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Boss Fight Books #23
Postal
In 1997, game studio Running With Scissors released its debut title, Postal, an isometric shooter aimed at shocking an imagined pearl-clutching public. The game was crass, gory, and dumb—all of which might have been forgivable if the game had been any fun to play.
Postal gained enough notoriety from riding the wave of public outrage to warrant a sequel. And DLC. And a remake. And, perhaps most surprising of all, a Golden-Raspberry-winning feature film adaptation directed by the infamous Uwe Boll.
In this thoughtful and hilarious tag-team performance, Brock Wilbur & Nathan Rabin probe the fascinatingly troubled game and film for what each can tell us about shock culture & mass shootings, interviewing the RWS team and even Boll himself for answers. Like it or not, Postal is the franchise that won't die—no matter how many molotov cocktails you throw at it.
Postal gained enough notoriety from riding the wave of public outrage to warrant a sequel. And DLC. And a remake. And, perhaps most surprising of all, a Golden-Raspberry-winning feature film adaptation directed by the infamous Uwe Boll.
In this thoughtful and hilarious tag-team performance, Brock Wilbur & Nathan Rabin probe the fascinatingly troubled game and film for what each can tell us about shock culture & mass shootings, interviewing the RWS team and even Boll himself for answers. Like it or not, Postal is the franchise that won't die—no matter how many molotov cocktails you throw at it.
176 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2020
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148 people want to read
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March 27, 2020
I feel two ways about this book because there are two books here. There is the book by Brock Wilbur, which is more focused on the game, Postal, and there’s the book by Nathan Rabin, which is more focused on the movie of the same name, made by infamous director Uwe Boll. The way the book works, there’s about half of Wilbur’s book, then the entirety of Rabin’s book, then we go back to Wilbur.
Let’s do all of Wilbur’s book first.
I think this comes from a Donald Trump thing. Hang with me. I don’t really love talking about this dude.
When Donald Trump got elected, there was a lot of journalistic work along the lines of, “Should someone with this morality be President?” And there was some self-examination we all had to do. What’s our part in the fact that this person, with these values and with this mouth, has found himself at the pinnacle of American success?
But then we started seeing more of this happen on a much smaller level. Should someone who says nasty thing X be able to ascend to the level of wealthy celebrity? Midlist novelist? How about the level of owner of a small business? Flipping burgers? Defining people by their worst quality or statement and then deciding their appropriate place in the culture, which was always an ill-defined “worse than current,” was a new form of journalistic sport.
Postal the book presents us Vince Desi, the person most responsible for Postal the game. He’s kind of shitty. I’d say the book’s primary question is: Should someone who is kinda shitty be allowed to ascend to the rank of indie game developer?
I think there’s a more important question: Is an artistic endeavor that expresses something inappropriate the right or wrong way to express that inappropriate thing?
While Desi has some fairly heinous views, it’s within my belief system that designing a video game to express one’s beliefs is an appropriate response. Creating art that is hateful is, in my opinion, acceptable. Hateful ideas DO exist, and I don’t think we can wipe them out (and whether or not that’s desirable is debatable). I would consider creating a video game an appropriate way to express one’s inappropriate views. Writing a novel, creating a piece of visual art, doing a podcast, making short videos, I would consider all of these appropriate forms of expressing these views. Just so it makes sense, I would consider some inappropriate versions of this to be things like creating a high school curriculum, passing legislation, and choosing who to serve in your restaurant based on your personal views to be inappropriate expressions of one’s views. And, of course, anything violent and anything directed at individuals as opposed to groups or ideas.
Wilbur spends a lot of time explaining to us that Desi is a bad dude. However, I don’t agree with the implied premise that this means Desi...shouldn’t be allowed to make games? Maybe the thesis doesn’t get that far, and it’s more like, “Desi is bad, therefore Postal is bad.” But it doesn’t work because Postal is, by design, morally bad. I don’t think many out there were under the mistaken impression that Postal was some wholesome game, and the fact that it was made by a bad guy is a surprise to no one. If we were talking about Animal Crossing, yes, I’d be interested to discover that the creator was a coke fiend or something. Or, if we were talking Postal, I’d be interested to discover the creator was a thoughtful, gentle, kind person. But the creation matching up with what you’d guess the creator is like doesn’t make for interesting or necessary reading.
Plus, Desi comes off in Wilbur’s book as a sort of bro douche, he says bad stuff, but it’s not like he’s a criminal. It’s not like he’s going to rallies and shit. He's an unpleasant guy, but I don't find him a dangerous person. He’s got bad views, but I would say that the outlets he’s found for them are appropriate.
