That was the week that was

[alexsarll]

The headline would have to come out of order, and that's my stand-up/lecture/thing at Bright Club on Tuesday, which seemed to go down pretty well. I'm sort of tempted to put the text on here, because I can't see when I'm ever likely to need to give another comedic talk about Emperor Frederick II, but you never know...

Otherwise:
- Paul Gravett giving a talk at the library about graphic novels, and slightly fluffing it. The guy is very smart, and engaging, and he knows his stuff, but he pitched this wrong. Too much of it was miserable autobiographical project after miserable autobiographical project and yes, that's exactly the way to get a reading group or broadsheet literary critic on board, but not this audience who were already reading comics. It's not the way to get the general public interested, either. Even if you don't want to talk about superheroes (and I can respect that, if only as entryism) then talk about Scott Pilgrim, Shaun Tan, The Walking Dead, the renaissance in crime comics, Bryan Talbot. Talk about the real variety in comics, not just the various settings from which people can extrude navel-gazing yawnfests.
- Runebound, which like Talisman takes place at the exact point where board games start to become simple roleplaying games. Yes, I am a geek, what of it?
- Spending more than an hour in the Camden World's End for the first time ever, and feeling very old, but strangely at home. I love that London, with all its infinitely diversified tribes, can still have somewhere that feels like The Indie Pub in a provincial town.
- thedavidx's Guided Missile special, with the birthday boy covering Adam Ant songs, and the Deptford Beach Babes, and Dave Barbarossa's new band (nice drumming, shame about everything else), and Black Daniel whom I still don't quite get even though I was in the mood for them this time. Plus, the return of the 18 Carat Love Affair! Now a slightly looser, rockier proposition, a little less eighties. Not a transition of which I have often approved, but it suits them.
- Realising that not only had I finally, definitely found De Beauvoir Town, but I was drinking in it. Then going home to be disappointed by Boardwalk Empire, which I will still doubtless finish sooner or later, but which I am no longer cursing Murdoch for nabbing. Not to worry, there are still plenty of other things for which to curse him.

Comments

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Oh no, it wasn't a small-town rock pub. That's the Intrepid Fox, or was - I've not been since the relocation. It's the everyone else who's not a townie, metalhead or old pub.

There's a big difference between stand-alone superhero comics and something which forms part of the main, ongoing universes. Pick up one of the latter and yes, the newcomer (or even just someone who's out of practice) is probably stuffed. OK, nowadays Google will explain the 'who' and the 'what', but that doesn't address the 'why do I care?' if the big revelation is that someone you've never bloody heard of was behind some things which made no sense.
On the other hand, you've got something like All-Star Superman which explains everything you need to know about Superman's back story in eight words on the first page. Or Watchmen, odd though I do find it that that is so many people's first/only experience of superheroes. The publishers could do a lot better at marking out which comics are accessible, but they always get greedy and start blurring the boundaries and then outright lying - DC's 'After Watchmen, What's Next?' campaign was promoting stuff I wouldn't fucking touch, never mind some poor novice who will then be left thinking that yes, there is only one good (superhero) comic.

[johnny-vertigen.livejournal.com]

There are hop on points with the ongoings (though decent ones are few and far between), I'm thinking of stuff like Morrison's New X-Men run. You can read the first trade of that and know who everyone is and any backstory you need (which isn't much really) is kinda filled in with the narrative.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

For sure, they exist. But without knowing a comics fan to ask, how do you find them? Brand New Day in Spider-Man also has a title which suggests you can get on board there, and OK, for those three volumes you can...but then the numbering on the spines gives out, and questions about his past start coming through, and yes these days you can soon Google the answers to those things, but you shouldn't have to. Or Brubaker's Captain America run, which is in many ways quite accessible, but is again let down by confusing numbering on the editions - initially I saw a 1 and a 2 and read one volume each of Red Menace and Winter Soldier, when in fact there were two of each.
Morrison was generally a good sign that you can start with his run and - while he will reference what has gone before - you're not expected to need it. JLA was the first mainstream superhero comic I'd read in years, and I had no problems. But then you look at his current Batman, or Infinite Crisis, and anyone who dives in there is in trouble.