Comics in the Post

Alright, here's my acquisitions for this month, you'll notice all of 'em are comics.

It seems that for the moment I have stopped buying novels.

This is down to several factors: Primarily, there's the medication.

Because of the quite literal alteration in my brain I'm less contemplative and more inclined to go with the flow, less eager to 'make my mark' and 'to attain goals' and on the whole I find I have less drive, not to say no drive, to finish novels, 'finish' as in 'to have them done' as in ' to never have to look at this book again' as in 'enjoyed it' as in 'understood it' as in 'it's given me all it could give and it now belongs on my shelf' and so on and so forth.

Looking at what I've bought then it's a little bit disconcerting to notice that I'll gravitate towards the visual rather than the imaginative for my fiction, I always thought that I was the imaginative type rather than the mindless consumer I now so obviously seem to be, but... anyway... As for other factors... I'm also quite preoccupied by Nier Automata, which is a ps4 game which starts out deceptively straightforward but soon evolves into an experience unlike any I've come across in my quite extensive gaming travails. I hope to talk about this one some time in the future. Maybe when I've finished excavating the rabbit hole that this game has ended up being.

But maybe it's just also that right now I'm not having a novel reading 'season'.

You know how that sometimes you just come across a novel that reinvigorates your lust for reading and that when it's done you just plow through a whole bunch of novels desperate for that same feeling of new worlds and new experiences, and sometimes you get lucky, but more often you just don't... and everything ends up settling into this stale routine, into this quiet doldrums, where you just forge your way through whatever's next without ever getting touched by what you're reading... maybe it's that...

Or maybe it's that I am still preoccupied...

There's this thing in my head that I can't seem to get out.

I don't want it out... and yet I very much do... because it is horrible in the way that is has superseded importance over everything I used to care about.

I don't want it, but it's there and I can't quiet it, even with medication, to a state that I could be enraptured by what I used to be fascinated about before.

Even more than before, nothing seems to matter anymore... nothing but this one thing...
But there is a gradual lessening to this particular obsession nonetheless.

Anyway....

 Comics.

Comics kind of subvert the normal brain processes used when consuming fiction.

When reading novels, imagination and interpretation is everything. You read and you visualize, you imagine, and you do all the work.

In visual media (tv and movies) you consume whatever's given and barely do any work and, as a consequence, in the quiet there's room for self indulgences or distractions.

In comics however there's a need for the interpretation of what is given on two levels: the illustrations and the given prose, whether that be dialogue or narration.

You look at what is given and you couple that to an interpretation to what you are seeing and you tie that to what you interpret from the given dialogue or narration. Sometimes it's easy and straightforward but more often that not you'll find that you are constantly pressed to pay attention to what you are consuming (Jamie Delano's Hellblazer is definitely like this), and more than that, to give it your time, your thought and your undivided attention. There's exemptions to all of this but for the moment I think I've made my point.

So here we are. All of these books are comics...

Because reading them is both easy and isn't...

Let's get the most interesting one out of the way first, right; the smallest book first: Junji Ito's Uzumaki. My first ever Manga comic.

I've never felt any pressure to delve into manga or anime until I watched a few of Supereyepatchwolf's youtube videos on various anime and manga series, mostly when I was in the heaviest of the adapting to the medication stage, and when he talked about Junji Ito's horror manga I knew I'd found something I probably would like to use to dip my toes into a new type of media.

Long story short: I liked it, and enough to have already ordered 2 new novels of Ito's Manga series.

I might talk about some of this. I might not.

Next up: Slaine the Brutania Chronicles 4 ( the finale).

I've been looking forward to this one.

Simon Davis' take on the Celtic barbarian is my favourite of all that has gone before in Slaine's long long run, including the epic Book of Scars, and I'm looking forward to see how this one wraps up.

Here are the four Hardbacks for the Brutania Chronicles for those who might like to have a gander at that.

Next up we have some Mignolaversity stuff.

Up first is Frankenstein Underground, which follows the journey of Frankenstein after he was clobbered in 'Hellboy in Mexico' (which is, oddly, for some reason, a personal favourite of mine).

Don't know much about this one except that it's the next stop in my Hellboy universe read (following the 2018 reading order).

Then we have the next stage of the BPRD: the Hell on Earth volume 1, and Abe Sapien the drowning.

