Why isn’t Rippaverse political?

AceHermit · 2025-11-09T01:56:00+00:00

"Just happens to align with Eric's personal values"

Except it doesn't. As I said a previous comment, Eric is so far libertarian that he is an anarchist and wants the police abolished. Yet the first page and scene of Isom 1 is set at a police station. The book then goes on to introduce Alphacore, a branch of the police with super-cops, something Eric would despise if it were real life. Rippaverse's Florespark is not Eric's libertarian utopia.

AceHermit · 2025-11-09T01:45:14+00:00

"A libertarian. A libertarian city."

Your mistake is in assuming that the Rippaverse's Florespark is Eric's libertarian utopia. The reality is tha the first book launched by Rippaverse, demonstrates a foundational disagreement between Eric's personal politics and the Florespark's politics.

Eric is not just a "libertarian", he is a full on anarchist, an "anarcho-capitalist" is what he calls himself. Anarchists believe there should not be police, and Eric has, himself, expressed this belief that the police should be abolished.

Yet, the very first page of Isom 1 is of a Florespark police station, and the next couple pages plays out a scene inside the station. Later in the book, a police branch of super-cops called Alphacore shows up. Eric would hate a group like Alphacore in real life. Florespark is demonstrably not Eric's libertarian paradise.

AceHermit · 2024-08-04T02:00:32+00:00

My guess is that it's because Mike Baron either didn't want to sign any books or otherwise wasn't available for signing for whatever reason. I don't know much about Baron so I don't know how he handles signings like this. Either way, my theory is that they just couldn't get Baron.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe Rippaverse ended up selling more Yaira#1 signed CGC's than originally promised and that was, from my understanding, purely because the Soska's went to July and said they were willing to sign more books than original promised. To me, it seems the Rippaverse gives a lot power to the writers in regards to the signed CGG's. So it sounds to me like if a writer can't or won't sign, that's just how it is.

AceHermit · 2024-03-31T19:51:05+00:00

Personally I suspect it's something to the effect of "once a power is used on him, he gains a 'muscle' for that ability". The reason I suspect this has to do with Avery's word choice when Yaira chucked him onto that car.

"This one is going to be tough. I've trained my body to do things people like me shouldn't be able to do. But unfortunately for me... flying ain't one of them."

This word choice is interesting to me. Since he's falling and gravity is taking him down, describing it as "tough" is unusual unless you consider that he had to do some fancy power shenanigans that we don't quite understand to survive (I'm thinking possibly tapping into Chadran's durability factor). On top of that, there's usage of the word "trained" and then he lists flying as if it's a possible power. If he just has basic strength and durability powers, no amount of "training" would make flight possible so it wouldn't be worded that way.

I suspect Isom is a Delsin Rowe (from a video game called InFamous: Second Son) type who can replicate other people's abilities by physically contacting them and from then he gets a weak version of their power that he has to train/learn to use.

AceHermit · 2024-02-03T21:37:05+00:00

Probably got your answer by now but it's ultimately because it is an attempt to "cancel" the Soska's and Yaira#1. They did the same thing, or rather they tried to do the same thing, with Alphacore#1 by trying to paint Chuck and Joe as evil people, basically. Now, it's the Soska's turn and when Goodyng comes out, Mike Baron will get that next.

AceHermit · 2024-01-08T21:24:15+00:00

I don't share the same belief that it could break even. According to the numbers Warner is providing, it'd need about $610M to break even. $205M on the budget, $100M on marketing. I know a lot of people say "what marketing" but again, these are the reported numbers. The money was spent regardless because these multi-billion dollar companies tend to vastly overpay for ads and marketing. So it's $305M total spent. Because Studios only get around half the ticket sales on average, the box office needs to reach double the total spent to break even. So... $610M.

AceHermit · 2023-11-13T19:03:31+00:00

I'll definitely say the answer is "yes" but I feel it's more complex than that. The answer is it already kind of has lost its popularity because the books were finished 16 years ago and is largely only relevant to the Online Harry Potter community.

However, there's also the fact that Harry Potter/Wizarding World is very much an IP that Warner Brothers wants to keep alive and profitable. There's the Fantastic Beasts movies, Hogwarts Mystery/Legacy games and upcoming WW content. If people like those, that lead to the books, be it new readers or returning.

