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Sound Off

Every year, there comes a point at some time in the middle of Spring when I start wishing that it was a little bit warmer, just a little bit, because then it’d be time to sleep with the windows open once again. Portland Springs are mercurial, tricky things that like to pretend to be heating up only to trip into three more weeks of freezing rain, but each and every single year, there’s a time when I think, maybe we’re there, maybe I can start opening the windows now with such eagerness and anticipation that it’s almost tangible.

It’s not simply that fresh air is a wonderful thing, and something that I suspect will make me sleep better in some magical, indefinable and probably not actually true manner, although that’s certainly true. (The reality is, admittedly, that at least the first few times when I open the windows and it’s too early, I sleep worse because at some point I wake up because I’m so cold.) It’s an optimistic belief that sleeping with open windows will leave me more connected to everything happening outside the house, all the birdsong and nature and all the life in general; this sincere hippy-ish thought that has only grown in stature across the past few years.

Here’s the thing, though: I believe this every single year because I forgot how fucking noisy it actually is outside my house. This past weekend was the first few nights the windows were fully open, and it was terrible.

Part of that is because I live on the same block as no less than two bars and a handful of restaurants, which means that the weekend is the time when there’s a lot of shitty music being played very loudly right outside my window. Another part comes from the fact that neighbors, reasonably enamored of the weather, decided to invite friends over for a late-night private party, which meant even more shitty music and loud conversation essentially directly underneath where I was trying to sleep. A third element was the traffic, which included a number of people seemingly trying to recreate Fast and the Furious along the street where I live.

That first night, I was woken repeatedly by a bass drop and resultant cheer, a revving car, screams of recognition for some newcomer to the party, or the like. I’d just be slowly, slowly falling asleep, and then noise. Back awake.

I fell asleep eventually, exhausted and grumpy, only to wake up too few hours later to the sound of birdsong — the very thing I’d been looking forward to for weeks. I groggily opened my eyes and registered what I was hearing as it slowly started to sound correct in my head. “Shut the fuck up,” I whined, pointlessly.

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Everything Was Still

For the first time in a long time, I found myself woken up by a nightmare the other night. I’m not going to share what the nightmare was, because (a) I don’t fully remember everything, and (b) what I do remember was less of the “oh no, a giant monster is hunting me how cartoonishly terrifying” and more of the “that emotional fault line I have in my heart because of relationship trauma is still there and the dream decided to wrench it open again a little bit, just for fun.” Which is to say: not for public consumption, sorry. The reason I mention it isn’t to be a tease for emotional sadists, but to share what it felt like after I woke up.

When I was younger, I remember waking up from nightmares and just essentially shrugging internally, turning back over and falling back to sleep. “That was annoying,” I’d more or less think, and then immediately move on. Apparently, that’s a skill I’ve lost. Instead, I lay there in existential turmoil, replaying what little bits I could remember of the dream as the memory decayed and fell apart around me. Worse yet, I had that moment of uncertainty whether or not what I’d dreamed was actually a dream or a memory in the half-awake haze, and spent an worryingly long time (it felt like) going, but that didn’t really happen, did it? It couldn’t have, but maybe it did. Did that happen? and dealing with a kind-of pre-emptive follow-through of how I’d feel if it had, in fact, been real.

During all of this, I was very aware of the stillness of everything around me — the lack of any noise or movement even outside the window, as if the entire world was lying there beside me, around me, stuck in that same uncertainty about what was real and what wasn’t, and what would happen next regardless. I was unmoving on the bed, in fear of what I’d just felt and what I’d hopefully imagined-as-opposed-to-remembered, and everything else seemed just as frozen as I was.

I thought to myself, it was really just a dream, it didn’t happen and no-one said any of that and I thought to myself, I wish I could just turn over and go back to sleep, but I’m not even feeling tired anymore, my brain won’t stop and it’s still the middle of the night. And then, I closed my eyes for a second and it was hours later, full sun outside and I’d forgotten even more details about the thing that seemed so all-encompassing what felt like just a minute before.

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Mumble Gripe Moan

Secrets behind the blog: There was, originally, an entirely different post here that you’ll never see. I wrote something that was, reading it back weeks later — yes, sometimes I manage to write these weeks in advance (and sometimes I really don’t; the former is what I prefer, being the particular brand of deadline-obsessed weirdo I am) — nothing more than a rant about a work thing that, while I still entirely agree with it, is of zero interest to most people and probably pretty unprofessional to boot.

