Things I Have Done This Weekend
(This is the last day I have free until after Fan Expo. So I need to get this stuff out before I forget about it in the haze of working-at-the-convention.)
Friday: Worked during the day, which involved reading this week's comics, which involved BATGIRL #1. I was pretty happy with the Steph stuff, and even the Cass stuff. I know a lot of people were complaining about that, but I thought it was pretty clear she's not actually gone. And it was nice to see Steph and Cass being friends! The Babs stuff I am less happy with. I really wish people would just stop drawing her chair with handles! And, it's been at least six years DCU-time since Killing Joke, why is Babs suddenly always an angstbucket about it, when she hasn't been for ages?
Work also involved sorting out old comics to take up to the show next weekend. A lot of counting the Liefeld Score of various issues, which goes like this: Take a nineties-tastic comic cover. (Works best with team books.) Count the number of characters featured on the cover. Count the total number of feet featured on the cover. The book gets one point if there's one foot for every five characters, minus points if the ratio of feet to characters is higher than that and gains one if it's lower. There was an issue of Youngblood which had one foot for eight characters, that was the highest score.
And I acquired kind of a lot of said old comics, including a random issue of Relative Heroes, which I wish were less obscure so someone would have written a Runaways crossover.
And THEN we went to a friend of the family's recently-opened gallery to hear several other friends of the family play music, because my family is friends with at least 70% of Toronto's bluegrass/old time scene. The gallery in question was full of exciting things (generally, musical instruments or robots) made out of other things (generally, garbage and bits of wire.) Now, anyone who knows me IRL knows that making things out of garbage and bits of wire is my secret hidden talent. My dad said that the friend whose gallery it was may be looking for an apprentice, if things work out well. So I might be able to in the near future get paid to coil wire around things! I approve of this plan!
Saturday: Work was really spectacularly boring. More old comics; no new Liefeld Score record, only one comic worth reading (Mister Miracle #5), several obnoxious spoiled children. One of whom asked us to recommend "Books with lots of killing and shit, but not too much talking," to read instead of paying attention when school starts up again.
And then. Well, remember Canada Day? When I talked about things I like, incl. Spirit of the West and Great Big Sea? Well, guess who were playing Molson Amphitheatre Saturday night? Yeah, that's right. Great Big Sea with Spirit of the West opening. I took my dad for his birthday. (& my mom and one of my aunts.)
I actually felt a bit bad for Spirit of the West, because I felt like half the audience had no idea who they were until Home for a Rest, which was their last song. John Mann was still jumping around all over the stage like he always has, despite being forty-seven now. It was a lot of fun!
And then GBS came on. Alan Doyle has grown a beard, I was not aware of this? It is kind of a silly beard! But eugh I love them so much. And so did the entire audience, the vast majority of whom were standing for like the entire show. The guy behind us seemed to know every song better than the band, we were joking that he was going to follow them back to Newfoundland.
AND THEN THE ENCORE. SPIRIT OF THE WEST CAME BACK OUT TOO, AND THEY DID "POLITICAL" AND "OLD BLACK RUM" TOGETHER AND, HEART. Alan was like, "Yeah. We played this song at our first gig ever as a band." And then John had the lyrics on sheets of paper for Old Black Rum, which he balled up and threw into the audience when he was finished. It was SO AWESOME I LOVE ALL CANADIAN FOLK ROCK BANDS.
Sunday: I had planned on doing nothing Sunday. But then instead I ended up going to qahtte's place and doing nothing much there instead, along with cws-eat-chs. And while I was there I did some more sketches for the Steam DCU! Incl. Renee and Kate (well, so far mostly just Renee. I didn't feel like drawing a face, so clearly the answer was to draw the Question); more Elias girls (Empress, Cass, Rose, Misfit, will include Mia and Black Alice when I finish; with thanks to rubynye for helping me work out Anita's backstory.)
And today I'm going to do fuck all, because I am ridiculously busy the rest of this week.
Friday: Worked during the day, which involved reading this week's comics, which involved BATGIRL #1. I was pretty happy with the Steph stuff, and even the Cass stuff. I know a lot of people were complaining about that, but I thought it was pretty clear she's not actually gone. And it was nice to see Steph and Cass being friends! The Babs stuff I am less happy with. I really wish people would just stop drawing her chair with handles! And, it's been at least six years DCU-time since Killing Joke, why is Babs suddenly always an angstbucket about it, when she hasn't been for ages?
Work also involved sorting out old comics to take up to the show next weekend. A lot of counting the Liefeld Score of various issues, which goes like this: Take a nineties-tastic comic cover. (Works best with team books.) Count the number of characters featured on the cover. Count the total number of feet featured on the cover. The book gets one point if there's one foot for every five characters, minus points if the ratio of feet to characters is higher than that and gains one if it's lower. There was an issue of Youngblood which had one foot for eight characters, that was the highest score.
And I acquired kind of a lot of said old comics, including a random issue of Relative Heroes, which I wish were less obscure so someone would have written a Runaways crossover.
And THEN we went to a friend of the family's recently-opened gallery to hear several other friends of the family play music, because my family is friends with at least 70% of Toronto's bluegrass/old time scene. The gallery in question was full of exciting things (generally, musical instruments or robots) made out of other things (generally, garbage and bits of wire.) Now, anyone who knows me IRL knows that making things out of garbage and bits of wire is my secret hidden talent. My dad said that the friend whose gallery it was may be looking for an apprentice, if things work out well. So I might be able to in the near future get paid to coil wire around things! I approve of this plan!
Saturday: Work was really spectacularly boring. More old comics; no new Liefeld Score record, only one comic worth reading (Mister Miracle #5), several obnoxious spoiled children. One of whom asked us to recommend "Books with lots of killing and shit, but not too much talking," to read instead of paying attention when school starts up again.
And then. Well, remember Canada Day? When I talked about things I like, incl. Spirit of the West and Great Big Sea? Well, guess who were playing Molson Amphitheatre Saturday night? Yeah, that's right. Great Big Sea with Spirit of the West opening. I took my dad for his birthday. (& my mom and one of my aunts.)
I actually felt a bit bad for Spirit of the West, because I felt like half the audience had no idea who they were until Home for a Rest, which was their last song. John Mann was still jumping around all over the stage like he always has, despite being forty-seven now. It was a lot of fun!
And then GBS came on. Alan Doyle has grown a beard, I was not aware of this? It is kind of a silly beard! But eugh I love them so much. And so did the entire audience, the vast majority of whom were standing for like the entire show. The guy behind us seemed to know every song better than the band, we were joking that he was going to follow them back to Newfoundland.
AND THEN THE ENCORE. SPIRIT OF THE WEST CAME BACK OUT TOO, AND THEY DID "POLITICAL" AND "OLD BLACK RUM" TOGETHER AND, HEART. Alan was like, "Yeah. We played this song at our first gig ever as a band." And then John had the lyrics on sheets of paper for Old Black Rum, which he balled up and threw into the audience when he was finished. It was SO AWESOME I LOVE ALL CANADIAN FOLK ROCK BANDS.
Sunday: I had planned on doing nothing Sunday. But then instead I ended up going to qahtte's place and doing nothing much there instead, along with cws-eat-chs. And while I was there I did some more sketches for the Steam DCU! Incl. Renee and Kate (well, so far mostly just Renee. I didn't feel like drawing a face, so clearly the answer was to draw the Question); more Elias girls (Empress, Cass, Rose, Misfit, will include Mia and Black Alice when I finish; with thanks to rubynye for helping me work out Anita's backstory.)
And today I'm going to do fuck all, because I am ridiculously busy the rest of this week.