Remember when I said I was going to start reading 10 comic book titles from the mid-nineties on a monthly basis to recreate the experience of being a fan during that time period? Well, I’m still doing that, but I’ve changed the starting point.
After I announced my little experiment, a friend of mine who has never read comics decided it might be fun to join in. But looking over what we’d be reading were we to start in November of 1994 as I had intended, it became clear that this was not the right place for someone to get their first taste of the DC Universe. My goal was to see what it would have been like if I’d started reading comics right after Zero Hour, not to turn someone off the medium completely (which, judging by some of the artwork and writing during that era, was a distinct possibility).
So instead of 1994, I chose 2001 as the jumping on point. Specifically July of 2001, the month that this comic came out:
That’s the very first comic I bought in the summer of 2001 when I decided I wanted to maybe try reading comic books again. So I figured why not use that month as the starting point for this whole thing?
I picked another 10 titles, this time a mix of books I’ve read and know to be great (the aforementioned Green Lantern, Geoff Johns’ run on The Flash, Kevin Smith’s reintroduction of Oliver Queen in Green Arrow) and some I’ve never got around to (the Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl, the clone Superboy).
We’re going to try this out for five months, after which I plan to roll into my originally planned post-Zero Hour titles.
I was going to start this post with something about how the pop culture perception of Conan the Barbarian is clouded by the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies, that like Tarzan and Frankenstein’s monster he lost a lot of his intelligence in his translation to the big screen, and that while many think of Conan as a mindless brute his creator Robert E. Howard always presented him as uncivilized but never unintelligent. Then I realized that same misconception would keep most people from even reading this blog post about two of Howard’s most celebrated Conan stories, so why bother?
Instead, I’ll just talk about “Red Nails” and “The Hour of the Dragon”. Both were written late in Howard’s career, but they feature Conan at two very different times in his life. That’s because Howard didn’t write his Conan stories in chronological order. Howard’s stories jump around through Conan’s life — he wanted them to be told the way they would around a campfire, bouncing from adventure to adventure in whatever order the teller remembered them.
In the short story “Red Nails”, Conan is a young adventurer. Along with his companion Valeria, Conan discovers a lost city. While exploring, the pair find themselves caught in the middle of a blood feud between two rival factions trapped in the city. It’s a fun story with lots of action and black magic, two essential elements for a good Conan tale. Valeria is a strong character who more than holds her own alongside Conan. In fact, a good deal of the story is told from her perspective. I found the backstory about the history of the feud a bit confusing, and the “twist” at the end was telegraphed pages before, but otherwise “Red Nails” is very enjoyable.
“The Hour of the Dragon” is the only full-length Conan novel Howard wrote. It begins with an older Conan ruling as the King of Aquilonia and defending his crown against an alliance of foreign powers and sidelined members of the Aquilonian aristocracy. With the help of an ancient sorcerer, the group defeats Conan’s army and takes the barbarian king prisoner. The rest of the book chronicles Conan’s quest to reclaim his crown. His journey takes him from adventure to adventure, throwing him back into the life he lived before taking the throne. The adversity renews Conan, reminding him where he comes from and preparing him physically and mentally for the challenge of winning back his kingdom. Although this set-up could allow for something that feels like a collection of unconnected stories, “The Hour of the Dragon” always feels like a novel. Conan isn’t just moving from location to location, getting involved in unrelated adventures — each new challenge gets him closer to his goal of regaining the throne.
It’s too bad that the film versions of Conan have always focused on his youth because the older, wiser, Conan is equally interesting. Having a lifetime’s worth of experience to draw on makes King Conan an intriguing lead for a fantasy story.
“Red Nails” and “The Hour of the Dragon” are both worth checking out for anyone who is interested enough in the Conan stories to have actually read this whole blog post.
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Funny because it’s true. And that goes double for the Tim Horton’s sign at the bottom.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4pp3zhmpN1qewacoo1_500.jpg)
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Funny because it’s true. And that goes double for the Tim Horton’s sign at the bottom.
(via thisisheidibutler)
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And now The Exorcist might be a TV show? -
Am I just mellowing in my old age? Because nothing about this article which states they’re hoping to adapt my favourite movie of all time into a 10 episode TV series makes me angry. In fact, I’m kind of excited to see a fresh new take on it.
