UKRAINE V RUSSIA

A WORLD AT MODERN WAR
By Alex Ness (and source info boardgamegeek.com)
July 20, 2026

It has been a violent state of being in the Ukrainian/Crimean region. And it has gone on for 4 years. You might ask yourself if Trump won his greatly desired Nobel peace prize if he might have tried harder to stand between two neighbors fighting, one for its existential life, and the other for the hubris of a dictator. But whatever the rules and the parties and treaties, this war has called out sympathy in the heart of many, apathy in the minds of those already in a state of loss, and rot and despair in the average heart of people who just want to go home, watch tv, get a pizza, drink a beer.

It is unlikely that someone hasn't been aware of the war in Ukraine after invasion by Russia. It has become very clear that they do not understand the kind of war it is. I think mostly this is true because prior to such an event drones and satellites, striking oil resources and more, were thought to be last gasp choices. I no longer see them as such, in fact, I can see the lures of such kind of combat easily replacing human involved small arms or armored vehicles slugging it out. Shown below are three games that pay special attention to the current conflict, but, however good they are, focused upon the beginning do not fully capture the recent events and disasters.

PUTIN'S WAR

"Putin's War 2022" is a two-player historical wargame that simulates the early stages of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. It combines an area-based combat system with political and economic interactions, allowing players to control either Russia or Ukraine. From the game designer Udo Grebe Gamedesign.

2022: UKRAINE

This is a hex-and-counter wargame by CSL (Conflict Simulations LLC) that simulates the initial year of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Designed by Ray Weiss, it features specialized units like HIMARS and drones, and brutally honest mechanics that reflect Russian railway logistics and the chance of war crimes.

DEFIANCE 
Volume 1: Miracle on the Dnipro

Defiance: 2nd Russo-Ukrainian War 2022-? Volume 1: Miracle on the Dnipro is a wargame published by GMT Games that simulates the initial 2022 Russian invasion, focusing specifically on the Kyiv and Chernihiv campaigns from February 24 to April 1, 2022.

The game information has been gathered from Boardgamegeek.com

LINKS:

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com 
PROSE THOUGHTS: AlexNessWritesv1.blogspot.com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
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All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

Slava Ukraini!

ERIK LARSEN featured creator at Baltimore Con 2026, an Interview

A DISCUSSION WITH ERIK LARSEN
By Alex Ness
July 17, 2026

BALTIMORE CON 2026 Features Erik Larsen and his prolific creations. Holy shizzle dude, that is very cool! Is it about your 280 plus issues, and all the events therein, or is it beginning a sort of count down to 300? When you reach 300 will the comic world be doing a happy dance?

Erik Larsen: I don't know about the comic world but I'll be pretty happy to have that one behind me.

How does one become the featured creative guest at conventions of note? Is there a process, do you enter your name hoping to be chosen, or do they choose someone for a specific reason?

Erik: That's more of a question for the convention organizers--not me. I don't generally seek out conventions at all-- I just respond to requests. NYCC is my only regular show that I'll attend on my own dime and that's because it's been so rewarding in every respect.

I'd like to ask some specific Savage Dragon questions, and about the making of Savage Dragon. How much work does it take to create in 300 issues the life of a feature character? For instance, how many hours does each issue require, and outside of doing it, and creating for an audience, is the product for the creator equal to the reward?

Erik: Clearly it's taken me a number of years to get where I am. I haven't tracked the hours but it's a lot. Even with a full head of steam and cranking away like a man possessed it's a lot of man hours. And that's not counting the letterers and colorists that help me get each issue out the door. Some issues have taken me several months to complete and the anniversary issues in particular take an extraordinary amount of time.

Some creatives in the comic world cannot maintain their focus for 6 issues, while you've done other work WHILE doing Savage Dragon, and mostly alone. Do the fans in the comic book buying/reading world understand all the labors, and determination it requires?

