Comic Shopping

So I met Kalinara for lunch today, and as it was a nice day, we went for a walk. During this walk we went to three stores, two of which were comic shops I'd never been to.

The first of these was hers. It was impressive. Twice as big as my LCS, it had a lot of merchandise, but still seemed open. It emphasized the games, I think -- they're the first things you see when you walk in -- but the comics section is pretty well organized, segregating titles by company or genre, and sorting them alphabetically. I found one issue of Marvel Adventures Fantastic Four I'd missed but hadn't found. There were more than a few tall shelves of trade paperbacks. We didn't really have time to peruse them, but I have a feeling I'll be going back at some point. Oh, and the staff seemed nice enough, too. Good vibes all around.

The second shop was not impressive. Small, and disorganized, it had long boxes strewn haphazardly under gaming tables and employees that didn't seem all that interested. I'd been keeping an eye out for an issue of Marvel Adventures Iron Man (the one featuring Yay!Spider Woman). We (well, Kali) asked whether they might have it, and one of them replied, "Probably not". Maybe he knew what he was talking about, but I kind of got the impression he just didn't want to bother. Then he went back to eating lunch. On the way out, we took a look at the back issue rack. Among other things, there was an issue of Anita Blake sandwiched between The Flash and Batman and the Outsiders. Which sounds like bad slash fic, but whatever. If the store survives the recession, I'll be surprised. That is, if I notice.

Later, at my own LCS, for which I have new appreciation, I found the Iron Man issue I was looking for. As part of a digest, but that's easier to store, anyway. That made me happy. But the real find of the day occurred not at a comic shop, but at a used bookstore. I'd been to the store before, but not to its second floor which has, among other things, television and film tie-in books:


Yes! It is a novel based on a screen-play for a notoriously bad film (which I haven't seen) based on comic books that aren't bad at all. I read the first chapter tonight. It's very meta, which I guess you have to expect. And it's probably better than the movie, since you actually picture comic book Howard, not a guy in a duck suit. (I still want to see the film, though, for the score if nothing else. John Barry is very good.)

It definitely takes precedence over finishing Twilight.

In Which I Blame the Blogosphere

I am taking an English class right now. Well, it's really a writing class, and it counts as a writing credit to the institution I want to apply to. (I haven't applied. I'm scared to apply there again. I went to the campus today to meet Kalinara and somehow managed not to cry. Much. That campus is like a lost home. I practically grew up with it, or parts of it at least, and... and I digress...)

Anyway, I'm taking an English/Writing class in order to make my lost home happy, and we finally got our first essays back today. We get to rewrite them, which is good, because the class really has been more about literary discussion than writing techniques. Today was our first in-depth lecture on writing literary analysis, and guess whose essay was dissected by the professor for the class's benefit?

Yeah.

It was technically anonymous -- the prof. took my name off of the piece before throwing it up on the projector screen -- but people knew. Whatever. It doesn't really matter, and since the prof.'s handwriting is difficult to read, hearing his comments out loud helped me. And while the essay needs work (does it ever!), it was chosen because I did a few things correctly, such as write a kick-ass thesis statement. Whatever else I do to my essay, the thesis stays more or less the way it is.

I also did some things wrong. These were common enough errors, but I did learn that the way the Comics Blogosphere often seems to talk about its literature does not fly in a formal classroom setting. These are the three top things I learned today:

1. Slang is not a good idea. I really didn't mean to use it. Oops.
   
2. The characters are not real people. We know that, of course, but we fans often talk about them as though they are. This is fine when you're talking about the direction you'd like to see your serial fiction take, I think, or if you're writing fanfiction. Or role-playing, or something. This is not so fine if you are analyzing Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" for an academic audience.
3. Speculation is also a Bad Thing. See Number 2.

I blame you, Comics Blogosphere. You are a bad influence.

Fanvid!

I have made a fanvid. Of this I am quite proud.



Description (also on YouTube):

This is a tribute to a webcomic called The Dreamer, written and drawn by Lora Innes. Read it here: http://www.thedreamercomic.com. I've been wanting to make a fanvid for a while now, and this is my first... Well, it's my second, but it's the first that I can actually share. Still, I think this turned out reasonably well, and it wouldn't have if I hadn't found just the right music...

The music, by the way, is "Fur Elise", (composed by Beethoven, 'natch), as played by Taimane Gardner. It's from her album LOCO PRINCESS. Check out her homepage, http://taimane.com/, or listen to her at Tribe of Noise (http://www.tribeofnoise.com/TaimaneGardner).

The track is used with permission and under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)