Sunday, March 22, 2009

Saturday Night Ramblings.

It's Saturday night(or I guess it's actually Sunday morning...)and since it's getting kind of late, I'm not going to bother to read any new comic books, even though I have an ever growing pile of new books forming on my nightstand. I'll just catch up tomorrow night. However, since I swore to myself that I would try to post SOMETHING nightly, I guess I'll just write some stuff on comic books in general and the "Watchmen" in particular.

Before I hit the hay tonight, I'll be reading part nine of the "Watchmen" graphic novel. For anyone interested, I'm up to the part where Dr. Manhattan just took Laurie to Mars while Rorschach and Nite-Owl barely managed to dodge the cops who were storming Owl's home. The Watchmen is an... Interesting book. I think the word "interesting" best sums up Watchmen to me. To be honest, I'm enjoying the story, but I haven't had that, "Holy s###, this is great!" moment yet. Maybe I've set my expectations impossibly high, or maybe that moment is still going to come. Or maybe there's just too much to take in and process in this book! This graphic novel might be one of those cases where with each progressive reading, I'll manage to enjoy the story a little bit more. It's really amazing just how much Alan Moore manages to put into each part/chapter of this series. I can't imagine there's anyway the movie could possibly convey half of what's happening in the book.

Besides that, I finally sent out my Marvel subscription renewal form, which has been laying around for weeks. I let Punisher and Cable run out(Punisher just isn't worth $20 anymore and I haven't bothered to read a single issue of Cable since issue #1!)and ordered Mighty Avengers(with Dan Slott writing that book I figured it would be worth it), besides re-upping the rest of the books I read monthly, except for New Avengers... My New Avengers subscription doesn't run out for a good 30 issues! Every time Marvel cancels a comic I have a subscription to, such as the Ultimate titles, they transfer the remaining issues of the cancelled book to New Avengers. So, much to my horror, I'm stuck with BENDIS and the New Avengers for at least 2 1/2 to 3 years!

The last piece of comic related news I have to share actually has to do with The Bard himself, William Shakespeare. Today, thanks to Shakespeare, I ordered three new comic tpb's from Amazon.com. I guess I should backtrack here a bit. For my Shakespeare class at school, I had to order "Mid-Summer's Night Dream" and "Much Ado About Nothing". Well, I noticed that both books were part of a "buy 3 books get the 4th one free" promotion, which of course had me searching for two comic trades to add to my order. Right away I found the "World Without Superman" tpb, which dealt with Supes funeral after his battle with Doomsday. "Great", I figured, "now I just need one more comic.". Unfortunately, the other comic that I really wanted, "The Return of Superman" tpb(which collects all of the "Reign of Supermen" stuff)wasn't a part of the 3 for 4 sale. I finally settled on "Batman Year One: Ra's Al Ghul", to be my 4th book... Of course now, I really wanted the "Return" trade, so I brought that as well, which means that thanks to Amazon's "sale", instead of just buying the two Shakespeare books, I wound up with three trades that I didn't really need in the first place! I guess those three trades can join the plethora of books I haven't had the chance to read yet...

3 comments:

  1. Hey X. I'm glad to hear your reading Watchmen. The TPB was my entre back into the world of comics three summers ago.

    For me, I don't believe there was a single, 'HOLY CRAP, THIS BOOK IS AMAZING!' moment. I only remember becoming so immersed in Moore's world, I'd close the book after a chapter, walk away from it, and then somehow find myself coming back to it minutes later when I hadn't intended to pick it up again until the next morning. Just a very addictive read for me.

    I'd be curious to know which character you identify with most. Anyone I've ever heard talk about it at length tends to have a favorite character. Mine was most definitely Rorschach.

    I was recently looking into doing the monthly subscription deal for $27.00 with Marvel for the titles I follow. I wished I had done it for Hulk since it's gone up $1.00 in the last month. Are you allowed to personally redirect your money should you get tired of a title?

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  2. Actually, I think I had that "Damn, this is great" moment after reading part 9 last night! I loved Laurie's interaction with Jon on Mars as she slowly came to the realization that the Comedian was her birth father. Jon changing his mind and deciding that the human race was worth saving and his explanation as to why was pretty cool as well. I've been reading one part/chapter of this book every night, and I had to FORCE myself not to continue reading last night, because now, I'm dying to find out how things end.

    I'm actually a bit conflicted as to which character I'd consider my favorite, which I think shows just how great a job Alan did with these characters. I really like the way Dr. Manhattan feels just totally detached from the world, being the only super-powered character. If you really think about his situation, he's the most tragic figure in this entire book, since he really has no one he can truly relate to. I'm almost tempted to say he's my favorite, but honestly, my favorite character has to be Rorschach. Once he shot that cop in the chest with his grappling gun, he was my favorite. How can't you like Rorschach's crazy behavior? The creepy mask, walking around with the end of the world sign, the way he deals with criminals, Rorschach is great. Although Rorschach is definitely my favorite, practically every other major character has some quality that endears them to me, which isn't something you'll often find in any type of book.

    I currently have 16(!)Marvel subscriptions and as far as I know, you can cancel a title whenever you want to, and Marvel will refund you the "pro-rated amount of your subscription" whatever that means... I don't think you can switch what you're subscribed to unless Marvel themselves cancel the book you are subscribed to.

    In other words, if you were subscribed to Hulk and it was cancelled, Marvel would automatically transfer the remaining issues of Hulk to another title(probably New Avengers...), but they would send you a form that allows you to direct the remaining issues to a title of your choice.

    If what I just wrote makes no sense(after re-reading it I was confused!), just let me know, and I'll scan and post the form Marvel sent me after they canned Punisher War Journal, that way you can read exactly what I'm trying to say.

    Over at Marvel's site they have the subscription price for new subscribers at $25 with each additional comic at $23. When you are a subscriber, you only pay $20 for 12 issues, which is the price I just put out for the books I recently re-ordered.

    Jeez, that was a long comment! Hopefully you can make some sense out of what I just wrote Yedna! If not, let me know and I'll do my best to clarify things for you.

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  3. Sorry about that broken link in the above comment, but it was only a link to Marvel's official subscription page, which is pretty easy to get to from Marvel.com.

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