My point here: The President being a douche is interesting to discuss because why did we elect a douche, and why does being a douche allow you to get that far? The designer of a game being a douche is not interesting because it’s pretty reasonable that a douche would get that far, and it’s not like we elected this guy. Bad people make good things sometimes. Or interesting things. Or things that are culturally relevant.
I don’t know that Desi being a douche on the level he is says anything new about Postal the game, and I don’t think it says anything about us, as a people, at all.
I guess, to put it more briefly, Brock Wilbur seemed to really dislike Vince Desi personally, and I understand why, but it’s my opinion that the disdain for Desi and Wilbur's desire to distance himself from Desi derailed the book. It became more important for the reader to also dislike Desi than it was to tell us about Postal.
Okay, now the Rabin part.
Awesome.
I’m a fan of Rabin from My Year of Flops and The Big Rewind, his ICP/Phish book. And his section on the Postal movie was the polar opposite of the other parts. We learn a little about Uwe Boll that’s unexpected, and we learn that the movie, in some ways, is a secret gem. Unapologetically excessive, genuinely funny in places, and it does in fact have something to say, even if that something is pretty ugly in places. It’s nothing like the game, and that doesn’t really matter.
Rabin’s section does the opposite of Wilbur’s. It presents a question: What if Uwe Boll is actually a good director? What if, despite appearances, he does care? What if he’s capable of making a good movie? What if his reputation isn’t his reality?
This section takes someone we know as a schlockmeister and presents us with the possibility that he’s an artist where Wilbur’s takes someone we know nothing about but would suspect it a little morally off-kilter, and tells us that he is, in fact, off-kilter.
Rabin’s section took a movie I had zero interest in and made me interested. It was fun, breezy reading, and it had just enough of Rabin’s personal life injected into it to make me understand why he’s writing it.
~
From some of the notes at the end and the final chapter, I think Wilbur might’ve really struggled with this project in ways he didn’t expect. I respect that struggle, and I appreciate that he worked through it. And while I hate to leave a negative review in this case, I can’t honestly say I’d recommend this book, as a whole, to others the way I often do other titles in the Boss Fight library. Wilbur’s style and writing are tight, and the first chapters have a great voice to them. I do want to note that while Postal is interesting in some ways, as a game, as a playing experience, it’s fairly crappy, which makes it a challenging thing to write about. It just didn’t come together for me.
I would read something else by Wilbur, for sure. I'd like to try something where I felt he was more at home on the page.
I have the bad habit of reviewing books by almost re-writing them to be different things. And that’s not really how book reviews work. This is a special case, though. I almost feel like Wilbur didn’t write the book he wanted to, either. The book he set out to write, or the book as he pictured it in his mind.
Let’s do all of Wilbur’s book first.
I think this comes from a Donald Trump thing. Hang with me. I don’t really love talking about this dude.
When Donald Trump got elected, there was a lot of journalistic work along the lines of, “Should someone with this morality be President?” And there was some self-examination we all had to do. What’s our part in the fact that this person, with these values and with this mouth, has found himself at the pinnacle of American success?
But then we started seeing more of this happen on a much smaller level. Should someone who says nasty thing X be able to ascend to the level of wealthy celebrity? Midlist novelist? How about the level of owner of a small business? Flipping burgers? Defining people by their worst quality or statement and then deciding their appropriate place in the culture, which was always an ill-defined “worse than current,” was a new form of journalistic sport.
Postal the book presents us Vince Desi, the person most responsible for Postal the game. He’s kind of shitty. I’d say the book’s primary question is: Should someone who is kinda shitty be allowed to ascend to the rank of indie game developer?
I think there’s a more important question: Is an artistic endeavor that expresses something inappropriate the right or wrong way to express that inappropriate thing?
While Desi has some fairly heinous views, it’s within my belief system that designing a video game to express one’s beliefs is an appropriate response. Creating art that is hateful is, in my opinion, acceptable. Hateful ideas DO exist, and I don’t think we can wipe them out (and whether or not that’s desirable is debatable). I would consider creating a video game an appropriate way to express one’s inappropriate views. Writing a novel, creating a piece of visual art, doing a podcast, making short videos, I would consider all of these appropriate forms of expressing these views. Just so it makes sense, I would consider some inappropriate versions of this to be things like creating a high school curriculum, passing legislation, and choosing who to serve in your restaurant based on your personal views to be inappropriate expressions of one’s views. And, of course, anything violent and anything directed at individuals as opposed to groups or ideas.
Wilbur spends a lot of time explaining to us that Desi is a bad dude. However, I don’t agree with the implied premise that this means Desi...shouldn’t be allowed to make games? Maybe the thesis doesn’t get that far, and it’s more like, “Desi is bad, therefore Postal is bad.” But it doesn’t work because Postal is, by design, morally bad. I don’t think many out there were under the mistaken impression that Postal was some wholesome game, and the fact that it was made by a bad guy is a surprise to no one. If we were talking about Animal Crossing, yes, I’d be interested to discover that the creator was a coke fiend or something. Or, if we were talking Postal, I’d be interested to discover the creator was a thoughtful, gentle, kind person. But the creation matching up with what you’d guess the creator is like doesn’t make for interesting or necessary reading.
