Woke Thought Kills

The last week I wrote a piece I found pretty damn cathartic post about my issues with American conservatism, and really the right in general. The need for moral purity in heroes is a moral sickness in American conservativism that has destroyed many a would-be Christian, who now (for the most part) cannot separate the two out, even though American Conservatism looks a lot more like actual Satanism than anything else; the light that sickens, as opposed to healing and correcting. 

On the one hand, I'm not shocked at the existence of the woke; one had only to look at the world as it was for even two seconds to see a generation of this bullshit coming. 

On the other hand... c'mon folks, this is just Soviet-style Marxism without the moral conviction to kill 50 or 60 million people.

Now, more than a few of those who follow this ideology will immediately tell me that "woke" doesn't exist. The attempt to retcon recent history is expected (and we'll get to why below), but inaccurage: being woke isn't just being compassionate and wanting to stand up for the little guy, nor is it even really caring about the downtrodden among you, or wanting to speak truth to power (especially this one, wokeism actually encourages moral cowardice), but is specifically an engine to strip the humanity and compassion straight out of your soul and make you an honest-to-God monster with a clown's smile attached. American conservativism perverts, Wokeism destroys and salts the earth. And yes, it is a real ideology, it is particular, it is not American liberalism, it is distinct and particular.

There are people who think they sympathize with this ideology, who are not woke, who instead just want people cared for. They deny that the ideology itself is so toxic that spilling its blood would be a dangerous act like in Pacific Rim, saying they want to side with the people who actually want folks cared for. The problem is rooted in the fundamental humanity of the person, and wanting to empathize with the people who are hurt, wanting to affirm the righteous anger they're hoping is actually going on.

It's not righteous anger.

It's just rage.

I'm sorry.

Now, I've spent a few years trying to just observe what Wokeism entails. A lot of it didn't make sense for years, not until I started reading The Gulag Archipelago. And then it clicked. And now I'm writing this.

1. The most important thing is unfettered individual choice towards the (frequently immediately) pleasant. The thing, at the end of the day, that I have repeatedly seen any SJW fall back on is "what's the thing that is beneficial for me"? There isn't anything wrong with being concerned about yourself, of course, but that's not the way it's meant, but as a "No one else is concerned about my good, not really, and therefore whatever I perceive is for my own good, I will do, even if all else indicates it to be the wrong course of action."

The problem is that this way of thinking totally destroys your ability to have any meaningful relationships at all, and actually poisons you against the concept entirely. Hell, you can't even genuinely love at all with such thinking, because frequently you will find yourself in situations where the only way through with a person is to give without getting anything back at all, to lean out and get hurt because that is what's best for the other person.

Since pain is inherently evil, there is no world where you can use pain to your own (or someone else's) good. And since, in literally all previous modes of thought, pain is a necessary building block for growth, there comes into existence a divide so sharp and deep that there is literally no rapproachment possible. So long as this one damnable point is in one's soul one is Woke, and nothing else on this list can be discussed until this is dismantled.

2. All immediate hierarchy is inherently repressive. So what do I mean by this? I'm saying wokeness doesn't actually care about hierarchy they don't have to really look at. Biological ties are something right in there your face, something that binds people in a way that constrains choices, brings about inordinate amounts of pain, requires a level of discernment and wisdom where payoff may be years, even decades in the future. The hierarchy created by someone legitimately being stronger and wiser than you  in your immediate vicinity  creates similar issues. You can't run from this kinda thing, not really.

For literally any other ideology in the world this type of hierarchy is made into a feature, not a bug. The world is hard enough as it is, and if someone with more power and wisdom is actually working towards your good, save yourself some energy and lean into it willya. Local ties and power are inevitable. You can't avoid them

But for the Woke this is oppressive, because choice towards the pleasant is constricted.

And so therefore the war must be waged. Against our basic biological, psychological, and spiritual essenences. Forever.

God, it sounds exhausting to type it.

Us Christians call that nonsense Hell.

3. All societal issues are ONLY abstract constructs. Because the only thing that matters is what's immediately pleasant, anything to do with a group of people is simply immaterial. The need to procreate for both biological and psychological necessity becomes a squashing of individual potential, a threat against the very soul of a person. The idea that some hierarchy is inherently good becomes only a tool for the oppressor, because sacrifice for a whole is a completely alien thought.

4. All individual desires that aren't obviously harmful are good. And now we start to get into the real meat and potatoes, the parts where otherwise calm and reasonable and well-meaning people start going "But why not?" This question, while it's well-meaning, and while I'm extremely empathetic to the problem of pain... goes wrong.

Because society is a real thing. It is driven by very real needs, the primary one of which is procreation. If there isn't a constant influx of babies into whatever system you're living in, it collapses in on itself. This is as obvious as picking up a history book and taking five minutes with it. And it is distressingly fragile. We're at a point in history where that incredibly obvious fact is obscured, but that does not change that it is the number one rule of society: more babies are good. Less babies are bad.

And that's before we get into the unavoidable fact that somebody has to clean the toilets. Somebody has to manage the raw infrastructure necessary to help us not wallow in filth and war. There is no "living your best life" if the sewage lines aren't working, folks. And that means somebody is biting the bullet and doing something really unpleasant. And there is no getting away from that.

And anything that is not actively helping that incredibly fragile thing to exist is actually a drain upon society. There's a reason why monasteries became the center of economies in the Middle Ages: folks not interested in making babies essentially banded together and found a way to contribute anyways, because they understood that all their energy needed to be focused on something other than sex, which really only works in the long run if babies are involved, somehow.

5. An human is an individual that can give me a pat on the back for being a "good person" (aka babies are not humans, the people who throw themselves off factories in China so I can have my phone are not humans)

And this is the one that really begins to get my goat. See, most Woke folks are very quick to scream about the injustices of the world.... on their iPhones. Y'know, the iPhones whose factories have nets around them, so that the workers don't jump off and kill themselves. And abortion is the ultimate mockery of their idea that people shouldn't be oppressed.

Whenever you can tell me why something with its own specific DNA strand should die because "you should be living your best life" with a straight face, that doesn't involve the idiotic "because it's not a person", let me know. The ethical conversation around that hasn't been at that primae faciae stupidity for a long time, and instead is "Yes, it's human, but so what?" 

Why must something die for what you think of as your best life?

Or jump off a building so that way you can just amuse yourself on your iPhone?

These are not questions that are asked. I know they're not, I know they're actively avoided, because if I really  put the screws to any Woke person they simply don't have an answer. And then they deep-six it as quickly as possible. Genocide and mass slavery are fine, so long as I get mine and don't see the bodies in the garbage cans or on the pavement.

If you disagree, prove me wrong! Oh wait, that takes pain and changing your life, struggling with inconvenience, and finding peace within that inconvience, and letting that peace spread to others, who then have the option to join in. Something that is very difficult to justify doing because of the previous points.

