Wasteland Wednesday: The Post-Apocalyptic Misadventures of Bluey and Peppa Pig

Okay...so, I don't have kids, so I need to be clear that the following has not been proofread by an expert.  However, I'm pretty sure I have most of the details correct regarding these IPs that have caught my attention over the past several years (and that I'm actually a little surprised I've never mentioned on the blog).

Laura likes to find aggressively pleasant children's programming to throw on the TV every once in a while.  She likes how it can be calming, centering, and oblivious to the shitshow that is the world right now (and maybe has been forever...?), and it usually does its job well.  As I felt with Pokémon Concierge, most of the time these shows are best described simply as delightful.

Two of the programs Laura has found that have really drawn me in are the British show Peppa Pig...

...and its Australian companion show Bluey (all images from their Facebook pages btw)...

I write "companion show" not because it's almost a dog joke, which I just realized, but because -- as far as I can tell -- these two programs are parallel views of a future post-apocalyptic Earth in which anthropomorphic animals have become the dominant species on the planet.

Peppa Pig (the show) is quite a bit older than Bluey (the show) and gave us our first look at a world rebuilt by walking, talking nonhuman (or maybe partially human?) animals.  It seems to take place in what used to be the UK and features a pretty wide variety of species.

There are very few humans.  It definitely looks like a Kamandi type situation.  And of those people that have been shown, I suspect that Father Christmas may actually be a spirit that simply chooses to take human form, and another -- Queen Elizabeth II -- is most likely a clone that was created to raise morale and provide leadership in the post-apocalyptic world.  While it wouldn't be a trivial undertaking by those in power, making copy after copy of one of Earth's more beloved 20th and 21st century leaders would probably be worthwhile to give an extra measure of hope to the survivors, especially when she's commonly seen doing things like having fun in the mud with her subjects.

Bluey, meanwhile, is seemingly set in Australia, and it appears that on this continent, all of the sapient creatures that remain after the global catastrophe are dogs, usually of recognizable breeds.  Bluey, her sister Bingo, and parents Chilli and Bandit, are a family of Australian cattle dogs known as the Heelers (seen three pics up)...clearly a surname given to them in the recent past simply based upon their phenotype.

I think other animals show up only in non-anthropomorphic form, and as far as I know, there are no humans.  It's unclear if these differences between the shows are a matter of geography or focus, or if they might actually reflect that the programs depict different eras of post-apocalyptic Earth.

And really, that's part of what's so intriguing about these shows: the mystery.  We don't even know what caused the fall of humankind!  Was it bombs?  Aliens?  COVID-29?  And is it possible that these are animated documentaries, sent back from a desperate future with the hope that we'll change our ways?  If so, I think they're failing on that front.  Honestly, life in Peppa and Bluey's world seems pretty spectacular.  Families love and accept each other and enjoy spending time together.  There's very little fear and nothing that even resembles hate.  I wouldn't mind falling asleep in a bunker and waking up to that world.

And of course, as a Yank, I wonder what America looks like in that future time.  I believe there's a possibility that what we know as an early animated short, Steamboat Willie, may actually be a similar documentary showing life on the Mississippi River early in Earth's rebuilding stage.  This would be an interesting set of information to add to our knowledge of the post-apocalypse, especially since it appears that some non-anthro animals have undergone other genetic alterations in that timeline.  (A goat whose tail can be cranked to make it sing like a phonograph is probably the best example of this.)

As with Peppa Pig and Bluey, though, specific details are scarce.  It is entirely possible that other "fictional" works we have encountered (including the proto-Kamandi story by Jack Kirby that I wrote about here several years ago) are similarly influenced by actual messages from future sources.  However, it's going to take some real effort to separate truth from myth.  I will be keeping my eyes open for clues toward laying out an accurate future history of Earth.  If you have any insight, I would love to hear from you.

Party at Ground Zero: The New Normal?

So, life...it's different, eh?

I am actually very lucky in that I have a job that has to continue, working for an organization that's established enough to weather some tough times, in a capacity that doesn't require a lot of face-to-face interaction with humans (just canines).

But working with a skeleton crew...keeping my distance from the few other folks around...and not knowing what restrictions tomorrow might bring...well, it's all pretty weird.

Not my dog; from this article.

I spent some of yesterday morning playing a few of my favorite post-apocalyptic tunes while I worked.  I still think this one is the best...

