Happy Birthday, Naomi!
You are 31 months old today, and you look snazzy in your new shirt!
Wrapping Up
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Foundation #4 I’ve given Boom Studios books flack for the art quality in the past, but I’d be happy to follow the work of Chee from title to title. His artwork conveys grit and desperation convincingly. Plotwise – Valentine escapes the trap and sets out after the traitor in the Foundation…just as predicted? |
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Foundation #5 An ambitious and anti-climatic finale. Yes, Valentine and the surviving Foundation members stop Waters. Then they defuse the bomb by yanking out random wires and walk away with the timer still ticking. The reader has to trust the technical explanation – and to fate – the same way they trust the quatrains. |
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North Wind #4 Pak meets Schuyler and tries to jog her memory of their lost home, but nothing works. Slaughterhouse Joe’s guards chase him from L.A., but Pak escapes…and then ambushes them at a newly discovered oil refinery of Joe’s. The action is a disjointed this issue, but sets up an interesting finale. |
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North Wind #5 Pak and Schuyler return to the underground city of Los Angeles to save Shuyler’s father. Of course, they’re captured by Slaughterhouse Joe. There’s another festival, an escape, an oil leak and a final fight. At the start of the series, I had hoped for something elegant, related to the Cycle. |
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Serenity: Better Days #2 The crew shares their dreams for spending the money in amusing single panels (Jayne wants to be an admiral, Wash wants a family, River wants to dance with a fish, Book goes gangsta) and goes on vacation…with Inara’s army client in pursuit. What is Mal’s connection to the Dust Devils? |
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Serenity: Better Days #3 A whiz-bang ending that relies on a bit of plot chicanery to work. Zoe mounts another Malcolm rescue operation and, during the firefight with the marines, both sides are attacked by the victims of Mal’s heist in issue #1. The cool part – you see Book with a sword…fighting a robot! |
The First Mark is a Warning
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X Omnibus #1 The gimmick is simple: X marks his victims with one warning slash, followed by another for execution. This makes for some interesting art design. These early stories focus on X terrorizing the mob and the corrupt city government – his effect on the bad guys is more interesting than his origins. |
Prequel, Not Pastiche
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Night of Knives, by Ian Cameron Esslemont A prequel to Steven Erikson’s Malazan epic, by his writing partner (and fellow RPG player – Malazan was a college campaign!). There’s a different kind of tension in the politicking of familiar characters, but the novella skips the payoff of Kellanved’s ascension from mere Malaz Emperor to the Throne of Shadow. |
Strength in Numbers
According to the official Blogathon.org site, the principal organizer of the event is taking a year off for personal reasons. Somebody else may step forward to take up the task of managing the Blogathon site and coordinating the monitors, or the Blogathon might not happen this year…
…at least, not officially. The Blogathon site lists all the participating blogs, their charities and the amounts raised, confirms that I followed the posting rules, and then follows-up with the sponsors…but I could do these things myself.
But it would be a lonely effort. Part of the fun of the Blogathon is participating in a community effort – a group of bloggers organizing themselves for a 24-hour fundraising event has a certain cachet, but a lone blogger staying up all day and night for a cause is unremarkable (I’m sure bloggers do that all the time to rant about politics, TV or conspiracy theory) – and it’s easier to raise funds and awareness as part of the group. There’s strength in numbers.
I enjoyed participating in last year’s Blogathon, and the fundraising for the Autism Clinic at the Montreal Children’s Hospital was pretty successful. I’d like do it again this year, but, if I’m going it alone, it’s just as easy for me to write a cheque.
But that would be boring. Maybe I can find a few like-minded individuals out there, and we can run a mini-Blogathon ourselves.
More-or-Less Supreme Squadron
| Squadron Supreme #1-7 (a.k.a. The Pre-War Years) The first issue was interesting – Hyperion sabotaged the Army’s plan to field overt and covert Squadrons – and the final issue showed promise – Redstone is hired by China to take out Hyperion – but the middle issues were characterless tales of the Squadron demolishing overmatched Third World dictatorships. Was better left incomplete. |
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| Squadron Supreme: Hyperion vs. Nighthawk #1-4 Remarkable for three reasons: 1) Addresses the Darfur genocide without condescending answers; 2) The simple story has an intricate narration, filled with flasbacks that expand on two initial fights between Hyperion and Nighthawk, from both their perspectives; 3) Presents Nighthawk as a ruthless adversary, and less of a racist buffoon. |
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Seller’s Market
I haven’t sold anything on eBay in 2008? How am I supposed to maintain my geek collecting ways without trading off the old for the new (well, I do have those occasional ad design fees from Kobold Quarterly to keep me going)?
