End of the month already. Man time has a way of getting away, especially in these summer times. In any case, you may be wondering why I’m not getting as many posts out as last month. Not that this month’s posts aren’t good, at least I think they’re not. Why don’t you tell me:
Mad Cave Reviews of two sequel series’ first issues: Show’s End The Second Coming and Over The Ropes: Broken Kayfabe
How Marvel Comics’ Sliding Timeline can allow for the endearing characters in Marvel: The Lost Generation
Finally got to the Thai Comics bit I always wanted; and how its comic industry doesn’t reflect its country’s economy like other ones do
So anyway, it looks like the classic definition of memes play a central roll in contemporary comic books; spoilers it’s not a list of comic book memes
That last bit really got me thinking of a concept of a mini-comic I outlined and script-written, no it doesn’t have an artist… yet. I gotta have a portfolio for this kind of stuff and a notepad full of ideas.
Which is one of the reasons I didn’t make a lot of posts. Well that and I spent more time revising some of my older ones. I mean I made one of my older posts about Marvel’s original Civil War a talk about how it was driven by the central meme rather than the actual plot. But despite making it featured content, nobody’s really clicking on it. Maybe that event was so oversaturated that nobody wants to hear any more about it… Which is actually something I acknowledged on there.
Does Revising Content For Better SEO Payoff?
Hopefully the new SEO friendly titles and content in these other posts get people to stick around. A lot of people clicked onto my retrospective review on The Harbinger from May, at least compared to Tuki. Still gotta be grateful for that.
Although I really have to wonder if some of these changes are worth the trouble. I mean, I might have to change one of my pages from Historietas to Monitos just to differentiate it from Argentine comics. On that note, gotta give kudos to UMC Entertainment, it’s practically the only Argentine comic publisher I could find that’s still running internationally and its helping its neighboring countries out too. I really hope I can keep people’s attention as well as they can.
What Have I Been Reading?
I should probably tell people that I’ve been absorbed in my reading lately. It is what leads to that Lost Generation post. This time, it’s The Man-Thing that’s taking up most of my time. I’ve been wanting to cover Steve Gerber for a really long time, especially since he’s one of the few people who really gets the muck monster. Which is kind of tragic with how his creation Howard the Duck gets more attention… relatively speaking. At least he appears in the MCU in the flesh and feathers unlike Man-Thing’s background appearances. I guess when it comes to comedy and satire, Howard has an easier direction. Not only that, he was also one of the few people to give direction to Daimon Hellstrom aside from Warren Ellis.
Complain about Ellis’ faults all you want, the man’s got talent. I just hope the new Castlevania: Nocturne takes inspiration from the anti-narrative storytelling example Ellis employs more than Ellis’ “eccentricities”.
The Problem With Creative Highlights
Which is one of the problems I’ve been having with Creator Highlights posts. I need to have a firsthand idea of their bibliography. Frankly, some of my past posts were mostly flying by the seat of my pants. That and I tried and failed to capitalize on their popularity. Only problem is so many people wrote about them, I get obscured most of the time. Except when I go into riff territory like with Rob Liefeld or Geoff Johns. I mean I wanna be more optimistic towards creators with integrity, but users really have an appetite about ripping people to shreds.
But I also want to get ahead of the curve when it comes certain creators. It’s why that full John Ridley post or a post about Christopher Priest takes so long. They haven’t completed their runs or what they want to say in these circumstances. Unlike dead creators such as Gerber or Mark Gruenwald. But even that takes a while because some of their work is so hard to find, without breaking the bank, and not getting in the way of the omnibuses I already own.
Gotta Take Care Of Myself Too
Another thing that’s been taking up my time, video games on the PS5. I’ve been playing a lot of Returnal, and while I’m proud of the progress I’ve made on that Roguelike shooter, it’s been frustrating too. It’s a very well made game but I don’t want to waste my time.
Plus I gotta spend a fraction of my time eating low cholesterol foods. Less of the protein filled eggs and even less gas station/convenience store junk food. I’m gonna miss most of those low prices. And I gotta put more time in body conditioning, hopefully full body vibrations and a busy life can keep it down.
Warning Rambles
That’s also why I have a love-hate relationship with the app game Contra Returns. I like the personalities the voice actors give to the characters, but I’ve reached a point where the developers seemed to have hit walls. I don’t just mean the fact the voice actors stopped voicing bits. The RPG elements are great for new players, but it also makes the main story feel cheap when players actually build up their resources to practically become invulnerable to story enemies. The only real challenges come from the greater player community. But even that gets really one-sided with higher tiered characters and gear that can only be obtained through microtransactions or gambling. I don’t mind giving money to the developers because I’m hopeful this can tell executives and license holders that Contra is profitable… Konami. But not if it means I have to dive into a gambling and hoarding problem I’ve had when I used to obsessively collect Yu-Gi-Oh! cards.
Then there’s the digital comics I collect on my desktop. I’m grateful I can find good stories DRM-Free (no limits or work arounds to getting things off of a service) at good and fair prices but it’s gotten to the point where the file sizes slows down my desktop. Don’t even get me started on my over 1000 Steam games. I’ve been working on reading and doing stuff but it’s just so hard to prioritize stuff.
I tried other games like Horizon but because I tried to multitask I-
Ahhhh! Why does writing this stuff down feel more stressful than it actually is!
The Point
I wanna spend more time actually making content or doing stuff not let my life waste away. It’s why I spend more time on video games and comics, watching TV and streaming just becomes exhausting. Playing video games while watching brain numbing YouTube videos like Nico Animation’s Ollie & Scoops, that’s fine. Watching YouTube videos that give me more ideas for world building and characters, perfectly okay. But all of the streaming and binge content… I spend more time thinking what to see than watching that stuff. And while I wanna support artists who do these fun and entertaining things, I need to prioritize what I spend my money on. Especially after a bit where I messed up with a bank and a gas discount membership; all fixed by the way.
Future Content
So yeah, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna get content thrown my way for reviews this July but anything else I’m not so sure of. I’m definitely going to keep writing, reading, and watching stuff. I don’t feel myself burning out, but some of these things are going to have to take time.