Erik: Until you've actually made a comic book you really don't have much understanding of what goes into it. But it's been incredibly rewarding creatively. In many ways it's been one huge conceptual experiment--to see if a comic book could be set in real time, and have characters age as we do. Throughout the series we've seen births, deaths, weddings and funerals.

Malcolm Dragon inherited the title from his father but he hadn't been conceived when the series began. Now he's 30-years-old with a wife and four kids. Readers have hung in there as the book went from being about a superpower cop to the leader of a government super-team to a single father raising his adopted daughter to the adventures of a high school kid to a family adventure and so much else. We've been to space and under the ocean and to other dimensions. The characters have really been through the wringer.

And I am eternally grateful to have had a loyal and supportive audience along the way.

I enjoy aspects of Savage Dragon that might violate unwritten rules. Your characters age. They procreate. They are different than most "heroes" and yet every giant alien creature gets the shit kicked out of it by the green skin fin head gang. Why would an alien defend the world he adopts? Is there a red and blue strong guy at a different publisher who first considered that?

Erik: The book can be a pastiche at times and touch on themes from various places in pop culture. Savage Dragon has been described as my love letter to the comic book field. I've done romance stories and science fiction, even post-apocalyptic stories and comic strip parodies.

And the Dragon teamed up with that strange visitor from another planet a couple times along the way, as well as Spawn, the Maxx, Invincible, Hellboy, WildStar, WitchBlade and ShadowHawk. More recently the book has included characters from the public domain--like the original Daredevil, Captain Tootsie, Mickey Mouse, Popeye and even Dagwood Bumstead!

Is there such a thing as a preexistent perception of good, that aliens and humans would recognize as being an obvious value?

Erik: I think so. I think there's obvious good and evil, even if some seem to celebrate a bad boy who gets away with things--for the most part we know what we're looking at. We recognize greed and cruelty and I think that's universal.

Of all of your works that are cross overs which were the most difficult. Of the cross overs, which were so fun/result was so good that you'd be happy to do more?

Erik: The most difficult was the Superman crossovers just because of the contractual hoops that needed to be jumped through. The others have largely been handshake deals. People can be awesome--and those are the ones I seek out. If you're in the business and you're not working on your favorite comic book--you're doing it wrong.

How is the energy different working on a comic or run of your own character, versus that of some other creator or publisher? Does that reinvent yourself when returning to your own book?

Erik: It's a completely different experience. On my own I can impulsively decide to do anything that I want. Working at a company--everything needs to be run past an editor who can approve or reject anything that I propose. Whenever I do a project elsewhere, whether it's writing or drawing, or both--it can't help but make me appreciate what I have on Savage Dragon that much more. 

Left to my own devices I wouldn't do anything as extreme as I have on my own book, certainly, but there are definitely things that I've wanted to do that I just couldn't do and even little dialogue tweaks can't help but grind my gears to some extent. Then I step back on Savage Dragon and there's nothing in the way. Literally nobody that can say no. And it's incredibly liberating.

Thanks Erik!

Find Erik at
https://www.savagedragon.com/
https://www.facebook.com/erik.larsen.75 

All images are copyright their creators and use is fair use only and no rights claimed.

PROSE WORKS OF MIKE BARON

A MIKE BARON BOOKAPALOOZA
By Alex Ness
July 13, 2026

Mike Baron has written hundreds of comics.  And he has written 20 prose novels. He has created fandoms for his work, his humor, his imagination, with his ideas, words, and his ability to make his characters speak the way your mind would suggest they should. His works of fiction feel like truth, a concept known as Verisimilitude. As the Meriam Webster Dictionary says: Verisimilitude is the quality of seeming true, real, or believable.

Derived from the Latin verisimilitudo (meaning "likeness to truth"), it is most frequently used in literature, film, and art to describe the internal consistency and realism that makes a fictional world feel authentic to the audience. When you have a super powered slayer of Serial Killers, the ideal might be a balance between power and selfless obedience to the calling of the power. The Nexus character does not struggle over selfishness. He does not accept accolades of praise from those with less power. It feels righteous. As it would.

