Still a bit wrapped up in my real life.

The unread post count in my feed aggregator is sitting at 3808, which is pretty damned scary at the moment.  So rather than even try to attack that I thought I'd just drop a note to assure everyone that I am not dead, not in a coma, not time-traveling, and not captured by supervillains.  Whether or not I've been presiding over the prisons, brainwashing facilities and/or death traps containing superheroes I'm not at liberty to say.  I can say I haven't seen Hulk yet (and I won't be deterred from that mission so don't bother with spoilers or bad reviews).

I'm more than a little behind.  See, over the past 3 weeks I haven't managed to read any comic that isn't in Ed Brubaker's Captain America run.  I've made it to the store, but reading time's been scarce and so all I've read are the trades I carry in my purse for spare moments.  (The beauty of comics, quick reads for quick breaks!).

I will admit that my thoughts turn more charitably towards Quesada, as he was willing to put Brubaker on Captain America, and I'm still savoring the results I praised earlier this month.  That Omnibus hardcover is very very nice, and Brubaker's Captain America ranks with Robinson's Starman as one of the few comics that make me willing to shell out for an expensive hardcover collection.  It's led me to one of the joys of reading comics again, finding a new little universe.  I never was a Cap reader beyond isues of the Avengers before, so I'm discovering the franchise details for the first time.  And I almost forgot how much I love to plunge into a story and trace the plot threads and characters back through the years, piecing together a picture of a universe cobbled together by so many hands.   65 years of hands.  That's why nothing can replace superhero comics for me, it's the history of it.  There's this labyrinth of actual continuity, complicated by retcons and revision as well as your normal twists, turns, dead ends and false paths.  And I'm following plot threads backwards through this monster-sized maze, not so much to find a way out but to collect all of the treasure in the maze.  I can't miss any of it, even if I've read a synosis or know how the whole story turns out.  Hell, part of the fun of back issues is you can sort of read the story backwards that way, starting with a fully developed character and making your way to the seeds of his or her personality.  Internet writeups serve as a guidebook for these tours, telling you where the most worthwhile sites to see are, letting you know not to expect too much from certain places, and giving you behind the scenes information that helps you understand how a character could possibly go from point A to point K, or even from Point D to Point X-which-is-actually-more-similar-to-Point-A-than-Point-D-was.  And of course they tell you how Point A got remodeled somehow during the journey so Point Q makes more sense than it would have at Point H and at the original version of Point A, and that this is all explained at Point N--Honestly, how can anyone not just adore mainstream superhero comics? It's like spending an afternoon lost in your hometown!

I'm rambling again.  I've been busy, but I had a wonderful way to relax and when I get some free time I'll have to do some serious back issue hunting.

Until then I have the odd moment on the internet, Kalinara's font of knowledge, and the trades and hardcovers I've managed to snag on my lunch break (Only work evenings if your office is within 20 minutes of a comic book store, it's just less stressful that way)  to occupy my time.  And Captain America has entertained me so much when I needed entertainment that even though I'm sure he doesn't know or care about it, I'd still like to publically take back some of the mean things I've said about Marvel's Editor-in-Chief.

Not all of them.

Certainly not the true stuff.

But definitely anything that's an absolute.

And if people are still paying attention to this blog after this long break...  Wow.  Thanks?

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