Re-reading it, I started to think about the idea of “quality control” when it comes to this place — wondering about the extent I think about other people reading what I write here, and how much (if at all) that colors what I write here. It’s a strange thing, really; I write for “an audience,” because that’s what I think I’ve always done, everywhere and everything I write, stretching all the way back decades by this point — but that audience is a different thing in my head in different places that I write. (When it comes to work, I am keenly aware of the audience and when I’m writing to them or not; it’s debilitating sometimes.)

Here, though, the “audience” I’m writing for has always been a strangely amorphous thing. I think of this place as more self-indulgent and, to an extent, “just me,” but then I get rid of a post because it feels too meaningless and too self-indulgent, so there’s some other bar(rier) at play here, although I’m not sure I could articulate that if pressed. Perhaps it’s simply my way of confessing that there are parts of my life that I think are too boring to share with the world…?

(Oh, friends, just be glad I don’t share my love of doing the dishes as self-care here. No-one wants to know about that.)

Sometimes, I think that I should give more thought to what I’m doing here. Other times, I just remember how necessary this space — and venting here, with these streams of consciousness — has been, and how it feels when I don’t give myself that opportunity. All of which is to say: if you’re reading this, thank you. I don’t understand why you’re doing it (and I’m not asking! Please don’t tell me, I’ll get in my head about it), but I appreciate that you’re here so much that I’ll delete a ramble about work to save you from my worst impulses.

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The Movies of April 2024

If there’s a takeaway to be found in the weird batch of April movies, it’s that Shane Black does really good buddy comedies. (I put The Nice Guys on, on a whim, and immediately thought, “Oh, I need to rewatch Kiss Kiss Bang Bang next.” That was not the wrong idea.) Oh, and also, No Hard Feelings was far more enjoyable than I’d expected — everything from Immaculate onwards was watched during an 8-day stretch of work with no days off, and I needed things to distract me. Please note that they kind of got dumber as the time went on. (The Fern Brady stand-up special is really great, though; I’m a big fan of her’s, I admit.)

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The Comics of April 2024

I cannot tell you why this happened, but it really looks like I read a bunch of comics in April. I’m not entirely sure how true that really is, because for some of the month, I was reading a lot of crossovers, instead of runs of one single title, but… well, take a look at the number for yourself, and know that I got over the 100 mark before the middle of the month arrived.

