I recently stumbled across a comic that was published back in the 90s, published by the then early Image Comics when famous comic artist Jim Lee was still working under it. This series surprised me quite a lot, and it has been incredibly different to anything else I've read throughout my recent dive into the realm of comics. It had that blatant 90s appeal to it, the emphasis on figure in the female characters, the fun side of fantasy worlds that had barely been explored through the growth of entertainment media. Though I was surprised to discover about halfway through the comic that its creator had effectively abandoned the series despite Image Comics continuing to support its creation. The reason being that its creator decided to simply leave the world of comics and take up a career in video game development. Despite its popularity, Battle Chasers became a comic that never saw a conclusion. A comic that constantly ran into development problems as even in its infancy its creator struggled to get volumes out at a reasonable pace. Months between volumes releasing soon became years, so many years that nothing came out for twenty years. Until, I guess, its creator decided they had their own IP they could yet again milk by Kickstarting a videogame of the franchise and slapping together two new volumes that released in 2023. Image yet again supporting the release.

I have been exploring a lot lately with the changes in the weather, and having a ton of fun with it as the sun finally came out and the views become even more spectacular with that light. Alongside the building of a portfolio regarding the video content side of things, I have been shooting pretty much everything I can come across and trying to frame it in any creative manner I can. Tbilisi's skyline is changing quite rapidly, and that's coming with the development of new high rises to push more investment and property speculation into the city, mostly to ensure all growth doesn't just unfold within Batumi, it's more appealing and tropical city with booming resorts. Most of the skyline of Tbilisi is Soviet era, some really beautiful buildings that stand tall and proud in various shapes and styles. Some of which are more rounded, others are more rectangular and with some more of the stereotypical "commie bloc" style. I've been living in one of those latter ones for the past ten months now. An odd experience! Though despite the newer styles appearing and the older Soviet styles, there does seem to be something new to capture and appreciate at almost every corner of the city. Most of my focus has been around the Saburtalo area. 

I've still been reading through a few comics despite not posting about them as much lately. Mostly because my time has been spent running around outside and enjoying the little bit of spring that hit Tbilisi over the past week. The comic reading being something I've continued to do over the evenings once the tiredness hits but it's not quite time to sleep. I've read through quite a few different things that I've thoroughly enjoyed, somewhat getting ahead of myself and reading new stories while not finishing old ones. I read through the Doom 2024 one-shot in its entirety, and then finished Books of Doom, to then pick up Phoenix yet again where I left it off at the first volume. I then finished up with some new reading of the 80s with Battle Chasers. A whole library of comics to get writing about in the upcoming weeks, but Books of Doom was something I was already heavily invested in, something that really took me by surprise. I mentioned in previous reviews that the art style wasn't quite my thing, but this was the origin story of a supervillain, and I found that incredibly captivating. Rarely do we see the true backstory of a villain, one that brings us to sympathy over a character until they're reaching the point of no return. And that's what this story is. It's one that pulls us along for the ride and really creates a monster in the process.

This isn't the first time I've been to Lake Lisi. I first went there last summer, and I experienced days of intense sunlight, but also the opposite with some incredibly threatening storms. Cracks of thunder and flashes of lightning above my head. The only time I didn't spend there was during days of intense winds. And Tbilisi is slowly heading into a strange period of weather from here on, after a few days of beautiful sunny days almost reaching up to the 30s, it's scheduled to rain and perhaps snow. The first of that is appearing in the form of incredibly strong gusts that appear out of nowhere despite that intensity of the sun remaining for now. Since it's Saturday, another trip to Lake Lisi felt natural. This area has quite a bit of life to it, and was incredibly busy this time around. Massively dense around the beach area, with so many little stalls for food and drinks, huge lines appearing for them all. Though of course a few cafes and restaurants in the area. This post isn't about that side of things though, yet again it's a drone focused post where I flew the drone a brief amount to capture some of the scenery despite the strong winds. And for once: my drone held up quite nicely despite the strength!

Yesterday I wrote about a little bit of exploration through the old streets of Tbilisi's "Old Tbilisi' district. It's one that is quite empty but also incredibly peaceful and beautiful to walk around. Tbilisi is a chaotic city for the most part, the roads are a loud nightmare and you need a car to really go anywhere. But Old Tbilisi's narrow and hilly streets keep it mostly quiet. An area that isn't the most fun to walk around during the day when the sun is pushing down near or above 30 Celsius. These streets are mostly where much of the tourism in Tbilisi happens though, where you'll find out of breath people of all nationalities and ages as they walk up and down the Mtatsminda mountainside to either access the park at the top, or reach the nearby Mother Georgia statue of the Soviet era. Yesterday I spent some time with Mother Georgia, shooting that area. Old Tbilisi is quite big, after all. And some of these photographs do show it. Mount Mtatsminda is probably the area of Old Tbilisi I most enjoy, and some of that is due to the fact that it's where I stayed when I first arrived in Tbilisi almost a year ago. Right beneath the Pantheon that sits halfway up. The street being a popular destination due to the views.

It's finally spring here in Georgia and that sun seemingly came out of nowhere. What went from dealing with poor infrastructure and an annoying landlady a few weeks ago when it was negative (Celsius) and snowing outside quickly became British summer as I know it. Now pushing closer to 30 degrees with each passing day. It feels so good to feel the warmth of the sun on me again, so good to not have to wear as many layers as possible just to stay somewhat warm. And even more fun and motivating knowing I can run outside all day and shoot all kinds of things under beautiful lighting conditions. Though this isn't the easiest thing to do when it's so incredibly bright outside and my drone doesn't have any aperture features. I have a bit more interest in flying the drone lately rather than photographing from the street level, but I think that's because tourism season is picking up slowly with the streets getting more and more crowded. I'm also seeing this as more a business opportunity as I can shoot all kinds of video for potential clients around the world as that tourism season slowly returns.