I feel like rambling a little – I’ll get to today’s story soon enough but, you know, I got the itchy fingers tonight and I feel like typing out a little extra.

First of all, did you all enjoy Elk’s Run 4? There’s been a few good things on the blog-o-sphere said about it already. Mark Fossen wastes no time in putting his review up and David Welsh pauses to reflect on the Speakeasy happenings and how it relates to issue 4.

I hope you also got to pick up Jay Busbee’s Sundown:Arizona #3 from Arcana while you were at the shop, too.

And speaking of books from yesterday let me just say that I am currently breaking my number 1 rule when it comes to comics which is, if you don’t like something don’t buy it. I first bought Infinite Crisis after someone told me how bad the first issue was – he sold the badness so well that I needed to check it out. I continued on to two and now three – I sat at Five Guys for lunch yesterday and sucked down a cheeseburger with jalapeños and A1 Sauce while reading it. I shit you not – I hardly understood a thing. I had to go online and read a summary to get it. I didn’t realize Atlantis was destroyed, no-idea what was going on with the Lex Luther thing – I didn’t know that Tower thing was supposed to be significant – nothing. I knew nothing. And I READ Detective Comics and Wonder Woman and yet I knew nothing.

It amazes me how people are going ape-shit over this book. There are five different storylines going on, tons of poorly-written exposition-heavy chunks of dialog, storylines that require you to read every DC book ever made to appreciate – what’s so fucking great about this book? I can’t stop reading it, though, I just can’t. I’m captivated – I would use the old “can’t keep your eyes off of a train-wreck” analogy but this isn’t a train wreck – this is a train crashing into the fucking sun and causing it to super nova – turning our solar system into a scattering of atoms. Who could keep their eyes off of that?

Also, I want to give much love to Shawn Hoke who named this site one of the 365 things he enjoyed about comics this year.

I tightened up three of the new columns. I’m excited for this. As of right now I’m calling the column “The Hive” which was sort of the name Jay Busbee, Jorge Vega and I were going to apply to our little group but we never used it and it’s a damn good name. Bit if they object I won’t use that. As far as how I perceive the quality of the columns, I don’t really like to brag so I’ll let the column's PR-representative, Adam Warlock, offer an official statement:


Two more days of Holiday Cheer left. Who makes the list? So far there’s been loved delivered to Josh Fialkov, Sam Keith, David Lapham, Larry Young, Nicholas Gurewitch, Chris Staros, Chris Pitzer, Frank Miller, the DC Conspiracy and a last-minute Holiday Wishes group hug to Saul Colt, James Patrick, Neil Kleid and Carla Speed McNeil.
Today’s sort of a double whammy, a convention and an organization I love and always call on when someone has the nerve to tell me about the irresponsibility of the comic community.

SPX is my local show and although I only went the past two years I’ve had more fun at that show than I’ve ever had at San Diego or Chicago. It’s low stress – the people there are looking for good stories more than flash and megaphones. Everyone’s talking, being sociable – the bar at the Holiday Inn afterwards is packed and if Steve Conley even knows your name he’s giving you free drink tickets. It’s the kind of show where you can have a book with high production values on your table and be able to sell as strong as someone with a critically acclaimed mini – that’s rare for a small press show. Plus the CBLDF auction is always fun.

Speaking of the CBLDF – they get some Holiday Love towards them as well. Talk about responsibility, while we’re all making comics with blood, adult themes and the occasional titty these guys are watching our asses and protecting us when some local prosecutor or federal agency wants to make a name for themselves. Seriously, have you ever seen CBLDF director Charles Brownstein at a convention? That dude’s working harder than us schmucks peddling our books. You go to his table and he’s pushing signed copies of Sin City on you while looking like he was taking into a back alley and beaten. The dude is tireless, and you got to appreciate that.

Well, you can show your appreciation by becoming a member of CBLDF as part of “Yet Another Comic Blog”’s Second Annual CBLDF Membership Drive. If ten people sign become members of the CBLDF (a 25 dollar donation) or renew their current membership, YOCB will donate $250 to the organization. So go, sign up, and then forward the confirmation email to the address given on YOCB. They need three more people and you’ll be helping a great cause.

