Hero Comics 2011

We’ve discussed the awesomeness of the HERO Initiative at least once before — they’re a not-for-profit charity that works to help comic creators, artists, and writers who are having serious money troubles, whether because of age, illness, or just plain difficulty finding work. They’ll help pay medical expenses, rent, even help creators find paying work in the comics industry.

In decades past, comics creators often didn’t get paid very much for what they did, and they rarely enjoyed pensions or retirement funds. And freelancers today often can’t afford medical insurance. There are all kinds of things that can leave comics creators unable to work in the industry and facing hard times without a safety net. The HERO Initiative does what they can to make things better, and they’re absolutely industry heroes.

They also periodically put out a benefit comic to help raise money and awareness — and this year’s is certainly one of the most impressive I’ve seen — whether we’re talking benefit comics or anthology comics. The spotlight piece is a story called “My Last Landlady” by Neil Gaiman, Mike Dringenberg, and Sam Keith — the original creators of the Vertigo “Sandman” series. It’s a beautifully painted horror short, claustrophobic and tense, set in a seaside resort. Later, Sam Keith whimsically illustrates the e-mails that he, Gaiman, and Dringenberg exchanged while they were working on the project. We also get a short “Elephantmen” story by Richard Starkings and Dougie Braithwaite, and a psychedelic “Chew” story by John Layman and Rob Guillory.

And on top of that, we get three short one-page stories from Christopher Ivy, Jason Craig, and Ralph Reese, talking about how HERO helped them through tough times. And despite the array of powerhouse talent in the rest of the comic, all turning in outstanding work, these little one-pagers are the most touching and moving stories in here.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Brilliant comics in here — spooky and funny and sad and heartwarming. It’s all for a great cause, it’s definitely worth the four bucks you’ll pay for it — and please visit the HERO Initiative’s site to learn more about what they do.

Dungeons & Dragons #9

Adric Fell and his band of adventurers are stuck in the Feywild and under attack by a bunch of gnolls, but they’ve got aid from Toveliss E’Teall, an Eladrin king — and Adric’s girlfriend’s father. He’s not a big fan of Adric, but he helps them all out anyway. After bringing them to his own magic castle hidden under a waterfall, Toveliss reveals that the Eladrin who were forced through the dimensional portal back in the Dwarven dungeon ended up as disembodied spirits, and the only way to restore them — and the only way Toveliss will agree to send the adventurers back to the normal world — is for the party to travel to the now-ruined City of Stairs, which is now occupied by monstrous Fomorians. After the party battles a dryad (which Khal disarms in a uniquely awesome way), they finally reach the City of Stairs. But to reach their goal, they’re going to have to travel underneath the city…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Good action, great dialogue, and the twist in the battle with the dryad is really superb. All around, a very fun comic book.

Robert Bloch’s That Hellbound Train

Well, here’s something I wasn’t expecting — a comic based on a classic story by Robert Bloch, adapted by Joe R. Lansdale and John L. Lansdale. “That Hellbound Train” has been one of my favorite old stories for decades — it even won a Hugo Award in 1959. So this looks like it might be a fun surprise.

Our lead character is Martin, the son of a railroad man who filled his head with stories about the Hellbound Train, a ghost locomotive that carried the souls of the damned down to Hell. Martin’s dad was a heavy drinker after his wife ran off with another man, and he died one night after being hit by a mysterious train. Orphaned, Martin was pushed into an abusive orphanage, which he ran away from. After that, he made do with small jobs and petty theft. And then one night, he meets up with a monstrous train out in the middle of nowhere, with a conductor who lights his lantern by blowing on the wick. The conductor offers him a special watch — all he has to do is stop the watch, and time will stop for him. He’ll be able to choose his moment of greatest happiness, stop the watch, and that moment will go on forever. Not a bad deal, right? Right?

Verdict: Thumbs up. So far, this story has all the magic I remember from Bloch’s original. And Dave Wachter’s artwork is gloriously, horrifically beautiful — the Hellbound Train is a gigantic, bloody, smokey, sticky horror, and it’s just flat gorgeous. I’ve got high hopes for this one.

