Books

No, Marvel, Diversity Isn’t Killing Your Sales – Bad Writing Is

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Mockingbird5 Oh, boy, is it time to talk about THAT topic now? Whee, Ryan Lit is going to become Person #514392 to write a blog post about Marvel’s diversity issues! It’s content like this that makes you guys want to keep coming back to my blog, isn’t it? Seriously though, with Marvel’s soft reboot set to launch after “Secret Empire”, which is likely going to see the cancellation of several series and the retooling of the entire way the company’s comic division functions, there’s really no better time to talk about this so that I can throw my own two cents into this overflowing wishing well. For the two of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, for the last few years Marvel Comics have decided to get… Uncomfortably political. It started off in small ways, ways that I honestly wouldn’t even classify as “political” if they’re being looked at out of context – dark-skinned Spider-Man, Muslim Pakistani-American Ms. Marvel, jabs at Donald Trump, not really anything to get mad at, quite the opposite. But when Marvel saw that these things sold, suddenly every comic needed to have SOME sort of agenda to it, even when it made no sense. Thor (replaced by a woman now, who is also called Thor) has joined Captain Marvel in beating up people who disagree with feminism, Bor (Thor’s grandfather) has unsolicited opinions on Israel and is apparently part of the Men’s Rights Activists, Mockingbird is complaining about a patriarchal conspiracy to keep women out of SHIELD, and every single character you know and love is dead or evil, replaced by a younger, colored counterpart.

It, uh… Obviously didn’t work out. In the entirety of 2016, Marvel only had 33 comic books in the top 100 best-selling comics of the year, which sounds pretty good until you realize that their direct competitor, DC, had almost double that number, at 63. This disparity is completely inexcusable, especially considering the fact that while DC has been seriously struggling in other media (the last DC movie we got that was truly good was 2008’s “The Dark Knight”), Marvel has been knocking it out of the park again and again, with the biggest movie franchise of all time bearing their name. The Avengers, Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Guardians of the Galaxy are each a juggernaut of a franchise, with millions of devoted fans lining up to buy movie tickets on opening night. Each fan of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is a potential comic book reader just waiting to be snatched up, so why has Marvel completely failed to do that? Well, according to David Gabriel, the vice president of sales, it’s because the comics are just too damn diverse. And the thing is that there’s certainly a correlation here – Marvel’s sales did, in fact, start to go down the moment they began pushing for diversity and the alt-left agenda. So on the surface level that statement makes sense, but it’s very important to keep in mind that correlation doesn’t always equal causation. And the fact of the matter is that it’s not diversity that killed Marvel’s sales, it’s how that diversity was implemented.

The thing about us, as human beings, is that we don’t really like having things forced down on us, especially in our escapism/entertainment. When I sit down to read a comic book, the last thing I want to see is a character essentially turning to the ‘camera’ and going on a political tirade which is little more than a soapbox for the writer’s own opinions. Don’t get me wrong, some stories not only benefit from political allegories – they downright require them. If you remove the politics from “Watchmen” or “Maus”, or even early “X-Men”, what’s left? But notice how those stories are merely allegories, or otherwise keep their politics in the background. At no point does Wolverine turn around and say “Hey, bub, you see how people discriminate against mutants? That’s happenin’ to gay folks and black folks and all the others that are different all around. And if ya vote for the Republican party, it’s just gon’ keep on going”. He doesn’t really need to shove his agenda down my throat because I’m smart enough to understand the allegory and draw my own conclusions. Modern comic books don’t have the same level of subtlety. “Allegory” and “metaphor” seem to be just fancy, yet meaningless words to the folks at Marvel. Gone are the days in which Wonder Woman and her island of Amazons represented feminism and female empowerment, now characters like Mockingbird are straight up wearing “Ask me about my feminist agenda” T-shirts. And if you, for one reason or another, dislike feminism and prefer to identify as an egalitarian instead, well, too bad. These books are overtly about feminism and you just have to deal with that.

And then there’s the matter of characters being consistently replaced, which once again calls back to the idea of people disliking things being shoved down their throats. When we got our black Spider-Man and Middle-Eastern Ms. Marvel, nobody particularly cared because the originals were still around. If you kept an open mind, you could give these new characters a shot, but if you didn’t like them you could always just go back to their “traditional” counterparts. But when Wolverine died, he got two replacements, and neither of them is the classic character that people want to read about. Same deal when Tony Stark was placed in a coma – two replacements, but neither of them comes close to scratching that Iron Man itch you might have after watching the movies. Hulk, Thor, Captain America, they’ve all been gone, and none have received a “proper” series since. All we have are their politically correct replacements. Okay, but what if I don’t want to read about Asian Hulk? I’ve got no choice but to wait until Bruce Banner comes back to life… Which is what many people appear to be doing, considering the fact that “Totally Awesome Hulk” has been selling rather poorly.

The fact of the matter is that it’s not diversity killing Marvel, nor is it politics. It’s how these things are implemented. Saying “You’re going to read about feminism and you’re gonna like it, because if you don’t you’re a terrible human being” isn’t exactly going to convince a whole lot of readers to pick up your book, you know. Similarly, as G. Willow Wilson (creator of Ms. Marvel) put it, “launching a legacy character by killing off or humiliating the original character sets the legacy character up for failure.” The lesson that Marvel needs to do isn’t “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t include politics or diverse characters in our books”. It’s “Hey, if we’re going to include politics we should do it in a smart way, and if we’re going to include diverse characters we shouldn’t do it at the expense of our classic, beloved heroes, who are now enjoying a resurgence of popularity because of the movies”. Hopefully the upcoming reboot will address these issues without the company’s stance shifting to the opposite direction. Because let me tell you, if Marvel STOP being political and introducing diverse characters into their stories, you’re going to see an even angrier blog post from me.

Are Comic Books Doomed?

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Child Reading ComicSuperheroes are EVERYWHERE these days, and I do mean that. Captain America, Iron Man, Batman and Superman dominate the box office, The Flash runs across TV screens everywhere, Spider-Man and his web-slinging friends show up on school bags, T-shirts, notepads and lunch boxes (do kids even use lunchboxes these days? I’ve never actually seen one in my life), hell, images of Ms. Marvel were even used to awesomely deface anti-Muslim propaganda on buses. Literally no matter where you turn, you’re bound to run into a superhero sooner or later! These guys and gals are everywhere, our modern mythologies, the heroes that our children look up to and want to be like. It’s no secret that they came from comic books – I mean, the most popular subgenre in cinema right now is literally called “comic book movies”, but when’s the last time you’ve actually seen someone read a comic book? Like, just sit down on a bench in a park somewhere and read a comic book? Hell, when’s the last time you’ve seen someone actually talk about a comic book, outside of dedicated communities? When did you see one of the people you’re following on Twitter post something along the lines of “Holy crap, #TheVision is crazy! Best series this year, you should read it NOW!” That statement is completely true, but it also never happens – people just don’t talk about comic books the way they talk about comic book movies.

