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Every year around this time I think “I should really do a year-end review,” since I haven’t done one on this site since…probably 2005, I’m guessing without looking to see if I’m right? Anyway, it’s been a while, and the reason I don’t do it is mostly because…well, because I feel limited in direct experience with the vast array of comics that come out each year. Probably a strange thing for a guy what owns a funnybook store to say, but “ordering, racking, and selling” ain’t the same as “reading,” and I feel like I can’t put my dime down on “THE BEST COMIC OF THE YEAR” when my actual reading experience is limited to the handful of comics I’ve mananged to consume over the previous twelve months.
And especially this past year, where (as perhaps you may have heard whispers of in the dark alleys and not heard me complain about nearly daily on this site) I’ve had problems with my vision. My keeping up with the new comics, which had already fallen a bit behind due to my reading more slowly due to all this stuff, pretty much stopped entirely sometime in April. I managed to read a comic here and there, sometimes with some difficulty (I read at least one issue of Doomsday Clock with a large magnifying lens), but mostly I’ve been just letting things pile up.
I said “until recently” because as my vision has become more or less stable-ish in the last couple of months, I’ve been going through my stacks, pulling runs of books and just reading them straight through from where I left off ’til today. As such, I’m caught up on the Superman books, Immortal Hulk, Justice League, Event Leviathan, and, yes, Doomsday Clock. Oh, and the Tales from the Dark Multiverse comics, too, which I probably like more than I should. Thus, I’m making some progress, slowly but surely. Oh, and I’m caught up on the Legion of Super-Heroes reboot, having just read the first two issues of the new series Sunday evening. (Not quite sold on it yet but we’ll see where it goes.)
So as you see, I don’t have quite the pool from which to draw…not exactly a wide range there. I’ve got a lot of other stuff I want to read set aside, but at the very least I’m trying to keep up with those titles so I don’t get even further behind.
Moral of the story: take care of your eyeballs, folks.
Of course it occurs to me that I can do some kind of year-end thingie just from a retail perspective, and I suppose the biggest trend of the year I’ve noticed is more speculation (apparently driven by certain comic-investing websites and YouTube videos and such). Not that folks speculating on what comics are going to be “hot” and “expensive” and “”rare”” (that last one gets double quotation marks) is anything new, or ever really went away. It’s just that I’ve noticed a lot more of it in the past year (sometimes with no apparent rhyme nor reason). Which, you know, that’s fine, whatever you’re enjoying, but at the same time it makes things a lot more difficult to order. Asking for that variant the day before it comics out, or everyone grabbing the first issue of something, and then the second issue shows up and doesn’t sell at all. It can be a little maddening, but that’s why they pay me the big bucks. (NOTE: no big bucks are actually paid to me.)
On the other hand, a new publisher that distributes their own books directly to retailers, TKO Studios, has been working out quite well for me this year, getting their first batch at the store back in February and a new round of books in November. They’ve done well for me, they’re very convenient to order, and they’re solidly-produced items. Very nice additions to the product lines my store carries.
Oh, and so I have at least one year-end award for a specific comic, Doomsday Clock gets the award for “Best Comic Titled Doomsday Clock.” Yes, I know you’re shocked. Hopefully someday we’ll find out why they hoed this row for so long just to bring back the Justice Society of America and the Legion of Super-Heroes when current Justice League comics brought also brought back the Justice Society and current Superman comics brought back the Legion on their own.
Well, who knows, if I ever catch up maybe I’ll do a year-End Awards thing for 2019 in, I don’t know, 2023. Watch this space!
In the meantime, a couple of reminders:
Lots of folks have contributed to the GoFundMe for my old friends the Beckners, which is greatly appreciated. As I type this, they are a mere $95 away from their goal, so if you can pitch in even a little bit, that would be wonderful.