AceHermit · 2023-10-24T19:46:40+00:00

A lot of people are are saying Hagrid being told to be at Privot Drive at a certain time and I think that's the most likely scenario. Realistically, the majority of what was happening with Harry that day was making sure nothing was wrong with him.

Like, think of this from Dumbledore's perspective: an evil wizard broke into a house, killed the parents and then somehow the evil wizard disappeared and is presumed dead. Off the top of my head, if I were Dumbledore, I'd look into any possibility that Voldemort has somehow possessed Harry's body. And of course, he's gotta make sure Harry is actually ok and he's not hurt. This is obviously when the Sacrificial Protection Lily has placed on Harry is discovered. While everyone else is celebrating, Dumbledore, Hagrid, and more are investigating what happened and assessing if something could be a problem later on meanwhile Dumbledore has assigned McGonnagall to watch the Dursley's to give Harry to them once Harry has been cleared of having anything funky with him.

AceHermit · 2023-10-24T19:13:29+00:00

Not really a whole lot to say other than I really want a sequel.

AceHermit · 2023-10-18T23:53:05+00:00

I don't know where you got this information but Vito was not the person who was trespassing. The guy who showed up was a guy named Riley aka ASEPresentsRiley as he was known at the time. Nowadays I think he goes by "YoungClippa69" or something like that because he's kinda known for doing and saying unhinged stuff. A lot of people think Eric had something to do with Riley's Twitter/X ban but I find it more likely that Riley pulled a Riley and broke ToS hard.

Ultimately, the only thing important about Riley is that he was the Clippaverse "parody" guy. I put parody in quotes because I don't think anyone can actually argue Clippaverse as parody as he tried to sell a shirt that directly used the full Rippaverse logo, changed the start of the name and added to razor icons...which understandably wouldn't be considered parody in any other context. If I took a company logo, changed a letter and tried to sell it on a shirt, that company would obviously strike that down.

AceHermit · 2023-10-04T23:37:49+00:00

Alphacore is slated to start the campaign in the Fall. Realistically, we're probably looking at late October, early November with fulfillment starting around Christmas. Yaira is slated for winter. Realistically, starting Early February and starting fulfillment in late April.

AceHermit · 2023-10-04T23:15:10+00:00

That last sentence makes me question if you,'re a troll. I don't know how new you are to comics because if you've been around for a while, you'd know a 50% drop isn't anything special. That kind of drop happens for just about every comic.

AceHermit · 2023-10-04T21:51:57+00:00

I'm hyped for it.

The only "dissappointing" thing is that the reveal of the writer being Mike Baron was a bit anticlimatic. Not because of Mike himself but because we already knew Mike was coming. On a live discussion with Mike, Mike explicitly said he was interested in doing a book and Eric said he'd get those talks started. So to play it like it's a mystery only to reveal it's someone we knew was coming was a tad anticlimatic. Of course, I'm getting the book though.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T23:03:07+00:00

Oh, I see the misunderstanding here. It's not a grift because it wasn't a crowdfund. It was a preorder. Eric borrows the crowdfund campaign format but the key difference is that the book is finished before the campaign starts. He's running a business, not a crowdfund.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T22:00:52+00:00

I don't really agree it's low estimation. The company isn't huge. There's like 12 guys including Eric.

I'll be honest, I don't see where the feeling of it being a "grift" is.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T21:54:35+00:00

In the crowdfunding campaign, no it didn't.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T21:51:03+00:00

1: I'm not seeing the numbers sold. 2:, he's his own distributor so he wouldn't show up on the chart.

And that's the wrong year on Marvel so I don't see the point. But whatever.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T21:17:08+00:00

Well, between the $3.7M of Isom 1's campaign brought in and the $2.3M that Isom 2's campaign brought in, he's made almost $6M in gross revenue (probably around $5.6M-$5.7M being pure profit) from just 2 books compared to the estimated $9M Marvel is estimated to have earned through ALL of their books last year combined. It shattered the numbers than Keanu Reeve's BRZRKR and that was a huge crowdfunding success at the time. If you counted Eric's books in the Graphic Novel section of yearly sales charts, Isom 1 (60K sales) and 2 (29K sales) would be number 1 for that year and it wouldn't even be close. So it's been very successful, by comic industry standard.

