Hex Picks: Romantic Comics

Romance month is over! Nope, no more hugs. We're done.

Our final recommendation, as always, was comics. And, being the discerning connoisseur I am, I chose that rarest and most unique of genres: superhero comics. Joking aside, it's a superhero comic that I enjoyed mostly for its romantic angle, and that is fairly unusual.

There's a couple of other unusual choices in there too - one postmodern meta-comic, a D&D stickman comic and, weirdest of all, Chobits. So it's worth having a look, just to see what strange and unhealthy ideas about romance we all have...

The Companion Piece 01: Deep Breath

Last Monday was the first episode of Hex Dimension's weekly feature looking at the latest series of Doctor Who and the adventures of Peter Capaldi's new Doctor. We call it... The Companion Piece.

Today that feature continues - the difference being that this week we actually had a new episode to talk about! The first episode of Series 8 aired this past Sunday, and I have to say I enjoyed it quite a lot. It's not spectacular, but it's a strong effort, introducing us to this new incarnation of the Doctor with both humour and horror, in true Doctor Who fashion. However, not everyone agrees with me, and we ended up with quite a mixture of feelings about it.

We've also made some aesthetic changes - adding user icons to our discussion and messing with the layout. I'd originally planned to turn everyone into monsters, but we all agreed that was a little too disturbing, as Silence-Matt and Ood-Paul here should probably illustrate.

So please click on, and find out what the team and I thought of Capaldi's introduction, as well as our thoughts on dinosaurs, Romans, lizard lips, and the afterlife.

It's all going on in this week's Companion Piece!

Hex Picks: Romantic Games

Yesterday on Hex, as well as launching our new weekly Doctor Who feature, we continued with this month's theme of romantic recommendations. We've covered books and movies, so this week was games, and we ended up with a collection of games both obvious and unexpected - there's one super-obvious choice in there, but not for the obvious reason. Also, I love what they did with the title.

It's good, is what I'm saying, so get over there and take a look!

The Companion Piece 00: Who?

If you're at all familiar with this blog, or with me as a person, then you'll know that I love me some Doctor Who. Or rather, you'll know that I love talking about Doctor Who. At horrifying length.

Well, good news for both of us, because me and the rest of the Hex Dimension crew are launching a new weekly Doctor Who feature to coincide with the start of the new series this coming Saturday. It's good news for me because it means I get to talk about Doctor Who every week; and it's good news for you because I won't be the only one talking, and because the others might be able to shut me up.

Tonight, in the run-up to Series 8, we ran the first instalment - an introduction to the team and a look back at the programme so far. We talk about our favourite Doctors, discuss what we are and aren't looking forward to this year, and discover that one of us is even grumpier about this stuff than me!

I really do hope you'll check it out, because a lot of effort, confusion and panic went into making this. No doubt there will be even more effort, confusion and panic as the weeks go on, and I fall back into my familiar pattern of alternately bitching and raving about the show. But, for now at least, I'm immensely proud of how this first one turned out.

So please, head over to Hex Dimension for our pre-series discussion, and don't forget to check back on Monday for the first real episode of...

Hex Picks: Romantic Films

Romance Month continues at Hex Dimension this week, as we choose a selection of our favourite romantic films. Unlike last time, a few of us even managed to play the theme straight, and didn't pick sci-fi or fantasy romances! Of course, some of us still cheated, and (naturally) I was one of them.

Click here to find out which sci-fi romance never fails to make me cry, and to witness the continuing streak of my brother and I thinking the exact same way...

Hex Dimension: A Case of the Ghiblis

Yesterday the news broke that Studio Ghibli, the loved and lauded Japanese animation studio, might be closing its doors. I've written about anime and Ghibli before, of course (spoiler: not a fan), so Emily over at Hex asked me to write a few words.

I didn't want to, at first, but as the day went on I slowly realised that I needed to. Because this news was huge - world-changing, even. It just took me a while to realise that.

Please do check out my article, and see why Studio Ghibli matters so damn much.

Hex Picks: Romantic Novels

This month is romance month on Hex Dimension! It was a joke at first, but the theme stuck and we're doing our best to run with it. Unfortunately, because we're a bunch of massive nerds, every book we picked turned out to be our usual selection of fantasy and sci-fi - but with added mushiness.

So, if you want to read our thoughts on what makes a good romance - which in my case turns out to involve quite a lot of snot - check out our picks here, and remember to check back every week for even more unashamed slush!

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