The works of Mike Baron are of high quality. The person behind the works, is generous, kind and thoughtful. The worth of his writing life for others as a mentor, a person and friend, is immense. I know people on both sides of the political divide who admire and call Mike a friend. He has his own values,  none being knee-jerk reactions. In a world devoted to cancel culture, he doesn't make people stand in lines of allegiance to him or of various other political opinion. He is a good man, and one I am fortunate to know.

GET THE 5 BOOK BIKER SET

https://bloodyredbaron.com/
https://www.instagram.com/mikebaron2016/
https://baroncomics.com/
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100063593171020
https://www.patreon.com/mikebaron/

WARS Now are not so different from Then: The Cold War

• “In summary, we have here [in the Soviet Union] a political force committed fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus vivendi that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be secure. This political force has complete power of disposition over energies of one of world’s greatest peoples and resources of world’s richest national territory, and is borne along by deep and powerful currents of Russian nationalism.”—George Kennan, chargé d’affaires at the U.S. embassy in Moscow in an official cable to the U.S. State Department (“The Long Telegram”), February 22, 1946.

THE COLD WAR REMEMBERED
By Alex Ness
July 8, 2026

The archive of books that are non fiction regarding telling the story of the Cold War, tell generally the same story. It isn't that one side is evil, one side is good. The participants had their own perceptions of what was important. The Warsaw Pact as led by the Soviet Union argued that the countries in its orbit were economically and politically united, and part of a network of states that chose Communist organization of their own economies and politics. The NATO states were Western style democracies with free markets and free speech, led by a new style of treaties. Prior to the First and Second world war, the United States had not agreed to be drawn into wars by treaties. NATO was the moment when a treaty included joint defense across the Atlantic Ocean. 

The fiction works shown are also worse than the reality of the purely historical non fiction. The idea of Cold War turned hot has disastrous endings. In almost any event, nuclear weapons are a last resort that are usually turned towards. Many writers of the Cold War period utilized spy thrillers to feature a means to going to war through an act of espionage. The so called information war before the active war, into the final nuclear war.

Viktor Suvorov's Icebreaker is generally a work experts do not altogether agree upon. However, it goes beyond purely history, if there is a particular quality of the work, it comes from a former Soviet Information officer, who defected, and filters out the reason to be of the USSR. Whether his argument is true, it is nonetheless accurate in presenting a world of war and outlook of state.

There are numerous excellent works collecting the events of the Cold War. The fiction works have an advantage, as, there is a world at peace, and when the book is finished one can start reading a new book, and deal only with a might have been.

The 10 Films shown are a form of fear, visualized. Paranoia as entertainment, they each have a discomfort about them at the same time as they have a purpose. While painting a nightmare on a film canvas, the stories told depict the 50 or so years of the stand off that led the previous world war to not be finished, officially, until the reunion of Germany, and the fall of the Soviet Union. 

Chapters of the Cold War and human tales within are not easy movies to watch, as is right. The policies and strategies that were born from the anticipated war included conventional invasions through Poland into West Germany and Western Europe thereafter. The Fulda Gap would be filled with many armored divisions on both sides, and when the stalemate was established, the conventional war would enter nuclear exchanges. Perhaps limited, at first, but the tactics of nuclear war require destruction of the other... and until both sides are wiped from the face of the earth, the mutual assured destruction follows its course.

The truth of the Cold War wasn't that nuclear arms kept the world from a new and greater war. It was that the madness of using such weapons promised that it was more likely that an accidental event would destroy the modern world than a distinct and straight forward declaration of war. Numerous near misses occurred and thank the Creator, were avoided.

I have watched all of the movies depicted, and consider them to have value, if not always perfect execution. On the Beach, Fail Safe and The Bedford Incident are reasonable movies about the results of accidents that lead to further war. The Manchurian Candidate and Seven Days in May speak to the domestic setting for an event featuring paranoia, espionage and war on a less physical setting. But between accidental wars, and secret events that might lead to war, war is the result.

