donuil23's Comic Book Blogs

It truly is a let-down feeling.

You've unwittingly trained yourself (or been trained by the industry) to look forward to Wednesday. It's something you look forward to almost instinctively. You get that e-mail with the weekly pulls, or check your favorite website for new releases and the anticipation starts.

And then there's two issues. No Spider-Man, no awesome indie books, no Hickman. So I didn't bother going to pick them up. And boy, does it feel lousy.

Not to say Shadowland, and Hawkeye & Mockingbird aren't great books. I enjoy them both a lot so far. But they're both relatively new, and so I succumbed to the notion of giving it a rest for a week.

So here I sit. Waiting patiently for Cup'O'Joe (when ever that might be posted), not satisfied by The Buy Pile (since I didn't buy anything myself), anxiously waiting for the new pull list e-mail, to see if next week will be better.

http://comicthoughtsandsoon.blogspot.com/2010/09/thursday-after-no-comics.html

• I hate that Wolverine is so cool.I know it's been said before, and yes, he's a bad , but I really don't think he's worth all the titles and attention.
• I hate that Bishop is a bad guy now. Don't get me wrong, I defiantly don't think he can or should be redeemed, I just wish they had found someone else to go nuts. I read his short-lived title, Bishop: The Last X-Man, and loved it.
• I hate seeing Scott smile.
• I hate the new New Mutants. Why does Zeb Wells feel like he has to be elitist about writing this title. Yes, it's a nice treat to dig up nostalgic stories and add new chapters, but the fact that you aren't helping those without an X degree much, only hurts the series. I couldn't even get through the first issue; I was so damned confused. Maybe it's just me, but I can't remember all that ancient, random stuff to guide me through.
• I hate that I sometimes can't tell the more "normal" characters apart. They're freakin' mutants! It shouldn't be so hard. The classic characters all had something distinguishing about them. Even had you thrown Professor X's wheelchair away, back in the day, you would have still recognized him. Rouges got the hair. Cyclopes has the visor, Logan is short, Sam is a little bit country. Help me out friends, can someone make me a crib-sheet?
• I hate all the Limited Series'. On principle, it's not so bad. Spidey and the X-Men, sounds fun. I might buy it, I might not. But when that LS ends up being a freakin' game-changer, and I didn't buy it because I budget was full buying the core titles, I really get annoyed.

So, since I was 9 years old, I've had the X-Men on my radar.  I loved the 1992 animated series.  It only dawned on me now, how in sync the show was with current issues in the comics... but I digress.

I've always wanted to get up to speed with X-Men and start reading them, but there's so few good jumping on points, that it never really happened for me.  So my goal was to read every Uncanny, every X-Men, every X-Factor and so on, since House of M, before the big Utopia crossover.  It's going pretty well.  Here's what I've discovered.

• War of Kings needed so kind of Recap One-Shot for those of us who have no idea who Vulcan is.  Now that I've learned more, I'm definitely willing to give that event more than just a cursory glance.
  
  
• X-Factor is HIGHLY underrated.  I think that's going to become one of my new, unsung favourites (unless it totally tanks after issue 20, where I'm at).
  
  
• I'm definitely not into Apocalypse stories, which surprises me.  I've always liked the twisted future stories, which generally hinge on Apocalypse, but boy are there ever some lame ones in there too.
  
  
• Last, I love Cable's current series even more now than I already did.  They wasted such an interesting character up to the point of series launch.

So my Birthday was on Saturday, and since it was requested, I'm posting the results of my little idea/experiment.

·     Comic Back Issues Received: 9

·     ... from: 3 sources (parents, parents-in-law, granny-in-law)

Pondering getting older this morning... in the shower... in my Birthday suite.  Yup, there's the connection, my Birthday is coming up.  Went way off course there, sorry...

Screw Hallmark!

Don't get me wrong, there are few other ways to do Mother's Day or Easter, other than getting a greating card.  I know that.  But for my birthday this year, I'm going to let my wife circulate a list of current back issues that I still need, instead of letting people buy me Birthday cards.  Then (gently) pull the board, write the birthday wishes on the back, and finally guaruntee that I won't throw your wishes away.  Also, it exposes the squares to our LCS and the greater world of comics.

Some of you may have wondered (but, probably didn't) what the quote below my name in my profile is from and what it might refer to.  I can tell you where it's from quick and easy, Ze Frank's The Show.  What it refers to is a bit more convoluted. 

I spent alot of my free time between classes watching The Show last year.  Ze Frank, a renound speaker/performance artist and creator of one of Time magazine's Top 50 websites, started a daily video blog  that was scheduled to run for exactly 1 year.  It began March 17, 2006, so of course I already missed the boat.  But you can still watch every episode online.  The website will offer you a chance to go to a random episode, but if you go through the Wiki, you can use the links in chronological order.

It's hard to explain, but the Wikipedia entry for Ze Frank describes the show as "...Each tightly edited three-to-five-minute episode combined Daily Show-style commentary on world events with songs, observations, and occasional games or challenges for his viewers to participate in...".  Spend about half an hour watching the show (10 episodes or so) and you'll start asking yourself why the earth couldn't be a sandwich, if you could hitchhick crosscountry using pre-planned strangers, if Ze ever blinks, or you might just start laughing histarically the next time someone says the word duckies.  I, myself, am just wondering if the new people have stopped reading yet.

Like many out there, I'm stuck behind a computer at work.  I don't have a gloryous job, but there are days that I get a thrill out of it.

But there are months when I'm so ahead of the game in that first week, that I spend the next 3 spinning my wheels, waiting for clients and co-workers to get back to me.  How long do I wait before I pester this person again and get some freakin' results?

So, as you may imagine, I do my fair share of covert around.  I had CBR as a favorite on my browser for the days when I wasn't on the phone much.  I used to listen to the podcasts pretty much all day long.  But now I'm becomeing a forum .  I don't always post, but I've been reading them all.  It just sucks being limited to just that.  I can't index, I can't review, I can't scan.  Did all the lists.