And I’m not pulling those facts out of my behind. Statistically speaking, people are just buying less and less comic books every single month. Wanna compare some numbers? Let’s look at last November’s comic book sales (which actually includes a lot of books released in December, because reasons), where the best selling Marvel comic book, the conclusion of “Civil War II”, sold 120,000 copies. That’s not bad, right? At $5, that’s over half a million in profits! Well, there’s a few things to consider here. This final issue of “Civil War II” is the conclusion of a major event (for reference, the conclusion of the previous “Civil War” sold over twice as much), and one sharing a name with one of the most profitable movies of the year. 120,000 copies is an incredibly low number for something that, under normal circumstances, should have easily sold between 250 and 300 thousand. To add insult to injury, the finale of this super special event that changed the Marvel universe forever was completely overshadowed by both issues of “Batman” released in the same period, which are completely ordinary and have no ties to any major events, outside of marginal connections to DC’s overall “Rebith” theme. The further you go back, the bigger the sales numbers rise. Even in the biggest depressions, people have bought a ton of comic books. Except today, despite the overwhelming presence of superheroes in our popular culture, their mecca lies abandoned.

Why is that, and more importantly, what does it mean for the future of comics? Well, to answer the first question, there’s a couple of reasons. One of them is that both companies (especially Marvel) have begun to rely on gimmicks and cheap hooks rather than on complex storytelling with compelling characters and interesting conflict. What if Captain America was evil? What if Iron Man was a black girl? What if Thor was a woman who had cancer? What if the original X-Men time-travelled to the present and stayed? These gimmicks sometimes provide devices for highly compelling stories (the aforementioned Vision solo series is basically built on the gimmick of “What if the Vision had a family?”, and it is amazing), but most of the time, they’re not enough to keep the reader’s interest. Why should I read about the evil Captain America when he’s doing nothing interesting? Why should I care about the black girl Iron Man when I know Tony Stark will be back in the role in time for the next Avengers movie? These gimmicks provide interesting and fun headlines, but more often than not they’re met with groans from the fans. Some of the best comic book runs of all time (Chris Claremont’s “X-Men”, Ed Brubaker’s “Captain America”, Matt Fraction’s “Hawkeye”, etc) didn’t rely on any gimmicks, they just gave us the characters in their natural habitat and let the stories develop on their own. When Jean Grey died in “X-Men”, we were invested in this because we knew this wasn’t just some kind of ploy to replace her with a young girl of color, it was actually a dramatic, earned moment. We had a reason to care, and to keep on reading. Now there’s no point in reading anything anymore – if you like an old character, you can bet that they’re going to be dying or turning evil sooner or later in order to be replaced, and if you like a new character, unless they’re immensely popular (like the aforementioned Kamala Khan), you’ll know in the back of your mind that they’re not here to stay. So why even bother getting invested in anything in the first place?

DC has been going on the right path here with their Rebirth initiative. They openly came out and said “We know what worked and what didn’t in our previous worlds, and we’re bringing the best of the best back and crafting stories that you want to read”. And trust me, it shows! Aside from the fact that not one, but TWO issues of Batman scored the #1 and #2 spots for sales in November, out of the top 25 top selling books for the month, only 8 were Marvel (and one was Star Wars) – everything else was either DC or third party, like Image’s “The Walking Dead”. Sure, DC still has a whole lot to work towards in order to rebuild that good will they lost since the launch of the New 52 back in 2011, but I believe they’re on the right path. As for Marvel… Well, that’s a bit more complicated. As of right now, Brian Michael Bendis, one of the worst writers currently working in comics, appears to be helming the direction the Marvel universe is taking, and that’s not a good sign at all. There will always be some hope, deep in my heart, that Marvel will change their ways and pull through, but if that doesn’t happen while DC continues to improve, expect me to jump ship and start supporting the company that truly deserves it with my money and attention. Hopefully that’s going to delay the inevitable doom of the comic book genre for at least a little while.

Holiday Gift Suggestions For Gamers

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AVS bigAnd once again, the holiday clusterf**k is upon us! With Halloween and Thanksgiving behind us, we’re halfway through this ordeal or torture, but unfortunately we still have Christmas and New Year’s ahead of us (or Hanukah, or whatever it is you celebrate – the occasion doesn’t matter, we all know that holidays are just an excuse to get drunk and get presents), and you know what that means! It’s time to hit your head against the nearest wall trying to wonder exactly what you should purchase for the gamer in your life! It could be a child, a sibling, a boyfriend/girlfriend, a niece/nephew, whatever! Let’s face it – many of us are not gamers, or even if we are, we like certain games and aren’t familiar with every single videogame on the planet. So what should we get the gamers we love? Should we just get them a gift card? Short answer – yes, you absolutely should. Go to GAME, or Gamestop, or whatever your local videogame store is and buy them a £40/$60 gift card so that they can afford to buy one of the many, many releases coming out in a few months, such as “Mass Effect: Andromeda”, “South Park: The Fractured But Whole” and “Persona 5”. Or even better – just give them money so that they can buy whatever they want! There, article over. Moving on, it’s the Top 5 Worst Comic Book Characters From The Silver Age!

Nah, I’m kidding. While a lot of people (especially teenagers) would appreciate money, I can also kind of get that this is a pretty uncreative gift, and many prefer to gift an actual item that can hold some sentimental value to the recipient. Well, fear not, that’s where I come in! Let’s briefly take a closer look at what to buy for individual types of gamers based on their age, preferences or gaming hardware! In addition, I’m also going to be giving you an example of what not to buy in the same category, so that ought to be fun! Anyway, let’s get on with the show!

For PlayStation/Xbox Gamers

Do Buy: A PS+/Xbox Live Gold Membership
Don’t Buy: Any game that just seems interesting because it has a fun cover

Both PlayStation and Xbox (across their iterations) offer a subscription system called PlayStation Plus and Xbox Live Gold, respectively. The subscription is not mandatory, but trust me, it’s a really great idea to have it, since it’s required for online play and also gives you free games every single month, alongside a myriad of other bonuses (for example, PS+ gives you discounts in the store and allows you to upload your save files online so that you can retrieve them in case you accidentally delete them). And trust me – another year of subscription is ALWAYS necessary. Personally, my grandparents always give me a £40 gift card for my local videogame store, and I always, without fail, spend it on a yearly PS+ subscription simply because it’s something that I will always need – think of it as putting oil in your car. It’s the most practical gaming gift you can possibly give! It’s honestly much better than what many people who don’t know a lot about games do, which is walk into a store, ask “Do you have any games for PlayStation?”, purchase the first PlayStation 3 game whose cover they like and then it turns out their grandson or whatever has a PlayStation 4 which can’t play PS3 games, and even if it could the game they chose is just complete garbage, and let’s just say there’s a very good reason why I’ve been getting gift cards from my grandparents lately.

For Younglings

Do Buy: Whatever The Retailer Recommends
Don’t Buy: Anything based on movies or that blatantly panders to children

Okay, the world of children’s entertainment is complicated. Most parents just assume that their kids are dumb and are going to watch whatever you put on TV for them as long as it has funny moving pictures (if you don’t believe me, just check out the myriad of horrible, lazy Disney sequels). It’s like we don’t even care what we put in our children’s brains! I mean, can you imagine if we said that about other stuff? “Pfft, let’s just feed our children cheap half-baked stuff from the dollar store, I mean, they’re only kids!” Yeah, my point is, this is dumb and kids deserve better entertainment, in both their movies and their videogames. Just like there’s a whole slew of terrible animated movies that simply rely on parents buying them to shut up a crying toddler, there’s an even bigger slew of terrible games which aim to do… Well, exactly the same thing. “Barbie’s Horse Adventure”, “Hannah Montana” and “My Baby Girl” are but a few of the titles that are done on the cheap, with the hopes that they’ll be bought by ignorant parents. Don’t be ignorant, guys and gals! So, what do you buy instead? Simple – walk into your local videogame store, talk to the clerk and ask them what game they’d recommend for your child. Trust me, videogame store clerks are typically the biggest nerds you can find, and most of them would be overjoyed to recommend your kid a good game! Do they like cute puppies, but aren’t allowed to have one in the house, for whatever reason? Get them “Nintendogs”! Do they like cartoony action? Get them “Rayman: Legends”! Do they play a lot of “Minecraft” and wish there was an animated series based on it? Get them “Minecraft: Story Mode”! Do they like the Avengers? Get them “Lego Avengers”! Do they like to collect toys? Get them the latest “Skylanders” set, which brings their toys to life on the screen! There’s DOZENS of fantastic games to choose from, so please ask for help if you’re uncertain and by all means never, ever purchase a game just because it’s on the shelf!