Of course, right now it’s all potential — if the next bit of news is that the creators of “American Horror Story” will be in charge or Ed Begley Jr. is playing Father Merrin, that would be a different story.
(PS: Coach Eric Taylor for Father Karras)
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I know it’s not going to happen, but I’d be really impressed if DC’s newly outed character was Superman. That would actually justify erasing the Clark and Lois marriage from continuity. Plus, Superman’s whole Clark Kent identity really is just a metaphor for being in the closet anyway.
(Source: pics48k)
So “House” ended this week but, despite guest appearances by Olivia Wilde and Kal Penn, we still didn’t get the episode I wanted where we learned Thirteen secretly murdered Kutner and made it look like he committed suicide.
I guess Dr. Remy Hadley will just remain at large then.
Like most comic fans, I love back issues. Whether it’s to re-read a favourite story from a few years ago or to discover a decades-old series I didn’t check out the first time around, I love collecting and reading old comics.
When I got back into comics, the $1.00 bin at my local comic shops and used book stores were the best way to fill in the gaps in my DC Universe knowledge. Sometimes I’d collect a series just for the sake of collecting it. Seeking out missing issues and rounding out my collection was as much fun as actually reading the comic books. In fact, in some cases I never even got around to reading the titles I collected.
Usually I pick a story arc of a title or a crossover event, then read the pertinent issues in a row like you would a graphic novel. But lately I’ve been wanting to try something different. What if I read a batch of back issues in a way that recreated the experience of being a comic book fan in the era they were published?
To do this, I chose a starting point (November, 1994) and a group of titles (more on that below). Then I set aside six months worth of issues for those titles and grouped them by month. Starting in June, I’ll read one of each title every month until I’ve read them all. I’ll read two or three every week, always in the same order, just like I would have if I’d been reading them as they were published.
I decided to use November 1994 as my starting point because it was the first month after DC’s big Zero Hour crossover event. It’s not a total fresh start like the recent DCU reboot, but it makes it less likely I’ll be starting titles in the middle of story arcs.
10 titles a month seemed like a reasonable number. Not only is that the most I would have been able to afford in 1994 (sure comics were cheaper then, but I was poorer too), but I’m still reading quite a few present day comics every month so an extra 10 would probably be my limit.
For the 10 titles, I went through my collection to see what series were being published between November 1994 and March 1995 that I have all of the issues for. I avoided characters like Superman and Batman who had numerous monthly titles that all had to be read together to follow the story. That left me with the following:
As I mentioned before, some of these issues I collected but have never read. I’ve also set aside a couple of alternate titles in case one of these doesn’t grab me. But if I drop a series after two issues, I’ll start its replacement title with the January 1995 issue. The point is to maintain continuity throughout all ten titles and recreate the experience of being a DC reader in the mid-nineties.
So that’s the experiment. I might blog about the experience over the next six months. If it goes well I might continue with some (or all) of these titles past November, or jump to a different time period and do it all again. And if it doesn’t work I can always go back to reading back issues as story arcs.
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Apparently there is. And Brooke Shields is playing Chris MacNeil. And the girl playing Regan is 23 which seems a bit old but hey, the magic of the theatre and whatnot.
As The Exorcist is my favourite movie of all time, I’d be open to seeing it re-imagined for the stage. As long as they aren’t turning it into a musical.
omg.
With Kyle’s dating history, I think we all knew this was inevitable.
(Source: enzeraika)
Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock lands on PSN May 23
via Joystiq:
Like the TARDIS, the PS3 is “bigger on the inside,” capable of holding an entirely new Doctor Who adventure within its slim casing. The BBC announced that Doctor Who: The Eternity Clock will be released “globally” on PlayStation Network Wednesday, May 23, and in UK retail the following Friday. “We really appreciate your patience as we’ve been making sure the game is perfect for all you eager fans,” said executive producer Simon Harris, referencing the two-month delay of the game, which made the title unfortunately ironic.
The brief announcement on the PlayStation Blog did not offer any release dates for the announced PC or PlayStation Vita versions.
This makes me wish I owned a PS3.
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