Okay, so we're gonna talk about something else here. If you came to immerse yourselves in the Current Adventures of Miss Pirate Queen Ghost Princess as she rails against the evils of bees in her garden and vegetables in her pasta, well, you're just gonna have to wait until she does something adorably impossibly cute, which'll probably be tomorrow morning during breakfast, because that's just how she rolls, yo, but anyway, today, like I said, we're talking about something else, something that's near and dear to my shrivelled little lump-of-coal heart.
See, I read a lot of comics.
And when I say a lot of comics, I mean A LOT. It's kind of an addiction. In fact, if one were to ask hypothetically if my house were on fire, which would I probably pay more attention to, my comics or my daughter, one might be disturbed by my answer. (Listen, she's SMART. She knows how to get out of the house on her own. In fact, she's usually leaving the house on her own every day before I have the chance to get any underwear on her, so I think she knows what she's doing, okay? Get off my back.)
Don't get me wrong: I may have a lot of comics, and I may try to keep them in good shape, but it's not because I'm hoping to cash them in for a nice retirement fund one day (that's what my limited edition Pokemon are for). It's because I like to read them, and I like to let other people read them, because when it comes down to it, some of the most challenging and provocative literature around these days is being presented in comic book form, and the more people who know about it, the better.
Plus: geeking out over comics with fellow geeks is pretty goddamned fun.
Which is why, four days out of five, I'm bringing stacks of reading material into work to lend to so-and-so or whatsername or whosit and generally making a nuisance of myself by turning well-adjusted, law-abiding, normal people into weird anti-social fanboys; and of course it was during one of these moments (when I'm pretty sure I was expounding on how a certain run of Legion Of Superheroes during the 80's was not just high-adventure space-opera fun, but was also a subtle commentary on the comic industry's refusal to entertain any sort of narrative growth or evolution, or at least woud've been if a) the editorial department hadn't thrown a wrench in the works by constantly changing which characters the writers and artists were allowed to work with, and b) the main writer would've finished his goddamned scripts...) that Kali suggested that I should possibly write a column about comics.
Which, y'know, stroked my ego for a bit, and I think I spent the rest of that day aswoon in my own imagined glory as Comic Book Afficionado Extraordinaire, before realizing that basically that title translates into BIG GIANT NERD WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS AND FAR TOO MANY OPINIONS. Still: at any given moment, close to a third of my collection is not on my shelves, due to everyone and their dog voraciously devouring any old rag I show them, and yet (and here's the thing) there are still more people than not who look at me blankly when I mention names like Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis, or titles like Scalped or Criminal or OHMIGOD HOW MANY OF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE INVISIBLES YET???
Well, damn. Obviously, y'all need to be educated. And, seeing as I've been reading these stupid things since, well, for as long as I can remember, obviously I've gotta be the one to educate y'all on whatchy'all should be reading and (also as important) what you should be avoiding, and maybe even a little bit about comic stores and the strange creatures that dwell within (and if any of you mention anything about The Big Bang Theory, I'll pimp-slap you, are we clear?).
So, for the next few days, I'm gonna talk about comics. Feel free to ignore it. Or, hey, maybe you're an even bigger fanboy than me, and you might recognize that I need to be schooled in my arrogance; well, then, feel free to do so (unless, of course, you're talking about Stan Lee, in which case: you're wrong, he's a whore, shut up).
Now I must go watch kung-fu. Be good, or I'll bend the covers on all of your first issues.
See, I read a lot of comics.
And when I say a lot of comics, I mean A LOT. It's kind of an addiction. In fact, if one were to ask hypothetically if my house were on fire, which would I probably pay more attention to, my comics or my daughter, one might be disturbed by my answer. (Listen, she's SMART. She knows how to get out of the house on her own. In fact, she's usually leaving the house on her own every day before I have the chance to get any underwear on her, so I think she knows what she's doing, okay? Get off my back.)
Don't get me wrong: I may have a lot of comics, and I may try to keep them in good shape, but it's not because I'm hoping to cash them in for a nice retirement fund one day (that's what my limited edition Pokemon are for). It's because I like to read them, and I like to let other people read them, because when it comes down to it, some of the most challenging and provocative literature around these days is being presented in comic book form, and the more people who know about it, the better.
Plus: geeking out over comics with fellow geeks is pretty goddamned fun.
Which is why, four days out of five, I'm bringing stacks of reading material into work to lend to so-and-so or whatsername or whosit and generally making a nuisance of myself by turning well-adjusted, law-abiding, normal people into weird anti-social fanboys; and of course it was during one of these moments (when I'm pretty sure I was expounding on how a certain run of Legion Of Superheroes during the 80's was not just high-adventure space-opera fun, but was also a subtle commentary on the comic industry's refusal to entertain any sort of narrative growth or evolution, or at least woud've been if a) the editorial department hadn't thrown a wrench in the works by constantly changing which characters the writers and artists were allowed to work with, and b) the main writer would've finished his goddamned scripts...) that Kali suggested that I should possibly write a column about comics.
Which, y'know, stroked my ego for a bit, and I think I spent the rest of that day aswoon in my own imagined glory as Comic Book Afficionado Extraordinaire, before realizing that basically that title translates into BIG GIANT NERD WITH TOO MUCH TIME ON HIS HANDS AND FAR TOO MANY OPINIONS. Still: at any given moment, close to a third of my collection is not on my shelves, due to everyone and their dog voraciously devouring any old rag I show them, and yet (and here's the thing) there are still more people than not who look at me blankly when I mention names like Grant Morrison or Warren Ellis, or titles like Scalped or Criminal or OHMIGOD HOW MANY OF YOU HAVEN'T READ THE INVISIBLES YET???
Well, damn. Obviously, y'all need to be educated. And, seeing as I've been reading these stupid things since, well, for as long as I can remember, obviously I've gotta be the one to educate y'all on whatchy'all should be reading and (also as important) what you should be avoiding, and maybe even a little bit about comic stores and the strange creatures that dwell within (and if any of you mention anything about The Big Bang Theory, I'll pimp-slap you, are we clear?).
So, for the next few days, I'm gonna talk about comics. Feel free to ignore it. Or, hey, maybe you're an even bigger fanboy than me, and you might recognize that I need to be schooled in my arrogance; well, then, feel free to do so (unless, of course, you're talking about Stan Lee, in which case: you're wrong, he's a whore, shut up).
Now I must go watch kung-fu. Be good, or I'll bend the covers on all of your first issues.
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