Buying time

Inconsequential update: Hellacious, ass-kicking quarter complete. Commence catching up with comics and whining about not making it to San Diego for Comic-Con. While drinking beer. And maybe playing Katamari Damacy.

While I mentally compile and organize my unread books (starting with The Hot Breath of War by fellow NorCal rad guy Trevor Alixopulos that has been staring at me since Stumptown),  I wanted to do a quick linkdump to direct you to some cool interweb things that have delighted me…

Etsy.com interviews Jessica Abel

Tatiana Gill and her adorable illustrations

BeaucoupKevin takes beautiful photos at MoCCA, which reminds me how much I suck for missing this event every year.

How to separate feminist and psuedo-feminist comic fans and maintain moral superiority

Hope Larson debuts Chiggers at MoCCA, which gets me like a sucker punch as I was able to fawn over her preview copy at Emerald City.

Oh. Right. A blog.

Wow, things have been quiet here. No apologies, as we are both alive and kicking. One of us has been busy changing jobs, and is working within the sphere of The Evil Empire. The other has been busy learning about worldwide oppression and communication theories. I’m not telling which is which.

A few things of note:

Tatiana Gill has a blog! We heart her, and look forward to reading her witticisms and peeking at lovely art. Her blog already has some gems, so go and take a look. As a bonus, she makes cool sculpted art that people should buy. Bug her about it.

Our annual trek to San Francisco to attend APE has been thwarted by evil schedule changes. The sizable and aching hole has been filled by two spectacular cons - Stumptown and Emerald City.

Why you should go to Stumptown:

• Pre-registration already sold out. This means no empty tables and sad faces.
• It’s not just indie faces this year; big names like Gail Simone and Pia Guerra will rubbing elbows with some of the greatest cartoonists in the industry.
• Don’t let the fabled rain dissuade you - Portland is lovely in the spring.
• We will be there. Duh.

Why you should go to Emerald City:

• As lovely as Portland is in April, it has nothing on Seattle in May.
• We hinted at our displeasure with the con last year in our wrap-ups. Someone obviously cared about our opinion, as this year there is a nice indie representation, including the recently announced Bryan Lee O’Malley and Hope Larson appearances.
• Jordan Crane exhibit at Fantagraphics
• We will be there. Duh. I might even buy you a beer at my favorite pub if you are nice to me.

Real reviews to follow soon. No, really.

Lazy or just busy?

As usual, we have gone through a bit of a lull in posting. But this time, it’s not due to lack of enthusiasm. This time we almost have a valid excuse. We are preparing for our first trip to Europe. To Paris, specifically.

We’ve been busy with brushing up on the language - which has Dylan reading Locas in French - and researching which comic shops and galleries to go to (of which there seems to be many delightful choices). We’ve also suspended our comic spending, which is the primary cause of this interruption in regular broadcasting. This has made us terribly sad, knowing that the end of Nextwave and the newest installment of Castle Waiting are waiting for us just down the road at Zanadu.

So while we wait with anticipation of the comic goodness coming our way shortly, we’ll continue to speak in choppy French, save our pennies, and annoy everyone with our mounting enthusiasm.

By the way, if you would like to be added to our postcard list just drop us a line. Or if you have some genuine insight on cool things to do in Paris, that would be appreciated. Because otherwise we are going to sit on the Seine with a bottle of wine and a baguette and drink ourselves stupid enough to ensure that American tourists are continually hated on a global level.

Responderbot 3000

It’s been pretty quiet in our corner of the world, mostly because we are preserving our witty repartee for the Love & Rockets event that we’ll be attending at Fantagraphics this Sunday.

That said, a blogger/editor named Lisa Jonte brought me out of my shell with a fairly universal list of wants from women comic readers. Anyone who has read this blog for a while has correctly pigeon-holed me into a “indie comic reader.” While I hate to resolve myself to a predictable demographic, Lisa succinctly states all my reasons why I am content with this label.

