Why are there so many bad people in the world? Or, maybe the question should be: why are there so many bad people doing bad things to people who don’t deserve the trouble? I may be naïve, but I think the most poignant stories are the ones about the righteous …

There are terrible things that happen in the world but there are also terrible people who make these things happen. It’s the terrible people we should concern ourselves more. When events occur by themselves, there is no-one to blame. But people who set these events in motion need to concern …

For Red Nose Day, Matthew Mercer and Stephen Colbert played D&D together this week in a one-shot adventure to vanquish the fiendish foe of Child Poverty and to recover … The Crimson Orb of Generosity! … And it actually saddened me that I couldn’t play with them. Did you ever …

You know, when I talked to him last, Tom King told me that “he just wanted people to know how much he loved the comics medium”. I love the medium too. But I’ve been thinking about that conversation and it’s made me wonder, as a man leaving his forties, why …

Rules are important in any situation. As an avid game player, I cling to rules to understand context, themes and most importantly, strategy. But there are the unwritten, unspoken rules that pop up in every situation that throw us for a loop. I’m talking about values, or house factors which …

Whatever happened to the simple pursuit of crafting a good story? For that matter, whatever happened to stories having simple endings? In my book, it’s enough for good to triumph over evil and for some reason, that’s just not the expectation any more. I love to be surprised by a complex …

At what point in a story does an adventurer know fear? If it’s Conan the Barbarian we’re talking about, Jason Aaron certainly knows that moment … but would it make him less of a poignant character if he told us when it was? In Part Six of The Life and …

Sorry this is so late. Lots of loose ends to tie up that got in the way this week. Taking care of loose ends is a driving force in people’s lives, so, as in life, we see this element of effective storytelling in occur in comics. … Well-written comics, that …

I just did an interview with the propmaster of Star Trek: Discovery for another website today. What I got from that interview was the importance of a love of details. Props are important in conveying ambience and mood, and that’s why details are so important. We’re looking at detailed craftsmanship …

The theme for this week is unlikely allies. Life takes you in weird directions sometimes and this week, we’re looking at the weird directions that some of our favourite comic heroes are sent. DC Comics Batman #69 We’re finally seeing the picture of Batman’s state of being coming together with …

The greatest adventure is life. We are the heroes of our own adventures and super-heroes, by contrast, are just people with extraordinary gifts and in unusual circumstances. How they make sense of the decisions in their lives is very much like the same way we do, just magnified larger for …

Why do we keep going? It takes a great deal of guts to keep going, day after day, to manage the mundane as well as the marvelous things in our lives. It’s a challenge to keep all of these things in context, moving from what feels like the highest peak …

The Critical Role phenomenon has taken the geek-world by storm. It’s gratifying to see that my childhood and adolescence … and university years … and latter adulthood gaming with other aging man-children have not gone to waste and that role-playing is still a viable way to spend time. The good …

How does one get Happy? Well, you need a few things: good stories, good times, and good pals. And even though Nick Sax is none these things, you can still find all three in Season Two of SyFy’s twistedly funny show, Happy! I had the good fortune to sit down …

Milestones are important in a person’s life. They are the historical markers that measure the passage of our lives, broken up into episodic achievements. We measure our lives by these achievements: the first kiss, the first job, whatever; these things help to shape our lives by punctuated moments of celebration …