  1. Avengers, Inc. #4
  2. Marvel Super-Heroes: Secret Wars – Battleworld #2
  3. X-Force (2019) #48
  4. Immortal X-Men #18
  5. Fall of the House of X #s 1-2
  6. Timeless (2023) #1
  7. Sensational She-Hulk (2023) #3
  8. Justice League International (1989) #s 56-57
  9. Action Comics (1938) #675-676
  10. Superman: The Man of Steel (1991) #10-11
  11. Superman (1987) #66-67
  12. Adventures of Superman (1987) #489-490
  13. Justice League America (1987) #s 52-54
  14. Justice League Europe (1989) #29
  15. Justice League America (1987) #s 55-56
  16. Justice League Europe (1989) #30-32
  17. Superman ‘78 #s 1-6
  18. Superman ‘78: The Metal Curtain #s 1-6
  19. Green Arrow (2023) #11
  20. Justice League America (1987) #s 57-60
  21. Justice League Europe (1989) #33-35
  22. Justice League America Annual (1987) #9
  23. Justice League America (1987) #s 61-77
  24. Star Trek: Day of Blood #1
  25. Star Trek (2022) #s 11-12
  26. Star Trek: Defiant #s 6-7
  27. Star Trek: Shaxs’ Best Day #1
  28. Justice League America (1987) #s 78-83
  29. Guy Gardner #15
  30. Justice League America (1987) #s 84-85
  31. Justice League America Annual (1987) #7
  32. Justice League Quarterly #s 4-8
  33. Justice League International (1989) #s 58-60
  34. Justice League International (1989) #s 61-62
  35. Star Trek: The Motion Picture – Echoes #s 2-4
  36. Justice League America (1987) #s 86-88
  37. Justice League America (1987) #89
  38. Justice League Task Force #13
  39. Justice League International (1989) #s 63-65
  40. Total Justice #s 1-2
  41. Justice League America (1987) #s 90-92
  42. Justice League Task Force #14
  43. Justice League International (1989) #s 66
  44. Total Justice #3
  45. Justice League America (1987) # 93
  46. Justice League Task Force #16
  47. Justice League International (1989) #s 68
  48. Extreme Justice #s 0, 1-4
  49. Marvel Feature (1971) #s 11-12
  50. Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #1
  51. Void Rivals #8
  52. Supergirl (1996) #s 1-10
  53. 2001: A Space Odyssey #s 2-7
  54. Extreme Justice #s 5-15
  55. Transformers (2023) #7
  56. Extreme Justice #s 16-18
  57. World’s Finest Comics #s 215-216
  58. Rise of the Powers of X #s 1-2
  59. Captain America (2023) #5
  60. Fantastic Four (2022) #15
  61. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #s 1-2
  62. Justice League of America (1960) #144
  63. Justice League (2018) #1
  64. Uncanny X-Men (1963) #s 3-6
  65. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 35-36
  66. Hardware (1993) #s 17-18
  67. Superboy (1993) #s 6-7
  68. Icon (1993) #s 15-16
  69. Steel (1994) #s 6-7
  70. Blood Syndicate #s 16-17
  71. Static #14
  72. Superman: The Man of Steel #37
  73. Superman (1987) #93
  74. Action Comics (1938) #703
  75. Adventures of Superman (1987) #516
  76. Superman: The Man of Steel #0
  77. Superman (1987) #0
  78. Action Comics (1938) #0
  79. Adventures of Superman (1987) #0
  80. DC’s Spring Breakout #1
  81. Superman: The Man of Steel #38-40
  82. Superman (1987) #94-96
  83. Action Comics (1938) #704-705
  84. Adventures of Superman (1987) #517-519
  85. Superboy (1993) #s 1-5
  86. Zero Hour #s 4-3 (Series counts down)
  87. Zero Hour #s 2-0
  88. Superboy (1993) #s 0, 8-9
  89. Superman (1987) #s 41-42
  90. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 464-465
  91. Action Comics (1938) #s 651-652
  92. Superman (1987) #s 49-50
  93. Adventures of Superman (1987) #472
  94. Action Comics (1938) #659
  95. Superman: The Doomsday Wars #s 1-3
  96. Green Lantern (1990) #s 48-50
  97. Green Lantern (1990) #s 42-43
  98. Green Lantern (1990) #s 1-3
  99. Thanos (2023) #2
  100. Doctor Strange (2023) #11
  101. Guy Gardner: Warrior #s 18-21
  102. The Flash 2024 Annual #1
  103. Nightwing 2024 Annual #1
  104. Superman: House of Brainiac Special #1
  105. Harley Quinn 2024 Annual #1
  106. The Penguin #9
  107. The Flash (2023) #8
  108. Green Lantern (1990) #s 4-8
  109. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 41-44
  110. Superman (1987) #s 97-100
  111. Action Comics (1938) #s 706-709
  112. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 520-522
  113. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 523-525
  114. Action Comics (1938) #s 710-711
  115. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 45-46
  116. Superman (1987) #s 101-102
  117. Superboy (1993) #s 10-19
  118. Steel (1994) #s 1-5, 8, 0
  119. World’s Finest Comics #221
  120. Superboy (1993) #s 20-24
  121. 2000 AD Progs 2377-2379
  122. Superboy (1993) #s 25-30
  123. Aliens: Colonial Marines #s 1-2
  124. New Year’s Evil: Gog #1
  125. Superboy (1993) #s 49-56
  126. Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #s 2-3
  127. Daredevil (1964) #s 110-112
  128. Superboy (1993) #s 57-65
  129. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #s 1-2
  130. Wolverine (2020) #41
  131. Avengers (2023) #9
  132. Superboy (1993) #s 66-69
  133. Marvel Two-in-One (1974) #4
  134. The Power of Shazam! (1994 OGN)
  135. The Power of Shazam! (1995) #1
  136. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #1
  137. Action Comics (1938) #712
  138. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 47-49
  139. Superman (1987) #s 103-105
  140. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 526-528
  141. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #2
  142. Action Comics (1938) #s 713-715
  143. The Nice House on the Lake #s 1-12
  144. Superman: The Man of Steel #50
  145. Superman (1987) #106
  146. Adventures of Superman (1987) #529
  147. Action Comics (1938) #716
  148. Sensational She-Hulk (2023) #4
  149. Thunderbolts (2023) #2
  150. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 51-52
  151. Superman (1987) #s 106-107
  152. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 529-530
  153. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #3
  154. Action Comics (1938) #s 716
  155. Batman (2016) #147
  156. Birds of Prey (2023) #9
  157. Avengers West Coast #s 63-65
  158. Aliens: Colonial Marines #s 3-10
  159. Aliens: Salvation
  160. Avengers West Coast #s 66-69
  161. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 53-55
  162. Superman (1987) #s 108-111
  163. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 531-534
  164. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #4
  165. Action Comics (1938) #s 717-721
  166. The Spirit (1977 Kitchen Sink series) #30
  167. Superboy (1993) #s 70-74
  168. 2000 AD Prog 2380
  169. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 1-4
  170. The Brave and The Bold (1955) #s 194, 200
  171. Batman Special (1984) #1
  172. Batman Family #1
  173. X-Men (2021) #30
  174. Daredevil (2023) #5
  175. Batman and the Outsiders (1983) #s 5-10
  176. Batman and the Outsiders Annual (1984) #1
  177. Superboy (1993) #s 75-79
  178. Avengers: Twilight #2
  179. The Invincible Iron Man (2022) #14
  180. Seven Soldiers: The Bulleteer #4
  181. Superboy (1993) #s 83-84
  182. Batman and Robin (2023) #9
  183. Green Lantern (2023) #11
  184. Superboy (1993) #s 85-89
  185. Absolute Power Free Comic Book Day 2024 Edition #1
  186. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 56-57
  187. Superman (1987) #s 112-113
  188. Adventures of Superman (1987) #535
  189. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #5
  190. Action Comics (1938) #722
  191. Shazam (2023) #11
  192. Suicide Squad: Dream Team #3
  193. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 536-538
  194. Action Comics (1938) #s 723-725
  195. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 58-60
  196. Superman (1987) #s 114-116
  197. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #6
  198. Justice League vs. Godzilla vs. Kong #6
  199. Duke #5
  200. Avengers West Coast #s 70-74
  201. Adventures of Superman (1987) #s 539-540
  202. Action Comics (1938) #s 726-727
  203. Superman: The Man of Steel #s 61-62
  204. Superman (1987) #s 117-118
  205. Superman: The Wedding Album #1
  206. Cobra Commander #4
  207. Dick Tracy (2024) #1
  208. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #s 25-34
  209. Adventures of Superman (1987) #541
  210. Action Comics (1938) #728
  211. Superman: The Man of Steel #63
  212. Birds of Prey (1999) #s 56-59 (First Gail Simone issues)
  213. Space Ghost (2024) #1
  214. Secret Six (2006) #1
  215. Superman (1987) #s 119-120
  216. Adventures of Superman (1987) #542-543
  217. Action Comics (1938) #730
  218. Superman: The Man of Steel #64-65
  219. Superman: The Man of Tomorrow #7
  220. Excalibur (2004) #s 1-4
  221. X-Force (2019) #48
  222. Action Comics (1938) #1065
  223. Superman (2023) #14
  224. The Immortal Thor #6
  225. Resurrection of Magneto #1
  226. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #27
  227. Titans (2023) #11
  228. Wonder Woman (2023) #9
  229. The Mirage
  230. The Maze Agency (2023) #1
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And The Crash on The Sidelines