I think I’m gonna do this NaGaDeMon thing...here comes Battleyacht!

A nice little convergence of events has led me to take on what looks to be a fun challenge this month.  On the Sunday before Halloween, I got to run the Ghostbusters RPG for some folks...my first time getting to actually GM a game in a while, and it reminded me that it's fun to roll a handful of d6s sometimes.

On Halloween night, Laura and I decided to play a quick game...and settled on Yahtzee.  It was a family favorite for me growing up, and I had actually raided our copy of it (heretofore unused) to get enough d6s for my Ghostbusters game.  I started to think that maybe there's something interesting about Yahtzee scoring (and the scoring of some of its public domain relatives) that could be exploited for adventure games.

Then, the next day, I was happy to see +Tim Snider's post over at The Savage AfterWorld on National Game Design Month (or NaGaDeMon, which is just...perfect!).

So, the end result of all of this was quite clear:  I need to spend the month of November designing an RPG- or combat-styled game using the mechanics of Yahtzee for task resolution. :)

Yep.  Definitely.

The question became...what should such a game be about?  Well, I remember coming across Yacht in a book of games long ago and realizing that Yahtzee must have been based on it.  And I guess it was, by some path of game evolution, anyway.  So I can start the game's theme with just that: yachts.

Now, I don't really know how to design a game about anything other than fighting, so I guess I know what the yachts will be doing.  But why are they doing it?  A dangerous sport for the idle rich?  War among CGI anthropomorphic vehicles?  Or...well, I remembered a post over at Halls of the Nephilim where Justin threw out post-apocalyptic pirates as a genre mashup that'd be fun to play.

And so the game takes shape.

Now, I may straight up fail at getting this done.  I have a history of not quite getting there on my gaming projects, my current game creation focus is still on getting my next Light City supplement out, and my life is kinda busy these days.  Heck, it's taken me a week (and like five separate typing sessions) to even throw this up on the blog.  But...it's been stewing in the old cranium, and I think I can knock something out by the time the month closes...

Oh yeah!  The final question to answer in this introductory post...what shall I call the game, at least in its development phase?  In homage to the naval combat game that I've probably played the most in my life, as well as one of the finest post-apocalyptic films of the early '80s, it will be known as Battleyacht.

More to come!

(Oh!  And if you're interested in taking part in the game design fun, the center of activity seems to be the NaGaDeMon Facebook page.)

Wasteland Wednesday: NUKEMAP

I would imagine that anyone who is bothering to read this blog has very little difficulty with wasting time, but just in case you'd like to be a bit more virtually destructive while doing so, you might want to check out NUKEMAP.  It's a Choose-Your-Own-Nuclear-Holocaust program that lets you feed your mass-murderous urges in a scientifically informative way.

The site is run by historian of science Alex Wellerstein of the Stevens Institute of Technology, who also writes the blog Restricted Data on topics related to nuclear secrecy.  While it isn't the only app of this type to be found on the web, it's the one that I've had the most fun with.

And really, it's more fun than it probably should be.

Oh my, was that Gillette Stadium at the center of the blast shown above?  Just a coincidence that this Falcons fan ended up there, I'm sure...

Wasteland Wednesday: Some post-apocalyptic school spirit

I haven't watched The Walking Dead in a while...I think it was once the Governor rose in prominence, and the show became more about people vs. people than people vs. zombies, that it lost me.  Some folks seem to think I should give it a shot again.  Maybe I will.

Not a video...for some reason having the video below as the first "image" was screwing things up in the sidebar...

Anyway...one of the things I do really like about the show is its Atlanta connection, and I recently found out that eight singers from one of my alma maters, Georgia State University, served as a choir in the second episode of Season 7.  They sang an arrangement of Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright."  It's a pretty cool scene...and I'm sure it would be even better if I knew what the hell was going on...

And while we're talking "Don't Think Twice...," I may as well post what may just be the best version of it I've ever heard.  Not that I've heard a lot of versions.  But...well, at least three, and this one is awesome...

