Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Free Form Comments

Say whatever you want to in the comments to this post -- random, off topic thoughts, ideas, suggestions, questions, recommendations, criticisms (which can be anonymous), surveys, introductions if you have never commented before, personal news, self-promotion, requests to be added to the blog roll and so on. If a week goes by and I have failed to add you to the blog roll TELL ME TO DO IT AGAIN, and KEEP TELLING ME UNTIL IT GETS DONE. I can be lazy about updating the non-post parts of this site. Remember these comments can be directed at all the readers, not just me.

ALSO. You can use this space to re-ask me questions you asked me before that I failed to answer because I was too busy (but now might not be). That is often the reason I fail to get back to people, and on a blog, after a few days, the comments thread dies and I just kind of forget about it. Let's use this space to fix that, because it does need to be fixed; I look like a jackass sometimes, leaving people hanging. I will TRY to respond to any questions here.

AND you can use this space to comment on posts that are old enough that no one is reading the comments threads anymore. For example, if you thought of a great quote for the great quote commonplace book, but now no one is reading that, you could put it here.You do not have to have a blogger account or gmail account to post a comment -- you can write a comment, write your name at the bottom of your comment like an e mail, and then post using the "anonymous" option.

WRITING FOR THIS BLOG. If you think your free form comment here might be better as its own post, but you do not want it to be public yet, email it to me. My email address is available on my blogger profile page. If I think it will work on this site, your post will be published here with your name in the title of the post. You can propose what you will, I am always looking for reviews of games, tv, movies, music and books.

If you think what you have to say -- new topic or comment on an existing topic -- would be better to hear than to read, use the CALL ME button on the toolbar on the right.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Suggestions are fun, and since Myspace's 'what you're reading/listening to/ watching thing is disabled, I'm just going to foist my opinions on you guys.

If you haven't bought the new REM album, Accelerate, or The Raconteurs, Consolers of the Lonely, check them out.

On DVD, get Walk Hard, Juno and There Will Be Blood... (did anybody get the deluxe editions of the latter two... worth it?)

I'm also working my way through the Formerly Known as the Justice League and I Can't Believe It's Not The Justice League 'reunion' stories Giffen-Dematteis-MaGuire did.

Oh, and I just finished Rick's Story in Cerebus... I think I'm going to stop there, that way Cerebus gets a happy ending (I also understand it becomes pretty intolerable in the last two volumes)

Jason said...

Re: Cerebus ... If you're married to the notion of a happy ending, that's a good place to stop, but I recommend going up through Form and Void. It's the most excruciatingly realistic dramatization of a love-relationship's dissolution as I've ever seen. Heartbreaking.

Anonymous said...

Don't Tempt me, Frodo! Form and Void is the last one before the Latter Days and Last Day, Right?

I must admit, I would like to see Jaka and Cerebus happy for at least a little while which, I'm assuming, we would get to see before it dissolves.

Does Sim every get wildly off track in the course of those two volumes? (i.e. the Cerbexegis I've heard so much about from Latter Days)

Jason said...

Yeah, what is it, 16 total books? Rick's Story is 12, Going Home is 13, Form and Void is 14 ... so yeah. Then it's Latter Days and The Last Day.

When you say "those two volumes," do you mean Going Home/Form & Void or Latter Days/Last Day? I think if you were still on board for Guys and Rick's Story, you'll also enjoy Going Home and Form & Void. All of those books meander, narratively speaking. You'd agree that all that gospel-writing stuff in Rick's Story gets a bit monotonous after a while, right? There's some of the same in GH and F&V, but nothing more trying.

Going Home devotes a lot of time to a fictional avatar of F Scott Fitzgerald... generally speaking I found it pretty unmemorable.

Form & Void continues Sim's fascination with authors, this time devoting a large amount of pages to the adventures of Ernest Hemmingway in Africa. I found that stuff a lot more interesting, for two reasons: 1.) the artwork is some of Sim's very best. The stuff set in Africa is just gorgeous. And 2.) the material ties in more directly to Cerebus and Jaka. I think F&V is as focused and controlled as anything in the first half of Cerebus. (I don't think many people agree, though ...)