For Shooter Fans

Do Buy: Overwatch
Don’t Buy: Anything else

I mean, come on, you guys, this one should be obvious. If your gamer is into shooters, or competitive games at all, buy them “Overwatch” on their system of choice. Right now. The only reason why you shouldn’t buy it is if they already own it. “Overwatch” is the most fun you can have with a competitive game these days, and even I, who generally doesn’t like competitive games at all, still find a whole lot to love in it.

For Retro Games Enthusiasts

Do Buy: AVS
Don’t Buy: NES Classic

Right now, everybody’s going bananas over the “NES Classic” – a tiny machine from Nintendo that costs £50 (supposedly) and plays 30 of your favorite classic NES games such as “Excitebike”, also known as the game where you press right to win, or “Ice Climbers”, also known as the game which is only fun for maybe about 3 minutes, or “Simon’s Quest” and “Zelda II”, also known as the absolute worst in their beloved franchises. Fun stuff. And sure, there’s a couple of great games in there, like “Super Mario Bros. 3”, but a whooooooole lot of classics are just not there – and since the Classic doesn’t have the ability to add new games, you’re stick with the underwhelming selection. Not to mention, the bloody thing is sold out everywhere, so if you want to get one you need to cough up a whole lot more than £50, with the US retailer Walmart asking for $500 (or ~£400) per unit! It’s ridiculous! So if you have a friend who’s just way more into nostalgia than is healthy, or have a child that would like to try the classics, I’ll tell you what you do. You don’t buy a crap console for w*nkers for 8 times what it’s worth. Instead, you go out and you buy an AVS, which is exactly like the NES Classic, except good. Rather than coming with pre-built games, you need to buy cartridges for it, but on the plus side, it reads any and all NES carts you can find (including the grey ones popular in the US and parts of the UK AND the smaller, orange ones popular in Europe, Japan and other parts of the UK), and considering how dirt-cheap NES games are these days, you can definitely get your kid an AVS and a couple of really good games he or she will actually enjoy instead of something filled 30 games you can’t change, most of which are garbage.

Top 5 Best Special Edition Bonus Items In Games

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GogglesI love special editions of games! I really, REALLY do… most of the time. I mean, sure, sometimes they’re just overpriced pieces of junk (no, UbiSoft, I’m most certainly not going to pay $100 for a version of “The Fractured But Whole” which comes with a 6’’ figurine and pretty much nothing else – are you even trying?), but just as often they can be really, really awesome! Whenever I see a special edition of a game I want that has awesome content at an affordable price, I know I must have it! For example, for the same price of $100, the “Rise of the Tomb Raider” special edition comes with a figure, a necklace, a journal AND also the game itself is an artbook instead of a traditional case – how friggin’ cool is that? Needless to say, it’s now in my collection, joined by other special editions that I felt like I must own! Over the years, I’ve collected some pretty sweet items from these editions, and while most are your standard fare of artbooks and figures, others are… Well, pretty bizarre. That gave me the inspiration to list out the top 5 best/weirdest special edition items that have ever come officially packaged with a videogame! In order to make it on the list, the item must have been sold at some point alongside the game through official channels, and it must be unique and memorable. Without further ado, let’s dive right in!

5. Annotated Propaganda Book – Republique

“Republique” is a very underrated stealth episodic game which takes place in an Orwellian state known as Metamorphosis. The state was founded by one Kenichiro Teglazov, who wrote a manifesto with his ideas for his utopia and pretty much made it required reading (as socialist leaders often do). The main character of the game is Hope, a citizen of Metamorphosis who actively rebels against its dictatorship and struggles to overtake its regime. Why did I waste your time telling you all of this, you ask? Well, because it’s important in order to understand the awesomeness of this entry. The “Republique” special edition (which, I admit, I only bought because it was heavily discounted, but was certainly not a purchase I regretted) is pretty solid, coming with a nice box, a soundtrack CD full of amazing tracks, all that good stuff. But the best part is an actual, physical copy of the manifesto that Teglazov has written, which serves as the foundation of the entire setting of the game. “Wait a minute”, you might be wondering, “why would I ever want to read some socialist manifesto?” Well, it’s because it’s been annotated by none other than Hope herself, who has shared her thoughts and opinions all over the place, and suffice to say, she’s not buying Treglazov’s BS. Additionally, you see her taping maps to areas she plan to infiltrate and writing down additional details on people who have been mentioned, and the entire manifesto ends with an ominous warning – she’s coming for him. It’s a FANTASTIC read that truly gives some extra depth to what would’ve otherwise been just another generic Orwellian setting.

4. Japanese-style School Bag – Persona 5

Unlike the other entries on this list, this special edition hasn’t been released yet, but it’s pretty cool regardless, so I thought I’d give it a mention. For those of you who don’t know, the “Persona” series is heavily rooted into Japanese culture. In each game, you take on the role of a Japanese high school student who needs to balance his (or, in a single, optional case – her) school life and relationships with fighting demons and saving the world. You know, as we all do. The entire series just makes you feel like a Japanese student – since you’re typically in your second year (out of the 3 years which is Japanese high school), you’re going to have your Senpai (upperclassmen) and your Kouhai (underclassmen), you’re going to be eating ramen on the school roof, you’ll be changing into your traditionally ridiculous uniform for PE, you’ll be joining clubs, and of course, you’ll be going to school every day with your ridiculously fancy Japanese school bag. While in the West most students typically go with backpacks, in Japan (and possibly other Eastern countries, but I’m way too lazy to research) students go with bags that resemble sacks or purses more than backpacks. So, for maximum immersion, “Persona 5” will give you one with its special edition, stamped with the insignia of the fictional school from the game! Stylish AND practical – honestly, what more could you possibly want from a videogame bonus item? And yet, believe it or not, this isn’t even the best thing that “Persona” developer Atlus has put in a special edition…

3. Boxers – Catherine

In “Catherine”, you take on the role of Vincent, an average 30-something man who finds himself stuck in a steady relationship with a woman he isn’t sure he loves. After cheating on her with a younger, wilder, arguably more attractive lady, Vincent finds himself experiencing surprisingly vivid nightmares in which he’s stuck in his white, pink polka dot-patterned boxers and is climbing boxes towards salvation, with failure meaning death for both his dream avatar and his real self. And… well, yeah, you guessed it. You read the title, there’s no beating around the bush. The special item is boxers. This videogame comes with an item that you are supposed to put against your genitals. I love it. I mean, sure, the special edition comes with plenty of other stuff as well (like a T-shirt and a pillow), but come on, you really need to applaud the balls of a game that wants you to place its items against yours. Sure, this particular special edition is a bit on the pricier side ($140), but if you want, you can always buy it used for around $100! Erm, actually… On second thought, probably… Probably don’t buy this used, guys.

