Taking On 2014 - Top TV Shows (Q2 Quarterly Review)

Okay, so we've gotten through music by looking at the best songs of the year and the best albums, which means it's now time for films, right? Usually, yes! However, this time I'm going to try something a little different. I've been watching a lot more TV this year, and with last year marking my first TV round up, I figured it's worth it to at least look at all the series I have watched so far and start at least considering them. Not really a full on Quarterly Review, since I won't do this again until January, but probably worth checking in simply because with the fall approaching a few of the shows towards the bottom are likely to get bumped by Boardwalk Empire or that new Soderbergh show or other things. Not to mention the time I have to catch up on this season of Oranges: The New Black, Fargo, and Penny Dreadful. Plus Gravity Falls is coming back. This list could end up being the hardest to make by year's end.

Time to Wake Up: The Darkness, Reflections on Comics and Games

So I'm a bit behind schedule, but also finished Lost and picked up Naruto today, and I have finally finished my reflection on the video game adaptation of the comic series The Darkness. For future reference, I will be using the comic series in Italics and the video game in Bold.

A long time ago, when I was just a sperm concerned with getting inside a vagina to bring forth new life, the comic book industry thrived along with the arcade industry. The two cultures began to mesh as the arcade industry died down and some of the steam of mainstream comics began catering to a more devoted crowd. Flashing forward a little more than 18 years, one will notice very few of the things previously mentioned have changed. The video game industry continues to grow each year, Comic-Con and other festivals expand audiences yearly, and I am still primarily concerned about spreading life. However, both cultures continue to share one trait in common: comics and video games are niche markets. On a mainstream level the fans are sterotypical nerds and geeks who dress up as imaginary characters and rarely leave the home, only for D&D night, to wait in line for the next Star Wars film, or to LARP all over someone's face. The problem is, as most gamers/comic readers will tell you, that these stereotypes are flawed and very wrong. The casual fan is just as important to each industry, and with the influence of comics in other mediums the pairing of these two previously intertwined cultures seems obvious.