Zombie | Mylenium's Brick Corner

The LEGO Minecraft magazine really is a bit of a sleeper hit with some positive surprises in store for every issue. Of course that’s easy to say with being only on the market for a year and a meager six issues in, but compared to e.g. Hidden Side it feels so much varied and a lot less repetitive. Let’s have a look what the September 2022 issue has on offer.

This one is built around some underwater adventures, which is a subject I always like, given my general love for sea creatures. Even the puffer fish from The Guardian Battle (21180) make an appearance as do of course some of the temple ruins. There’s also a nice brick-built dolphin featured throughout, which would have made for a cool extra. Perhaps they’ll make it happen some day?

The posters are rather generic with a “Wanted!” poster for a skeleton on the front and a scene with the Iron Giant from two issues ago on the back.

The extra is made up of two minifigures, another version of Steve and a “Drowned” Zombie and there’s some pieces to build a small boat or float. Zombies are always nice to have should you decide to build your own swamp or temple scene or buy those sets and want to add some more action. The boat is done well enough, but overall I think the dolphin really would have been the better option here.

While it’s not a particularly surprising issue, this one is solid enough to provide some fun. With the dolphin in place of the boat it would of course have been awesome.

Minecraft is an odd thing of a game. Some love it to death while others like me couldn’t be bothered. In the LEGO universe it has its own weird place, given how many compare the game to the actual building with bricks. I think that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but there can be no denying that there is a certain charm in seeing parts of that virtual world turned into sets. since that seems to be reasonably successful, too, it really isn’t much of a surprise that we’re getting a matching comic magazine, too. So let’s see what the first issue offers.

There was some “through the grapevine” info leaked on this being in the pipeline last October and I really couldn’t wait to check it out. In particular I was wondering how the comics would turn out, as generally this does not lend itself particularly well to that format in my opinion. It’s one of those cases where the limited design options any block-based world may offer kinda will get in the way. Interestingly, my mind having been conditioned by video games in the 1990s I could see a lot of it working as an isometric perspective thing and so far the comics seem to confirm that. At least to me it looks nice when it’s drawn like those little scenes e.g. in role playing games, where the camera is hovering above and viewing the goings-ons at a certain angle from a bit of distance, but once they get too close things start feeling strange. I guess we’ll have to wait how it evolves stylistically.

The story very much is in line with what you’ve come to expect from these magazines – pig runs away, everyone panics, hijinx ensue, pig is saved from peril, everyone is happy. Not really many surprises here, but at least there’s hope we might see something more imaginative one day.

The poster is acceptable, though I still always find myself going *umppphhhh* over plastering everything with fat type. It feels superfluous and ruins the mood. the back side shows a “No Creepers!” sign, but to me that is a lot less attractive than the front one.

The extra is quite comprehensive with two minifigures and the pig. You get Steve and a zombie version of him, which really is a good start, generic as the figures may be in the Minecraft universe.

It’s of course too early to tell where this is headed, but I’m definitely going to keep an eye on this. Even if you have no specific relation to Minecraft, this series has some interesting pieces, quite a few of which have useful prints and that alone could be a reason to pick up the mag every once in a while.