LINKS:

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com 
PROSE THOUGHTS: AlexNessWritesv1.blogspot.com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

• “From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent.”—Winston Churchill, address at Westminster College, Fulton, Missouri, March 5, 1946.

COMICS, MOVIES, AND MY BIG BROTHER IN COMICS

MY COMIC BOOK JOURNEY
MOVIE THEMES, CONSIDERED
Mike Grell, Brother and Great Talent
By Alex Ness
July 2, 2026

INTRO

My life has been improving, by the step by step method. Getting sleep, practicing good health protocols and treating my work as being less important as my physical and mental health have all helped. When I lost my beloved cat Katya, my fragile balance was shredded. I have worked to be better. 

FROM 12¢ TO MUCH MUCH MORE

I tried to create a banner for an article that was postponed. But in the meantime, I combined the many partial pieces, into two banners. The top row is of independent and old and defunct company comics. I actually think I enjoyed them more than the other rows. I say this for nostalgia but also the notion of finding stories that were different, even in ways I can't explain. The middle row is Marvel, and you can see, while I love many Marvel comics, Jack Kirby, Frank Miller's Daredevil and Elektra, X-Men, and monsters are/were my focus. The row on the bottom is DC. I liked Jack Kirby still, but also the JSA, the Legion of Superheroes, Tim Truman and Mike Grell books. It would assist to see the full images if you click upon them. 

MILITARY SCIENCE FICTION MOVIES

I was asked by someone why I prefer the Alien franchise to Star Wars, and to Star Trek. I think because of the kind of stories told, they just work for me better.  Star Wars is fantasy in a broad brush version of that.  Star Trek is science fiction, but still, it began as the series Chuckwagon in Space. It retains some of that. It isn't heavy in science. But Alien, begins with a story that is carved out of future reality. That other life forms offer roles as enemies or dangerous unknowns, all feels more realistic to me. Yes it still relies upon battle and fantasy, but in ways far more grounded.

The genre itself is something that I only learned about in the last decade. Military Science Fiction allows battle and all that, but it happens in settings that are far away from today. The movies shown below are all works I enjoyed, and Appleseed and the Alien Franchise I love. 

BRITISH EMPIRE MOVIES

Without meaning to do so, I watched four movies one weekend that shared a theme, how does one perceive the British empire, and what had to be done as members of the Empire. Disasters of lost battles, of responses to control by empires, and more, show the dark view of empires. The savage treatment of others and of having a concept of greatness and importance, allows a mind to suggest that the Empire is something one should aspire to be similar to being. But it isn't. The tragedy in each story comes from taking high ideals, and making them represent and be used to be foundations of terrible events, diminishes the greatness possible in Empire.

MIKE GRELL Writer, Artist, Outdoorsman, Brother

Since my first interview with Mike Grell and getting to know him, I knew he was truly bright, articulate, humorous, and unblinking in giving advice and replying to one's defensive replies. In one case, for instance I had made a PR copy for a new book of mine, and he said, your name on the cover needs to be bigger, people need to know who wrote this. I did change the cover a bit, but neglected to make my name bigger, and it was, in fact, a little smaller.  I sent it to him, and he replied, Hey Asshole, yeah you changed it, but for the worse. I have a very sensitive soul, but I don't mind good advice even when firmly aimed. Mike has been part of my life since 2005, and in my four year adventure in cancer in the 2020s, he lifted my soul and gave hope, it makes me cry right now to think of.

I don't know of any Mike Grell written work that I have read that I do not like. I didn't always love the stories he only did the art for, but I liked his art still. Since going through health and life issues as you've no doubt seen by me here, on my poetry blog and social media, I try to thank people who have helped me, and Mike is at the top of that list.  Mike's works are so trusted by me to be worth my time's investment, I often preorder them, they'll be good. He is no different than other humans, he might have had a bad day while at a con. I am not saying anyone's story is necessarily wrong, I haven't experienced that, ever. But I have experienced that he is a moral and ethical human, who treated me with kindness, and trust. I was a someone who was so afraid of failing, I could barely speak at times. Mike treated me as having something to say worth saying.

