Sadly it no longer is my field of work. Switched to IT when I couldnt find a job or phd in behavioural biology. Turned out I like IT quite a lot.

We have 1 more week of travel, visiting a rain forest at the east coast. Then back to Europe and to work.

Awesome! Thanks for the effort!

We dont mind that it eats the spiders here, they are huge and scary :p

We ended up at Madagascar because it was my long live dream. I studied biology and arranged a place for my thesis. However for my bachelor I heard I wasnt allowed to travel outside of Europe. And for my masters there wasn't anyone educated highly enough to supervise me.

So when we were brainstorming for our honeymoon, my now wife came with this idea. It has been an amazing trip so far, but also quite intense. A lot of travelling in a 4x4, long days and early rises. The people here are quite poor, and that makes the travel a bit conflicted. But my biologist heart is really happy. We have seen amazing animals and visited wonderful places.

Awesome. Going on holiday soon, so will put it on the list! Thanks

I love the doctor strange films, but haven't started any comics on him yet. Do you have a recommendation for a good starting series?

I recently finished Locke and Key, which blew me away. Such a good series. Does anyone know if Hills other works are as good?

Made my way through the wicked and divine 2 and 3. Love the story, but the cliffhangers keep killing me.

And lastly am slowly working my way through Chris Cleremonts Uncanny Xmen. They are currently meeting Rogue for the first time.

I live in Europe, so my options are a little limited. But I am currently using the marvel app. You can get a subscription and read all that is available, which is a lot. Newer comics lack behind a bit, probably to drive paper sales.

I know there is a similar app for DC, but it is not available here. I read online people think it is lackluster, but again no handson experience. I believe darkhorse comics might have a platform as well.

For me I like to buy paper comics for all non-marvel comics. I do like that a lot more. It draws me in better, and allows me to support smaller shops like the one you had.

Hope you get back into reading. It is a wonderful world!

It is the Dutch railway company, so no, I wouldnt expect you to know this as a foreigner.

But I am a little sad now I am not part of the lucky ones...

Heey, I dont have any questions, but wanted to let you know that your posts often make me stop and appreciate nature. Your enthusiasm is a blessing and make this one of my favorite subs. Thanks for the work! Keep posting <3

It looks like this isnt really a thing in Europe. I found like 1 store per country that joins, which is a bummer. I would have liked to try some new comics I wouldnt have chosen otherwise.

So this is my first time hearing about it, and it sounds really interesting. How does it? work? Can you just walk into a store and pick some up? Or is it an add-on to your purchase? And is there a limit to how much you can choose?

Already I finished The Wicked + The Divine. It was such a good read. Couple of twists I didnt expect. The story is really captivating and well drawn. Still have a lot of questions, and cant wait to get some of them answered. Really recommend this one! Such a shame I only bought the first issue ;p

I will let you know! So far it sucked me in immediately

Thanks for the thoughtful response! They really help.

Piracy was actually what got me into reading and buying comics in the first place. I came across Saga which peaked my interest and I have been reading since. From there went to a local store and picked up Sandman.

I dont have a local shop too nearby, which makes it harder to go to stores and just browse or get advice. But I will try to make some time soon to go browsing :)

Cool thanks! I will check those out as well :)

Awesome, thanks! And you also welcome to the club!

So I am still new with comics, only started reading them 3 months ago. I am currentl making my way through X-men and Batman first year, but there are so many comics out there.

If I look at this list it is daunting how many there are released every single week. I have been googling some of your interests, and they look cool. How do you know from this long list what catches your interest?

I am 2 days ahead of you, and it is great. Really love this series so far! Enjoy :D

Supercool, thanks! Really like your write ups

I worked for the company that did their loyalty program, and then it was told to me that many mexicans don't trust the banks enough to go there, and prefer these "independent" shops as an alternative.

I recently started reading the whole series from the beginning, and I quite enjoy it, althoygh it is a bit slow. It is cool to see what the origins is for some of the most crucial villains in the series.

We were on vacation for a while, so mostly played smaller games such as splitter, qwixx, agropolis.

Since we got back we started with Aeons end future and past, where we had a really cool play to win the game. Everything just came together perfectly. We also received our kickstarter for Borderlands, and played 1 game of it. Really enjoy the gameplay, they managed to capture the BL soul really well :D

Wait this has been out for a while now, hasn't it? In the Netherlands we already could purchase it for 2 years now. Or am I missing something?

Skip the movie! It is a horrible attempt to make it cooler. All of a sudden he is a prof football (soccer) player and they get many details wrong. It was a horrible watch for me :p

I dont know if this really fits what you are looking for, but we had a Dutch writer called Thea Beckman who wrote the book Crusade in jeans (kruistocht in spijkerbroek). No clue if it was translated, and if it isnt too teensy, but I liked it when I was younger. It is about a boy from our time being sent back to the medieval times, and how he had to deal with the crusade he found there.

