If You Liked…Daredevil (TV Series), Part 2

Posted on April 20, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

Daredevil-posterHere’s Part 1 of If You Liked…Daredevil (TV Series

Between work and my girlfriend’s birthday, this past week has been busy for me. As a result, I’ve only reached the 9th (of 13) episode of Netflix’ Daredevil. And so far, I am hooked. I really like how they’ve taken Daredevil’s mythos and tied many of its elements together. It’s unquestionably inspired by Frank Miller’s run, but its overall tone is more in line with the work that came later.

Let’s dive right into that, continuing on from last week.

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If You Liked…Daredevil (TV Series), Part 1

Posted on April 12, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

daredevil-poster-2

Update: And here’s Part 2!

Only two days have passed since the new Daredevil series dropped on to Netflix. Everyone on social media is going nuts over it. It currently stands at 97% on Rotten Tomatoes (with a 98% audience score). Former Daredevil writer Ed Brubaker is “About halfway through,[…]and it’s pretty fucking great.” So it seems this show might be kinda good. Having only watched the first two episodes, myself, I can also confirm that it’s pretty frigging great (I’m not as potty-mouthed as Mr. Brubaker).

Daredevil is my second favourite superhero. Superman will always be number one, but man, between the comics and this new show, there’s a lot more Daredevil to enjoy these days than Superman. And I think this new series will help many people forget that movie.

What’s extraordinary about ‘ol Hornhead is that many great creative hands have dipped into Hell’s Kitchen. Oddly enough, though, the title has seen many interpretations: a gritty noir, a swashbuckling superhero, kung-fu action, over-the-top hi-jinx, and other interpretations. Amazingly, Daredevil is a very versatile character that not only survives, but thrives, in every iteration.

With that in mind, let’s dive into some great runs by some of the best creators.

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Friday Fiction: I am Jack’s Irrelevant Title (The Continuing Story of Raymond K. Hessel)

Posted on April 10, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

“You are going to die, Raymond!”

Here’s an interesting one that I’d forgotten about. When I’d returned to university in the early 00s ( the naughts? Do people call it that?), I took Introduction to English 1006, taught by John Muise. I really should write about John Muise sometime. He played a considerable role in influencing and supporting my writing. Maybe that’ll be a future Joys of Writing: the biggest influences in my writing career.

This story was my final “essay” for the class. See, John was open to any and all ideas for presenting our essays. It could be a presentation, a short homemade film, a comic book. Anything to break up the doldrums of reading and marking essay after essay.

One of the pieces of literature we studied with Chuck Palaniuk’s Fight Club. I love Palaniuk’s work and have greatly enjoyed other works by him, including Choke and Invisible Monsters. Inspired by Fight Club, I suddenly came up with an idea for my own story: continuing the story of Raymond K. Hessel, the sobbing gas station clerk that Brad Pitt threatened to shoot in order to give him a renewed lease on life. Keep in mind that the ending to the book was very different from the movie. It’s the book’s canon that I used.

I tried mimicking Palaniuk’s writing as best I could. I honestly don’t know if I succeeded. I also don’t really think the story holds up well to the tests of time. But it’s still an interesting experiment that I’m glad I tried.  There are parts of it that I really like, such as having a new line  for each word in the sentence, “You are going  to die, Raymond.”

Really, looking back, it’s glorified fan fiction. I don’t really know if it’d be considered good fan fiction. I do know that I was awarded an A++ from John, who loved it. If you’re curious, following  the story, I also included an afterword to explain the piece.

Anyway, I digress. Enjoy.

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Top Ten Tuesday: Favoutie Movie Trailers

Posted on April 7, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

Welcome to another new, weekly feature: Top Ten Tuesday. Every Tuesday, I’ll present a new top ten list of some of my favourite things.

This week, I present to you my Top Ten Favourite Movie Trailers. Because let’s be honest, even if the final product may not always live up to the hype, there are plenty of movies that make us say, “I NEED TO SEE THAT, NOW!”

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My Flying Dream

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

For years, I’ve had something of a re-occurring dream. Not every night, unfortunately, but every once in awhile, I’ll have my favourite dream: a flying one. When I started having them, I was only able to leap a few feet off the ground. The next one, I was able to leap and hold myself in the air briefly. Then, I could fly, but it was slow and low to the ground. Eventually, I was full on flying. I even remember one dream where I was actually Superman, flying around Metropolis. I even stopped a crime. There was a car chase involving bank robbers. I flew down and put my hand on the car so they could only spin their tires. When they gave up, I walked over to the driver’s door, easily ripped it off, and reached in to grab the robber. He pulled out a gun, shot me right in the forehead…and the bullet bounced off me. I woke up as he his eyes widened in fear. That still remains my favourite dream.

