This is a video me and a friend made in September, as a joke concerning the release of "Mists of Pandaria". We had hoped that people would approach us and ask whether my friend had a quest for them, but instead people reacted in a typically Finnish way and stayed silent and boring. Only children, foreigners and drunks made any communication. We realized that we did have video material with a lot of potential, except in a different way than we had planned. So we decided to focus on his loneliness instead.

In Finland it's mandatory for all men to be either conscripts in the military or have an alternative civilian service (while unfairly it is completely voluntary for women). I did my military service back in 2006, at the Swedish-speaking brigade in Dragsvik, and during that time-period I got myself a gig as a cartoonist on the weekly info-pamphlet, where they publish info concerning the routines and holidays of the conscripts. This gig resulted in a huge amount of cartoons dealing with daily life in the military. I will put here at least some of my drawings, complete with commentaries to explain the many inside-jokes.

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Over the years I have often found myself reacting negatively to works of fiction which have been hyped as "the best thing evarrr", multiple times before I've taken a closer look. It reaches a point where you can start resenting a movie or a book without having seen it, maybe at worst deciding not to see it at all. On principle I try not to actively avoid something and I won't talk poorly about it without a good reason, so I try to to stay open-minded and see if I can ignore the millions of fans frothing at the mouth and enjoy something on its own merits. Sometimes I'm positively surprised and do become a fan myself, as happened with the Harry Potter-series. I had heard so much about the books and the first few movies that I was sick of hearing about it, but when I got the first two books for my birthday I felt obligated to at least glance at them. I was immediately hooked and read through both books in a few days, and remained a fan until I became too old to enjoy the series anymore for its own worth. (Realizing how ridiculous it looked that all the magic was done by waving tiny little sticks didn't help either.) Anyhow, that was a positive example of when the hype makes me initially hesitant, but the work itself manages to win me over. It doesn't happen nearly as often as I'd like and there are three instances in particular when the hype has reached such an annoying level that I check something out just to shut people up.

"300", based on Frank Miller's graphic novel was touted by both the media and many of my friend as a testosterone-laden action extravaganza and the "manliest movie you will ever see!!", but when I finally got around to seeing it I found it rather wimpy instead. I can't stand Zach Snyder's style of film-making, with the ugly colour-saturation, the stupid jumping between slow-mo and fast-mo, and CGI up the wazoo. It was a really tedious movie and I found the action overly choreographed and boring. But 300 didn't lose my interest simply because it was boring, but because it reminded me of everything I dislike with action-flicks of the 2000's. When I think of entertaining ridiculously testosterone-laden, ultra-manly movies, I go for the action-movies of the 1980's. "Commando" with Arnold Schwarzenegger is to me at least the finest movie of the genre, because it is constantly on the verge of being a parody of itself. Overall, 300 tried to be the ultimate tough and manly action-movie, but the end result was so lackluster that I just found it having the opposite effect.

I didn't really care for the build-up for "The Avengers". I had very much enjoyed the first "Iron Man", but then the sequel and each of the other Marvel-movies after that was mainly a glorified prequel to "The Avengers", with "Thor" as the worst offender. I was legitimately worried that "Captain America" (the only movie I was truly hyped for) would similarly be the same, or even worse be too modernized from its roots in the 40's. But to my great joy it turned out to be a great movie on its own, reminiscent of old-timey pulp adventure. Still, when it came to "The Avengers" I refused to see it in theatres, even though I had greatly enjoyed "Captain America". I had disliked all the other Marvel-movies leading up to it, and I am forever the dissenter when people claim Joss Whedon to be a "god amongst geeks", because beyond "Firefly" I really do not like his work. But the biggest reason I refused to see the movie was how almost everyone I know were telling me that I must see it. No, I still wouldn't budge. I did eventually end up seeing "The Avengers", and I thought it was a moderately fun romp worthy of a bowl of popcorn, but nothing more.

Then finally we have "Game of Thrones". I have not read any of George R. R. Martins books (and now I most definitely will not), so I wasn't a fan when the show arrived with so much fanfare. Because it was going to air on HBO I had a strong feeling that it would be a show that I would not really enjoy watching, as HBO tends to amp up gory violence and the sex scenes more than I'm comfortable with watching on a weekly basis. I did watch the online preview of the first episode, but I found it to not really be in my taste so I ignored the show. Over the next month or so the internet was flooded with references and memes, and people wouldn't leave me alone about the show, more or less demanding that I watch it. "You like fantasy, don't you? You've seen Game of Thrones, right? You love Game of Thrones, right?" and so on. I started watching the first season mainly to shut people up, but also thinking that maybe I might actually enjoy it? Nope. Unfortunately I found "Game of Thrones" to be unpleasant, depressing and mostly boring, so I quit after forcing myself through six episodes. I can see the charm, I can see why people would like the show, but it really is not my thing. But there wouldn't be a problem if people had just let me ignore the damn show and stopped pestering me about it. Apparently I'm the one person on the planet who doesn't appreciate the show, as when I was (constantly) asked about how much do I love it, people tended to react to my response as if I've just admitted to being a necrophiliac or worse. Then people usually tried to evaluate my psyche and understand what was wrong with me if I didn't enjoy the masterpiece. All I can say is that I don't enjoy the story, for the same reason I find "Berserk" to be too excessive for me to enjoy. But I am not claiming it's a bad show, because what little I managed to see through had generally good acting, plus some excellent sets and props. I just don't respond well to everybody going on about it constantly and even trying to make me doubt my own opinion about it.

