What I bought, read, watched, or otherwise consumed – December 2024

we cry we laugh we feel we love we live
in the coffin of our existence and
IT IS ALWAYS TOO LATE (Tommy Trantino, from Lock the Lock)

So. Many. Anthologies. I’m going to get to them all at once at the end, so bear with me!

COMICS

Ain’t No Grave by Skottie Young (writer), Jorge Corona (artist), Jean-Francois Beaulieu (colorist), Nate Piekos (letterer), and Marla Eizik (editor). $16.99, 133 pgs, Image.

I really liked Middlewest, the big, grand Young/Corona collaboration, and Ain’t No Grave isn’t quite as good as that, mainly because it’s not as long, so Young doesn’t have as much time to expand beyond its limited plot. This is a very simplistic story, as we get Ryder, an ex-outlaw who finds love with a dude and her daughter but finds out that she’s sick and going to die. Instead of accepting it and spending as much time with her family as she can, she decides to ride off and confront Death to get her life back. Yeah, that won’t end well. Her dude thinks this is a terrible idea, but Ryder goes off to a weird hellscape city where she has to fight through a bunch of creepy people to get to Death. It ends the way you expect it to, which is both satisfying (because Young doesn’t mess with what should happen too much) and frustrating (because we’re left wondering what the point is), and Young does a decent enough job making Ryder an interesting character, but she’s still somewhat infuriating. Corona is superb, though, creating both a blasted Western world and a disturbing City of the Dead, and his Death is excellent (when Ryder actually gets to him/her/it). I don’t want to get too much into it, but he really does an amazing job. The book is gorgeous (Beaulieu’s coloring is excellent), and it’s just a cool book to look at. The story is fine, but the art is really excellent. I certainly hope these two dudes keep making comics together!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Autumn Kingdom #1-4 by Cullen Bunn (writer), Christopher Mitten (artist), Francesco Segala (colorist), Sabrina del Grosso (color flatter), Taylor Esposito (letterer), Azat Sayadi (assistant editor), and Bess Pallares (editor). $19.96, 81 pgs, Oni Press.

Mitten is sooooo good, and I hope that unlike his last fantasy series (I think that was Umbral, unless he’s done one in the interim that I missed), this lasts a bit longer. I thought it was only a four-issue mini-series, but I guess it’s an ongoing (whether we’ll get a new #1 is a mystery!), so we shall see. Mitten creates a very cool fantasy world, with weird knights riding a weird vulture thing and a … chimera (I guess that’s what it’s supposed to be) and all sorts of goblins and trolls and corpse-like elves, but he also does a good job with the mundane world, as we get two main characters (sisters Sommer and Winter … sigh) who spend a lot of time in the woods, and Mitten does a wonderful job making the forest a beautiful but spooky place. The coloring is wonderful, as well, especially the shading, which adds such nice nuance to the artwork. Mitten is phenomenal, and it’s always fun to check out his art.

Bunn gives us a pretty decent story, even though it’s the tiniest bit frustrating that it doesn’t finish. If Bunn has a much longer story in mind and is able to do it, more power to him, but it’s still frustrating because who knows when the next part will be out, but I hope it doesn’t take too long. We have a family (the parents remain unnamed) with the dad writing fantasy novels which Sommer, the older daughter, reads as a beta reader. They end up out in the woods for a “working vacation,” but weird creatures kidnap the parents, and it turns out the creatures need the parents for … something (I don’t want to give it away!). Sommer and Winter find a big-ass sword that they can use to slaughter the bad guys and rescue their parents, but of course, there are hidden dangers in the woods! It’s a decent story, and the parallel between the dad’s novel and the real world doesn’t quite work completely (it might eventually, down the road), but it’s still not a bad way to tell the story (plus, it allows Mitten to have some fun with the art, as he draws scenes from the book). Bunn does a good job with the final issue and how the girls have to deal with a “final boss,” and it leads pretty well into the next part of the story. I’m looking forward to reading more of this, whenever it shows up!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Deadpool/Wolverine: Weapon X-Traction by Ryan North (writer), Javier Garrón (artist), Edgar Delgado (colorist), Joe Sabino (letterer), Martin Biro (assistant editor), Annalise Bissa (associate editor), and Tom Brevoort (editor). $6.99, 40 pgs, Marvel.

North gives us a nice, simple story in which Deadpool and Wolverine get thrown through various universes for … well, a reason, and it’s not important (to the point where the solution of the problem happens pretty much off-page). Basically, this is just a reason for Deadpool and Wolverine to kill a lot of people and for North to show lots of silly universes, which are generally fun. I mean, there’s a “romantic comedy universe,” which is just a ton of fun. Really, this is a showcase for Garrón, who draws the hell out of this. Wonderful details, great layouts, amazing characters, fun body language and expressions from the principals, and just a really creative way to tell the story. It’s a bit much for 7 bucks, but 40 pages of Garrón just blowing the doors off of the art and having a blast is not a bad thing at all. I don’t know where this will get collected, but it’s fun as all heck if you want to take a look!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Displaced by Ed Brisson (writer), Luca Casalanguida (artist), Dee Cunniffe (colorist), Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou (letterer), and Elizabeth Brei (editor). $19.99, 110 pgs, Boom! Studios.