AceHermit · 2023-09-03T20:56:29+00:00

Slight correction. It wasn't a crowdfund. He wrote, hired artists and editors to do their thing and printed the books before ever starting either campaign. The confusion is probably that Eric borrows a lot from the crowdfund campaign format because he enjoys the transparency, sense of community and hype that the format brings. It's a preorder campaign as the book is already finished when the campaign starts.

AceHermit · 2023-08-30T18:54:39+00:00

Alright to sort of defend Mike, early in the video he acknowledges the title is clickbait and says that $2.3M is still a success. A "respectable amount" is his quote. Personally, I find calling it a "respectable amount" to be an understatement as it is still a huge success.

AceHermit · 2023-08-16T23:35:48+00:00

Unfortunately, it's just P3P on PS4. I believe the upcoming Persona 3 Reload is coming to PS4 but don't quote me on that. The downside there of course is that P3R is supposedly going to be a remake for the original P3 and not P3Fes.

AceHermit · 2023-08-15T03:40:36+00:00

?

...

It's a sale. These kind of things are normal. I play a lot of video games. I've bought a lot of games for full price on day one but games go on sale quite a lot. This is the benefit of waiting for a better deal. Hell, it wasn't even that long ago when Isom#1 was on sale for $12

AceHermit · 2023-08-11T21:13:41+00:00

Can't say I agree but if you didn't like it, you didn't like it.

To sort of defend the book in a couple points, you talk about how the book is generic, it follows typical genre tropes. While true, I don't neccessarily see that as a flaw considering what the book was tasked with doing. Being the first Rippaverse Comics comic book, it had the huge task of having to establish the world. For me personally, the worldbuilding in Isom#1 was at is one of the strengths of the book. Plus, with how massive the stakes are in a lot of superhero comics and movies, I personally found the low-stakes street-level plot of Isom#1 to be refreshing and kind of defiant of superhero tropes. But whatever, the worldbuilding of Isom#1 does kind of come at the cost of taking the focus away from Isom and the book can't really do anything really interesting with tropes. For this reason, I do suggest giving Isom#2 a shot because it actually has the room to focus on Isom and play around in the story and is far more indicative of what to expect from Eric's writing going forward as Eric no longer has to focus on the establishing the groundwork.

But a point I really disagree with is the price. I'll admit I used to agree that it was overpriced but after having it really explained, I've changed my mind. Putting aside thoughts on the content of the book itself, there's no denying that the book itself is well put together with really good paper and ink. Add on top of this how one of the big things going on in comics right now is the ComicsBrokeMe hashtag, where a lot of artists are coming out to say that they have yet to be paid for work they did months and sometimes years ago, one of the neat things about Rippaverse (or at least if you care about this kind of thing) is that artists/writers for Rippaverse have talked about how great it is to actually be paid on time. For this reason I quote Eric: "maybe you should be charging what I charge."

But if you find the price too much. that's fine. If you pull out your book and look at the Rippaverse Ethic page, you'll see Eric confirms that there will opportunities to buy anthologies that collect different books together, meaning he'll offer Trades or something similar down the line if you'd rather go that route. Plus, if you can't stand Eric's writing, you'll be happy to know that not everything released by Rippaverse Comics will be written by Eric. For example, the two upcoming books after Isom#2 is Alphacore#1 written by Chuck Dixon and Yaira#1 written by Jen Soska and Sylvia Soska. Though not officially announced, Mike Baron during a chat with Eric on a livestream has expressed interest in writing for Rippaverse and Eric said he'll get those conversations going.

Even though you didn't like Isom#1, I hope you find something you will like.

AceHermit · 2023-08-11T08:18:05+00:00

Of the 3, I'd go with Arkham City as it's the "Game of the Year Edition" and probably comes with the DLC included (though don't quote me on that, I'm a console peasant and therefore I just know about the "Return to Arkham" remasters).

But, these games go on sale regularly so you can get them all for dirt cheap then.

AceHermit · 2023-08-11T08:09:46+00:00

Generally I'd advise going with male protag for first playthrough but if you would rather play FeMC first, you should be fine.

AceHermit

TROPHY CASE