#251. QB Midyear Report

#251.

Posted the big QB Midyear Report over at Lower Decks, a ranked listing of my 75 favorite series, stories, and general comics from the first half of 2010, which has been pretty eventful, from the news that the top two books, G. Willow Wilson's Air and The Great Ten have been prematurely cancelled, to waiting since February to finally getting my hands on Andi Ewington's [forty-five]. Anyway, hopefully worth a look for comics fans.

#250. Reading List: The Little Book

#250.

The next book on my Reading List:

The Little Book, by Selden Edwards, one of those truly fascinating books with a fascinating story behind it, too. Edwards is a first-time novelist, and he's been working on this one for decades, a time-travel adventure with true literary ambition.

Gods Behaving Badly, meanwhile, was absolutely awesome.

#249. Pro Wrestling Illustrated, Projects, Inception

#249.

So I ended up subscribing to Pro Wrestling Illustrated, a move I was somewhat reluctant to make, but the PWI 500 is coming up and they've apparently put A.J. Styles on top (a good move). Wal-Mart (at least my local one) stopped carrying the magazine, and I think the subscription price was half off, so it seemed not entirely crazy at the time. I guess I'll find out.

I also got the Ricky Steamboat DVD (at said Wal-Mart), so I look forward to watching that, and got to watch some Raw on Telemundo today, so I guess it was good a time as any to lead off another blog with wrestling.

I've got a comic brewing tentatively called Corridor that is serving as my latest hope at breaking in. Who knows? I'm still trying to sell Finnegan, or The Second Coming (though for what it's worth my mom seemed less enthusiastic about this one than she did about Cloak of Shrouded Men, and so has my older sister, who has been extremely reluctant about reading it, but this one's a lot more cerebral, philosophical than even the first book was). And I'm still writing poetry.

I've taken to the idea that it's better to live in one's own reality than to try and impose yourself on someone else's. It's almost the message of Inception, so I'm not entirely crazy. Or maybe I am.

Time will tell?

#248. Reading List: Gods Behaving Badly

#248.



Up next on the Reading List:

Gods Behaving Badly, by Marie Phillips, a comic novel looking at your familiar Greek pantheon in modern times, the first book not to be epic length in ages, but still quite entertaining. I didn't really know what to expect from this one, other than a premise I found charming, but the writing really is quite good.

Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games, was really quite excellent.

#247. Fan Companion, Modern Woe, Prod Oasis, A.C. Hall, Wrestling

#247.

The Fan Companion is certainly charging ahead full steam, in case you were wondering (and not reading!!!), while Modern Woe chugs along to a hundred (67 and counting). Soon I'll be launching another series of poems within that one dedicated to philosophy, following the recent "Coyote, Trickster" set. You can thank Fred Van Lente and his Action Philosophers comic for that.

I picked up an issue during a binge yesterday at Bargain/Escape Velocity Comics in downtown Colorado Springs. By "binge" I mean I got forty comics, but they were twenty-five cents each, so it wasn't too bad, and I got a lot of great stuff while I was at it.

I'm still contemplating ways to break into a professional writing career, which is like a second job, one I've had since 2004, after graduating from UMaine. If I actually chronicled every attempt, it would make me look quite foolish indeed. But I keep myself sane by working on wholly personal projects in the meantime, which I sometimes try and adapt for public use as well. That's how I came upon Pacific Rim and Prod Oasis, E.N.G., prequel comics for a sci-fi creation I've been working on for fifteen years. Also, I think I want to do a comic based on Sparx, a somewhat obscure DC character at this point.

But as I said, I'm always working on ideas.

I'm also in the curious position of submitting stories to a former writing partner of mine, A.C. Hall, from the aborted Dead Letter Quarterly days, which is nearing three years of age (strange enough to say). He and his brother rejected my first story, "Insomniac's Dream," even though to my mind it fit perfectly (if by "perfectly" one assumes the linkage to "my mind," which hardly ever seems in sync with the rest of the, er, world) with the anthology theme they'd concocted.

In wrestling news, I think things are going fairly well, a slow development of things I've written about in the past. John Morrison is still making his case for superstardom, Mr. Anderson is making himself a TNAdiot, and Bryan Danielson (I really wish he'd've worked out in WWE) hopefully gets to join Desmond Wolfe soon.

I went through a recent spurt of watching WWE DVDs covering old promotions, including the AWA and ECW. I'm looking forward to picking up the new Ricky Steambeat set, and am really pumped for the Chris Jericho one being released later this year. I've been waiting for that one for a long time now.

Anyhoo, soonish I'll be updating the blog with my latest Reading List book. Vikram Chandra's Sacred Games has been amazing.