I was slightly disappointed by this, because it felt like it had a good amount of potential but Brisson doesn’t quite pull it off. A town in Ontario mysteriously disappears (it basically falls into a sink hole), and the survivors who happened to be outside the city limits when it does have to deal with it. An old dude tried to warn them before it happens, and it turns out it’s happened before to other towns, and after a few days, everyone forgets that the town ever existed. Wha-huh???? It sounds pretty cool, especially because everyone forgets the survivors, too, so they have to figure out how to live in this new world (everyone can still see them and interact with them, but they forget them almost immediately). However … Brisson doesn’t do much with it. Some survivors feel guilty because they weren’t with their families when they disappeared, some realize they can become criminals because nobody will remember them, and some just go into a funk. The story just kind of goes nowhere – I don’t want to spoil what happens, but the unfortunate thing is that nothing really happens. Brisson goes to the logical extreme with the story, which I appreciate, but you reach the end and think, “Is that it?” Casalanguida does solid work with the art, and it’s not like it’s a bad story, it’s just a bit disappointing. Oh well. Brisson is still a pretty good writer, but this is just a bit of a miss.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Everfrost by Ryan K. Lindsay (writer), Sami Kivelä (artist), Lauren Affe (colorist), Jim Campbell (letterer), and Dan Hill (editor). $16.99, 94 pgs, Black Mask Studios.

Like most of Lindsay’s output (that I’ve read), this is an intriguing story that doesn’t quite come together as well as I would like, but it’s still pretty good. The book is set on a world of perpetual winter, where two sides are fighting over the decaying corpse of the planet, while one woman – Van – lives out in the wasteland, trying to find a way to escape from the rock. She thinks she’s found it, but she needs some help, and that means wading into the war, of course. She teams up with one of the rebels, and they’re off to see the wizard, basically. Van is haunted by her past and the death of her son, which causes her some trauma when clones keep showing up that look like him and try to kill her. Ah, yes, the clones. One reason the book doesn’t work is because of the clones. There are some confusing moments where I wasn’t sure who was who, and the time gap between when Van went out into the wasteland and when she returns is a bit odd, and we start to wonder if she herself is a clone, and Lindsay doesn’t do the best job explaining it. There’s a talking monkey, too (there he is on the cover!), who seems to be more important than he turns out to be, but it’s not explained terribly well. I don’t know. Maybe if I read it again, it would make a bit more sense, because I’d know a bit more about what’s coming, and maybe I’ve been distracted by other shit in the world and slightly complex things just aren’t my bag right now. Anyway, Lindsay tries to go a bit more esoteric than he needs to, it seems, and it just doesn’t cohere. I could be wrong.

Kivelä is marvelous, as usual. He brings the world to life wonderfully, he uses interesting layouts and points of view to make the art interesting to look at, and his designs are superb. I can’t say a lot about him because I’ve said it before, but it’s just so enjoyable to read his comics. If you haven’t seen his work yet, you really need to check it out!

I wish I liked Everfrost more. But I don’t. Oh well.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Freddie the Fix by Garth Ennis (writer), Mike Perkins (artist), Mike Spicer (colorist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer), and Joe Pruett (editor). $7.99, 40 pgs, Image.

I’m sure if I wanted to, I could find out what “Ninth Circle” is – I assume it’s an imprint under the Image banner – but I don’t, so I won’t. It seems like a horror thing that Ennis, Marguerite Bennett, Adam Glass, Joe Pruett, and Ram V cobbled together, so good for them! If it means we get more interesting comics, more power to them. This nice big-sized one-shot (dimensionally, that is, as it is only 40 pages long) is kind of fun – Ennis imagines a Hollywood populated by monsters, and Freddie is the guy people call to fix their problems. A studio exec asks him to check into something that Freddie both doesn’t want to do but is also intrigued by, and things get bad quickly, as you might expect. This is basically a way for Ennis to introduce Freddie’s world – I don’t know if he plans on giving us more Freddie stories, but if he is, this is a good primer – as the story isn’t that great, but Freddie in an interesting character and Ennis has fun showing us what this Hollywood is like. It’s full of werewolves and vampires and other beasties, and they all live in a delicate truce with all the others, so Freddie has to navigate through it. The answer to his problem is fairly obvious, but that’s not really the point. The point is to show Freddie’s world and let Perkins draw it, which he does with his usual aplomb. It’s a beautiful book, both seedy and magical and horrific at the same time, and Perkins has a lot of fun with the creatures in it. He does terrific work with the talking dinosaurs (because of course!), as the one giving Freddie information manages to change moods a lot, with Perkins shifting very little in its eyes and head position but nailing the changes wonderfully. It’s just a gorgeous book, and it would be fun to see more of this world from Perkins.

It’s not a great comic by any means, but it’s a lot of fun. Ennis doesn’t get too gross (which he’s certainly willing to be far too often), and his nasty sense of humor is still there but not as nasty as it could have been, which is nice. I’m curious about these Ninth Circle books moving forward (there are some previews in the back of this book), so we shall see what’s what going forward!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Grim volume 4: Eve of Destruction by Stephanie Phillips (writer), Flaviano (artist), Rico Renzi (colorist), and Tom Napolitano (letterer). $14.99, 108 pgs, Boom! Studios.