2. Night Vision Goggles – Modern Warfare 2

Nowadays, the “Call of Duty” franchise is known for… well, a whole lot of things. It’s a gritty, boots-on-the-ground military simulator (with spaceships and zombies and robots, but still), it’s pretty much in the top 5 best-selling games of the year every single year no matter what despite the fact that its basic formula hasn’t changed at all since 2007, and, of course, almost every game comes with some kind of crazy special edition bonus, like a remote controlled car or helicopter or whatever. At this point, it wouldn’t surprise me if “Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare 3” comes with a fully functioning gun with its special edition! That whole trend started with 2009’s “Modern Warfare 2”, which came equipped with military-grade night vision goggles. I swear I’m not making this up. According to people who actually bought the goggles and tested them (sadly, I had to skip out on that particular special edition), you could see perfectly clearly in complete darkness up to 30 meters in front of you, which is pretty damn impressive. While there was a drawback, in that the goggles were set up so that you had to look through a screen and not through the actual goggles, the fact that “Call of Duty” publisher Activision managed to put a sophisticated piece of technology like that in a game back in 2009 is an achievement all in itself, and all things considered, the glasses are more than worthy of the number 2 spot! But what could possibly top them?

1. A Goddamn Car – Saints Row IV

2013’s “Saints Row IV” is an open world—No, you know what? I’m not doing this. I refuse. I’m done. You read the title, so you know just as well as I do that there is NOTHING in the game that can possibly justify this special edition. It is, without a doubt, the craziest special edition in the history of special editions, period. “Oh, you mean it’s like a real car? That’s pretty crazy!” You might be saying (boy, you’re awfully chatty today, aren’t you?), but nope. It’s actually TWO cars – a Lamborghini Gallardo and a Toyota Prius. But that’s not all! In addition to the game itself and the two cars, you also get a trip to goddamn outer space, a hostage rescue experience, a full day of spy training, two week-long vacations with stays in some of the most expensive hotels on the planet, a day of expenses-free shopping spree, and plastic surgery of your choice. Because while “Catherine” was content with giving you an item you can put on your genitals, “Saints Row” wants to put them under them knife. That’s just… Wow. I would make a joke here about how the creators of the game gathered in a conference hall somewhere and decided to just stick the craziest sh*t they could think of in their special edition, with any idea that’s less insane than “a car” being rejected, but it’s not a joke if that is literally what happened. If you consider purchasing the special edition of the game, keep in mind that it’s going to set you back a mere $1 million, which… Well, I don’t have my Guinness’ Book of World Records here, but it’s gotta be a record for most expensive commercially sold game, right? And just in case you think that this is just a joke, or some kind of viral marketing stunt, it’s not. It was officially for sale. Goddamn.

How To Get Into Comic Books?

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ComicsThanks to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC’s extremely poor attempts at copying it, comic book properties have never been more successful! Ten years ago, nobody but hardcore comic book nerds knew Iron Man’s real name, or Harley Quinn’s origin, or even the simple fact that Thor is a Marvel superhero and not just a Norse god. Today, we’re all familiar with Tony Stark’s eccentric antics in and out of his suit, we all know about the abusive relationship between the artist formerly known as Dr. Harleen Quinzel and her puddin’, and many of us ponder what would happen if a baby tried to lift Mjolnir. But how many of us have actually sat down and read a comic book featuring any of those characters? Despite the fact that only his three solo movies – not counting all the other movies he’s appeared in or had starring roles in – made over $2.5 billion dollars at the box office, the latest issue of Iron Man’s solo comic book series that I could find any sales information about, “Invincible Iron Man #11”, sold only 50,000 copies. But honestly, we can’t really hold that against the Armored Avenger, since comics don’t generally sell that much in the first place. The best-selling comic of the same month, “Justice League #1”, sold only 200,000 copies, and that’s considering the fact that #1 issues typically sell a lot more than their subsequent parts.

A big part of the reason why comics are so unpopular in comparison to movies is that anyone can watch a movie. You can see “Iron Man” and understand it, you can see “Doctor Strange” this November and understand it, hell, you can even see big ensemble movies like “The Avengers” or “Captain America: Civil War” and understand them, even if you’ll lose some of the nuance. You can’t really do that with comics. Right now, Marvel Comics are having an event called “Civil War II”, in which Iron Man and Captain Marvel go to war over a young Inhuman who can see the future. If you’ve got no idea who those characters are, then you’ve got no hope of following “Civil War II”, and it REALLY doesn’t help that anyone who is anyone shows up in this crossover (Thanos, the Guardians of the Galaxy, Hulk, Hawkeye, the X-Men…), so a casual reader has no chance of getting into it. Quite a lot of comics have been built up like that, which alienates audiences.

But fear not, dear readers, because while it may be a bit intimidating, it’s certainly not impossible to get into comics! In fact, it might be easier than you think! Let me explain what you need to do. Getting into Marvel is actually absurdly easy, since they have PLENTY of series that are good jumping-on points for new readers. While the aforementioned “Civil War II” and “Invincible Iron Man” aren’t really good places to go, since as I said they tend to rely on a LOT of pre-existing characters and lore that you may not be familiar with, a lot of Marvel’s series tend to exist on their own while only occasionally crossing over with other properties. Take “Ms. Marvel”, for example, in which a young comic book nerd finds herself transformed into an Inhuman overnight and takes on the mantle that Captain Marvel used to have. You don’t really need to be familiar with neither the Inhumans nor Captain Marvel to understand Ms. Marvel’s adventures, as both of them are explained quite well within her own narrative. Other series, such as “The Runaways”, “Sentinel”, “Young Avengers”, “New Avengers” (the 2015 series), “Avengers Academy” and its sequel “Avengers Arena”, “Alias”, “Hawkeye” (the 2012 series) and many more operate on the same principle, allowing readers to easily get into their main narratives while occasionally introducing characters who may be relevant in other titles. For example, let’s say that you decide to read “Hawkeye” (as you should, because it’s one of the greatest comic book runs of all time) and fall in love with Kate Bishop, the female Hawkeye and Clint Barton’s partner. You can then decide to trace her roots back to “Young Avengers”, and that series can introduce you to Hulkling and Wiccan, who continue their adventures in “New Avengers”. So, just like that, very naturally, you’re exploring the Marvel universe little by little. And the whole process is made absurdly easy by the fact that 95% of all comics Marvel has ever published are available on Marvel Unlimited for an absurdly cheap Netflix-style subscription fee, so all you have to do is sign up for that incredible service and start digging! If you don’t like a particular series, move onto another – as you read, you’re bound to encounter plenty of characters and teams that you’re interested in.

