Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

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Updated: Guide to The Sandman Universe

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Gearing up for this week’s debut of Netflix’s adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman? I’ve updated my Definitive Guide to The Sandman Universe with all of the newest collected formats of Gaiman’s landmark 75-issue series, plus its continuation in the 2018 Sandman Universe!

If you’re looking to pick up the entire original run of Sandman for a binge-read after your binge-watch, you currently have five different physical format choices – all summarized below! For full collection information for each book and plenty of additional information, see the full guide. [Read more…] about Updated: Guide to The Sandman Universe

D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: ZineQuest 2022, Cute Creatures Compendium, US National Park maps, & more!

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Image by ScalyDragon from Pixabay

It’s time to roll a saving throw against Kickstarting, because I’m back with another weekly review of Dungeons & Dragons and 5e-Compatible projects on Kickstarter – including Kickstarter’s ZineQuest 2022!

There have been twenty-four 5e-Compatible projects launched in the past week, which is double the pace of any weeks I’ve covered in the past month! That’s because we’re in the middle of ZineQuest 2022 – a special Kickstarter-sponsored initiative to encourage creators to create small-scale, zine-sized RPG campaigns.

Just taking a peek at all of these Kickstarter campaigns took a while! From those two dozen projects, I’ve picked nine to cover in this post that tickle my fancy the most or fit my digital-first campaign the best – several of which are part of ZineQuest.

Here are the other 15 projects launched since my last post:

For projects with a scope that extends beyond being a single adventure or specific topic like “wands”, I review them based on the 9-point criteria I established in “What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?”

Want to catch up on other currently-running campaigns? Here are all of the other XX campaigns currently-running on Kickstarter, all of which I’ve covered in depth on past posts in this series.

Do you have an upcoming 5e-Compatible Kickstarter project? I’d be happy to check out your sample pages, give you comments on your planned campaign page, or highlight your project in a future post. Just leave me a comment below or reach out to me @CrushingComics on Twitter. [Read more…] about D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: ZineQuest 2022, Cute Creatures Compendium, US National Park maps, & more!

RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2, Episode 1 – Grand Opening: Review & Power Ranking

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Kia ora and welcome to my review and power rankings for the first episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 – “Grand Opening” – featuring drag queens from Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand!

Drag Race almost always starts out with a look challenge on the first episode. Sometimes that involves a minor “ball” challenge of showing multiple looks on the runway. Other times, as in this episode, it involves a design challenge with a theme and/or using unconventional materials.

This design challenge theme let everyone down – both queens and viewers. The Down Under queens were supposedly offered some native bush of Aotearoa and Australia, but it looks like they only scored a minor assortment of leaves. And… recyclable materials? Including bike tires and a used mattress?

Sure, those things can be recycled, but that’s not the first pile of stuff I think of when I hear “sustainability.” I’d expect much more paper and plastic.

Altogether, the theme didn’t feel especially green in a natural way or green in a sustainable way. This stuff was uncommonly difficult to work with, even for an unconventional materials challenge. Also, by telling the queens the theme was nature and then throwing in the recyclable trash as an afterthought, it felt to me like they were being discouraged to use it for the majority of their looks lest they get a “this really isn’t the theme” comment on the runway.

That’s the show’s prerogative, but for a version of the franchise that might’ve had the most-hated first season of all time I’d think production would be keen to show all of queens in the best possible light for this Season 2 debut. Even the best of their outfits were a bit of a sad trombone compared to most unconventional materials challenges, save for a particular standout.

At least the mini-challenge photo-shoot felt a little more culturally relevant. Sausage Sizzles are enough of a Kiwi staple that even a ovo-lacto-pescatarian shut-in like me has been to a few. They’re the standard fundraiser fodder in New Zealand – effectively, the Kiwi equivalent of selling Girl Scout Cookies or having a bake sale. You run into them at school events, community fundraisers, and even sometimes randomly outside of a grocery store.

And, yes, they sometimes really do just hand over a sausage wrapped in a piece of white bread. The mini-challenge worked because it was something commonly understood by the queens and Ru didn’t need too much specific cultural humor to make and appreciate sausage jokes.

(She missed a The Warehouse joke on the runway – I’m surprised the editors let the free advertising slip through!)

If you want to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race Down Under Season 2 outside of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the home country of a franchise you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see that content.)

My initial Power Ranking is completely backwards from my pre-season ranking. Bottoms are at the the top and tops are at the bottom! That includes some controversial choices – like listing a pair of bottom queens above a pair of safe ones. HOW COULD I? You’ll have to read on to see if agree on my thoughts on the power of the edit to say things on RuPaul’s behalf.

Readers, start your engines… and may the best (antipodean) drag queen win! Leave me a comment below if you’d rank the queens differently than I did – I’d love to know your thoughts.

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RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Every All-Winners Lip Sync Ranked!

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We now have a Queen of Queens! RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 came to a close with a decidedly anti-climactic lip sync tournament that crowned my top power-ranked queen. She shall reign supreme over the entirety of RuPaul’s empire of English language franchises!

Since there are no more queens to rank, for this special edition I’m going to rank every one of the 17 lip syncs of the season – including the six lip syncs from this week’s final dual tournaments.

Over the past six seasons of All Stars, Drag Race has reversed its existing lip sync formula from regular seasons. Instead of seeing the queens at risk for elimination lip sync for their lives, we see the top queens of the week lip sync for their legacy.

This has yielded many remarkable lip syncs, but also a number of unremarkable flops. That’s down to two factors that make an All Stars lip sync very different from a regular season one.

First, the obvious: survival isn’t on the line in an All Stars lip sync. Instead, it’s a victory lap. A queen is typically awarded with $10,000 and the chance to chop a competitor (or, this season, to block them).