FUCK THIS FUCKING BLOG SOMETIMES WITH THE WONKINESS AND I DON’T KNOW IF IT’S THE BLOG OR WORDPRESS IN GENERAL BUT IT FUCKING PISSES ME OFF BECAUSE I COULD HAVE BEEN DONE WITH THIS ON THE THIRTY-FIRST AND NOW IT’S THE FOURTH AND I’M STILL NOT FUCKING DONE WITH IT AND WHO THE FUCK KNOWS IF I’LL BE ABLE TO GET IT DONE BEFORE IT INEVITABLY STARTS FUCKING AROUND WITH US AGAIN AND I DON’T KNOW HOW TO FIX IT IF ANYONE EVEN CAN AND I’M JUST SO FRUSTRATED AND I’VE NEVER HAD ANXIETY BEFORE BUT THIS FUCKING BLOG IS MAKING ME ANXIOUS AND I FEEL BAD FOR YOU, THE READERS BECAUSE WE’RE JUST LETTING YOU DOWN AND I HAVE LIKE EIGHT POSTS THAT I JUST CAN’T FUCKING FINISH AND I KNOW I SHOULD JUST FUCKING TYPE THEM UP IN WORD (WELL GOOGLE DOCS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO FUCKING PAY FOR FUCKING WORD BUT YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) BUT WHENEVER I CAN’T DO ANYTHING HERE IT JUST MAKES ME SO RAGEY THAT I HAVE TO GET OFF THE COMPUTER AND GO DESTROY A RANDOM CIRCLE K LIKE I’M THE FUCKING HULK SO IF YOU SEE IT ON THE NEWS THAT AN ANGRY MAN DESTROYED A FUCKING CIRCLE K IT’S PROBABLY ME AND YOU CAN BLAME THE INTERNET.

Grim is fine, by the way. Life and Death open up a new front in their war, everyone is getting caught in the middle, and we learn a bit about some of the characters. The art continues to be amazing. I don’t know how long Phillips plans to go with this, but it’s lasted longer than I thought it would, and it’s pretty good!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Gun Honey: Collision Course by Charles Ardai (writer), Ang Hor Kheng (artist), Jose Zapata (additional inker), João Rodri (colorist/additional inker), and David Leach (letterer). $17.99, 87 pgs, Titan Comics.

There are 510 panels in this collection (give or take; I may have missed a few). There is female nudity or semi-nudity in 43 of them (8.4%). That’s an impressive ratio!

That’s it. That’s the review.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally (non-nekkid) Airwolf panel:

Motherfuckin’ Monsters by J. Holtham (writer), Michael Lee Harris (artist), Micah Meyers (letterer), Will Dennis (editor), and Pornsak Pichetshote (editor). $3.99, 26 pgs, Image.

This is the first “Horizon Experiment” book that was disappointing, which bums me out. I don’t love the cartoonish art, but it kind of fits the goofy “Evil-Dead” vibe the book is going for, so it doesn’t bother me too much. The reason I didn’t love this is the same reason I didn’t love Nope: it wants to be social commentary, but it still keeps the cartoonish tropes of horror intact. Holtham wants to tell us that racism is bad (because, in Trump’s ‘Murica, we need to be reminded of that, sadly), and that’s fine. But in general, the villains in horror tend to be a bit over-the-top cartoonish, and that doesn’t work well with actual social commentary. Horror works when the social commentary is in the subtext, because we can enjoy the cartoonishness of the villains but still understand what the story is saying. When everyone is the same race in a horror story, this is fine. In this story, however, Holtham’s good guys are all black people, and his villains are all white people, and I’ve beaten a dead horse about the fact that nobody does subtext anymore, so this just becomes goofy, because the white people (much like the white people in Nope) are sooooo ridiculously evil that we can’t take them seriously, and therefore, in the back of our heads, we don’t take racism seriously, because we think, “Well, nobody I know has ever been this ridiculously evil, so we’re good.” Maybe the black people reading this nod their heads and think, “Yes, this is what happens to me every time I am among a group of white people,” and I’m just out of touch. It just seems like that Holtham going so far over the top weakens what he wants to say. I could be wrong. I often am.

Still, much like Nope, it’s kind of fun to have non-traditional heroes of a horror story. Maybe someday it won’t be a thing and we can just enjoy the horror? Yeah, probably not.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The One Hand & the Six Fingers by Ram V (writer), Dan Watters (writer), Laurence Campbell (artist), Sumit Kumar (artist), Lee Loughridge (colorist), Aditya Bidikar (letterer), and Will Dennis (editor). $19.99, 287 pgs, Image.

Ok, so I’m sure this comic will end up on a lot of Best-Of Lists like the one CBR is running right now and which I would love to comment on here except, you know, THE FUCKING BLOG ONLY WORKS THREE DAYS OUT OF SEVEN IF WE’RE FUCKING LUCKY, and I would agree with those lists, because this is a very good comic, but it’s also very long and I’m not quite sure I get the ending completely and if I do it’s the tiniest bit derivative but it’s still pretty cool and I read this comic a while ago and I’m a bear of very little brain (to coin a phrase) and so I think I’m just going to skip writing about it because I’m not quite sure I get it, as I may have mentioned. It’s about a detective who put a horrible serial killer in prison years ago but now there’s a copycat, and it’s about the actual killer, who doesn’t quite know why he’s killing, and Ram V writes the detective part and Watters writes the killer part and Campbell draws the detective part and Kumar draws the killer part and the stories slowly converge and it’s all very keen. Perhaps someday I’ll write more about it. We shall see.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Pine & Merrimac by Kyle Starks (writer), Fran Galán (artist), Pat Brosseau (letterer), and Jon Moisan (editor). $19.99, 111 pgs, Boom! Studios.

Here’s something I don’t get. At the end of this book, one of the heroes – Linnea Kent, the lady on the cover there – discovers something has happened that she thinks will lead to tragedy. But … it doesn’t have to? Like, she has a choice in the matter, and she doesn’t have to choose tragedy. I don’t want to give anything away, but it seems like Starks wants us to believe that tragedy is inevitable, but … it’s not, really, is it? I’m not explaining it well because I don’t want to give it away, but it bugged me.

