November Highlights

More Reading, Less Posting

November has been a wild month. Moved into my new state of North Carolina, spent time getting to know the place, getting every registration and thing in order, and in my off time play video games and reading the comics that have been collecting dust.

Why Posts Have Slowed

Speaking of collecting dust…I finally got done what I promised in a Barry Ween post.

Worked out with time especially why it’s harder to find than it used to be.

Why I didn’t put this on Gutternaut’s main page is because of that obscurity. I get more traffic and eyes on Substack and it’s just too much SEO competition without it.

The most work I did on Gutternaut was updates and keywords in the underrated comics pages. Mostly so that I could fix some links and errors. Plus something where I try to anticipate engagement, a post about Invincible’s Bulletproof. It got a comment from someone so that’s a lot more than I expected. High SEO scores too, yet when I search Bulletproof Invincible or Zandale Randolph, I don’t even make high search results.

Compare that to Local Man and Blood Squad Seven.

Top of the search results surpassing review sites with more pedigree. With an “SEO Unfriendly” title no less. Plus this was my best performing post of the month.

All of this SEO on both the Wordpress end and Bluehost is confusing, a lot of work, and just plain redundant. And I gotta wait months to do that on Bluehost… This is work I don’t enjoy and worse I’m not getting paid for.

Usuals

Granted I’m not getting paid to cover Mad Cave stuff on here, and I’ve got enough material to update review posts for Dick Tracy and more on the main website. But at least there were enough hits to cover the misses.

Getting Through What I Have vs. Making More

I finally got the time to go through things between the Spider-Man 2 PS5 game, Rise of the Ronin, and several comics on my shelf. A number of them are more enjoyable than others. All of Jhonen Vasquez’s Slave Labor Graphics strips and such are perfectly okay in short bursts and taking things one story at a time. But doing them all at once, not so much. We Are The Rejected has similar issues, but it gets around that by going into how cults work on vulnerable people and the damage they cause.

So how did The Factor manage to do it without losing as much of my attention? The Factor? It’s something I picked up in a Local Comic Store’s bargain shelf. Printed and collected 20 years ago, I saw why it was nominated for an Eisner. The multiple perspectives of people through different art styles and voices about the effect a superhero brings is an amazing concept that shows a living world. More than the singular ramblings that sound better through Richard Steven Horvitz in Vasquez’s work. A lot more can be said by showing and telling by showing.

Then there’s Brian & Bobbi, published by 215 Ink before it was a pen company. Luckily the maker Adam Wilson works in a new publisher called Read Furiously. I might be a bit biased towards the effects of superheroes because this deals with the Factor’s opposite. On…you know what, this can be for another post.

The Wizard by Kereth Cowe-Spigai’s defunct Mad Yak Press is a weird yet endearing look at relationships and inhibitions.

Red Rocket 7 has plenty more weirdness that combines the effect of music with humanity. Still not the biggest fan of so many things that need to be explained.

Course gotta hit some snags like a webcomic turned album Soul Chaser Betty. Had the art, action, and presentation of something good but the execution couldn’t be pulled off as well. So sorry Bman, I tried.

Speaking of potential, I read Nox by Shon C. Bury. A guy who has made a lot of problems for himself with Space Goats. This mini-series had a very good presentation to it at first, a mystery element that goes into territory that force people out of their comfort zones. Not to mention characters with arcs. But then the pace got so fast with a resolution that basically came out of nowhere. Pretty emblematic of Bury’s legacy, a capable storyteller held back by time and money and had to finish what he had without a good payoff.

The effect of that is in one other story catching my attention, EZ Street from ComicMix. Age old tale of artists confronting the nature of storytelling: the disillusioning realities, the disappointments that come with a need for security and how even those don’t work out, the loss of confidence to try, and the attempts to do it all just because.

My Preferences?

I originally thought that I needed a break from the bigger books I have like omnibuses. In a way I still did. But I think there was more too. I try a lot of stuff that are great to read and can’t find digitally because they’re like artifacts. They have stories to tell and are from earlier times when people lose track of the stuff that doesn’t go viral. It makes getting these actual comic book albums and stuff worth it. No speculator markets, no distractions because you can do so much. And if the stuff is good and doesn’t get your mind to take you out of the story, even better.

Especially in a time when I can’t afford to just throw money around even with sales of stuff I could want. Especially with a job on a shelf. I need to make the most amount of my time right? So I shouldn’t mess around with big books when they might waste my time. If I can get through something I don’t know if I even like quicker and more efficiently, that’s good enough for me.

Going Forward

I’m not completely finished with the Gutternaut website, but it’s going to be a lot more maintenance than I thought. Plus I’m going through Leon, Protector of the Playground right now.

As for posts, I’m going to have to pick something between Hellboy: The Bones of Giants or Blue Hand Mojo. Maybe write more of those books; story or the guide. Whatever strikes my fancy more.