COMICS CULTURE SHRAPNEL from CBEM 298

The Big Letdown

The holidays are finally over (with the exception of Three Kings Day), the new year is here, the new millenium if you're one of *those* people. And for the most part, it sucked. I received my fair share of gifts I suppose, though no books or CDs like I prefer. My mother was nice enough to buy me a copy of Chasing Amy, which in the end comes off as a futile gesture considering my plans to buy the DVD soon. I suppose I could pass it on to a friend or even my brother. It's not my favorite Kevin Smith movie - the ending depresses me too much. I tend to prefer the ambiguity of Clerks. But it's still a Kevin Smith movie, and sometime soon I plan to invite some friends over and have a marathon, possibly punctuated by my annoying comments about how all the movies connect. Shared continuity is still a concept mostly restrained to comics - no matter how many Madeline L'Engle books you read. I always find it fun to see the concept transferred to movies.

I also watched a lot of movies over the vacation, mostly due to the healthy amount of snow that buried our neighborhood and made travel nearly impossible. One of these was X-Men - which I enjoyed, though I found the characters flat. My mother liked it - and she used to watch the cartoon religiously. Funny thing to listen to her try and explain Wolverine to my father and uncle. She used to be pretty critical of my comics habit, so its odd to see her be as geeky as I am.

Watching so many videos only reminded me how much movies just fell flat in 2000. The Oscar nominations should certainly be interesting, given the lack of good choices. The Grammys have already weirded me out - for album of the year we'll get to see a face-off between Steely Dan, Paul Simon, Radiohead, Beck, and Eminem. It should be interesting, even though I suppose Paul Simon will win just for being the most voter-friendly entry there.

I try to remember the good comics for 2000 and find myself struggling for something to say. I know plenty of you can probably come up with a long list of good stuff, but personally I haven't found many things that made any impact. It's a mixed bag. I dropped X-Men yet again. I started picking up Dork Tower regularly, as well as Planetary. The Tower of Babel story in JLA was pretty cool. I couldn't get into Reinventing Comics. Transmetropolitan maintained its usual standard of excellence. Kabuki took way too long to finish the last storyline, and I'm wondering where the rest of Scarab is. That's my year in comics. People have been saying that this has been a rather good year for comics actually, but I still feel lost and hope that the next year will be even more interesting. I could use some real stimulation, a reason to head over to the comics shop ASAP on Wednesdays.

Speaking of which, I haven't been there since the twenty-second. Felt no real reason to, not even out of a habit or obligation. This is very out-of-character for me. So I'm planning to head over there later to check out the selection (and by the time you read this, I'll have made the trip already), and I'll get back to you on what I find.

Lets hope 2001 really is the new and exciting future we always hoped for, because I'd like to think we're going somewhere.