And here I am.
First things first. To those of you -- okay, both of you -- who have been regularly following my self absorbed rantings over at the Wizard site, my landing here at CBR has nothing to do with any hard feelings nor animosity toward the good folk over at Wizarduniverse.com. See that? A free plug. No hard feelings whatsoever.
I guess it's no secret that there was a personnel shake up at the Wizard site, Rick Marshal out, new regime in (and, no, I have no idea what happened nor why and, truth be told, it's none of my business). Personnel shake-ups happen all of the time. New directions are mapped out. Out with the old, in with the new and all that. Not a problem.
So, if that's the case, why am I here at CBR?
In a nutshell, the silence grew deafening. Since the shake up I haven't heard word one from whoever's running the site and, since Rick was my touch point, had no idea who to get in touch with to find out if "As If I Care" was still up and running. Come to think of it, my only other Wizard touch point landed at Marvel so that avenue of inquiry was closed off as well.
I suppose I could have trawled the Wizard directory looking for whoever was doing what where, but that was way too much like work and would have seriously cut into my X-Box 360 time. Another option would have been to close shop, pretend it'd been fun and focus on my paying work, but I'd kinda, sorta come to enjoy the occasional hubris driven pressure valve venting that the column provided. As bully pulpits go, not to0 shabby.
I'm going to say it once again because it bears repeating. No. Hard. Feelings. The Wizard site has obviously moved on and so have I. Hell, I outlasted Geoff Johns' and Brian Bendis' columns. That's got to count for something.
Okay, now that that's out of the way, a few ground rules that should save us all a lot of fuss and bother.
- The opinions expressed herein are mine and mine alone. No hidden agendas need apply.
- If you left your sense of humor in your other pants, stop reading now and go get it. Really.
- At the end of the day, it's just comic books and there's nothing wrong with that, nothing at all.
- This column appears whenever I feel up to choking one out so don't look for anything even remotely resembling a regular schedule.
- Yes. I really am that cranky. Deal with it.
Moving on...
It being the New Year, I figured I'd start things off with a few New Year's Resolutions. You know, the kinds of lofty ambitions that, if you're lucky, carry over into March before crumbling under the weight of reality as you live it? I know, way to play the cliche'.
Let's see now...
NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS FOR '08Stop picking on Greg Rucka. Huh... Probably not the best one to start off with. I'll be lucky if I can keep this one for the duration of the column.
Get over inordinate fear of Grant Morrison. Harder than it sounds, people. Have you met the guy?
Stop lying to editors. That's right. All three of them.
Find a new hobby. Torching drifters just isn't cutting it anymore (now watch some Internut run with that as fact).
Stop picking on Greg Rucka. It's called reinforcement. Deal with it.
J-E-T-S... Stop pretending to be a Giants fan. No, wait, they kinda suck too...
No more weekly comics. Two years. Two years! What was I thinking!?
No more sick jokes. What's more embarrassing than saying, "see what I mean" to a blind guy? Saying, "shake a leg" to a spastic stuck in a turnstile. Okay... This one's gonna be tough.
Stop putting a "t" on the end of Didio's name then giggling like a schoolgirl. He finds out, I'll be stuck with that Dark Binky project he's been threatening to offload on someone.
Stop referring to DC comp packages as four color anthrax. In my defense, my dog sniffed one and died howling.
Find something positive to say. Too late, right?
Refrain from telling Jonah Weiland the dictionary definition of his first name. At least until March.
Change answering machine message. Especially the part about, "if I really wanted to talk to you I wouldn't have gotten the machine".
Memorize kid's names. Long overdue.
Remember to leave toilet seat down. The guys out there know...
Stop referring to the WGA strike as "my big break". A scab is a scab is a scab. Odd how they have no problem trying to wrest away comicbook work...
And finally...
Remember to thank Wizard for setting all of this in motion. It was fun, guys.
And with that, I'm outta here. Catch you next time.