Plus, Desi comes off in Wilbur’s book as a sort of bro douche, he says bad stuff, but it’s not like he’s a criminal. It’s not like he’s going to rallies and shit. He's an unpleasant guy, but I don't find him a dangerous person. He’s got bad views, but I would say that the outlets he’s found for them are appropriate.
My point here: The President being a douche is interesting to discuss because why did we elect a douche, and why does being a douche allow you to get that far? The designer of a game being a douche is not interesting because it’s pretty reasonable that a douche would get that far, and it’s not like we elected this guy. Bad people make good things sometimes. Or interesting things. Or things that are culturally relevant.
I don’t know that Desi being a douche on the level he is says anything new about Postal the game, and I don’t think it says anything about us, as a people, at all.
I guess, to put it more briefly, Brock Wilbur seemed to really dislike Vince Desi personally, and I understand why, but it’s my opinion that the disdain for Desi and Wilbur's desire to distance himself from Desi derailed the book. It became more important for the reader to also dislike Desi than it was to tell us about Postal.
Okay, now the Rabin part.
Awesome.
I’m a fan of Rabin from My Year of Flops and The Big Rewind, his ICP/Phish book. And his section on the Postal movie was the polar opposite of the other parts. We learn a little about Uwe Boll that’s unexpected, and we learn that the movie, in some ways, is a secret gem. Unapologetically excessive, genuinely funny in places, and it does in fact have something to say, even if that something is pretty ugly in places. It’s nothing like the game, and that doesn’t really matter.
Rabin’s section does the opposite of Wilbur’s. It presents a question: What if Uwe Boll is actually a good director? What if, despite appearances, he does care? What if he’s capable of making a good movie? What if his reputation isn’t his reality?
This section takes someone we know as a schlockmeister and presents us with the possibility that he’s an artist where Wilbur’s takes someone we know nothing about but would suspect it a little morally off-kilter, and tells us that he is, in fact, off-kilter.
Rabin’s section took a movie I had zero interest in and made me interested. It was fun, breezy reading, and it had just enough of Rabin’s personal life injected into it to make me understand why he’s writing it.
~
From some of the notes at the end and the final chapter, I think Wilbur might’ve really struggled with this project in ways he didn’t expect. I respect that struggle, and I appreciate that he worked through it. And while I hate to leave a negative review in this case, I can’t honestly say I’d recommend this book, as a whole, to others the way I often do other titles in the Boss Fight library. Wilbur’s style and writing are tight, and the first chapters have a great voice to them. I do want to note that while Postal is interesting in some ways, as a game, as a playing experience, it’s fairly crappy, which makes it a challenging thing to write about. It just didn’t come together for me.
I would read something else by Wilbur, for sure. I'd like to try something where I felt he was more at home on the page.
I have the bad habit of reviewing books by almost re-writing them to be different things. And that’s not really how book reviews work. This is a special case, though. I almost feel like Wilbur didn’t write the book he wanted to, either. The book he set out to write, or the book as he pictured it in his mind.
April 24, 2020
As a writer, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about voice. (Or perhaps ordinate, given that writers are supposed to be obsessive.) I'll read anything by anyone, so long as his/her/their voice grabs me from page one. POSTAL co-author Brock Wilbur reserves the first chapter for a hilarious story about a childhood friend whose religious parents deemed Super Mario Bros. too violent to play. For a lark, Wilbur showed his buddy Postal. His friend was reduced to a quivering mound of flesh, and not in the Penthouse Letters sort of way.
Right there, Wilbur had me, and he never lost me. POSTAL is hilarious, insightful, thoughtful, and surprisingly heavy: I came away from this book with a lot to think about, much more than any Postal game has ever given me to chew on.
POSTAL, the book, is the joint enterprise of Wilbur and Nathan Rubin, the latter a film critic whose contribution is an insightful deep dive into infamous director Uwe Boll's widely panned film adaptation. This section is, like the rest of the book, fantastic. I hadn't thought of Boll or his movies in years, so the last thing I expected when I sat down to read a book about the making of an equally infamous and reviled video game franchise was to feel sympathy for Boll and gain appreciation for his work. Or at least his adaptation of Postal, which, God help me, I kind of want to watch.
Right there, I admitted that I'm part of the problem. Boll's earliest game-to-film adaptations were so dreadful that I, like so many, assumed any subsequent movie of his would be a running gag because Boll had become a running gag the world over. Rabin makes clear that Postal is far from a great film, or even a good one. He also raises the possibility that maybe it's not quite as bad as all that.
