what the bloggery

Down and down and down. Into the abyss, as I like to think. Further and further into the pit. The narrow stairs are crumbling and cracked in some places, brown and algae-slick in others. It’s very windy, and the air is so cold. The first stretch of stairs takes me through the overgrown brush; through patches of blackberry bushes, branches overgrown, leaves glistening gold in scant light, thorny vines crawling wild and bold. The second stairs take me to the bridge, where in the distance I can see the city, and the city is made of light. It burns in the dark.

The last staircase is silent. The brush is wild and dense all around yet I cannot see it, not anymore. I can feel the wind and I can see stars retreating very far away, and for one moment, that’s all. Me alone with the sky and the steps under my feet, the wind and the thorns, and my heart is full. I ache for nothing.

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This is the kind of shit I think about when I’m on my way to work. I haven’t done any concrete writing in months. I sit around and I do some thinking. An awful lot of thinking. Mostly I miss writing fanfiction, because fanfic fucking rules, even if it makes you kind of a lamer to admit to doing it. I mean, who feels the warm surge of pride when they tell all their new friends, “Yeah, I spend most of my free time writing erotica about some guy from a Japanese cartoon blowing Johnny Depp”?

(For the record, I may have pulled that example out of my ass, but I’ll bet you it exists somewhere.)

Lately, though, as hard as I may try to focus on my own characters, my mind wanders and I end up thinking about characters like, say, Deadpool and Nightwing and Iron Man and Batman and Captain America and Hulkling and Blue Beetle and ASSGUARDIAN—er, Wiccan—and oh yeah, Tim Drake!Robin. My point is this: I REALLY LIKE COMICS. I love Marvel and I love DC and I have spent way too much of my income the last few months at The Dreaming….Yet, somehow, not enough. My shelf o’ comics is nothing in comparison to Nat-attack’s. I can’t wait for ECCC (alternatively: ECx3 or the Easy Three), because last year there were at least four booths that did nothing but sell discount trades and older single issues. At the time, I glanced through some boxes, but I did not know what I was looking for. Now I do. Next year is going to fuckin’ rock.

Now let’s see, what am I reading lately…Ah, BLUE BEETLE.

(more…)

I just got back from Zanadu, where I bought Fell and the first volume of 30 Days of Night. I spent my entire break looking at comics and, man, here’s to more expensive habits to support! I was supposed to meet some coworkers at 8 for drinks, but I’m out of work at 6 and I don’t want to come back to the U-District after going home. I think instead I shall stay home, curl up, and read 30 Days of Night <3

As a parting note, I love the awkward homosexual content on Whose Line:

Ryan Stiles: “I said to Colin, did you know that was me? He goes, yeah. I go, how did you know? He goes, I know your lips.”

I have rewritten this post three times. The first version mostly involved the terrible plague I had last week. The second one was about how I wanted to write a book called “So You Think You Might Be Crazy”, although I can’t really remember why. This being the third attempt at an entry under this heading (because seriously, I could not resist!) I am finally going to post the damn thing. So let’s talk about COMICS!

It takes me so long to get around to some things—like reading comic books I’ve borrowed from Girl Friday even though I bloody well know I’ll enjoy the hell out of them. Say, for instance, FRAY. I borrowed Fray weeks ago, and I only got around to reading it on my trip to her house to return it.

I may suck, but FRAY does not. As a matter of fact it is, uh, fucking amazing. I don’t even think I need to go into the writing because, yeah, Whedon. I am apparently now one of those who believe he is a god who walks among men, but I’m okay with that since he sort of earned it. To be fair, I also feel this way about Martin Gero and a handful of other less well-known TV writers. Anyway—yes, Whedon. He writes, dur, good-like.

I’d like to go on a bit more about Fray, but as I only have a few more minutes until I have to get back to actual WORK while I’m at work and I still want to talk about a few other things, I shall cut the Fray babble down to the essentials: art = GOOD, Fray = HOT, The Kiss = HOTTER.

(There is so very much wrong with me <3)

Last night, while Nat-attack and I were watching Criminal Minds, Jade came into the living room to share some news with us. There is going to be an Ender’s Game comic—oh my GOD—and Marvel is doing it. Oh my godddd. Now, granted, I may not be fully indoctrinated into the world of comic geekery, let it be known that even growing up, I was hella more interested in Batman than Spiderman, and that’s all that matters. Looking over the poster with Jade and Nat, I had quite a lot of feelings about the subject of an Ender’s Game comic, so I shall share them:

At first I thought, Sweet and Sour Jesus, the art is terrible. Upon second consideration, I realized that no, it wasn’t. Not entirely. More specifically the bugger looked amazing, as did the battle room, but—how did I put it last night?—Ender looks like a glowing gay football player from outer space. Seriously guys, what the fuck. Maybe I’m alone in this, maybe I’m the only one who just envisioned his little training outfit a bit different, but come on. I could draw a football tucked under his arm and show it to someone—preferably someone who doesn’t know much about Ender’s Game—and I’ll bet they’d believe it was a comic book about playing space-football with giant bugs. In space.

(Admittedly, that sounds like it could be a really low budget anime.)

