires several hours in front of the mic. Secondly, the cost of maintaining a server and the feed is quite expensive. At some point if I find I am gaining a large audience, I may be talked into doing one (I had great fun back in 2007/2008 over at virginworlds.com with my podcasts of EQual Perspectives and Voyages of Vanguard). If you would like to hear a podcast, please leave a message on this blog post.
This week I had a hard lesson in Eve Online when I lost my Retriever to a skulking PvPer. I am not the most ambitious PVP player, probably considered a carebear by others. I tend to spend my time mining, industry, and planetary interaction. The other day I found an Ore Anomaly in Low Sec space that looked interesting. Greed took over. Intelligence faded. Unbeknownst to me there is not any ore you can mine in Low Sec that gives any different refined minerals that you can find in High Sec.
Here is my first tip to any new pilot out there: Do Not Mine In Low Sec. You will die.
Because I got greedy I thought I could mine in Low Sec space and not be bothered. Mind you, I could have maybe escaped if I put in a Warp Core Stabilizer on my retriever. The only thing that killed me, at least from what I could see, is that I couldn’t warp out. I am curious if I put +1 or +2 WCSs on my ship if I could have escaped.
But looking back now, it was utterly foolish to mine in Low Sec. Those that profess such endeavors are simply baiting young pilots into that belief. They are luring you in for an easy kill.
There is nothing in Low Sec minerals that you can’t find in High Sec — and CONCORD there to protect you.
I may even venture into saying that it is not worth you effort or time to seek out Ore Anomalies in High Sec. Again nothing there is not found in Asteroid Belts. Some minerals offer better yields but they are much smaller, harder to mine, and require higher skills to effectively gather. It is far more profitable to mine Veldaspar in High Sec Asteroid Belts — a bit more boring but much greater in profits.
The time to setup and cull the rocks in the anomalies is not worth it. Stick to the Asteroid Belts in see much greater profit.
Finally, I was shocked at how much I like using the combination of a Retriever and Covetor. Both mining barges can gather ore, but each has its purpose and they are DIFFERENT. The Retriever has only 2 mining lasers while the Covetor has 3 — but this is offset by bonuses to each to make them yield essentially the same. Adding crystals and modules could increase the Covetors return beyond the Retriever, but essentially they are equal. The Retrievers though have a huge ore bay compared to the Covetors — the latter is best used in “jet canning” mined resources and then returning with bigger cargo ships to pick up the contents of the floating cans.
If you want to know more about the game or discuss tactics, please leave a message. I am very interested in hearing from other Eve players and would like to gauge my reach.
Talk more next week when I discuss long term Planetary Interactions.
New Eve Online Player
Back in 2012 I tried a free month of Eve Online. I played for a couple months but I never could get into the game. I let my characters drift off into space and I forgot about them. Recently I was looking for a new MMO to play, having tired of Everquest and Everquest II. I wanted something different and challenging, so my mind wandered back to the game I tried several years ago.
This time my attitude and opinion of the game has changed drastically. I am really enjoying the game with the current build and changes that CCP has made over the years. I am still a huge newbie player, having logged less than two months this time around.
I have collected my thoughts on some ideas that I hope will help other newbie pilots in the game and present them as follows:
Do not use Autopilot. It is a bad habit, first of all. You really don’t need it since you can set up your jumps in advance on the map, then simply follow the jumps as they appear. Autopilot does get you from star A to star R but at a horrible cost of time. Under manual control you can make the jumps much faster and at your own timing. Allowing Autopilot to take control means you will always warp out at least 15000 meters from the warp point. Using Autopilot in low sec or zero space is a death wish. Autopilot in high sec is relatively safe but just slow. I do use it now and then if I am running off for supper or AFK for 30 minutes and I want to move my ship a long distance.
Chat channels, Local tab, is unlike most other MMOs. There is very little chatting going on in the game here. Some of the reason is because information is guarded but mostly because there are other channels better suited for help or frivolous banter. Players will quickly learn to keep quiet here, and those who don’t will be hunted down and bullied, attacked, or tricked into destroying their ship. Help is available as well as corporate channels for those needing assistance, but don’t expect discussions about real world politics, religion, or news. It’s just not something that is done.
Game forums are always troublesome and circumspect, but more so in Eve. A haven for the trolls that often live in Chat Channels in other MMOs I have yet to find a single piece of advice in the forums. Most players will quickly learn that any appeal for assistance or question will be quickly belittled and disparaged. It is just not really worth asking or even reading the commentary on the Eve Forums. It is far better to find a good corporation and ask questions within those channels than wasting your time, and ultimately becoming enraged by the mockery that awaits you in the forums. Eve Administrators do a good job of managing and curtailing most of the posts, quickly locking or closing those that they deem unfit but it still does very little to curtail the horrid community that wait there.
