Escape from the Negative Zone

Recently, I've been trying to avoid being too negative here in my entries. After all, the reason I tried to curtail my web-surfing in the first place is because there was just so much negativity online. It was around every electronic corner, it felt like. And I'm not just talking on comics-related websites. I'm talking about everywhere.

I wanted to avoid being too negative, but it turns out that's easier said than done. There have been numerous occasions recently where I thought of something that I wanted to put down in an entry, only to quickly realize that it was just another instance of me complaining about something comic-related. And I don't want my blog to go down that road because what's the point of retreating from negativity if I'm just going to dwell on it myself? Really, that this is happening just shows that I ran screaming from it all too late. It's infected me.

So, yeah, I'm trying to focus more on the positive, but it's hard. I find it difficult to express what I enjoy and why I enjoy it at anything beyond the shallowest level. I have this (perhaps irrational) fear that looking too deeply into the subject will end up diminishing my enjoyment. You can never again be awed by the Great and Powerful Oz once you've seen the man behind the curtain, you know?

Bottom line: It's much easier to be negative, which is probably why it happens so much more.

That's why I'm happy to list here in this entry two comic-related items that made me quite happy. Hopefully, this entry will function like a glass of water to wipe my palate clean.

Oh, I'm sorry. That's far too much preamble for an entry in which I'm doing little more than mentioning two news items, one of which is pretty old by this point. Sorry.

Item One:
From an interview with Kurt Busiek in which he mentions some of his plans for SUPERMAN:

"So I'd say there are long-term plans there, yeah. As for sharing them, well, I like to surprise people. So I'll just say that there are plans for Third Kryptonians, bottle cities, Perseus Hazard and Squad K, the Young Gods of Supertown, the Insect Queen, the Beast From Krypton, the Origin of Jimmy Olsen, Lana Lang saving LexCorp from bankruptcy, Superman at the World Series, the Batman/Chris Kent team, the asteroid belt, Lois's cousin, Krypto's new master and lots more. "

All right!

You know you're enjoying a title when even something as plain as the phrase "the asteroid belt" gets you excited and your imagination firing. I'm loving the current SUPERMAN so much that Busiek could have said/written, "Superman punches someone," and I'd still have gotten hopped up.

I really shouldn't be reading stuff like this given how much of a spoiler-phobe I am, but oh well...

Item Two:
Alan Davis is currently working on a CLANDESTINE mini-series, one that will be the first of a series of mini-series.

For me, CLANDESTINE is just one one those series. I can read it over again and over again... and over again. When I begin reading my well-worn trade, I have to eventually force myself away from the pages because if I don't, I won't stop till I finish the last page.

My first encounter with these was wonderful characters was a copy of the TPB in a bookstore. First, I was casually flipping through it; soon, I'd moved to reading in earnest; and by the time I got home, I was in trouble with my parents for staying out so late.

I'm too lazy to find the Newsarama article that announced its return, but I can provide a link to a pencil preview page from Tom Brevoort's blog. I'd put up the image directly, but Marvel's site doesn't enable that, the sly foxes.

Kudos to Marvel for going forward with this series. Given that Davis is on exclusive contract, you'd think they'd want him working on "name" projects while they have the chance. Maybe they realize how much potential the series has? Not an unlikely possibility, given its quality.