LINKS:

MY POETRY: AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
MEDIA:  Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com 
PROSE THOUGHTS: AlexNessWritesv1.blogspot.com
My Published Works: HERE

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

FUN WITH FANTASY

FANTASY THOUGHTS
By Alex Ness
June 29, 2026

Hi there, with my many posts featuring comics, I thought I'd blow a kiss to fun fantasy works.

RPG GAMES THAT ARE NOT DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS: BUT I HAVE PLAYED THESE

When I cover RPGs I often include Dungeons and Dragons, TSR. It has a specific reason, I played it, and played it often. I tried to play as many games to gain a familiarity with game mechanics and taste the flavor of the settings and the actual play. I recently received an email asking me to consider non TSR products since I give them 99% of my attention. I am hereby addressing if briefly non TSR games, but it isn't an altogether accurate point that I give TSR all my attention.

Tunnels & Trolls, Runequest, Gurps, Pathfinder, and Chivalry and Sorcery offered a difference. Each has their own qualities and strengths. Most of the particular quality found in the games, were in the settings and additional modules. Runequest is silly in ways, has a different setting flavor, but the game system is smooth. Tunnels & Trolls has wonderful game play, but I know it more for the solitaire possibilities. Gurps is a system that works, and the flexibility is a strength. But while I am aware of that, it isn't as well thought of, for a kind of bland flavor overall. The additional uses are what brings it to a shine. Chivalry and Sorcery was a system that worked for the ideas within the system, but in my game play, players aren't able to capture their own characters bound by the limits of the system. Pathfinder is a good system in as much as it borrows so heavily from Dungeons and Dragons. But the system is big on rules, lighter on flavor.

QUALITY READING: A fun adventure with fun to watch characters

Brian Haberlin and Geirrod van Dyke

I really viscerally enjoyed this book. It followed a path that was fun, exciting and beautiful. I know others are less moved by an adventure that is simply "fun". I read it eagerly and felt like it was a story that actually felt like an adventure, with Russ and Todd, Jonathan and Spanky. Therefore, it was a particularly interesting and worthwhile book especially for me. One might read fantasy to escape. One might read fantasy to live, vicariously, through the eyes and actions of others. The road of enjoying fantasy for me in life came from non fiction, in the stories of the Viking era. Thereafter I began reading and was taken with King Arthur legends and tales, and when reading my brother's Conan the Barbarian works, it lit a fire inside of me. Calling The Last Barbarian fun, might feel like I was saying it was a work without substance. But it had substance, if not the sort some serious fans might enjoy. As for me, I preferred the tone, the humor, story and characters. If it seems like I am damning a work with feint praise, it should not. 

However, if you wish to suggest I am not serious myself, that would not be accurate. I read most of the Michael Moorcock Elric stories. They were incredibly well written, but had almost zero characters I liked. As the stories moved forward, they became more dark and even more unpleasant. Moorcock's Hawkmoon and Corum were both far easier to enjoy, and still weren't a typical fantasy works. I have read many Moorcock stories, and I read them to understand the workings inside them. I own Elric books, the cover art is fantastic.

Editorial/Publisher description:

"In a world where your guild means classless Sylv is labeled a Barbarian. She’s a jack of all trades who can fight, pick most pockets, and cast a spell or two. But without official membership to a guild she’s barred from having adventures. No adventures mean no money, and no money makes it awfully hard to support herself and her 7-foot-tall disabled brother. But when an underhanded cleric says he’s got the quest of a lifetime for her, she can’t really say no (even if she knows she should). It’ll take every skill she’s got to stay alive, save a child, prevent the fabric of the universe from being ripped apart, and prove that being multiskilled isn't totally barbaric."

