[this is not okay]

[tellitslant]

August was supposed to be my post-thesis media catch-up month, and by 'media' I mostly mean 'comics,' because I just did not have the time or the money to keep up with multiple different extended narratives a month over the summer. And I did catch up on Wonder Woman because Alex sat me down and said READ THEM ALL NOW, and I finally got past the rapey Amazons because he wouldn't let me stop reading, and I got to the end of the arc and went, okay, I still feel personally betrayed by huge amounts of the narrative but the art is gorgeous and the world is fascinating and the gods are the best interpretations since Rucka. And then the Supes/Wondy news broke and I was pretty much ready to give up again.

I have the first, what, ten? eleven? issues of Batwoman sitting on my dresser, up to the start of the new arc with Wonder Woman, and I want to read and re-read them, I really do, because J.H. Williams III drawing Diana, oh my god I want to read them, but I am just so beaten down by comics right now. I don't even want to touch issue #0 because I know there is going to be no Renee ("because they can't exploit her," Rucka says, which is kind of a perfect illustration of why I love him), and, augh.

But. But. This Wednesday, Sword and Sorcery #0 comes out. With Amethyst. Amethyst teenage magical warrior princess of my tiny late-80s back-issue-diving baby comics fan heart. Written by "creator of Jem and the Holograms" Christy Marx. Drawn by "can you make your ladies any more badassadorable" Aaron Lopresti. And I want so badly for it to be good. And I want it to do well. And I want DC to keep making room for different superhero(ine) narratives.

But I just don't trust DC not to keep making me sad. :/

(My relationship with comics is in so many ways the perfect illustration of the definition of insanity. I keep doing the same things over and over again and expecting a different result. And sometimes I get it! Rucka's Batwoman, Secret Six, Captain Marvel so far - all good! Of course, two of those were cancelled and/or reworked, and one is a Marvel property. But I keepthinking there's hope, and then it gets dashed, and then something else comes along, and then it is secretly awful, and and and. Sigh.)

Comments

[shanejayell.livejournal.com]

If it helps any, JLA seems to be happening in it's own 'pocket' of the new 52. Or DC editorial is doing a crap job keeping the books in synch, whichever.

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

Or we could look at DC Comics as repeating the same behaviours and expecting different results; again and again with the reboots and the reinventions, around and around without addressing the problems it had in the first place.

I take comfort in it, sort of. This too shall pass. There's not enough good stuff, but pretty much everything I hate will be transitory too. I think if I didn't view comics as myths - all real, all contradictory - I'd have to quit them. There's no continuity of intention, there's no continuity between writers. There's the myth of Rucka's Wonder Woman, and the adventures of Simone's. Then there was the gospel of J Micheal Straczynski that was weird and awful and worth skipping, and now there's Azzarello's take, which is maybe like those tripped-out old testament canons that were removed from the bible and talk about spaceships and fallen angels walking the Earth, and no one's quite sure what to do with.

And sometimes it gets so full of crap you need to take a break. None of the above makes it all right (or, maybe it would make it all right if the problem was simply a matter of taste, but it's not, it's a matter of the shoddy oppressive world we live in more often than not).

It just...gives me comfort. Both that it's okay to like what I like and hate what I hate simultaneously, and also that it's okay to take a break, and come back later, and just...start again when it's just not fun anymore.

If they don't give Gail Simone another book soon, I'm gonna choke something, though. IJS.