Sunday 21 March 2010

Vampifan's Views 05 Happy 1st Birthday

It's celebration time! In fact it's double celebration time. This is my 100th post for my blog and the site is now one year old. Yaaaaay! One year on and I am still amazed at how successful and popular my blog has become. To everyone who has popped in to view it, many thanks indeed. To those who have gone a step further and become a follower, you have my eternal gratitude. And finally, a huge thank you to everyone who has left a comment, good or bad. Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of comments have been very favourable. As I type this, my number of followers stands at 48 and the hit counter is hovering just below the 30,000 mark, both of which I think are incredible achievements.
So what can you expect to see in the near future and what am I doing at present? The figure reviews and World Works Games reviews will continue for a long time to come. I've recently photographed a lot more of my WWG vehicles. Upcoming figure reviews will include zombies from Black Hat, Black Orc, Mega Miniatures and Wargames Factory, as well as vampires and ghosts from Horrorclix. I am currently painting the complete range of Mega Miniatures zombies, which is quite a task, as there are about 50 zeds in the range. I was put off from buying these for such a long time as I did not like the look of them but my good friend, Rogzombie, persuaded me to think again and I'm very glad he did. They are nowhere near as bad as I thought and their zombie children are absolute gems. I'm making more WWG vehicles but I plan on making a new building very soon. It could be the chapel from the Wildwood Grove set or something else entirely. I have a hankering for starting something massive like the Mayhem Police Station.
It has been a poor year so far, for horror films at the cinema but a lot better for horror film DVD releases. I've just ordered George Romero's new zombie film, Survival of the Dead from Amazon and I'm looking forward to watching it despite its mixed reviews from the press. I've also ordered the DVD of Zombieland and I am so looking forward to watching it again and catching up with the extras. I've heard that the film commentary is well worth listening to. Other zombie DVDs that I've seen recently and thoroughly enjoyed were Colin (remarkable film, considering its meagre budget), Doghouse (similar to but far better than Lesbian Vampire Killers), Quarantine (very good remake of Rec, but the original is only just better) and Zombie Strippers (okay, it was crap... but it was enjoyable crap with some good death scenes).
Bookwise, I've finished reading the complete set of Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris that I got at Christmas. They were just a superb set of books and I see that series 2 of True Blood is being released in the UK on May 17th. Yippee, I don't have that long to wait. There is never a dull moment in Sookie's life. I've just read the first two novels in the Jaz Parks series by Jennifer Rardin. Jaz, or Jasmine to give her her full name, is a CIA assassin who partners a vampire assassin called Vayl. The novels have a similar sense of fun to the Sookie Stackhouse novels. I've just started reading book three of the action-packed series. I recently visited one of my local Waterstone's bookstores after a long absence. I tend to buy all of my books online, especially from Amazon. What surprised me greatly was the amount of vampire novels that are now on sale. A lot of them seem to be aimed at a female audience, so it would seem that Twilight has a lot to answer for. Personally, I think it's a good thing. If vampires are now the flavour of the month that's cool by me.
I would love to add more battle reports, especially of All Things Zombie, to my blog, but sadly that isn't going to happen in the near future. My father's confinement to home, following a serious knee injury has put a temporary hold on my gaming activities. Thankfully, he is on the mend but his recovery has been a long and slow process. Hopefully by the time summer comes around I'll be able get back into gaming in a big way. In the meantime, I'll carry on painting my miniatures and making more scenery for Mayhem City.
To all my viewers, once again I thank you for your support. Now, let's celebrate with a nice drop of claret and some finger food. I'll raise a toast to year one and hope you'll stick around for year two. Cheers, everyone!

8 comments:

  1. Congrats old friend. Your blog is awesome, inspiring to the rookie zombie hunter. Your scenery is amazing, the time and patience you put into making it is incredible. I hope to see much more from you in the near future. Keep it coming and thanks for all the inspiration and making zombie gaming fun. Best wishes to your family as well.

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  2. Well, you have done an excellent work with your blog. As Rogzombie said, is awesome, funny, and very entertaining. So, happy one birthday to World of the Undead!! We step here every time!

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  3. Roger and Fernando, thank you for the compliments. It is guys like you who make this blog so much fun to write. I can't see me making any radical changes to the blog. I seem to have struck a winning formula, so why fix it if it ain't broken? I thank you both for your friendship, which I value greatly.

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  4. To quote the Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons: "Worst Blog Ever"

    Seriously though Great Blog, I look forward to seeing your new posts ever Sunday and Wednesday/Thursday. BTW you are right about Zombie Strippers not a real drop dead (pun intended) movie, but does have some good scenes, like the one with Robert Englund whipping out his NRA card, or Paco announcing "It's Paco time," just before he bites the dust.

    Bryan heres to another year (hopefully more then another year) of your vile, rotting, flesh devouring posts.

    To Quote the side of the box for a fun little zombie game, Zombies!!!, "Warning: Prolonged exposure to this product may cause necrobiosis, necrolatry, necrophagia and necrophobia."

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  5. Thanks for a wonderful year of inspiring zombie blogging, Bryan. Your site is a firm favourite and THE blog for zombie miniatures. Keep up the excellent work!

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  6. @Eldorf. Your comments made me laugh, especially the quote from the Zombies!!! game. And yeah, Zombie Strippers wasn't as bad as I feared it might be, although it is certainly no classic.

    @Mikko. Thanks for your kind words and support. Your own site is still my main choice for finding out what zombie movies are coming out at either the cinema or on DVD.

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  7. Hi Bryan. The definitive encyclopedia of Zombie/Horror gaming is alive and well! I'm looking forward to another year of great reviews, builds, and reads.
    My only request is that you take a little bit of time off to do a couple of games and batrep them! If you like, I'll give you an idiotic plot that works for your gear :)
    Willy

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  8. Thanks, Willy. I feel the one area that my blog is lacking in, is batreps. Believe me, I'd love to do more. If my dad hadn't suffered his knee injury last year I certainly would have posted a lot more. Already, my parents have had to cancel two holidays. I hope they don't have to cancel a third. They have another three booked for this year. Apart from my own selfish needs to steal the dining room table to transform it into Mayhem City, they deserve a break.
    Anyway, I'd be delighted to hear your ideas for a gaming plot, idiotic or not! When it comes to batreps, you, sir, are the master!

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