Dungeons & Dragons #8

Adric Fell and his band of adventurers are trapped in the Feywild, where the Faeries, both good and bad, hang out. It’s a wildly dangerous place — filled with monsters, stuffed with dangerous magic, and unhinged from time. After the group saves a gnome and kills the quicklings trying to eat him, they find themselves betrayed, drugged, and strung up to distract the invading Fomorian armies while the gnomes flee to a safer location. Will Fell and his group escape? Do they have allies in the Feywild? And are their allies just as dangerous as the invading monsters?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great action and story, and the dialogue here is just plain fantastic. You’re reading this, aren’t you? You should be reading this.

Dark Horse Presents #2

The revival of Dark Horse’s great anthology series continues, with stories ranging from: A new story about Concrete by Paul Chadwick; Robert Love and David Walker’s story about a small boy in a post-apocalyptic hell; Neal Adams ongoing story about a hero that lives in people’s blood; Howard Chaykin’s tale of a schlubby assassin; Michael T. Gilbert’s new story about Mr. Monster; and David Chelsea’s oh-so-cool adventures of Snow Angel.

Verdict: Actually, thumbs down. I loved the Concrete and Snow Angel stories, but the rest were either not particularly good or entirely forgettable. Yes, even the ones with really awesome artwork. And I hope this gets better fast, because $8 is a lot of money to spend on an anthology series that doesn’t deliver the goods.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Here’s a really cute cartoon starring Dave Stevens’ Rocketeer.
• The special bonus weapon from the “Red Faction: Armageddon” video game is the best bonus weapon ever.
• Two great videos starring Neil Gaiman — one where he gets sweary about Pulitzer Prizes and one where he introduces Adam Savage from “Mythbusters” and his wonderful little song.

Dungeons & Dragons #7

We’re still in flashback mode, discovering how Adric Fell and his band of adventurers originally got together. Hired on to guard some wizards traveling to a magically lost city, their band is ambushed by a bunch of elves and eladrin. When the head eladrin (for those not up on their D&D knowledge, eladrin are basically elf nobles, while regular elves are, well, just regular elves) reveals that he’s willing to kill other elves and eladrin to protect the city’s magic, Varis turns on him. But there’s another ambush in the making, as they are all attacked by the Drow (again, for the D&D avoiders, those are dark elves). A small group of adventurers survives, but they won’t last long with all the Drow trying to bust into the small room they’re holed up in. Do they have a chance to escape certain doom?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nicely tense storyline, lots of claustrophobic, tense scenes, outstanding dialogue, and a picture-perfect Desperate Last Stand.

How to improve this series: Well, I enjoyed this flashback storyarc, but I’m fairly glad it’s over now, ’cause I really want to see more stuff with my two favorite characters, Bree the greedy sociopath halfling and Tisha the brooding but dishy tiefling.

Detective Comics #877

Batman escapes from a deathtrap set by Bixby Rhodes, a gunrunner/car dealer, and snags the crook even though he tries to escape on high-tech titanium super-legs. Dick learns from Sonia Branch, non-criminal daughter of the gangster who killed his parents, that her bank has had to deal with criminals wanting to launder money for years, but while the Mob usually respected her wishes not to cater to criminals (after all, they had plenty of other banks to turn to for dirty dealings), other crooks, including Rhodes and a smuggler named Tiger Shark, have refused to take no for an answer. Dick tracks Tiger Shark to his secret underwater lair, but what sort of dangers are lurking in the depths?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Very, very nice mystery storytelling. Love the dialogue and characterization by Scott Snyder. (There’s a great bit at the beginning where Dick Grayson talks about what he likes to do after dealing with human criminals all night — he loves nature documentaries, just because they don’t have any humans in them. That’s a great piece of character work.) And I love Jock’s artwork, too. Really, I’m loving the whole series.

How to improve this series: For starters, don’t get rid of Scott Snyder. The guy really is very good with mysteries. Other than that, I can’t think of a lot that would need to be fixed — this is one of DC’s best series.

Xombi #3

The Maranatha is a giant fiery monster of pure anger and hatred, and it’s whuppin’ the tar out of David Kim. Nun of the Above, Catholic Girl, and Rabbi Sinnowitz try to help out, but things look pretty grim once the monster bites David in half — and he doesn’t start regenerating. Well, not for a while. Eventually, he does recover, all while a ghost has this great monologue about what it’s like to be dead and to miss being alive. Will they be able to destroy the Maranatha? Will David be able to maintain his connections to the normal people while living forever? And where’s the mastermind behind this whole thing?