Plus, I’m still taking your predictions for the 2020 comics industry. Will it rise? Fall? Become more dumb? CHIME IN WHY DON’T YOU
I messued up the formatting on Wednesday’s entry, and got William Burns’ chocolate mixed up with joecab’s peanut butter, accidentally merging their predictions together. It’s all straightened out now, so please revisit the post for the proper crediting of prediction to predictee. Thanks!
So after my Cerebus post, I did poke around briefly on the eBays just getting the lay of the Cerebus-pricing land. Aside from the first handful of issues, plus any “pro-graded” comics stuck in their little plastic slabs, prices were generally pretty reasonable, particularly if you’re like me, and not necessarily looking for near mint copies or anything. Not that buying all these up are a huge priority for me right now or anything what with other expenses I need to worry about (unless I add that as a tier to my Patreon: “150 PATREONS: WILL USE MONEY TO COMPLETE MY CEREBUS COLLECTION”). Plus, my collection at home is still in some disarray after pillaging it for store stock, and I need to get it in some kind of order before I start fillin’ them holes.
But, it’s good to know that getting most of them won’t cost me an arm, a leg, and my remaining eye. I suspected as much, given that back issue demand for the series has dropped over the years since the title ended. Those early issues, though…I mean, it is still a major publication in the history of independent comics, and those initial comics are “key books,” if you’ll pardon my language, and will still command premium prices in the collectors market. Even the counterfeit #1 goes for a pretty penny nowadays, being itself a piece of historical significance.
Oh well, still, it’s something to think about. But speaking of Cerebus and demand thereof, reader Michael had a question in the comments there (seconded by Tom W):
“Mike, would you care to comment some time about how Cerebus does in your store in any of its forms?”
Michael is referring to, aside from the original comics, to the more recent comic collections of the “Cerebus in Hell” webcomic, which (aside from the earlier comics just straight up called Cerebus in Hell) usually feature parody covers like these:
They sold…okay, at first. At the previous place of employment, Cerebus itself was sort of petering out saleswise, at least until there was a slight bump upward with the last few installments. The follow-up items, like Glamourpuss and the Following Cerebus ‘zine started out with relatively good sales, but also eventually dipped until I was pretty sure I was the only person reading them at our store. The same has happened with the webcomic reprints…had some sales, then eventually dropped and dropped until, again, I was the lone holdout. I do have one fellow who occasionally requests an issue because the parody cover amuses him, but that’s about it.
I don’t know why that is…well, okay, at least one person told me that there were just too many coming out, he fell behind, and just decided to quit. I do suspect that there was at least a few readers hoping for actual new “serious” adventures of Cerebus in Hell. and not just Cerebus clipart pasted over Gustave Doré illustrations with gags.
Oh, almost forgot…the original Cerebus doesn’t really sell at all for me. I don’t have a huge stock of the issues, but I rarely have anyone ask for it. I did have a couple of those slabbed copies sell online, as I mentioned last time, but when I do sell Cerebus, it’s usually in the form of the trades.
Nik asks as a follow-up “what do you think of ’em” and “who’s buying these things,” and to answer the last part…um, me. I’m buying them, I admit it. As to what I think of them…I think they’re amusing. The repeated use of those, what, three poses of Cerebus mixed with the Doré art does tickle me, and the jokes can be funny, but it’s totally an acquired taste. Plus, I do like the covers.
I am way behind, though, but that’s only because I’m way behind on nearly all the comics I usually read due to my recent eye problems. Normally I’m a quick reader and would have no problem keeping up on the weekly releases, but of late it takes me a lot longer to absorb the text in any comic I’m perusing. Once things are finally corrected and I can get a proper pair of prescription eyeglasses instead of the reader glasses I’ve been depending upon, I’ll hopefully be able to catch up, assuming the giant to-read stack doesn’t crush me first.
