oh, it's been a long time, blah blah blah.

anyway, i'm sure you're still reading, you lone reader you, so here... this is for you.

i've made the switch. to trades. here and there some monthlies, as i close out ongoing stories, but it's pretty much over for me and the big two as far as monthlies are concerned.

anyway, thought you might like to know.

The Golden Age Project

"During the darkest days of the twentieth century, the art form we all love had its Golden Age. Millions of copies of individual titles sold and thousands of GI's got a taste of home and an escape from WWII by flipping open a comic book. Our heroes, both the four color ones and our troops, were respected and enjoyed the support of our nation.

In the spirit of 'The Golden Age', comic book publishers and comic book enthusiast are banding together to give today's troops the respect they've earned and the support they deserve."

Some of the posters at cbr have put together this project and have already secured donations from Marvel, Crossgen and a number of Indy publishers. Now we need the money to ship the books to the USO for distribution. Donations are being accepted via paypal here.

whether you're for or against the war, i think we all agree our kids could use all the support they can get. here's something you can do for them.

yes, it's been a long time. yes, i've been busy. yes, i'm behind on my reading.

the thing is though, what with the war and all, i'm just glad optimus prime is on our side. lord knows that last thing i need is a giant robot ripping me a new one. seriously.

i'm all torn up about this collecting thing... i mean i like the magazines. i like them. i like the way they feel. i like the cliffhanger. i miss that in trade. and that's actually a big part of the comics experience. i mean yes i enjoy the escapist elements of comics, and yes i enjoy the regressive thing of words and pictures (although there's so much more to it than that), so trades are enjoyable. but there's something about the magazine. i also love my comic book store. i love it. it's fun to go there every week. and pick up a bunch of magazines.

the crux: trades are cheaper, more durable, and easier to re-read. but not everything is collected in trade. and i'm more likely to devour a trade, meaning that it's a longer wait between story installments. with magazines i get a monthly fix. and a lot more clutter. but i get hobby satisfaction (which costs...)

i don't know. i don't know. i have a bunch of issues i can sell for a lot of money, replace with trade and still have cash left over. and with some series i can do it, no problem. some series, like daredevil, i like having the issues of. gotta figure it out. gotta figure it out... when i have some time. gotta get back on the catalogue train.

look there are some new series out there that i've picked up that are great:

• H-E-R-O by Will Pfeiffer and Kano, published by DC
  
• Hawaiian Dick by B. Clay Moore and Steven Griffen, published by Image
  
• Unstable Molecules by James Sturm and Guy Davis & R. Sikoryak, published by Marvel
  

we also lost one of the greats: My Monkey's Name is Jennifer by Ken Knudsen. some kind of hiatus crap.

so the thing is, i saw daredevil last week at a press screening my friend mike got me in to. (thanks mike!) well, it wasn't half-bad. in fact, in our opinion, it rocked. i went in with low expectations, and it delivered so far beyond them i couldn't believe it. i'm not going to give spoilers here for you, because i figure you either already know them, or just don't care, but suffice it to say that they did change some stuff for the picture that i found to be successful, adaptation-wise. the acting was universally good, with one exception: colin farrell was OUTSTANDING as the psychotic assassin, bullseye.

anyway, just wanted to give a very enthusiastic reccommendation to this picture from a very devoted DD comics fan. i think the spirit is well served here. very.

the grunt work of collecting is a terrible thing, friends. i mean i know it was part of the reason to start this infernal habit, but little did i know how out of control it was going to get. (real out of control is the answer, by the way.)

history
i started out small -- palm-sized actually -- as i set up a basic database on jfile for my handspring visor. then as the collection started to grow, i got scared. because comics were piling up. my fiancee got scared, too, as short box after short box started to mar the decor of the apartment. all of this started happening fast, real fast. and as i entered rehearsals for a new play, i had even less time to devote. every month or so, i'd sit down, bag, board and alphabetize, but the actual computer entry stopped. at work, i decided to get back into it, so i built a filemaker pro database, complete with simple reporting capabilities, and imported the 80 or so issues i had catalogued into the visor. and that was that. what i did not do was start to diligently enter my back-stock. mistake.