The game is really all about the in game money. Nothing else is lost other than ‘isk’ in the game. In the past, if you died, you could lose time in the game from an older clone. The level of your clone was how many points of skills you have but they changed this so you NEVER lose skills. Essentially if you die, you lose your ship, the installed modules, its contents, and your implants. This can still be extremely costly – You can easily lose 100,000,000 isk with a Frigate depending on many factors. In the end though it’s just funny money anyway, easily replaced.
So don’t fret about dying. Stay cool and just know now and then you will take a hit with your money. If you always have a 100,000,000 isk in the bank the lost isn’t going to hurt as bad
The game is a pure sandbox game, meaning there are unlimited ways to get things done in the game. Although there are “quests” you can do in the game to get ships, money, and valuable items its only one of many ways to have fun in the game.
I have done very few Missions (the quest system in the game). They seem extremely boring to me, but others may find them enjoyable. From what I have determined, you get items and isk (money) from missions AND Standing and Loyalty Points. Standing allows greater access to missions and services at starbases. Loyalty Points can be used to buy precious items such as datacores and valuable starship modules. Missions can be Encounters, Mining, Courier, and Trade. They are five levels of mission difficulty, with higher level missions being more dangerous and also more lucrative.
Keep everything you find and either sell it or reprocess it. Selling it on the market is straight forward. Reprocessing takes almost every item in the game and turns it into basic materials that other players use to Industry items. It’s possible to make a fair amount of isk in the game just reprocessing the loot you get from NPC space pirates (rats). To reprocess something, just go to a base and right click on the item. Reprocess and see what happens. Take the material, right click on that and SELL. Do that for a couple of days and see how much wealth you can obtain – learn from your mistakes and refine your refining process. Skills help, like all things in the game.
Organize bases you visit often with Containers. Buy various size containers and rename them to codify, organize, and detail all the stuff that will eventually obtain in the game. Organization is the key and Containers go a long way towards keeping things straight – Also realize if you keep Blueprints in a container by default that is where items will be put. So if you run into a situation where you can’t find an item made or a warning prevents you from making an item, check you containers.
The game is rich and deep, so the learning curve is almost vertical on the first couple of weeks. Never think you are doing something the right way, or only way, because surely there are ten other ways of doing it and some may even be better. Fighting, Industrial, PI, Mining, and other ventures that I even haven’t thought of yet are available to you. Keep learning and keep an open mind. Always look for a way to do something faster, cheaper, and easier. There are very few rules in the game, so be aware that everyone is out to make that fast buck – don’t be tricked into a scam (which is completely legal in the EULA of the game). Also realize that you too can try your hand at
You don’t need to make Tier 4 items to make money in Planetary Interaction. Beyond exploring, fighting, and PVP there is a part of the game called PI – Planetary Interaction. Here you create mining and industrial complexes on up to 6 planets making valuable items. There are essentially four tiers of products, and many players are led to believe it is only the top end products that can make any money. From Resources harvested, you gather such things as Noble Gas, Base Metals, or Plasmoids. From there you refine these resources into many other items that can be directly sold such as Oxygen, Water, Precious Metals, or Electrolytes. These items can be further refined, and also sold for a nice profit, such as Nanites, Oxides, or Viral Agents. At this point these and base items can be refined into Tier 3 commodities. Like lesser stuff, you can sell this on the market too, often for outlandish amounts of isk. Items like Supercomputers, Robotics, and Camera Drones are the last ingredients before the final product. The last PI item often sells for 1,000,000 isk or more – Broadcast Nodes, Nano-Factories, Recursive Computing Modules are just a few of them items that garner such huge isk rewards if you can pull all the items and resources together.
Start small and go slow, making money at first by selling off Tier 1 and 2 items. Graduate upwards to selling Tier 3 items. Expect to spend 50,000,000 isk easily to get into the business of making Tier 4 stuff. Alt characters help greatly on this. Get all your characters level 4 or 5 skills in Planetary Interaction skills.
December Comic Awards
In the wake of the conclusion of 2014’s Comic Book of the Year Awards, we’re back to the regular routine of assessing the best comics of the month. The last batch of comics for the year brings 2014 to an excellent close as they pave way for the continuing exciting storylines and expected creative prowess to be let loose in the new year. Writers Robert Vendetti and Van Jensen proceed to finely embellish upon Barry Allen’s mystifying predicament in the Speed Force while the twisted Barry Allen from the future maintains his cover of playing The Flash in the present as seen in the pages of DC Comics’ The Flash #37. Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #6 was a sure standout for December; an absorbing single-issue plot unconventionally starting at the end and ending at the start of the story in textbook Doctor Who timey-wimey fashion. The confrontation between Iron Man and Daredevil took an exceptional turn last month in Superior Iron Man #2 and we get to witness the outcome in #3, and, finally, the Fantastic Four’s struggle is further amplified.