Verdict: Thumbs up. I had my doubts for a while, ’cause it was a lot of hitting and biting for a while, but once the ghost starts that great monologue while David slowly stitches himself back together, it’s pure magic clear to the end.

How to improve this series: Hey, I know you gotta have some hitting in superhero comics, but why don’t we let John Rozum spend more time writing awesome dialogue and characters, okay? That’s a ton of fun.

Today’s Cool Links:

• All anyone is talking about today is DC’s decision to reboot all their comics and republish everything from #1. I think this sounds like an utter disaster, and a great opportunity for me to read a lot fewer DC comic books — but let’s watch as Siskoid and MightyGodKing break it all down for us.

Tiny Titans #39

Alfred has washed all the Bat-family’s laundry, and he’s washed Superman’s capes with them — so now everyone has bright pink costumes. Plasmus likes it, but he was already completely pink. Robin hates his new all-pink costume, even though he had a pretty brightly colored costume before. And Cassandra hates listening to Robin whine. Superman doesn’t like it, because Supergirl keeps getting the credit whenever he saves people. But is there anything all that bad about pink costumes?

Verdict: Thumbs up. As always, everything about this series makes me grin. It may say it’s an all-ages book, but that just means grownups should love it, too.

Zatanna #12

There’s a redneck serial killer named Backslash running around San Francisco. He’s captured a fairy, which gives him the power to see the supernatural elements running around the city, and he’s armed with a magical sword that lets him rewind time to prevent any attacks against him. Can Zatanna stop him when she can’t say her spells backwards and can’t even run away from him?

Verdict: Ehh, it’s not bad, but the palindrome gimmick isn’t nearly clever enough to sustain that ending.

Dungeons & Dragons #6

The malfunctioning portal in the old dwarven fortress has sucked our party of adventurers backwards into their own memories, so we can see how they all came together for the first time. Adric Fell gets hired on to help excavate a lost city — aside from the usual mix of hired soldiers, there’s a wizard and his two apprentices tagging along. They have to escape from an underground monster called a bulette and rescue Khal the dwarven paladin, stranded in the middle of a river. Then they run into the lost city — a magical city that only appears for one night every ten years. The wizard figures they’ll be able to scavenge all the city’s ancient secrets. But they didn’t expect to be ambushed by a band of elves and eladrin, including Varis…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action and dialogue, and it’s fun to see how these folks got together for the first time.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Have you seen the list of this year’s Hugo Award nominees?
• This made me laugh like a loon, and I bet some of you parents can sympathize.
• This was a pretty depressing story about Ben Franklin’s favorite sister.

Dungeons & Dragons #5

Adric Fell’s gang of adventurers have discovered what’s going on in the old dwarven ruins — a bunch of enslaved eladrin (high elves, to you and me) have been forced to create a stable portal to another dimension, so an invasion force led by a monstrous cyclops can invade the world. And the cyclops knows they’re watching him, so he sends his hobgoblin minions after them. So while Adric and Varis the elf try to destroy a furnace that’ll flood the caverns with lava, and while Bree the halfling thief is trying to decide whether to warn the citizens of Fallcrest or just to skedaddle and seek her fortune everywhere, and while Khal the dwarven paladin tries to trick the cyclops into keeping him alive for another few minutes… while all this is happening, what’s Tisha the tiefling up to? Well, apparently, she’s dead. Oopsie.

Verdict: Thumbs up. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again — this series has outstanding action, great dialogue and characterization, excellent artwork, and is pretty much a bucket of fun from the first page to the last, every single issue. Whether or not you’re a fan of D&D the game, you should be reading this awesome fantasy comic.

Herc #1

A new beginning for the Prince of Power — after the end of the Chaos War, Hercules has lost his immortality and most of his superpowers, but he still has an arsenal of magical weapons from the ancient world. Will they be enough to keep him in the crimefighting game? He meets some new friends — a Greek restauranteur, his daughter, and his gorgeous bartender, and he meets a new foe — namely, the Hobgoblin.

Verdict: Thumbs up. No powers, no Amadeus Cho? Ehh, so what, it’s still written by Greg Pak and Fred van Lente, so it’s still gotta be worth reading.