I must say; I hate that the omnibi take so long to get released.

I wonder if we'll learn the fate of Ben Daimyo any time soon.

The sleeveless books for those who are interested.

Then my next stop is the Judge Dredd Universe: the Complete Case Files Volumes 18 and 19.

I'm guessing this is mostly one-offs except for the 'Mechanismo' storyline, which is ok because I primarily read Dredd for some good old dip-in-and-out escapism. Unfortunately a lot of this is Garth Ennis, who kind of misses the point with a lot of his material. But I'll put up with it for now because his run won't last much longer... right?

And then, lastly, volumes 18 and 19 of Vertigo's long running Hellblazer series.

I've mentioned these in my previous post but it's safe to say that I won't be reading these any time soon. My current Hellblazer reading schedule is 'no more than one issue per day' even if I skip a day or two. I want to make this experience last. 

And that's it for now.

But believe you me: This is not the end.

Appreciation: The Devil You Know

Of the 8 Hellblazer Omnibi I've read so far this one is my favourite.

Under the current circumstances I'm letting my novel-reading slide quite a bit (from attempting to read one novel a week to... I'll see if I can even finish one in under two months...) and instead fill my reading hours with comics, old and new. Mostly new, but there's one older title I keep coming back to. Usually I come back to it when I'm in a dark place but now... now I'm in a time in which, chemically, I am devoid of pondering, and so, thoughtlessly, I'm free to consume whatever I want. Mindless escapism is the name of the game.Whether it be comfort food or comfort fiction, without regard for taste, an omnivore, I'll down it like a glutton. My mouth chews without thinking and my brain, where before it rambled on in an endless manner, now, slowly, ponderously, does likewise.

With the medication I'm aware that there's stuff that worries and hurts me but I can't much focus on it. I don't look at it because, really, on the whole, it doesn't quite seem to matter. And yet I'm back here, sipping from this most darkly brewed tale. The familiar comfort fiction worms its way into my daily life and an alarm bell start to ring. This should probably be worrying me. But the alarm rings into a cavity, into an open void, and its echoes are soon lost. From past experiences I've come to know that the fiction to which I turn to when I 'need' comfort is dark. I suppose it's some form of schadenfreude. A feeling born from the idea that my world is less malignant if that malignancy is doled out in equal measure among its many inhabitants. Like Constantine says in the Antarctica storyline: 'And I like the way that feels'.

And Hellblazer doles out malignancy every chance it gets. And in this volume there's some truly horrifying stuf. As a result, the Devil You Know has some of my favourite Helllazer stories. Whether it's the disturbing (and yet uplifting) Antarctica two-shot, the bleak eco-nightmare of 'On the Beach', or the much built-up Exorcism-gone-wrong of 'Newcastle', the issues collected here are some of the series' best.

That's just me talking. Ask most Hellblazer fans and they'll proclaim that the Dangerous Habits storyline is the best.

But not for me the raging race-riots of Garth Ennis' run, or his meticulously built-up and believable friendships, John Constantine's most memorable girlfriend, nor his epic journey to the ultimate double-crossing of the devil, no. All I need to proclaim these my favourite stories is one thing and one thing only:

Jamie Delano's Beautifully bleak poetry-prose.

This stuff touches my soul, gives me something I don't get anywhere else. He consistently manages to weave a dark drama, giving me a deep well to hide in. There's nothing so compelling as the dark and if you manage to be poetic about it, well, then you've got my attention.

And, as I said, I've only read 8 volumes of this series, which amounts to around 80 issues out of the 300 that make up the whole thing, and that's not counting extras and specials, so I've still got a lot to look forward to.

Of course, Jamie Delano's run on Helllazer is a relatively short one, so the poetry that I'm practically raving about here is short-lived and already familiar. But you know maybe, hopefully, there's some great stuff still waiting ahead.

Volumes 18 and 19 are on their way to me bringing the count of what I can read right now up to issue 229. Volume 20 (up to 238 plus extras) will be out somewhere in January.

There'll also be a 30th anniversary celebration hardcover volume out in October, collecting various separate issues of the long-running series. Oddly, all of these are unconnected from each other, which, for a series that is pretty much all about long-spanning story arcs, seems a bit of an odd choice.

Update, late and the mental state.