Wasteland Wednesday: Jack Kirby's proto-Kamandi

I think the topics I hit on this blog probably make it clear that I'm a fan of ridiculous anthro characters and settings, so I was pretty darned happy when I found this old SF anthology comic story.  (I had probably read about it, as it's even referenced on the Kamandi Wikipedia page, but I didn't realize it was in the public domain until I happened upon it here.)  Here's a Kirby story from way back in 1957 (15 years before Kamandi's debut!) that shows some clear roots for the later series.  Interestingly, this story also predates the novel upon which the film version of Planet of the Apes was based, so it's very cool to see that the basics of The Last Boy on Earth were laid out with no Apes influence.

The full story is below, and you should really check out all of Alarming Tales #1 (lots of free Kirby!)...but I don't think I'll give too much away by sharing a bit of opinion before continuing.  (But please feel free to skip to the good stuff below!)

The "resolution" to this story is kind of weird.  And I know that "weird" is a silly observation when the story is about time-traveling to the future to find a world of interspecific warfare among anthropomorphic animals, but I can't help but feel that this is one of those story seeds that would have really benefited from expansion beyond the short-story anthology setup of so many of these '50s SF/horror/monster/etc. comic series.  This panel toward the end of the story seems like it should have a lot of weight...

...but, just six pages into the world, it just seems silly.

Not that I mind all that much...it's still pretty awesome overall!  And in this future world of 2017, we get the benefit of Kamandi to expand the scope of the story.

Side note: This Wasteland Wednesday is also an appropriate time to return to "real" blogging on here, as I've left Monstrous Matters to be a bit of a wasteland lately as my life undergoes a soft reboot.  I hope to be back in the blogosphere to visit for a spell, now!

Wasteland Wednesday: HEX

If you survey the comic book offerings of The Big Two publishers for a specific era, there are some niche comics that are sure to get lost in the mix, even if they figure into the main universe of the publisher.  DC's 1985 series Hex fits into this group, I think.  To be honest, it wasn't until the last few years that I was even aware of its existence.  I can't even recall seeing ads for it as a kid.  (I suppose its 18-issue run finished up around the time I really started getting into comics, so that's probably a big reason why, but it also...as you can see on the cover of #1 below...was published outside the confines of the Comics Code, which may mean that it was never found at the gas stations, drugstores, and mall bookshops where I got most of my comics.)

I managed to pick up a nearly-complete run of Hex for a good price a while back, and I've recently (finally) taken some time to read a couple of issues.  It's a pretty fun story, and I honestly think you'll have a good idea of how much you'll enjoy it based upon how much you like the premise.

IF you think the idea of western hero Jonah Hex transported to a post-apocalyptic future (by a madman obsessed with the warriors of the past) and doing his thing as a Mad Max-style antihero sounds like fun, you should check this series out (if you can find it at a decent price).

IF you think that idea sounds stupid, you should probably stay away.  (Also, what's wrong with you?)

Seriously, the series is described very appropriately by that tagline at the top of the first issue's cover:

THEIR NUCLEAR-RAVAGED WORLD NEEDED A HERO...

WHAT IT GOT WAS...

HEX

(I'm also just now realizing that Jonah Hex stories in general can probably be described pretty appropriately by a slightly different line...)

THE WILD WEST NEEDED A HERO...

WHAT IT GOT WAS...

HEX

(Oh!  Along those lines, I think I've just figured out what my next high-concept RPG campaign is going to be based around...)

EQUESTRIA NEEDED A HERO...

WHAT IT GOT WAS...

HEX

Hrm.  Okay.  Anyway, yes, in the binary post-apocalyptic worldview, Hex certainly occupies the Mad Max end of the spectrum.  There are some scenes that could have been straight out of The Road Warrior:

(With everything comic-book-futurized a bit, of course.  Hey, this is a story about a time-traveling cowboy; don't expect Miller-esque gritty realism here...)

Honestly, the thing that might bug me (no pun intended, seriously) the most about the series is that we have to constantly contend with Jonah's accent and diction.  It just throws off the rhythm of the dialogue in my head sometimes.  There are places where it's fun, like this scene where Hex first encounters the wasteland gang known as the Road Reapers:

Other times, it's just a bit more jarring.  I might be alone in feeling that way, though.  And hey, it's kind of a Jonah Hex trademark, so what're ya gunna do?

Unless there's something I'm blanking on at the moment, I'd say that Hex competes with the Atomic Knights for the status of DC's secondary take on a post-apocalyptic Earth (behind Kamandi, of course!).  Jonah Hex as Mad Max really does work as a high concept, especially when one considers the similarities between the Western and post-apocalyptic genres.  It's been a fun comic so far and is an interesting slice of pop culture history, so I'm glad I'm finally giving it a spin.

