In summary:

Previews is stupid because they sell stuff I don’t like.

I don’t even read Previews because my taste in comics is so high they barely carry anything I’m interested and in fact I have to wear blinders when I go in the comics shop to avoid seeing things I don’t like.

Anyone who only sees big eye small mouth manga in a comic shop must be wearing blinders.

Scott Kurtz is a putz because he made fun of indie comics.

No comics fan should make fun of any particular type of comics because it’s stupid to say “A > B” when it comes to comics.

Does anyone really buy those stupid “sexy vampire” comics?

Comics for gamers are stupid because I’m not a gamer and they’re only funny to other gamers and I’m not one so they’re stupid and I don’t know why anyone makes them since I’m not a gamer and don’t like them.

If you read manga, you’re allowed to say that a whole lot of manga sucks. If you don’t, you’re not. Unless you write a column saying everything I don’t like sucks. Then you’re allowed.

The best way to save comics is to destroy the main format in which they are purchased.

:there you go folks! Now you’re all caught up with the comics blogosphere! All hail the internet!

I hit 50,000 words some time around 9:00 tonight! Woohoo! I’m a winner for NaNoWriMo 2003!

Many many thanks to the people who helped me out: The chizat group, Anna, John, some folks on the NaNo forums, and especially Becky, for putting up with all of this. It was a lot of fun.

It’s not over, though. I still have a bit more plot to go: Collin is only just about to get the epiphany he so desperately needs. And then I get to flesh out and edit. But at least I can do all that at a more relaxed pace.

(Incidentally, according to my text editor, the 50,000th word was “are”. And looking at it, it should probably be “were”.)

Ah…life is about to return to more or less normal. I warn you, though, I’m already thinking of ideas for next year’s novel…

NaNoWriMo ends Sunday, when I’m supposed to have 50,000 words done. I’m currently at 48,679. Unless something tragic happens, I’m certain I’ll make it, probably by tonight. Looking at how things are going, I’ll hit 50,000 before I hit the end of the story, but not a hole lot before. I think I’ll reach the end somewhere between 55 and 60. I still need to go back, flesh out some stuff, add some scenes, and edit edit edit, so I’ve no idea how long the final product will be, but as far as the NaNoWriMo challenge goes, I’m in good shape to win it.

Oh dear, I seem to have opened up a can of worms with this whole manga thing. So let me set the record straight about a few things.

First is the matter of comments on my weblog. Many blogs out there have comments features, where people can post their reactions to entries. Mine does not. This isn’t because I have this feature turned off; the software I use, Personal Weblog doesn’t have such a feature. When I was first looking for blogging software, this is what Kurt found for me, and it has performed admirably. As my blog is simply a vanity page where I can post whatever ideas come into my fool head, I saw no need for anything more, and still don’t.

I’m always pleased when I see someone linking my blog, but the truth of the matter is, I’m not looking to be a pundit or enter into a community. I see this as something of a journal where I can unload thoughts, news, ideas, and so forth. I never imagined that anyone outside of a select few people would be interested, and I’m still not completely convinced that’s the case. At any rate, my email address has always been found on the front page, and unless I’m extremely busy, I usually answer emails.

Now, to the manga thing. Before I say anything else, an apology is in order. I fell into the same trap as others regarding the photograph of the Giant Manga Stack of Intimidation. The photo’s creator purely intended the photo as an economic argument: that is, if this company can release a big whopping comic book for an inexpensive price, how come our industry leaders can’t seem to do it? That’s a legitimate question, one that I agree with. Of late I have really enjoyed anthology comics and would love to see a monthly giant book of strips in a variety of genres at a reasonable cost. So I apologize for taking the photo out of context.