B.P.R.D.: The Dead Remembered #1

A flashback to pyrokinetic Liz Sherman’s first mission with the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense — when she was just 14 years old and still recovering from the emotional trauma of accidentally killing her family the first time her powers activated. Professor Bruttenholm takes her along, mainly to give her a break from the inside of the BPRD facilities, as he investigates a Massachusetts haunting tied to the witch trials in the late 1600s. Some of the house’s bumps and groans startle Liz into accidentally conjuring a fireball out of the chimney, and while the damage is minor, she heads for the woods, hoping she’ll be less destructive. One of the local boys follows her to try to pick up on the pretty redhead girl from out of town — and something a lot scarier than a creaking house is stalking Liz…

Verdict: Thumbs up. Great artwork by Karl Moline, and a very nice beginning to this new story from Mike Mignola and Scott Allie.

Today’s Cool Links:

Hope you guys like awesome rap, ’cause that’s what I’m serving up today.

• First, here’s Blackalicious doing amazing hyperspeed rhymes about chemistry.
• And because Blackalicious is so amazing, here they are doing the alphabet.
• Here’s Sir Mix-a-Lot teaming up with Metal Church…
• And as far as great rap/metal collaborations, you can’t go wrong with Public Enemy and Anthrax.
• And I can never, ever get enough of this. First rap ever? Beats me…

Dungeons & Dragons #4

Our party of adventurers is in trouble again. They’ve been ambushed by grave robbers in an ancient dwarven ruin and triggered a trap that may drown them all in a few minutes. Bree the halfling thief figures out to escape from the trap, but then the party gets split while navigating a ventilation tunnel. While Khal the dwarven paladin and Tisha the spell-slinging tiefling share their abbreviated life stories, Aldric Fell, Bree, and Varis the city-loving elf run into a floating green skull that’s less troublesome than they expected. And what’s at the bottom of this dungeon?  An invasion force from another world.

Verdict: Thumbs up. The action is fine, of course, but I got jazzed about some of the smaller elements — Bree’s equational thinking when it comes to traps, Khal’s dwarven poetry, Tisha’s backstory, the magical skull, and the idea that a well-constructed dungeon will always have ventilation shafts to keep the air breathable. This is definitely not just a mindless dungeon crawl.

Doom Patrol #19

The second part of a crossover with the Secret Six — the two teams are battling it out while Oolong Island’s previously dormant volcano finally erupts, threatening all the mad scientists on the island. In an emergency like this, everyone pitches in to help and — oh wait, my mistake, everyone keeps right on fighting. Ragdoll gets attacked by a pelican, Jeannette gets dropped into Danny the Street (now sadly downgraded into Danny the Bungalow), and Elasti-Woman shows off just how tall she can grow. The Six get escorted off the island, but will it be enough to keep the Doom Patrol’s Oolong hosts from kicking them out, too?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It all seems perfectly acceptable, and I’d consider adding this one to my regular pull list — but we’ve just learned that “Doom Patrol” is about to get canceled. Sigh. I guess all comics get canceled eventually, but still, what a bummer.

Today’s Cool Links:

• As a tribute to the late Dwayne McDuffie, Project Rooftop is holding a special tribute, challenging artists to redesign McDuffie’s character Static.
• What Mike Sterling said: This would really be a fun version of the Justice League. Oh, what could have been…
• Here’s a really nice history of old Armed Services editions of books for soldiers overseas during WWII.

Dungeons & Dragons #3

The party of adventurers — Kahl the dwarf paladin, Varis the city-loving elf, Bree the thieving halfling, Tisha the possibly-demonic tiefling, and their leader, Adric Fell — are in a heap of trouble. They’re surrounded by orcs, hunting for a shapeshifting villain, and Adric is in a duel to the death with an orc warrior. Can Adric keep from getting killed? Can the rest of the party discover the shapeshifter? What secret was the shapeshifter hiding, and will everyone be able to survive a trip through a trap-filled cavern?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Excellent action and characterization. The artwork is a blast. The turning point in the duel was a nice surprise, and the reactions of the onlookers was pretty funny. All in all, I’m just really enjoying this comic.

Supergirl #60

We have three different stories in this one — first, we meet a tech-savvy (and possibly telepathic) sociopath who’s created a new telephone app to let people track sightings of superheroes — and to make it easier for supervillains to find the heroes. Second, Lois Lane has found out some dirt about secret Cadmus experiments. And finally, Supergirl gets ambushed by a bunch of heavy hitters from Superman’s rogues gallery. How are these all connected?