Wasteland Wednesday: The Flavors of the Post-Apocalypse

One of the central points of tension...okay, maybe not tension, but disagreement...that I see occasionally in the RPG hobby is the mixing of science fiction and fantasy.  Is it ridiculous to mix the two?  Can it make for amazing settings?

Well, obviously, the answer is YES.

There are limits, though.

A couple of years ago, Malcadon mused on the incompatibility of these styles on his EPIC FAIL! blog.  (He also put forward rat-eater fiction as a general term for Mad Max-styled post-apocalyptic stories...perhaps a reference to 2019: After the Fall of New York, and a descriptor which I rather like.)  Actually, what Malcadon wrote on was the incompatibility of Mad Max and Gamma World...basically that one is built on grit and the other on magic mushrooms, so mixing the two almost inevitably compromises what's great about one or the other.

Now, I am a big proponent of genre-mixing and gonzo high concepts.  But the more I think about Malcodon's thesis, the more I think he might be right.  There's something about those two that I just don't want to mix.

I'm not sure that it even comes down to the subject matter.  I think I'd be fine with throwing orcs and elves and crazy shamans into a Mad Max-style RPG setting.  Or in Mutant Future...why not have a campaign focused on scraping by and eating rats and getting fuel?  I even really like stuff like The Blood of Heroes, which doesn't really fit all that neatly into either category, and After the Bomb, which packs some pretty gonzo shit into a rat-eater shell.

But in my mind, I can't help but make...or at least try to make...some sort of distinction:  Is this Mad Max or Gamma World?  Battletruck or Planet of the Apes?  Hex or Kamandi?

Maybe it just comes down to this:  When did the world blow up?  Ten years ago, or a thousand years ago?

And maybe someday I'll just learn to stop worrying and love the bomb, no matter when it drops.

Wasteland Wednesday: Steel Monsters - The Secret Society

If you're anywhere around my age, you may remember Tonka's Steel Monsters toys...a line of 3 3/4" figures and vehicles which pretty blatantly copied the themes of The Road Warrior (although to be fair, there was a lot of that in the '80s).  When I was in the fourth grade, there was a period of time during which I was somewhat obsessed.

If you'd like to check out some of the toys, you can see them in collector extraoirdinaire Kevin Lentz's archives here.  And you really should check them out, as they're pretty awesome.

Anyway, I realized recently that the first comic included with the toys could be found at a Tonka site, but I couldn't locate the second comic anywhere.  I correct that oversight of the interwebs HERE, where you can download a PDF of the Steel Monsters' second adventure, The Secret Society:

Google Drive link

I hope you enjoy it!  (Also, if anyone knows of a third comic in the series, please let me know!)

(Pocket) Monster Monday: Post-apocalyptic Pokémon

Well, I missed Monster Monday last week, so I want to at least get some quick thoughts in before I let another one slip by!

Over the past couple of weeks, other than the news coming out of SDCC, there seem to have been two big stories in geekdom.  The first was the arrival of the brand new Ghostbusters, which got some...attention...on the more pop culturally obsessive corners of the net.

The other has been freakin' Pokémon Go.  As someone with some allegiance to the Pokémon franchise, I thought the game seemed like an awesome idea.  That's obvious, right?  But the phenomenon it's become...dang, who saw that coming??

So, for this rather quick edition of #MonsterMonday, I'd just like to post a few links related to a fan theory that I'm rather fond of regarding the venerable Pocket Monsters...

The Pokémon games are set on a post-apocalyptic earth.

(Now that sounds like a great RPG campaign, doesn't it...?)

Here's a video with a fairly quick summary of the theory:

Over at the Fan Theories wiki (which I can't say I've really explored other than this one topic...), there's an even more concise explanation.

A cool image from TechnoBuffalo:

Some more great art, from kevinbolk on DeviantArt:

Some cosplayers getting in on the action (from Twitter):

And finally, not directly related, but here's part of a walkthrough of the GBA ROM Pokémon Snakewood, a Ruby mod that explores the Pocket Monster theme in a zombie apocalypse:

There's certainly more out there.  I'd love to see this theme keep gaining momentum; pretty much everything becomes cooler when you add Mad Max, doesn't it?