Hi there. Been a while. Things are starting to look up a little (but not by much).
It still takes effort to start writing, and keep writing, but at the very least I'm not at the "impossible to be engaged with anything" stage of the new medication. Or at least, this is what I'm hoping; that it is the medication that is to blame for my recent troubles in reading and writing and not that this symptomatic of a bigger shift in my thinking/ life.
For the past three weeks, right after the Lobster Johnson post in fact, and which made my "not as debilitating as the previous type of medicine" post impossibly naive and hopelessly premature as all hell, I've been stuck in a lethargic and apathetic doldrums in every possible way.

In that first week I was forced to come to terms with something and been forced to acknowledge the utter brick wall of reality.
It was an act which was rather tough and unforgiving and which without medication likely would have been impossible. This thing which had existed in me for a very long time and that I just couldn't rid myself of, became, through chemical means, immanently rid-able. Though, this wasn't done without pain and fallout. I spent the first part of that week at home, sitting on the couch, staring at the walls. Thoughts became a daze. Occasionally imaginary conversations would start up to guide me past or headlong into problem points. We all have our demons and mine took every opportunity they could get their hands on. It was a very unpleasant time.  My collision with reality was total. Hopes were shattered, desires were crushed, the way forward was completely lost. It was a staggered time of mental self-abuse and castigation. But it passed, and past a certain point, rather quickly because, where in the second part of week one, where a fog ruled my thoughts before, now there were no thoughts at all.
I did not exist in the way that people do. You enjoy a sunset, you taste the air, you resound to music. But during this time I was incapable of all of this. I just was. I saw, I drew breath and I heard. For the rest of this I was vacant, empty. Something had fallen away and a great echoing void was left behind. I did not consume a shred of fiction during this period.
This lasted for the rest of that week and most of the week that followed.
I've always been someone who sets himself tasks to complete and checklists to finish so this time of induced apathy was alien to me.
Of course, due to the nature of the medication, the distress I felt at this was limited. In fact, I say that this state was alien to me, but it wasn't that at all. It just was. I didn't have much thoughts about it. This state was me and at the time it felt natural. It's only now, in retrospect, that I have become convinced that the medication was, and to a lesser extent still is, to blame for it.

Then, somewhere along the way, occasionally, something would start to seep in and I found that the visual at least began to be able to hold my attention again. In week 2, To pass the time I continued playing Nioh. Its repetitive gameplay was pretty much perfect for the state I was in. Engaging but mostly about pattern recognition, so not much thought required. In week three I got into it and managed to finish its storyline.
While playing I usually had youtube on; Angry Joe playing Southpark the Fractured But Whole and SuperEyePatchWolf's anime videos mostly. I might dive into some anime soon because of that last one and I've already watched One Punch Man over the weekend. I'm not sure what to watch but some dude I work with fervently recommends me One Piece. I've also ordered my first ever manga: Junji Ito's Uzumaki. I find I'm actually looking forward to it quite a bit.

I finished the complete Nemesis The Warlock, which was disappointingly uneven over its run even though book 2 (specifically the Two Torquemadas) had some incredible potential at its midway point, where our anti-hero travels through time to witness the end of his saga and where he gets some disconcerting news.

But, as is usual with 2000 ad, the balance between the comical and the serious is a little bit inconsistent, so even though I loved most of its ideas and some of its moments Nemesis ended up being a bit of a dud for me.
Apart from Nemesis and some other one-shot comics  I maybe managed to read 60 pages of The Blood of Elves. I can't remember a thing of it though.

That's pretty much it for fiction. I've in fact barely glanced at my books.
This, obviously, is rather worrying, both for the blog and for me in private. Fiction is what I do. What can I do if that drops away? I'm still in a bit of a holding pattern right now, taking it day by day, trying to just do what I want. The problem is of course that I don't want anything. I'm just passing time again. Counting the hours until death or a miracle. It's not depression so much as it is an awareness that likely nothing will change in my circumstances. Despite all my personal self-improvement I can't change how I am, in those ways that I would most want to change. I wish I was different but it can not be done. The problem right now (and always) is that I'm too aware of this and that I am unable to accept myself, have peace with myself.

The world is too harsh for me. I'm too sensitive and too weak.
But where before this would make me filled with sadness and self-pity, and a lament for my own condition, now I find I am just angry.