This latest one started off weird: playing what felt like a combination of soccer and ping-pong. It was me as goalie against two other guys. I managed to block most of the shots from the one guy, but then the other (the other goalie) took on shot with his paddle and scored, finally ending the game. Apparently, this was at work and this was the end of my shift. So I went to the car, hit the button my keys to have it make a sound only to discover that Dad was in the driver’s seat. This is where the dream gets awesome.

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Fiction Friday: Unnerving Silence

Posted on April 4, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

Something to set the scene, if you will.

I’d like to test out a new  – hopefully weekly – feature for the blog: Fiction Friday. Every writer has work that has never been published (or even shared with many people) for one reason or another.  With that in mind I’d like to share work that’s unpublished, unfinished, or unpolished. It might be stuff I’m not happy with anymore or I might revisit again some day. Heck, I might not even know what’s wrong with it.

The Unnerving Silence came from a writing prompt. I can’t recall the exact details of the prompt, but I recall it had something to do with silence in the library. Not to be confused with a Doctor Who episode of the same name (this story predates it by about 5 years, I think). Just on a whim, I started writing it, taking the idea of silence in a library as literal as possible.

Personally? I’m…not as crazy about it as I was when I first wrote it. I think it’s clear that horror isn’t my bag (and this is light horror, at best) It’s been rejected from a few magazines, which maybe have softened my feelings on it. I like the idea in theory, but the execution here just didn’t work to my liking. I might revisit it sometime, maybe a similar place that Dill visits in Nevermore Bay.

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Superman and The Superman Films

Posted on March 3, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

Nope, not even this one.

I’ve talked before about how I’m a huge Superman fan. Have been for a long time. And I think it’s time I finally confess something. It’s going to sound weird coming from me:

There isn’t a single Superman movie I like all the way through.

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The Joys of Writing: On Responding to Criticism

Posted on February 26, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

avoid-negative-criticismI’ve seen some authors liken their work to raising a baby. You work on it for so long, help make it the best it can be, then send it off into the world to sink or swim. Sure, you can do what you can to help it once it’s out there, but for the most part, that new work is now on its own. That’s one lesson I learned after writing and publishing The City of Smoke & Mirrors. It’s all well and good to write a book, have it published, feel accomplished, and realize a dream. But then I realized, “Oh crap, other people are  going  to read this!” Then the mind races. What if they don’t like it? What if they hate it? What if they spread word that they hate it? What if people who read that hate decide to not read or buy it? Do they not realize I’m watching reactions like a hawk, hoping and praying people will like it? How do I react to negative criticism?

Largely, it’s that last question that inspired this latest The Joys of Writing. Let me explain.

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Review: Daredevil (2003) (Director’s Cut)

Posted on February 8, 2015 by Nick C. Piers

As I’ve mentioned on the blog before, Superman is my favourite superhero. In any list of favourite superheroes, he always tops them. But Daredevil is unquestionably second on that list. I love his rich backstory. I love his unique powers and that he’s one of the most iconic disabled characters in comics (along with Professor X and Oracle). I love the fact that he’s one of the few comic book characters who is openly religious (Irish Catholic) that’s very essential to the character.

So yeah, if there’s one character that may rival Superman in how many books are in my collection, it’s Daredevil. By the way, if you haven’t been reading Mark Waid’s run on the character in the last few years, shame on you. It’s great, even if you’re not a fan of Daredevil.

And as a fan, I can’t deny that I’m absolutely excited for the upcoming Netflix exclusive series, Daredevil.

Every discussion about the new series, however, autotmatically makes a lot of people bring up the 2003 film, Daredevil. Which certainly didn’t introduce a new audience to the character and in fact, turned a lot of people away from even trying him. Honestly? …I actually liked it. Let me explain. Spoilers ahoy for anyone who hasn’t seen this.

(Also, following my review, I’ll briefly discuss my thoughts on the upcoming series.)

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Dill Appears on Big Bang Theory?

Posted on January 30, 2015 by Nick C. Piers
Dill BBT 2

What the hell are you looking at?

Been in a depressive funk lately, but something happened on Big Bang Theory last night that made me arch an eyebrow:

I basically saw Dilbert Pinkerton appear on the show. Here’s  the scene in question:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u71ODfRiVOw

Now, it’s obviously not actually Dill. Sheldon was hallucinating and the writers just happened to think it’d be funny that he sees an armadillo in a suit and fedora. I highly doubt someone involved in the show has read The City of Smoke & Mirrors. I’m not even a blip in the sea of media and entertainment.

Still, the jokes on you, Big Bang Theory. I had the market cornered on suit & fedora-wearing armadillos for years.

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