• • •
Speaking of questions, no, don’t worry, i haven’t forgotten about
the last time I took some from you kind readers out there. I will continue answering those as time and blog content necessity allows. And, if you haven’t already, don’t forget to give me
your 2019 comic industry predictions so I have something to talk about in early 2020, aside from Iron Man 2020 and the Superman of 2020. I plan to start going over your 2018 predictions next week, so unsubscribe in your favorite blog reading programs right now! I should be able to get through those in, um, a couple of weeks, unless there’s another eye surgery that happens in there somewhere, but I’ll do my best!
* I don’t know if that was just a joking suggestion or not, of if even those guys made it or Sim himself did. But I still keep picturing what that would have been like! I mean, other than amazing.
Hi pals! When we last met, I was still in recovery from some minor eyeball surgery and hoping to be back in full swing in time for Christmas. Well, as it turns out, there’s a minor complication requiring me to go back under the knife this coming Thursday. Nothing serious, just, you know, can’t see out of my right eye since blood ain’t clearing out of it. But I was warned beforehand that this was a possibility, so everything should be fine. It just has to be done, so dood it I will.
But thanks to all of you for your well wishes and kind words, and Progressive Ruin Industries will be up and running again in short order, processing that comics-related product that you’ve grown accustomed to over the last decade and a half.
In the meantime, I will have a special Christmas post up tomorrow…in fact, it’s already put together and scheduled to publish, so it’s too late to stop it now. And I’ll have the annual “gimme your comic predictions for next year” post up Wednesday, so warm up your clairvoyant powers for that. And then, most likely, the rest of week I’ll take off, but I plan to be back the following Monday.
On a somewhat related note, I was pretty happy to have a new issue of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen show up last week…I’d been looking forward to reading it, but I was curious as to why the latest installment came prebagged:
When I popped it open to discover the reason, lo and behold, 3D GLASSES:
This is pretty much the face I made:
Ah, well…something to look forward to after the surgery, I guess.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and I’ll meet you all back here tomorrow and Wednesday.
• • •
I should note the passing of Brian Snell, the person behind the
Slay, Mostrobot comics blog. He clearly loved the comics medium and had many people who appreciated and supported the work he did expressing that appreciation on a daily basis. My condolences to his friends and fans.
There’s going to be some Low Content Mode action (or rather, non-action) for the next two weeks at Progressive Ruin Dot Oxnard Dot Gov, as I’m going to be going in for that eye surgery that all the kids are raving about these days. This Monday, as this post goes up, I’ll be having an early morning check-up, just to make sure I won’t croak on the operating table, and then the following Monday I’ll be having a breakfast serving of a vitrectomy, which is just as much fun as it sounds. I’m told it’s a very routine procedure, and I’ll barely notice it happening as it’s happening, thanks to the “happy juice” (as the doctor calls it) that’ll be in my system, so let’s hope.
Anyway, what does this mean for you, the Progressive Ruin reader, aside from the nausea after Googling “vitrectomy?” It means a short post today, which you’re reading right now, presumably…then I’ll likely post on Wednesday and Friday as normal. Then next week, after the operation, don’t expect a whole lot. I’ll try to check in if I’m up to it, but otherwise, consider it a vacation from my usual yapping.
Also, most tragically, I’m probably skipping the End of Civilization post this month. Yeah, I know, I’m sorry, but I’m just not finding the proper time to get one in there right now…but we’ll see as we get closer to Christmas, when traditionally everyone has plenty of free time on their hands.
So that’s that…I figure getting the fluids changed in my eyeball is a good enough reason to slack off on the site a bit. I’ll be back up and running as normal in short order, I’m sure, so thanks for reading, pals, and I’ll see you again…hopefully with two working eyes, finally…soon enough!
So…feeling a little more…secure while visiting my site? Well, I certainly hope so, after the trouble I had Saturday trying to get my SSl certificate in order here. Anyway, if you are on my site, and not just reading through a feed reader of some sort, if you look up to the address bar in the browser of your choice you’ll see Progressive Ruin Dot Something or Other now has a little padlock symbol on display. No more “this website isn’t secure” warnings when you visit or try to leave a comment! Your personal information is no longer captured by me and sold to Rufus T. Firefly in the distant land of Freedonia!
