Blogathon 19: Best Time to Stop Reading Superhero Comics (Part 2)

Fuck.

How do I approach this. I'll start at the beginning and see if I can not embarrass myself. What I wanted/expected when I began writing for CBR was a cheque every month. A cheque for doing something I already did, albeit in a slightly different way. I was broke, out of work, and that money came at a good time. I would buy my comics and still have money left over each week, because I always made sure to review more books than my comics bill would be. That mentality lasted until I found work in the fall of 2009. And began again when I lost that job later in the fall of 2009. That's okay, because it was a shitty job that I could never figure out. It was calling up people in Edmonton and Calgary, asking them to do vacation surveys. If they said no, you had to take no for an answer. 90% of the calls you made were blocked by the national blocker list or simply got no answer. Another 8% said no. Another 1% didn't fit the criteria. And they wanted a certain numbers of surveys completed each night. You were not allowed to falsify any. I got in shit for that, because, the surveys were step one. Step two was calling those people back and trying to sell them on a bullshit travel club membership. On my final night, in one hour, I made 110 calls. 100 of those had no answer/were blocked. Another 8 said no. 1 didn't qualify. 1 did. Somehow, it was my fault that I didn't get enough completed surveys, though they couldn't tell me how to get more. Because it was out of my hands. But, they paid me for a few months and I wasn't too sad about leaving behind such a scummy, awful job. It took another ten months for me to find another job. The CBR cheque helped a lot in that time. It took me a year or so of working my current job before I realised that I didn't like reviewing comics enough anymore and I didn't need the money anymore either. So, I quit. And it felt good. I wasn't enjoying the free comics writing stuff either, so I'm quitting that, too. I thought giving myself a year would mean trying to get as much out of it as possible. It meant I wrote about Avengers vs. X-Men and enjoyed that, but... yeah. Don't get me wrong, I never did the CBR gig "for the money" as it were. It just came along at a time when I needed money. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed writing about comics like that for a time. Of finding new ways to say things I'd said many times before. Of finding the line you couldn't cross and somehow sticking a toe over. Of hearing rumours or getting impressions that I'd pissed off some thin-skinned creators who never quite got that it was never personal until they decided to whine. And, even then, I didn't make it personal though I wanted to. I can't say that the comics themselves got to me. The comic review that ended it for me was an issue of Prophet early in 2012. It was a Sunday and I was at my job (I worked weekends then) and I had a choice: write the review or do some more work (I was ahead). I realised that I enjoyed the work more than the review writing. So I was gone.

I spend 9-10 at work every day (if you include travel), so, you're right, why would I want to have any other time wasted? That actually gets at the heart of why I'm quitting this blog. I want to scale it back and see what I really love about writing. Figure out how to do it all again and not treat it like a chore. Maybe part of that is getting away from what you mention: superhero comics aren't as smart as I am. I take these skills and tools that I learned in school that I honed on great works of literature and, then, I apply them to Avengers vs. X-Men and bask in the praise I receive for making those comics seem smarter and more worthwhile than they do when you actually read them. It's not something I've ever thought about consciously. Or for that long. My usual response was always "It's all in the work! It's not me!" But I wonder...

I'm not certain that that's it entirely. In leaving the internet (I even plan on setting out a rigid schedule for reading things online) I have thought about what that will do to my pull list. There are things I buy because I know I will write about them. I was thinking the other day about picking a number and seeing if I could cut back to that. I'm not sure I can. I'm not sure that I should want to. But, having Michelle in my life and working -- those two things together have made a lot of this seem like a distraction that I don't need. When I was going to school, I didn't have her, so this was fine. When I had her, I wasn't working, so I had plenty of time. Now, I don't have that time. And what about if/when we have kids? I don't know how Tim does it somedays. But, look at his comics reading habits now that he's escaped the week in, week out wheel of comics reviewing (and comics podcasting). I said earlier today that he's my example in many ways and this looks like another one.

I can't see myself giving anything up entirely. Specific books, sure. Maybe most of them. Maybe everything new. Maybe get rid of a lot of what I have. But, not all. Never all. And I think I'm going to teach myself how to love this again like I used to. On my terms.

I wasn't planning to say any of this until Tuesday. But, hey, what the hell.