But out of these and other nominees, which were the best for the closing month of the year? One comic stood above them all.
Cover of the Month Award: Avengers #38/New Avengers #28
Cover Art: Alan Davis, Mark Farmer & Brad Anderson
I’ve personally always liked when comic book covers carry the same image over multiple issues. Never mind my own reservations for artist Alan Davis’ recognizably bold, cartoony technique as this work is quite well done. S.H.I.E.L.D.’s Avengers team but-heads with The Illuminati in a corresponding stylized battle positions and the explosive energy emanating from this full-scale picture prepares you for what both issues hold inside.
Art of the Month Award: New Avengers #28
Artists: Mike Deodato & Mike Perkins
Color Artist: Frank Martin
With the absence of an issue of the gorgeous Bucky Barnes: The Winter Soldier broadcasting Marco Rudy’s incredible artwork, this award was somewhat more competitive than previous months. Most of New Avengers #28 is drawn by comic book artist veteran Mike Deodato while four pages showcase the pin and ink of Mike Perkins. Why Perkins wasn’t credited on the cover of the issue, I couldn’t tell you, but this still remains the eye-catcher book of the month. Containing a few two-page splash pages (a rarity for a Hickman written book) and more of what you would come to bank on from Deodato’s sensationally amazing, muscular offerings, there is a lot to look at and love.
Story of the Month Award: New Avengers #28 (“You Can’t Win” Part II)
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Following in stride after the actions taken in this month’s Avengers #39, Steve Rogers’ cat-and-mouse conflict with the on-the-run members that make up The Illuminati eight months from now turns violent. As Sunspot and his assembled Avengers World squad come to quell the rising tension, Steve Rogers has no plan to back down and decides to command a battle on two fronts. Sending in the captured Hulk from an alternate world, and deploying his Secret Avengers, New Avengers #28 is an exquisite balance of action and drama. It’s heroes versus heroes and just when you think you know what Jonathan Hickman is up to, there’s another curveball thrown in there to surprise you.
Issue of the Month Award: New Avengers #28 (“You Can’t Win” Part II)
Writer: Jonathan Hickman
Artists: Mike Deodato & Mike Perkins
Cover Art: Alan Davis, Mike Farmer & Brad Anderson
I guess it’s kind of inevitable for the comic book issue that received all previous awards to also receive Issue of the Month as well. I apologize if I seem New Avengers biased, especially considering this title winning a good majority of my Comic Book of the Year Awards and so forth, but I can’t help the fact that this series manages to hit all the right beats. While I already touched on the primary aspects which justify why New Avengers #28 is the best comic of the month, I cannot emphasize enough the amount of fun to read an issue like this is. From the great dialogue, smart narration by Reed Richards, quality art, and hands down killer story, it keeps giving with each page.
Thanks for checking out my awards out and check back sometime next month for January’s Comic Book Awards! Until then, I, and hopefully you, will continue to be reading comics in the new year!
Comic Book Finale
Story of the Year Award –
Single Issue: New Avengers #21, “The Bomb” (July 2014)
This issue will leave you in awe. Here we observe the finale of the blockbuster conflict between The Illuminati and The Great Society. With whole worlds hanging in the balance, The Illuminati are staring the unthinkable right in the eyes and it is staring back. Can they possibly kill a world? These heroes who are like saviors to their own? So much is at stake, and each team member’s soul and morals are horrifyingly tried. The heaviness and underlying dark sadness in this issue is staggering. New Avengers #21 is perfectly scripted by Jonathan Hickman and the last few pages are heart-wrenching to the reader.
Issue of the Year Award:
New Avengers #16, “A Perfect World” (March 2014)
Jonathan Hickman’s and Rags Morales’ New Avengers #16 is a revolutionary comic book issue. As Black Panther and Namor review this alternate earth which has survived incursions in curious ways, we are introduced to The Great Society, a league of heroes. This is where this comic pulls its stroke of revolutionary genius. Paying attention, it’s easy to detect that The Great Society are replicas of the Justice League, competitor DC Comics’ popular superhero team. Zoran, the Sun God (Superman), The Rider whose name is called Wayne (Batman), Dr. Spectrum (Green Lantern), Boundless (The Flash), The Jovian (Martian Manhunter), and The Norn (Dr. Fate). While not looking exactly the same as their DC counterparts, the resemblance is undeniably there, and each hero shares the same powers as them. And if you’re really paying attention, The Great Society’s Earth number is 4,290,001, and when added up without the zeros (42+9+1), the math equals 52 – DC Comics’ often representative number. This is a smartly executed plot device that is matchless. Why it is so radical is because we finally get to see what it might be like if Marvel met DC. That is every comic book fan’s dream, and New Avengers lets you in on the next best thing.
