/20230419

… {learned}:: that to be considered "antique," an item has to be at least 100 years old; vintage more than 20 years; retro less than 20...{wrote}:: NL / PR day, so pretty light on the things requiring depth, depth being forsaken for... {pubbed}:: a thing about sight-reading and shit first-drafts along with this week's Wednesday Random, a retrospective (read: oh god I can't believe this is what chance bestowed upon me) on the conclusion to DC's 1993 annuals-event, BLOODLINES, in BLOODBATH, No. 1 – which was just as great as it sounds, TYVM...{read}:: THE BOOKS OF JACOB... 369-348...{finished}:: CALL OF DUTY: MWII... {celebrated}:: a return to boxing after two weeks of a smashed left middle knuckle: heavy gloves, but I managed nine rounds against the bag – and it felt great to be back... {this has been}:: a day in the life of; tomorrow will be another. Until then...

shit first drafts, again and

Allowing myself to write pure shit in a first draft is still the most difficult part of the game for me. I've little doubt that it'll be the same in another 20 years.

(And ok let's get it out of the way: it could be argued that I also write shit final drafts, so there's no big deal if the first one sucks too.)

It is, however, different now than it once was: whereas before this anti-shitness stemmed from a useless perfectionism and fear, it stems now (I think) from a lack of faith in and an impatience with my own abilities to get it right, eventually – this, in spite of knowing that my fragmented and "throw shit 'n' shards at wall and iterate iterate iterate into something resembling coherence" method has been proven to work – unless you're of the second paragraph persuasion (which I sometimes am) but if you are then I question your reasoning for continuing to read this blog; life's too short for hate reading).

While this isn't a space for me to dispense advice – I have none – it is a space for me to remind myself of potential avenues of exploration (read: de-shittifying myself): I wonder how my mindset would change if I approached things from a hybrid of my "iterate / shit 'n'shards" method and the workflow learned (for better or for worse) during my orchestral performance days: sight-read a new piece, iterate, improve, improve, iterate, suck, iterate, improve, perform, start over.

(The first draft being the sight-reading.)

Then again, maybe that's what I'm doing now, IDK – not like anyone's going to scream at me and tell me to be intimate with my cymbals if I fuck up.

Probably.

BLOODBATH, No. 1 (Raspler / Wojtkiewicz, Willingham; DC, 1993)

Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-) read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review/memory/whatever. Earlier installments live here.

(Box05): oh god you did it again (inauspicious box-selecting debut, Siri) but what an opening line: "WE DON'T KNOW WHERE THEY'RE FROM OR WHAT THEY WANT -- OTHER THAN OUR SPINAL FLUID."

How very, very 1993: Super-mullet! AzBats! (for whom I still have an odd affection – perhaps because he was so exemplary (by design) of the 90s aesthetic, as if it vomited all over an institution) Bloodwynd! (Martian Manhunter, IIRC – even though he's behind Pres. Clinton one page and Bloodwynd is on the next as part of a group getting chewed out by Amanda Waller nevermind that later he and MM are fighting the same creature on the same page; J’onn was a busy bee in the ‘90s) heavily-armored male characters interspersed with barely-clothed female characters spouting cheesy expository dialogue!

IIRC, this was the bookend to a series of annuals, back when each of DC's annuals had an overarching theme: one year was Elseworlds, another Year One, another ECLIPSO: THE DARKNESS WITHIN. Didn't this one, BLOODLINES, spawn a whole bunch of new, EXTREME, takes on DC characters (the ones who survived their spinal fluid being consumed)? Fate, Manhunter... there were a few others that escape me. Was this the one that Robinson's STARMAN series spun out of? If so, not all bad. (Note: need to pick up that omnibus...)

As for the content: mostly a bunch of fighting and hitting things with aforementioned cheesy, expository dialogue. See photo excerpt above and you get the picture.

What I've come to recognize about the 90s in comics was that it wasn’t entirely devoid of good ideas but rather that most of them were ruined by the EXTREME stylistic excesses of the day: look to the Graham / Roy 2012-16 redux of Liefeld's PROPHET or several of the WILDC.A.T.S. revivals to see this stuff work in the hands of less baroque hands. All that being said, I'm not sure there's much to salvage with BLOODLINES / BLOODBATH – though I suppose it could be argued that the CW's FLASH merged this (minus the spinal-fluid-sucking creatures) with FLASHPOINT to create that whole "new metahuman" storyline in season three.

Someday, randomness, you'll remind me of the good in my early comics collecting days. Someday – but not today.

/20230418

... {learned}:: how to type an ¿ ... {grilled}:: first burgers of the season - in 45º weather, but hey, welcome to Ohio in the midst of the climate apocalypse... {earwormed}:: by that "drunken baritone" DICK TRACY Dozier-pilot theme, still... {wrote}:: a new section to the Main Thing that's freed me up to go in all sorts of weird directions and deliver "whatever weird shit springs to mind" to NL subs throughout the summer... {read}:: THE BOOKS OF JACOB, ... {assembled}:: IT IS DONE and I am done with Legos for awhile...{figured (out)}:: how to store the postcards and cookie templates and caramel cards that are starting to become a large part of the DT collection (while being earwormed by the drunken baritone theme)... {bitched (about)}:: "temperature whiplash shit" on part of my aging joints (see {grilled})... {celebrated}:: day three of (as close to) barefoot running (as I can get) ... {(also) celebrated}:: Michelle Yeoh To Headline ‘Star Trek: Section 31’ Movie for Paramount+... {this has been}:: a day in the life of; tomorrow will be another. Until then...

Box three, bags 41-46; build complete (9,090 pieces).

(previously…)

(as close to) barefoot running (as I can get), day three

Third run with the TSLA Baretreks – note here that I use gel inserts, hence the (as close to) of the title: with T1D, I have to be careful with my feet and avoid any and all injury to them as best I can; the Baretreks + Scholls or whatever brand CVS has in stock is my happy middle ground – and I'm sold: my ankles dont hurt as much; it's a totally different grip on the varied surfaces – even the tiny jabby stones of the hillside running trail don't bother me – I traverse each time I venture out (asphalt, gravel, mud, grass, ditch, unplowed cornfield); and, while it may be my imagination, it feels like I can move faster. I'll be curious to see how long each pair lasts – though it's not like it's the end of the world to replace them ($40+/- a pair) with greater frequency than regular running shoes. Worth the trade-off, so far.