Resolutions and Recommendations

January in Québec is cold and dreary; one of the only potentially good things about it is New Year's resolutions. Amongst other things, I have resolved to organize my online presence, and so I moved all of my creative writing from 2006 to the present onto another blog in order for this space to be fully dedicated to my half-baked ideas short critical essays. I am superlatively grateful to Zoe from Chic & Sassy Designs for the new-and-improved template. 

Also a resolution: to prepare more of my food. 

Another good thing about January is the abundance of recommendations appearing in the form of yearly reviews. After consulting Paste, CBR, Comics Alliance, and Mental Floss, I have settled on the following shortlist of tomes I definitely want to add to my collection:

- She-Hulk by Charles Soule, Javier Pulido and Ron Wemberly

- Moon Knight by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey

- Lumberjanes written and illustrated by the inimitable Noelle Stevenson (whose excellent Nimona can be read online).

- The latest Saga hardcover by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

- The Wicked + the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie

- Through the Woods, written and illustrated by Emily Carroll

I will also be adding these titles to my wishlist (in case anyone feels generous):

- Here, a formalist experiment by Richard McGuire

- The Wake by Scott Snyder and Sean Murphy

- Jolies ténèbres by Marie Pommepuy et Sébastien Cosset (collectively known as Kerascoët)

- East of West by Jonathan Hickman and Nick Dragotta

- Pretty Deadly by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios

- Lazarus by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark

If I have not included certain of the more popular titles on this list (particularly, G. W. Wilson's Ms. Marvel or Grant Morrison's Multiversity), it is in some cases because I already own them. Indeed, I have recently reviewed Ms. Marvel and I very much look forward to its second volume. My pull-list currently consists of Multiversity, Justice League Dark, Constantine, The Sandman: Overture --and I systematically pre-order every hardcover/TPB of Aquaman, Wonder Woman and Swamp Thing.

I am also extremely excited about A. David Lewis' American Comics, Literary Theory and Religion (of which I have received a review copy; a first in my academic career). I do worry it may make my own work redundant.

What are you looking forward to reading in 2015?

Getting Better in a Difficult World

Hello close and/or distant friends,

I am writing this note from grey Burlington, on the wind-swept shores of lake Ontario.

2014 came and went. A difficult year for a lot of us, yes? And by “a lot of us,” I am expanding the circle to include “residents of planet Earth.” I daresay 2014 was at least a little awful for the major part of the human species, what with the Crimean crisis, ISIS, Ebola, a slew of new homophobic laws, and the rhetoric of austerity rising to a shrill, fever pitch.

Within the narrower circle of my friends and acquaintances, I am aware of lost jobs/prospects, mental/physical illnesses, and mourning. There were also pleasant disturbances which, for all their pleasantness, are disturbances nonetheless: births and relocations. For the most part, my friends have again proven themselves to be extremely resilient, resourceful and compassionate. And so: congratulations! You played a very bad hand very well.

2014 is the year in which I recovered from mononucleosis. This might not sound like A Big Deal but Actually, It Kindof Is. To give you an idea: there were some days around February that if I dropped something on the floor, it did not get picked up for a few... weeks. Mononucleosis makes the Picking Up of Things highly improbable, and the Pulling Up by One’s Bootstraps effectively impossible. It affords unparalleled insight into human limitation, like a preview of life at 80. Do not catch it.

In 2014 I did not graduate from anything, but I did meet many new and important people, first and foremost the man from whose house I am currently writing this note. Stuff I tweeted (about Gamergate, of all stupid things) received the attention of comic-book legend Andy Khouri. A comment I left on YouTube (about Wittgenstein) was picked up by Idea Channel. I was invited onto a board of comic-book academics (I need to get a business card that says: “Etienne Domingue: Comic-Book Scholar and Master of the Dark Arts”).

I read -- not prodigiously, but attentively, laboriously -- the kind of reading which makes every subsequent attempt at writing superlatively daunting. Between panic attacks I was able to chart a course for future study, a detour which will take as long as it will take and which I will probably still be on well after my doctorate (that is, if I ever finish my doctorate, which is doubtful). 

In 2015, I have discovered misanthropy is not at all endearing to me, and neither is the belief in “success” as a rigid designator. Quoth Granny Hempstock: “You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.”

In 2015 I will probably fail to save the Faculté de théologie et d’études religieuses from becoming one of the first victims of nefarious occult influences. Hopefully I won’t let it get me down too much. I plan to make more loud music, and to keep drawing badly. In an ideal world, I would also like to get back into writing badly; academic writing doesn’t count, not because I do it well (I don’t) but because it doesn’t really matter as much as stories matter (to me). 

Also: Exercise? Maybe? Not making any promises there, to be honest.

I hope we make 2015 healthy, happy and fun -- and that if you’re struggling, you don’t struggle alone. The world needs more deep thoughts, good feelings, bad art, and silly noise; fewer entitled, curmudgeonly naysayers.

AGE QUOD AGIS,     

e.