Series of the Year Award: New Avengers
Twenty-five issues later and The Illuminati are enduring to stop the unnatural death of everything. They are still trying to solve the same problem that was introduced to them in issue one of this series, and while it could sound like a slow comic to some, I’ve never read a comic book series before that has pulled me in and made me feel like Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers has. It is my favorite comic book I’ve ever read. The expanding storyline is beyond impressive and the excellent work of the gifted artists on New Avengers will always be imprinted on my mind. This is the book I can’t wait to read every month and every issue, with its tremendous tone and satisfaction, features a team of heroes losing themselves in the wheels within wheels of impossible choices. You need to read New Avengers, not due to the fact I recommend it, but because ten years from now, this book will be considered a modern, and hopefully an all-time, classic to be remembered forever. You could be a part of that.
And this concludes my Comic Book of the Year Awards for 2014! Happy New Year everyone and thanks for reading!
Comic Book Awards III
Art of the Year Award – Series: New Avengers
(#12-25 and New Avengers Annual #1)
Art in general is debatable. Even more so is comic book art since everyone has a particular art style they love or perhaps find ugly. No matter how you may feel toward the differing art styles of Mike Deodato (#12) Simone Bianchi (#13-15), Rags Morales (#16 & #17), Valerio Schiti (#19-21), Marco Rudy (Annual #1) or Kev Walker (#22-25), the one thing nobody can tell me is thatNew Avengers isn’t the most emotionally visual or dramatically chilling comic book of 2014 because of these men, with the assistance of their inkers and colorists respectively. Bianchi’s three issue arc fits the atmosphere of the Illuminati like a glove. His crisp, 3-D-like art is fascinating, drawing you in. Rags Morales’ two issue run brings with it a simplistic but stunning, fine-tuned pattern, and young gun Valerio Schiti totally, and beautifully, knocks it out of the park. Schiti is one of my new favorite artists due to the amount of cinematic fullness he has brought to New Avengers. When you focus in on his art, it comes across as though the panels are actually “moving” in a way, somewhat resembling a motion comic. Moreover, his facial expressions from characters are extraordinary. The scene where Black Panther is shouting/crying in New Avengers #21 hit me hard and always will when I look back at it. Rarely any artists can achieve this. Last but not least, we cannot forget Marco Rudy’s New Avengers Annual #1. That issue is just magnificent as well as ground-breaking for comic book art.
Story of the Year Award:
A Perfect World (New Avengers #18-23)
A Perfect World is phenomenal. It is one of the greatest comic book stories of any generation. And it’s a story I know only writer Jonathan Hickman could articulate. This is it; The Illuminati’s hands are tied as the inevitable has arrived. An incursion leaves you with the options: destroy the colliding earth or sacrifice yours to spare both universes, or allow the earth’s to collide, in due course destroying both. When this incursion brings with it true heroes believing in hope known as The Great Society from their alternate earth who have effectively stifled incursions before in heroic conduct, The Illuminati are forced to look into the mirror of who they should be instead of who they have become. The dynamic, thought provoking themes explored question if The Illuminati can still call themselves superheroes. Ingrained so strikingly with astonishing, memorable dialogue, imbued with an incredibly intense and brilliant battle, peppered throughout with amazing character moments from team members on both sides, and concluding with rawness of feature film-worthy emotion and drama, this is such a marvelous story. I believe it truly is the best comics can ever get as of right now.
Cover of the Year Award:
Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor #2 (September 2014)
I sometimes don’t want to take my eyes off the second issue of Doctor Who: The Eleventh Doctor. I could just stare at the cover by Alice X. Zhang until I just couldn’t any longer. The painting depicting the 11th Doctor gazing in smiling wonderment at the glowing lights falling around him is very capturing. The colors and lighting are lovely and the artists’ rendering of Matt Smith is flawless. The more you admire this work, the more it sticks with you. It’s simply gorgeous and speaks for itself.
Art of the Year Award – Single Issue:
New Avengers Annual #1 (June 2014)
The entirety of the New Avengers Annual #1, including the cover, is drawn by one man. That one man’s name is Marco Rudy, a rising artist who needs to get paid the biggest paycheck from his employers. If it was possible to show every comic book fan this issue, I would. I might even buy it for them if it came down to it because New Avengers Annual #1 is a completely and utterly beautiful comic book. Page after page is a delight to the eyes with mesmerizing colors and figures, I almost don’t believe how one man can do all of it. It’s uncanny and amazing at the same time. Dipping into a Doctor Strange tale involving exorcising a demon and more, this is a premiere Doctor Strange issue that wouldn’t be as stunning as it is without Rudy’s painting technique here to assuredly give you art at its best.
Emerald Tablet: Home 