With this week's release of the first "Twilight" graphic novel and the truly hilarious trailer for "Eclipse," it's become increasingly apparent that this whole "Twilight" thing is planning on sticking around for the foreseeable future. And when ComicsAlliance Senior Writer Chris Sims actually read "Twilight" and liveblogged the experience, it became equally apparent that there was no way he was getting through this book sober.


Let's face facts here, folks: "Twilight" is not very good, but at this point, if you want to keep your fingers on the pulse of the pop culture community, familiarity with it is almost a requirement. That's why we've taken it upon ourselves to combine the first installment of the Twilight saga with the one thing that might almost get it to make sense: heavy drinking! Just pour a glass of your favorite adult beverage and read along, but be warned: If you actually do this, you will probably die, and you will definitely remember less about the book when it's over than when you started.



Take a drink whenever...
  • Edward is described as one of the following: Pale, pallid, white, alabaster, ivory, faint, literally sparkling, like a thousand diamonds, incandescent, smooth, statuesque, glittering, scintillating, lavender, perfect, satin smooth, cool as stone.

Take two drinks when...
  • He is three or more of these things in the same paragraph.

Take three drinks when...
  • The word "butterscotch" is involved.

Finish Your Glass ...
  • when he's compared to Batman.


Take a drink whenever...

  • Stephenie Meyer offers a glowing, over-the-top description of how smart Bella is (i.e., having read every single book in the library by the age of 16) despite the fact that she's roughly as dumb as a bag of hammers in the actual story.

  • Bella does something that sets feminism back by a decade, including (but not limited to) claiming she's too weak and clumsy to bother trying to fight off rapists, asking permission to think, apologizing for getting attacked by a vampire, and slipping immediately into blind obedience when a guy she's been on .5 dates with orders her to do things she doesn't particularly want to do.


Bella's got a great future ahead of her at the Nuremberg war crimes trials.

  • Meyer references another work of literature like "Romeo & Juliet" or "Wuthering Heights" so you'll understand the subtlety she's trying to craft when she has characters actually say things like "I am dangerous for you to love!"

  • You see the word "chagrin."

  • You see the word "dazzle."


No one has used the word "dazzle" this much since Chris Claremont set the record in the spring of '80.

  • The book goes out of its way to avoid showing anything resembling action that would advance the plot, to the point where there's a fight between good vampires and evil vampires going on, but the narrative follows Bella as she mopes around a hotel room three states away.

TAKE TWO DRINKS WHEN...
  • Bella is rendered unconscious at the climax of the novel, meaning that she gets the life-changing events related to her later in the ultimate violation of the "show, don't tell" rule.

  • A character displays great affection for Bella despite the fact that she spends most of her time yelling at her dad like she's angling for a spot on Maury's next "My Kid Is Out Of Control!" special and doing absolutely nothing to engender positive feelings in anyone (least of all the reader).

  • Bella ridicules her parents for being concerned about her well-being.

  • You wish the book starred the diabolical Biz Markie instead of Bella Swan:


"I asked her her name, she said blah blah blah... for 498 pages."

  • Meyer keeps herself from identifying characters by race, but still manages to work in stereotypes by having them speak like the jive-talking passengers from "Airplane."

  • Meyer uses a phrase that sounds like a hilariously awkward sex metaphor, i.e.: "As I passed, he suddenly went rigid in his seat" or "It was very hard, in the morning."

  • Meyer misuses the word "literally," as in "Forks was literally my personal Hell on Earth."

  • The line "It's twilight" actually appears in the novel.



"This party was... great, Gatsby." "I don't know, Jules, it's like something out of a... pulp fiction."


TAKE THREE DRINKS WHEN...
  • Meyer brings it back a second time for all the slow kids in the audience.

  • Meyer spends the majority of a chapter recapping the previous chapter like a fifth-grader trying to meet the length requirement for a book report.

  • Edward brags about how strong and dangerous he is, rather than doing anything that would be considered even remotely strong or dangerous.

  • Edward sets off one of the Abusive Relationship Warning Signs, including...

    -Does your partner check-up on you by calling, driving by, or getting someone else to?
    -Does your partner blame you for his problems or his bad mood?
    -Does your partner drive dangerously, or do other things to scare you?
    -Have you lost friends or no longer see some of your family because of your partner?
    -Are you afraid of your partner or afraid to break up?


FINISH YOUR GLASS when:

  • He does five of the above in one chapter.

  • You finish a chapter that does absolutely nothing to advance the plot.

  • The driving conflict of the book finally arrives after 350 pages.

  • You hit a chapter that reads like it was lifted verbatim from LiveJournal.


Current Mood: D:

  • When you hit the one part of the book that's actually not bad (Page 414, paragraph 3 of the MMPB edition)

  • When the vampires do something that actually sounds exciting, and Bella acts like something other than a cardboard cutout whose only emotions are petulance and co-dependence.

Nah, just kiddin' about that last one. It never happens. The rest of them, however... well, you may want to apologize to your liver before you get started.