But hey, look, Christians are being homophobes again! That's easy, you can just screech on social media about how the world is a cruel place. All the while the blood congeals in the garbage can or on the pavement. But don't worry! You got a nice little dopamine kick from the phone. Relax into it. It'll be fine.

Everything is fine.

It's fine! Go back to sleep.

6. Humans are ONLY products of their enviroment.

This is a weird one, but it is what I've observed. And, really, it doesn't take too long to figure out. See, I have not met a single leftist  who isn't aware, on some level, that the above is horrific. There's gaps in the ideology that lead to simply horrifying results. In order to hold to the point one, the cardinal point, you have to accept points 2-5. Have to. At some point, however, the human mind has to justify why those five points are acceptable. And that's fine: all ideologies have coping mechanisms in them. There has to be, because no plan survives contact with the enemy, nevermind the world.

But the leftist cope is... horrible.

Because all there is left is to admit that all you are is a consumer of corporate swill. To admit that all you can do is be a part of a series of force-fed drips. You can rage all you like, but there's not a single leftist I've met and actually talked to, on a serious level ,that actually thinks they're making a difference in the world. Not really. The only way to hold the thoughts in their heads is to admit the dirty secret that there is no leftist that is not totally dependent upon corporations for the news, the tech, the food, hell even babies.  Because families are nuked, because any and all local hierarchy has been removed, all there is left are faceless corporations who merely have to say the words back at them while they rob, rape, and kill others.

Materially Wokies are the ultimate corporate shills. Philosophically they're against what feeds them. 

Is it any wonder that there's been sudden explosions of depression and anxiety in the young?

7. Because society is not real, any attempt to see any nuance in the above points is treason to your fellow individual humans. There is no right, no wrong, just what's useful and expedient, and therefore questioning and nuance cannot be tolerated, nevermind disagreement.

I wrote one hell of a baity title, didn't I? But I really did mean it. The problem is that, at the end of the day, there is so much tension, with no release, no way out, of this point of view that any questionning of it, any genuine questionning, will create an incredibly volatile mix of frustration and hopelesness. I haven't met one single leftist who can hold all these thoughts in their head without going completely apeshit from time to time. 

I don't say that as a flex.

I think it's horrifying.

I don't want people to go through that. Ever.

So yes, questioning any of the previous six points is going to be anathema. The tension between them is so tight that literally nobody can hold it without the rest of the world shutting up and going along with it. Nuance is a luxury for those who aren't under continuous pressure. And nothing about this ideology allows one to be under anything other than continuous pressure. And so, yes, if someone gets in the way, right or wrong be damned, they must be silenced by shame, rage, threats, whatever it takes just please shut up so that there's a possibility for a moment of peace. 

But that never comes. It can't. You can't have peace by denying community and hating the world, because you are an extension of it. There's so many clearly and obviously and manifestly wrong things in this ideology, after just briefly picking up any primary source of history, nevermind theology or philosophy or whatever gets in the way right now, that really any action to quiet the noise down is acceptable. Like all humans, leftists hate chaos on a genetic level. And they will have order, or at the very least they will have silence as they seethe at problems literally every ideology before them has figured out cannot be solved.

Only made peace with.

Conservativism Doesn't Understand Heroes

 

I've been sorta sitting outside the culture war thing for awhile now, watching it in a rather clinical way, taking notes, making snide comments, and usually finding the whole matter more and more ridiculous. At this point I don't find myself comfortable with any of the sides, and the alienation only runs deeper and deeper the older I get. We will get to the leftists and their fundamental mistakes, but I'm going to pick on my former camp first; call it pride of place, conservatives.

Conservatives really don't understand heroes.

See, when I was growing up I read a lot as a child. I know that makes me stand out amongst all the bloggers and all that, but it's true. One of the things that I found as a child was that none of my ostensibly "conserving the culture" superiors seemed to be doing was actually conserving what made Christianity, or the West in general, special. They talked about conserving Christian values, preserving good families, keeping it in your pants until married or you'd go to Hell (boy someday I'm going to have a rant about that one), and generally being some milqetoast goody-two-shoes that would carry on their idea of Western civilization.

And everytime they said this I scratched my head, because none of the stories they were claiming to be defending were like that, at all.

Yeah, I know who I put up in the picture up top. I know some folks clicked on this because I laid the bait. But you're going to have to wait.

We're going to have to start with Samuel the Prophet.

I read most of the Old Testament from nine (when I actually started reading) to thirteen. Since then I've lapped it a few times. There are few things more important to me than reading the Old Testament, because it's here you find the most honest take on human nature you'll ever find. I get the New Testament is nice with all the cuddly "look Jesus is here and healing people" stuff, but honestly it doesn't really mean much without seeing people for what they really are. If you are not rooted in the Old Testament Christ isn't the fearsome conqueror of sin and death, but just some sweet nice dude who might be able to claim to be God because He was so fluffy. God stared men's nature down until it blinked, and it cost Him His life.

Samuel's story was the moment that started a watershed for me, that has lasted until this present day. Most of us know Samuel as the prophet who was told to say to God "Speak Lord, your servant is listening" when he heard someone calling for him at night. At nine I heard someone trying to teach a CCD class that the lesson of Samuel was that it was so very important to listen for the voice of God. Listen, and God will talk to you!

I was pissed. 

I went up to the teacher afterwards and asked why she didn't tell the rest of the freaking story.

For those who don't know: Eli, Sameul's foster-father, was one of the priests at Shiloh. In those days the priesthood was an unabashedly family business. If you were a priest it was because your father was a priest, and you were going to go marry some other priest's daughter and have as many kids as you could so that way the priesthood could go on. So Eli's sons were priests. And they were not good people. Eli's sons stole from the sacrifices, very deliberately making sure God did not get His due. Connected (as in, God viewed them as two halves of the same sin) to this, Eli's sons were also sleeping with the temple virgins. Now, us Catholics and Orthodox teach that such virgins were younger; Mary the Theotokos was being sent away from the Temple at twelve. Now, I don't know if that's historically accurate, given we don't know much about temple virgins, but um.... twelve is a legit number. 

So's ten.

I mean, technically so could five.

Sick yet? If not, we at least know where you stand on the priest/bishop sex scandals.

If you have information to the contrary I'd love to hear it (yes, there were temple virgins, they were a thing, so no, nothing on how they didn't "akshually" exist), but honestly the essence is that Eli's sons were either pedophiles and/or taking advantage of women who had nowhere else to go, and thus how much could they really say no? So God's message to Samuel? Y'know, the one that everyone so sweetly says "Listen to God", what did poor Samuel hear? To tell Eli, that foster-father of his, the one who told him to listen to God in the first place, that the entirety of his family was to die because he hadn't stopped his sons from either outright child rape or taking advantage of those who couldn't really resist them, and stealing from sacrifices, even though all priests got a share of all sacrifices. Eli had allowed his sons to become such monsters that God swore to Samuel that none of their descendants would live, and the books of Samuel actually keep track of this promise, coz it takes awhile to unfold, but when it does the book actualy says "That was the last descendant of Eli". And God told Samuel to say this to the man who had adopted him and raised him as one of his own.