As for the whole ongoing manga vs. American quality argument, I had a whole entry thought up, but I’m giving it a pass. Here’s the thing: I’m not an industry insider, and have no desire to be one. I don’t know why the big comics companies behave the way they do. I’m not qualified to enter into the economic situations of being a comics publisher in this country, and I’m certainly not about to take the time to become qualified. I don’t give much of a damn about the company I actually work for, and I’m not going to give a damn about one I don’t. The last thing the internet needs is yet another armchair economist, sitting there discussing print runs, vice-presidents, and licensing issues. I hate it when I see people doing it about movies and I’m not going to contribute myself. If others wish to pursue that line, so be it. I don’t read most comics websites because, when it comes down to it, I don’t give even a centidamn about the comics industry. I just like reading me some comic books. In the same way, when it comes to movies, I don’t want to know about box office gross, per-screen averages, and so forth. My question is: is the movie good? I don’t know at what point everyone on the internet became such an industry expert, but I apparently missed the meeting.

I’m only qualified to talk about what I like, what appeals to me. And in that arena I can tell you that on the whole, I have liked American comics better. I have been lately checking out some manga, based on recommendations from friends. But when I say manga looks like mostly robots and panties to me, I’m sorry, but that’s my opinion. I spent a half hour at my local shop sifting through the manga section looking for something similar to the types of American comics I read, and although I found a few promising titles, the majority of stuff I saw was exactly the sort of big eye, small mouth stuff that manga fans are tired of the genre being stereotyped as. Could I sit on the internet, wading through a ton of manga fan sites to eventually try and get to the quality stuff that’s similar to the American books I already like? Sure, I suppose. Alternatively, I could just read the stuff I already like.

Some folks will probably say that’s lazy and that attitude forfeits my right to generalize about manga. My response is, honestly, tough. If you’re a store trying to sell me manga or a fan trying to interest me in manga, I don’t see it as my job to wade through the oysters looking for the pearls. Instead, you need to do some work and say, “Okay, if you enjoy comics X, Y, and Z, these are some titles you should look into.” That’s how I usually find new American titles, and it’s how I’d pick up manga as well.

That’s pretty much all I’m going to say on the subject. I will apologize for misrepresenting John Jakala’s intentions. But I’m not going to apologize for my opinions, including the one that other people who are arguing that bigger=better when it comes to comics are idiots. It’s a stupid argument, and I don’t feel ashamed of calling it stupid. You can’t discount the quality issue in favor of a straight up numbers argument because nobody buys comics for the sheer numbers, they do it for the quality. To do so is to say that you will happily exchange your dimes for nickels, one-for-one, because nickels are bigger. It’s a dumb argument, and you’re not going to convince me otherwise. That’s not, however, the argument that Jakala was trying to make, though his photo has been used by others to make that argument.

So I’m stepping down, letting the pundits punditize and the industry experts show their expertise. Alls I know is that this weekend I finished Planetes and the second Queen and Country TPB, and I liked both of them. I also put in my November order, which included a lot of TPBs. I’m starting to realize how much more I prefer the trade paperback format. I like comics because I like comics. I like the medium. Words and pictures. It doesn’t matter to me how they’re packaged. If I can get them in a big chunk that tells the whole story and looks nice and isn’t interrupted every three panels by ads for videogames and bad movies, all the better. That’s my opinion, and you can email me if you have something to say about it.

There’s a piece of software I use often. It’ll remain nameless, but let’s just call it ‘FooPlus’. FooPlus is a handy utility that is distributed free of charge. I like it and use it often.

However, me and FooPlus are about to have a knock-down drag-out fistfight. Why? Because I won’t update it.

It’s decided that I need to update it at least every 90 days. To remind me to do so, when I start it up, it sends me to its home page. In doing this, rather than open up a new browser, it commandeers a random existing instance of Internet Explorer. Good-bye, e-mail in progress. Good-bye, web article I was reading. Hello FooPlus home page.

Here’s news to the makers of FooPlus and any other software that behaves in this manner. STOP IT. I don’t have to have the latest version of your program. Just because you feel the font wasn’t quite right or the buttons were a bit small or it needed a new hat is not something I need to be alerted about.

