Friday, April 07, 2006

I miss comic books

Let me start off by saying that I'm aware this blog has been absent of any comic book commentary lately, and there won't be any in this post either. Sorry. All I can say is that the name of the blog is "Superheroes, etc." and consider the blog - at least until this semester ends - firmly lodged in "etc."

That said, I really miss comic books. Even if I could afford to buy any new graphic novels, I don't have the time to read them. I'm in the middle of Small World by David Lodge (for the same course that subjected me to The Waste Land, and it's a surprising and welcome change from the course material so far - surprising because, even though it's a very funny and engaging read, in a lot of ways it's based on The Waste Land) and the previously mentioned Northrop Frye theoretical text The Secular Scripture, and have a paper due on both the Monday after next. Following hard on Spring Break (officially starting next Monday, but starting Friday for me since I don't have any Friday classes) will be Possession: A Romance by A.S. Bryant. For another course, I've just finished Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, and will probably have to re-read it for a paper later this month. My final research paper for the class will likely be on Rudyard Kipling's Kim, and that will probably necessitate another re-reading.

I wanted to do the research paper on The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and thought I might be able to pull it off because of all the post-colonial stuff we've been covering in that course, but unfortunately I don't think it's an option. My professor has specified that he wants our work in our final research paper to focus on reading criticism about a specific text and trying to highlight what isn't mentioned in that criticism, and so far I haven't been able to find any academic, peer-reviewed stuff on The League. If I remember correctly, the only stuff I've found on Alan Moore at all covered either Watchmen, From Hell, or both. Oh, and apparently a previous English honors student at my school did their thesis on Promethea. I should read that (the thesis, not the series, though I should read the rest of that, too - I've got the first two books).

I miss Lone Wolf and Cub and Tom Strong and ElfQuest and Seven Soldiers. I've tried cracking open the Absolute edition of Watchmen my girlfriend gave me for Christmas and haven't yet had the time to get past the first chapter. I hate going to comic book news sites, review sites, and blogs; and reading about an endless stream of new books and old books I haven't gotten a chance to pick up, and not having the time or money to check any of them out. I hate driving past my local comic shop every night and not having the time or money to stop in and pick something up, even if it wasn't always closed by the time I zoom past it.

1 comment:

Mick Martin said...

Hey, Sol.

Just wanted to say, I never claimed Guardian wouldn't be noble, but that it was another example of a black super-hero who got paid for what he did like Luke Cage, Josiah Power, and Skyrocket. And that the relatively small number of black super-heroes, vs. the number who did what they did for money, was a little troubling in that it seemed like black heroes were being portrayed as a whole as being less altruistic than white heroes. In his first movie, Blade beat up a cop, stole his watch, and complained that it was a fake. I mean, damn.

And really that one time I singled out Guardian was because Seven Soldiers: Guardian #1 issue came out the same time I was first thinking about that stuff, so it was more of a coincidence than anything.

And, while I only read the first two issues of that mini (though I hope to read the rest once I pick up the trade), I always got the impression that eventually he would find out something nasty about the guy he was working for, quit, and became a super-hero all on his own.