Yes, listen to God.

It might scare the shit out of you though.

Samuel didn't want to say anything, of course, and actually had resolved to disobey God, because as it turns out telling your foster-father that his entire family had a deathmark on them for being child rapists is a bit much for a child. But Eli knew something was up, and forced Samuel to tell him the truth. 

That's Samuel's origin story as a prophet.

Gnarly shit, ain't it?

Samuel went on to anoint two kings, Saul and David, and judged Israel until the kings were set up... after failing to stop the Israelites from installing said kings. He also had sons who were of great embarrassment to him, although it's not said in the Bible how Samuel dealt with them, only that he wasn't the best dad around. Every moment of Samuel's recorded life was filled with failure and regret. He couldn't stop Israel from wanting a king, something that he stomped and screamed and outright refused to do, until God specifically told him to shut up and do it anyways. Samuel couldn't stop the first king, Saul, from letting the power get to his head, and grieved over Saul, a man who formerly had a genuinely good heart, for years. He wasn't a good dad, and his own sons turned out to be an embarrassment, even if they weren't child rapists like Eli's. Samuel was not a terribly exceptional person in the way conservatives understand it. It's not that Samuel was some sexual deviant, it's that his story is one of constant hope amidst complete and utter existential failure. What made Samuel special wasn't that he succeeded, or even if he was a particularly special person... he just kept trying as it all fell apart. And that one thing is what he sorta got right.

And that's easily one of the squeakiest cleanest of the OT stories.

David is much worse. The instant the defender of the poor and the downtrodden became king he became a murderer, adulterer, and allowed incestual rape to rip his family, and thus his country, apart. The courageous fighter for the common man became a weak and inept ruler. He also allowed a plague to strike his own country, knowing that his actions would lead to many of his people dying. And God calls David one of the best men to ever live. Which means if you got the job of monarch of Israel you'd do a considerably worse job than David.

Yes, you.

Don't get me started on the rest of them, particularly Moses, who had a habit of acting rashly that actually got him locked out of the Promised Land. Humans act out of character, and even when they do act in character it's usually a bad thing to do.

And that's just the Bible, folks.

You look at actual mythology and it gets much worse. Humans are, to a one, the playthings of the gods, who treat them like pets. Humans are at the mercy of the world, and their moral strength doesn't come from rising up and standing up for themselves, but in figuring out which god likes them and doing whatever the fuck that god tells them to do, no matter what it is. Odysseus, the man who loved his wife Penelope so much that he fought like hell to get back home to her over the course of twenty years, didn't even flinch when Calypso demanded him into her bed and body. A god demanded. He got up in the bed and did what had to be done. Hell, we know there's a third act to the trilogy of the Iliad and Odyssey, where his son by that fateful night accidentally kills him on the road!

Yup, that's how Odysseus, the most cunning man alive, slayer of men, and the favorite of Athena, dies.

In a tragic highway manslaughter accident.

It gets worse once you actually start looking at Chrtistian medieval stories, like La Morte D'Arthur or the Medieval Romances. People are constantly fucking in those stories, married or not. Arthur alone sleeps with at least three women, one of them his own sister, upon becoming king. Gawain, the best knight of the Round Table, second only to Galahad (and does he even truly count???), is the one who destroys Camelot because of his inability to forgive Lancelot. And these are the good guys! These are the ones who manage to actually get something done that's worthwhile. They're the ones who face down the entropy of the world and actually try not to blink. 

They try. And fail, but what makes a man good in classical and Christian thought isn't whether or not they succeed, for no man can, but their willingness to face their interior and exterior entropy and try to do the best they can with what they have, even knowing they'll fail. Because it's not about results, it's about what they can do right now. And yes, some of these heroes blink and do actually give up in total despair, and some of them stay that way, and some of them manage to come back. It depends. The idea of a hero never giving up is so inaccurate to the lore that it's actually hilarious.

Y'know what actually makes someone a hero? Get a pen and paper, coz here it is: they're the scapegoats of their people. Their life and suffering and joys (but usually their suffering) make majorly impacts society.

That's it.

Whatever they're going through personally, it hits their society at large. Call it chance, call it fate, call it being a half-god or whatever, whatever their own personal struggles and cares, they have a large societal impact.

Some of these heroes will notice and care that their actions have effects upon those around them... and a lot of them won't. This whole notion of the "self-sacrificing hero" is most certainly not endemic to the type. Hell, even a momentary look into Tolkien's own legendarium reveals that heroes can be literally anybody, with any kind of mental makeup. In fact, many heroes are actively against such ideals like self-sacrifice... and their fate isn't that  much worse than the nicer heroes, if we're being honest. Turin and Feanor don't exactly have a different ending than Hurin (AURE ENTELUVA! DAY SHALL COME AGAIN!!!!) and The Trees. What is the point of hacking through 80 or so orcs with an axe screaming "DAY SHALL COME AGAIN!! AURE ENTELUVA!!!!" when you're forced by LOTR Satan to watch your children and grandchild die after an incestuous marriage and then having to purposefully withold that truth from your wife so she can die in peace? 

Don't pretend you know, you fucking liar. There is a reason why theodicy exists: if the fate of a good man looks so similar to that of a bad one who gives a shit about being good? And to pretend this is not a question that is frequently asked by heroes is to ignore the Psalms and the Wisdom literature, where that question has entire books dedicated to it.

Now we get to the bait I laid at the front of the article.

Do you see the core issue I have with those who dislike Luke in TLJ? Luke's central issue, as detailed quite thoroughly in the classic The Empire Strikes Back, is his fear that his desire to do good will make him into Vader, a fear given major credence by the revelation at the end of the movie. Luke wants to do good, but is afraid that his instincts will trip him up. No, you don't get to grow beyond problems this elemental, sorry. Luke's utter recklessness in the pursuit of what he thinks is good is his defining trait, and it is both his strength and his weakness, like for anybody else. Those who say "he should have grown beyond being so rash" misunderstand how humanity works so fundamentally it's funny: Luke's vritue is also his flaw. You can't get the virtue without the vice to trip you up.

And yes, losing 13 of your foster children to your core motivation as a human being may break you and make you into a bitter asshole. That may be how humans work.

