Park Cooper here, of Wicker Man Studios, interviewing Andreas Müller of BFF Games. I first became aware of BFF Games because I jumped into the Kickstarter for their game Hidden Leaders, a fun game that brightened up months of the ongoing pandemic for my wife Barb (my co-partner Wicker Man Studios) and I. Hidden Leaders is a fantasy-themed boardgame where you draw and play cards to influence the realm of the kingdom to one of four outcomes, playing as one of six leaders (such as Lemron, Pavyr, Cyra, and Enned, just to name four that we’re about to mention during the course of this interview). Each of the six leaders (whose identities are hidden to the other players until the end of the game) want the kingdom’s war to come out in either of two possible ways—so there’s a certain amount of guessing (especially early on) about what your opponent even wants to happen… BFF Games also did a successful Kickstarter expansion, and are about to start a Kickstarter for a prequel game, titled Yield.
Park Cooper: So let’s see. I watched a video about how y’all came to make Hidden Leaders– But I have questions.
So– the world was the world that y’all role-played games in? Is that right?
Andreas Müller: Sort of, yeah. So the game was invented based on the world we all did Larp in (live action role play) but once we got our artist on board (Satoshi Matsuura from Japan) we made changes to the world to take his art into account. You could say, we merged our world with his art.
Hi there! Sorry not to post on the official first week of the month, but there were a couple of other things I wanted to do, as you’ll see.
Let’s see: I want to point out some stuff that got posted here but which didn’t actually get put in a newsletter until now:
–First up, I made a book trailer for our graphic novel Hungry Ghosts: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKrJZh4VH9Q
–I finished posting my old interview with writer Steven Brust– I’ll let you look at that yourself: https://wickermanstudios.com/blog/
–I also did a fun interview with the creators of BITEMARK, a nailbiting manga that is also published by Lucha Comics, just like Wicker Man Studios’ HUNGRY GHOSTS: https://wickermanstudios.com/2023/10/11/interview-bitemark/
–Also, comics legend Keith Giffen passed away. His daughter and son-in-law posted online asking for remembrances and interviews, so I hurried and got mine up. There’s no images, but I feel that that’s appropriately somber: https://wickermanstudios.com/2023/10/12/keith-giffen-2006-interview/
–Finally, here’s footage of our very own Barb Lien-Cooper, being interviewed (and getting just a few words in edgewise during a panel) about her comic Gun Street Girl (see here: https://wickermanstudios.com/2015/04/15/gun-street-girl/ ) as part of Austin, Texas’ Staple! The Independent Media Expo! from 2005: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XM-FwXBgyE
Okay, now that that’s all done, here’s my feature presentation, as it were– every Halloween season, Barb and I try to watch as many scary/intense films and stuff as we can, which we call PARKTOBER. So here’s this year’s report!
Okay! So here we go with the THIRD AND FINAL part of this three-part interview that I did with fantasy author Steven Brust back in 2011! Here’s a link to Part One and Part Two of this interview, in case you missed them:
Park Cooper: You’re clearly a very busy man, what with BOOM as well as the DC/Marvel work…
Keith Giffen: I try to fill the day, yes.
PC: The cover of Jeremiah Harm announces that it’s “From Keith Giffen, the mind behind Marvel’s ANNIHILATION and DC’s 52!” That really interested me for a number of reasons…
KG: A bit of overblown hyperbole there. The big four are the minds behind 52.
PC: Still, it proudly proclaims “There’s a great MIND behind this comic!” I feel there’s been such emphasis on art in the last 10 years… and on intellectual properties… but this statement says “Isn’t it great to have the WRITER of intellectual properties?!?”
Hi, Park here– today I’m bringing you an interview I did with Michael Stinson and Devan Muse, the respective writer and artist of the graphic novel BITEMARK, a tale involving werewolves and young women. BITEMARK is published by Lucha Comics (itself an imprint of The Shooting Star Press), which published and did the Kickstarter for Hungry Ghosts, which was written by Barbara and myself.
