I still have not exhausted my hiatus-born glut of comic books. I’ve found I’ve slowed in general…I’m more prone at present to organizing piles than to sitting down and enjoying piles that I might organize them only partially (most of my comic book boxes are in storage, still). And this morning, as I pondered the preponderance of printed pictorials piled around my place, I sighed, and for a moment, didn’t wish to read them.
Madness! Perhaps it is the death of Spoiler that has me down, or even the death of Tim’s dad, which I still haven’t found in all my back-issues, even as it reverberates forwards through those I’ve read. It bothers me; Tim’s my favorite character, give or take, and they kill his girlfriend and his father at a stroke? How much of this is the eternal pressure to change and disturb the inevitable status quo? How much is lazy story-telling, coping with Tim’s promise to his dad not to be Robin again by eliminating the present Robin (Tim’s girlfriend) and offing the disappointed dad, giving Tim an angsty impetus to keep going as Robin in the bargain? Is keeping up with comic books, in the long run, like keeping up with soap operas? An exercise in frustration, for those things which could fruitfully change are too dangerous to mess with, and those small things which provide comfort and pleasure are fair game?
And then you get to the second issue: piles. By the White Wolf, I’m trying to organize and minimize in my life, and here are these piles of sliding, slippery comic books tromping into my apartment every week, needing to be bagged and boarded, alphabetized in boxes…then the boxes need to be stored, and shifted from time to time as DC Comics: Bat through Teen becomes too much for one box to hold. Do I really want to commit to having two allosaur-lengths of comic books in my closet forever? Not to mention the compsognathus-length of yearly growth!
The answer is, no, I don’t want that. I don’t want to be carting this tonnage of story with me through life. But I still want to read my comics, and I’m not ready to give up on them, yet. They’re expensive, sometimes frustrating, and a major mess, but I still love them, the sweep, the majesty, the fiddling little relationships and intertwined histories. I love the myths.
Anyone know if DC comics will let me subscribe to a digital version yet? sigh
Comments
Soap and Neil
“Is keeping up with comic books, in the long run, like keeping up with soap operas?”
Did you some how ever think otherwise?
(With the exception of course of graphic novels that actually have an ending planned out for this millenium.)
I mean, we all read that speech from 1602 and chuckled, as it was a small too-little, too-late redemption of itself as a Gaiman work.
1602-fantastic-four-flame-guy: So what are these fundamental principles, if they are not atoms?
1602-fantastic-four-rubbery-smart-guy: Stories. And they give me hope. We are a boatful of monsters and miracles, hoping that, somehow, we can survive in a world in which all hands are against us. A world whichm by all evidence, will end extremely soon. Yet I posit we are in a universe which favors stories. A universe in which no story can ever truly end; in which there can only be continuances. If we are in such a universe, as I hope, then we may have a chance.
—-—-—
I know you said you haven’t read all of Gaiman’s stuff, but for a CBG who likes een some of his work, there’s simply no excuse not to have read all of Sandman and own 1602. I mean, really. It’s like being a chocoholic and neer trying truffles. Or being an English theatre buff and avoiding The Bard entirely.
Anyway, my point is that of course Comic books are going to jerk you around. That’s of what they are made. Well, that and women who are destined for later life back pain.
I should stop before my cynical meter reaches critical level. (get it? get it?)
Re: Soap and Neil
I haven’t read all of Sandman because I can’t bear the thought that someday there won’t be any more. whimper
And then they went and changed the covers. KHAAAAAAAN!
Re: Soap and Neil
Um, you read books that have endings. Why is this different? If stuff ends, then its makers can do new stuff which will Undoubtedly be more original than rehashing different situations for the same characters/setting. I would have been very unhappy for Neil to have continued with Sandman, as much as I love it to death, if that meant he couldn’t do American Gods & Wolves in the Walls. And, as he released Endless Nights, he’s Still working on Sandman occasionally. So it’s not like it’s going to end. Just longer times between new issues. And if you accept that comic writers are mortal & as such, the original writers of whatever you like will die at some point & their scripts be picked up by others, well Sandman has already had spin-offs. Lucifer isn’t of the same quality, of course, but that’s not the issue here.
Come on! it’s really far too good not to read. And it’s so much better as a whole.
Silly feirii.
Oh, I was going to ask, Have you read Jasper Fford’s Thursday Next books (The Eyre Affair, etc.). I just got started on the third [read: I’m almost done with the third], & I KNOW you would love them.