A lot of emotion is spent by leftists on how conservatives view people as cogs in a machine, and they're not entirely... wrong.  If your supposed heroes are just there to serve the whole, as opposed to the individual affecting the whole at large (and all of them being some form of cautionary tale), then yes, that's essentially just cogs in the machine. As much as I dislike leftist ideology, even I have to admit when they're right they're right. I have always found the conservative faux-stoicism to be disingenuous, when elves in Tolkien's literature can literally cry themselves to death, or Ajax can be driven mad by the gods and commit suicide, or Achilles avenges his friend by committing actual war crimes...

Now, granted, some will read the above and go "Yeah, but what about Christian stories? Stories about good guys fighting bad guys and being good and my goodness isn't all the virtue so nice? 

Look, at some point enough is enough. The absurdity is obvious, one way or another.

Go read even a page of La Morte D'Arthur to see what an actual Christian story and heroes look like. Where people are incredibly flawed creatures, who can't seem to hack it no matter what they try, where even if they win they lose, just like you and me, and at the end have to stare the death of all they know and love right in the face, knowing they had a hand in it... but still begging for a chance to do the right thing, even if it's just at the end.. if they're lucky.

It actually looks an awful lot like this, and all the moments leading up to it, green milk especially:

Gnarly shit, ain't it?

Christianity ain't for the weak.

But if you don't have the stomach for real Christianity, I suggest sticking with conservatism.

Returning to Hunter Ninja Bear

 

One of the things I’ve become painfully aware of is how shallow most reviews of geeky things are. It’s a sad fact that most geeky things are just poorly disguised cash grabs, flashes of “ooh shiny!” that are meant to distract us for two seconds from anything meaningful in our lives, as opposed to helping us find deeper meaning and peace where we’re at. Art, real art with depth, is usually set aside for a profit. There’s nothing inherently wrong with content, just that content and art need to be identified for what they are and their usefulness has to be accepted. 

Content is for when you’re tired and need a break.

Art is for helping you become better. Stronger. Wiser. Possibly a little sadder, as that’s usually what happens as a part of becoming any of those things.

Part of the problem is that most of us grew up on these corporate properties that were meant to sell toys, but found that the advertisements disguised as stories couldn’t not betray meaning, and so a lot of us connected with those toy advertisements as stories, as art. Humans are meant to find meaning in anything, to see the hand of God in all creation, so much so that even a naked toy commercial like Pokemon (or on a more personal level Digimon) can have a deeply profound impact on someone. 

And so, once hooked with something with even a modicum of meaning, the eternal chase begins for finding meaning. In toy commercials.

That’s not destined to make a toxic fan culture at all! 

Or make everyone feel beholden to the one kinda entity no one should ever feel allegiance to: corporations.

This loop hit me like a ton of bricks, ended my time with Marvel Champions, and subsequently most mainstream properties, all in one fell swoop. Since then I’ve tried to stick with things that I think strengthen me principally, while figuring out any form of a shtick for a blog that has any regularity without becoming a shill for something that doesn’t actually inspire me.

So when I realized that I could return to Hunter Ninja Bear and give a unique perspective, I was thrilled! Why is my perspective different, you might ask? Because I’ve genuinely been rereading this book once every three months, at the least. As in, I sit down and read it straight through, from beginning to end. In other words I actually love it, have spent time with it, and am unconcerned as to whether or not I benefit from a hype train.

First off, the binding on the book is starting to give way a little. In all the book feels solid in the hands, but on the closer inspection the glue is starting to give out. The paper has also smeared in a few spots, given it’s the same quality as the Big Two’s comics. That being said, it’s all in one tome and that’s handy! So overall there’s some wear and tear, but nothing worse than “the standard”, not even by a long shot.

The art is absolutely fantastic! Mel Rubi’s pencils are exactly my kind of style, with a fine eye for allowing the inker and colorist to work their magic. Rubi proves to me that one can make a color comic from the ground up. I honestly can’t think of a single illustration I don’t like. Rubi’s storytelling, however, is the real star of the show. He knows exactly how to set up a page, creating truly stunning compositions that I can just stare at for undefined amounts of time. Top notch all around!

That being said, Dixon’s script is the real star of the show here. This shouldn’t come as any surprise; Dixon is a legend for a reason, no matter how hard the mainstream tries to crap on his work. Dixon puts so many emotions and themes into this book, his narrative builds beautifully, and the slow burn goes nuclear at the end, while setting up for a sequel I’m honestly getting impatient for. 

Hunter Ninja Bear is the densest collection of emotions and themes I’ve ever encountered in a comic. Each location in the story is a confluence of histories, personalities, and emotions that don't feel constructed so much as discovered, in media res. The mixings of genuine hope, muted denial, and principled resentment of the ninja village are so strong that there's practically colors and soundtracks for each of them in my head. The same is true of the rage, comradery, and pragmatism of the Americans; these aren't places, they're microcosms. I think I reread Hunter Ninja Bear as much as I have because I feel like returning to these imaginal spheres of emotion. These places feel real to me in a way I've not run into for many comics. And the thing is that it's so freaking casual; the team don't really call attention to what they're doing. The atmosphere isn't well done, it is what makes the story works.

The narrative is an explosion of death and mayhem, leading to a journey divided into two parts: getting to America and getting back to Japan, all the while promising epic carnage at the end. Dixon understands his job, and so takes his time setting up all these characters, steeping you in that atmosphere I already mentioned, showing you what everyone thinks they are. Thinks. Because, when it all comes down to it, they all die screaming. What everyone thinks they are, whatever it is, it all dies about two seconds before their heart stops. There's something deeply raw and disturbing about the way everyone in this book dies. No stops are pulled out, everyone dies pitifully. The end is jarring, awful, and makes the journey before it... sad. Tragic. Event after event after event ends in a trainwreck of pain. And we're all headed for it. Like it or not. For whatever reason, these scenes give me strength. I know what the end will look like, no matter what the details are. Life is, on some level, about preparing for that moment at the end, about facing it as clearly as you can.

But perhaps the thing that makes it all work the hardest for me is the very end. I didn't really know the first two or so times reading this book how much I needed the ending. If anything, I got a little annoyed the first time around. The story was over! Why was the epilogue there? But honestly, if there's any particular reason why I keep rereading this collection of comics, it's because of that ending. I like that the book ends on its own two feet, running. The story doesn't end. It simply stops at a point where you know you'll want more.

Look, I'm not going to pretend to be a Chuck Dixon aficionado. This is honestly the first work of his I've ever read, directly. But there is something so freaking potent in this book, so primal, so elemental, that I keep coming back. I keep getting different stuff from it, from a line of dialogue I suddenly find moving for no particular reason but there it is, to a random facial expression, to even how the water is drawn. I don't know if anyone else will ever latch onto this book the way I have, but for me the book is magical. It reminds me of a part of me that I didn't know was still alive, and that I need to go find him. Somehow.

If something helps you remember you, how is it not art?