So, here’s me and writer Michael Stinson and artist Devan Muse, the creative team behind the werewolf manga BITEMARK:
You’ve probably noticed that I/we stopped sending these out every week. Yeah, we decided to move to a new format– they’re not going to be every week anymore– they’re going to be monthly… MOSTLY.
HOWEVER! First we’re going to clear the decks as far as this Steven Brust interview goes! So here’s part two, and part three WILL be later this month, just to make room for other stuff! There’ll be one more thing this month, too, but MOSTLY it’s going to be a once-a-month update– the slight reversion to more-than-once-a-month this month is mostly just to finish what we started.
Steven Brust is a fantasy author who I interviewed one time, but I just found out that the website the interview was on is gone now, so I’ve decided it’s time to post the interview here!
You may remember the name of Steven Brust from my article I wrote on this site about writers who’ve been an influence on me… In the meantime, let’s let Wikipedia help introduce you to the man:
Steven Karl Zoltán Brust (born November 23, 1955) is an American fantasy and science fiction author of Hungarian descent. He is best known for his series of novels about the assassin Vlad Taltos, one of a disdained minority group of humans living on a world called Dragaera. His recent novels also include The Incrementalists (2013) and its sequel The Skill of Our Hands (2017), with co-author Skyler White.
As a drummer and singer-songwriter, Brust has recorded one solo album and two albums as a member of Cats Laughing. Brust also co-wrote songs on two albums recorded in the mid-1990s by the band Boiled in Lead.
Okay, so that’s some stuff you know now, if you didn’t before! So let’s jump into my interview with Steven Brust, who had apparently been recently talking to me, before the interview started, about how he watched the TV show Firefly…
Okay, so the third thing I thought I might write about here is my influences. Barb’s written at least one where she talked about Shirley Jackson (and, I imagine, Jane Eyre, because boy is that an influence on her, too), so I thought I might do the same.
Okay, time to find out what Barb and I have been doing for entertainment and to try to relax lately– In general, we like streaming old movies.
–Maigret Sets a Trap: First, we lost our wi-fi connection. So, we watched a blu-ray we own of a movie we hadn’t seen in a while: Maigret Sets a Trap from 1958 with Jean Gabin as French detective Maigret. In fact, he’s the Chief Inspector of all of France’s Quai des Orfèvres– a bit like their Scotland Yard. A serial killer is stalking women in Paris, and Maigret must put a stop to it. A brilliant and exciting film with the excellent Jean Gabin (who used to have a relationship with Marlene Dietrich). And around the time the blu-ray was over, the wi-fi was back!
–Down Three Dark Streets: 1954, with Broderick Crawford and Ruth Roman. An FBI man’s partner is killed in the line of duty– but which of the three cases that he was working on at the time was it that got him killed? Written by a husband-wife team called The Gordons, this film really satisfied, with a great last line that suggested everything you need to know to extrapolate what life is going to be like for the two lead characters after the movie’s done. And Mr. Gordon really was an FBI man for a few years! In fact, J. Edgar Hoover wanted to block this film at first (until we calmed him down) because he was afraid we’d give away all the FBI’s secret crime-solving techniques to criminals!
Okay, here we go, with Barb’s final picks for her (written-years-ago) movie list (now with added CRAFT sections for extra educational-ness):
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—Klute
Jane Fonda’s performance is one for the books. Anger, pain, hurt… she’s just so damned good in this neo-noir.
CRAFT: Seriously, look at Fonda and Sutherland’s performances. She’s a wild creature, hurt and wounded. He’s a stoic rock, ready for her waves to constantly crash against all she needs to crash– but he’s hardly unfeeling. They’re two great performances– but hers is much harder, and nonetheless greater, even if we factor out any bonus points for her having the harder job of it.
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—Mimbo
Interesting, original, and always entertaining Asian film. Almost impossible to categorize.
