Oh, I can never keep a hiatus going as long as I say I’m gonna, can I?

It’s the end of the year, and this time, I don’t feel much like enumerating the best comics of 2013. Too many of the best comics are getting cancelled, or they’re published by a certain comics company that I prefer not to read anymore. So instead, let’s talk about how awesome I am. I know, I mostly do reviews, and they’re mostly pretty boring, but sometimes, I do get to do some blog posts I’m pretty happy with. Here are my favorites from 2013.

• Guns n’ Posers
• Let’s Talk about Sextillion
• A World Without “Superhero” Trademarks
• Irritated Again
• What is Best in Life?
• All the Things are Great
• How to Fix DC Comics
• Drawing the Line
• This Week in Comic Book Diversity

Hmph, just nine posts in 12 months? I’m slacking off, ain’t I?

Here’s to a better 2014, no matter how unlikely that may be…

There haven’t been many comments lately. I know exactly why, of course — I’ve changed the blog settings to require registration, because I was getting swamped with several hundred spam comments an hour. I like comments, but I really dislike spammers, so I still think it’s a good trade.

Nevertheless, I do miss getting legitimate comments. If you don’t know how to register, just scroll down and look for the “Log In” button in the sidebar. And if you don’t want to register, remember that I’ve got my email address up in the top corner of the page, and I don’t object to getting email at all.

That’s all — back to comic book stuff on Friday…

EDIT: Actually, never mind. It turns out there isn’t actually any way to register so you can make comments. There’s just a log-in screen, with no link that’ll let you register at all. So I’m switching it back to the free-for-all. I don’t much enjoy spammers, but I also don’t like it when no one else is ever able to comment.  :/

I don’t think I’ve got any choice but to drop back to a lighter blogging schedule this week.

First, you know how many comics I bought this week? NONE AT ALL. It doesn’t help that all of DC’s books for the whole month are going to be these useless villain profile comics. DC does this every couple of years, and they just seem to get more and more pathetic. Anyway, I’m not going to reward them with any pity sales, and Marvel didn’t put out anything I was going to read this week, and nothing else looked interesting. So here we are — no comics.

And on top of that, I’ve got a list of Things I’ve Got To Do as long as your arm. And I’ll never make any progress on any of them if I spend the next week wracking my brains trying to think up something I care to blog about.

So in other words: Light blogging this week. We’ll do Friday Night Fights later today, and if anything pops up that I feel really needs my random chitchattery, I’ll blog about that. But I ain’t gonna knock myself out if I don’t gotta.

So I’ll see ya when I see ya.

Sorry, folks, no blogging from me for today. I got stuck with a screaming headache most of the day yesterday and could barely stand to look at the computer screen.

I don’t even think I can blame the long weekend, as I spent the whole time being restful and quiet. Probably just one of those my-brain-doesn’t-want-to-blog-so-here’s-a-headache headaches.

I’ll make it up to you. Okay, I won’t actually make it up to you, but I reckon I’ll blog another day instead.

Nothing from me today, folks.

I’ve got plenty of stuff to review and write about, but work has been completely wearing me out lately, and I decided I’d like to spend a little extra time avoiding blogging.

Can’t say this is going to do a lot to recharge my batteries, but I think it’ll do me some good to have a day I can devote to reading, writing, or sleeping on the couch…

Daylight Savings Time is really doin’ a number on my ability to stay awake and concentrate on much of anything, so I ain’t thought of a thing worth blogging about.

So instead, here’s a couple panels of Deadpool plugging this blog.

Because you know a guy aware of the Fourth Wall is probably reading Z-list comics blogs, right?

(Thanks to Derek Moreland for the scans)

(Also, hoping I didn’t have to reduce that too small for y’all to be able to read.)

So this hiatus didn’t really go the way I expected it to. There was a lot less “not writing blog posts about comics” and a lot more “writing blog posts about comics.” Nevertheless, I’ve had some time to think things over, and it looks like I’ve figured out a few things I want to take forward from here.