The current version of FooPlus does exactly what I want it to do. I don’t want to upgrade it because I don’t NEED to upgrade it. Anyone who has been working with computers more than two weeks knows the risks of upgrades: they are not always improvements, and often you find you wish you could go back. If I want to upgrade, I’ll upgrade. Until then, leave me the hell alone.

Now already I can hear software developers adjusting their propeller beanies and being outraged at my audacity. How dare I complain about FREE software! Well let me tell you something, kids. Free means just that — free. Just because a program is free doesn’t mean I surrender all rights associated with it. It doesn’t give you carte blanche to start screwing with my web browser in 90 days because you fixed the typo in the help file nobody read. It’s either free or it isn’t, and free means free from monetary commitment AND free from pestering about “new and improved” versions. If that’s not the case, let me know up front that you intend to harass me on a regular basis and I’ll gladly avoid your program in favor of something else.

Let’s talk about two subjects that none of you care about: Livejournal and Manga.

Livejournal is a sort of blogging community. It’s a collection of blogs, linked to each other. You can search them by things that interest you, like cooking or stock-car racing or whatever.

It’s also obnoxious as hell.

It’s a community, but a gated one. You can’t just subscribe to Livejournal (LJ), oh no. You need an LJ code to start up an LJ. You can only get one of those from people who already have an LJ. And Livejournals aren’t free. So we’ve already got two great ingredients: elitism and money. Now all you need are lawn sprinklers and minivans.

In addition, LJ loves its subscribers and nobody else. Livejournal users can link to other blogs as their “friends” — but only other LJ blogs. After all, who would want to be friends with anyone WITHOUT a Livejournal. Want to comment on someone’s LJ posting? Go right ahead! But unless you’re also a LJ subscriber, your posting is “Anonymous”. Some people don’t allow this. Some folks want to check out your comment first. But most of them regard such Anonymous posters as barbarians from outside the gates.

So I’m not a huge fan of Livejournal. Cue the sound of a thousand keyboards firing up to declare how jealous I am of Livejournal users.

I bring this up because of a particular LJ I read, called “SeeBelow”. It’s about comics, but the ugly side of comics. Stupid comics, stupid creators, stupid fans. My cup of tea. It used to be a plain old website, but that went down and now it’s a Livejournal.

Okay, now for a digression. Let’s talk about Manga. Manga simply means “Japanese comics”. I’m sure you’ve heard talk about how in Japan, the medium of comics is not as ridiculed as it is here, and housewives, businessmen, people of all stripes constantly read manga of all sorts of different genres. Perhaps that’s true; I don’t know.

As you who are hip to the ways of geeks can imagine, the mere fact that manga is Japanese means it’s going to be loudly and proudly supported by American geeks, since so many of them would happily be trod on by elephants for the chance to smell a piece of candy corn stuck in a pile of dog poop, if the poop, dog, elephants, or candy corn were Japanese. They would then declare how superior the product was to the gaijan equivalent. So there’s this big noise in comicsdom about how anyone still reading American comics are fools who haven’t wised up to the beauty and superiority of manga yet.

Into this debate, a bombshell has been dropped: The Manga Stack of Intimidation (their words, not mine). You can see it here:

On the left is $60 worth of Shonen Jump, a manga anthology. On the right are $60 worth of American comics.

Manga supporters would have you believe that this “proves” why manga is better and why American comic companies should be trembling at the mere sight of this photo.

(I’ll now pause, while the people without brains catch up to the people who have already seen the flaw in this “argument.”)

Okay, you shouldn’t need me to point this out, but what the hell does this have to do with the price of tea in China? Am I the only comic reader out there who buys his books for something other than sheer number of pages? The omitted detail in the photo above is that Shonen Jump is targeted at 13-year old Japanese boys. We have no indication what the American titles are.

