something new

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Been a long time coming, but today feels as good a day as any to commit it here (so I can possibly undo it by Sunday's newsletter, but I doubt I will, not this time): I'm stopping work on MainFictionThing and moving on to something new.

I love the characters and the story, but I can't crack it, and, more importantly, I feel no connection to it, no spark, none of the important, unwritten things to make it at least semi-compelling to a reader. It feels like a relic of a former me, a time – among other things – when the most important person in my life for the entirety of it was still alive.

As I'm moving on with other aspects of my life, it's time to move on with this one too, into something new. The something new is percolating, and I need more time to process it, but I think it'll work; all I know is that I've little interest at present in long-term, long-form projects, fiction or non–: the weekly SHORTBOX MEMORY REVUE pod is part of it, but not the whole of it.

Aiming to have a better picture of it by Sunday's MacroParentheticals. In the meantime, the only way to get that clearer picture is to play with sketches and fingerpaints and see what comes.

the pull-list, currently

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... BATMAN (Zdarsky / Jimenez)… W0RLDTR33 (Tynion IV / Blanco)… BIRDS OF PREY (Thompson / Romero)… DAREDEVIL (Ahmed / Kuder)… CAPTAIN AMERICA (JMS / Saiz)… RARE FLAVOURS (V / Andrade)… WONDER WOMAN (King / Sampere)… BATMAN: GARGOYLE OF GOTHAM (Grampá / Lopes)… THE FLASH (Spurrier / Deodato) … SPACE USAGI (Sakai)… USAGI YOJIMBO (Sakai)… THE PENGUIN (King / De La Torre)… FANTASTIC FOUR (North / Gómez)… BENEATH THE TREES WHERE NOBODY SEES (Horvath)… DETECTIVE COMICS (V / et al)… ANIMAL POUND (King / Gross)… THE DEVIANT (Tynion IV / Hixson)… LOTUS LAND (Van Poelgeest / Filipe)… PETROL HEAD (Williams / Parr)… SUPERMAN '78: THE METAL CURTAIN (Venditti / Guidry)… BATMAN: OFF-WORLD (Aaron / Mahnke)… BASIC INSTINCT (Freeman / Del Ray)… CRAVE (Llovet)… ALAN SCOTT: THE GREEN LANTERN (Sheridan / Tormey)… BATMAN '89: ECHOES (Hamm / Quinones)… BEYOND REAL (Kaplan / Mascolo / Fejzula)… MASTERPIECE (Bendis / Maleev)… UNDERHEIST (Lapham / Lapham)… VOID RIVALS (Kirkman / De Felici)... TRANSFORMERS (Johnson)... DUKE (Williamson / Reilly)… COBRA COMMANDER (Williamson / Milana)… VENGEANCE OF THE MOON KNIGHT (MacKay / Cappucio)… PINE & MERRIMAC (Starks / Galán)… ULTIMATE SPIDER-MAN (Hickman / Checchetto)… ULTIMATE BLACK PANTHER (Hill / Caselli)... ULTIMATE X-MEN (Momoko)... ZORRO: MAN OF THE DEAD (Murphy)… AVENGERS: TWILIGHT (Zdarsky / Acuña)… JAMES BOND 007 (Ennis / Lobosco)… GONE (Jock)... THE ONE HAND (V / Campbell)… THE SIX FINGERS (Watters / Kumar)... THE DISPLACED (Brisson / Casalanguida)… BLUE BOOK 1947 (Tynion IV / Oeming)… IF YOU FIND THIS I'M ALREADY DEAD (Kindt / McDaid)... MAN'S BEST (Picheshote / Lonergan)... BLASFAMOUS (Andolfo)... SPIDER-PUNK ARMS RACE (Ziglar / Mason)... .. SPECTACULAR SPIDER-MEN (Weisman / Ramos)... NIGHT PEOPLE (Condon / Level)... THE BAT-MAN: FIRST KNIGHT (Jurgens / Perkins)... NAPALM LULLABY (Remender / Bengal) ... LITTLE BLACK BOOK (McComsey / Cunha)... THE GOON: THEM THAT DON'T STAY DEAD (Powell)... BATMAN: DARK AGE (Russell / The Allreds)...

Berni(e) Wrightson's FRANKENSTEIN

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Roamed an antique mall yesterday and, in one of the packed booths, saw the left side of a book that said “Frank” and “Ber”. Key-bearer opened the case, and there it was: an original edition of Bernie Wrightson’s 1983 “Marvel Illustrated Novel” labor-of-love version of Shelley’s FRANKENSTEIN:

"I've always had a thing for Frankenstein, and it was a labor of love," the artist said. "It was not an assignment, it was not a job. I would do the drawings in between paying gigs, when I had enough to be caught up with bills and groceries and what-not. I would take three days here, a week there, to work on the Frankenstein volume. It took about seven years." ... Wrightson was influenced by the pen and ink masters of the early 20th and late 19th centurie,s and Wrightson named artists like Franklin Booth, Jason Cole and Edwin Abbey."I wanted the book to look like an antique; to have the feeling of woodcuts or steel engravings, something of that era," said Wrightson.

Thrilled to have this beauty in The Collection (not only of comics, but of Frankenstein). If you haven’t read it, Bernie’s collaboration (along with Kelley Jones, who finished the project after Bernie’s death) with Steve Niles, FRANKENSTEIN ALIVE, ALIVE, is considered a sequel to this piece of comics passion unleashed.