A few days ago I installed one of those SSL thingies on my store site with no hitch whatsoever, so I decided, during a brief lunch break on Saturday, to do the same for ol’ ProgRuin. And of course, instead of being a quick install, my images broke, then my page wouldn’t load right, then I somehow managed to lock myself out of my site with no way back in, blah blah, other dumb stuff. “You know just enough about computers to be dangerous” a programmer friend once told me years ago…and while I’ve learned my way around the computatrons a little more since then, I certainly proved her right that Saturday afternoon.
Anyway, if you tried to access my site that day, you may have had a problem or two getting in, but it’s all fixed now, and I’m sure no other problems will crop up ever again. ‘Course, part of the issue I was having is that my site is nearly 15 years old, and there’s a whole lotta patchwork in the backend of things…don’t look at my FTP directory, it’s hideous. Plus, my htaccess file, that bit of programming where I try to block out hotlinkers and junk traffic, is a mile long and cobbled together from my own typed-in additions and whatever things my WordPress plug-ins put in there. (Part of the problem with the images is that while I allowed my progressiveruin.com domain access to my image files, I forgot to allow access to the “https://” version of the site. Oops.)
Anyway, it’s done, and my site is more or less secure. If you’ve bookmarked the “http://” version of the site, it should automatically forward to the secure version. I have a couple of straggling HTML pages separate from the main blog that need some adjusting (not this one, which is now secure as well as perfect), but otherwise you should see that little padlock wherever you go the site, reminding you that your credit cards are all safe with me, so just send in those numbers whenever you’d like.
So the other thing I did on Saturday, aside from thinking “well, maybe I can move my blog over to pogressiveruin.com,” was the Halloween ComicFest, one of the various special comic days during the year trying to expand the success of Free Comic Book Day to other parts of the year. And I did manage to have a pretty good turnout…had a line of folks waiting outside the front door when I opened, which is always a good sign, followed by periodic waves of business throughout the day.
In general, I don’t order huge numbers of the Halloween books, since the turnouts for this event aren’t really a patch on FCBD. But I do, and did, get quite a few people in, Saturday (the official day of the event) and Sunday, so I try to have enough on hand. In some cases, like for this year’s Ms. Marvel book, I ordered a lot extra just to have ’em around as giveaways in the future.
As it turned out, I burned through the majority of the books I had this weekend, with only relative handfuls left over. Even that Ms. Marvel issue was nearly wiped out. You may have noticed above that I gave away these comics on Saturday as well as Sunday, and that’s because the timing of the Halloween ComicFest is always so…peculiar. I mean, “Halloween” is in the name, so it always takes some explaining to establish that, no, the event isn’t necessarily on Halloween, but on the Saturday just prior to it. Yes, it says the actual date on the promo materials, but it also clearly says “1ST SATURDAY IN MAY” on the Free Comic Book Day info, and I’ll still get folks coming in on May 1st looking for the freebies.
What I end up trying to do is, while not overloading on the giveaway comics, try to order enough to actually carry me through to the Halloween day itself. This time around I could be a tad short…but then, Monday and Tuesday usually aren’t blockbuster days, so the supply I have now will likely be little changed by the time Wednesday rolls around and business picks up again.
In the end, it was a lot of fun, and I gave away plenty of comics, and made some good sales, too. Like Free Comic Book Days have been for me since the beginning, the event paid for itself. Even had a few folks show up in costume…at least one Squirrel Girl made it in that day!
So, that was my Saturday. Lots of customer traffic and folks happy with their free goodies, and computer travails. I know which I prefer on any given business day.
So the other day, a small gag occurred to me that I felt I should post on Twitter, and that gag was this:
Those of you who know me, or have at least read me for a while, know that’s a very Mike joke for me to make. Anyway, I thought it was cute, a silly gag, not a great one, that maybe my Twitter pals would get a chuckle out of, given most of them are comics-savvy and would understand the joke.