Verdict: Thumbs up. Nice mix of stories, and all of them would be pretty interesting on their own. Good action, dialogue, and characterization, especially considering how many characters, both major and minor, there are in this story.

Tiny Titans #36

Terra takes Kid Devil and Hotspot on a field trip to the center of the earth, where everyone is able to make their heads burst into flames. And Beast Boy tags along, just ’cause he likes Terra. They all meet dragons, dinosaurs, man-eating plants, a cow, and this guy:

Yay! The Tiny Titans version of Etrigan the Demon!

Verdict: Thumbs up. Tiny Titans Etrigan!

Today’s Cool Links:

• The Adventures of Sexy Batman!
• This incredibly awesome superhero mini-movie cost just $300 to make.
• Bully has the complete guide to Wolverine.

Green Lantern: Larfleeze Christmas Special #1

Here’s a late entry in the Christmas comics sweepstakes — the greediest being in the universe learns the true meaning of Christmas. Larfleeze has heard stories about Santa Claus, and when he doesn’t get any presents on Christmas morning, he’s so enraged at Santa’s perfidy that he goes on a rampage, chasing down Santas in a parade and in a department store before someone tells him that the real Santa lives at the North Pole. Still unable to find Santa, he decides to melt the entire North Pole, until Hal Jordan shows up to try to steer him straight on whole “More blessed to give than receive” thing. But does Larfleeze learn anything from the entire Christmas lesson? Maybe, maybe not… And in a backup feature, Art Baltazar and Franco from Tiny Titans send Larfleeze’s minion Glomulus on a tour of the galaxy to find some presents for his boss.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Both stories are completely goofy, and I love that DC was willing to put their patron saint of greed in the spotlight position of a Christmas special. I also loved a few extra activity-book features that made it into this one — a maze, instructions for how to make your own Larfleeze Christmas ornament, and a recipe for Orange Lantern Cookies (“Makes approximately two dozen cookies or one serving.” Oh, Larfleeze, you gluttonous warthog-lookin’ critter!).

Dungeons & Dragons #2

Our party of adventurers — human warrior Adric Fell, dwarven paladin Khal, scheming halfling Bree, elven archer Varis, and suspiciously noble tiefling Tisha — are up to their necks in trouble. While Adric and Fell help rescue a bunch of orphans after their home blows up, Khal, Varis, and Tisha meet up with a shapeshifting necromancer who’s causing all the trouble with the temporarily zombified citizenry. The shapeshifter makes his escape, but the party pursues him to a merchant caravan under siege by a band of orcs. Knowing that they’re outflanked and outnumbered — with a doppelganger hiding in their midst — Adric chooses to challenge the orc leader to single combat. Aldric thinks he’s got a pretty good grasp of orc combat — but he’s wrong, wrong, wrong.

Verdict: Thumbs up. Fun, action-packed, excellent humor. I am so freakin’ glad this is a good comic, seriously, people.

Supergirl #59

It’s Christmas Eve, and Cat Grant has been kidnapped by the Dollmaker, the estranged son of Winslow Schott, the Toyman. He knows that his father killed Cat’s son years ago, and he wants her to be his new surrogate mother. Of course, she says no, loudly and angrily, and when the Dollmaker decides to kill all the children in Metropolis as revenge, Cat swallows her pride and calls for Supergirl’s aid. It doesn’t take long for Kara and Cat to take out the Dollmaker, and Supergirl gets her own special Christmas gift in the bargain.

Verdict: Thumbs up. A very nice story, with good action, nice character work, and some humor, too — loved the brief appearance of what can only be called the Composite Santa Claus. I also like the way they’ve turned this character around, from the skank floozy to a perfectly acceptable superhero. Now all they have to do is fix the costume…

Dungeons & Dragons #1

I had no expectation that I was going to get this title ’til I found out that John Rogers — better known as the guy responsible for some of the best “Blue Beetle” stories — was the writer. I’m more than willing to take a few chances on him.