Wilbur's portion of the book, parts one and three--with an early chapter written by Boss Fight editor Gabe Durham to add some context to Postal's release--was captivating in a different way. I loved what I was reading, but I couldn't find the voice he employed to tell the story. This seemed critical to me. Wilbur recounts his road trip to visit Postal's co-creators, and how he physically, mentally, and emotionally braced himself to stomach their abhorrent far-right politics. He was a journalist with a job to do. I've been there. Many times. In fact, I often envy my peers who get to talk with creators I haven't had the time or opportunity to meet. Not this time.
The first Postal is a game in which nothing is sacred. One gets the feeling while playing it that its creators are trolls; they're in the biz for the LOLs, and if that upsets you, so much the better. Postal (the game) co-creator Vince Desi is known for being unapologetically blunt. Wilbur's own tone comes close to this. It's clear he doesn't care for Postal, or for Desi or, to a lesser degree, Desi's business partner. The result is a voice that is equal parts trenchant and bleak. He matches Desi and his business partner tit for tat without being crass or dismissive. He even admits that Postal 2 and its expansion have some redeeming qualities. They're more fun than their original, which always seemed to me as a game that was edgy for the sake of edginess. Look how provocative I am!
But I didn't put my finger on "bleak" as the second component of Wilbur's voice until the book's final chapter. He touches on the role, or lack thereof, of violent video games in the role of mass shootings in America, an unending string of tragedies that was an epidemic before COVID came to our shores. Wilbur makes it clear that video games have unfairly been painted as a boogeyman, but he's unrelentingly, and understandably, bleak about the future of gun control (spoiler: there isn't one) in America.
Wilbur pushes back against the depravity of Postal's content by incisively dissecting it. His wit fails him in the final chapter, and with good reason. Gun violence is ugly, it's pointless, it's wrong, but we can't stop it because the powers that be will never let us stop it. That just fucking sucks. Wilbur knows that.
Don't get me wrong. Wilbur is an excellent writer, witty and acerbic precisely when the story calls for those beats. You'll learn something, and be entertained the whole way through. But this is also a somber story about a franchise whose events so often imitate reality. Every Boss Fight publication I've read was written by an author who, with few exceptions, wrote about one of their favorite games because it was one of their favorite games. I got the distinct impression that writing about Postal and its creators was an almost Sisyphean task for Wilbur. That's a different sort of connection I'm glad I got to explore, and one just as important as any other documented across Boss Fight's phenomenal series.
Right there, Wilbur had me, and he never lost me. POSTAL is hilarious, insightful, thoughtful, and surprisingly heavy: I came away from this book with a lot to think about, much more than any Postal game has ever given me to chew on.
POSTAL, the book, is the joint enterprise of Wilbur and Nathan Rubin, the latter a film critic whose contribution is an insightful deep dive into infamous director Uwe Boll's widely panned film adaptation. This section is, like the rest of the book, fantastic. I hadn't thought of Boll or his movies in years, so the last thing I expected when I sat down to read a book about the making of an equally infamous and reviled video game franchise was to feel sympathy for Boll and gain appreciation for his work. Or at least his adaptation of Postal, which, God help me, I kind of want to watch.
Right there, I admitted that I'm part of the problem. Boll's earliest game-to-film adaptations were so dreadful that I, like so many, assumed any subsequent movie of his would be a running gag because Boll had become a running gag the world over. Rabin makes clear that Postal is far from a great film, or even a good one. He also raises the possibility that maybe it's not quite as bad as all that.
Wilbur's portion of the book, parts one and three--with an early chapter written by Boss Fight editor Gabe Durham to add some context to Postal's release--was captivating in a different way. I loved what I was reading, but I couldn't find the voice he employed to tell the story. This seemed critical to me. Wilbur recounts his road trip to visit Postal's co-creators, and how he physically, mentally, and emotionally braced himself to stomach their abhorrent far-right politics. He was a journalist with a job to do. I've been there. Many times. In fact, I often envy my peers who get to talk with creators I haven't had the time or opportunity to meet. Not this time.
The first Postal is a game in which nothing is sacred. One gets the feeling while playing it that its creators are trolls; they're in the biz for the LOLs, and if that upsets you, so much the better. Postal (the game) co-creator Vince Desi is known for being unapologetically blunt. Wilbur's own tone comes close to this. It's clear he doesn't care for Postal, or for Desi or, to a lesser degree, Desi's business partner. The result is a voice that is equal parts trenchant and bleak. He matches Desi and his business partner tit for tat without being crass or dismissive. He even admits that Postal 2 and its expansion have some redeeming qualities. They're more fun than their original, which always seemed to me as a game that was edgy for the sake of edginess. Look how provocative I am!