Thanks, Tucker.

In 30 minutes, we try to recover with Augie de Blieck, Jr. and I discussing long, 100+ runs of comics we have read.

We're up to $779.95 raised for the Hero Initiative.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative (Details in this post)! After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 18: Best Time to Stop Reading Superhero Comics (Tucker Stone Guest Post)

I can't remember what was in my head at the time I asked you at what moment you think you should have stopped reading super-hero comics. What was it I was thinking?

I wonder what you wanted out of CBR when you first started reviewing there, or what you wanted when you hit a year, or two, or had your first taste of the meaningless of it all, the way a great comic or a great artist or a great writer could fail miserably to find its audience out of what initially seems like the most arbitrary bits, like the characters it featured, or the day it came out, or its lack of connection to a part of continuity, or any one of the things that tend to have so little bearing on quality and yet exert a massive influence over their popularity. I'm not curious to whether you got irritated--you either did because you're sane, or you didn't because you're a fool, and I have to act as if you're the former or else I won't be able to continue. I'm curious what you did after the irritation wore off, what motivated you to go forward. You have these funny little standards--not funny in a patronizing way, funny just in that they're specific and unusual, they're private, personal--and I wonder how that seriousness worked when you were met with such consistent mediocrity. I want to know about the moment when you let your standards slip. Me, Deadpool Max, I knew there was something off, but I kept returning. I thought I liked REBELS until I realized I just liked clinical, thin lined facial expressions. Looking into a box, realizing that I was the guy who read Geoff Johns Teen Titans comics, drawn by Mike Mckone. I see you doing it with Ellis, with treacly crap like The Massive, but I can understand that--it's competence, there's efficiency happening there. Bryan Wood, Bryan Vaughan--those are creators that have massive appeal if you have a tendency towards timers and productivity and deadlines. They get the job done, and while that job tends to be a 7 minute distraction over the barely 3 minutes that Rucka can provide, they tend to feel reliable. It's not art anyway, regardless of how well they've all adopted artist as their job description. Ellis is another beast entirely, a topic I can't imagine discussing with you seriously, we'd both just end up talking around each other, mumbling obscenities under our breath. It would be like an abortion debate, or the way Republicans and Democrats cockfight on talk radio. You think he's made some good comics, I think the world would be a far better place if he cleaned bowling alleys with his tongue and slept in a bucket.

Ugh. This is becoming such a mess. I don't have anything to say about this topic myself, that's the problem, so of course it's going to deteriorate into easy, familiar topics, like being sarcastic about ex-Vertigo check chasers with T1 lines. I bailed on super-hero comics because I got a Chevy Blazer and because I was obsessed with the idea that if I drove around in it smoking Marlboro Reds and listening to Pretty Hate Machine and Doggystyle, that if I did that long enough, girls with names like Kelli and Wendy would get into the Blazer with me and we could go watch movies where people murdered people because Tommy Lee Jones needed to wear a bandanna and no one would let him. I came back to super-hero comics because I read an article that Frank Miller was doing more Dark Knight comics, which he did, and I didn't fall in love with them the way other people did but I decided to read Kevin Smith comics because I had always liked the part in Mallrats where Jason Lee carried around his own little paper cup. Where else but in super-hero comics do people choose to consistently pursue something they barely even vaguely enjoy in a regimented, obsessive fashion? Television doesn't count, because television is essentially a more exciting version of an overhead lamp. You had to go and get comics, you had to pay for comics, there was effort and choice there.

I think about it now, and the only explanation that really makes sense to me is that I liked weaker, stupider stories that I could feel smarter than, because I didn't feel smart enough, and I didn't know how to change that. I didn't read hard comics, good comics, I read swill and organized it, I forced my way through Dan Jurgens on the Justice League, or that storyline in Batman where he fought an earthquake, and I knew it was page after page of garbage, but it gave me a momentary sensation of power and success to have read those things in order after having found them in order. I did that instead of actually doing things that make my life better, and I used the excuse that I deserved to have fun and kill time or blow off some steam or have some escapism in my life, when the truth was that I didn't want to do any of the things that I was doing nor did I want to be around the people that I was around, and having a regimented place to go to that wasn't some absurd church full of absurd chuchgoers made things more bearable, and finding out that Stanley was getting molested by the Monster was a small psychic price to pay for the opportunity to forget the choices I'd made.