We did a lot of bitching about the art, and the advantages of a comic over a movie—which, if I remember correctly, has been “in production” since I was 14 fucking years old—and in the end, I’ll admit, I was sort of won over. We looked up Pasqual Ferry and yeah, okay, he apparently has a lot of experience with the whole futuristic metal suits. I don’t completely love the art and I don’t know much about Chris Yost but Orson Scott Card is overseeing the whole thing so I choose to believe they had a good reason for picking this artist and this writer and I’m looking forward to seeing what they do with the story.

I’m reading more Transmet at some point this week. I’ll probably have a post about that soon, too, but for now—what else was there? Ah, yes, DOCTOR WHO. Not exactly the realm of comics, but it’s still geekery and I feel the need to express my love for it.

Season four is amazing. I love Donna so much more than I expected to. Well, that’s not really true—I didn’t expect not to like her, because the writing staff for DW is so, so so good, and I knew they’d be giving Catherine Tate more room with Donna since she’s not just a one-off anymore. I also read she’s some kind of famous comedienne in the UK, so that gave me a fairly good feeling. So yeah, it wasn’t that I expected to dislike her, it was just this sense of apprehension over a third companion in as many seasons. After Rose broke my heart and Martha, oh sweet Martha, I just didn’t think I was ready for another!

Newsflash: I was so wrong. I love her. She’s fucking insane. And loud. And insane. She puts up with no shit from the Doctor or anyone else. I know she’s only going to be around for about one season, so I’ll try not to get too attached—but I have to admit, it’s a real relief to have a companion for the Doctor who won’t fall in love with him. Just because it hurts too damn much after Rose, Jack, and Martha. As hot as any of those combinations may be.

That reminds me, I really need to catch up on Torchwood.

And now I must go and consume nutrients, so, yeah. Done now!

I changed my mind about how I’m going to name my posts. As much as I love song lyrics, I feel that funny quotes are more my style. Especially if they’re totally fucked up <3

Today’s title brought to you by “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”, while today’s post is brought to you by Nat-attack’s frequent, affectionate reminders such as, “Update your fucking blog!”.

…I’ve been meaning to make another post anyway. No one tells me what to do. (Really!)

I think I should talk about comics. Manga aside, because man-gay belongs to a completely different universe and I no longer believe comics and manga should ever be compared–yes, anyway, manga aside, I have never read a comic book in my life. Shameful, is it not? I’m not sure how I missed out for so long, but I will make up for lost time.

I suppose I should thank Joss Whedon, in a strange way, because if it weren’t for the fact that Buffy’s season 8 came out in comic form, I might not have ever gotten started. But I did; I tasted the fruit of warmblooded American comics and it was good.

Better yet was Transmet. I might not have read Transmet if not for Warren Ellis’s book “Crooked Little Vein” which I spent 20 bucks on, for a teeny bastard hardcover, and I did not look back for a second. In Nat’s words, Ellis is a batshit god. While on the one hand, I might kill to have his talent or be in his presence, I wouldn’t really want to meet him, since he seems kind of insane and is probably an asshole. Not that I hold it against him.

Transmet is amazing, and although I’m getting started on volume 2 sometime this week, I’d like to talk about Fell. I fucking loved Fell. Warren Ellis and Ben Templesmith can take my heart and give it to wild dogs to ravage for all I care, because I. Loved. Fell.

I loved the art, even though it looks like Ben Templesmith has mostly just mastered scribbling wildly until things resemble people—there’s just something about his use of color, of movement, composition, my God, I could go on and on. Is it weird to say I loved the art while, at the same time, it’s not that great? It is, but it’s not—damnit, I don’t know how to put it. I love how bad everything looks sometimes. There are some panels that are so beautiful and detailed and then there are others that look like they may have been draw in ten seconds while he was half asleep and even so, they all just fit together so perfectly.

I think I should buy 30 Days of Night and Wormwood. According to Amazon, Wormwood is kind of like Constantine if Constantine were a zombie. I can dig that. Seriously though, talent. He has it, and he is not the only one.

Where do I begin with writing like Warren Ellis’s? Oh right, batshit god. That about sums it up. He’s so obviously insane and drowning in his own head. It must be a scary place; tangled and dark, but also beautiful. I’m trying to think of other things to say and my mind comes up blank. He’s just great. Really, really great, and completely fucking nuts.

I’m kind of okay with that, you know?

I think my favorite panel of the whole book was near the end: “We cleverly negotiate with the king of Yakistan,” writes Fell. Meanwhile, in the background, they are beating the shit out of a hobo.

Maybe I’m a twisted son of a bitch, but I think that’s fucking hilarious.

As a parting note, this would be my favorite call of the day:

“Hi, I’m calling about the Austen Burroughs reading?”

“The Augusten Burroughs reading?”

“Uh, yeah, that’s what I meant. August Burroughs.”

“Augusten.”

“Yeah.”

“Hold, please.”

Normally I wouldn’t really care how people pronounce the names of authors—except when it’s an author I really like, goddamnit. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. It’s really great to listen to people try and say “Palahniuk”, mostly because I can’t fucking pronounce it so I kind of like listening to all the variations. It’s not like I’d know which was the right one.

Okay, I’ve now been writing this post for almost an hour and for some reason I can smell bacon, so I need to stop writing now.

I should totally track down that bacon smell, though.