But I didn't put my finger on "bleak" as the second component of Wilbur's voice until the book's final chapter. He touches on the role, or lack thereof, of violent video games in the role of mass shootings in America, an unending string of tragedies that was an epidemic before COVID came to our shores. Wilbur makes it clear that video games have unfairly been painted as a boogeyman, but he's unrelentingly, and understandably, bleak about the future of gun control (spoiler: there isn't one) in America.
Wilbur pushes back against the depravity of Postal's content by incisively dissecting it. His wit fails him in the final chapter, and with good reason. Gun violence is ugly, it's pointless, it's wrong, but we can't stop it because the powers that be will never let us stop it. That just fucking sucks. Wilbur knows that.
Don't get me wrong. Wilbur is an excellent writer, witty and acerbic precisely when the story calls for those beats. You'll learn something, and be entertained the whole way through. But this is also a somber story about a franchise whose events so often imitate reality. Every Boss Fight publication I've read was written by an author who, with few exceptions, wrote about one of their favorite games because it was one of their favorite games. I got the distinct impression that writing about Postal and its creators was an almost Sisyphean task for Wilbur. That's a different sort of connection I'm glad I got to explore, and one just as important as any other documented across Boss Fight's phenomenal series.
May 3, 2020
In a book about a game from 1997, Wilbur still manages to somehow dedicate a portion of the book to complaining about Donald Trump's presidency - y'know, the one that started nearly twenty years after the game came out?
Wilbur's clear disdain for a lot of things shows - and as he paints us a picture of Postal creator Vince Desi as a brash, unlikable guy who Wilbur heroically manages to find factors of interest in (thanks in large part to Postal 2 co-creator Mike J) - though not enough interest to speak to beyond a drunken evening, choosing instead to rush out in the morning - it ends up painting Wilbur as the less likeable character DESPITE Desi's clear attitude of not caring if you like him.
Contributions by editor Gabe Durham are in the same vein as Wilbur's writing - focused less on Postal itself and more on their perceived Postal player, a seeming white-supremacist neo-Nazi would-be-mass-murderer boogyman who wants to be, according to Durham's chapter, William Foster from "Falling Down" - despite Forester killing only about 8 people, almost all in self-defense (and at least one accidentally), one of who he kills because the victim IS a Nazi. Go figure.
Rabin's section - focusing on Uwe Boll's Postal film - is annoying in it's own way (though Rabin still manages to bring Trump's presidency in for some reason or another), as he spends far too much time talking about himself. Rabin understands Boll, we learn, because like Boll, Rabin is some sort of tortured artist whose dislike of the system (Hollywood for Boll, film criticism for Rabin) comes from their working in it and understanding it so deeply. Presumably Rabin is looking for more work, as he nearly writes a CV for himself in there.
The book has it's moments - Rabin has a few interesting (though not particularly novel) things to saw about Boll, and Wilbur's interview with Desi (when it's actually Desi and Mike J's responses in print as opposed to Wilbur's internal monologue) has some great moments of interest.
That said, it's not worth the $15 price of admission for paperback (or whatever I paid in the Kickstarter) nor the $5 for Kindle, and barely worth the couple hours it takes to read it (it's short, which is perhaps it's best quality). There is far better stuff written on every subject this book touches upon, no matter which side of any of the issues you stand on.
Wilbur's clear disdain for a lot of things shows - and as he paints us a picture of Postal creator Vince Desi as a brash, unlikable guy who Wilbur heroically manages to find factors of interest in (thanks in large part to Postal 2 co-creator Mike J) - though not enough interest to speak to beyond a drunken evening, choosing instead to rush out in the morning - it ends up painting Wilbur as the less likeable character DESPITE Desi's clear attitude of not caring if you like him.
Contributions by editor Gabe Durham are in the same vein as Wilbur's writing - focused less on Postal itself and more on their perceived Postal player, a seeming white-supremacist neo-Nazi would-be-mass-murderer boogyman who wants to be, according to Durham's chapter, William Foster from "Falling Down" - despite Forester killing only about 8 people, almost all in self-defense (and at least one accidentally), one of who he kills because the victim IS a Nazi. Go figure.
Rabin's section - focusing on Uwe Boll's Postal film - is annoying in it's own way (though Rabin still manages to bring Trump's presidency in for some reason or another), as he spends far too much time talking about himself. Rabin understands Boll, we learn, because like Boll, Rabin is some sort of tortured artist whose dislike of the system (Hollywood for Boll, film criticism for Rabin) comes from their working in it and understanding it so deeply. Presumably Rabin is looking for more work, as he nearly writes a CV for himself in there.