That’s not a do-or-die situation, so it produces different results. Even though everyone loves a fresh 10k, many queens are ambivalent or outright opposed to the doing the chopping. That seems to be especially true after they get their first taste of it (unless their name is Alaska or Shangela).

Plus, if a queen cuts a fan favorite, they could easily lose more than 10k in their next few years of booking fees due fans who now view them as a villain. And, we’ve seen that some queens don’t prep as hard after a victory as they do out of fear. Whether it’s being shaky on the words or not having as many tricks planned, several All Stars lip syncs have been somewhat… approximate.

The second reason All Stars lip syncs are different is the nature of repeated lip syncs.

In a typical season, a potential season winner can get away with lip syncing for their lives once – maybe twice – before their chances of winning the crown are greatly diminished. In fact, on the RuPaul-hosted franchises, as of this writing we’ve only had one winner who lip synced for their life multiple times: Symone.

(I don’t count Willow as a two-timer, since she won in her first round of the Season 14 lip sync tournament which was compulsory for all but one cast member and wasn’t truly at risk for elimination until her sem-final lip sync with Angeria.)

That means that queens on a regular season are motivated to give it all they’ve got in every lip sync – not only to survive, but because if they truly plan on winning the show they won’t need to save any tricks for a second lip sync!

However, on All Stars, queens actually do plan to lip sync multiple times. Of seven All Stars winners in the “Legacy” format, all but one (Kylie Sonique Love) has won at least two challenges. That means All-Stars have further incentive to not go all-out in every lip sync, especially early in the season. They might want to save something for later – or, at least, they’re not going to force every trick they know into an ill-fitting song.

It also means there’s an amount of lip sync fatigue that sets in when someone wins three or more times, as they often do on “winner-vs-winner” legacy lip sync seasons like All Stars 2-4 & 7, as opposed to “Lip Sync Assassin” seasons like All Stars 5-6. In fact, I suspect the Assassin twist was added after Season 4 partly to reduce repeats and bring more fire to the winner in each fight.

Both of those problems were at play on the All Stars Season 7 lip syncs, but if there was an episode for them to go out the window it was this one – where everything was on the line.

That means all six of these lip syncs ought to be the best of the season, right?

…right?

Readers, start your engines. And, may the best lip syncers win! If you disagree with my ranking, comment below with your best and worst of the season. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 7 – Every All-Winners Lip Sync Ranked!

Drag Race France Season 1 Episode 6 – Un Parfum de Drag: Review & Power Ranking

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Bonjour bonjour bonjour, mes chers lecteurs! Welcome to my review and power rankings of the sixth episode of Drag Race France Season 1 – Un Parfum de Drag, which revisits one of the all-time classic Drag Race branding challenges from Season 5.

(Now that All Stars Season 7 has concluded, Drag Race France will have the Saturday spot for its final three weeks to give me time to watch Drag Race Down Under! I’ll be back with my first Down Under post tomorrow, plus a special wrap-up for All Stars.)

Drag Race has many standard challenge formats that are guaranteed to show up in each season. This consistency allows queens to play a meta-game of expectations within the competition, where they are biding their time (or wracked with terror) about an upcoming Ball challenge or Snatch Game.

The remaining five queens were right to point this out at the top of the episode. They’d already been through a ball, acting, singing, and Snatch Game – all core Drag Race Challenges.

The one guaranteed challenge even on non-English season they had yet to face was personal branding, but it’s the challenge that takes the most varied forms.We’ve seen queens do everything from peddling their own autobiographies, to inventing their own flagship merch, to our recent All-Winners cast making up a TikTok dance.

Drag Race France decided to reference perhaps the best-remembered of all of the dozens of Drag Race branding challenges, Season 5‘s “Scent of a Drag Queen.” That was the challenge that spawned iconic ads for Coco Montrese’s nonsensical “Ru Animale,” Detox’s seductive “Heroine,” Roxxxy Andrews’ longstanding personal brand of “Thick & Juicy,” Alyssa Edward’s oft-referenced “Alyssa’s Secret,” Jinkx Monson’s Drag Race institution “Delusion,” and Alaska’s “Red” – which birthed her single “Your Make-Up Is Terrible” and nine years later inspired the name of her 2022 album!

Whew. Seriously, if you’ve never watched it, it’s one of the most memorable and meme-able episodes of all time.

This challenge was proof that we’ve wound up with the correct final five queens, because I can’t imagine any of the eliminated contestants creating such solid work when left to their own devices. All five artists succeeded at making commercials that were proficient and altogether ridiculous.

Even amongst their successes, the challenge showed the clear divide between the queens who understand the power of their brands versus the ones who are simply game to make a silly spoof.

That resulted in one of the most emotionally powerful lip syncs across all of the many Drag Race franchises over the past 14 years. This is ART, y’all. Both queens explored what it means to have regrets and to strip yourself not just of your clothes but down to your very soul. They showed us how you effectively de-drag in a lip sync without it being a sign of desperation. They showed us how ti interact with the other queen in a lip sync with consent and collaboration.

Wow. Nicky cried off an eyelash! If you love Raven and Jujubee doing “Dancing On My Own,” this is a must-watch.

Oh, and there were puppets!

If you want to watch Drag Race France you can sign up for WowPresentsPlus to watch the many worldwide Drag Race franchises for $4.99 a month or $50 a year. (Note that if you’re in the US you will need to use a VPN to “visit” another country to see the US Franchise.)

Now it’s time to rank our four remaining queens, analyze their commercials, and applaud their runways! Who is currently on the top of our well-matched Top 3? It’s not the same as last week’s Episode 5 power rankings…

Lecteurs, start your engines. Et, que la meilleure Drag Queen gagne!

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