DC, on the other hand, is a bit more complicated, since A) they don’t have a subscription service like Marvel Unlimited, so you need to take a lot more risks with their comics, and B) they really like to reboot their universe every few years, with the last time being just a few weeks ago, with “Rebirth”. My advice to you would be to ignore “Rebirth” for the time being. Despite the fact that reviews for the “Rebirth” series have been excellent, there’s only 1 or 2 issues per series out at the moment, so that’s not going to really satisfy you in any way. Instead, I’d personally go back to the last reboot, the New 52, and start from there. The New 52 is of mixed quality, but I don’t think there’s anything in there that’s just awful, and best of all, most of their titles are very self-contained. For example, if you pick up “Suicide Squad”, you’re not going to get an event in the middle of it that derails the story, you’re just going to be reading about “Suicide Squad”. There are the occasional crossovers (“Suicide Squad” in particular did an excellent crossover with Resurrection Man, and the Bat-family titles like to cross paths every once in a while), but for the most part, just pick a superhero and have fun with them! If you like the Flash, start reading the Flash New 52 series. If you like Batman, go read Batman. There’s lots of great books to choose from, so just pick one and enjoy it! Or you can go for something a little more obscure, like “Animal Man” or “Gotham Academy”, both of which are excellent! So, what are you waiting for? Go read some comics!

Yes, That Happened in “Killing Joke”, Get Over It

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the-killing-joke“The Killing Joke” is a classic Batman story written by one of comics’ most influential authors, the one and only Alan Moore (who has also penned “Watchmen” and “V for Vendetta”, among many, many more). It defined the Batman mythos for YEARS to come, giving the Joker a more-or-less definitive origin and transforming the failing-in-popularity Batgirl into the much more popular Oracle. The original graphic novel, albeit a bit on the short side, keeps being printed and reprinted to this day, with fans still debating over its ambiguous ending. Was the Joker right? Can one really bad day truly drive a person insane? Was that person Batman, who finally snapped and killed his arch-nemesis (echoing the sentiment he had expressed earlier in the story about their struggle ending by one of them killing the other), or did he listen to Gordon and bring him in by the book? Argh, I could go on and on about this story, but I don’t need to – countless others, from regular fans all the way to comic book writer Grant Morrison have thrown their own two cents into it. No, right now, I want to focus on a little something else.

Recently (and by that I mean “this week”), an animated movie based on “The Killing Joke” was released featuring the voices of Kevin Conroy as Batman, Mark Hamill as Joker and Tara Strong as Batgirl – who have been voicing these characters since the 90s. And, surprise, surprise, the actual part that is a straight adaptation of “The Killing Joke” is actually really great! The performances are great, the character designs are awesome, the sets are unbelievably creative, and the changes actually enhance the story rather than detract from it. But since “The Killing Joke” is a very short book, the filmmakers added a 30-minute prologue focusing on Batgirl, and that… Has been divisive. io9 called the movie’s portrayal of Batgirl a “frankly sexist character assassination”, and fans haven’t been much kinder – if you go to any review of the movie, even ones that don’t mention this in particular (such as this one by Chris Stuckmann), you’re undoubtedly going to see one thing being brought up over and over again. And I’m here to set the record straight.

Yes, Batgirl has sex with Batman. Get over it.

I mean, really, the outrage over this one plot point in particular is ridiculous, and the arguments against it – even more so. I mean, a “character assassination”, really? I mean, it’s not like Batgirl’s portrayed as a brainless bimbo who does nothing but pine for her man throughout the entire movie – she’s clearly capable, extremely intelligent, a better detective/tech expert than even Batman… Her character is there, it’s just that the director has decided to give her *gasp* a flaw! Throughout the movie, it’s made rather clear that it’s not really Batman that Batgirl likes – it’s the power fantasy that Batman provides. Meanwhile, Batman himself sees this in her and knows just how dangerous that mindset is, which is why he distances himself from her. Those characters are human – they make mistakes and have very real emotions which aren’t always rational. This isn’t a “character assassination” – this is precisely what the fabled “strong female character” should be like!

You guys wanna know what a real assassination of a female character looks like? Look no further than the 2004 “Catwoman” movie. Remember that? The titular Catwoman is a flirty cat burglar with a love-hate relationship with Batman who likes to play by her own rules, but will always do the right thing when it counts. The protagonist of the movie is… Well, none of those things. At all. Like, not even close. She’s a straight-up superhero with cat powers who fights against an evil corporation. Hell, they couldn’t even get Catwoman’s name right – she’s called Selina Kyle, not Patience Phillips or whatever. When your movie depicts a beloved comic book character so poorly that even the actress who brought her to life apologized (when accepting her Razzie award, no less), then you know that THAT is a character assassination. Batgirl having sex with Batman is not the problem. Not every female character has to be a perfect, pure snowflake in order to be “strong” – they can be strong while making mistakes. Please don’t halt so many years of progress when it comes to depictions of female characters just because you can’t accept that a woman can be flawed.

Why Do Videogame Movies Fail?

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game console2016 was supposed to be the year of videogame adaptations. Finally, after years and years and years of failures dating all the way back to 1993 with the release of the utterly atrocious “Super Mario Bros.” movie, directors, producers and studios have attempted to bring beloved videogame properties to life on the big screen, with no luck. Even the best videogame movies, such as “Mortal Kombat”, are still only considered good by videogame movie standards and fail when measured up to literally anything else. This year, things were meant to change, damn it! We were going to have “Warcraft”, “Ratchet & Clank”, “Assassin’s Creed”, “Angry Birds”, and they were all going to be good! Well, okay, maybe not that last one, but things were looking up! As it turns out, no, they’re not – “Ratchet & Clank” was critically panned, proving once and for all that a fun game does not necessarily make a good movie, and according to early reviews “Warcraft” might be even worse. It really says something when friggin’ “Angry Birds” is currently the highest rated videogame movie of all time, doesn’t it? I still have hope for “Assassin’s Creed”, which is due to release in December, but considering the fact that A) most of it is set in modern times as opposed to a historical setting like in the games, B) it comes out mere days after “Star Wars”, and C) that horrible Kanye West song somehow made it into the trailer makes me think that the people behind it have no idea what they’re doing.

But why are things turning out like this? Why do people seem unable to make good videogame movies? Some people say that videogames are simply unfilmable – they’re a different medium entirely, and once you remove the interactive element you lose most of the immersion. No offense, but these people are idiots. First of all, books and comics are also a different medium, but they’ve given us some damn fine movies over the years. Second of all, if games are only ever entertaining if they’re being played, then why is the Let’s Play culture thriving so much? Millions of people are flocking towards famous YouTubers in order to watch them play videogames. If the interactive element was truly so important for immersion, then surely the Let’s Play culture would’ve made no sense?

If you ask me, the big problem stems from the fact that filmmakers simply don’t understand their source material properly. They don’t understand the significance of what they’re filming, and how to properly narrate it to their audience. For example, the way you build suspense in a game is a lot different from the way you do it in a movie, which is why a lot of horror game adaptations (such as “Silent Hill” or “Resident Evil”) just don’t work. The goal of the filmmaker is to narrate the same experience to his or her audience that the player would get from playing the game. Instead, what directors are trying to do is take elements from the game and just shove them in the movie for no reason other than to say “Hey, remember THAT from the game? It’s here too!”, but without understand just WHY they’re there. The “Silent Hill” movie I mentioned is like a goldmine for this kind of thing, as I could literally spend an entire article writing about it, but let’s just limit it to two examples, shall we? “Silent Hill” is an adaptation of the first “Silent Hill” game – remember that, that is important. In “Silent Hill 3”, after the main character Heather loses her father, she goes on a car ride to the town of Silent Hill and has a discussion about the fact that her life as she knew it is basically over. All the while, the song “Letter From The Lost Days” plays in the background, which, as you can hear, is rather relevant to the conversation. In the “Silent Hill” movie, the main character takes her daughter to Silent Hill with her car, and the same song plays, but since the context is so different the choice of music doesn’t really make sense. Similarly, one of the most famous characters from the series is the eponymous Pyramid Head, who first appeared in “Silent Hill 2” as a manifestation of main character James’ guilt over having committed a murder, with a design inspired by a painting of an executioner. In the movie, Pyramid Head is simply a demon who shows up for a little bit and chases the protagonist around for absolutely no reason other than for the director to wink to the fans and say “See, this is just like the games!” As you may have noticed, both of those examples include trying to shove things into an adaptation of the first “Silent Hill” game which weren’t even part of it in the first place.

