Rob Ketcherside
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ro-ket.bsky.social
Rob Ketcherside
@ro-ket.bsky.social
200 followers 330 following 120 posts
Alternately Scoutmaster, LEGO builder, local Seattle historian, and software engineer.
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ro-ket.bsky.social
Okay we’re at 5 board-games-in-comics! This is Assorted Crisis Events ish 6 with a recurring Clue-like appearance.

This series is great, and this issue is particularly moving. I love the puzzle pieces and the clocks too. Thank you @denizcamp.bsky.social @ericxyz.bsky.social et al~~
The board for a Clue-based game “No Clue!” Instead of rooms, panels of the story rotate around the center. From Assorted Crisis Events issue 6.
November 19, 2025 at 4:32 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I love the series Air by @gwillow.me and MK Perker, and just finished vol 2. I missed these TPBs in 2022 - the floppies predate my return comics.

The complexity of the story telling, as well as cubes and gods, reminds me of Tongues and I recommend it as an aperitif before that tome.
October 30, 2025 at 5:28 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I read Total Recall the book before seeing the film and was disappointed by how much they left out. Later I read We Can Remember It for You Wholesale and was disappointed by how much both the film and the book of the film needlessly added to a fantastic short story.

(Pair with Blade Runner above)
September 16, 2025 at 5:42 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Ish 5 of We’re Taking Everyone Down With Us has a nice back and forth during a game of chess. That takes my board-games-in-comics collection to 4 (see previous in retweet thread)

Great work by @ashcanpress.com , Landini, Wordie, and Otsmane-Elhaou . Fun spy/sci fi story, glad I pulled it.
Annalise talks with her newly-reunited mother over a game of chess in the comic book We’re Taking Everything Down With Us. The characters’ faces and words are interspersed with chess pieces on the board.
September 1, 2025 at 7:56 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Great first issue of Event Horizon by @cjward.bsky.social , @tristansbones.bsky.social et al. They’ve - so far! - successfully navigated the treacherous waters of a prequel to one of my favorite movies.

Keep up the good work~ It’s already different than I imagined.
August 31, 2025 at 5:19 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
The graphic novel Tongues by Anders Nilsen is fabulous. Highly recommend. Art, dialogue, concept, location, story, layout, characters, design: everything is unique, challenging.

I marveled 150, 200 pages and then the story clicked for me. Brilliant. Heavy.
August 27, 2025 at 11:59 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I strongly recommend reading John Muir: To the Heart of Solitude.

CBY has been telling us that this is a great comic.

I just finished it. Gorgeous art, and really captures the differences of America’s forests. Lomig captures the life and ideals of John Muir wonderfully.
August 21, 2025 at 12:03 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Here’s another board game in a comic book~ Benjamin ish 2 by Winters and Leomacs via @oni-press.bsky.social The pieces look like Sorry, and the linearity of the death spiral reminds me of Walk the Plank or Life.

Highly recommend Benjamin btw

My board game comic collection now stands at 3!
A two page spread of issue two of the comic book Benjamin (2025). Two dice reveal that a player has rolled a nine. There are 22 numbered spaces on the board, spiraling to a center that says The Man They Forgot to Erase with a huge explosion and KABOOOM! A few squares have pictures and captions of the journey of an author brought back as a clone of himself and used as a terrorist to bomb the UN.
August 1, 2025 at 2:30 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Coincidentally, I randomly walked past the hq of Ishimori Productions in Shinjuku last year. Here’s a photo.

I’ve been a KR fan since college, watching Hawaii subs on VHS at our anime club. Die hard fan since watching Ghost with my son.
Front of an office building. On the right is a Japanese sign saying Ishimori Pro. Display shelves in the window show Kamen Rider and Cyborg 009 merchandise. Between that and the front door is a poster for the current Kamen Rider series, Gabu / “Gulp”.
June 18, 2025 at 2:08 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I loved this new “Manga Lending Library” column by @hecuba.bsky.social in @comicsjournal.bsky.social 311. Happy to find TCJ on my comic shop shelf. New purchase for me.

Kamen Rider itself is out of print already but I got that through B+N. Great! 🪲🤿🏍️
The first pages of Helen Chazan’s new column Manga Lending Library in The Comics Journal 311 by Fantagraphics. The left page is a large single frame of Kamen Rider’s beetle mask. The right is has a smaller page from the manga with KR riding his motorcycle surrounded by article text. The article is titled “Everything You Feel: Shotaro Ishinomori’s Kamen Rider”. A BrickCon bookmark is further in the issue, indicating continued reading. A two page spread from Kamen Rider 50th Anniversary Edition by Seven Seas. Kamen Rider appears in costume for the first time. He’s carrying Professor Midorikawa. He says “… and preserve peace for all mankind! / “I am a champion of justice sent by Mother Nature! / “I am a Kamen Rider!”
June 18, 2025 at 2:03 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I noticed this particular edit in Google Maps has suddenly been getting crazy views. It looks like the optometrist was bought out by or now franchises Menicon Miru, a global contact chain. Maybe they’re paying for views?

So now I’ve edited the name again and it will start from zero~~
Email snippets from Google Maps. “The place you updated has 10,000,000 views. - New name: Utsunomiya Eye Clinic - [edited on] 1/6/23” Interior photos and exterior with sign that translates to “Utsunomiya Eye Clinic”. Photos are from a few years ago. Interior photos and photos of sign that says “Medicon Miru” in English and “Contact lens” in Japanese. Reviews talk about reopening after renovation three months ago.
June 17, 2025 at 2:10 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
The Assorted Crisis Events books are stellar. My LCS is next to my No Kings rallying point, so I emptied my box while I was there.