I suppose it's impossible to argue someone into that mindset, it certainly sounds as if I'm describing shitty Green Arrow comics as the only bright spot in a life of horrifying pain--but that's only for exaggeration sake, to make it sound more interesting than it was: which was the actual problem. The mediocrity of my taste was a reflection of the mediocrity of my life, I read crap to forget about the weakness of my relationships, the impotence with which I pursued my dreams, the embarrassment I had for even having dreams. Super-hero comics weren't the cause, they were a symptom, but their toxicity has a tendency to spread. There's no better excuse for Catwoman 16 than Catwoman 1-15, quitting today--when nothing has actually changed, when the qualitative shifts are incremental at best--is merely a reflection that one should have never begun. And you know this part, don't you Chad? You run through the conclusion of another Marvel tie-in-a-thon and you know that it's meaningless, and I can hear it in your voice, you don't like it, and it would be so easy to dismiss it as no big deal--but it's a big deal for you now, right? You have somebody who loves you, and you love her, and there's weight to your life now, those moments you so easily burned through before now become moments that could have been spent in the presence of something or someone that actually does mean something, in the practice of something that's genuinely great and not just above average or okay or a nice way to spend ones afternoon.

Whatever. Winter Solider, right? Something by Garth Ennis. Nostalgia. Who gives a fuck.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative (Details in this post)! After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]

Blogathon 17: Best Time to Stop Reading Superhero Comics (Part 1)

Tucker Stone delivered a fantastic list of possible topics, but the one I had to choose was one with two simple questions: "When do you think you should have stopped reading superhero comics? Why do you think you kept going?"

It's tempting to simply go "Never! Because they're awesome!" but I won't do that. That would be cheap. (This is the part where I hope that Tucker doesn't do that...)

My initial answer was after The Authority #12 came out. But, my real answer after thought is after Marvel Boy #6 came out. I think I could have stopped then and been satisfied. That was a high moment for me and superhero comics. While the first 12 issues of The Authority were another big, important moment for me (I carried around the first four issues in my backpack for a month or so, just rereading and looking at them), Marvel Boy was one of the most important superhero comics for me, especially as a critic. It was the first that I 'got' and it was the topic of my first post on this very blog. If I were to have stopped reading superhero comics, I would like it to have been a big, great, happy moment. The end of a work that means a lot to me. Seems like the natural breaking point.

As for Tucker's second question... The obvious answer is another question "Why would I stop?" Why would I stop? Why give up rock music or action flicks or beat poetry or Futurism drama or anything else specific like that within a medium? What reason would anyone have to give it up beyond not enjoying it? Why do I think I kept on reading superhero comics past Marvel Boy? Because I enjoy them. Not all of them, obviously, but at least one. Usually more than one. Why give up on something you enjoy unless for some external reason beyond your control (like a lack of money)?

Even the idea that one should bothers me. I don't think that was Tucker's intention, except in a tongue-in-cheek way. Superhero comics dominate the comics medium in North America for a variety of reasons -- one of them being people like me who enjoy them. Sure, there are plenty of people who buy them who don't seem to enjoy them and they should probably stop. Me? I dig 'em. I do. Hell, my last Blogathon was devoted to them -- and in the period following when I would have chosen to stop reading them! (Did Tucker somehow know my answer? Is he a witch?)

There's also the fact that superhero comics have always been a part of my life. That's both a good and bad reason to stick with them. "Because that's the way it's always been" is horrible, yet understandable. I've always read superhero comics -- even before I could read. They were always there and it seems strange to imagine my life without them. Just like it's strange to imagine my life without certain foods or clothing or other things. They've always been there. Maybe they shouldn't be. But, I wouldn't know how to stop them from being here. I guess that would apply to comics in general. My preferences do lie more towards superhero comics than anything else, though.

I'm curious to see what Tucker has to say on the subject. I'm probably more curious about his post than any other for this Blogathon. It will be up in 30 minutes.

[Don't forget to donate what you can to the Hero Initiative (Details in this post)! After you do, let me know via comment or e-mail (found at the righthand side) so I can keep track of donations -- and who to thank.]