Well, for some reason, this tweet has received more “retweets” and “faves” than anything I’ve ever posted on the Twitterers before, outside of my contributions to Fake AP Stylebook. I don’t know if it counts as “going viral,” but by my supremely low standards it’s at least a very minor virus, perhaps only a slight infection. Regardless, it’s received far more attention than I would have thought..perhaps because of the timing with the release of the Shazam! movie trailer (more on that later in the post).
As per usual, whenever something I’ve written makes it outside the usual circle of “People Who’ve Learned to Tolerate Mike and His ‘Writing,'” I get to hear from people who don’t seem to..quite get the humor, which, okay, in all fairness maybe they’re trying to be funny back at me and I’m too lame to grok their superior hilarious commentary. Like, there seem to be more than a few folks who appear to believe that I’m…actually going to do this to some poor bastard stuck behind a window selling tickets? C’mon, son, I’ve worked retail for a living for decades, I’m not going to do that to my counter-jockeying brothers and sisters.
Then there’s the one fella who seemed to get, like, pissed off that I didn’t seem to realize that the Big Red Cheese isn’t actually called “Captain Marvel” anymore, but “Shazam,” thus invalidating my gag. Look, pal, read this post from about three years ago (near the middle somewhere) where I complain about the name change at length. TL;DR version: if they had to change the name, they should’a called him “Captain Shazam.”
There were some actual funny responses, which I always appreciate. Pals Ian and Myles were tuned into the same strange frequency with their replies:
(excerpt of the accompanying image…see his tweet for the full thing)
And this response made me MAL (“MAL” of course being the popular internet acronym all the kids use for “Make Audible Laughter”):
But Angel pretty much sums it all up with:
Oh, Angel, my friend, my blog here is pretty much my 15-year-long effort at trying to annoy as many people as possible. That tweet’s only the very tippiest-tip of that iceberg.
To those of you sick of seeing that tweet pop up in your feeds…I’m very, very sorry. And I’m sorry that it’s here again on my personal blogging website that you’ve surfed to on the World Wide Web.
• • •
Speaking on being annoyed on Twitter, someone drive-by hit one of my tweets on the whole “Wedding of Batman” thing (which I wrote about on my site
here and
here), where I said I felt for the stores that ordered
huge numbers on #50 expecting the event but getting
no event, while simultaneously being relieved that I appeared to order the exact number. Said drive-by-er’ reply was, in effect, “looks like you should have ordered more, dummy” with an excerpt of some article from somewhere talking about how that issue of
Batman sold anyway, regardless of how things turned out. Of course, he went back into my Twitter timeline, past my own
follow-up tweet where I stated “yes, of course it sold, it’s #50 of
Batman, dur hey” so he could snark at me.
Well, let me tell you something, my retailing expert friend…I ordered a good number of these Batman #50s. Didn’t go overboard, didn’t have any kind of in-store event planned or anything…just lots of copies to put on the shelves. I had plenty pulled aside for the pull list customers, I had lots of walk-ins, I had plenty of phone calls from folks desperately seeking copies…and after that initial week or two of sales were over, I had exactly one copy left. That one copy, as I type this, is still on the shelf, even after having a particularly healthy and busy week at the shop…probably one of the biggest non-Free Comic Book Day weeks I’ve had this year. Lots of people coming in and out the door, calling the shop, etc., but none of whom needed that last copy of Batman #50 on my rack.
Basically, I ordered Batman #50 almost perfectly. I had almost the exact number of copies I needed to meet immediate demand. Now, that’s not to say someone won’t rush in demanding any and all copies of #50 when I get into the shop on Monday, but for the initial sales window for a new comic (which is primarily its first week of release), I exactly, save for that one remainder, met my local demand. So, no, person on Twitter I muted almost immediately because you seriously cheesed my crackers, I didn’t need to order more, because I ordered just right, thank you very much.