Anyway, Starks gives us Linnea and her husband, Parker, who run a detective agency in the small town where Linnea grew up and where she returned after living in the big city for a while. Linnea was a cop, Parker was a MMA fighter, but Linnea does not do well with murder and blood and guts and all that, so she returned home, where she thought she wouldn’t have to deal with that. Starks goes a bit too far with it, it seems – Linnea can barely think about murder and she freaks out, which seems like it would be a big detriment even as a small-town detective, but whatevs. Anyway, there’s a missing girl, a mysterious island right off the shore, apparently more than one orgy … it’s all very creepy. Starks does a good job keeping it tense while adding some doses of humor, and Galán is a terrific artist, so the book looks great, and the ending does both come a bit out of nowhere but is also logical … until we get to the very end, where I’m puzzled. As I noted, I’m just not very bright, so it seems like Starks wants us to be disturbed by the bone-chilling inevitability of horror and despair, but … Linnea can do something different so her fate isn’t sealed, right? Maybe. It seems Starks doesn’t think so.

Still, a nifty comic. Nothing wrong with that!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

The Power Fantasy #1-5 by Kieron Gillen (writer), Caspar Wijngaard (artist), and Clayton Cowles (letterer). $19.95, 115 pgs, Image.

Man, Caspar Wijngaard is so fucking good. He can draw anything and make it look good, and he designs characters and pages so well. His people look like actual people, even if they’re “superheroic” in some way (as they are in this comic), and he’s so good at laying pages out in inventive but not confusing ways. He uses those sharp, precise lines that you think would make his action scenes work less well, but he’s able to “smudge” up a page so well that give the illusion of movement that his more kinetic scenes look great, too. Over the years, he’s gotten much better at using different line weights and more interesting brush techniques to vary the way his art looks based on the mood and the time frame (his flashbacks in this book are just slightly more “simplistic” than the present, making the distinction clear), and it’s just a joy to look at his work.

Gillen wants to write a superhero story without superhero fights, to an extent, so he gives us six superpowered beings – three humans with superpowers, two extradimensional beings who may or may not be angels/demons, and a superpowered sorcerer – who maintain a very uneasy balance of power so that nobody destroys/takes over the world. I mean, Europe doesn’t exist anymore, so “uneasy” is the word, but so far it’s working out well enough. Well, I mean, the ostensible hero of the book, Etienne, kills the president in issue #1, but he kind of had to, people! It’s a cool book so far, because Gillen is doing a good job with the characters – big surprise, there – and he’s building some very nice tension very quickly, so we feel the stakes even though we’re only 5 issues in (of what, I hope and which Gillen seems to have planned, is a fairly long series). The superpowered people are interesting because they’re not all “normal” – they have anxieties and issues, which means their tantrums can be, naturally, far worse than if you or I have one. Gillen does a very good job examining what this all means, which is nice. We’ve seen “superheroes in the real world” books before, of course, so it’s not like he’s treading new ground, but this is also a geopolitical book, and as Gillen is a very thoughtful fellow, it’s interesting to see the thought he put into this.

I knew (or figured) I’d like The Power Fantasy, because it’s one of my favorite writers teaming up with a really good artist, and so far, it’s a cool comic. I know, it’s shocking!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Rivers of London volume 12: Stray Cat Blues by Andrew Cartmel (writer), Josée María Beroy (penciler), David Cabeza (inker), Jordi Escuin Llorach (colorist), and Jim Campbell (letterer). $17.99, 88 pgs, Titan Comics.

Another Rivers of London trade, another enjoyable but kind of forgettable read. I keep getting them, I keep enjoying them, but they’re just … kind of there, I guess? In this one, characters we’ve seen before and some we haven’t team up to take down a brothel, but of course this is a slightly magical London, so it’s not an ordinary brothel. It just zips along, and Beroy does a decent job with the art, and then it’s over. I know I don’t sound very enthusiastic about these comics, but they’re just fine as solid entertainment. I just don’t have much to say about them!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

Underheist by David Lapham (writer/artist/letterer), Maria Lapham (writer), Hilary Jenkins (colorist), and Jon Moison (editor). $19.99, 110 pgs, Boom! Studios.

Underheist is a typical Lapham comic, in that it’s quite good, but it’s just off enough that it’s not great. Lapham, as he does, throws us into the deep end, but it’s not hard to get our bearings, and his plot – in which a subway worker hears about a heist and decides to get together some dudes to steal a bit from the actual thieves – is a pretty good one, but the plot quickly goes sideways and the book becomes something much darker. Unfortunately, Lapham wants to make this much more of a morality tale than we think, and his characters are a bit too thin to make the more philosophical underpinnings of the book work. David, our nominal hero, isn’t developed as much as he could be, so when things spiral and he’s faced with moral dilemmas, it doesn’t land as well as Lapham wants it to because, well, David kind of sucks, so fuck him. Still, it’s a strange ride, and Lapham does his usual topnotch work with the art and the mood of the comic, it’s just a bit less riveting than some of his past stuff. Even so, it’s a nifty story. You might like it far more than I do!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

One totally Airwolf panel:

