The trouble with them, of course, is that you spend them waiting for the storms.
Superfudge has opened, and not a moment too soon, as I was feeling the creative card in my brain seriously overheating. The past few months seem to have put a serious strain on it. Then again, I can’t be sure how much of that creative exhaustion is due to the fact that none of the stuff I was working on was truly mine. The scriptwork that occupied the year to date was for a idea I had submitted to the focus groups, sure enough, but by the time its official writer was shuffled off script duties, it was no longer my vision. All I could do was attempt to link the story points in something approaching a logical manner.
One of the unexpected perks of writing so regularly again is my return to the world of reading. Though I still can’t set aside enough time to read an actual book – though several sit by my desk, waiting their turn – I’ve returned to my first love, the medium that taught me to read at the tender age of four: comic books.
I gave up the monthlies years ago, during one of my frequent fiscal crises, and now wait for the trade paperback collections to come out. My wait for some stories to conclude thusly is longer, of course, but there isn’t that agonizing wait between issues. Especially since the higher-profile comics have a way of slipping off-schedule.
Currently, I’m catching up on Warren Ellis. Friends blink at me, the unstated question being, “Catch up on Warren Ellis?” Yeah, I’ve lived in a cave for quite some time. I’m the Unabomber without the body count. Forgive me.
But what a wonderful odyssey it is, finding this wonder in huge, bookshelf-worthy chunks. It started with a recommendation for The Authority – between this and Moore’s Miracleman and Watchmen, I think the revisionist superhero story has reached its zenith. I have chewed my way through Planetary and Global Frequency, re-reading them frequently. My next course is what Ellis refers to as his “2500 page science fiction novel”, Transmetropolitan.
And while not exactly a new discovery for me, I was trolling Half-Price Books during a long lunch and discovered a couple of the small, thick Dark Horse collections of Lone Wolf and Cub. I had read the comic religiously back when First Comics was reprinting them. When First went under (taking with it my beloved Grimjack – a pause, please, for mourning), it was rumored that financial skullduggery had scotched the idea of the series ever returning to this shore. So I was pleased to see these books at my local store, but somehow never managed to pick one up.
Well, now I have to own them all. Good heavens, I had forgotten how masterful a storyteller is Kazuo Koike.
The short story is one of the toughest forms to master, and both of these men excel at it, in a medium that insures I can have a satisfying reading in a half-hour or less, the experience made more dense, rather than simplified, by the accompanying pictures.
In other, nagging, real-life concerns, I have, at least, updated the Upcoming Disc entries at Attack of the 50 Ft. DVD, and gotten the B-Masters site up to date. Still working on my review of The Incredibles, because God knows, what the Internet needs is another review of The Incredibles.
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drfreex.com 
<>Transmet<> is some good stuff–I’m especially fond of the journalist in issue 58 who announces a plot point to USAFeed.
You don’t really have much in common with the Unabomber. For thing, I’m pretty sure he updated his websites more often than you. (HINT HINT)One book you must pick up: Ex Machina. There’s only one trade out, but it’s darned good. Really, really good. Also if you haven’t picked it up, Supreme Power just came out in hardcover. It’s more revisionist superheroes, but with far better characterization than any of the other recent examples.
I felt guilty for a nanosecond before I realized the Unabomber predated the current fad with the internets.Dr. Weasel pressed his copies of <>Supreme Power<> on me, and like most everything by JMS, I found it good, compelling writing – though I feel the central conceit is only a very slight rewrite of the one that drove <>Rising Stars. Midnight Nation<>, though, was very cool. These combined made Weasel get over his peculiar prejudice against <>Babylon 5<> (“I just can’t take the guys with the weird hair!”)
Supreme Power does continue the themes of Rising Stars, which is why I stopped getting Rising Stars. JMS was never happy with the artwork Top Cow provided on Rising Stars, and he had some kind of falling out with the company that resulted in the series being on hiatus for a while. I understand they finished it, and are even going to reprint it as hardcover, but with the art on the first 11 issues or so being so bad I can’t see myself being bothered to read it when Supreme Power is so good.
If you’re looking for something non-superpowered (but not “indie” in that way that means “eschewing good art and compelling storytelling because we’re trying for an audience solely composed of readers with liberal arts graduate degrees”), I highly recommend <>The Walking Dead<>. Two trades are out, with the third one appearing any second now.
Doc, I highly reccommend a current fav of mine, the books that are falling under DC’s new SEVEN SOLDIERS umbrella of titles…..SEVEN SOLDIERS is Grant Morrison given free reign over the Golden Age property of the Seven Soldiers of Victory, and the result so far being 7 four issue mini-series, each one devoted to a single member of a new contemporary version of said organization (each being an oder concept of DC’s that Morrison has been given free reign over to revamp and retcon)…HKC takes a look at two of the books that have been published so far: http://mesmerize.proboards25.com/index.cgi?board=entertainment&action=display&num=1114241724Seven Soldiers info:http://www.newsarama.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21568Now….I’ll warn you….SEVEN SOLDIERS so far has been fairly canon and continuity heavy, making them somewhat “new reader” unfriendly, but…if you’ve picked up a DC book at sometime within the last 25 years…it’ll take little time to get up to speed…I have a feeling you’d really enjoy Morrison’s darkly comic take on Zatanna. I know I am so far, and I’m eagerly awaiting his take on Shining Knight and Frankenstein…