Christopher Helton

Remind me some time to tell you my thoughts about Alex Ross in a less public venue.

Well, @doronjosama.bsky.social is a retail professional in comic stores.

I was thinking about the first Heinlein book I read, at 15 or so, and got from the library at my high school. It was Friday, and the main character was sexually assaulted a couple of times throughout the book. At one point she's like "I've had consensual sex that was worse."

Yeah, as an RPG person, I understand this, and it is funny since I really don't like board games. I'm glad that I never had kids and turned into one of THOSE parents.

The big problem, and I am sure that you encounter this, considering your interests, is that for a vocal element of comic book fans "comic books" begin and end with super-hero books. I love super-heroes, but there is SO MUCH MORE to comics than that.

*gestures expansively towards nerds*

In the last 40 years I have seen these books recommended to everyone from kids to fans of romance. I also often have seen people claim that no one makes all ages or kids comics anymore.

Everything ages, folks, and not everything ages gracefully, and science fiction is no different in this respect. I mean, shit, I wrote Agent to the Stars nearly 30 years ago now and there are things in there that, shall we say, have aged less than spectacularly. Time comes for everything.

It is weird that people think media can not age poorly. I think about how prevalent racism and sexual assault was in all sorts of fiction from when I was a kid in the 70s/80s and it makes me sad that it just kept getting recommended.

It is like when people are looking for first comic recommendations and everyone says Dark Knight Returns or Watchmen. I applaud you if these were your first comics, but neither of them were intended to be introductory. Ask people what they like, and then recommend accordingly. That's the secret.

I mean, yes, I was reading him at an early age, because my parents didn't care what I read, just as long as I was reading,but that doesn't mean others should/would. I remember mentioning having read something in a freshman literature course and the professor called me a precocious little shit.

Whenever someone asks "what should I give my kid to introduce them to genre/media X?" no one ever asks what the kid likes before rattling off a list of their favorites. I'm a big fan of Michael Moorcock, but I don't recommend him to adults, let alone someone's kid, because he's an acquired taste.

The main problem with the comments here is that people know nothing about the kid in question. Not even their age! Let alone what their interests are. Will they like litrpg? Space opera? Time travel? Romance? Short stories, novellas, epic series? Nobody in these comments knows!

I mean, -every time- I’m on a panel about kids’ sf/fantasy at a con, someone brings up Heinlein. Every single time, for something like the past 30 years … even though his books were already dated when I began writing for kids and they haven’t aged well. At all.

Over on Reddit someone is asking for science fiction for their precocious young reader and the people there are suggesting books that were old when that kid's grandparents were the same age as the kid, for fuck's sake if you didn't know any SF books from this millennium maybe sit this question out

I love how most of the replies and quote tweets to this are just people recommending old sci-fi works from dead white male authors whose work was dated when I was a kid in the 80s.

Sci-fi has moved on, folks. POC authors exist. POC women authors are running the table in sci-fi right now

Yeah, that's what I was getting at with the first part of my post.

RPGs are as expensive as they need to be. Is D&D expensive? Sure! But it is also the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster. I'm here making games like Roger Corman. My PDF is $10 and the print version will be under $20. There's nothing wrong with blockbusters, but low budget indies are cool too!

Going against all of this should be a no brainer. And yet...

I don't know who is giving these people such terrible advice, but everyone needs to stop.

Right? Him and Newsom. Hard pass.

The Democrats have learned nothing.

Good thing that people have already decided he should be the Democrat candidate.

I'm not much of a fan of Tynion. I've liked a couple of his works, but I couldn't get into his more recent stuff.

you can end your Sunday by enjoying the finer things too…give us a follow!

I bounced around, but I started with a mix of B/X and AD&D books.

Huh. Netflix has options for W0rldtr33, Black and Faust adaptations. That is a dizzying range of comics.

I love Cyberforce.

They're playing James Carville's one hit wonder in repeat

Is DriveThru's POD service an option in your overly dangerous part of the world? I bought a POD of the Rules Cyclopedia and it was nearly as nice as the one I bought back in the day.

The biggest barrier to entry to this hobby is the way we consistently measure the industry against d&d.

Most of my favorite trpgs cost less than fast food for two.