A few thoughts as I approach the end of the sixth year of my project. I know I've been away a lot the last few years - honestly, it's been a pretty bad time. But we're all going through a bad time right now, and if you're reading this, like me you're at least fortunate enough to have access to the Internet to help you through what feels to me like the most stressful few years I've ever experienced. Well, on a communal level, perhaps.
I think that in stressful times we're driven by two equal but opposing forces. The one is to shutter ourselves in and ride out the storm, keeping our heads down. The other is to reach out and help each other up, keep one another from stumbling through the dark times we navigate. One of the great critiques of Capitalism, from day one, is the way in which it separates us, dehumanizes us, and makes us look out for number one. I keep seeing glimmers of the the better ways we could be. Like the poet says, "War is over, if you want it." Enough of us just have to want it. That's how change works. That's how Trump got a presidency.
Which has what, exactly, to do with a terminally-late blog about comics?
Everything, really. As writers, we take in and synthesize everything around us and then, in our work, present that synthesis publicly. Be it a 6-novel fantasy series or a three panel web comic, whatever is around us, whatever surrounds us in the Infosphere, is reflected and refracted in the work we produce. I think this is true of all work that humans do, though it may be easier to assess in artistic/creative outputs. But as far as the idea of the author goes, smarter guys than I have held forth about it. I find them pretty convincing.
And have you checked out our Infosphere recently?
(BTW, read about the Infosphere here, and about the informational entities called "Inforgs" that live in it. *sigh* I miss this kind of stuff.)
I'll add to this that I've been struggling to write due also to chronic pain. Fuck chronic pain. It sucks.
But I want to. I want to write, more than just my daily comic reviews, but so many other things, because where, oh where, if not on my own personal and maybe read by, like, 10 other people, blog, else can I write about these things? Or even talk about them?
It's more than that, though, really. It's taken me some time to crawl out from beneath the wreckage of my time in the PhD program at U of C. One of the things that's really helped me to put my head back together is realizing all of the good that came out of my time there, despite everything else. I love the language and the knowledge I have been given, the perspectives they've granted me on the world. I think that they make me a better person, in that I am so much happier with who I am now than I was, in retrospect, in the past. In it's own gross way, grad school also teaches you to have firmness of convictions that I never used to have, and definitely, definitely teaches you how to express those convictions in clear, though not always concise, terms. Witness this rambling blog post 🙄 So good came out of a time that I have for many years characterized as one of the greatest failures of my life.
And what was good that came out of that time are things that I think are worth sharing. That was why I briefly taught college, worked for the museum. The things I learned in university are things that I think have enriched my existence, and I feel like I ought to share them with anyone and everyone who hasn't had the chance, desire, or privilege, of going to university themselves. I don't think that they're ideas that ought to be confined to the forum of the university. And, to finally get to the point, I honestly think the best way for me to share these ideas is through writing about comics.
Fuck the Infosphere. Fuck what it's telling us about the shit state of the world. We make the world. We do. And if enough of us want a thing, it'll happen. I think that, perhaps, as writers it is incumbent on us to be painfully aware of the Infosphere and to write despite its contents, rather than as a result of them.
Okay. If you've sat through all that, thank you, you're a trooper. I promise that whenever I hold forth like this, I will finish off with some comics-related stuff. That's what you're here for, after all.
READ THE ORLANDO/ACO/PETRUS/BLANCO run of Midnighter and Midnighter and Apollo, now and for always some of the greatest, gayest comics I've ever read. If you've been reading my erstwhile blog, you know I love the series, the former running 12 issues, and its 6-issue follow-up. The solo series is part action movie and part queer rom-com. It's fucking great and real and sexy and so, so well written and rendered. If you're on the lookout for a queer writer of comics, Steve Orlando is worth checking out. His run on Supergirl for "Rebirth" is excellent, and he cemented himself in my heart when he co-wrote the Milk Wars crossover with Gerard Way and the Doom Patrol. The follow-up, Midnighter and Apollo is, simply put, a great romantic quest story. Just great. The series has caught enough of my attention that I'm putting together a list of Mr. Orlando's previous stuff to check out. He's a very, very good writer, and he knows how to write queer stories.
Okay. The 40 Years Project will get somewhat more on track, but not daily, for sure. But other stuff, too. More stuff. I have so many ideas and if I get them out of my head then there's space for the others.
More to follow.