Sorry to go on about this, but the one thing that really makes me angry regarding store stuff is when other people, especially people who don’t know what they’re talking about, try to condescendingly tell me how to do my job. Also, when people seal their comic bags with tape. SO. ANGRY.
• • •
Oh, right, I was going to say something about the
Shazam! trailer. Don’t have much to say, really…looks like it’ll be fun, despite my issues with Cap not being called “Cap” anymore. Also, it’s very much the “modern” take on the character, where Cap…er, Shazam is simply Billy in a grown-up body, as opposed to the “classic” version where Billy Batson and Captain Marvel were more or less treated as different people, and even referred to each other as such. Well, I suppose the classic version might have been a little too strange for modern audiences…the
Big-starring-Tom-Hanks formula would more likely meet modern expectations for this particular premise. But I’ve gotta say…seeing Billy shout “SHAZAM!” and then transform…that was pretty great to witness in live action.
I’ve got a few old Captain Marvel entries from, egads, 2005 that I’ll need to clean up and link back to in a current post, so someone remind me to do that before the movie comes out.
It’s been a long week for me already, and it’s only Monday night/Tuesday morning as I write this, so…well, let me just cover a couple of things:
First, regarding the seeming scarcity of Miracleman #15 that I was discussing when last we met, a discussion with pal Andrew on the Twitters put me onto the Google search for any print run information. This site here seems to have come up with what they call a “rough estimate” of 37,000. Not sure entirely how they came by that number, but it seems reasonable enough to me, given the publisher, the time period, and so on. Now, how many of those copies are still extant, or even in circulation, I’m not sure…that website labels this particular comic as “common,” and I suppose, despite the relative difficulty in the past of turning up copies in stores, there always seem to be plenty on eBay, and I suspect after all this time the number of people looking for it has declined, while the number of available copies have perhaps increased. I mean, I’ve seen two copies pass through my store within the last year or so, while is quite the improvement over the past decade or three of my observations.
Second, speaking of rare comics:
Definitely the first time I had one of these in my hands. Was looking forward to having that iconic cover in my case, but didn’t have it in my possession nearly long enough…like, a few hours at most? Anyway, it’s off to a happy home, but it was neat to have it around at least for a little while. There was an original Hulk #6 in the collection too that also sold, but alas, didn’t have time to take any pictures of that one. As per usual for the original Hulk series, it was a little worse for wear…I bet some mint copies exist somewhere, but never among the many copies I’ve seen over the years. Ah well.
Third, I may again be a little light on content this week, for which I apologize. Still more health things I’m addressing, but I should have another post on Thursday, and then with any luck, a new End of Civilization post next Monday. There, I’ve typed it, I’ve gotta do it now. THAT’S BLOG LAW.
Hey, I keep forgetting to mention that Mike over at Zombie Cat Bacon is doing a rundown of comics blogs linked at a couple of the weblog update sites (such as the immortal Comics Weblog Update-a-Tron 3000) and seeing who’s active, who’s not, who’s moved on to other formats, who’s transcended this world of pain, who’s naughty, who’s nice, and so on. That link up there goes to the most recent post, but the previous installments are mostly on the main page and the next page back.
It’s interesting, if a little…I don’t know, melancholy I guess, since a lot of the folks I thought of as “my fellow comics bloggers” have, probably wisely, found other things to do, leaving me and a few others as the last standing members of the old folks…er, old guard still doing whatever it is we think we’re doing. Meanwhile, you young folks with your Tumblrs and your Mastodons and your Snapgrams will forge ahead with your New and Now comics commentary while I’m still posting about how comics aren’t like how they were back when I was a kid, while trying to open up my Geritol with my weak, gnarled hands.
Of course comic blogging is all going to end with Johanna and I fighting each other with broadswords on a desert plateau somewhere, while Neilalien looks sadly down upon us from whatever multidimensional plane to which he’d long since ascended.
