It’s in… well-loved condition, but I can finally cross “own an issue of the Lee/Ditko AMAZING SPIDER-MAN run” off my life-list.
practice
Yesterday I was able – in a moment of clarity amidst a 0500 Zoom conversation (this is the time that I'm at my best for work, not necessarily human interaction, be it in person or as one end of a 14 hour, transcontinental and equatorial time difference) – to publish via conversation a thought I've had for a long time: that I've reached a point where I've accepted that I won't have a "career" as a writer and have reoriented my perspective of (self)publishing things as a sharing of the results of my writing practice, results be damned. Far healthier, I think – trying not to let neither the frustration that it took me this long to get to this point nor the shithead in my brain's efforts to reframe the perspective shift as "that's how a loser talks" cloud the issue. Far easier than it used to be, but still.
You may now consider me a full-fledged electric lawnmower devotee.
BIG MESS – Danny Elfman
Consider me (very) late to the game but better late than never, I suppose: this thing’s the face-tearing awesome from an Elfman unleashed that I didn’t know I needed today until I couldn’t stop listening. So good.
I had planned to write a thing about the thing that happened a year ago today but I've nothing to say about it: my feelings haven't changed, my sense of freedom remains undiminished. And that's that for that.
BATMAN, Vol. 1, No. 518 (Moench / Jones; DC, 1995)
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.
(Box03): About time I landed on something good: a fast-paced, Moench / Jones Black Mask jam from what's held firm to the title of my favorite Batman run (Vol. 1, 515-552) for the last 28 years. There's something about the brazen creepiness of this run that's been unmatched in the years since – in the main Bat-book, no less: that gothic, macabre vision of Gotham ripped straight from Moench and Jones's Elseworlds collaborations; the post-KnightsEnd / Troika / Bruce Wayne's return all-black suit with yellow oval (my favorite Bat-suit; so underrated – wish it had caught on AND that there had been a settled way to draw it; even Jones gave up a couple of issues in; the B:TAS–meets–Hammer-meets-Pre-Code-Warner-gangster-films villainy (Black Mask, in particular is at his most deliciously unhinged)… I've little doubt that a good chunk of my affection for this run is how great it felt having Bruce back behind the cowl after the exhaustion of the Jean Paul period (and the brief PRODIGAL, Dick Grayson period) – that such a risk-taking and surreal creative team was picked to spearhead the post-return era is a testament to O'Neil's Bat-genius – but that affection source doesn’t change the truth that each panel is a distillation of everything I love about the character. Thank you Tyche; applause, applause, applause.
