One of my New Year's traditions (at least since 2004) is to take a little time to crunch the numbers on the books I read the previous year, as well as to announce a few highlights. (Past years' results: 2007; 2006; 2005; 2004.)

As for this year, I read a total of 51 books, which is about average for me, although down a bit from last year's 58. ( Read more... )

Way back when, I promised a second post on "Depression in Comics," and then I got busy with traveling and the Blog-A-Thon, and it fell by the wayside.

So my second entrant in the series is not from the world of superhero comics but rather from the webcomics underground: specifically the comic Achewood. Achewood takes place in a fairly absurd ( Read more... )

One of the oft-repeated truisms of the comics world is that part of the appeal of Marvel Comics is that their heroes are flawed in ways that their target audience can appreciate. Spider-Man has to deal with financial worries and social geekiness, the X-Men are basically hated pariahs, etcetera.

And then there's Daredevil, who has the flaw of being ( Read more... )

So, those of you who read my blog at the Raccoon page (instead of somewhere else) may have noticed the Skrull / McCain PSA over on the left-hand side of the page.

Skrull-related humor is pretty much the province of comics geeks only, but for the benefit of the non-comics readers in the crowd, I thought I'd try explaining.

Skrulls are an alien ( Read more... )

The season of comics continues unabated, with three or four more graphic novels lying in wait to be read, including the gigantic Daredevil Omnibus, kindly loaned to me by my Film Club compatriot Skunkcabbage.

Reconnecting with comics, with the Marvel Universe in particular, has been providing me with very real pleasure this winter, and I've been ( Read more... )

As promised, here's the second half of what I'm thinking of as my Well-Intentioned Hypertext Rant, in which I argue that even literary / narrative works that aren't traditional hypertext as such are often nevertheless designed to be rewardingly navigated in non-linear fashion (hypernavigated?). Ready? Here goes:

"[M]y [ earlier] examples are all ( Read more... )