So. The anthologies. In December (I’d love to say “this month,” but it’s not fucking December anymore, is it, because I had to wait so fucking long to actually get to this!!!!)(sorry, still not over it), I bought 9 issues of anthology comics, and I just like them. But not enough to sit down and write about each and every one of them, because that’s a lot and, you might have noticed, time is not on my side. I’m digging the Oni “EC” ones, still, because they’re just having fun with nasty stories that feel very much of the 1950s EC vibe, and who doesn’t like that vibe? Cruel Universe, Epitaphs from the Abyss, and the new Shiver SuspenStories are all just lots of fun. The Shiver SuspenStories one has Christmas-themed horror stories, which are always fun, and this month’s Epitaphs features an unusually strong artistic lineup, with stories by Tyler Crook, Charlie Adlard, and David Lapham. Hello Darkness was a bit weaker than usual, but Ennis and Cloonan keep doing their war story, so that’s all right. DC, Marvel, and Image have Christmas-themed anthologies out, so that’s nice. The DC one is fine, with the highlights being a Bane/Secret Six story and a John Constantine “Christmas Carol” story. The Marvel one is, not surprisingly, a bit schmaltzy (Marvel always seems slightly more sentimental than DC), with only three stories – a Fantastic Four one with a malfunctioning Doombot; an X-Men story set during Kitty’s early days with the X-Men, as she tries to figure out what to get them for Hanukkah; and a Spider-Man one where Miles learns that being Spidey kind of sucks for your social life. Cheery! Jordan Hart wanted to write some Christmas stories, so he got some artists to draw them, and that’s the Image anthology. There are two (2) Krampus stories in it, there are creepy carolers, and there’s a really beautiful and beautifully drawn (by Walter Pax) ghost story. Finally, Jason Aaron and Geof Isherwood finish up their Conan story, and it’s rousing and rollicking and adventurous and ends on as clichéd a note as you’ll get in fiction, but it’s such a cliché that I’m kind of ok with it, because I’m always amused to see if writers are willing to go so far into cliché (and, sadly, almost all of them are). There’s also a Dark Agnes story drawn by Piotr Kowalski in which our hero is freaked out in the woods. That’s why we need to chop them all down!!!!

Overall, the anthologies are usually good, and I don’t quite know why I buy them as single issues and not as trades. I do like single issues, despite the fact that I’ve moved over to trades almost (but not quite!) completely, so I guess this is just my small way to reflect that. But they are quite fun. Let’s move on!

BOOKS

The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith. 304 pgs, 2006, Washington Square Press.

Smith posits that Daguerre would have suffered from mercury poisoning thanks to using the substance for decades to create his “daguerreotypes,” which is not a bad idea at all. He begins the book late in Daguerre’s life, when he’s having visions about the end of the world and believes he needs to create a group of photographs that he hasn’t yet created – it’s a bucket list, essentially. He enlists Charles Baudelaire to help him – in an interview in the back of this copy, Smith says that Baudelaire certainly had opinions about photography, so he thought it would be fun if they were friends, even though their relationship is invented – and through the poet he meets a young prostitute, with whom Daguerre begins a father-daughter-esque relationship … and it turns out she’s the daughter of Daguerre’s one true love. Of course! Early in the book, Smith gives us chapters set in Daguerre’s youth, as he tracks the quasi-romance with Isobel, who’s a few years older than he is, and what happened there. As France devolves into revolution (the book begins in 1847, but when the calendar changes, things get revolutionary!), Daguerre and Pigeon – the prostitute – head to the country to find Isobel, and the rest of the book is about Daguerre meeting up with her again after decades of distance.

The book isn’t bad, but it does feel slightly disjointed. Smith begins with Daguerre having odd visions and trying to come to terms with his own death, and the book is almost phantasmagoric in places. The juxtaposition of Daguerre’s invention, which requires the subjects to remain still for long periods and creates an effect of absolute permanence, and his own mind, which flits all over the place and never quiets down, is kind of fascinating, and his journey through an almost apocalyptic Paris is unsettling and sometimes creepy. Once he meets Pigeon, the book calms a bit, and while it’s nice that the two do not consummate a physical relationship, their intense bonding is well done. As Smith continues to “flash back” to Daguerre’s childhood and adolescence, we knew a reunion with Isobel was inevitable, but once that shift occurs, the book loses some of its verve. Daguerre realizes that the world hasn’t ended, and this changes his outlook, and he’s still in love with Isobel, who feels that she is incapable of love. The book becomes more of a standard romance, as Daguerre and Isobel come to understand each other better and overcome their pasts, but Smith does something at the end that feels like cheating, and it kind of ruins the book. I don’t want to get into it, but it’s a pretty standard trope in these kinds of books, and it annoys me (given that Daguerre was married in real life and Isobal is completely fictional, you can probably guess what happens). It’s frustrating, because it seems like Smith wants to do a weirder book in the first half, but then succumbs to convention in the second half. The second half isn’t poorly written, by any means, which makes it even more frustrating, because Smith obviously has the talent to do what he wants to do, and he wanted … to do this in the second half of the book? It’s just odd.

Anyway, this is a decent book, but it feels like it could have been a great one. Such is life!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆ ☆ ☆

TELEVISION

Ridley season 2 (PBS). It’s another season of the producers trying to figure out how to get Adrian Dunbar to sing! Sure, it’s a nice police procedural, but Dunbar is a producer, and I imagine Dunbar said he wouldn’t do the role unless he could sing a few times in each season, and on we went! This is still a good show, mainly because they take two episodes per crime, which gives them about 100 minutes or so to set everything up and solve it, which means it’s a bit more fleshed out than crimes on 40-minute ‘Murican shows, with their endless commercials. We get eight episodes (four cases), and they’re pretty good, from the undercover cop who gets a bit too close to her subject to the woman who gets kidnapped and doesn’t remember much about it. In between, we get drama at the home of Ridley’s partner, DI Farman (Bronagh Waugh), who has a new baby with her wife and whose teenage son is feeling ostracized, so he begins to fall in with a bad crowd, and we get drama with DC Lakhan (George Bukhari), who apparently has a gambling problem, and we get drama at Ridley’s club, as one of the robbery victims in the first case starts putting the moves on Ridley’s partner, Annie, with an eye to “updating” the jazz club to make it, you know, successful (Ridley tries to shut that down quick, because if there’s anything that jazz shouldn’t be, it’s successful!). It’s not a great show, but it is pretty good, and the Lancashire countryside is gorgeously filmed, which is nice. We’ll see if there’s a third “series” coming down the pike!