Will we ever see a good videogame movie? Hopefully! The adaptation of the game “The Last of Us”, which is generally regarded as one of the best games of all time, was written by the same person who wrote and directed the game, so when, or rather if that ever gets off the ground we might be looking at the world’s first great videogame movie. Fingers crossed!

What’s The Best eBook Reader?

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kindleThere’s no denying the fact that eBooks have become immensely popular over the last few years, and while they’re nowhere near close enough to matching dead tree books in terms of popularity (and probably never will be), their market share is growing each year thanks to the push by various companies with interest in the area, most specifically Amazon. Nowadays even the most basic phones and tablets you can buy can read ePubs and Mobis with the right software installed on them, which has led to more people than ever before giving electronic books a try. But what’s the best way to read them? Hell, is there even such a thing as a best way to do that?

Honestly, the title of this article is a bit deceiving, as I have absolutely no idea what the best eBook reader is, objectively speaking. I haven’t tested them all, and there’s just so many of them! Amazon made a bajillion versions of their Kindle, and then there’s also the Nook and whatever the hell the Kobo is, not to mention the various Android and Apple tablets which also support Kindle and Nook apps, and then there’s also reading on a PC… You know what, on second thought, screw reading on a PC. Nobody needs that hassle.

While I can’t really give you an objective opinion on what the best e-reader on the market is (for all I know, the Kobo might be the greatest thing since sliced bread), I can give you my own, personal experience from my research and explain how I reached my own choice. First and foremost, I’d strongly suggest that you do NOT buy any kind of device with a backlight with the express purpose of using it as an e-reader. That means iPads, tablets or some Kindle versions (such as Kindle Fire) are out of the running. There should be absolutely nothing stopping you from buying one such device anyway (for example, I own an iPad for reading comic books), but trust me, reading on anything with a backlight for more than 15-20 minutes at a time sucks badly.

So now the big question is – Kindle, Nook or Kobo? The reason why I stayed away from the Kobo is because I’d never heard of it, and no one I knew had one, and since pack mentality is strong in me when it comes to things I don’t fully understand, I decided to try my chances elsewhere. As for the Nook, after some research I ultimately chose not to pursue that either, for several reasons. First and foremost, their library of available books is a lot more limited when compared to that of the Kindle, and second of all, I’ve read about some shady practices where certain books people have bought on Nook have suddenly become unavailable. At the end of the day, I decided that with the biggest book library, a wide selection of hardware models and native support for Audible, the Kindle is the way to go.

Pretty much any Kindle that doesn’t have an intrusive backlight is perfect. I own a Kindle 3, which has been so amazing that I haven’t even thought about upgrading, but since that one’s no longer being manufactured I would have to recommend the Kindle Voyage, which pretty much the best that the Kindle brand has to offer right now in terms of basic e-readers.

Marvel’s Civil War – Differences Between the Movie and the Comic

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civil warMarvel’s 2006 event comic event “Civil War” was one of the company’s biggest ones, scoping across the entire Marvel universe. Pretty much every single Marvel hero who was alive and on Earth at the time was involved in one way or another, whether in the main books or in their own spinoff series. At the time, “Civil War” received universal critical acclaim for completely shattering and reshaping the Marvel universe and presenting a fresh new perspective on the hero vs hero conflict (remember – up until that point, the classic formula of hero vs hero fights involved only fighting for a bit before teaming up against a bad guy, and there was no bad guy in sight during “Civil War”). While fan opinion on the story is more mixed these days (and with good reason – some of the content within is pretty questionable), the fact that its 2016 movie adaptation holds a 90% on “Rotten Tomatoes” just goes to show that the core of the storyline still works ten years later. But obviously the Marvel Cinematic Universe is much different from the Marvel Comics Universe, so why don’t we take a closer look at both stories and compare the similarities and the differences? Be warned – there will be plenty of spoilers ahead!

For all of the differences to the source material, there’s also a lot of symbolic similarities to the comic books, too – for example, both the movie and the comic open with a young hero screwing up and accidentally causing a catastrophe. In the movie, that hero is the newest Avenger Scarlet Witch, who mistakenly sends suicide bomber Crossbones into a building full of people. In the comics, though, the perps are a little-known team known as the New Warriors who decide to take on a team of supervillains way out of their league while being filmed for a reality TV show, and as a result cause an explosion that kills hundreds of people, including dozens of children. The result is the same, though – the government passes a bill which requires superheroes to take responsibility for their actions. But the law in question is also different – in the movies, the Sokovia Accords is limited only to the Avengers and sets to essentially turn them into a private UN task force. As a result, heroes operating outside of the Avengers (such as Daredevil or Jessica Jones) wouldn’t really face any repercussions for their crime fighting other than maybe being charged with vigilantism (as if any superhero was ever sent to jail for that), which isn’t the case in the comics, where the Superhuman Registration Act applies to every superpowered individual. It requires them to not only start working as, essentially, agents of SHIELD, but to also register their secret identities within a SHIELD database – a database which can, potentially, be hacked, thus placing their loved ones in danger.

In both the movie and the comics, Iron Man starts supporting the law after a mother confronts him and blames him for the death of her son, while Captain America becomes a fugitive after choosing to oppose him. In both mediums, there are scenes in which the heroes are this close to reaching a solution, only to have it all go to hell, but other than that, the similarities in the first act are few and far in between. Characters that are prominent in the movie, such as Black Panther, barely show up in the comics, and characters with huge roles in the comics, like Spider-Man (who reveals his secret identity to the world in support of the Superhuman Registration Act) only shows up in the movie for one fight scene. Bucky, the Winter Soldier, isn’t present in the comics at all, while he’s the driving force of the movie. The first big superhero fight scene is also very different – in the movie, Tony’s team of heroes corner Cap’s at the airport, while in the comics Cap is lured to a burning factory. Both fights end with a member of Cap’s team growing gigantic (Ant-Man in the movie and Goliath in the comics), but while Ant-Man is defeated “Empire Strikes Back”-style in the movie, Goliath is killed by a clone of Thor in the comics. In the movie, the only casualty of the fight is Rhodey, who survives, but loses the use of his legs.

While in the movie Captain America manages to escape, at the cost of most of his team, in the comics Tony’s team is so shocked by Goliath’s death that they pretty much let Captain America and most of his team escape. From then on, a lot of heroes change sides – Sue Storm, the Invisible Woman, is disgusted by Tony Stark’s actions and leaves her family in order to support Captain America, while several of Steve’s teammates leave out of fear of ending up dead or on the run for the rest of their lives. In the movie, the only person who switches sides is Black Widow, who betrays Tony’s team and then disappears. In both mediums, Cap’s teammates (at least the ones that refuse to register) are imprisoned – in the comics, they’re locked up in a special prison in another dimension (because comics), while in the movie the prison is simply underwater.