• • •
Here, let me write a little about comics so it’s not just blogging about blogging
again:
One of the recent comics retail phenomenons is of course the recent increase in demand for issues leading up to The Big Anniversary Issues, Action Comics #1000 and Amazing Spider-Man #800. To a small extent, some of the sales increase, at least in the case of Marvel’s books, may be attributable to the gradual rise in purchases due to the recent, and already about to be rescinded, “Marvel Legacy” initiative, as I wrote about here. In the case of Spidey’s book, however, the primary reason seems to be a combination of whatever is going on the Green (or, rather, Red) Goblin, a new evolution of a classic Marvel villain, plus the fact that Amazing Spider-Man sales had been kinda eh lately which means a “scarcity” of copies in comparison to the number of people trying to get their hands on them. They’re Hot, They’re Rare, People Snap Lots of Copies off Shelves, They’re Even Rarer and Hotter Now. You know the cycle.
Action Comics I’ve certainly noticed a small bump in sales as we approach #1000, but not quite the same “hotness” since I’ve had pretty good luck getting reorders on recent issues. A nice side effect is that the lenticular covers for the “Oz Effect” storyline, which, er, I may have had a few extras for and thus left on the rack, are selling again.
Now the trick of course, as has been noted, is trying to figure out how these titles are going to sell after hitting the big double and/or triple zero milestone…made especially trickier as we’ve got some changes in status quos coming to both (yet another relaunch for one, Big Name Writer for the other). As I’m pretty sure I’ve already discussed somewhere already (oh, wait, it was here), the relaunched Spider-Man I’m going to have a lot easier time figuring numbers on (the assumption being that ASM sales will likely shrink back to where they were before), while for Bendis coming onto Superman, I’m going to have to extend all my sales-estimating powers. I think it’ll do well at least at first, but how well, for how long? That’s what they pay me the big buck to figure out, so let’s hope I can.
Okay, just to allay any fears (or, on the other hand, dash any hopes), given the semi-ominous title of this post, I’m not going anywhere. I just wanted to go over a few things.
First, and most importantly, regarding my my Patreon: yeah, that didn’t work out the way I was hoping. No, not you folks who contributed, I appreciate that like you wouldn’t believe. I mean specifically the idea to do a biweekly Swamp Thing comic review post…that was the weak part of this particular plan since, as it turns out, ha ha, that takes a lot of time. Time, I quickly discovered, I really did not have. I was trying to find a balance between my usual blog voice here and something, well, not formal as such, but “look, people are paying a buck to see these things, I need to get it together a little more than I tend to do.” I’m still trying to figure out an approach to these that doesn’t eat up every extra moment I have but still satisfies everyone’s Swampy cravings.
In the meantime…those Patreon contributions are helping me out quite a bit, in the original intention of me setting up the thing in the first place to subsidize my time spent on the site a little bit should anyone decide to chip in. Thank you to everyone who’s done so…my Early-Release-to-Patreon-Supporters Swamp Thing postings were my attempt at giving folks a little bit of an extra incentive to contribute, but clearly I need to rework my plans so that I can actually present an incentive I can continue to do.
Believe it or not, my other idea was a podcast, because sure, those take hardly any time at all to do, right? Blogging sister Tegan was doing a short form Star Wars podcast for her Patreon that I quite liked, and inspired me to think about my own. Part of the problem is that I’m not a very good extemporaneous speaker, which would require creating some kind of script (or even an outline) prior to recording, and I can already see that creating the very same time crunch the Swamp Thing posts were, even for the very short recordings I was planning. Well, at some point I would like to make some kind of audio file to inflict upon your ears, so we’ll see what I can do there.