The Marlow Murder Club (PBS). This is a fun four-episode series in which Samantha Bond plays an aging and relatively friendless archaeologist whose neighbor is murdered and who decides to solve the case (of course!). She eventually teams up with Jo Martin (playing a dogwalker) and Cara Horgan (playing the vicar’s wife), and they get the blessing of the lead detective, DS Malik (Natalie Dew), who’s dealing with some stuff of her own at work. When I first saw Bond, it bugged me where I knew her from, and then it hit me – she was Miss Moneypenny in the Pierce Brosnan Bonds. Good for her! This is a fun story, although as the ladies work out the murder, it became clearer and clearer which way it was going, and it made me grumpy because the plot was lifted from somewhere else (but I’m not telling from where!). What makes it work is the chemistry between the four leads, and the fact that they’re all women, so there’s an underlying attitude of misogyny from various characters that the writers wisely never bring to the surface too much. Malik, for instance, is only lead investigator thanks to a quirk of fate, and her boss (also a woman) gives her the opportunity to pass it off, but she wants to stay on it, even though some men around her (some cops, some not) seem to think she’s not up to it. The other three women have to deal with the attitudes of men around them, some benign yet still dismissive of their contributions. It’s pretty well done. The show looks superb – Marlow is an actual town, about halfway between London and Oxford, and they really use the town to their advantage – and the actors are pretty good. I imagine more seasons will be coming, so I’ll have to check it out.

Only Murders in the Building season 4 (Hulu). I enjoyed this season, and I’m not sure why I liked it more than season 3, which was still pretty good. I think they refocused on the building of the title a bit, and because they’re not doing a musical this season, Martin Short’s Oliver takes a bit of a back seat, which is good because he’s become the least interesting character of the trio (he was pretty good in the first two seasons, but he’s become slightly more cartoonish in the next two … although they bring him back around a bit at the end of this season, when he marries Meryl Streep). Steve Martin is doing good work, especially in this season, as the case very much concerns him, and Selena Gomez is the stealth MVP, as she always is. Molly Shannon making a movie out of their podcast is a fun idea, and it allows Eugene Levy, Zach Galifianakis, and Eva Longoria to have fun playing our heroes and makes the celebrity cameo part of the show a bit less egregious, because they’re supposed to be there (one celebrity cameo is fun and makes sense, while the other is there just as a celebrity cameo, but at least Short lampshades it pretty well). Gomez is looking for a place to live, and she ends up in the West Tower of the Arconia, where they meet Richard Kind, Kumail Nanjiani, and a strange Italian family whose connection to the murder (and a reclusive film professor played by Griffen Dunne) forms part of the plot. As usual, it’s all a bit ridiculous because this building is so damned dangerous, but the actors manage to wring pathos out of the situation, even when a lot of it played for laughs. We’re getting another season, it seems, and I’ll be there for it, because it is an enjoyable show.

Agatha All Along season 1 (Disney+). Kathryn Hahn gets the spotlight as Agatha Harkness, and the results … are fine, I guess. They have to walk a fine line with Agatha, keeping her kind of a villain while still making her sympathetic to audiences as the protagonist, and the show doesn’t quite succeed, but Hahn does her best! She’s powerless at the beginning (and trapped in a pretty funny parody of Mare of Easttown), but she gets dragged out of it by a teenager who wants her help walking the Witches’ Road. She tells him they have to collect a coven, and she gets Patti LuPone, Ali Ahn, and Sasheer Zamata to join her, and she brings in Debra Jo Rupp (still playing the character she played in WandaVision) at the last minute because they need a “green witch” and Hahn doesn’t want to include the one green witch she actually knows (for reason which will become clear as the show moves on). The Road is dangerous, and not everyone survives it, but as they go, we find out who the teenager is and what he really wants from the road (for comics readers, it’s not too hard to figure out). Hahn is fun as usual, but she’s still pretty evil, and the attempts they make to humanize don’t work all that well, so at the end, it’s hard to care too much what happens to her. There’s also the weird plot with her son, about whom rumors swirl because people claim Hahn sacrificed him for power, but Hahn claims the truth is much worse … except it’s not, not really. It’s another subplot meant to make Hahn a bit more sympathetic, but it doesn’t work. Still, it’s a decent show – the Road and its trials are interesting, the cast is pretty good, and it sets some interesting things up in the Marvel Cinematic Universe if Marvel wants it to, and a second season seems to be in the offing, so we’ll see what’s what. Not a bad show at all.

**********

Let’s check out the money I spent this month!

4 December: $207.30
11 December: $234.51
18 December: $178.03
26 December: $19.92 (!!!)

Diamond has apparently been having trouble all month as their empire crumbles, and they didn’t ship stuff during Christmas week – not that there was a lot coming out anyway, but it was even less than usual, hence the small amount I spent the day after Christmas. If only more weeks could be like that … but there’s too much good stuff out there!!!!

