Good News: You find out that your otherwise sleepy little city is secretly home to an internationally renowned indy comic book artist.

Bad News: That comic book artist is Dave Sim (of Cerebus fame).

So close, Kitchener, and yet so far...

I've been reading some old Cable and Deadpool comics lately. They're kind of fun, though the plots are pretty incoherent and the pop culture references are stale verging on moldy. I think I like the premise of the comics a lot better than the comics themselves. I doubt I'll be reading any more.

This Marvel wiki claims that Deadpool is Canadian. Is this true? I sure hope so. The world needs more babbling, mentally unstable, amoral Canadian superheroes.

I just finished reading 'Understanding Comics' by Scott McCloud, a book I've been meaning to get around to looking at for, oh, years now. I don't know that there was much in there about the relationship between comics and art that was new to me -- I've long been the sort of comic book aficionado that feels she needs to justify her lowbrow hobbies with highbrow philosophical excuses, and I think I've heard pretty much every excuse in the book by now -- but some of his points about realism vs. iconography vs. abstraction were really interesting, and the whole book was just so cleverly put together that I couldn't help but admire and enjoy it. More academic treatises should be presented in comic book form. Actually, I'm in favour of more academic treatises being presented in any form other than the dry, nearly unreadable sludge that seems to make up the majority of journal articles out there, or at least the majority of journal articles I've had to read.

Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yes. Comics.

I've been reading a lot of them lately. A friend lent me 'Strangers In Paradise' a while back, which is basically a miniature soap opera in comic book form. Though somewhat put off by the editor's introduction which touted it as a the rare comic book that appeals to 'real' (openly emotional, shopping obsessed, traditional comic book hating) girls, I have been enjoying it a lot. Perhaps in part because the focus on complicated, messy, emotional real life situations balances my other comic book related vice of the moment, the Justice League animated series, which has astonishingly little real life type content, even for a show about superheroes. I've seen nearly two seasons now, and I've seen only two of the seven main characters out of costume so far, and even then only briefly and to no real purpose. Unless you count J'onn, the Martian Manhunter, I suppose; you do get to see him in his true Martian form quite a few times. But somehow that's not quite the same thing.

Speaking of the JLA, I'm more impressed with it than I thought I'd be. For one thing, I find I really like all the characters. Although Hawkgirl and J'onn are probably the two I'm most interested in at the moment, I don't think there's a single member I'd want cut from the team. Well... Green Lantern is kind of boring as a character, but there have been enough fun episodes with him as one of the leads that I'd want to hang on to him anyway. Besides, that team does need someone to bridge the gap between the starry-eyed idealists, depressive loners, belligerent maniacs, and ditzy almost-comic-relief (I'm looking at you, Flash). Somebody's got to be the sane one.