Comics!

Lately I've been taking advantage of this Amazon Prime thing by ordering up anything that catches my eye. After all, I am paying for that free shipping. And I am buying things that I otherwise might not spend my money on, because of purchasing this year of free shipping... Oh... well, look, it's books, and will I ever regret a book?

Definitely not.

That's not entirely true, I have purchased one terrible book. I'm usually very careful about books, purchasing only things I have already read, or by authors I trust, or based on previews and reviews that entice me and are reliable. I am very critical in this, and so far, the only time I wasted my money was in purchasing Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, which I gave away for free in disgust. It was an amusing idea, poorly executed.

Anyway, since then, I have been even more strict in my book purchases. Libraries exist, use them as previews. Listen to your friends when they tell you a series starts to suck. Spend a few minutes reading in the bookstore.

[I must confess I took a short break writing this entry, and purchased two more books just now]

I have regretted a few comics that I bought, but those don't count as much... I think taste in comics changes more quickly for me. Some things I bought in high school are just too foolish for me now. And yet, some of the books I read in elementary school are still totally gold (the Redwall series, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and several more that could make for their own post).

At any rate...

 Lately I'm buying a lot of comics!

No shot of my face because I'm not wearing makeup, and while I'm not usually vain, it's just not working today

Jess Fink wrote We Can Fix It a while ago, about having a rad jumpsuit and a sweet time machine, and going back to try and fix all the embarrassing and sexually awkward and painful things in her past. It was quite funny, but took a dark turn very suddenly that I wasn't expecting, right before the good ending.

I love you, Jess Fink. You are one of my biggest sexy and funny heroes. You nail it every time. Check out Kid With Experience, her sketch and daily-life update comics.

On Tumblr, I follow a lot of people who like comics, despite the fact that... I'm not that into comics. Comics like Batman and Red Sonja and whatever else is popular right now... for some reason it just doesn't grab me the same way?

This makes only the second "classic" sized comic to hit my shelves.  V For Vendetta is the other one. 

At any rate, someone posted some panels from Rat Queens, which is about crude and sassy ladies (a dwarf, an elf, an ex cult member, and a smidge... whatever that is, who go on quests and get drunk and beat people up and are funny and badass)

Despite feeling hesitant, I ordered the first volume. I liked it quite a lot. It was just as... well, crude and sassy and pleasing as one might expect.

[My new books are only 2 days away from me!]

Not going to lie: I'm quite pleased with my purchases above, and one of the books en route to me is another comic book (eeeeee!!!) but comics are still sort of weird for me. I mean, they take but a brief time to read, and yet I tend to avoid comics that have just walls and walls of text right off the bat, and people whinging on for ages about backstory so that you can understand the world the author has built. SNOOZE. Show me, don't tell me! If you make it too complicated, it won't work.

Is that asking for too much? The balance between fast and tedious?

V For Vendetta walks the line very well, I think, with big chunks of text-less art that provides lots of exposition and action. It fits with V's character to be a loquacious ninja. There are walls of text in V, but they are timed well, and fit with the characters who deliver them.

Maybe I'm demanding too much, but I don't care... I curate this library!



[Adding a comics tag to the cloud now]