Money spent in December: $639.76
(Dec. ’23: $375.54)
(Dec. ’22: $408.52)
(Dec. ’21: $728.89)

YTD: $7404.79
(2023: $6654.45)
(2022: $10.604.06)
(2021: $7535.93)

I had hoped to keep going down with the money I spent, but I ended up spending $750 more this year than last year, and that’s annoying. The price of comics has gone up slightly, and for the past few months, I’ve been buying the DC ALL IN books plus all the X-books (which, yes, I plan to write about, but the wonkiness of the blog and time constraints keep me from it!), so that probably helps explain it, too. I always try to buy fewer books, but I don’t always succeed!

Let’s check out the publishers from which I bought comics this month!

Ablaze: 1 (1 manga volume)
Black Mask Studios: 1 (1 trade paperback)
Boom! Studios: 5 (1 single issue, 4 trade paperbacks)
Dark Horse: 1 (1 graphic novel)
DC: 6 (6 single issues)
Fantagraphics: 1 (1 graphic novel)
IDW: 1 (1 single issue)
Image: 6 (4 single issues, 2 trade paperbacks)
Mad Cave: 1 (1 single issue)
Marvel: 17 (16 single issues, 1 trade paperback)
Oni Press: 5 (5 single issues)
Penthouse Comics: 1 (1 single issue)
Titan Comics: 6 (3 “classic” reprints, 1 single issue, 2 trade paperbacks)

3 “classic” reprints (53) (2023: 52 2022: 77 2021: 66)
2 graphic novels (74) (2023: 66 2022: 141 2021: 125)
1 manga volume (10) (2023: 11 2022: 9 2021: 8)
36 single issues (212) (2023: 90 2022: 146 2021: 119)
10 trade paperbacks (109) (2023: 141 2022: 196 2021: 187)

It has been a loooooong time since I bought so many single issues, but 2024 seemed to be the year of the anthology, as a lot of them came out and I bought the issues instead of waiting for trades (which was probably foolish, but oh well). DC doing their ALL IN thing, which I figured I’d keep up on, certainly skewed the numbers (and I’m still not sure how much longer I’m going to be doing that), and Marvel rebooted the X-Men, and I decided to get those for a bit … and it turns out I like them quite a bit, so I’m still getting them (and, as I noted, I’m going to write about them, but who knows when). So … a lot of single issues. That number will probably go down next year, but who the heck knows?

I ended up buying, if my math is right, 458 individual comic-type books, whether collections, mangas, complete graphic novels, or single issues. In 2023, that number was 360; in 2022, 569; in 2021, 505. If we take out the single issues, in 2023 I bought 270 and in 2024 I bought 246, so I’m trending downward a bit, but the ALL IN thing and the X-reboot made my numbers rise a bit. Oh well. I find this stuff interesting. You may not!

Here’s the final tally of publishers from which I bought comics in 2024:

Ablaze: (8) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 3 + 0 + 1 (3 graphic novels, 3 manga volumes, 1 trade paperback)
About Comics: (2) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Abrams: (3) 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
Afterlight Comics: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
Ahoy: (2) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 trade paperbacks)
Alaxis Press: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Antarctic: (2) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 1 trade paperback)
Avery Hill Publishing: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
AWA: (6) 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 (6 trade paperbacks)
Battle Quest Comics: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 trade paperbacks)
Black Mask Studios: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 (1 trade paperback)
Black Panel Press: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Bloomsbury Publishing: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Boom! Studios: (19) 1 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 2 + 3 + 1 + 5 (1 “classic” reprint, 8 single issues, 10 trade paperbacks)
Cartoon Books: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Clarion Books: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Clover Press: (4) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints, 2 graphic novels)
ComicMix: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
ComixTribe: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 (2 single issues)
Dark Horse: (34) 3 + 3 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 5 + 6 + 1 (7 “classic” reprints, 5 graphic novels, 17 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
DC: (75) 1 + 3 + 4 + 5 + 2 + 3 + 4 + 8 + 6 + 25 + 8 + 6 (4 “classic” reprints, 51 single issues, 20 trade paperbacks)
DC/Marvel: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Dead Sky: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Drawn & Quarterly: (3) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels, 1 single issue))
Dstlry: (3) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 0 (1 single issue, 2 trade paperbacks)
Dynamite: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Epicenter Comics: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Fairsquare Comics: (4) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels, 1 trade paperback)
Fantagraphics: (13) 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 4 + 0 + 3 + 1 (6 “classic” reprints, 5 graphic novels, 2 single issues)
First: (1) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
First Second Books: (2) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Floating World Comics: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Heritage Comics: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Humanoids: (3) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
IDW: (9) 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 1 + 0 + 1 (2 single issues, 7 trade paperbacks)
Image: (62) 4 + 3 + 2 + 5 + 6 + 8 + 3 + 3 + 6 + 8 + 8 + 6 (2 “classic” reprints, 9 graphic novels, 22 single issues, 29 trade paperbacks)
Invader Comics: (2) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 1 single issue)
Keenspot: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 single issue)
Living the Line: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 manga volume)
Mad Cave Studios: (16) 2 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 3 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 1 (2 “classic” reprints, 4 graphic novels, 5 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
Magma Comix: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
Magnetic: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint, 1 graphic novel)
Marvel:(84) 3 + 3 + 2 + 4 + 1 + 3 + 3 + 10 + 9 + 15 + 14 + 17 (10 “classic” reprints, 67 single issues, 7 trade paperbacks)
Massive Publishing: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
MCD Books: (1) 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Microcosm: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 single issue)
NBM: (3) 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 graphic novels)
Oni Press: (22) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 2 + 2 + 4 + 3 + 4 + 5 (1 graphic novel, 16 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
Papercutz: (3) 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (3 “classic” reprints)
Pantheon Books: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Penthouse: (6) 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 1 (6 single issues)
Random House: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Rebellion/2000AD: (2) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 “classic” reprints)
Scout: (2) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 single issues)
SelfMadeHero Books: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Silver Sprocket: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
SLG: (1) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Storm King Comics: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
T Pub: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Ten Ton Press: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)
Titan Comics: (15) 0 + 4 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 2 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 6 (3 “classic” reprints, 1 graphic novel, 6 single issues, 5 trade paperbacks)
TKO Studios: (1) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 trade paperback)
Top Shelf: (2) 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
Valiant: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 single issue)
Vanguard: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (1 “classic” reprint)
Vault: (6) 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 2 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel, 5 trade paperbacks)
Viz Media: (6) 0 + 2 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 1 + 1 + 0 + 0 (6 manga volumes)
A Wave Blue World: (2) 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 (2 graphic novels)
White Hart Comics: (1) 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 0 + 1 + 0 + 0 + 0 (1 graphic novel)