I hate it when the "and this is where we end the session for tonight" part happens 10 minutes in... once had a high level party teleport to the complete opposite side of the map 10 minutes after starting... That is when I learned what high level really meant.

I am not fully familiar with the term quarterbacking, but I assume it is where somebody effectively plays the whole game and tells everybody what to do?

I think if you are aware of it, it is easier to stop quarterbacking. When I play it I try to give advise on hotspots for problems, but I wont plan somebody elses turn. But they decide. But the game can be prone to it. You could always play with your cards closed, then people have less information, which prevents 1 person from figuring it all out, but might complicate the game some extra as well

We have had some busy weeks last weeks, so the amount of games is liwer compared to normal. This weekend we finally had some time again ^^

We played 2 games of good ol' pandemic, which we horribly lost. Mostly due to the lab expansion, which we hadnt played in a while and forgot the proper strategy for.

We also played a game of Theotihuacan, but it isnt my game. We have played it a couple of times now, but I am tense the whole way through, as there are so many actions and every single one counts so much. If anyone has some experiences with this game and can tell me your experiences I would love to hear. It is a game my fiance loves, and I would like to at least like it as well...

En mijn favo close up van Zinzi

Zinzi (oranje) en Waus (cyper)

Dixit is also a good fit! It is a very easily explained game, where you have to say a word or short phrase describing a mystery card. The rest then places a card they think that matches the description as well, and then a voting round starts. It is really fun, and playing it would do more justice than this explanation :p

Yeah it is one of those games that I wouldnt play without the expansion anymore. We really like the legendary dungeons, which adds quite some difficulty and allows for multi classes, which can create some cool and strong combos.

Sprawlopolis is very light weight and offers a lot of replayability.

We have laminated (I believe that is the english word) clever, qwixx, knaster and knister so that we can bring 1 set of dice and play those all.

We really like regicide, which is just 1 pack of cards.

Lastly you have some (card)games with a small footprint, such as The Crew, or Cahoots, or Pickomino.

Some that I havent heard but love are Pandemic and Spirit island.

And as a hidden gem: Heroes of Tenefyre and sprawlopolis. Heroes is a deckbuilder dungeon crawler where the new cards in your deck are the monsters you slay. Sprawlopolis is a city builder the size of a small wallet, which you can easily take with you. There are 3 challenges out if 18 which decide how the game will play, which asks for different tactics every time.

We had quite a busy week, so we only played two long Isofarian guard sessions and one Aeons End Legacy. Hopefully next week we will have some extra time

Cool setting! I hope you have a blast!

Is there a pirate booty that most crews are secretly looking for? Any tunours to set them on the right/wrong path?

What is the signature drink of the isles?

Are there any safe havens where they can take a rest from the government and its goonies?

What is their main export/import, as this will drive new people to the isles, and might bring some news or opportunities.

You might want to look at some laminated games with erasable pens. We really like Welcome To, and recently discovered Aquamarine as a 4 dollar game.

5 minute dungeon is a quicktime game that is coop, but was hard to get in Europe.

Picomino (regenwormen in Dutch) is a dice push your luck game that has a small footprint. I know you said no dice but still wanted to give the tip :p

Lastly you have walletgames such as Sprawlopolis (coop) which might be worth looking at, they are meant to be small.

• Light: cartographers/aquamarine
• Medium: Isle of cats
• Heavy: Spirit Island
• Most played: Gloomhaven, I think we have close to 150 games played.
• Favorite: I think this is a tie between Gloomhaven and Spirit island. I like campaign games a lot, but spirit island is such a wonderful game. SI always manages to give you that "how are we gonna do this" feeling, and then you stabalize (most of the times). Every game is tense.

We played a lot of the Isofarian guard last week, finished chapter 2 from the first campaign. They announced a couple of changes to the rules last week, and we really like them.

We also had our first introduction to Arnak at some friends. I like it, but I feel that you have to do too much, without becoming good at anything.

Lastly we finally git around continuing our alphabet challenge with Noria and Onirim :D

The crew! Both versions of it allow for replayability as you have different objectives every game. It is a trick taking game, so they might be a bit familiar with it due to other games like bridge. And it is cheap. Only thing that might take them a bit to get used to is that it is coop.

Another simple one would be take 6 (nimmt 6).

7 wonders duel is such a good basegame. The focus on the limitted ways to victory is its main strength, and the toght card pool. It is difficult to add something equally strong, without adding too many side focusses, or inbalances. We play mainly the base game due to this.