Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Twitter is my enabler


I have been meaning to write about Twitter again. My use of it has been changing somewhat, and also, I still get a lot of question on it by people who have tried it, or thought about trying it, and have doubts about it.
There is a really easy way to start by tying it in to yesterday’s post with the comic reviews, because all of those came about via Twitter. If you haven’t been following along, listening to My Chemical Romance got me reading and writing comic books in about April. Well, I only wrote one long comic, but I read several, and I developed an appreciation for the art form.
Just before that was going down, in February, I joined Twitter, and while that started as more of a television thing, it ended up being more of music and political thing, and more recently it started growing exponentially.
I guess it started with Danger Days, because I started following Shaun Simon shortly after following the members of My Chemical Romance. He is a writer on the pending comic, along with Gerard Way, but also, I was rather delighted to see the name because he was the keyboardist in Pency Prep, and I like them a lot, and there is some beautiful keyboard work in there.
So I started there, and eventually I added Grant Morrison and Kristan Morrison, who are both in the Na Na Na video, and I guess this was about when I was writing a lot about comics, because Sequart followed me. Their prime role is publishing books and documentaries, but they have some really thoughtful essays on comic on their web site. Then I followed Becky Cloonan, who is the artist for the Danger Days comic.
The way all of this works together is that once you are following people they may post things that are interesting and lead you places. In addition, you get suggestions from Twitter on whom to follow (similar to Facebook friend suggestions) based on what you appear to be interested in, and I started following @JohnMiserable, who I am pretty sure is Hambone or John McGuire i.e. the bassist from Pencey Prep and that led to me Unwinnable, where he works, which is a great site for comics and gaming. Seriously I say this as someone who cannot personally risk gaming, and yet reading what other people have to say about it is really cool. Plus, now with the others that I follow, I keep getting more comic book related suggestions, and that is what led me to David Hahn. (And David Hahn led to me following a local falconer, which, how cool is that?)
For those three comics that I reviewed yesterday, my even knowing about them is wholly contingent upon that chain of followings. Becky Cloonan posted about Swamp Thing Annual, David Hahn retweeted an announcement about Memorial, and Unwinnable had an article about an expo where one of the photos accompanying the article was a promotional picture for Halloween Eve.
I’m not quite that susceptible a shopper. Okay, Memorial was impulsive. Somehow what they said about it was intriguing for no obvious reason, though the payoff in reading it justifies it right there. With Halloween Eve and Swamp Thing, it really was the pictures. The Halloween Eve picture wasn’t even labeled, but it was so gripping, and had such promise, that I wrote to the author of the article and asked, and Ian Gonzales replied promptly and helpfully, so I appreciate that.
With the Swamp Thing, Becky Cloonan put out a picture of Abby Arcane (when Alec first sees her), and it is absolutely gorgeous. It’s even more beautiful looking at it in person. It’s like Terence Malick shot it during the golden hours. And yes, ordering from Things from Another World, and following them so that I know about sales, has had an impact too.
It’s not that I would not know anything any comics without Twitter. The reading list I first compiled all came from reviews and articles I had already read, plus suggestions from talking with friends, plus a little bit of browsing around Heroes and Hobbies. The items that I am currently reading now, Flaming Carrot and Van Von Hunter, which will get some write-up later, were both already known to me. I learned about Flaming Carrot researching the Mystery Men movie, and Van Von Hunter used to run in the Sunday Comics. Twitter has just given me more.
And that is only what Twitter is doing in comics, which, while significant, is not nearly as high-impact as the music or politics. (The comics have eclipsed television.) It’s not that Twitter drives everything, but it brings me things I would not necessarily find on my own. It makes the world bigger, and more interesting, and more beautiful. Well, no, the world is all of those things whether I know it or not, so Twitter is just giving me a better view.
http://www.beckycloonan.net/

http://www.tfaw.com/
 

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