Orthodox Game Design: An Overly Quarrelsome Introduction

Orthodoxy is a word with many meanings, depending upon connotation. You can use it to mean "right doctrine", "true beauty",  My personal favorite, however, is “right glory”… but I mean it in a corrective sense, like in orthopedics: a glory and beauty that corrects and strengthens, a glorious compassion in a form immediately discernible, even as it cannot be fully understood. A beauty that heals, brings someone back into harmony with creation. Orthodoxy, as I mean it, is a medicinal reality. It is imperative to understand that I do not mean some faux-pious bullshit nonsense. I mean something with trackable, real-world, results.  So when I say I am "Orthodox Christian"I do not mean I identify principally as the member of a has-been former imperial Christian Church that was universally dumped upon by any of the "Enlightenment" thinkers whose naivety directly led to WWII.

I mean, I do identify with that has-been former imperial Christian Church that was universally dumped upon by any of the "Enlightenment" thinkers. Very much!

But I think the Orthodox Church serves, channels, that corrective light. It may know the most about that light, sure, but it's a servant, not the healing light itself.

It is of the utmost importance to understand that this healing and creative light (which the smart figure out is alive and sentient and thus call God) does actually have rules, and "He" manifests under specific conditions, regardless of media. 

What does this have to do with game design? 

I'm getting there.

Chill out.

The problem is that, ultimately, you can't address whether or not a design is O/orthodox or not without talking about the elephant in the room: us moderns are stupid. We have fallen into this idiotic notion that the world can be defined principally in abstractions. This is such a laughably obviously bad idea that we now have at least two entire industries (porn and therapy, in that order) dedicated to cleaning the idea up so it doesn't break the entire population.  None of the abstract frameworks we abuse like Walter White's crystal were meant to be used like how we are using them now. They're descriptive, in the same way that you use a medical textbook to diagnose an illness. They're shortcuts so you don't have to reinvent the wheel everytime. You're meant to look at the world around you and apply your knowledge to the symptoms of the world so that way you can get about to address the situation more quickly.

So when I say there are orthodox principles to game design, I mean that game design can be used in a way to reveal existentially healing beauty to those who play the game, not whether or not someone namechecks Jesus or the characters choose to not have sex before marriage because their purity is meant to be saved and all that happy modern garbage. One is identifying a phenomena happening in the real world and the other is just a Soviet-style checkbox. I am saying there are ways to heal the soul, just as much as healing the body, if not more ways to do it.

And, when I say "games can heal and they can do it on purpose" no one is really able to argue that. You can say you don't think the term "orthodox" shouldn't be applied in that way. And that's something I can respectfully disagree with.

I'll give you an example. I came to videogames late, later than TTRPGs even (19 versus 15). Twilight Princess was one of my first games. There's a lot about Twilight Princess I don't like now, but the ending of that game is not one of them. And then this happened:

For those of you who don't know, the ending of Twilight Princess is a sword fight between the protagonist Link and the antagonist Ganondorf. It's a tense affair, and then all of a sudden you lock blades and you have to tap that A button as fast as possible. Now, I've done that "tap button fast" crap in other games before and since and normally it's boring. But the thing is that Zelda does it right. You've spent all this time solving puzzles and most of the gameplay is about trying to find the most elegant solution to problems possible...

And then all of a sudden Ganandorf is just trying to bowl you over.

And all the people in the story, this sad and broken world, your own survival, requires you to button mash "A" as fast as humanly possible, all so all your work at outmaneuvering Ganondorf isn't destroyed. 

The time for subtetly and craft is past.

Knock that jerk over and nail him to the ground with the sword.

And he then dies standing up. What. The. Hell.

I know I'm not the only one who was rather deeply moved by that climax. There's something about it that opens up a fire in the gut, where the only thing that now counts is whether or not you can mash that ridiculous button hard enough to get your shot in. You've not come this far to get overpowered by a dude at least a head taller than you thank you very much. This a moment where you are told to stand your ground or fail. The game has spent so much time telling you to be clever that the one time it tells you to just have raw gumption hits like a ton of bricks.It's a moment where the world of the game and your own interior world fuse, just for a second, just long enough to where you are Link, all the evils and travails in the world are Gandondorf, and you're going to win.

And then you do.

It's not like you lose sight of the fact that what happened on the screen is factual. It's something so much more mysterious. A part of you came out to the game and said "Yeah, I can do that too. I can fight. I'll fight till I drop." And, even though the victory on the screen isn't factual, a part of you said "No, I think I can go on now" that did not think so before. Something happened inside your soul that is far greater than the thing that prompted it.

Another example, really the example for me, was my second Burning Wheel campaign, The Revenge of the Countess of Fire. We finished the last session, and everyone just... stared... into space. There was utter silence. It was so thick you could cut it with a knife.There was a beauty to what had just happened. Marian, the villain, had just been proven to be a patsy for a greater evil, and she was wanting to end it all. She didn't see another way out. And the players, driven to pity, talked this child-drowning monster out of killing herself and trying to do something with the gift the players have given her: a chance to make a difference, the right way. Marian could make a difference, because the past wasn't king. And that was the victory they'd just had: convincing a monster to try to genuinely love, just one more time. After eight sessions of holding their noses around Marian, they had finally seen her as a person, saw what made her tick, and helped her want to try again. It was a moment that somehow went beyond the game. Not a soul was unaffected.

Some of you are nodding along, I know. You know what I mean now. You can see why it's so hard to define, because by definition you cannot define that movement in your own soul, can you? You sorta describe it, say what it's sorta doing, but that's about it. 

That moment? 

That is a moment of "corrective" beauty, of orthodoxy. You run into the beautiful infinity. And, as Victor Hugo says so freaking eloquently:

“The infinite exists. It is there. If the infinite had no me, the me would be its limit; it would not be the infinite; in other words, it would not be. But it is. Then it has a me. This me of the infinite is God.”

That beautiful infinity, that moment, is with a person.. We historically have called Him God, and  “God is responsible for all good”, says St. Cyril of Alexandria. All good. Including what happens in something as seemingly trivial as playing a game. But nothing is too small for God “not even a teardrop, or a part of a drop”, as St. Symeon the New Theologian says. All things are His, all experiences of good things are a relating to God. And, just like any relationship, there are principles, a mode of thinking, that let you do this on purpose. Which means there are principles of design that can bring you into contact with the Almighty Himself. Because, as it turns out, there's thousands of years of techniques to get you into the proper mindset.

And this means that there are principles that can be used to shift your mindset while playing a game.

Now, for anyone who has not been paying attention over this last post, I'm not advocating someone sets up a checklist of stupid things like "Do we talk about God in this game? Do the characters act in a 'wholesome' manner? Do the good guys always win?" and all sorts of silly things that so many conservative Christians would want on such a list. Or, y'know, SJWs, who are just as prudish and dogmatic as the conservatives. 