That’s a critical omission. I’m not a 13-year old Japanese boy, and neither are any of my friends. I don’t necessarily want to read books targeted at 13-year olds, no matter their nationality. So for me, if that pile on the right is issues of Hellboy, Powers, Top Ten, Sandman, or Bone, I’m going to take it over the left pile in a heartbeat. My phone book has a HUGE page count and it was free, but I don’t consider it superior reading material to Queen and Country.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Okay, so, backing up again. So over on the SeeBelow LJ site, there was a link to an article talking about how the success of titles like Shonen Jump in America is going to lead to the death of the pamphlet (standard American comic) unless publishers realize that bigger is better and blah blah blah, you can read it yourself.

Here are the SeeBelow comments on this article. I enter the scene as “Anonymous”, third entry, where I briefly try to make a small point: many many manga that are brought to America fall easily into three categories: books about schoolgirls and their panties, books about giant robots, and books about schoolgirls who pilot giant robots in their panties.

Now, since I’m not an LJ subscriber, I have to be anonymous. And since I’m not just repeating what the fanboy hive mind has declared to be the truth, I’m labeled a troll. A troll, for those not experienced with internet message boards, is someone deliberately posting inflammatory remarks just to get a rise out of people, not to make any kind of actual point. So I am immediately booted in the ass for being some kind of smelly homeless guy who somehow wandered into the pristine streets of LJ-land.

Well, I admit my comment was brusque. I was operating under the impression that a site about comics describing itself as “The Gentle Scent of Pee in Your Longbox” might be used to sarcastic, humorously exaggerated messages. I was wrong, however.

So I posted a rejoinder, apologizing for assuming that the readers might be smarter than to take generalizations literally. What I said, essentially, was:

I realize there are many manga titles that aren’t schoolgirls and robots and wacky Japanese “humor”. My point is, you have to really search to find them. Book and comic stores are simply unloading manga on the public by the shovelful, and nobody I know has the time or desire to sift through the crap and find the quality stuff. Until the manga aficionados are willing to admit that there are good comics and bad comics, and some are Japanese and some are American, their arguments are going to be drowned out by the sound of a million otaku happily kissing the ass of anything Japanese.

Something like that. I didn’t keep a copy of it, because I assumed it would be posted. It wasn’t. Apparently I was no longer invited to this party. It’s the guy’s site, and he has the right to approve or disapprove whatever comments he wants, but it’s incredibly shitty to “win” a debate by simply turning off the other guy’s mike. But that’s the new American way, in this age of Bill O’Reilly.

For those still with me, one more thing. There are references to “Sturgeon’s Law” in the comments. This is a reference to a quote from sci-fi author Theodore Sturgeon: “Sure, 90% of science fiction is crud. That’s because 90% of everything is crud.” Sturgeon’s Law simply states that 90% of everything is crap.

I would like to be recognized, however, for “Dave’s Corollary to Sturgeon’s Law”, which reads: “This is not to say, however, that the other 10% isn’t ALSO crap.”

A few random tidbits.

On the NaNoWriMo front, I’ve been sailing along, but I’ve hit a wall. Basically, the first half of my novel is done, and I’m not sure what to do with the second half. So much so that I’m considering changing the plot dramatically and adding a quarter to the first half so that the unwritten part is only a quarter. We’ll see. Anna broke 20,000, so she got another CD from me. I’m teetering on the edge of 30,000, and she already ordered my 30K CD, so I have to at least get to that point.

Now let’s talk about Mr. T. He was on the Daily Show the other night, in a story concerning how Best Buy used scenes from Rocky III in a recent ad of theirs. They took scenes of Rocky fighting Mr. T., only they digitally inserted some scrawny guy over Rocky, so the scrawny guy is kicking Mr. T.’s ass. They shouldn’t do that, and Mr. T. is rightfully angry about it, especially since they didn’t get his permission to use him in the ad, or pay him for use of his image. He’s suing, which is reasonable. Now, the reason I bring this up is, I was really impressed by how gracious the guy is. He said something like, “No, Best Buy ain’t fools, they just did a foolish thing.” This is Mr. T., with a reputation for being a badass and all, and he was being very understanding and reasonable. The guy is just plain cool.