Story time…

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Cher once said, “If I could turn back time. If I could find a way. I’d take back those words that hurt you and you’d stay.” Now, I normally don’t take anything Cher says too seriously but goddammit that plastic-faced, long-legged, half-breed vixen sure got that one right.

Towards the end of summer I invited Robin down to Brooklyn with me. She never really got to roll in New York the way us natives rolled and she was going to be able to meet my family which is kind of important at some point. We were probably close to three months together and it seemed like a good idea at the time.

My mom had heart problems a week before and she was feeling pretty out of it. They made a request to leave Robin in Boston for this trip and have her come up the next time I visit. Since I already made plans and got her all jazzed I didn’t want to mess things up by telling her we had to postpone the trip.

That was my first mistake.

I was driving down to New York with my pops and taking the Greyhound back up. There was a reason behind this – he had to bring something to me or I needed to bring something home, I honestly forget what the circumstances were. The drive down was pleasant enough, my sister came along as well and we were all just hanging and chatting and Robin was getting her first taste of the drama that is my family.

A little background, here – my mom and I had the tendency to go toe-to-toe quite often back then. It started in High School and carried over through college and was even present the first couple of years after college. We’re all good now, though, time and near-death experiences changes a lot of things. It helped that I grew up a bit too and she calmed down a bit. But, during these years – it got pretty crazy sometimes.

So we get to New York, Robin meets my mom – she doesn’t look that bad, honestly – she’s not laid out or anything, just tired. We all hang out and talk for a while – later that night Robin and I go glow-bowling in the city with Jackie and her cousin.

That could have been my second mistake.

The next day Robin wanted to go into Manhattan but Elizabeth, not knowing that, wanted to go to see a movie with her older brother since it’s sort of a tradition we had every time I was home. I agreed and Robin, Elizabeth and I went to see Iron Giant. Robin didn’t want to see Iron Giant and the fact that I broke our plans and dragged her to see a cartoon – it wasn’t that she was upset, she doesn’t really get upset – but it became obvious to her that she picked the wrong weekend to come up. That maybe I kind of should have cancelled this weekend and done a family thing. And that didn’t make her upset, but it made her quiet.

My mom – she doesn’t like quiet.

My mom is the type of person that feels the amount of talking you do is directly proportional to your happiness. So when she picked up on Robin’s quietness, combined with the fact that, you know, she was emotionally charged back then, her heart was all fucked up, she felt weak and she just wanted to see her son this weekend but I was spending the whole weekend out and about – kind of got her to asking me if Robin has a problem with them.

It’s an honest question, a bit heavy on the drama but if your son brings a girl home and her buttons up I guess you’d ask it. It upset me, though, because I always used to look for an excuse to get mad at my mom – heart problems or not. So when I told my mom it’s fine, Robin’s headache prone and gets tired sometimes, I could have left it at that. Despite the fact that she questioned more and really seemed to pick up a vibe that there was a coldness there

Really, I could have. If I listened to Cher, that it is.

They might have still felt a little bad but it would have eventually gotten better. Instead, when I went back into my old room and Robin asked me what’s wrong I might have nonchalantly said, “I don’t know, I don’t think my mom likes you too much” and by “nonchalantly” I mean “spitefully”.

Guess who I was spiting? Myself, apparently, because that quiet turned to a cold and that cold lasted for quite some time. They’re both stubborn women, or were, I should say, and I keep proving myself to be an idiot.

But we’ve all grown up a bit since then. A lot, actually. This Saturday my parents are driving up to Boston to spend Christmas with Robin’s family so that’s indicative of something. But man – so many stories evolved from that one stupid fucking sentence that I found myself, quite often, saying, “If I can turn back time. If I can find some way. I’d take back those words that hurt you and you’d stay.”

To which Robin replies, “Grow some stones and stop singing Cher, Nancy-boy.”