That prison is precisely where the comics sets its climax, where Captain America manages to release all of his teammates, beginning a final offensive against Iron Man’s forces. The movie never quite tops the spectacle of the airport fight, though, instead preferring for a simpler, more emotionally-packed fight between Iron Man and Cap & Bucky. The fights, and subsequently the stories, end completely differently – in the movie, Steve manages to completely overwhelm his friend, literally and figuratively breaking his heart before leaving his shield behind, busting his teammates out of prison and forming the Secret Avengers with them. In the comics, though, in the midst of battle Steve realizes that they’re just fighting for the sake of fighting and not to protect the people like they’d swore to do, so he surrenders to the authorities and is later assassinated on his way to his trial. If you ask me, that might have been a stronger ending for the movie, but I guess they wanted to leave Cap alive for “Infinity War” (not that anything has ever stopped Marvel from bringing people back from the dead before).

Anyway, I hope you had fun learning about all the differences between the comic and the movie! Obviously, since we’re talking about two entirely different universes I couldn’t list every single little thing, but this should give you a pretty good idea and allow you to brag to your friends when you go and see the movie again for the third time.

The Retro Gaming Culture

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retro gamesToday, gaming technology is at its peak. Games like “The Last of Us” bring us Hollywood-worthy story and performances, technologies like the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive bridge the gap between the virtual world and our own and mobile platforms allow us to bring our games with us literally wherever we go without needing to worry about taking anything other than the essential items we carry every day. With the gaming industry being by far the most successful financially, overshadowing the movie and music industries, it’s pretty clear that we’re living in a golden age of gaming no matter how you look at it. Games have never been more immersive, more groundbreaking, more… Well, good. Or have they?

Despite the fact that today’s games provide all sorts of experiences, there’s still a group of dedicated gamers who don’t want anything to do with that. No, to them, gaming stopped existing somewhere around 1995, since the majority (or in some cases the only) games they play are from the very early days of the medium. We’re talking about titles for the NES, SNES, Genesis, Nintendo 64, even early operating systems such as DOS. “Mega Man”, “Super Mario 64”, “Comix Zone”, “Star Fox”, “Final Fantasy” and “King’s Quest” are all games with lasting appeal which the retro gamers hold in high esteem. Many of those games have received sequels in the modern era, but oddly enough it’s the originals which remain the most lasting among the retro crowd.

So the obvious question is why? Why are so many people ignoring the marvels of modern gaming and sticking instead to the old classics? Well, every retro gamer has his or her own reason behind it. A popular sentiment online is that “nowadays games just suck”, which is pretty obviously untrue, but it’s still a perfectly valid personal opinion to have. Still, I believe there’s far more than that. Many (even most) retro gamers grew up with the retro systems, and to them, retro games are a way to get a small taste of what made them happy as a child. It’s exactly why so many of us hold classic Disney movies in our hearts – they allow us to remember and maybe even relive a simpler time, a time when we had very few responsibilities and a lot of spare time.

But there’s another reason, a more objective one. The interesting fact about retro games is that they’re all very minimalistic, in both appearance and gameplay. Working with very primitive technology, game designers had to use every trick in the book in order to create the experience they wanted (for example, the clouds and bushes in “Super Mario Bros.” are the exact same object, just colored white or green). In today’s gaming, if the player had to be taught that their character can double-jump, all it’d take was a character shouting “Quick! Use your double jump/jetpack/rocket boots to get over this gap!” But in the early days of gaming this obviously couldn’t work, so game designers had to get creative. I’d like to show you this presentation by Internet personality Egoraptor who goes in great length about the various tricks that designers used in order to use what little assets they had intelligently.

My point is that many people enjoy this type of minimalist design quite a lot. And why shouldn’t they? When done right, it’s a work of art. Many of the most popular games today (like “Minecraft” or “Dota 2”) are well-liked precisely because they allow you to do a lot with very little. Despite their limitations, they, like the games of old, have been custom-built to provide a very particular experience to the player, which is definitely something worth admiring. It’s true that many of today’s games can learn a lesson or two about intelligent design from their retro counterparts. And at the end of the day, isn’t that a good enough reason to love them?

How Do I Read So Much?

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booksIt’s no secret that I read a lot. Like, a TON. I don’t always read a lot, true, but my average is 3-4 books a week. That’s about a book every 2 days, which is a lot more than most people read. I’ve received two questions regarding that fact – one of them is how I’m able to read so much, and the other is where I find all those hundreds of books to read. Well, the answer to the first question is obvious – I just pick up a book and I read it, simple as that. I don’t bother with any speed reading techniques or anything of this sort. Naturally, I read between 400 and 500 words per minute, depending on the text, which is a speed that I’m very comfortable with. At that speed, it takes me roughly 6 hours to read a 400-page novel, but again – if the text flows well and the words are relatively simple it can go faster. My “trick”, if you can even call it that, is that I dedicate roughly 2-3 hours per day to reading.

Now, the other question, which is a lot more interesting to me, is just where do I find all those books. Books are expensive! Well, yeah, they are, but they don’t have to be. The thing you have to understand about me is that I’m really not a picky reader. As long as the thing I’m reading is interesting to me, then I will read it. I don’t limit myself to Nebula-award winners or New York Times bestsellers. As a result, a lot of what I read are self-published novels that I can get for cheap or even for free. I’ve already spoken about a wonderful service called Freebooksy which sends free books to your e-mail every single day. As long as you own a Kindle (or a tablet from which you can download the Kindle app) you can access these books and read them at your leisure. Sometimes there’s some real stinkers, which is to be expected, but most are surprisingly good! And with 10-15 free books every single day, you’re bound to find at least a couple that sound really interesting to you.

The other place where I pick up my books from is Audible. Audible is the lead provider of audiobooks which has been doing an absolutely fantastic job supplying me with fresh new reads! You can purchase any book from them that you like, but if you have a subscription (about $15 a month) you receive one credit per month which you can use to get ANY book you like for free. If you love it, you can keep it, and if not, you can return it, get your credit back and find something else to listen to. I like to think of it a bit as a $15 subscription to a library of audiobooks. I can listen to them while walking to work, or while playing videogames, and that way I knock out a few more titles per week.

And the best part is that sometimes Freebooksy and Audible combine in awesome way! Sometimes, if you own the Kindle edition of a book, you can get the audiobook from Audible for next to nothing (something like $2-3). And when you get the Kindle edition for free from Freebooksy, well, buying the audiobook for super cheap is like an offer you can’t refuse. You can buy a book for the price of a cup of coffee. How awesome is that?

My Rant About the Star Wars Expanded Universe

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maullockdownI’ve been reading “Star Wars” novels for a veeeeery long time. Admittedly, most were by Timothy Zahn, and admittedly, some were better than others, but at the end, all of them, the good and the bad, have done nothing but increase my love for the “Star Wars” universe. I read about the trials Luke Skywalker had to go through in order to rebuild his Jedi Academy, about his unlikely marriage to Mara Jade and about the attack of the Yuuzhan Vong. True, I also read some ridiculous stuff such as how the Emperor transferred his consciousness into a clone body and seduced Luke to the dark side or something (I don’t know, I generally try to keep the bad stories to the back of my mind), but hey, nothing good is good all the time. Even today, I continue reading “Star Wars” books with joy.

