Category: Blogathon

Hrm. Thought I posted that last item at the bottom of the hour, but just did it now. So I’ll quick whip up another post.

Doyce headed back out. Many thanks for the donuts.

Ah, he dropped by a comic he’d borrowed that I wanted to review.

Continue reading “BT03 – Additional thoughts”

Concluding my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

(And, yes, there’s a numbering problem I need to go back and fix.)

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 8”

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 7”

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

(The rain is gently tapping on the ground outside. The thermometer says 64 degrees. I’m actually getting a tad cool here in the breeze. Helps keep me awake.)

(Listening to: Soundtrack to The Mummy, by Jerry Goldsmith.)

UPDATE: Doyce showed up in the middle of this, with donuts, so it slowed me down a little.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 6”

I’ll confess that I find some of the stuff the CBLDF defends to be distasteful. Why, then, support them?

Because if I can impose my taste on the law of the land, then so can someone else. And I’ve little doubt that there’s things I like that others would find distasteful.

Or, as others have put it, far better than I:

If the First Amendment means anything, it means that a state has no business telling a man, sitting alone in his house, what books he may read or what films he may watch.
    — Justice Thurgood Marshall (1908-1993), from a unanimous court opinion (1969)

At the heart of the First Amendment lies the principle that each person should decide for him or herself the ideas and beliefs deserving of expression, consideration, and adherence. Our political system and cultural life rest upon this ideal. Government action that stifles speech on account of its message, or that requires the utterance of a particular message favored by the Government, contravenes this essential right. Laws of this sort pose the inherent risk that the Government seeks not to advance a legitimate regulatory goal, but to suppress unpopular ideas or information or manipulate the public debate through coercion rather than persuasion.
    — Turner Broadcasting System v. FCC, 114 S. Ct. 2445, 2458, US Supreme Court (1994)

I believe that the First Amendment should cover everything. Even the incredibly icky, distasteful stuff. Because if we let “them” start making ethical judgments, they might not stop until it’s nothing but Norman Rockwell and Hummel figurines.
    — Phil Foglio (b. 1957)

The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one’s time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
    — Henry Lewis Mencken (1880-1956)

The extra fillip in CBLDF cases — and what makes the CBLDF different from, say, the ACLU or other First Amendment defenders — is the popular prejudice that comic books are for kids only. If comics are just for kids, then anything in them that is not “kid-friendly” is indefensible, like the Disney Channel suddenly putting “Daisy Does Dallas” at 9:30 in the morning.

But comics are (as I hope at least today’s posts have made clear) not just for kids. Indeed, they are for all ages, and forcing them to comply with just what is suitable for 8-year-olds would be like having the Disney Channel run on every station, all night. I mean, I like PB&J Otter as much as the next guy, but that only goes so far.

So one of the things the CBLDF works on in particular is cases where comic books are being particularly targeted because they are comics, because they are not real art, not truly protected speech.

And that’s why the CBLDF.

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 5”

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 4”

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 3”

Continuing my list of The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 2”

Well, now that I’ve exhausted my stack of recent comics (except for the ones I haven’t read yet from this week — and I might be reduced to that by the end of the evening), let’s try a new project: The Top Twelve Comics Everyone Should Read.

That’s a bit prententious, perhaps.

First off, the Twelve. I did a pass across my Trade Paperback collection, and pulled twelve volumes that struck me as being significant, good reads, and profoundly influential in the medium. They are what I would call the “good literature” of the comic book world. I’m sure there are those who would disagree with me, but if so … go get your own blog.

I ended up with twelve. I could cut it back to ten, maybe, but why?

I’ll also admit to cheating here. Some of what will be mentioned are series, not individual comics. If I had to come up with the Twelve Greatest Issues of Any Comic Book … well, we’d be here all night and meeting back together next week sometime. So some of the Top Twelve will be series, others will be individual volumes.

Finally, while all of these are books I read and reread, they are not necessarily all what I’d consider my Top Faves. We’re going to get to that list next. (And note that list will be heavily influenced by rereadability, too.)

I have a lot of good TPBs and GNs that won’t fall into either list. I may discuss some of them, if the oil level begins to run low in the wee hours. We’ll see.

I’m going to do these in alphabetical order, largely because doing them in order of preference of profundity is too much work, and probably not a worthwhile endeavor anyways. I consider all of these to be excellent. Hope you do, too, and if you haven’t read them, that you will.

Continue reading “BT03 – Top Twelve, Part 1”

When Margie and Katherine came home from the swimming pool, during the power outage, the garage door, obviously, wouldn’t open.

Katherine’s comment: “The batteries must be dead.”

Smart kid.

Continue reading “BT03 – When Comics Reviews Collide!”

Back in the saddle again!

I love all those old Lee-era titles. They’re great.

Slow going this time out. A few distractions going on here at home.

Continue reading “BT03 – My Comics Reviews, My Enemy!”