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jkgriffin's journal
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Being a hopeless geek, I can't merely read them. No, I have to sort them. So I still have about 10" of comics to read, sorted by publisher and series and then grouped by affiliation - Batman stuff together, the three dozen X-titles, etc., sorted by level of attachment. Whedon's X-Men is last right now. I have to wade through the bad stuff to get to the good. What is interesting about reading them like that is you realize how really godawful some of the writing is. Some of it I can shrug off month to month, but when you read three or four issues in a row the flaws are heavily magnified. The converse is also true, of course. Some comics are improved that way, especially the ones with dense plotting. Damn, I miss Morrison's X-Men. I would switch over to TPBs except I would probably stop reading all together (which I am loath to do) and spouse would probably not accept it. My comics habit is ridiculous already. Three months worth of comics should not be filling up a short box. I shudder to think how much work it would be right now to get my comics REALLY organized. There must be at least 20 boxes of misc right now. However, piles of loose comics and a two year old don't mix so I'll just have to let it get really bad and sort it all after I graduate. Again. In 2008. Back to my original point. Claremont's The End series is an unforgivable mess. I would not finish it except it's already half over and incomplete series, however bad, distress me. Claremont needs to.. I don't know. Write video games? I can't see him doing comics any more. There are a handful of interesting ideas in The End, ruined by preachiness and lame followthrough. Fabian Nicieza does not do it for me as a writer, and never really has. I am not a fan of Millar. There is something shiny and superficial with nasty undertones to his work that I just don't enjoy. He reminds me of Ennis without the humanity underneath. With Garth Ennis, I get a deep feeling of resentment that the world is so bad. Ennis is deeply moral even his books are violent and ugly. Millar seems to revel in it. At least I have Whedon's X-Men and Bendis' Daredevil to look forward to. :: +Memory :: Share :: 6 replies :: Reply I think you nailed Millar on the head -- and someone certainly should. Ennis never loses sight of his themes and his characters, even dragging them through the darkest of depths. Part of what made so much of his Preacher run fantastic was the raw horror -- the non-supernatural, entirely human-borne horror -- of what his characters had to endure and they still retained themselves and their dignity. Millar seems to understand the debauchery all too well and delights in flaunting it, but apart from trying to shock the reader (and editors and management), I don't think he has the slightest idea of what he's trying to do with it. He's a graduate of the widescreen school of comic storytelling, perhaps, but I don't think he did the homework. (My primary exposure to him was on his post-Ellis Authority/Jenny Sparks work, and his signature's been enough of a warning sign to keep me at arm's length since.) I'd suggest Claremont go back to writing his novels. He seemed to enjoy those enough back in the day. Maybe he and William Shatner could collaborate...? But aside from Bat-titles and X-books, what else have you delved into?
I get the tangential Bat-titles- Catwoman, BoP, Gotham Central, Nightwing, Gotham Knights. I don't actually read any of the main ones. And JLA which has been interesting, since for a long time I did little DC. I've recently taken up Planetary, and have been reading a lot of the Morrison minis. Queen & Country, Powers and Astro City. Aren't they required? :) The DC kiddie titles for Batman and Justice League. I want to have something to bribe Jamie with when he gets older. They are surprisingly good, actually. I often enjoy them more than the grown up versions. Spider-Girl. Cause it's cute and I like it. Black Panther. I got sucked in under Priest but I like the new writer. Cable & Deadpool but I think I'm going to drop it. It's doing interesting things but I just don't like Fabian. The Pulse and Daredevil. I have to stop getting Daredevil minis though because they tend to be too cold. Much as I like Matt Murdock, too many of his writers (not Bendis) are trying to be Frank Miller. And it doesn't work, because they aren't. Miller could be awfully misogynistic anyway. It's pretty estrogen heavy for superhero comics, but so am I. :) I'll read other things but I have limited funds, and limited time. I'll purge then add again. Titles get cancelled on me a lot. I read a lot of Preacher and early Bendis through Seattle Public Library. I've developed quite an appreciation for Garth because of his humanity. Shock tactics bore me.
About the only things I actively look for now are Planetary...uhm, yeah, I think that's it. Nothing else catches my attention anymore. I'm kinda aghast at the Legion. JLA's not impressing me post-Morrison. Bendis has officially rubbed me the wrong way to the point of avoidance. Everything else...I might stay current on, but I'm not actively collecting anymore. There's some stuff in DC I like when I read it (JSA), but there's enough that's actively infuriated me (Countdown, for example) to equalize it. Most everything I followed and really cared about has been cancelled. But that's okay. It's easier on the pocketbook this way.
On the other hand, I think I like the ritual of getting comics more than reading them sometimes. aardy and I build ourselves a comics unit. We had a not-quite 4x8 space, so we measured, had Home Depot cut us some quality 1/2" plywood, bought a whole bunch of 2x4 sections, and went at it. There are 2x4 frames, two 2x4 crossbeams, and 6 "feet" that are screwed to the shelving below them and reinforced with L brackets. Click on the photo for the larger size view. It has 4 shelves, and in our new place we can get nine longboxes per shelf plus some on top, so we can hold 30-36 longboxes or twice that in shortboxes (which can fit between the middle support pieces). It's great for storing anything-- books, banker's boxes, etc. We just label them by slapping post-it notes on the boxes. :) But it makes it a *lot* easier to only have to move 1-2 boxes to get to the box in the back three rows up.
I use a sharpie on the box or if I am feeling ambitious, printed labels. Or labels on top of old marker. :) |