Yeah, no.

What exactly am I advocating for? Wait, you wanted me to have this mapped out? Figured out? Ha! Look, you want an honest look at this, or someone trying to sell you something? Me trying to sell you something is down below. You'll figure out very quickly I don't sell anything too well on this blog. I'm practically allergic to being a company man. Hell, I have a game I've published and I still keep forgetting to put a link up on this blog so the dozen or so people (if I'm lucky) might buy it. Maybe. Probably not. So I got news and it's either going to be refreshing or it's going to be terrifying: no I don't have this mapped out. I'll be taking this series irregularly, off-the-cuff, and a bunch of other words that I'm sure everyone will find as I go. I will make mistakes. And I will be wrong.

So you're either in for the ride or you're not. 

As for me, I'll be messing around here. We'll see where it goes!

Thank you for reading!

OKAY, SO THIS IS THE SHILL TIME. If you go away after this point that's fine! Really!

If you like what I've written and want to see it in action, go over to my Itch, and pick up my game Apex, which is a single-page game that packs a lot of punch to it. It's way better than any one-page RPG has any right to be and it's really easy to play.

If you like what I'm saying and want to see what I'm up, design-wise, I update my two games on my Discord on an-almost weekly basis. If you want to see the drafts, go on over to Discord and take a look!

Oh, what am I working on, in general? Glad you asked! I'm working on two games: Dragons and Planets and Crescendo.

Dragons and Planets is a one-shot space fantasy game for two to six people, in the tone and tradition of Star Wars, Pacific Rim, and the Matrix. Gameplay is fast, frenetic, and extremely collaborative, while being surprisingly relaxing. Oh, and it's diceless and uses your favorite book. From character and world creation to the end it takes about two hours.

Crescendo is a long-form fantasy game of character development for two to four people. Innovative journaling with easy-but-deep storytelling mechanics, Crescendo is an intensely rewarding time for those who really want to sink their teeth into their characters and the setting.

You can find the most recent drafts for both games on the Discord.

The Black Demon

There are two kinds of good shark films: serious analaogies for human pride or emotional turmoil and hilarious gore-fests with not a small amount of skin. In general you'll need to pick one, please. Seriously, there's just the two types of shark movies. Hell, really shark stories, cause Jaws was originally a fantastic book.

No, please don't argue it.

Look, the point is that shark movies, while they've always had an ecological subtext, are not really about ecology per se. And even if you were to somehow make a third type of shark movie, one about ecology, it would actually have to have something intellegible to say about ecology. Maybe something about how the warming waters is hurting hunting, or any number of issues that would actually be kinda interesting to do.

You know where you shouldn't be going with shark movies? 

Aztec gods out for revenge.

You wanna go and do that sorta thing your characters had better be totally on point, your commentary on ecology totally up to date, and I better be learn everything there is to know about Aztec gods by the end of your movie. You wanna do something that weird, it better be pristine. And I do mean pristine. You wanna make a third kinda shark movie? You better freaking do it right.

The Black Demon doesn't do it right.

First off, the characters are cookie-cutter trash. I mean, seriously, I could count the number of actually interesting characters... well no, no wait, I couldn't, because there weren't any. And they do all the stupid bullshit you'd expect: crooked white dudes with corporate jobs, superstitious locals, the hot Mexican wife, the bratty kids who might speak Spanish like their Mexican mom, the salt of the earth folks who of course hate the white dude... who has a sudden change of heart at the end as he sees the consequences of his actions and sacrifices himself because he's a better man now, thank you.

I've seen this movie a million times, just this time it's got a crappy shark CGI'd in.

Why is the shark barely in this particular film? I get "less is more" was done in Jaws, and I get that that is one way to do this... but it's a megalodon. Why are we skimping on a megalodon? I get that there's a budget, that that's a real problem, all that but....

Look,  can I just say "it's a megalodon" and have everyone agree that sometimes something so freaking awesome should be indulged? Even a little bit? This isn't a shark film, really, it's a freaking kaiju film. And most kaiju films make their monster as awesome as possible, whether that be with practical effects or an actual CGI budget. 

But hey, there’s another way this film falls flat! This film tries to be a supernatural thriller too! But does it feature the gods as cruel and implacable monsters, with no  true care for human life, ironically making it apparent why Christianity is where it is historically?

Actually yes!

But everything else sucks so much it doesn’t matter. 

Poor Black Demon. There’s a kernel of something interesting here. But it’s buried beneath metric tons of bad characters, confused genre and themes, and bad effects. It’s a level of excrement so deep that you’d drown in it. I’ll take death by water, thank you.

Isom 1 and 2

So issue two came in, I sat down and read, and realized I needed to go back to issue one, even though I'd just read it a few days ago. It turns out Eric July really meant it when he said that each of these issues really are just parts in one longer story. Two also works backwards, making certain aspects of issue one read very differently. So instead of trying to review issue two of Isom on its "own" merits, I'm going to attempt to engage with it the way that July seems to want us to: as an extension and re-evaluation of issue one. So I sat down and read issues one and two, back-to-back. What we have here is a fully realized setting, with great storytelling, but my God the dialogue is starting to grate on me. These two parts set up a narrative bomb, one that hopefully part three lights up and everyone runs for the hills BECAUSE IT'S A BOMB.

First off, the production seems to be higher with issue two, which is really saying something. Maybe it's because I picked up one of the "not going to be around forever" covers? I dunno. I can tell you this: I kept pulling this book out of its included bag just to hold it, and prefer it to my copy of Isom 1 in terms of sheer production. Isom 2 is the best-produced book I own, hardcover or not. I also got this book with free shipping, and it came relatively quickly. So on a production and shipment standpoint I am a very happy camper when it comes to Isom 2. Rippaverse really knocked it out of the park here, and I openly think they deserve their success on this one part alone. There's pride in this production of these books. Isom 2 is also thirty pages more than Isom 1, at the same price. July had promised that as Rippaverse got more clout he'd keep the price the same and just keep folding more content in. He's keeping his promise. I noticed. I love it.

So, like I said before, issue two relies really heavily upon your reading of issue one. It is not a self-contained story at all, so do not order Isom 2 before ordering Isom 1. That being said, I read Isom 2, and then I went back and read them together. And a lot more jumped out at me about issue one. A lot of the worldbuilding that July did in issue one was lost on me, even after three read-throughs, and I found there were actually a bewildering amount of things I had missed. The narrative role of Isom in these two issues so far is to walk into these stories that are already evolving and mess them up by his sheer ignorance and honey badger energy. Avery's lack of any fucks to give is a bomb to the status quo. That's the shtick for Isom: he doesn't really know, he doesn't really care, and he's out bubblegum and excuses. He just wants those he cares about to be okay, and that's really just about the only thing he does actually care about. So far the Ill-Advised story is about the honey badger walking into a crowded room and pissing everyone off.