When I work a comic convention, it puts me in a particular mindset that’s difficult to explain; the best (or, at least, easiest for other people to understand) way to describe it is that I hyperfocus on the work at the expense of nearly everything else: I go where the work demands, I work until it’s over, and that becomes my primary focus over, basically, everything else. It’s as if my brain goes, oh, this is a work trip? Okay, so we’re all about the work and that’s it.

From an employer point of view, that probably sounds like a dream, but on a practical level, it’s not ideal; without fail, my sleep cycle gets screwy because all of a sudden I’m sleeping odd hours without meaning to — waking up earlier than I’d like because my subconscious feels as if there’s something I should be alert for and working on — and my diet similarly goes to shit, because I put off meals until my body is yelling at me to eat, because I tell myself that I can eat after this next thing, and there’s always a next thing. My hyperfocus is so narrow that the necessities unfortunately drop off a little.

I’m sharing this because, this past weekend, I’ve been doing something new: working a convention from home. On the one hand, that’s not entirely new because I’ve reported on conventions I’ve not been at before in a more limited capacity, but this time, it was a more intense, more intentional effort: I was editing and acting as back-up writer for the team at Chicago’s C2E2 all weekend, and tasked with a bunch of things that made it very much a “working the con for real, just from somewhere else” experience… and I found that, despite being home, my body and head went into exactly the same routine, and suddenly I’m working 12 hour days and not eating enough and only sleeping 6 hours a night at most despite trying otherwise.