Which is why I think it’s wrong for him to be doing commercials for Title Loan places and Collect Calls. He shouldn’t need the money. Mr. T. is a national treasure, and should be subsidized. Please write your congresspeople and tell them how this country is doing a disservice to Mr. T.

While you’re at it, you can mention another plan of mine. I’ll probably never listen to a note of music by the band KISS, but I dearly love the concept of KISS. (With makeup, of course.) I don’t want to listen to KISS, but I think there should always be a KISS. In fact, I believe that not only should there be a Constitutional amendment to ensure that there is, at all times, a KISS in action, I also believe that it should provide for a backup KISS in case anything happens to the main one.

What else was I going to talk about? Oh yeah, the other night I went to Amherst for Shadowrun, and before we started it, T.J. busted out the game Illuminati. I hadn’t played that in years and had forgotten how much fun it was. I have all kinds of great memories of Anna freaking out and declaring that I was going to win unless everyone dogpiled on me (usually this happened on, like, turn three, and I was nowhere near winning.) Speaking of games, I was also introduced to Munchkin recently via Dan, and found it to be a lot of fun.

Okay, I should probably get back to writing, or at least trying to. I need to earn that CD.

Anna owes me another CD! (And thanks for the first one!) I hit twenty thousand words today, and wrote possibly my two favorite sentences so far:

The Imperial March started coming out of my pants. Shit! I had forgotten to turn off my cell phone.

Of course, this still puts me behind where I should be. My next goal is to hit 25,000 before or on the 15th. For at least one moment, I want to be ahead of the curve. (Also, last I checked, Anna was coming up on me fast, so for all I know, I could currently owe her a new CD as well.) For those of you wondering, I did a little calculating. The book I just got finished reading averaged about 420 words per page. So that puts me at about 45 pages. That should put this project in perspective: 50,000 words seems like a lot more than it actually is.

Between this week and last week I had a pretty good comics haul, but I haven’t read a lot of them yet, due to NaNoWriMo. When I’m not writing I like to play Fallout: Tactics, which is good for thinking about scenes. I read the newest Hellboy: Weird Tales, which I loved, and the new KODT which, frankly, is starting to get a little tiresome. Also the new Powers. But I really wanted to mention the Planetes manga I got.

I’ve always stayed away from manga, for reasons that largely involve people who enjoy manga. In addition, not really wanting to read books about giant robots or panties, there were few choices out there. I’d never enjoyed much of the anime I’ve seen, so I doubted I’d enjoy manga either.

Well, I am really enjoying this book, and I’m glad I tried it out. I am starting to see the error of my ways here and plan to start exploring more of the manga world. My buddy Michael even helped with a list of recommended titles. I will let you know how my journey into this new territory goes.

On a similar note, Tegan read my Clone Wars entry and gave me helpful links to the three current episodes. Now, my opinion largely still stands, in that my problem was not with the cartoons qua cartoons, but with the fact that these cartoons were being given to us instead of a movie. That this important piece of the story was not going to be on the screen after all these years. That was my beef.

But the cartoons themselves…let me just say that those nine minutes of animation show more care and thought than then entire four hours of prequels. They’re exciting, the hardware is cool, the action is spot on, and the animation is appealing (to me…I know a lot of people don’t like the style, but I do.) It really made me wish that someone who gave a damn was doing these prequels. I’m an unabashed Star Wars fanboy, I admit, and it saddens me to see people caring more about what happens to the flat and lifeless characters in The Matrix than what happens in these prequels. If the same attention was given to the movies as these cartoons, I think the world would be a better place.