The book has it's moments - Rabin has a few interesting (though not particularly novel) things to saw about Boll, and Wilbur's interview with Desi (when it's actually Desi and Mike J's responses in print as opposed to Wilbur's internal monologue) has some great moments of interest.
That said, it's not worth the $15 price of admission for paperback (or whatever I paid in the Kickstarter) nor the $5 for Kindle, and barely worth the couple hours it takes to read it (it's short, which is perhaps it's best quality). There is far better stuff written on every subject this book touches upon, no matter which side of any of the issues you stand on.
April 1, 2024
This is one of the rare books that actually made me dislike its author. Brock Wilbur is Jon Ronson from a mirror opposite dimension where Jon Ronson is an insecure asshole that has to tear everyone down by whom he feels threatened.
Very little in this book is about the game, most is about how much of a very bad man Vince Desi supposedly is.
The contents of this book - well, Wilbur‘s part - is the literary version of this phenomenon when you say something common sense on reddit and someone feels so attacked by it they go through your whole profile to downvote all your comments.
That is what this book is, and I can’t really figure out why. It couldn’t be true that minor differences in politics completely prevented the author from doing his job and resulting in this seething diatribe instead? That would truly be too sad. But there’s a suspicious amount of mentioning bad orange man while discussing a video game from the 90s, so it could be permaonline political brainrot.
But let’s be a bit charitable here. Can we go with a psychoanalysis explanation instead? Vince reminded our author too much of his dad, perhaps? The psychoanalysts would also have a field day with the way Wilbur, a straight married man, describes other straight men in very sexually charged terms in this book, with no context (either giving a reason or implying consent) for that anywhere to find.
Rabin‘s parts were okay, bad book otherwise. I wanted lore on a game that had a lot of gaming culture impact back in the day, but this ain’t it.
Very little in this book is about the game, most is about how much of a very bad man Vince Desi supposedly is.
The contents of this book - well, Wilbur‘s part - is the literary version of this phenomenon when you say something common sense on reddit and someone feels so attacked by it they go through your whole profile to downvote all your comments.
That is what this book is, and I can’t really figure out why. It couldn’t be true that minor differences in politics completely prevented the author from doing his job and resulting in this seething diatribe instead? That would truly be too sad. But there’s a suspicious amount of mentioning bad orange man while discussing a video game from the 90s, so it could be permaonline political brainrot.
But let’s be a bit charitable here. Can we go with a psychoanalysis explanation instead? Vince reminded our author too much of his dad, perhaps? The psychoanalysts would also have a field day with the way Wilbur, a straight married man, describes other straight men in very sexually charged terms in this book, with no context (either giving a reason or implying consent) for that anywhere to find.
Rabin‘s parts were okay, bad book otherwise. I wanted lore on a game that had a lot of gaming culture impact back in the day, but this ain’t it.
June 5, 2025
Levi, you WILL be hearing about this
April 3, 2020
(click the image below to watch the video review)
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Can you love something even if the creator of that thing is awful?
The modern highway system is great, but we have to thank Hitler for that. Penicillin is cool, but it was made by a disgusting moldy sandwich (that I've heard also hated Jews). This book, Postal, it’s great, but it was created by the awful Brock Wilbur and Nathan Rabin. I’m just kidding. I’ve never met these guys. They are probably cool, though. At least as cool as highways.
With Postal, the 23rd book in the Boss Fight Books series, authors Brock Wilbur and Nathan Rabin highlight two such problematic creators: Vince Desi and Uwe Boll. Desi is the mind behind the video game Postal, released in 1997. Boll is the director of the game’s movie adaptation released in 2008. Both creators are generally depicted in media as deplorable, offensive, and simply not very good at what they do. But only Desi comes out of Wilbur and Rabin’s book remaining that way. For Boll, this is a bit of a redemption story.
Wilbur and Rabin create an interesting tension for the reader. Desi is depicted as an unflappable hothead, someone who’s difficult to be around and difficult to like. He’s a bad person who made a bad game. And he stays that way. He’s easy to categorize. Desi’s presence here is as the benchmark for the reader’s emotional investment.
But Boll’s story is much more nuanced. Boll’s common media persona, unlike Desi’s, feels inaccurate after reading this book. Rabin’s treatment of the maligned director is one of a sad existence. Boll’s entire career output is of knowingly questionable quality. His movies are critically panned. Even disinterested audiences have a hard time watching a Boll movie.
To make his movies Boll has long taken advantage of a German tax loophole that allowed financiers of movies to be reimbursed by the government if the movie doesn't make a profit. And to make his movies, Boll needed source material so he turned to cheap video game IPs. Boll's massive accumulation of video game film rights and the resulting poor adaptations has almost single-handedly given video game movies their reputation as garbage. A distant onlooker would see just a greedy supervillain, right?
