You may recall that I
have been going through and catching up on my comic book reading. I blogged
about it in January, but it's more obvious if we're friends on Goodreads.
There are a lot more
options for reviewing single issues now. It is still not always possible. There
were a few where I had compliments to give, and there was no entry for giving
them. Then the ones that I thought were terrible were there. Do my reviews may
seem overly negative? Still, if I had compliments there is a good chance that I
will be reading more, and there will be another chance.
There was a handful where
my negative feedback was specifically about sexism, and they came pretty close
together. Does that make me seem like a single-issue comic reader? I'm not, but
it is something I notice, and it bugs me.
(And are people really
paying that much attention to my reviews?)
For sexism specifically,
two of the comics were inspired by video games. I have no doubt that some of
the character and costume issues come from being true to the game, but it
should still be possible to do better. Even if a central feature of the
character (and her costume) is the enhanced cleavage, there are framings and
vantage points that can emphasize or de-emphasize it. It gets old, is all I'm
saying.
I think tomorrow I am
going to delve more into what I have been reading, but focus on the broader
issues today. For one thing, I have seen that I am going to need to be more
organized going into the next segment.
Previously I have had
three sources for choosing what to read: my Dark Horse Digital bookshelf, my
Comixology library, and my spreadsheet.
Of course I have a
spreadsheet. This is actually just a tab on my spreadsheet where I track almost
everything. (There are a few things that have their own spreadsheets, but this
one covers a lot.)
It just so happens that "Comics
and Drawing" is the most chaotic tab on the Schedule spreadsheet. That is
partly because it contains both comics I want to read and comics I want to
draw, but also there are a lot of entries from different sources. There are
URLs for web comics, and the names of studios and artists, along with titles.
Sometimes there are specific issue numbers for some titles, or articles with
suggestions, or clusters of titles or artists that came from one article.
Now there have been some
new additions. No matter how disorganized I can be, the organization of the
Dark Horse bookshelf is top notch. I would have liked it if the Hellboy comics
were in strict chronological order, but at least when they reference an event
they always tell you where it happened. Anyway, it was pretty easy to go
through my shelf in a logical order. Building on that required something more.
I thought I would just
add the titles of the books I wanted to follow up on with other titles already entered
in the spreadsheet, but that felt insufficient. I have added four Dark Horse
columns to the spreadsheet, based on how much I want to read more: Definitely,
Possibly, Unlikely, and Other.
("Other"
currently contains seven titles that I have already read completely and three
titles that are samplers or compilations. I may follow up on some of the
characters included in the compilations, but it's different.)
As I start going through
my Comixology library, I am going to have to start tracking them that way right
away, or I will never be able to keep up. I am glad to realize that before
getting started.
Going back to that blog
post in January (at which point I had already read many issues of Hellboy), I wanted to get really caught up before
November, when I will read Native Americans in Comic Books: A Critical Study by Michael Sheyahshe, and launch myself into
comics featuring Native Americans. My hope of catching ICAF in Seattle in November raises the stakes. Can it be
done?
I can be caught up
enough. I am caught up on Dark Horse, and I believe I can catch up on
Comixology between now and November - that's almost three months for 196
comics, but many of which I have already read.
For that list on the
spreadsheet, though, that's less likely. I have already been pulling from it,
adding one trade to pretty much every library trip. I have read some things
that I have been meaning to read for a long time, and that has been great.
There are also a lot left, and I keep adding to it.
That is a great problem
to have. It has been great fun catching up on different things. Even the comics
that bug me don't change that I really love comics. Not matter what I end up
having read or not read, I will have so much more background knowledge for the
next ICAF -- and it was terrific when I attended as a relative newbie.
About four years ago I
mentioned a trip to Floating World Comics, and as I was trying to locate some
things explaining to the worker (apologetically) that I was a latecomer. I will
always remember him telling me that was great, because I had everything to look
forward to.
It still feels that way.
So many comics later, there is still so much to look forward to.
I love it.
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