And you know what? It'd be so much more fun if the dialogue wasn't so freaking bad. I mean, my God, some of these lines of dialogue don't even need to be more than a word or two, and are a paragraph long. It's painfully distracting and I'm honestly about done with it. Granted, issue two is better about shutting up when absolutley necessary, but when it's necessary to give exposition or have a conversation the books go fully bad B-movie levels of dialogue. It hurts, honestly. Some of this shit is "show me on the doll where Eric July hurt you" levels of bad. And it's a real shame, because I can see what he's trying to go for and I like it! I'm really enjoying these issues, this is a slow burn done right! But please, Mr. Vocalist-Youtuber, for the love of God, shut up and let the art do the talking. Isom 2 identifies these moments more often, but when July messes up he does it worse.

I had said in my previous review of Isom 1 that I really don't like Cliff Richard's style, but his storytelling more than makes up for it. In Isom 2 some of Richard's base drawing just gets painful to look at in some spots, particularly three quarter turns. That being said, Richards pulls out the stops storytelling-wise, and by the end of issue two has done something truly impressive.  Just as I started rolling my eyes at the three-quarter portraits Richards started doing stuff with his storytellling I wish more artists even knew existed. The storytelling of Isom 2 is so freaking good I was almost cheering toward the end at some of the layouts. These are  truly fun books to look at folks. They just are. I love holding the books, opening them up, and just looking.

Now, this is all well and good, but now we have a question. Issues one and two have set up this web of events, all of which are explosive, and then ended on a real cliffhanger that could upset the whole applecart. Remember: endings are hard to write. July has set himself up for either a triumph or a failure. This guy doesn't suffer from a lack of balls, y'all! He's backed himself into a corner and is either going to come out swinging with Isom 3 or he's gonna fail, and spectacularly. I don't really see much of an inbetween here. July has absolutely no chill in any part of his narrative, and he's used the extra thirty pages to add more fuel to the fire.

Isom 1 and 2 are a lot of fun. The books are of amazing quality. I don't like the Richards's style but his storytelling is practically immaculate and more than makes up for any drafting issues I've got with his style. July clearly has the big picture very solidly in mind, and plays with the toys he introduces well, but holy crap the dialogue can get to be George Lucas levels of cringe. Given this is July's second book this is all forgiveable. He's trying to find his stride and he's relying upon those with more experience to carry him, which is hardly a crime. But honestly I'm a bit nervous for issue three. If July is smart about this he's going to delivers a fireworks-intensive third act, with some of the most intense storytelling I've seen in a long time.

But if  July is dumb about this he'll blow up the Rippaverse before it even truly starts.

We'll see.

I've had fun so far, I'll definitely be ordering Alphacore and Yaira! I'm excited to see where this is going!

Isom #1

 

There is no way to talk about the single highest-grossing crowdfunded graphic novel of all time without getting into some history.

So let's talk about ComicsGate. Grab a glass of your favorite beverage, cause this is a doozy. ComicsGate (CG) began around 2016, with a bunch of people (rightfully) saying that the folks at Marvel and DC were no longer writing comics, but mostly leftist propaganda. And that it sucked. They took issue with new token characters like Ms. Marvel and pointed out (again, correctly) that they weren't really characters, not when it counted, but propaganda machines. And let's not leave out the part where "heroes"  began acting like class-A sociopaths, right Iron Heart? Now, the problem is that a lot of these people were, for lack of a better word, assholes. Generally when someone gets mad they become an asshole. And frankly, if you've ever seen a single tweet from someone like Dan Slott, Maggs Visaggio, or Vita Ayala... it's kinda hard to not get extremely angry very quickly. So they reacted.

They were labeled a hate group. 

By people who do whisper networks to bring down other creators they don't like. 

By people who intentionally go out of their way to destroy other people's careers and boast about it. Publicly.

Yeah.

Understand, I am not defending the ComicsGate people who were jerks. But if they count as a hate group the "mainstream" is, objectively, a hategroup as well. The next few years anyone with a conservative voice inside of mainstream comics being pushed out, with bonafide legends like Chuck Dixon more or less being blacklisted for not subscribing to the next lefitst cause. There's a cruel joke here, of course: said conservatives went on to make very publicly livable amounts of money, something no mainstream writer or artist could ever claim to make. As it turns out, crowdfunding is actually profitable!

Enter Eric D. July, a black libertarian musicisn and culture war commentator. As is always the case for prominent dissidents, I pay attention to July, not because I agree with him politically, but because all dissidents, at root, have a point, somehow. Like most dissidents, I don't think Mr. July is correct about much of anything, because he's in the forest, looking at individual trees. I also think libertarianism is a naive ideology. But, unlike a lot of the dissidents, July had true confidence. The man had gone through hell multiple ways, and you don't fake the type that kind of experience. July's concerns, while sometimes off the mark, were always grounded in assumptions I've always fundamentally agreed with, that of the need to make money in comics and actually loving the medium.

When July declared he was going to start a comic book company, called the Rippaverse, I was a bit... skeptical. I knew July to be a businesman, so I didn't doubt he couldn't figure something out, but he very openly wanted to take on the mainstream and win.

I mean, look at this page from Isom #1. Pretty clear what his intentions are, aren't they? Not exactly the picture of subtlety.

Now, the next part of this is where it gets interesting. See, when Isom #1 launched, a year ago, it broke 3.5 million in pre-orders. There was one, just one, article from the mainstream "news sources". Reddit banned any talk of the launch, because they had lumped July in with the ComicsGate people. July wasn't the first one they hadn't done it to (see Alterna Comics!), but this was the first time that the absurdity became obvious... assuming you were watching.

And I was.

The things they called July were awful. I'm not going to post them here. But you can find them. The "inclusive" mainstream called July Uncle Tom and much worse, becoming exactly what they had always accused the conservative movement of.

Go ahead. Look. It's around.

Truth is a bitch, ain't it?

Despite all this, or probably because of it, July's first book pulled in 3.5 million bucks. And during all of this I didn't give a red cent to Eric July. It's not that I disagreed with his words... but I wanted to see his actions. And it took a year, but 2023 dropped and July began to make serious moves. He opened up an additional warehouse, contracted Chuck Dixon for not one, but two books, got the Yaira book up and running, all while working on Isom #2. I watched. And waited. 35 bucks for 96 pages seemed a bit of a hard sell, considering July had never written a comic in his life and I couldn't get seem to get any actually objective review to tell me if I might even enjoy the book for being, well.... yanno... A BOOK. Because, at the end of the day, July isn't here to fight a culture war. If he wanted to do that he'd just keep making YouTube videos. He's here to write comics. And I had no idea if I wanted to try his work at all.