But Rabin depicts a man that’s convinced himself that his movies are great. Or at least, that his movies have not been given a proper chance. He’s a creator whose creations aren’t appreciated. Any artist can sympathize with that torment. And in humanizing this apparent villain against the unchanging Desi, the reader almost sees Boll as a charming underdog. Boll isn’t a creator worth looking up to, but when paired next to Desi looking up is the only thing we can do. Here, Boll wins by default. But at least it's a win. He needs one.
I love a book that poses a great question. Can you enjoy the games and movies made by these shady people? How much does your appreciation of a product reflect your acceptance of the creator?
I’ve talked about the competing schools when it comes to interpreting a creative work and the degree to which we should or should not rely on the author to help us interpret, so I won’t do that here. But this is a situation where understanding the creator does impact my own personal thoughts toward a work. Postal is a bad movie. There’s no debating that. But I respect it more, and can watch it with less hostility than I could before reading Wilbur and Rabin’s book. Postal, the game, though? No. I still hate it.
And these authors do right by the material. Brock Wilbur is a comedian and the editor-in-Chief of The Pitch, a local Kansas City independent news outlet, so he’s practically my neighbor and therefore definitely at least as cool as a highway. Brock uses humor to keep a safe emotional distance from Desi, which feels right considering Desi’s seemingly manic nature. Nathan Rabin is an author of several books about the movie industry so he’s used to profiling filmmakers. These guys have created a great book that asks a great question and that’s exactly what I want from a book like this.
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Can you love something even if the creator of that thing is awful?
The modern highway system is great, but we have to thank Hitler for that. Penicillin is cool, but it was made by a disgusting moldy sandwich (that I've heard also hated Jews). This book, Postal, it’s great, but it was created by the awful Brock Wilbur and Nathan Rabin. I’m just kidding. I’ve never met these guys. They are probably cool, though. At least as cool as highways.
With Postal, the 23rd book in the Boss Fight Books series, authors Brock Wilbur and Nathan Rabin highlight two such problematic creators: Vince Desi and Uwe Boll. Desi is the mind behind the video game Postal, released in 1997. Boll is the director of the game’s movie adaptation released in 2008. Both creators are generally depicted in media as deplorable, offensive, and simply not very good at what they do. But only Desi comes out of Wilbur and Rabin’s book remaining that way. For Boll, this is a bit of a redemption story.
Wilbur and Rabin create an interesting tension for the reader. Desi is depicted as an unflappable hothead, someone who’s difficult to be around and difficult to like. He’s a bad person who made a bad game. And he stays that way. He’s easy to categorize. Desi’s presence here is as the benchmark for the reader’s emotional investment.
But Boll’s story is much more nuanced. Boll’s common media persona, unlike Desi’s, feels inaccurate after reading this book. Rabin’s treatment of the maligned director is one of a sad existence. Boll’s entire career output is of knowingly questionable quality. His movies are critically panned. Even disinterested audiences have a hard time watching a Boll movie.
To make his movies Boll has long taken advantage of a German tax loophole that allowed financiers of movies to be reimbursed by the government if the movie doesn't make a profit. And to make his movies, Boll needed source material so he turned to cheap video game IPs. Boll's massive accumulation of video game film rights and the resulting poor adaptations has almost single-handedly given video game movies their reputation as garbage. A distant onlooker would see just a greedy supervillain, right?
But Rabin depicts a man that’s convinced himself that his movies are great. Or at least, that his movies have not been given a proper chance. He’s a creator whose creations aren’t appreciated. Any artist can sympathize with that torment. And in humanizing this apparent villain against the unchanging Desi, the reader almost sees Boll as a charming underdog. Boll isn’t a creator worth looking up to, but when paired next to Desi looking up is the only thing we can do. Here, Boll wins by default. But at least it's a win. He needs one.
I love a book that poses a great question. Can you enjoy the games and movies made by these shady people? How much does your appreciation of a product reflect your acceptance of the creator?
I’ve talked about the competing schools when it comes to interpreting a creative work and the degree to which we should or should not rely on the author to help us interpret, so I won’t do that here. But this is a situation where understanding the creator does impact my own personal thoughts toward a work. Postal is a bad movie. There’s no debating that. But I respect it more, and can watch it with less hostility than I could before reading Wilbur and Rabin’s book. Postal, the game, though? No. I still hate it.
And these authors do right by the material. Brock Wilbur is a comedian and the editor-in-Chief of The Pitch, a local Kansas City independent news outlet, so he’s practically my neighbor and therefore definitely at least as cool as a highway. Brock uses humor to keep a safe emotional distance from Desi, which feels right considering Desi’s seemingly manic nature. Nathan Rabin is an author of several books about the movie industry so he’s used to profiling filmmakers. These guys have created a great book that asks a great question and that’s exactly what I want from a book like this.
