Streams of Consciousness – “NFL Superpro Appreciation Day” Edition!

It’s that time of year again: the day when we all pause for a moment of silence to remember the greatest hero and sports legend ever to star in his own Marvel comic book. That’s right, ladies and gentleman. Today is NFL Superpro Appreciation Day.

Okay, so I’m just messing around a bit (even though I really would like to see Marvel release an NFL Superpro collection one day!). I hope everyone is enjoying Super Bowl Sunday; personally, I’m pretty excited. As a proud resident of Wisconsin, you can probably guess who I’ll be rooting for, but I honestly think both teams are pretty evenly matched and that it will be an exciting game, no matter who comes out on top (must…resist…Roethlisberger joke).

But you didn’t come here for my thoughts on football – or at least, I certainly hope you didn’t! I sort of fell off the two-reviews-per-week schedule I had intended for last month, but on the bright side, I did manage to post more reviews than if I had been doing them once a week. I’ll make up the ones I missed with extra reviews at some point in the future, I promise. At least for this month, though, I’ll be doing my best to keep to a weekly schedule.

In other news, I’ve updated the Marvel TPB Timeline yet again with over 150 new books. The 1980s are now finished, and so is 2005 (aside from House of M, which goes at the end of the year and will be part of the next update). There have been a lot of requests for me to add material that takes place after Avengers Disassembled, so hopefully this will satisfy people at least until the next update!

Stay tuned for more timeline updates and for a new review sometime this week!

Streams of Consciousness – New Year's Edition!

Happy New Year! Having reached the end of our first calendar year here at With Great Power, I wanted to take the opportunity to thank everyone who’s been reading, commenting, and following the blog – especially over the last few months, which I know have been a little touch-and-go at times. My New Year’s resolution is to get things back on track with a regular reviewing schedule, starting this week. And to make up for the infrequency of my posting over the last two months, I’ll be posting two reviews each week in January! On top of that, you can expect a major update to the Marvel Trade Paperback Timeline in the near future as well.

The beginning of 2011 also provides a nice chance to look back at my own reading and blogging habits over the last year. It would be difficult for me to do a “year’s best” list in the traditional sense because, taking a look at my posts since starting the blog in March, I really didn’t read many comics published in 2010. So instead, I’ll just ramble on for a bit – and if the lack of a “top ten” or any other kind of formal structure causes you to tune out, I’ll understand!

It’s been over two full years now since I left the world of single issues behind, and since then (especially in this last year), my focus has been on reading the kinds of comics that I never felt I had the time for as a weekly comic buyer – that is, a lot more historical material and independent titles. This has been reflected to some extent on the blog in my reviews of books like The Doom Patrol Archives, Tarzan: The Jesse Marsh Years, The Muppet Show, and Monkey vs. Robot, but given the choice, I usually stuck to reviews of superhero titles.

This year I’m hoping to be a little more balanced, although I’ll still probably review more superhero comics simply because I’d like to one day have reviews posted for the vast majority of the books on the Marvel timeline. I know it’s a tall order, but I feel like someone should do it, and since no one else has attempted anything like it for the Marvel Universe yet, I figure I might as well give it a shot.

Aside from working on the timeline, there are a few other blog-related things I’m looking forward to in 2011. At some point (probably during the summer), I’d like to try a creator-themed month focusing on the work of one particular comic book writer or artist. I’m also planning to post at least a couple reviews of comics-related non-fiction – I read a lot of it, so it would only make sense to start writing about it from time to time. I had fun doing something different with my review of the movie Creepshow back in October, so I’m looking forward to expanding my horizons even more this year.

Well, I think that’s about it for now. As always, feel free to leave me a comment – hearing your thoughts is what reminds me that people actually care about this blog and that I’m not just tossing words into the void! See you tomorrow for the first of this week’s reviews, featuring a character who has already made his presence known several times on this blog... Can you guess who? :)

Streams of Consciousness – 9/30/2010

Hey everyone, just a few things to share with you today. First of all, I’ve done quite a bit of work on the Marvel Trade Paperback Timeline over the last couple of weeks. When I first posted it, the reading order covered the years 1998 through 2001. It now covers 1998 through 2004 – or, in terms of Marvel continuity, from Heroes Return through Avengers Disassembled. Furthermore, from what I can tell the timeline is totally complete for those years, even including a number of trades that haven’t been solicited yet. But if you think I’m missing something or that I need to shuffle anything around, please let me know! And if you have any other feedback at all, feel free to leave a comment or email me at marveltimeline@gmail.com. (And speaking of reading orders, Ian at Trade Reading Order is back to working on his site after a brief hiatus, so head over there and leave him a comment!)

That aside, this blog reached two other milestones recently. The first is that Gambit Classic, Vol. 1 marked the blog’s 25th review, and while I’m not sure the honor should have gone to such a terrible book, I’m really happy to have been able to keep this going for so long. And that brings me to the second milestone, which is that yesterday marked the blog’s six-month anniversary! So thanks to everyone who’s been following the blog, either in terms of commenting, being an actual “follower” on Blogger, or even just reading my ramblings every week; your comments and feedback are what keep this enjoyable for me.

So I think that’s about it for now. There should be a new review either Friday or Saturday – see you then!

Streams of Consciousness – 8/2/2010

Hey, everyone! I have quite a few things to share with you today, so I decided to cram it all into one giant, scatter-brained post. Enjoy!

First of all, thanks once again to the folks at MOMB Comics for the very nice mention they made of this blog on their most recent podcast, which you can check out here (it’s MOMBcast #45). This is one of my absolute favorite comics podcasts week in and week out – please go and check it out!

I’d also like to thank Ryan Lindsay and everyone else at Thought Balloons for featuring a single-page Punisher comic book script I wrote last week in a guest post on Friday (mine is the second one, "Dangerous"). For those unaware, Thought Balloons is a site where a handful of writers each write a one-page script about a particular comic book character (a new one every week). Reader-submitted reviews are encouraged as well, so feel free to try your hand at any time – this week’s character is Gamora.

And for those who have been following the comments sections here for the last few weeks, I’m happy to report that my move was a resounding success and that although there are still unpacked boxes as far as the eye can see, I’m settling into my new place quite nicely. Most importantly, there shouldn’t be any hiccups in the weekly review schedule, as I feared there might. I’ll also try to post some comments on the October 2010 solicitations soon – I would have done so much sooner, but Marvel was extremely late in releasing theirs this month, I think because of SDCC a couple of weeks ago.

You may have also noticed that I added a Review Index to the blog. There may not very many reviews here at the moment, but as more are added I think this will become extremely helpful. The link is in the sidebar right now (between the links and followers sections), but I may move it to the top of the page at some point.

And now, for probably the most significant item on the docket: yes, I am working on an annotated reading order for Marvel’s trade paperback collections, which is very much in the vein of the DC timeline at the Collected Editions blog. I alluded to this project (albeit somewhat secretively) in a post way back in May, but until recently it hasn’t really been in a state worthy of publication. It will be posted very soon, though, at which point I’ll be talking about it in a lot more detail. I’m also hoping to work in conjunction with Ian at the excellent website Trade Reading Order to get his Marvel collections database up to date. So stay tuned, exciting things are on the way!

That’s it for now – have a great week, and I’ll see you back here on Friday (if not sooner)!