Sure, I’ve dipped my feet in the ‘giant pond’ by reading series like Y: The Last Man and DMZ. But those aren’t the same. They aren’t the ripped costume, giant breasted superhero comics that I’ve missed out on. They are smart, edgy, well thought out, and have a point. I would be lying if I said that on some level the ’superhero’ stories don’t interest me. I would love to read a comic that had superheros, especially if they were all as awesome as Watchmen. But honestly, every time I’ve been driven to check out a title like JLA or 52 Weeks (by reviews or cover or name recognition) I’ve had three reactions:

• Confusion: in order to get anything out of the story, I have to be familiar with the characters. Normally this wouldn’t be a deterrent, but the characters from the gate can be pretty bland without the construct of years of back story and without anything interesting me in my motivation to learn more is nil.
• Anger: I don’t understand the hypersexualized nature of the comics and don’t understand how it contributes to the story, other than fueling fanboy (and fangirl) masturbatory needs. I think it’s dismissive of potential character development and distracting.
• Isolation: the writers and editorial boards direct story lines and arcs in a way that cater to a single audience: the aged fanboys who have been reading their favorite superhero comic since they were 8. I’m sure there are exceptions, and there are really innovative, exciting titles out there, but there are far too many examples of this that crush my spirit of exploration to find what these titles might be.

This confession isn’t to start some defensive flame war (though if you have good examples of something to check out, I’d be game). This confession is to support Lisa’s wish list. The things she list are pretty straight forward and not surprising, but she makes a point that they aren’t necessarily universal. But they are and I think any partially intelligent editor could come up with that laundry list on his or her own. But the fact that they don’t, and still sit there wringing their hands about how to conjure up a new audience is disappointing.

At Yet Another Comics Blog, a good point is made. Superhero comics are a niche - a strong, viable niche. David even makes a stronger point in that there really isn’t a need for it to evolve and cater to an audience that may or may not like them at the risk of alienating the loyal reading base, especially when that evolution puts the book in a position where they may not be read at all. But from my perspective, as someone who who is interested but has fundamental issues with the current content, I can only hope that some publisher is willing to risk it a bit to appeal to a wider audience.

As I hop off my soapbox and mentally prepare for the awesome that is coming our way on Sunday (and the following Saturday), we command thee to drop us a line if you will be here on Saturday. Since we live in the COOLEST NEIGHBORHOOD ON EARTHtm we like showing people around.

Review Avoidance

Last night I had grandiose plans to post reviews of some awesome things that have gotten me excited about comics again. But something came up. And it’s kinda sorta comic related.

I love John Pham’s comics. This has been documented at least once on this blog. And through buying stuff from John Pham on his website, I stumbled across a musician named Daedelus.

But back to my slacking…

Daedelus swept through Seattle last night. In a last minute decision, blogging plans were avoided for a night filled with game boy based music (Truckersaurus), hip-hop breakcore (Thavius Beck), a set capped with an insane remix of My Bloody Valentine (Caural), and a lot of dancing to clicks and beats and samples from Daedelus.

So, as my love for comics and music come full circle, I am amazed by how energized I am with what is happening in both genres right now. And I swear some actual content will elbow it’s way through sometime in the near future.

We suck. And other emotions of note.

Sorry about the blog inactivity. I had a birthday (27 is okay so far, thanks) and we had some movies to watch (yay Clerks II!). And let us not forget extreme measures taken to avoid unbelievably uncomfortable hot Seattle weather. You laugh, but 97 here is like 120 in other places.

During our brief sabbatical the interweb has been on fire with news and stories and photos of SDCC. The whole con seems very overwhelming to me - APE is so much more comfortable and at the pace and energy level I prefer. That being said there are several things that have made me extremely sad I did not attend and even drove me to the point of imagining what it would be like to be among the masses.

The first?
How come no one told me there was going to be a Lost panel? That is just mean and cruel and to be frank, fucked.

And if you’ve ever read this blog before you know we are both nerds for Scott Pilgrim. I cried a little bit inside hearing about O’Malley creating Sex Bob-Omb t-shirts. And then there was a photo posted to his Livejournal. And that made me want to punch the screen.