March 8, 2025
One of the worst in the series. I feel that having the opportunity to interview the head developers of the first two Postal games and spending the entire sober half of the interview with condescension and mute silence... I just can't waste words on something like that. Failing utterly to include anything about the long legal issues and debates on video game violence that these games in particular inspired in congress and the impact they had on enforcing ESRB ratings is monumental and makes this a terrible waste of opportunity to speak on and include in what was otherwise flaming rant about politically correct stances.
Whatever you might think about the minds behind the Postal games, you can't ignore their influence on the industry. Did I love them myself? It's not often that I'm so repelled by the freedom and options presented that I abandon a game without looking back, yet, Postal made me experience that. Acts of violence so over the top they're more sick than funny. They should not have chosen someone so squeamish that they fail to deliver the goods on the product put into their lap to produce at least a decent documentary on.
Whatever you might think about the minds behind the Postal games, you can't ignore their influence on the industry. Did I love them myself? It's not often that I'm so repelled by the freedom and options presented that I abandon a game without looking back, yet, Postal made me experience that. Acts of violence so over the top they're more sick than funny. They should not have chosen someone so squeamish that they fail to deliver the goods on the product put into their lap to produce at least a decent documentary on.
Read
April 12, 2020I read this since I'm a fan of Nathan's site and it seemed like an interesting idea to do this for a "33-1/3-type" game docu-series; it was a quick and easy read and enjoyable in both the game and film sides. As another reviewer mentioned this seems like it was a bit of trouble for Wilbur at least, but I think it came together in the end. Leaving it unrated since it just seems like something I wouldn't read normally, and it's short (I've read longer articles on the intehwebz). But it kindled my interest in maybe other games in this series (or the 33-1/3 series itself which I've not checked out yet).
December 8, 2023
Well-written enough, but it doesn't really provide a lot of interesting information on the topic at hand. Half the book is also spent talking about the Postal movie which I didn't really want to hear anything about, but perhaps that is my fault for going into the book blind and not knowing it was going to take this detour. Either way, that section is pretty boring and the parts regarding the game itself are kinda barebones, so it's not that great a source of information.
For the little bit of interesting information that it does have, it really does feel like "this could have just been an article on a website somewhere".
For the little bit of interesting information that it does have, it really does feel like "this could have just been an article on a website somewhere".
October 8, 2020
Made me accidentally buy postal 4 for some reason
Extremely empathetic read, despite the entirety of the topic =)
Extremely empathetic read, despite the entirety of the topic =)
July 19, 2022
A bit of a disjointed mess focusing on both game and movie with the movie section having a little too much self pity. Fortunately it's short.
March 26, 2025
I regret nothing.
February 16, 2025
Offers a thorough look at Postal, a video game that was controversial when it came out. Also thoroughly covers the movie based on the video-game series and includes a behind-the-scenes look at the game-makers.
March 19, 2021
A very short read, but probably too long for this subject. No surprise that the main creator of the game is pretty much an Edge-lord. All I knew about this game was the controversy surrounding it, so it was interesting to read about the actual gameplay and levels. It shows the game as what it truly is, which is an un-fun grim-dark slog.
The back half is devoted to Uwe Boll, who is always entertaining to read about, way more than actually watching his films. The anecdote of him boxing his biggest critics was fun, but Boll's ineptitude and irritability takes away some of his appeal.
Read this if you want to learn more about the controversial game, but would have probably worked better as a long-form article.
The back half is devoted to Uwe Boll, who is always entertaining to read about, way more than actually watching his films. The anecdote of him boxing his biggest critics was fun, but Boll's ineptitude and irritability takes away some of his appeal.
Read this if you want to learn more about the controversial game, but would have probably worked better as a long-form article.
April 24, 2020
the running with scissors devs are two guys that kind of the darker versions of trey parker and matt stone of video games. i'm familiar of vince desi from the pigeon mission video on youtube, but finding out that he made his break in the games industry by making sesame street games was amazing. A bit like finding out the blues clues guy had a serious coke habit (this was a elaborate internet hoax). while i came to this book for the rabin contribution it was the most uninteresting, uwe bowl being a hack who's rent seeking the german government with a loop hole they created. Back to desi, there's a lot of prima facie arguments being had with postal that assumes you can't separate art from the author. I don't really like these arguments. There's another one that assumes that video games or media must be rewiring parts of our brain to make us more violent. Both of these sentiments are well-meaning but lack understanding. These works of art have the right to be let alone. In many ways a game like hotline miami is worse than anything in postal but you don't see a lot of critics selectively choosing to love that work, mostly for aesthetic reasons. I don't think these themes are redeemable, hearing that it's pretty evil doesn't make me want to go out and play the game, but I do think it not only has a right to exist but should be protected.
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