THESE ARE RARE, R.A. Salvatore's DARK ELF CYCLE

In 1988 or 1989 I began reading the tales of R.A. Salvatore, and found them elegant, humorous at the right moments, and explored something like racism, in that the lead character was a outsider from an evil society. The world above ground, in the daylight, distrusted Drow elves, for all the evil acts many had followed. But Drizz't was different. He was enormously skilled and highly charismatic, but he was also moral, and tried to correct whenever he encountered ongoing moral wrongs. The society he left was one where selfish acts, violent acts, and treasonous acts were traits to be praised. I am showing the 4 omnibuses from TSR that are now highly sought after. I don't plan to sell them. 

LINKS:

MY POETRY AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
HERE: Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com 
MY PUBLISHED WORKS 

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.

I THOUGHT THAT THE MOVIE WAS GREAT, The critics didn't

THE MESSENGER: The Story of Joan of Arc
By Alex Ness
June 16, 2026

I might begin doing single subject posts here, until I can organize my thoughts better.  I have been writing online, reviewing products, retailers, franchises, restaurants and brands since 2000. I was first writing for a yahoo review collective, and it featured anything someone might in fact buy, experience, think about buying. The point of saying this, is that I am not going to just cut the cord and say F that.

However, as much as I might want to keep the works in mind if not in body, my own mind isn't a place I can hide or stow away things. I blurt outside what I meant to keep inside. Some have said I have diarrhea of the mouth. Others say I write the same way without actually saying anything. Perhaps that is true. I wouldn't be the one who could say in a objective fashion if so.

I chose the movie of this entry for a reason I wasn't altogether expecting. During time when I otherwise would be writing for my own purposes, I did a great deal of research regarding questions that I decided didn't matter anyway. (A famous director did a substantially different movie than the book of a famous author that he was said to be adapting.) It has many MANY different entries in the collection of views different than some might even understand exist. Just like my personal outlook on all of the differences between non denominational Protestants, Catholics, with some views, it is matter of what appeals the most, and the divide isn't between moral differences, but in the end, simply just difference. As I might be able to filter the different views, some day, if not today, I am not going to get specific. 

The movie I am discussing, is THE MESSENGER: The Story of Joan of Arc. Critics thought for a movie about religious visions and guidance, it was hardly religious, more an action movie wearing religious trappings. Because the Joan of Arc of history had visions, there was also a different issue. Was the real Joan suffering schizophrenic phases or bi-polarity. Was the action portion of the movie really made possible by her mental illness? 

This movie allowed the mental issues that moved her to act. It showed her battlefield active leadership. It showed how a vision can lead someone, whatever the source. The acting is tremendous, and it is a film that doesn't ignore the events that happened, and didn't falsely portray how the English and the French of the Dauphin later King of France failed to understand what she was. She was more than a leader on the field, she was a moment of powerful emotion given a voice. She was a woman in a mostly male oriented role. She was not sexualized by the film makers, but she was almost certainly raped.  But the Dauphin failed Joan, and feared she might become more popular than the Dauphin. The English were of a mind that she must be possessed. But burning her without her recanting her account of having visions, led to Joan becoming a Martyr and a symbol of resistance.

In an century where war and adventure films focus upon nudity and violence, this movie had heart in all of its presentation. Perhaps it felt like propaganda to the critics, a movie that seemed to them exaggerated to create a greater impact. But it was subtle in ways, it was well acted and the cinematography was great. I suspect it was simply the path it followed, being aimed at how she was able to move men to fight and win victories, for more than the future king, or for Joan, but for a higher calling. Something often distrusted in the present.

Thanks for being here

LINKS:

MY POETRY AlexNessPoetry.Blogspot.Com 
HERE: Poplitiko.Blogspot.Com 
MY PUBLISHED WORKS 

Social Media
https://bsky.app/profile/alexanderness63.bsky.social 
https://x.com/alexnesspoetry

All works shown and/or considered are copyright the respective owners, fair use is the sole means of use asserted.