CRAFT: Look at the pacing! Look how they keep you interested at all times in what’s basically (kind of? basically?) a legal story!
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—Ginger Snaps
A first. A contemporary feminist werewolf film. Scary, funny, and original.
CRAFT: Wow, such good acting from Bridget’s actress. But try to get the version where you get to watch the deleted scene where the girls’ mom is driving the car and reacts (to Bridget) about how Mom thinks that her daughters have been killing people (in a non-supernatural way, I mean) and that Mom still loves them and is determined to cover up for them. It’s maybe the best piece of acting in the movie, and that is saying a lot.
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—Pretty Poison
Tony Perkins’ best mental-issues-challenged character. Tuesday Weld is just plain evil (and hot as a furnace) in this film!
CRAFT: Seriously, the script is so good. And Weld is so good at acting it, and so is Perkins. They’re both scary believable and Perkins makes his character so likeable… and he’s so in over his head….
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—Alphaville
Strange French science fiction detective film from the 1960s. Neat.
CRAFT: Look at that cinematography!
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—400 Blows
Beautiful, sad, funny film about childhood. Unblinkingly honest in tone.
CRAFT: Look at that cinematography!
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—Tron
That’s entertainment!
CRAFT: Look at the special effects! The light! The… I dunno, the color palette! They were like “we need to make people believe that this is what it might look like if you could get inside the inner reality of a computer program, so it needs to look and feel really different” and sure enough, thanks to technical wizardry, they pulled that off. It’s amazing that they did that, that well, in those days.
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—Auntie Mame
I’m an Auntie Mame nut. What more can I say?
CRAFT: Okay: look at the writing! Look at the writing! And then, more specifically, look at the characterization! What does this film say about snobs? About motherhood? About bigotry? About small-minded people? But it’s also so funny!
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—Bedazzled (original)
Cook and Moore do the Faust legend. Hilarious comedy by two former University lads…and you can tell. Clever clever and clever.
CRAFT: Look at the writing! But also, specifically, look at what it says about religion! Well, Christianity, especially… And, I suppose, also, about human nature… But I think the hardest job might be Dudley. His transition from the little underdog guy to the sophisticated smooth talker…!
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—Band Of Outsiders
Idiosyncratic French neo-noir. Joyful instead of cynical, which is weird for a noir. Anna Karina is lovely as a rose in all of her films.
CRAFT: Look at that cinematography! But also, look how this film uses narration, how it breaks “the rules…”
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—The Birdcage
Elaine May’s script, Williams and Lane, a nice message about tolerance. Sweet.
CRAFT: Look at the pacing! But better yet, look at the characterization! Okay, mostly just look at the loving couple at the heart of it all. It’s seldom that one sees that kind of portrayal of a couple who’ve been together that long. It’s quite different from a couple who’ve only known each other for a short while. But wow, acting-wise, the comedy that Williams and Lane also pull off…!
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—Curse of the Demon
Mature, sophisticated British horror with a tip of the hat to Val Lewton horror films.
CRAFT: I guess the biggest piece of craft in this, to me, is that they have to sell you on an impossible idea, and how they do it… how they commit to it.
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—David and Lisa
Mental patients in love. Deeply affecting, very watchable.
CRAFT: Oh, so lovable. Both our boy and girl do a very good job acting. Thematically so much in common with Pretty Poison, or so you’d think, but it’s really so, so different..
—Intacto
Bizarre film. I guess it’s in the suspense category, as it’s a nail-biter. Unique.
CRAFT: Good cinematography, good selling you a world where… the rules are just a little different…
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—Freaky Friday (original)
Yeah, yeah, a Disney farce. But Barbara Harris and Jodie Foster are great in this film!
CRAFT: The best thing craft-wise is the acting. You forget that these two actresses’ characters have not really swapped minds. That’s hard! And they both really commit to it– although Jodie Foster was so emotionally mature at that age, I think Barbara Harris has the harder job.
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—Grace of My Heart
John Turturro and Illeana Douglas make a flawed but interesting film into something great. They’re both incredible.