And then Isom #1 went on sale.

So I ordered it.

What follows, now that we got the legwork out of the way, is an honest attempt to review Isom #1. There's been a lot of buzz around the book, and now, while people are finally trying to be objective about the work, I feel the reviews are lacking. So here's my attempt to do it.

First off, this book is extremely high quality. Here's the mailer the book came in:

Were they worried about people trying to bomb their books??? This sucker is sturdy.

The book itself is of amazing quality. Not good, not even great, amazing. The book feels so good to hold. I know that sounds weird. But it's very very clear where the price tag of 35 bucks went: this is a damn wonderful book. I like holding the book, just to hold it.  The colors are bright, there isn't a chance in hell of the text smearing, ever, even after this book survives the nuclear holocaust and me and the cockroaches don't. July wanted the book to last, and it's gonna. The packaging and physical product are far better than anything else on the market currently, and it's not even close. I'm not sure when they're going to announce that Isom #1 could be used as a radiation shield during a nuclear blast, but trust me it's coming.

Now, onto the art. Cliff Richards pencils and inks. While the style is okay, not being stylized or realistic enough for my tastes, Richards's storytelling is awesome. I didn't need to do the squint test on 95% of these pages; my eyes flowed very easily acrost the pages. There's an ease, a grace, to the storytelling here that I really enjoyed. This is slow-burn done really, really, really well. Honestly, there were moments where July should have just shut up and let Richards off the chain even more. We'll get to that more in a minute, but this book is fun to look at and is worth the price of admission alone.

Yes, I jsut said I'd buy the book at 35 bucks just for the art's storytelling. Isom #2 is now coming in, so my money is where my mouth is.

The story itself is where things get trickier. Isom #1 has some truly impressive requirements: it's not just the first part of a three-book arc, it's openly supposed to set up an entire superhero universe. The book is openly called a "launching pad" right on the opening page, so this isn't me just guessing: Isom #1 is the hook for multiple lines of books, all at once. In 96 pages. I'm sorry, but that's an impossible goal. I don't know of anyone who could pull that off, it's why the freaking Avengers movie comes so relatively late in the MCU lineup! Again, this is an impossible task. Seasoned writers ain't gonna be able to do it, nevermind a first outing (this is July's first comic), which means that the book is hosed before it even starts. Some things just should not be attempted. The question isn't whether or not July fails his narrative requirements, it's actually how well he handles the failure. You could either go all-out on world-buidling, while not really focusing on Isom, or go really hard on your titular character and throw in just enough world-building to where people want more. 

Well the book goes with what I think is the correct approach: it focuses very closely on Avery Silman, Isom, and uses the story to introduce Yaira and the Alphacore. The problem is that neither of these extra elements are actually interesting. Yaira shows up for a few pages, along with the Alphacore and... isn't really used. And, I mean, Yaira's got a ton of hype already! Here's some fan art of her, from here.

Like, why are people so excited? I genuinely don't get it. I'm honestly not sure what the hype around these characters is about. This is one of those moments when the hype around the Rippaverse honestly feels unearned. What on earth, from the page, would make us like these characters? I know I'm interested because I know Eric's hired good writers and artists to make the books, so I'm hyped for that, but from these pages alone? I mean, who cares? Eric could have swapped Yaira, at the very least, and actually have made the story make more sense. The story beat she shows up in is necessary, and I like it, and I really like how the fight she shows up in is drawn even! But she particularly didn't need to be here. Alphacore making any form of entrance makes sense given the narrative, but Yaira is fan service in the worst way possible.

Fortunately Avery himself is a really interesting character. A former superhero turned rancher, Avery is the type of grouchy "don't yank me out of retirement" character I automatically find myself liking. The thing is that July could have just left it there, but doesn't. Avery's really well sketched-out, with a huge chip on his shoulder that gets him in trouble, along with a sense of honor that puts him back in trouble. It's got a lot of potential, and July takes that potential and fleshes it out with entertaining fights and some actually sweet scenes. His supporting cast are grounded and fun to read about. The actual heart and soul of the story is well-done, and what more could you ask for than that?

Now, the thing is that several reviewers have commented that the pacing of the book is slow and not much happens. That's something I really disagree on. The book is meant to be a slow burn, as per the mission statement of Eric July. And the plot is a good, slow, burn. He takes his time, sets things up, and by the time you're done with the first issue you got a really good idea of who Avery is and what's at stake. The plot achieves its ends and does it well. What really needs work, however, is the freaking dialogue. Good gravy, there's pages in this book that don't need any dialogue at all, because they're so well drawn and laid out... and there's dialogue. And it's not good. Flat out, not good. And honestly it never could have been good, because these are the pages where you shut up. The art saves these pages, fundamentally, but in the hands of a lesser artist they'd be painful pages to read. July was smart to pick Richards to back him up, to patch the narrative for his first time out.

There's also some bonus pages in the back of the book, for a concept called Norfrica. Not gonna lie, I didn't really get what was going on here. I get it's a pitch, but a pitch for what exactly? I feel a bit thick reading it, because I know he's trying to pitch another title, but honestly I'm not sure why I should care about these characters, or their power of the "lyrics being real". I was thoroughly underwhelmed. If there's a good creative team behind it I'll consider buying it, because I like what I read about Avery... but certainly not on the strength of these pages. There's also a nice pin-up of Yaira at the end. It's a nice drawing, but again, not getting the draw, at least not yet. Some parts of this book just scream "You should already be hyped!"

Nuh-uh.

You earn that shit from me.

Now, let's not get this confused. I like this book! Had I know how much I'd like it I'd happily have shelled out thirty five bucks for it. The book quality and the art alone is worth the thirty-five, and I really don't say that lightly. I like how July swings for the fences, swings hard, and just keeps swinging. He hits at the important stuff, borks the small. You can't ask more for a beginning attempt.

Now, the question is "Does this book warrant the 3.5 million dollar craze?" On its own terms? Hell no. The book simply isn't that good. So why did it bring in this amount of money, besides the book being 35 hard-earned George Washingtons?

This. This page right here.

Look, folks, the simple fact of the matter is that this book found an untapped market. There's apparently a bunch of would-be readers who obviously connected with the above ethics, which this apparently untapped market felt are not currently being honored by the Big Two. So, regardless of whether or not you like this comic book or not, whether you like ComicsGate or not or even think in those terms (which I do not think healthy)… that’s a lot of money left on the table. 

Given that Isom #2 hit 2.2 million dollars in pre-orders, and that there’s at least two more projects coming out before the end of the year, I think it safe to say that the Rippaverse ain’t going anywhere. Isom isn’t a fluke. This book is a good first outing, and is about to be accompanied by veteran teams who openly want to take the comic world by storm. They may even succeed. 

But they're not going away.