In ACE 3 @denizcamp.bsky.social asks “What if the AppleTV show Dark Matter dealt with transdimensional immigration issues?”
A house is burning. “But here’s the thing about fire — it spreads.” The text continues the story of a town deciding to burn out a group of refugee immigrant alternate selves. “It turned out Hearth-Two Guy had killed his Hearth-One counterpart and stolen his life.” Three panels from issue 3 of Assorted Crisis Events, an anecdote during one of the events. Cover of Assorted Crisis Events. A couple sit enjoying a picnic while bloodied alternate selves step through a doorway from another dimension.
June 15, 2025 at 1:00 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
There's a fantastic new Seattle Annexation Map that illustrates my mistake. It shows that Google's "South Seattle" is barely defensible. It's on the extreme corner of the city annexed in 1905. I forgot that it went up on Beacon Hill like Georgetown. experience.arcgis.com/experience/1...
Map showing former cities and unincorporated areas that are now part of Seattle, zoomed to part of Beacon Hill and Sodo. A red X is on the border of "Town of South Seattle" and two other areas with labels not visible (Georgetown and Southeast Seattle).
June 14, 2025 at 3:04 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
I was about ready to tut-tut Google Maps for this placement of "South Seattle" right on top of Beacon Hill next to the VA. Over on the left I've put an X where the old South Seattle School was, down in the neighborhood that got trapped in industry. But as you'll see in a sec, I was wrong!
A snippet of Google Maps showing part of Seattle. Interstate 5 runs north to south in the middle of frame. On the left is an industrial area with Costco on the far left, railroad tracks in the bottom left, and a road called "Industrial Way" on the top left. There is a red X drawn over a large UPS distribution center. Over on the right side of the map is a residential area with variously shaped parks in the bottom middle, running left to right in line with Industrial Way, and in the top right. A marker stands out on the VA hospital on the far right. Centered on the right side is a highlighted and circled label for "South Seattle".
June 14, 2025 at 2:59 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Memorial Day weekend Scout service events took me to Evergreen Washelli and Lakeview. This year I found the graves of Seattle’s first Eagle Scout (Aldus Hoopman) at EW and first Japanese American Eagle Scout (Chet Sakura) at Lakeview.
May 27, 2025 at 3:56 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Did some street cleaning today with some coworkers. Been doing it for a year now.
May 9, 2025 at 10:03 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Song of a Blackbird by @vanlieshoutstudio.bsky.social is incredibly beautiful and moving. And, unfortunately, timely. I can’t recommend it highly enough.

It’s why I pick up books after recommendations that I don’t remember. There can be a few duds and then something incredible like this.
April 30, 2025 at 4:06 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Reading through Parker vol 2, there’s this scene with the boss playing Monopoly during a sleepover with his bodyguards. The cards are changed to reflect his backstory.

Any other board games as comic plot devices out there?

(Thanks @jonpaulmaki.com definitely enjoying this!)
Parker’s enemy Bronson plays Monopoly with his bodyguards, bored in his safe house.
March 26, 2025 at 1:36 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
This is what happens when the translator of Cat+Gamer also writes X-Men titles.

Cat claws go “SNIKT”~

Hat tip to you @zackdavisson.com
March 25, 2025 at 1:13 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
If we don’t get a full Finders/Keepers series from @definitelyvita.bsky.social @skyepatridge.bsky.social &co, can we at least get the board game?

Its use as a narrative device to fast forward the comic book plot is really interesting. Maybe we’ll get a card game like Incan Gold in issue 2.
March 16, 2025 at 12:30 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
This scene in Assorted Crisis Events really describes living in America this year. Lucky for Ashley she was walking past a movie production that time…

I think it’s a long runway from writing it until me reading the book, so kudos to @denizcamp.bsky.social @ericxyz.bsky.social &co on prescience
March 15, 2025 at 8:50 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
The Scouts’ adventure took them from the new Ballard field house, over a new, temporary suspension bridge over the nascent Montlake Cut, and to the pre-arboretum Washington Park to find a group of hidden Scouts.

I’ll write this up for my website.
Ballard field house and playground at Ballard Play Field. 1910, newly opened. Suspension bridge over in-progress Montlake Cut. 1910.
March 9, 2025 at 6:16 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Yesterday I met a friend at Ballard Comm Center and walked to the Arboretum, recreating the first Boy Scout hike in Seattle in 1910. I boiled water for lunch at the CC after arriving by bus: two pouches of oshiruko (red bean soup) in thermos; filet of katsuo “for sports”, and kitsune udon. 8 miles.
Pouch of instant red bean soup; sealed filet of katsuo (slipjack tuna); and bowl of instant kitsune udon
March 9, 2025 at 6:11 PM
ro-ket.bsky.social
Walt Woodward is remembered for his editorials in the Bainbridge Review opposing imprisonment of Japanese Americans in 1942.

I stumbled on this early article, for journalism merit badge. In June 1927 Cedar Chips, the Seattle Scouting newsletter. He edited the July issue.
Article profiling Seattle Boy Scout leader Reginald H Parsons, written by Walt Woodward
February 21, 2025 at 3:47 AM
ro-ket.bsky.social
The Power Fantasy was every @phoenixcomics.bsky.social staff Pick of the Week. Me too.

I think it’s fundamentally a study of Spider-Man/Stan Lee’s quote: “With great power there must also come great responsibility.”

Responsibility to whom? Or what?
February 7, 2025 at 3:42 PM