My last wish is to be able to see all the creators that never come to the west coast, unless it is for SDCC. Like Bryan Lee O’Malley or Brian Wood. But that isn’t too painful to think about as there is a MoCCA trip in the works for next year.

The final bit of business is to have a patting-selves-on-back moment as I just noticed we’ve been blogging on this offset of Successless for a year. Not that it’s our posts are all that unique, regular, or even fun to read. But either way, go us for tag-teaming the comics industry in a way only a boyfriend/girlfriend blog could.

Quiet Times in the Emerald City

Sorry things have been a bit quiet around here. Between moving, fighting this freakish heat here in Seattle, and figuring out how to mesh two comic collections into a one bedroom apartment, we’ve been a tad busy.

To bring our posts up to speed:

a. Superman: awesome. Kevin Spacey is a great Lex Luthor.
b. Scott Pilgrim and the Infinite Sadness: so. fucking. good. Just like we expected. Even if I am still waiting on my copy. A big fatty post on it will most likely appear later.
c. This week’s ship list: is a thing of beauty. Flight #3, Babel #2, Pussey, and Monologues for the Coming Plague (I also have some catching up to do with Ellen Forney’s I Love Led Zeppelin and Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home).
d. Kevin Church: (aka BeaucoupKevin) sucks. He didn’t buy me anything at MoCCA. I bought him stuff at APE. That being said, you should still congratulate him and Benjamin Birdie on being printed comic superstars with their debut in Boom Studios! X-Isle #1.

Okay, now that we are sort of caught up, I hope everyone has a nice 4th of July. In true insular blogger fashion, maybe we’ll post drunk photos of us hanging out at my Uncle’s house. Then again, maybe we won’t.

Not Quite Dead

But almost.

No, but seriously…despite having what amounted to a month-long vacation from almost all responsibilities, and enough free time to read HELLA comics, I’ve totally neglected my blogging duties. My Cerebus re-read, while complete, remains undocumented after Book 7. I will finish it at some point. Some point soon. I wish I had just done it when it was fresh in my mind still, but moving was time-consuming and stressful, and I haven’t quite got back in the rhythm of posting here yet. Plus, I’ve got plenty of other comics I’d love to talk about (Acme! Black Hole! Mome! Desolation Jones! Subsitute Life! La Perdida! True Porn 2!). But now I’m working full time again, and trying to deal with bank troubles, fridge troubles, etc. etc.

But you don’t come here to hear me gripe. And I’m not sure why you come here lately, seeing as it’s been over a month sincean update. But that will change….soonish. No promises though.

Hey, I did a big ol’ year-end music post here, if you really want something to read.

Love y’all, will blog atchy’all soon.

Lately…

Oh yeah, I have a comics blog. Imagine that.

OK, so there’s been a lack of updates lately. We’ve both been pretty busy, what with an impending inter-state move coming up. And my Cerebus posts have fallen behind. I’m currently working on my post about Book 8, Women, while reading Book 15, Latter Days. And Jesus, I wish I had decided to skip this one. I’m at the part where it devolves into dense-text page after dense-text page of Torah commentaries. Yeah. Torah commentaries. By a barbarian aardvark ex-pope. Written by a schizophrenic mysogynist cartoonist from Canada. Boy oh boy. But I’ll slog through it…I’m close to the end now, so there’s really no point in giving up. I mean, I didn’t need my sanity that much anyways.

Plus, I’ve been a little slack on picking up new books lately, partly for time reasons, and partly monetary reasons. Although I have to say, making a new comics run once a month makes things much more interesting than going weekly. And this has led me to consider the possibility of using the www.mailordercomics.com service once I move to Seattle, rather than setting up a subscription with a local store. I like Xanadu comics, which I visited when I was up there, but the convenience and discount pricing of mail order does appeal to me. Downsides include timing (I’d get everything 1-4 weeks later than everybody else…which doesn’t concern me toooo much); having to actually get a copy of Previews every month; and having to pay my monthly comics budget as one lump sum, rather than a few dollars here and there (which is easier to justify to myself).

Has anyone used this? How do you like it? Had any problems getting what you ordered, or with any customer service issues? Let me know in comments if so.