Tag Archives: Comics

Instant Gratification with Hoopla

, , ,
The cover of The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

We’ve all been there: it’s 2:00am, you’re fighting a losing battle with insomnia and decide it’s time to give up and do some reading. But alas and alack! You finished your book earlier that night!1 You don’t worry, though, you know Vaughan Public Libraries has you covered with digital resources. You check Overdrive, but everything you want to borrow is already checked out. While you’d love to learn French, you’re not there yet, so you give Cantook Station a pass for the moment. And because it’s just one of those nights, your headphones are in another room, and bed is too cozy to leave, so an audiobook from AudioBookCloud is out. TumbleBook Library and TeenBookCloud are aimed a little young for your tastes that evening. So your next place to check is Hoopla to see what they’ve got in the Instant Borrow category and… oh! You’ve heard of this The Midnight Library book, and instant borrow means there’s no wait to get it, perfect! And then, suddenly you’re halfway through the book and it’s time to get up for the day. This has happened to everyone, right? I’m not alone? Eh, fine, my readers know I embrace my weirdness.

Continue reading →

Off the Tabletop and on to the Screen

, , , ,
The cover of Tal'Dorei Campaign Setting by Matthew Mercer

So for my last post, I wrote about TTRPG-inspired books and linked to a few rulebooks to help burgeoning GMs or players get started. What I only did once, and didn’t point out, was a link to a System Reference Document, or SRD. That was the Pathfinder link; there’s also a Pathfinder 2nd edition SRD, a D&D 5th Edition SRD, a Gumshoe SRD, and many others. These documents exist so that companies and GMs can create new adventures for existing systems or branch off these systems to develop their own games, as Pathfinder did from D&D 3.5e. They’re also an excellent place for Players and GMs to learn the rules of a game, and if all you can get hold of is a campaign book from our collection or you want to create your own adventure, these are a great, free place to start. They don’t contain all of your options and won’t have trademarked creatures in them, but they have enough to run a campaign or create a character; I know this first-hand.

Continue reading →

Recommended Graphic Novels for Kids, Teens, and Adults

, , , , ,

Quarantine life has posed many alternatives for us to consider–from how we work, to how we cope with stress–and this is especially true with reading habits. I have been reading a lot more, often for hours at night to decompress. Some days, though, I am not in the mood for heavy reading, but want to enjoy some literary entertainment with the fast accessibility of a movie or TV show. Graphic Novels have always filled in this gap for me insofar as they occupy the disparate space between abstract language and strict visual signfier; graphic novels fuse the signifier and signified seamlessly for an engaging literary experience that has the depth of a novel with the visual cues of the best visual mediums. Below is nine recommended graphic novels that I’ve read separated according to general age range. I encourage teens and adults to read “down” from their age group as these picks transcend their audiences’ age range.

Continue reading →