I’m sure this is a habit I have to break, somehow; it’s not good to feel as tired as this even while working from home for a three-day stretch, nor is it particularly good to decompress my brain by watching Anyone But You or No Hard Feelings while collapsed on a couch because, sure, glossy romantic comedies feel like a good idea right now over anything more intellectually stimulating. (Reading, curiously enough, goes by the wayside for anything other than work during cons; one day, I’ll work out why. That said, No Hard Feelings was actually great…?) Objectively, this is not a “good time,” and yet…

I don’t know, maybe this is Stockholm Syndrome talking (Con-home Syndrome, in this case, for those who love puns?), but there’s something oddly reassuring to me that the experience transferred like this. It reaffirms that it’s conventions that do this to me, not travel, per se; that it’s hyperfocus because of work, and not an unease about being unmoored away from traditional comforts.

As a workaholic, I feel that’s easier to deal with, more acceptable, than the idea that I lose all reality when I travel, considering almost all of my travel in recent years — by which I mean the last decade, shockingly — has been related to work in some way or another. Having such a “con” experience while home is, in its own sick way, a sign that if I ever manage to have a vacation again, it might not be such a meandering mess.

There’s something to be said about accentuating the positive, I think to myself as I also ponder how tired I am.

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The Things We’ve Seen, The Things We Didn’t Know At The Time

I had a moment not too long ago when I realized with no small amount of surprise that I remember an internet before YouTube.

It’s one of those things that, when I stop to actually think it through, only makes sense: I remember all kinds of “old things”: dial-up, GeoCities being the seeming building blocks of the entire world wide web (as it was called at the time, Netscape Navigator, newsgroups, and so on. I remember a world before the internet, and the fear and thrill and disbelief of the internet becoming a thing in the first place. (None of us really knew, if we’re being honest; I can remember talking to a researcher working on their PhD who was an internet evangelist in the mid-1990s and thinking in all seriousness, nah, this will never change our lives the way he thinks it will.)

But these days, looking things up on YouTube seems almost second nature when looking for video (or even audio). It’s a shorthand, an easy shared reference that everyone understands. The closest thing to a public utility, in some ways, even though it’s part of the Google Machine and very much not a public option in very meaningful ways.

I remember when YouTube was a new thing, and it felt strange to find actual video like that all collected together in one place; I have a sense memory of sitting at the computer in the first San Francisco apartment and looking things up on the site just because of the novelty of it all.

There was a point, back then — which feels almost parallel to when Blogger was relatively new, and there were other new ideas and formats being created to share things online — when the web felt like a new and exciting thing, and perhaps more importantly, a thing that had a real opportunity to be a Force For Good, whatever that might end up meaning in the grand scheme of things. Where every step was a step forward, even if it was just a small one.

We were all younger then, with no idea what a mess lay ahead of us all.

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A Lesson Not Learned

There was a point, a lifetime ago, when I realized that the me inside my head and the me in the real world looked very different. This is, literally, decades in the past — I was in art school at the time, and spending every second week drawing a comic strip in which I appeared as a character alongside my best friend of the time, and the two of us had managed to get our self-caricatures down to, if not a fine art, then at least a practiced one due to all the practice we’d had. (The drawing, after all, was merely there as a support to the writing, despite the fact we were both art students.)

But then… I changed the way I looked, not thinking about what that would mean for the strip.

When the strip started, I had a beard and, midway through its run, I shaved it off. (I feared I looked too old, too hippy-ish with it; this was the Britpop era, after all, and hippies were decidedly not in back then.) I remember thinking as I did so that I’d no longer have the scribble at the bottom of my cartoon face, but beyond that, not giving the strip any choice… until people started telling me that I didn’t look like myself anymore.

They were right; I’d not realized — because I didn’t look at my own reflection closely, I suppose — that the shape I believed my face was had been the outgrowth of my unkempt beard, and that the blockhead I’d been drawing didn’t actually match my naked chin, after all. The me I’d been drawing was… well, nothing like me at all.

Upon realizing this, I initially felt self-conscious about it: How could I not have noticed? and Did I not know what I actually looked like? What kind of artist am I? Looking back now, it feels like an important lesson in a need to keep checking in on myself that I entirely missed the point of, in the flush of youth. After all, why keep track of how you’re doing when there’s a new Blur single to fall in love with…?