Archiving my Twitter, Facebook and other social network activity
The latest episode of the Les Miserables Reading Companion podcast covers the amazing scene where Eponine single-handedly stares down 6 hardened criminals and wins.
As always, their analysis turns up some really interesting connections with other parts of the book – like the fact that Eponine channels both Javert and Thenardier, the two main antagonists, but uses their traits to act heroically.
https://readlesmis.libsyn.com/ep40-iv8i-v-the-dangers-girls-face
@trini Wow. I don’t remember how much it got into that in the one book I read, but I imagine that would really start grating on me after a while.
I do remember him telling a story at a convention about late in the first book’s publishing cycle discussing “wait, the monarchists are the good guys, and the Republic of Haven are the bad guys. How do we fix this?” And they found a page where they could add “People’s” without messing up the page proofs.
I was already numb to any interest in reading Heroes in Crisis. Having read the list of confirmed deaths in the first issue alone, I’ve changed my decision from “maybe pick up the trade if reviews are good” to “nope.”
I’m tired of any character who isn’t currently headlining a book being one editorial decision away from cannon fodder.
And I’m tired of comics repeating story beats just to repeat them without looking at what made them work (or not) in the first place.
Daytripper is amazing.
I quite liked the original Elfquest.
Fun Home is really good.
Planetary is a fascinating exploration of superhero/scifi tropes, but works best if you know the references.
Transmetropolitan is really good, but not everyone’s cup of tea.
Sandman is epic, but start w/the 2nd collection & go back for part 1 if you like it. It took 8 issues for the series to find its voice. So while the first collection establishes the setting and characters, it’s a very different tone from the rest of the series.
Astro City is a great reimagining of superheroes, hopeful & standing on its own.
Oh, and Hark! A Vagrant! is a lot of fun also, especially if you like literary and historical humor. It’s a collection of unrelated comic strips rather than an ongoing story.
I’ve started listening to the Graphic Audio adaptation of 52, and I can’t get over Booster Gold’s totally surfer accent, dude.
In Final Crisis, the Anti-Life Equation is able to compel the surrender of free will. Those who have submitted spout slogans about how it justifies anything, how it’s so much easier than the struggles of life and love.
It’s insidious, because in some ways it *is* easier to offload tough decisions to a schedule, a policy, a leader, etc. The brain likes taking shortcuts around cognitive load. But people want to be *able* to make choices when they want to.
#amreading #comics #psychology
Another interesting thing about Final Crisis is how much damage Darkseid does just by existing. He doesn’t do any traditional super villain things in the entire story. No battles, no plotting. He just sits on his throne, yaking advantage of a battle he already won, imposing his will on an entire planet. He spends most of the story sitting on an underground bunker, but his presence presses down on the whole world.
#amreading #comics
Finished re-reading Sparrow Hill Road, by Seanan McGuire. Imagine all the hitchiking ghost stories you’ve heard are true, and they travel the ghosts of long-dead highways.
It’s told episodically as a collection of stories about the same ghost, what she does, how she died, and her quest to stop her killer.
It made me think about the difference between a horror story and a ghost story. I don’t like horror much, but I do usually enjoy ghost stories quite a bit.
Listened to the latest episode of the #LesMiserables Reading Companion. Up to the introduction of Patron-Minette & the “Jondrette” family.
1. Wow, the callback to the miner’s candlestick from back in Digne (lost in the Denny translation).
2. I hadn’t made the connection between Éponine’s 1st & Fantine’s last appearances.
3. Three times through the book & I never caught on to the implications of just how far Thénardier goes in exploiting his daughters. Ugh.
https://readlesmis.libsyn.com/ep30-iii7i-iii8iv-miners-tools
I caught up on Flash War and its aftermath. I feel like it could have been epic, but ultimately was just a way to break up the Flash family and set up the new Forces.
That’s a problem I’m having with DC Comics lately: Stories don’t feel like they start from the characters and new threats picking up where the previous story left off, they feel like they’re working backward from where everything needs to be to set up the next story and finding a way to get there.
It’s been like that for a while. It was a problem with Flash: Rebirth, with Countdown, with Full Throttle. I sort of feel like the early New 52 escaped the problem and built more organically, at least some of the books I was reading. But those kept getting cancelled.
If you compare Final Crisis to Metal, they’re both similar in structure: cosmic threat turns earth into a nightmare between panels, the heroes seek help from the multiverse to restore the world. But Final Crisis *finishes.* Metal sets up the alloys, the Challengers & Hawks, the crack in the Source Wall. It’s more like COIE in the way it works hard to set things up for the coming year(s) of stories.
The thickness of the pages before and after your current place in a printed book is more intuitively grasped than an exact percentage or a progress bar on an ebook screen.
But I do like full text search!
IMO Watchmen is more notable for the craft than the story. The way it uses the nature of comic books as a medium, nonlinear time, the thematic connections with the pirate comics, etc…which makes it really weird that DC approved a movie to begin with, never mind handed the keys to their own superhero universe over to the director.
Ok, this isn’t the kind of thing I usually read (but when it comes to killer hippo westerns, that probably goes w/o saying), but it’s oddly compelling.
I do wonder just how many niches hippos fill in this world: cattle AND horses AND Bond-villain alligators? What else?