First of all, there’s going to be a lot fewer comics reviews here. Comics reviews are relatively easy, especially when you don’t have anything in mind that you want to rant/enthuse about. But really, they’re pretty boring, both for you guys and for me, too. And it’s depressing to look at your schedule for the week and start planning out when you’re going to write a dozen comics reviews every week. It’s even worse when you get home from work and realize that your leisure activity for the evening is going to involve reviewing comics when you’d rather be doing just about anything else.

I also got a look at the pull-list from my local comics shop recently, and it was a distressingly long document. And I kinda realized that there were a lot of comics I was reading just for the sake of the blog, not because I was getting a lot of enjoyment out of them. And that’s insane. My house is crammed to the gills with comics that I don’t care about. Why keep that up? There’s no reason to.

So I went through my pull-list and cut more than half. I dropped a lot of titles I’ve enjoyed but have gotten less enthusiastic about — Batman, Spider-Man, Fatale, Dial H, Morning Glories, Snarked, Unwritten, even B.P.R.D. They’re still good comics, but I’m mostly reading them because I feel like I should be, not because I want to. I’m releasing myself from any self-imposed obligation to keep reading them.

And from now on, I’ll review comics if I feel like it. If I don’t have anything I’m enthusiastic about, I won’t review anything. If I find something outstanding, unusually enjoyable, unusually un-enjoyable, I’ll let ya know. But I enjoy this blog a lot more when I’m not forcing myself to do review after review after review. I have more fun commenting on comics news, analyzing comics, typing up some random silliness, and even reviewing graphic novels and regular prose books.

So we’re gonna see if changing things up helps my overall sanity level, see if we can get me back to enjoying comics blogging again. If this works, fantastic. If it don’t work, ehh, what can you do?

Sorry, kids, I’m going to take a break for at least a few days. I spent the weekend trying to sort my comics, get rid of the stuff I didn’t want anymore, and try to clean the house up a bit… and it was definitely less than a success.

I got rid of quite a few comics. But I ended up keeping a lot more than I expected. I guess that’s good news — it’s nice that there are still some older comics out there that I still enjoy re-reading. But it’s also bad news, ’cause holy zambonis, do I need to clear up some of the space and storage issues in my house, and having shortboxes piled up high against the walls doesn’t do anything to make my house more liveable.

So I’m taking a hiatus, ’cause I’m sick of sorting through comics, and I’m frustrated by how the comics stash keeps getting bigger and bigger, and I need to figure out how I can make the house cleaner and easier to live in. And figuring that out may require me to start getting a heck of a lot fewer comics, which will definitely affect the future of the blog.

Long story short: Taking a break. Trying to clear up more floor space. See you guys eventually.

Awright, dudes and dudettes, I’m needing a break pretty bad — and not just from the blog.

So starting today, I’m going to try to spend the next week or so away from comics and mostly away from the computer. Limited net-surfing, minimal e-mail, zero gaming. I’m giving myself permission to do all the typing I want to, but other than that, I want to recharge my batteries, ponder on some future plans, and shake up my attitudes.

Hopefully, I can spend a week reading books and looking at the world. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

See y’all when I see y’all.

Well, now, here’s the thing.

A couple weeks back, I came home from work and had a great idea for a story I wanted to write — not something for the blog, but something I could potentially send in to publishers and get money for. But before I worked on that, I had to write up the next day’s blog post. And by the time I spent the usual hour or two cooking it together, I was sick of sitting in front of the computer and not much feeling like doing anymore writing anyway.

Then the same thing happened the day after that. And the day after that.

Many a week goes by where I don’t have time to write because I’ve got to work on the blog. Heck, it’s even hard to find time for gaming or reading or lots of other fun things.

Of course, I could still find time to write, I’m sure, but the blog is becoming a too-convenient excuse, and so I’m seeing it less as something I enjoy doing, and more as something that’s an unpaid, low-readership, somewhat odious, and mostly unshirkable responsibility.

And that way leads burnout.

I’m not interested in quitting the blog — it has its own intangible rewards. But I’m also not real happy that it seems to control so much of my free time.

So this is what we’re gonna try: I’m going to cut my blogging back from five days a week to three. You can expect blog posts here every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I might still post something on Tuesdays or Thursdays, if there’s something particularly interesting I want to talk about. But for the most part, posts will appear on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays only.

Let’s see how this works out, ‘kay?