Customer Reviews

How to Be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More!!!

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1 star:		(4)

 

 

Have you ever felt like society has given you a bum steer, bad rap, raw deal, and, in general, the short end of the stick? Do people not afford you the respect and adulation you so richly deserve? Well, what to do? Random acts of violence? Sure, that's fun for awhile, but it will probably end you up in the hoosegow with unfavorable new friends whose main pastime is putting the screwgee to the new meat. In 'How to Be a Villain: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More!!!' Neil Zawacki, with suitable illustrations provided by James Dignan, presents a very thorough, informative, and witty guidebook to evil villainy and all its' facets.

Chapter one gets you started by detailing the concept of evil, spelling out the benefits, and provides a helpful evil quiz to help determine if this path is for you. Also included is a guide for choosing a suitable evil name, help in defining your motives, and even aid in choosing your own, distinct evil laugh. I prefer the wail of the banshee, but to each his/her own. Chapter two deals with methods of mayhem, focusing on careers in evil. Mad scientist? Despot Dictator? Televangelist? Supreme ruler of the planet? It's all here. Also included is assistance in determining goals and objectives for whatever path you choose. In chapter three, we learn about the forces of good, examining the 'good mentality', hero types and their weaknesses, as it's important to know your enemy. When Captain Goody Two Shoes comes knocking, you'll be prepared to handle this clown in style. The fourth chapter details the tools of the trade, with an in-depth look into evil lairs, a henchman guide (winged monkeys or evil ninjas? So many choices), evil hardware (doomsday devices, secret death rays, matter transmuters, orbit mind control lasers, it's all here), and even a handy guide for evil fund raising as this stuff can be fairly costly. And, of course, there are fashion tips for the appropriate evil look and helpful advice for an evil makeover.

You've got the motive, the look, knowledge of your enemy, a suitable lair, lackeys, tools of the trade, and a proper evil name, but just how do you go from disgruntled fry cook to Evil Supreme Dictator of the Earth? That's where the last chapter comes in, providing detailed instructions for developing an evil plan, even including a handy evil plan generator. So I say, for those of you pouring over old episodes of the 60's camp classic Batman, trying to cull secrets and tips, rejoice! Our time is nigh! Bwahahhahahahaha! (one suggestion from one who knows, when choosing evil lackeys to do you're bidding, avoid winged monkeys as they cool for awhile but so dang messy! And winged monkey feed sure ain't cheap.)

Cookieman108

I saw this on a "Staff Picks" shelf at a local bookshop yesterday evening and, as I was going to meet some friends...er, lackey henchmen...for a drink I figured I'd buy it, since I was early and bookless. I probably should have stolen it, because that would be the evil thing to do, but I didn't want the hassle. Regardless of the method of acquiring it, I found this little book side-splittingly funny, as did my newly recruited minions. In a perfect send-up of the Dr. Evil/Mr. Blofeld style of villain, this book offers valuable advice on finding the perfect hideout, just the right wardrobe and developing a maniacal laugh that suits you (not to mention catchy slogans and jingles to keep your perfidiousness in the public consciousness). Also included are tips on putting together your master plan of evil, just in case you haven't really put a lot of thought yet into why and how you intend to either control or destroy the world. This little volume is a quick read, and a must for those contemplating global domination...

Having just discussed taking over the world with my friend, we found this book. I laughed the moment I saw the cover illustration with the evil laugh bwah ha ha. The section on having a career as a movie horror villain was enough to buy the book for alone. It's a hilarious piece of writing with very great drawings and excellent use of fellow evil-doers' quotes. A book that quotes C. Montgomery Burns, Darth Vader, and Keyser Sose is a very good reference. Buy this book and have a good laugh. If you don't have the money to buy it, do as it says and start an "evil lemonade stand" to raise it so you can.

Need a break from all that serious reading you've been doing? Ever wonder how those bad guys you read about and see on TV get to be so very bad? Here's your answer.

How to be a Villain is a wonderful, tongue-in-cheek, humorous look at the steps one must take to become evil.
It starts out with the concepts and benefits of being evil, complete with a quick quiz to discover if you truly are evil. You will choose a name, a motive, and a signature laugh to start you on your way; freeing yourself up to focus on just what kind of evil villain you would excel at. The choices are many, and often times combinable.

Once your career path is planned out, you will need an evil master plan, and in order to carry this out effectively you will need to study up on the forces of good, and how they often present themselves.

Now we're cooking. Find yourself an evil home by studying the broad selection available in these pages, give yourself an outfit and an evil makeover that suits you from the possibilities Mr. Zawacki has lined up, and you are on your way to fulfilling all the evil desires that have been festering inside you for so long; he has even included an easy-to-follow work sheet to speed you along your way.