Our main characters are a party of adventurers — Adric Fell, a human warrior and the leader of the group; Kahl, a dwarf paladin; Varis, an elf sharpshooter; Bree, a magnificently untrustworthy halfling thief; and Tisha, a tiefling spellcaster. They live in a small town called Fallcrest at the edge of the wilderness. Things start off — of course! — at the local tavern, where the group is soon under attack by a bunch of rampaging zombies. Only they’re not zombies, they are humans under some sort of spell — a spell that inconveniently wears off just in time for the local watch to arrest them all for murder. A gnome wizard named Copernicus Jinx soon shows up to assist them, revealing that someone has opened a magical portal which is infecting the countryside with dark energies that make everyone act like zombies. And right on cue, almost everyone in town except for our heroes get infected and start lurching after the good guys. Can the party locate the source of the problem? Can they save any innocent people along the way?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This may be the first non-game adaptation of “Dungeons & Dragons” to not suck. There’s a grand and glorious amount of good humor on display, as well as excellent action, characterization, and dialogue. Reading this made me want to play D&D again — and I haven’t been tempted to do that in decades.

Atomic Robo and the Deadly Art of Science #1

Man, I haven’t been able to get any of these in ages — Robo is a really fun character, but he’s not carried by nearly enough comic shops. Luckily, I was able to get in at the beginning of a new storyarc for this one.

It’s 1930, and Atomic Robo is still in his relative infancy — he’s still working as a drudge for his creator Nikola Tesla, stuck doing boring chores instead of reading pulp magazines and having adventures, like he’d really prefer. Luckily, he runs into a masked crimefighter named Jack Tarot battling some gangsters and proceeds to make a nuisance of himself by asking Tarot and the gangsters as many irritating questions as he can. Can Robo get in good with the crimefighting set? And where will this adventure all lead to?

Verdict: Thumbs up. This isn’t the cynical Robo we may have gotten used to — he’s a more innocent and enthusiastic character here. Excellent humor, great action, very fun dialogue.

Knight and Squire #2

Our two Brit heroes get wind of a looming occult plot about to be enacted, so they rush in their civilian disguises to a small town and visit an unusually paranoid pub called The Wicker Man — only to discover that the whole town has been taken over by… the Morris Men! (Apparently, it’s a criminal gang that dresses up like Morris dancers — and I’ll have to ask you to read the Wikipedia article about that, ’cause it’s about folk dancing, and there ain’t no way I’m gonna try to explain folk dancing) When it all turns out to be a plot to force Britain back to a distant past, will the heroes manage to foil the Morris Men before the dance is over?

Verdict: Thumbs up. It’s daft in all the best ways. Excellent action, superb dialogue. I think I most enjoyed seeing how Beryl spends her not-fighting-crime days. Don’t miss writer Paul Cornell’s postscript — it explains a lot of the Britishisms in the story, but it looks a bit like an ad, so you may need to keep an eye out for it.

Today’s Cool Links:

• Nerds of the world, maybe we have finally gone too far.
• People being nice to each other on the Internet? Can such things be?
• Just so we’re clear — if you ever meet author/conman James Frey, you kick him in the teeth for me, oy?

Wow, I’m actually fairly amazed that anyone is willing to try something like this: The Boston Herald has decided that Amy Bishop, the University of Alabama professor who shot several colleagues recently, did it all because of Dungeons and Dragons.

Accused campus killer Amy Bishop was a devotee of Dungeons & Dragons – just like Michael “Mucko” McDermott, the lone gunman behind the devastating workplace killings at Edgewater Technology in Wakefield in 2000.

Bishop, now a University of Alabama professor, and her husband James Anderson met and fell in love in a Dungeons & Dragons club while biology students at Northeastern University in the early 1980s, and were heavily into the fantasy role-playing board game, a source told the Herald.

“They even acted this crap out,” the source said.

OMG, did you hear that Amy Bishop breathed air and ate food?! JUST LIKE JEFFREY DAHMER! Someone ban food and breathing, quick! Ohh, won’t someone think of the children?!

Seriously, I thought this kind of “blame D&D for everything” style of reporting went out-of-style back when the old Bothered About Dungeons and Dragons group died off. I know it’s been completely discredited since then.

And the tone of the article is just so precious, isn’t it? Midway between fearful terror and bewildered rage. You can almost imagine the reporter screaming “NERRRRDS!!!” while she was writing the article.

I was lucky enough that, back when I played D&D, my parents just thought of it as another hobby. I never had to deal with anyone who freaked out that I was going to turn into a Satanist or serial killer. How ’bout you? Did the old media witchhunts about D&D ever affect your ability to play D&D and other RPGs?