DC and Marvel got big boosts from the single issues I bought from them, as last year the number of things I bought from those two publishers went down a bit. This year, if you discount the single issues, I got 24 things from DC (as opposed to 11 last year) and 17 things from Marvel (last year: 32), plus the one joint Omnibus of crossovers they put out. DC, it seems, had more softcover things this year that I skipped from the previous years (no Cliff Chiang Catwoman softcover, though – what the hell, DC?), while Marvel had less stuff that I was interested in. Oh well. I’m just trying to be more selective. So much of what I read feels familiar, so I’ve tried to skip more based on the synopsis in Previews. With prices creeping up, I have to be!

**********

I ended up reading 24 prose books this year, which isn’t bad for me. I know some people read a LOT more, and far too many people read a lot less – I was reading an article about how people still read quite a bit, but they don’t read books, they read shorter shit on their phones. Well, it’s still fucking depressing. My daughter used to read quite a bit, but she doesn’t anymore, and even my wife has started listening to podcasts like a fiend (to be fair, she works from home, has ADHD, and needs to block out all distractions, so podcasts help her do that) and doesn’t read too much anymore. I read prose fairly slowly, so 24 is a decent number for me. Plus, you know, I read something like 400 comics (I didn’t read everything I bought!), some of them pretty hefty collections. So there’s that.

I know I’ve been ranting about the blog, and I apologize, but we really don’t know what to do. I assume it doesn’t seem too, too bad from a readers’ vantage point, because we’re still able to post things … but Fraser and I (who, sadly, are the only ones who post here these days) have to strike quickly when the blog works, and his posts tend to be a bit shorter than mine, so he’s been able to keep up a bit. Occasionally, we’re able to save and/or publish without uploading images, and I know Fraser writes stuff and then uploads images in a flurry when he can. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to do that as well. I missed Friday with Greg’s latest column because I haven’t been able to do images, and now, in this brief window, I can, so I wanted to get this post up before the blog went kerplooey again. I’m going to start working on Greg’s post for Tuesday as soon as I post this, but I wasn’t lying above when I wrote that I have something like eight posts that I’m working on and I just can’t consistently do it. I don’t know what the problem is. It’s been happening since, what, October, and I don’t know if it’s something going wrong with the blog or WordPress. Ain’t nobody talking. I hope that you’ll still come around and check us out, because I know it’s frustrating when nothing gets updated for days, but we are trying. And, of course, we very much appreciate our readership. It’s fun!

I was going to write a bit about hoping the new year is better than the shitshow that 2024 was, but given what we’re about to inaugurate in this country, I doubt if 2025 will be much better. My only hope is that the assholes are already tearing each other to shreds, so maybe that will continue. My idiot conservative friend from high school posted a mini-rant on Facebook about how his friend’s kids and some of his son’s friends are having trouble finding jobs, and he blamed it on Musk’s immigrants on those H-1B visas and I was so tempted to leave a comment just going “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA you stupid fucker you voted for this shit” but that would not serve anyone any good. The Leopards Ate My Face subreddit is going to be fun to visit for the next few years, I’ll tell you that much. My only hope is that the Stupid Orange Baboon is too old and stupid to keep his acolytes from ripping each other apart rather than destroying the country. We shall see.

Blech. Sorry about that. Things are just sucky right now. On a more personal note, here is my colored hair journey through the year:

The only ones I didn’t love were the blue and green, because they faded poorly and the blue stained things a bit. The red (pic #7, not #4, which is pink) also stained a bit, but it faded nicely. Honestly, purple – the first one – was my favorite. But I had a good time with all of them, so there you go. It’s a new year, so what’s next? I’m glad you asked:

Yep, I decided to shave the old head. I used the razor I use to shave my face, and nothing fancier, so that’s why it doesn’t look as smooth as some dudes’, because they have fancy electric razors and shit. To be fair, I’m not keeping it shaved, though – I shaved it to start from zero, and I’m going to see how long my hair can get in a year. When I was but a lad, a lot of my friends had long, hair-metal hair (it was the late Eighties, what are you gonna do?), but my mom, to this day, thinks dudes with long hair look like “creeps” (her word), so she made me cut my hair the instant it got even the tiniest bit long. It was not a hill I cared to die on, so I didn’t argue. When I left college and moved across the country, I grew it a little bit, but my hair gets very curly before it gets too long, and I just don’t care enough about it to keep growing it. So I’ve kept it relatively short my whole life. Well, not this year. Will it get past my neck? Will it reach my shoulder blades? Will it barely get past my ears? Stay tuned for updates!

Well, it’s the 5th of January, and I could have had this done, probably, on the 31st (the 1st at the latest), so thanks for your patience. Let’s try and have a good year, and be decent to each other, ok?