#177. Paperback Reader Fallout, Wounded Knee, CM Punk

I've pretty much made it official. Remember that column that was taking up so much space for about a month a few weeks back, from Paperback Reader? I think I'm done writing it. I wrote for PBR for more than two years, and the column almost exactly for two, and I struggled with a distinct lack of readership throughout all of it (when I first started at PBR, I knew at least some people were reading, my reviews anyway, because there used to be a comment function, but when I made the transition to the review-based column, I found no one followed). I discovered when I was writing the column exclusively for this blog that I didn't need PBR as motivation to do it, but when I made an attempt to return, I got through one week before even a minor system glitch dissuaded me yet again to continue. Last week I did buy new comics, but I'm not going to be writing about them, won't be posting my thoughts anywhere. I'm not really sad about it, either. I had my fun. I even allowed myself to indulge in two years worth of awards, which meant nothing much to anyone but me, just another tally, just another personal game.

I don't know if or how this will affect how I read comics. I've been writing about them for almost as long as I have returned to reading them, after the original experiences in the 1990s before I went to college and all but lost track for half a decade (doesn't seem long, but it was). It may take another two years to know for certain, or long before the end of 2008. I don't expect anyone to be bugging me to write again. I'm going to use the free time to write more stories, more scripts (including Wounded Knee, a graphic novel), or perhaps just to goof around. It was a certain amount of fun while it lasted.

Anyway, I found it funny when CM Punk concluded the punchline of the 2008 WWE Draft after Edge and Triple H emerged from Night of Champions with their world titles intact. Punk was supposedly a fill-in winner of WrestleMania XXIV's Money in the Bank Ladder Match, and said to not exactly be popular backstage, let alone have a real chance of capitalizing on the briefcase in any significant way. Well, now he's world heavyweight champion on Raw, leading the way for the company's renewed effort to crack open the next era in professional wrestling. That's a subject for another day, but for now, Punk deserves his laurels.