CRAFT: It’s good writing, and good acting! Probably especially on Illeana Douglas’ part.
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—Love at First Bite
Slight, silly, but truly funny vampire farce.
CRAFT: Yeah it’s very silly, but it’s still kind of romantic and touching! The sillier it is, the harder it is to make it also romantic and touching, but they pull it off (enough)!
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—Victor/Victoria
Robert Preston! He brings up the quality of anything he’s in.
CRAFT: Look at Robert Preston act! Okay, maybe he’s not acting, exactly. That’s just kind of what Robert Preston seems to really be like. But look at Alex Karras acting, as the bodyguard! He’s doing the most acting, I think, and he does a really good job of it.
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—Pleasantville
Lovely liberal values! Great film. Hard to stop watching.
CRAFT: The pacing is good (though it’s easy to stop watching in the short time before Don Knotts shows up at the house). But Tobey McGuire does a good job, and Joan Allen does a very nice job as the mom.
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—To Wong Foo: Thanks For Everything, Julie Newmar
I can’t help it. I like this film. I can’t explain why, just that I like the characters, in spite of myself.
CRAFT: Talk about writing that gives you a lot of what you want. The shining(est) star, though, I think, has just got to be Patrick Swayze. Man, he’s good.
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—What’s Love Got to Do with It?
One of the all time great bio-pics.
CRAFT: Wow, look at her act. That’s acting. Look at her. Seldom in the history of films has someone so yelled at the screen when a woman is finally pushed to fight back: “YEAH GET ‘IM, GET ‘IM, GET ‘IM AGAIN! GET ‘IM, GIRL!”
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—What’s Up Doc?
On an objective level, this film is probably just failed neo-screwball comedy, but it was the first one I ever saw and I laughed a lot. If I hadn’t seen it, I probably wouldn’t have gotten into classic screwball comedies. Besides, I still watch it when it’s on TV.
CRAFT: Look at that writing! Look at the speed! This is another movie where trying to watch it at 1.5 would be too fast, and I don’t feel that way about most movies. And man, say what you will about him, but O’Neal has a very hard job of playing this straight man as stone-faced, and he does it very well…
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—3:10 To Yuma (original)
This film is perfect and something a little different: a film noir Western with a villain you like as much (if not more) than the hero, in spite of his evil ways. Basically, it’s a psychological showdown between lawful good and lawful evil with a nice “will there be a shoot out or not” climatic scene. Great stuff.
CRAFT: The acting! The writing! It’s subtle! It’s powerful! Both the acting and the writing, I mean!
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—The Brady Bunch Movie
—The Wedding Singer
Sure, neither of these films are likely to win any awards, but they’re both funny, sweet little pieces of pop culture that make me smile every time I see them. After all, this is a favorite movie list, not a best-films-I’ve-ever-seen list.
CRAFT: Okay first, it’s bizarre that Carol Brady turns out to be a role that Shelley Winters was born to play, but here we are. Same goes for Mr. Brady and Marcia’s actress. But also, the writing of both movies! And finally, wow, I find Drew Barrymore lovable, but she manages to be extra-lovable in this. It’s romantic! It encourages me to feel things, instead of trying to manipulate me into feeling what the movie wants me to feel! And the weird-period-piece elements of each film just… somehow never get tired?! Amazing!
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Barb, asking about the three-part list you have just read: “…What’s on that old list, anyway?”
Park: (I take a deep breath and read every title really fast)
Barb: “…Wow, that was 2007. Half those things would be replaced by other things now.”
Park: “Wanna make a new list?”
Barb: “Ugh, I don’t have the energy. Maybe someday… I mean… there’s no giallo films! No Mexican horror! No Let The Right One In! No Trollhunter!”
Park: “You change a lot every year. You practically become a new person all the time.”
Barb: “Well I guess so!“
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Okay, that’s it for now! Come back someday for Barb’s new-and-improved updated list!