I absolutely love steampunk! I think it has a lot to do with my appreciation for aesthetics of the 19th century, particularly how ornate the machinery could be compared to the sleekness in modern times. I like to see anachronistic advanced technology with overly elaborate details, such as dyed and gilded metals, and a combination of polished wood and brass, as well as big cogwheels, all typical of industrial machinery and steamships of the time-period. Then I also like the clothes worn in old times, which gives steampunk an additional level of charm. There is also something inherently cool with seeing zeppelins and steam-powered machines in a Western, or a gunslinger wielding way-too advanced guns.

The genre has so much potential for coolness, that I find it very sad how unappreciated it has been in Hollywood. There have been very few steampunk-themed films and even fewer that have been any good. "Wild Wild West" was a horrendously bad movie, but it did have such gorgeous art direction that I find myself unable to forget it and leave it behind. Same goes for LXG, which could have been a good movie if they had handled the story much better. I truly hope that the genre can get a boost at some point in movies, because of the potential I already mentioned. While waiting, I can at least watch my collection of "The Adventures of Brisco County Jr", the best steampunk-Western so far. ^^

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Some time ago, on a forum I often visit, one of the posters asked a question about fantasy-movies from childhood. Specifically which fantasy-movies later on influenced our approach to RPGs, such as D&D. I haven't played that many fantasy-themed RPGs myself, but there are several films and tv-shows that made me like the genre already as a child and why I still have a fondness for it.

When I was a small child many of Disney's older movies were released on VHS, so I became acquainted with knights, dragons and other medieval-type fairy-tale elements through these. Though at that age I couldn't really appreciate the romance between Sleeping Beauty and Prince what's-his-face, so I was rooting for Maleficent and her goons. Especially when she transforms into a dragon ❤, which to this day defines for me what a dragon must look like to be counted as a proper dragon. I remember when I first saw Ralph Bakshi's half-animated take on Lord of the Rings. It was shown on TV many times during my childhood and I might have been 4 or 5 years old when I saw it the first time. This movie had a huge part in how I pictured Middle Earth when I later read the books.

There aren't that many live-action fantasy movies I saw as a child, and most of the classics (such as "Princess Bride", "Conan the Barbarian" etc) I didn't see until I was an adult. I didn't see Willow until my late teens and I checked both "Highlander" and "Beastmaster" only after I had heard Spoony praise them. Thank you, Spoony One, for directing me to the story of Connor MacLeod. It is now one of my absolute favourite movies.

What most inspired me during my childhood to later on start reading fantasy-novels and otherwise enjoy the genre were various TV-shows. The Smurfs and The Gummi Bears don't exactly scream "epic fantasy", but they had certain elements that made fantasy appealing to me. Monsters, such as Igthorn's army of ogres (which I always wished had been more fearsome) and the various sorcerers seen in Smurfs, particularly Gargamel's hardcore godfather Balthazar, whose castle was guarded by a pet dragon called the "moat monster". The unintentionally homo-erotic and time-wise stupid, but always awesome He-Man was only available on VHS when I was little, but it made me take a liking to Conan in my late teens. The first season of the Ewoks cartoon was very fascinating to me, because it was unlike anything else I had seen by the time I was 7 years old. I absolutely love many of the creature designs seen in the show and they still inspire me when drawing. The surprisingly sophisticated narrative of the show functioned as a middle-ground when going from run-of-the-mill fairy-tales with knights and princesses, to my first attempt at 8 years of age to read the Lord of the Rings (the infamous Swedish translation that Tolkien himself dismissed). Sadly, the second season of Ewoks turned to utter crap, when they dumbed down and kiddy-fied the show too much.

Computer games are another thing that had a strong effect on me and my relationship with fantasy, the most important one being Warcraft II. I can't stress how much I still love that game and how much Blizzard's early material influences me to this day. Although Warcraft II was my "first love", two other favourites of my childhood/teenage years are "Heroes of Might and Magic III" and "Icewind Dale". By the time I was 11 or 12 I had played Warcraft II to death and was initiated to actually reading books about fantasy worlds. Around that same time I discovered "The Death Gate Cycle" by Weis and Hickman, which is another important factor in how I define the fantasy genre. After that there was a long period when I used novels by Eddings and Salvatore to become even more hooked on the genre, before it was time to read some more Tolkien. I also developed a strong liking for the always great Terry Pratchett in my teens and I still hold him in high regard. When the Peter Jackson trilogy was approaching I decided that I had to properly re-read Lord of the Rings, in English, as I had fuzzy memories due to some poorly translated passages. I absolutely love the movies and at the time they had managed to design everything in ways that were better than my own imagination. Since then I have read the trilogy three or four times and I gain more appreciation for the books each time I read them again.

I think that's about it, for how I got hooked on fantasy and why I tend to be obsessed about pop culture in general.