This was a fun, fanciful read; a nice break from real life. The layout is similar to other "how to" books, one of the things that makes it fun; but the illustrations could have (and should have) been better. But the writing is fun and frisky, with a tongue-in-cheek humor that will leave you laughing.

I'll include an example of choosing an evil home. The choices are underground lair, hollowed out volcano, medieval castle, hell, corporate tower, airship, haunted woods, abandoned church, dungeon, and more. In considering Hell for an evil home, Mr. Zawacki writes:
"Hell has long been the favored choice for supernatural creatures and sorcerous evil-doers and should serve nicely as your new home. You will be pleased to find numerous amenities, including demons available to assist you with your evil deeds and countless souls to torment and devour should the days get dull. The Gates of Hell are an excellent defense against angelic attack, and sporting opportunities on the River Styx are within walking distance. The key drawback of Hell is the flesh-scorching climate, although it has the virtue of keeping property values extremely affordable.

This is the kind of humor that fills this book from front to back, and is a light hearted romp through the dilemmas of choosing to be evil and going forward with your evil plans. Enjoy!

This book is exactly what it sets out to be. The title tells you exactly what this book is about and what to expect from it, which is lots of thought provoking ideas and fun little things to do in the end to start your evil career.

This book gives you everything you need to know about creating a villian for a book, movie, comic strip, or even if you wanted to become one yourself. This book gives it all to you in an orderly fashion so as not to be overwhelmed, but still stay very entertaining.

Probably the best part about this book is the fact that it gives you all sorts of different villian personas to allow you to choose which bits you want to commit to your villian to and personalize them or become.

This book isn't intended to make you go out and do bad things or start an evil empire, but to lighten up the mood that is associated with villians. It makes the line of darkness not look so gloomy anymore. It gives it a fun twist, but still keeps that sick sadistic side still intact.

I would really recommend reading this book if you looking for a quick get away from reality, which we all know everyone could use every once and a while. This book goes out of it's way to suck you in at the beggining and then lets you take the rest in and make what you want of it.

I hope you enjoyed the book as much as I did and for the steal of a price it's going for it belongs in any comic lovers bookshelf or those that are still a kid at heart.

Suffering from a bad case of cabin fever and needing an escape from the news, I went out and blundered across this book at a book store ... The cover art snagged my attention and the daffy illustrations and chapter and section headings within persuaded me to buy it at once. I could just see Dr. Evil referencing this book on a daily basis as he takes on Austin Powers yet again. It's that kind of fun.

Are you a brand new Superhero who's just hooked up with the archenemy of your dreams? Then this book is for you. 'How to Be an Evil Villain' will help you understand your new nemesis and predict his/her preference in secret lairs and evil master plans, not to mention the tactics they will most likely use against you.

For those of you who, for whatever reason, have not let your evilness out, this book is for you! A lot of evil-doers start out not knowing the evil trade, well don't worry about that, this book will get you started. Wondering where you should base your evil operations? How to defeat that darned do-gooder? well wonder no more!

Seriously though, this book is well worth the small price. It's surprisingly witty and funny. Perhaps some angry old hag, will take this book seriously and hate it, but if you look at as a joke it'll put a smile on your face.

I know humor is subjective, but I just didn't laugh at this book. I might have chuckled once or twice, but all in all it doesn't stack up well against a lot of similarly themed (and titled) books that do a much better job of parodying the self-help manual. The tone never felt right, and it seemed like the author didn't have many ideas. This is an odd example, but one thing that made the book feel thin is that the illustrations (quite nice, btw) were captioned with a direct quote from the text, not even a rephrase - no additional jokes were written.

I don't want this review to come off as mean spirited or anything. Ultimately this book is best described as harmless - which for a humor book is never a good thing.

How to Be a Villain was a book describing how to be a villain. It tells you about the choices of evil layers, henchmen and many others. It even has a section that was only made to teach you how to thwart the good doers.

My favorite part of the book was when they went into detail about what kind of evil layers were out there. One evil layer that I was particularly interested in was the underground layer. On top there would be a seemingly worthless shack, but inside there would be an elevator that lead down to the evil fortress. I also liked the corporate layer. This layer consisted of a skyscraper where all of the evil doings would be planed and executed from.

Out of the many books I have read, How to Be a Villain was one of my favorites. I would absolutely recommend this because this is a book that is fun to read, in part because of the many pictures, and a very helpful guide for the evil villain to be. It also gives you very helpful ideas about many subjects like the kind of layer you want, or the kind of evil person you would like to be. I like this book so much that I plan to read the next book, Villain's Guide to Better Living.