Well, all that’s going to change. I’ve got Spring Cleaning fever, so I’ll be putting some more items on the block: a few monochrome AD&D modules, perhaps a CCG…we’ll see what I can dig up and liberate.
On a related note, I’ve just learned that eBay has changed the rules for leaving feedback. Sellers are now no longer permitted to leave neutral or negative feedback for buyers, for whatever reason. This is supposed to encourage buyers to leave honest feedback without fear of retaliation, but what it actually does is devalue all feedback for buyers – there’s no way to mark the griefers and the deadbeats.
Whatcha Watchin’?
I’m switching between episodes of The Wire, Torchwood and Weeds, not to mention catching up with the finale of Grey’s Anatomy. That’s a lot of plot and genre juggling!
The Oldest Comic Review on the Stack
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Sandman Mystery Theatre TPB #6 – The Hourman & The Python Two tales here: First, Wesley meets Rex Tyler, who advertises vigilante justice through the classifieds as the Man of the Hour. This story works because it shows how even superhuman punches solve nothing. The second tale is largely forgettable, save for Dian’s unforeseen decision to leave Wesley. That rings false. |
All-In
Here’s my answer to the Open Question about expertise:
Dina and I have a running conversation about runners. Joggers, specifically, who run along the bike path on our street no matter what the weather, decked out in all manner of running gear, stopwatches, earphones and sunglasses, who look like they’re doing anything but having fun. Conversations with joggers revolve around their best time, their heart rate, how they can improve their time/rate, or how far they can run. It all sounds a little monomaniacal.
The question is, does jogging turn you crazy, or are crazy people attracted to jogging? (I’m going somewhere with this. Honestly!)
I think taking up a hobby or new activity makes you a little crazy. It certainly makes me a little crazy. When I take up a new hobby or activity, my frame of reference changes. Compared to the people who aren’t fellow hobbyists, I know more about the topic, but compared to others in the new group, I know far less. I know so little, in fact, that I feel compelled to research the topic to avoid conversations like “Oh, you’re a comic fan! Well, you must know about Watchmen, Steve Ditko and Beanworld.” So I research, and know a lot about those topics, only to discover that there’s an even smaller group of Beanworld* fanatics, so I have to do even more reading to keep up with them. The frame of reference keeps changing until the expertise estranges you from the original group of interest.
This happens in every field of activity. When I worked as a technical writer, I felt compelled to read trade magazines, usability research studies and memorize FrameMaker shortcuts; as a CCG player, I tried to be the best player in the group and, when that failed spectacularly, I decided to collect the most cards I could find; when I dabbled in punk rock, I tried to find all the Dead Kennedys bootlegs I could find, only to be sidetracked by Jello Biafro’s side projects; as an old X-File fan, I kept up with show trivia, but drew the line at collaborating on fan fiction; as a one-time Mac user, I was supposed to run odd bits of software; as a blogger, I was supposed to care about Google ads, page views, platform tech and commenting policies; as an English Lit. major, I’ve been trapped in conversations about theory when all I wanted to do was talk about technique; as a parent, I’ve faked answers to parenting style questions because I wasn’t up on the latest parenting books (though I did look them up afterwards); at my first autism therapy meeting, I met other parents who were deep into the diagnostic and pseudo-therapeutic jargon and who were both horrified and suspicious that I didn’t care enough as a father to know the same code-words they did; and the list goes on. If I were into jogging, I’m sure I’d be sucked into conversations about timing, just to have something to talk to other joggers about.
Keeping up with the Joneses is hard work, so, as much as possible, I’ve quit. I’d rather be a interested dabbler than a dull, stressed out expert. Those definitions are fluid, of course. So long as the hobby is fun, I’ll be working at it, trying to keep up with the latest trends and the old standards and probably boring Dina to tears with my discoveries, but I’m getting better at quitting before going all-in. There’s always somebody who’s going to know more about a given topic than I am, so I’m happier not trying to be that person.
Besides, if I had that kind of complete expertise, I’d have nothing else to talk about, would I?
* I’ve never read Beanworld. It’s just the most obscure indie title I could think of off the top of my head…but others, far nerdier than I, know that it’s not the most obscure title.