I proudly present the last of our series of guest comics! This was made by David and he went all out, Heinze and myself were both staring at the screen in amazement when we received this. David has put a lot of work into this and be sure to check out his Instagram if you’d like to see more of his work.

Hi, my name is David and I love board games! When Heinze and Rachel wrote to me to let me know I had a guest spot my mind started racing about the possibilities for my page! Do I do a joke? A comment on board gaming habits? A comment on board gaming itself? It was that last one that really excited me, and so I decided to focus on an element of the hobby that I think is one of the most basic appeals, the escapism.

Escapism is incredibly important sometimes, and board gaming is a great way to both socialise and use your imagination, all whilst having fun. Board gaming is incredibly special to me, and that’s why I decided to try to put that across with this page. That, and the reality that the board game addiction can bring… 😀

Combining my two passions of gaming and illustration is something I’ve been undertaking recently, with my first comic style review on my Instagram page @davidslivens, with plans for many more to follow. My ultimate dream is to illustrate a board game, especially one that I design myself! If you like what you see here you can follow me on the above Instagram page, as well as @davidslivensdrawsstuff on Facebook!

Thanks so much to Heinze and Rachel for giving me the opportunity to illustrate this week! 

I hope all of you had just as much fun seeing other people’s comics here on Semi Co-op as I did, giving these talented artists and comic creators a stage. So another big thank you for Mariecke, Annika, Jan Jaap and David. My vacation was fun and relaxing, but is now really over – back to work!

It’s time for our third guest comic, done by JJ Sandee! We know Jan Jaap through our local Netrunner community and he used to run his own webcomic. You might also know him from the guest comic about Smallworld he did last year! This comic about the problem of sorting your games based on color – is there any logical system left? JJ came up with a clever solution. 😉

A few words from Jan Jaap himself:

JJ Sandee spends most of his time teaching software engineering at a university of applied science. Before that he spent a lot of time either doing webdevelopment or trying to make a career in drawing comics. These days I mostly draw for fun or when good friends ask. Or spend my time on any of my too many hobbies. About the comic: Board games tend to have color schemes going, but sorting them can be a bit of a mess. You have to put types together but it might end up looking like a weird mess of colors. Especially if you’re a designer this might be a challenge, luckily there are possible solutions…

Next week, we’ll publish the last guest comic of this summer!

And it’s time for guest comic number two, by Annika Heller! Annika was the perfect candidate for doing a guest comic for us, since, besides being a talented illustrator, she also works at a board game cafe! And that surely gives her enough memorable experiences for comics and I love the comic she made!

A few words from Annika herself:

Hi, my name is Annika Heller and I’m an illustrator and designer from Hamburg. When I’m not drawing I’m working at Würfel and Zucker – Germanys biggest board game café – to get in contact with real people and especially board game enthusiasts! I also really like comics (even if I haven’t produced many myself) so Semi Co-op combines two of my favourite hobbies!  I love learning new games and if they are about communication, getting to know people in a unique way and are beautifully illustrated, chances are high I’m a fan.

Of course my work at a board game café inspired the comic. It shows a very common situation: People come in and claim they are pros and high functioning board game fans which gives you as their guide the chance to explain something more advanced, maybe something you recently discovered and love. You get excited and start making a list of games you could recommend in your head. And then they start raving about Monopoly and the disappointment is real.

I’d love to illustrate more board games in the future, so if you’re an author, looking for someone who’s into the topic:
Feel free to contact me via mail (info@annika-heller.de), Twitter (@rotkopfchen), Instagram (@annikaheller_illustration) or my website annika-heller.de, I’d love to hear from you!

Having free time is fun, but somehow it also just flies by way too quickly! We’ve been away from home a lot last week and done a lot of cool things, but not really played that many board games. We might just do that this week! We did, however, find an expansion of Seasons that we’ve been looking for for years! The irony of the matter is that the expansions of Seasons have been reprinted and will hit the stores in a few weeks, but nonetheless, we feel victorious! It has been a ritual of ours to visit board game stores in other cities and look for the Path of Destiny expansion, but it was always sold out. But now we have it, and even an “original” copy, hah! Now we just have to think of a new ritual…