Except there’s one problem. None of them even matter anymore.

Not too long after Disney bought Lucasfilm for $4 billion, they announced that the entire Expanded Universe – all the books, all the games, all the audioplays and comics, will no longer be considered canon within the new “Star Wars” universe. And don’t get me wrong, I understand that decision, I really do. The “Star Wars” canon is chock-full of materials, starting at millions of years before “A New Hope” and ending at hundreds of years afterwards. Disney wants to make a whole lot of movies – three more episodes and at least three side stories (the first of which, “Rogue One”, will be coming out this December). And if they want to retain the creative freedom to do things their way and still keep fans guessing and surprised, then they have no choice but to eliminate the old Expanded Universe and start fresh. I understand that, and honestly, I probably would’ve done the same.

What I don’t understand is why the entire Expanded Universe had to go. I mean, come on, the “Knights of the Old Republic” games and the “Star Wars: The Old Republic” MMO take place in the “Star Wars” universe’s distant past! Why did they have to get rid of that? Even if Disney wanted to set a movie in the time of the Old Republic (which I sincerely doubt they do), they could’ve easily done so without contradicting the games! Or what about “Star Wars: The Force Unleashed”, which was one of the biggest “Star Wars” projects ever with a book, comic and two games? Everyone liked the story (well, at least that of the first game), and elements from it have even been made canon within the new TV show “Star Wars: Rebels”, so why not just go out and make it canon? It doesn’t interfere with anything! Hell, the book I’m reading right now, “Maul: Lockdown”, takes place way before “Episode I” and features a character that is actually very prominent in the new canon, Darth Maul. Making the book canon would’ve given him some history, which he doesn’t really have at the moment.

Just because I understand this decision doesn’t mean I approve of how it’s enforced. I think that a team at Disney should’ve seriously sat down, evaluated all the major stories and, maybe with the help of the fans, cherry-picked what is canon and what isn’t. Sure, 100% of the material set after Episode VI should be removed, but there were some really awesome things from before that could’ve been salvaged. At the very least the aforementioned “Star Wars: Rebels” seems to be nodding a lot to the Expanded Universe, but nods and canon are two entirely different things.

Get the Edge at Roulette Review

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edgeAs some of you may or may not know, I’m a bit of a gambler. I say “a bit” because I’m not really someone who claims to be able to beat the bank and make thousands or whatever, but I do sometimes hit up the casino (both the physical and online one) and generally tend to have a very good time. My favorite casino game of all time is roulette – I love that you can employ a strategy, but at the same time the result depends entirely on luck, which keeps things nice and fair. Still, I rarely have much of a strategy when playing – my go-to option is to bet on my lucky number, but also on a color, so that I can keep my wins more or less balanced while I wait for that lucky strike. This strategy rarely works out in my favor, though, as by the time I reach the point where my lucky number is drawn I’m pretty much back where I started.

So I began researching strategies. I read all of the best guide to live roulette I found online, but as good as they were, they weren’t enough to prepare me for the real deal. I mean, sure, they could give me general directions, but I knew I had to go all “Inception” on its backside and go deeper. So, what did I do? I turned to my old friends the books, of course! There were plenty of roulette books out there, more than enough for me to choose from, perhaps even too many. Ultimately, as you may have guessed from the title, I settled on “Get the Edge at Roulette”, which was recommended to me by several websites.

To say that the book contains all the answers would be an overstatement, because it does not, not by a long shot. It does, however, outline all of the basic things that someone who wants to be a roulette player would ever want. We’re talking do’s and don’ts, basic strategies, hints and tips, statistics, even a bit on the history of roulette which, while not always necessary, was very much interested. The book was written in a very easy to read style, allowing you to just flow through the pages without having to re-read a lot of information in order to understand it.

What I really loved about the book, though, was its sincerity. Right from the get-go it makes it very clear that this isn’t some kind of holy grail that’ll magically make you win at roulette. It explains that the casino will always have the upper hand due to the house edge, and that while you can improve your odds, all strategies will eventually fail, so you should quit while you’re ahead. I loved this kind of down to earth style and tone. At the end of the day, it’s the truth – no one book will ever make you a roulette expert… But still, I don’t plan to stop looking!

“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” Is Awesome

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The day before yesterday I was browsing Amazon for new books to read. Now, keep in mind that I’m not typically a very picky reader – I’d read anything as long as it’s coherently written, which is why unless I’m specifically recommended something I typically read what’s available on Freebooksy (which is an AWESOME service that gives you free Kindle books every single day). Sometimes I’ll find something pretty great (such as Anna Scanlon’s “The Remnants”, which, while not perfect, I still found miles above other Young Adult novels), sometimes I’ll find something hilariously bad (like Mary Twomey’s “Undraland”, which is pretty much “Twilight” with garden gnomes, and I love it), and sometimes I’ll find something so dull that I’ll just have to stop reading partway through. Well, I was in the middle of a streak of these dull books, so I realized I needed to fork over some cash and buy myself something nice. One of the first suggestions I got on Amazon was for a book titled “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children”, which immediately went me go “Oh, you mean like that Tim Burton movie coming out in September?” Highly intrigued, I clicked “Buy” and purchased the first book. Today, two days later, I’m halfway through the second, and I’m not planning on stopping until I finish the entire trilogy.

miss peregrine“Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is one of the most fun, well-paced, tightly written novels I’ve read in recent years! The narrative flows seamlessly, to the point where I had trouble believing that the book was actually almost 400 pages long (I could’ve sworn it was only about 200 when I finished). I won’t tell you too much about the plot, as the author goes to great lengths to establish his setting, so even giving you a synopsis of what goes on will be spoiling things. Instead, let me just say that the premise of the book is the author basically asking himself “What would happen if I took a whole bunch of old, black and white photographs that seem strange and peculiar to us and then try to explain them?” And those photos are all included within the book, making them one of its best parts. Whenever the characters are discussing looking at some pictures, you can view the actual pictures with them, all of which (minus a couple of letters and illustrations) have been discovered by the author and are authentic, mostly depicting children who seemingly display extraordinary abilities. And, fair warning, a lot of those pictures are creepy as hell, to the point where numerous people have messaged the author complaining about nightmares and weird dreams related to them, so view at your own risk! Within the narrative of the book, though, they work brilliantly, and who knows, maybe if you were creeped out by the pictures your fear will subside once you get to know the children through the story. One thing’s for sure, though – “Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children” is definitely worth a read either way!

Welcome To Daily Dose of Lit!

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If you’re here, that means you’re probably looking for one of two things – a daily dose of literature (book recommendations, reviews, articles about fiction and non-fiction, etc.) or the daily blog of a guy named Lit. I’m happy to say that you’re right either way! Hi, my name is Ryan Lit, and this is my daily blog where I’m going to be talking about books (I usually read about 60+ books a year, so you can say that there’s plenty to talk about), as well as other things that I come across which I find interesting – comic books, games, movies, roleplaying games, online casino, LARP, comic cons, you name it! Anything that could possibly be considered geeky will be covered here! I’ll generally describe this aspect of my life and not my personal one, as I know that nobody likes bragging or whining, but that doesn’t mean I won’t say a few words about myself every once in a while! So, welcome to Daily Dose of Lit, and I hope you enjoy your stay!