I know that I have not been consistent in my postings, but I
have my reasons—everyone has their reasons—my just happens to be laziness. Anyways, I am going to try and become a
better more consistent writer and to aid in this goal, I am initiating a
personal challenge to myself to: (1)
post at least once day for every day this week and (2) to write either 500
words per day or 3500 words total for the week.
Now, I understand that no challenge should be without consequences or
rewards, but I have yet to come up with anything as this was really a spur of
the moment type of challenge (by the way, I am counting all of these words
toward my daily and weekly tally). Of
course, I may or may not come up with something during the course of this week
and if I do figure it out, then I will be certain to post it here to serve as
some sort of visible benchmark for which I can hold myself accountable.
I suppose the biggest obstacle for me (aside from laziness)
is coming up with topics to discuss (though this is more of a one-way lecture
rather than an actual discussion because no one visits this site and because I
have turned off comments). Fortunately,
I have something from which I can work from—an update that I posted on my
Tumblr account recently—and the best part is that it is something familiar to
this site (I think I’m going to start referring to this “site” as a “journal”
since this is this site’s actual purpose): graphic novel reviews.
Over the past four days, I have had the opportunity to make
a small dent to my graphic novels queue by reading the following: Captain
Marvel (2012), Southern Bastards,
Batgirl, and Batman. Let’s get these
thoughts out of the way!
Captain Marvel,
Volumes 1 and 2 (2012)
I have seen and read a lot about the hype surrounding this
series and I finally decided to take the plunge and read it. First, the artwork takes some serious getting
used to because it is far sharper (or perhaps, “jaggier”) and “sloppier” than
what I prefer, but as I just alluded to:
one gets used to the style and during the course of reading the two
volumes—I accepted it and moved on. As
for the actual story, I did enjoy it though I wish the arc could have finished
within Captain Marvel’s own series rather than reaching into the Avengers
series.
Southern Bastards,
Volume 1
Now, here was something completely unexpected. This series was recommended to me by a
coworker and it did not disappoint (I guess the guy knows what he’s talking
about). I’m not sure if it was the overt
bastardization of Southern culture or the grizzled protagonist that allows his
big stick do the talking (i.e. – he beats the hell out of a lot of high school
football crazed rednecks and gets the hell beat out of him by said stick), but
I thoroughly enjoyed this first volume and I cannot wait to see what is coming.
The New 52 Batgirl,
Volume 4
It is rather surprising just how much I have come to love
the Batgirl character. Initially, it
started with a simple yet modern costume redesign, but that eventually led to
actually learning more about the character through her adventures in crime
fighting and her journey to regain the confidence that she lost as a result of
the events of The Killing Joke. I enjoyed this volume of the Batgirl series—seeing
her cope with the apparent death of her younger brother, James Jr., at her
hands as well as dealing with the fact that she is now public enemy number one
in the eyes of her father, Commission Jim Gordon just gave more to enjoy about
a previously little known about character from a line of books in which I was
familiar. In truth, the Year Zero story
arc looks like it was a good one (if they carry on from the final chapter
included in this volume) and I look forward to reading it soon.
Now, I did also read the fourth volume of the Batman (non-Detective Comics) series, but I will save my thoughts on that
volume for another update later this week. (I can’t go spending all of my
writing topics in one post, can I?)
Word Count: 741 (of 3500)
