Tag: reviews

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Books

Review: Batman: Death Mask

Batman: Death Mask by Yoshinori Natsume

I give this book a 5.

 

Because I don’t want to frighten people with my uber geekness, I will keep this short.

Always a fan of most things Batman, I welcomed this dark Japanese tale of Bruce Wayne and the Death Mask. This four-part series is a semi-origin story as it goes back in time to show where and how Bruce was trained to fight in his quest to become the Batman, but the story goes far beyond that. It tells the legend of a mask that brings out the darkness in the one who wears it, but now Batman is wondering whether the mask is really cursed or if it is the person wearing it that is cursed.

This tales is not without the typical comic book violence that us geeks are so used to, but it also has a very physiological spin to it in the area of intimidation and fear. The Dark Night is a little bright in comparison to the darkness of the Death Mask. People’s faces get chopped off; that’s all I have to say about that.

Great for veteran comic book readers and Batman fans, but not recommended as your first comic book or Batman read.

This review has been posted to GoodReads. If you’d like to obtain a copy of this book, try this link.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
Author Insights Videos

It’s a brand new day on You Tube!

So, last year I launched my You Tube channel unsure of what I was going to do with it. I knew I wanted to interview authors and help support their books, but it’s crazy how many authors are afraid of video interviews. Not that I love being in front of a camera myself, but I’m not exactly camera-shy either. I really wanted my channel to be a way to connect with people, but it seemed to just be a little lacking.

I’ve been working hard all summer trying to find a solution to this problem and I think I have some ideas that could really work, if only I can find an audience to embrace them. I will continue my efforts to interview authors whenever I can find some brave enough, but I’ll also be adding in some purely entertainment content that I find interesting. I will continue my book snippets “Toi Reads” whenever the mood strikes and will continue to promote my own works whenever an opportunity is appropriate, but I’d like this channel to be less about me and more about everything around me.

I’ll be making efforts to reach out to friends, family, colleagues, and strangers to both guest host and sponsor videos. Guest hosting is a free endeavor that helps me and whoever participates. It provides my audience with some variety and keeps them from having to stare at me constantly. For the guest hosts, it’s just like being on TV. People get a chance to know you a little better and you get to promote yourself in a passive manner. Sponsorship is whole other issue; click here to learn more about both.

So here’s what I’m planning. I’ll be sharing movie and book reviews, discussing writing, creative, and other working techniques and methods, talking about music and vinyl records, and even sharing some silly opinions on greeting cards. (This one you’ll just have to see to understand.)

So there you have it. I’m putting myself out there in yet another way. I can’t wait to see what comes of this.

This is an unofficial Author Insights post.

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords

Categories
About Toi Other

Happy 2nd Blog Anniversary! – An Interview, Part 2

anniversayGreetings readers, bloggers, geeks, and authors. It’s my anniversary and I thought I’d interview myself and share it with you. I’ve come a long way as a writer, blogger, reviewer, and interviewer and I’d thought it would be nice to share some of the things I’ve learned and tell you a little about myself, in case you don’t already know.

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What inspired me to travel to the land of The ToiBox of Words?

I had played around with blogging for two years before I thought of starting The ToiBox of Words. Up to that point all my blogging efforts were focused on writing and promoting my first novel, Eternal Curse. At some point it hit me that I had so much more to offer than simply obsessing over my first book. I wanted to be able to connect with people, especially others in the book industry, and I wanted an opportunity to show people that I’m a real person, not just a writer trying to sell them a story they may or may not want to read.

So what would I say is this blog’s content rating?

www.wearemoviegeeks.com

I consider myself to be much more diverse and flexible than I actually allow my blog to be, and in all actuality, I’d like to think that The ToiBox of Words is pretty diverse. However, I won’t pretend that I don’t set limitations. I cater to an adult audience, but I know that my nephews, nieces, and their friends may stumble upon my blog at random intervals. For that reason I do not allow my content to reach beyond a teen appropriate level. For the most part, my blog content is PG, but because I am catering to adults, some of the themes can be mature.

Overall, how would I say I roll with all the punches of blogging?

Wikipedia

Blogging by itself can be a passion, an obsession, a job, or a way to escape. For me it’s all these things. It’s also just another form of social media so I have a love-hate relationship with it. Blogging consumes my time and my mind. Without it I feel lost, useless, and out of touch. With it I feel overwhelmed, inadequate, and sometimes invisible as a lone speck in the vast blogosphere. But…The ToiBox of Words has become my home on the web and I feel safe here.

Any comments on blog comments?

I get the feeling that most bloggers want comments, but fear what they’re going to get. I’m no different. It makes my day when I get a comment and it’s something positive, but I’m always wary that it’ll be something negative.  So far I’ve been pleased to either not get comments or receive very nice ones. I don’t stress over a lack of interaction because I know people are busy, and I know sometimes I want to leave comments and don’t because I’m just so busy. In any case, I do welcome comments, nice or negative.

They say everyone’s a critic, how about me?

I thoroughly enjoy talking about a movie I’ve just seen, a book I’ve just read, or an album I’ve just heard, but I’m still figuring out this whole reviewing thing. I don’t read as much as I’d like, but I’ve started to set aside time just for that. My next step will be to set aside time to review what I’ve read. I’m so bad with reviews. I do them, but it’s usually months after I’ve read the book. I’m not an overly critical reviewer simply because there are more than enough of those out there already. I am however honest. I even realize that while I may not like certain things, I try to keep an open mind to the possibilities that others will.

When I do a review, I do so because I either want to support an author’s work or because I want to share my experience. I do my best to keep pressure and animosity away from my review experience by not reviewing books I have no interest in. I hope to try doing movie and music reviews down the road.

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Okay readers, bloggers, geeks, and authors, that’s all for today…unless you have a question you’d like to ask me. 😉

Thank you for sticking with me these past two years. Don’t forget to come back tomorrow for part three of this interview and hopefully enjoy some more of my insights.

This has been a

interviewpic-toibox

Thank you for taking the time to read this post. If you like it let me know and share it with others. See you next time, Toi Thomas. #thetoiboxofwords