July 2017 in Review
July was one heck of a busy month with lots of reading, lots of comics, and of course, Comic-Con. I was able to get in a bit of gaming though this definitely took a back seat…here’s a look back.
Books
The month of July featured my greatest reading accomplishment since I started tracking my reading. I zipped through 5 books during the month with a total of 2200 pages and really enjoyed myself, ranking an average just above a B+. The cornerstone of my reading for the month was Brandon Sanderson. I read his Elantris and The Final Empire for my first foray into his writing, and I gotta say they were a lot of fun. He’s definitely going on my short list of favorite authors and I’m looking forward to reading more of his work. I also notched another Heechee novel from Frederick Pohl and am almost done with that series. I’ll have to find some more of his works after I finish that off.
Comics
July also saw me read through a bunch of comics in each of my reading areas. For my DC Rebirth project, I read through the Darkseid War which was confusing at first, but turned enjoyable once I started figuring out who all the players were. I feel I’ll be in a similar situation with the Justice League of America series I just started, but I’m getting closer to Rebirth and have been learning a lot along the way. The Marvelous Year project is still a few years of reading (and by now over 1000 comics) behind where the Comicbook Herald reading group is, but I’m still marching along. I enjoyed getting through the Runaways from 2004 and am looking forward to reading some modern Fantastic Four and Daredevil issues in August. As for my Marvel 1963 project, it’s been slow going. I haven’t really been enjoying the stories lately but if I push things this next month, I might make it up to Amazing Spider-Man #1.
Comic-Con
Most of my free time this month was taken up with Comic-Con. July 19 – 23 was pretty much non-stop dedicated to the event and it was once again a blast. I missed out on some of the panels I wanted to see like Stan Lee and Star Trek Discovery, but I got to see some really cool presentations like the Design and Technology for Film and Television panel with Neville Page and Glenn Hetrick from Face Off. I even got to meet Ve Neill from the show on the exhibit room floor later in the con. Panels ranging from Legion to People of Earth, from Flash to Jim Lee were all great and I really feel I had a successful con experience. I particularly enjoyed the Impractical Joker’s at Petco, but there was so much to see and do, I could have spent another 40 hours there and still not seen everything that interested me.
Gaming
With everything else going on in July, I did manage to carve out some time for gaming as well. I didn’t make the progress I wanted to in Secret World Legends, but I got through a few missions, while I completely let Diablo 3 fall by the wayside – no time to start my Necromancer. I started up a new game called Albion that looks pretty good and I plan on continuing with it into August so I’m sure I’ll mention is more as time moves on. I also got up to the Silver 3 ranking in League of Legends – that was a straightforward game I could play while everything else was going on during the month. Also on the MOBA front, I moved up to level 29 in SMITE…so close to max level I can almost taste the ranked play.
Overall
On the whole, I think I got quite a bit accomplished in July. Beyond these things, I started watching People of Earth, Game of Thrones, Preacher, the original Twin Peaks, and of course Shark Week was during the month too. So much to look back on and to look forward to as most of these things will keep going in August, I only hope I accomplish as much next month as I did in July.