Up late talking games & writing? You're...

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Writing: Work has been progressing on the current STILL SECRET project fairly well, although my usual evening productivity has been somewhat annihilated by a disruption in the routine. Even still, it's coming together bit by bit and it's kind of interesting to note that the writing process, though still difficult, seems to be getting easier with time.
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It took somewhere in the neighborhood of four years to finish my first book (although having a major life catastrophe happen in the middle of it delayed the entire process significantly) but since then, I've knocked out about a third of the sequel, done three short stories, and gone full-bore into what I'm working on now, all in about a year’s time. It's not like lightning, but it's definitely going faster. Getting back on caffeine would probably help.
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Comics: I keep meaning to do a comics rundown, but the aforementioned evening routine disruption has basically eliminated my reading time in addition to messing with my writing schedule. I have a stack of comics on my nightstand I haven't touched yet, and I really need to get back to the comic shop… I'm sure my file there is disgustingly full. Anyway, just a quick shout out for Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead in the meantime.
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I know everybody and their brother has already heard about this and read it, but I never got into it before because I missed the first few issues and I never found a good point to jump in. Now that there are several volumes of the collected version in trade softcover out, it was the perfect time to see what I've been missing, and it's been some pretty fantastic reading. I'm not too crazy about the art-- it's good enough, but it doesn't have a lot of style and I find that it's hard to tell the characters apart based solely on facial features.
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That said, the writing is tight and I'm totally hooked… can't wait to see what comes next. It's basically your standard end-of-the-world zombie survivor tale, but Kirkman has done a great job in fleshing out his characters and making them feel very human and relatable. A lot of the things that happen are very common-sense and believable, as well… always a plus in my book. Anyway, if you haven't read it yet, that means two things: one- that I wasn't the last person in the world to get turned on to this, and two- that you need to go out right now and buy a copy.
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Games: Just finished Fallout 3’s new add-on DLC Operation Anchorage this afternoon and wrapped up the review right afterwards. Look for it pretty soon at GameCritics, and I'll post a link here as well.
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Also, the always-worth-reading Tera Kirk posted some comments at GC that were inspired by an article over at Gamasutra. The original piece was about a character from super-RPG Persona 4, Kanji Tatsumi, and his struggle to identify as a homosexual.
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Tera’s got some good thoughts on the matter, the article itself is pretty solid, and the comments that come after the actual article are pretty superb. Not only are they well-written and intelligent, they also bring up transgender issues and how they relate (or don’t) to another P4 character, the potentially F-to-M Naoto Shirogane.
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Persona 4 is an awesome game any way you slice it, and the fact that these kind of issues can be not only included in the gameplay, but included intelligently and in a sensitive way speaks highly not only of developer Atlus, but also of the potential for games to continue to evolve and grow along with (hopefully) the audience. In any event, go check it out.
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