As for the actual site here: yes, my decreasing amount of comic book computer fun time does impact this site as well. Like I said at the beginning, I’m not going anywhere. My intent is to continue posting every Monday/Wednesday/Friday and the occasional Saturday when I remember to do a “Sluggo Saturday” or “_____ Saturday” post. (Good Lord, I haven’t done one of the latter since 2013!) There may be (and have been!) weeks were I only posted Tuesday and Thursday. We’re a long way away from those halcyon days of me posting every single day like a crazy person, but this reduced schedule leaves me more time to take care of other responsibilities, AND really does give me more opportunities to create a little more lengthy, in-depth posts that won’t necessarily get lost in the day-to-day nonstop onslaught of More! Content! being posted here every day. But I apologize in advance for my shorter, Low Content Mode weeks…sometimes it just can’t be helped.
Speaking of which, one of my longterm plans for this site is to finally get all the posts on this site tagged and (eep) titled, to make it easier to find particular subjects here. In the early Blogger days of this site, you didn’t need subject lines, really…a post link was generated with, I think, the time and date of the posting, so you could just click on that to get to the exact post. Well, when I switched over to WordPress, that was no longer the case, and the actual subject line was the post’s direct link. So, there are a bunch of posts on this site still without titles, especially very early on, and I am slowly going through and trying to fix those. What’s slowing me up is I’m also trying simultaneously to fix dead links in old posts, which can be a lot of links, sometimes. I think my new strategy here is to get those content tags and post titles taken care of first, and fix links in the bodies of the posts later.
One of the things I miss about the old version of the site is having direct links to several posts of note in the sidebar. Replacing that with a sidebar function where you can search by tags is okay, and something I’ll do soon, but I still have specific posts that I’d like to not be forgotten, or removed from discourse (whatever discourse blogs may still influence today, what with your InstaSnaps and your Toomblurs). Perhaps a separate page on this site you can look at, with a list of “Hey, Read These Posts of Mine, Why Don’cha?” That seems like something that’s doable, eventually.
The one feature I do want to make sure continues unabated is The End of Civilization, which I promised myself, after the suspension of the feature while opening my store, and especially after starting my Patreon, I wouldn’t skip out on again. And, well, I missed it one month, but otherwise I’ve kept doing them, and will continue to do them as long as I keep getting Diamond Previews catalogs. People still seem to like them, and I still enjoy doing them.
Another type of post I haven’t done here in a while is my occasional overview of some of the weekly comics. Not that I haven’t wanted to, or haven’t had the blogging time to do a little something on the subject, but lately I’ve been behind on my reading. Part of the problem is that the actual tag I have for this topic specifically says “this week’s comics,” so I feel sort of obligated to review that week’s comics during the week they actually came out. Yes, I know that’s dumb, and easily fixed by changing the tag to “comic reviews” or something. I mean, it’s my site, I can do what I want, but that’s a weird little psychological barrier nonetheless. (Says the guy who just straight up reviews Jimmy Olsen comics from 1968, like, whenever.)
And of course I will absolutely continue the reader participation posts, such as taking your questions or asking for predictions. I have been very fortunate to have some great comment sections on this site, particularly in an internet era where reader comments are generally feared and despised. You folks have always had good and interesting things to say, and I am very grateful. Yes, there’s the occasional…problem, but that is definitely the exception. I know I usually don’t tend to post in the comments section themselves, but if it’s something I feel the need to respond to, you may have noticed I’m not shy about doing so in the main blog (like this recent example). So again, thanks to all of you for your continued readership and involvement.
Oh, and I’m sure this kind of post will come back eventually too.
So this has been pretty much the “blogging about blogging is a sin”-est post I’ve ever posted. Some of that was for you, to let you know where things stand as far as my ability to keep the blog going, and some of it was for me, to work out in my own head what parts of this site are important at least to me. I hope to keep things going here for a good, long time, and I certainly would like all of you to stick around. I know this kind of “blogging” is kind of a passé thing now, but I like writing, this format still works for me, and I hope it still works for you. I mean, if I have to go all “PROGRESSIVE RUIN – THE INSTAGRAM,” I guess I’ll have to, but I’m happy right here.
Talk to you all again soon.
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