nothing to be afraid of

I just read Fear Itself, Marvel's latest super event, and I was really pleasantly surprised. I enjoyed it. There were themes. I felt emotions. The art was good. It made sense. You can't count on those things in events. It made me a little bit less cynical about the whole thing for a moment.

...but then again, they've got X-Men vs. Avengers coming up next, and I really don't see how that won't be a disaster.

comics?

Last year I was crazy into comic books. It was part of my weekly routine. I picked up probably at least three books a week. Now I don't think I've been in a comic book shop since this fall.
There are outside reasons for this, like the closure of my favorite store (Double Danger R.I.P.), being in college, having less money and time, but most importantly the things I cared about disappeared.

This mostly has to do with DC comics and the New 52. (I have mail subscriptions for the Marvel titles I love, and am actually happier reading creator owned comics in trade.) Before September I had been reading Birds of Prey, Secret Six, and Batman Inc. New 52 happened and those books stopped, or changed dramatically. A lot of the New 52 titles look really great, especially Batwoman, but I never got in the habit of picking them up. I didn't feel like reinvesting in a universe that was liable to suddenly reinvent itself.

Here is what this comic reader is looking for: consistency. I want to see characters behaving in ways that make sense for them. I want the to develop and grow. I love how comics are long-long-long form serialzed storytelling, but this doesn't matter if the world gets restarted every few years. I don't care if characters get old. I would rather see them deal with their past than have events I care about get erased.

There are other reasons to be annoyed about comics, especially the representation or lack of women, people of color, and queer people, but that isn't why I stopped reading comics. If anything wanting to support good representations is part of what got me following certain comics to begin with. I get invested in characters, but then when they: disappear, get retooled, get ignored, forgotten, dismissed, etc, I have to step back, and keep my money in my pocket.

Comic companies need to realize that getting new readers isn't there only concern, and stop being dicks so they keep people who are already fans.

Friday Fun

When I was in elementry school we had something called friday fun, which was basically a couple hours of free time in the afternoon, and if you were naughty you don't get to play. If there wasn't school on friday it was called thursday thrills.
In fifth grade we colored our hair with magic markers. It didn't show up very well in mine, because it's very dark, dark enough that people call it black, though it isn't and that's just the contrast between the bleach. But it looked really cool in Mat's, because she used to be more blonde, and pretty well in Emma's, but she didn't like doing that.
Now my friday fun is reading Freak Angles, the weekly web comic by the crazy english man Warren Ellis. It is post apocolyptic steampunk fun. read http://www.freakangels.com/ and enjoy.

woah hey

woah, hey, internet.
I love you and the manic street preachers and Batwoman. She is gettting her own tittle in febuary, and I am super excited. It will be the bomb. The zero issue from last week was really awesome, and incredibly pretty. This week there is i-zombie, which is consistently one of the best looking books I buy. If the art wasn't so awesome I wouldn't still be reading, even though the story's really good, just because it doesn't seem esentail. The art is the extra push it needed to win my dollars.

LIAN HARPER IS DEAD

Fuck you dc comincs, this is not acceptable, at all. Fuck you James Robinson, you may have written Starman, creating Jack Knight, who is one of my absolute favorites, but you fucking killed Lian Harper, the most adorable character in the dcu to cause OLLIE of all people angst? That is not ok. You put an itsy amazing minority CHILD in a fucking refigerator, which means you just fail at life. I mean, really?
Lian is awesome, Roy is awesome, the arrows are all awesome, and you are not. At all.
Why did it have to be LIAN? I would be pissed if you killed someone else, Mia, Connor, Roy, maybe even Dinah, but not LIAN, because she is an inoocent. If she is not alive before the end of brightest day I...I don't know what I am going to do, but it is going to be a strong, violent action.

Absolute Justice

So, last night I watched Smallville, which I never do, because it featured the JSA, and was written by Geoff Johns. (Is his last name supposed to be pronounced frenchly? M thinks so. I dunno. I still read it G-off Jones, so...fail.)
It was pretty entertaining. I had seen the first season, and basicly nothing else. I do not like Superman, and this version is no exception. Their Green Arrow is pretty awesome, but I'm a fan of Ollie to begin with, so... He's got the part of the charming idiot down. And Chloe as watchtower is cool! I always just thought she was a giant Mary Sue, but maybe not.
The JSA story line was pretty cool. We only meet a few members, but they're mostly well done.
I missed the first few minutes (stupid tv), and was really confused because there was a guy with a cosmic rod, and a ordinary person jacket, and there would be no way they'd include Jack Knight. Argh, comics and tv do not match!
Hawkman was cool. Doctor Fate was not. Really not. That show has some pretty terrible special affects. Fate's helemet was superlame.
The villain of the week was a fairly stupid, but pleasingly sparkly ice guy. The ongoing threat of Checkmate and Amanda Waller was neat.
So, it was an enjoyable evening, but I'm not going to start watching this regularly. If there's a Green Arrow spin off I'd be interested. (If there's a Green Arrow anything I'd be interested.)

hello world

I have decided to start blogging again. My goal is to post five times a week, if not daily, and to document every comic book I read, which is saying something. I think I will do a reintroduction later on in the week, but this is just a greeting. It's nice to be here again, as a contributing member of the interweb.
thanks, bes.