present
i have hundreds of issues that are uncatalogued. i'm not a cataloguing kind of guy normally, although i have always been a categorizer and alphabetizer, with my book and music libraries. but with this new hobby, i thought, "hey, sounds like a good way to zen out." and it is, but i work in front of a computer eight hours a day, and the last thing i want to do when i get home is look at the damn monitor again. so the impetus to catalogue has dwindled, and i have stacks of unbagged, unboxed issues. and grand dreams of sitting down for ten issues at a time, just to make a dent, and in a month or two it may all be done.

future
there's a con in my city next weekend. can i get it done before then? (no is the answer, kids.) but, i'm moving this summer. halfway across the country. which will cost money. i happen to know that a number of books in my collection are worth a fair amount of cash, which i could use, but i don't know where they are, and to look for them would require a system, which i just don't have in place. i need to get everything catalogued before i am able to decide which issues to keep, which to junk, and which to bring to upcoming cons. and it's not only about the money. oh no. for example, i have a bunch of original miller daredevils that i picked up some time ago for cheap, but i don't know which ones they are. so i go to the next con, and i can't remember if i already have the damn issue.

and so...
i need a system to more easily help me catalogue. i really like the interface i've built on the fmp database, but it means entry pretty much from scratch (although i've just written a script that should ease things a bit.) there is a very expensive solution out there called comicbase, which does all the grunt work for you, all you have to do is check which ones you want, which you need, and you're set. it even has a report generator for palm. if i had the dough, i'd pick it up in a heartbeat. but i don't, so i can't. as it is, there is a more full-featured palm database that i'm looking at which is another (much smaller) cash layout i don't have -- although that may get lumped in with wedding expense, as i've built a pretty comprehensive wedding planner on the demo. the palm solution though would not really help with the grunt work, just mobility. i've looked at a bunch of web-based solutions, and nothing will let me export details of records, just which issues i have. there has got to be a way that won't cost an arm and a leg. a way besides the damn grunt work.

i know. i know.

i'm baaaack.

yes, lady and gentleman, i have returned. as posted over at mattyspace, the fact that my current work ethic sucks eggs has brought me back to blogging. i will try to post here on a semi-regular basis.

i'm not sure about weekly reviews, as that was always a bit of a pain for me (my reading tends to get done in binges, and often i'll go for two weeks or more without reading a week's books), but i will try to comment on the state of the industry, and maybe i'll do something fun like give a recommendation of the week (or whatever appropriate period of time i happen to post within).

two things today:

1. hawkman. regular readers (all two of you) will note that i have gone back and forth on hawkman. i picked it up. i liked it. i dropped it. i picked it up again. i dropped it. that was four issues ago. well, i just finished reading geoff johns' incredible return of hawkman arc in JSA (TPBs -- gotta love em), and i'm going to start picking the monthly hawks up again. because if that is the potential, i am on board. i loved what he did with the hawks in jsa -- the soap opera aspect combined with the indiana jones aspect. this is what i was looking for in the monthly but lost in favor of plain super-heroics. but in jsa, he found a perfect balance of all three. gonna pick up the missing issues tonight to see what there is to see.

2. hobby. i decided to get off my ass and catalogue the collection. i had been doing it for the first month or so of hardcore collecting last year, and then fell out practice when my buying habits started to get out of control. they're back under control now, but the problem is i have hundreds of books that need cataloguing. i'm an anal person by nature, everything in it's place, but i'm also always pushing my own personal time boundaries, so that when it comes to down time, the last thing i want to do is spend another 2 hours in front of the computer. i did design a fancy-schmancy filemaker pro database for the books though, and devised an MS excel spreadsheet to make for easy entry of long runs, so i hope to have all back issues entered by month's end (good luck). i look forward to having the whole thing indexed though, so i can look up without hassle which damn issues the bruce wayne murderer fiasco happenend in in cas i ever want to go back and well reread it. it should also make it easier for me to figure out which issues are on the chopping block. it's time for a purge, and i happen to know i have some issues, somewhere, that are worth a little dough. it sounds crass, and i know i'm killing the industry and all, but i want to unl;oad them for all they're worth while i still have the time, you know?

only 37 days till daredevil. as i am getting more and more intrigued by the alias tv show, i'm less and less miffed by jennifer garner as elektra. still not happy about ben affleck, but, what can you do?

stick a fork in me...

as posted over in mattyspace, i've just got too damn much on my plate right now. i'm still reading and enjoying, but no time to write it up. more next year, i hope.