Is this a book whose message I agree with or want to explore right now? …Do I really want to read <insert theme> for 300+ pages… Do I really want to read <insert theme> for 200 pages? …Should I go with something high concept, or settle for trope-y genre fiction? …Let’s look at reviews on goodreads…the average is 4 stars, but this person says this book is a GIANT waste of time, do I want to chance it? …I really like <insert author>'s books, but am I tired of hearing the same voice and themes explored? …I’m reading too much fiction, I need to read some non-fiction. …Non-fiction is just some author spending 300 pages trying to sway me to a particular point of view, or their just explaining on concept verbosely and repetitively for 300+ pages… Maybe I’ll just read a comic, eh all these series are just spins on older, better drawn and written ones… I’ll just grab ten different books from the library, one of them has to be good, right? …All ten of these books look like they’re just a damn waste of time! Why do I need to muse on the history and sociological implications of the toothbrush for 400 pages?! …Maybe books are just overrated, why do I think I need to read anyways? …What am I really getting from all of this reading? Is someone awarding me a prize at the end? Is this like those old book competitions in school where I win a pizza party after reading 200 hundred books? Aaaaaaaaagggggghhhh!!!

Funnily enough I just read the original Black Hammer series recently. Pretty good while it lasted. There were some moments that were confusing, but I was able to keep track of what was going on for the most part. I think it was easier to focus on the interpersonal stuff in Black Hammer and gloss over the underlying explanation. With DoT even the character relationships are hard to follow, if and when there is any. There are a lot of side stories that tend to take front and center. Honestly, the main character is not very interesting and forgettable. I couldn’t even tell you his name right now. Ironically the conceptual stuff is both what makes the series good, and also it’s Achilles heel.

Read the most recent issue of Department of Truth. The series has an excellent premise and a lot of incredibly interesting ideas it explores, but I think it’s plot gets lost in the conceptual framework it’s created. I completely devoured the first 20+ issues with zest. However, the last few issues have got more bogged down with exposition and digressions that I am losing track of what the hell is even going on amymore. I’ll keep reading, not with as much anticipation as before though.

Been watching the Legion tv show which has rekindled my interest in X-Men. It got me to revisit the beginning of the modern X-Men with Claremont’s legendary run. I haven’t read these in decades, so I am looking forward to see how well they hold up. My library was able to get the Uncanny X-Men Omnibus Volume 1 on Interlibrary Loan which has something like the first 20-30 issues of the run. Looking forward to it. It’s amazing how much Claremont created and how it’s basically the X-Men bible going forward. One of these days I’d like to jump into the original run up until the Claremont era since I have read very little from the original run. I’m especially interested in the 70s stuff with Neal Adams that led into Uncanny, which always seemed like a prototype for the Claremont stuff, at least from what I’ve seen of them.

I had no clue about comics from Quebec honestly. Although if someone had mentioned French-Canadian comics and there being crossover with Bandee Desinee in Europe I wouldn’t have been suprised. I know there’s a fair amount of French music from Canada. I live fairly close to Canada on the US/Canada border and one of the radio stations I can get out here is exclusively in French, there’s some great sounding music on there too.

Yeah, relatively new. It’s been around a year and a half, maybe two, that I’ve started looking into BD with any focus. I suppose I had more of an exposure than most by being into the alternative comix scene in the US which has some association with BD at times, especially Fantagraphics Comics. So that definitely helped in getting me into them. I’m sure there were.a.few scattered BD I’ve read in the past that didn’t even register with me as such in the past, but nothing I can recall.

For sure! It’s nice the signal/noise ratio is low on the fediverse, but at times it needs a little signal boost. It’s also a good way for me to immerse myself and get more familiar with BD stuff in general, a win win on all fronts. I’ve learned a lot even in the past week or two.

I know there is some tags at the bottom of the article. I didn’t pay close attention to them. I did try the Angouleme tag, which was suprisingly scant, only a few articles from a 4 or 5 year span. In the next week or so I am going to find some sites that cover BD exclusively, or at least have a larger focus, as TCJ seems to only have a sprinkly at times.

Those were the publishers mentioned at the counter festival, which were mostly smaller, independent publishers. I made a note of them for that fact alone since it hadn’t occured to me to look at the BD output outside of the mainstream publishers.

Definitely. My motto these days is “the perfect is the enemy of the good”. Although I don’t always adhere to it completely. The past few months my writing has fallen off since I fell into the “it wont be good enough” mindset. I’m trying to shake myself out of it, but it’s a difficult habit to break.

For sure. I feel lile that about drawing. It’s another skill I’d love to aquire, but the level of detail that is desirous to obtain is daunting. Sometimes I yearn for a return to a child’s simplicity of being able to make something without getting hung up on it looking “good”. I feel that way about most things, writing, learning about new things, etc. It’s what I aspire to attain most, the act of doing something irregardless of the percieved level of competence.

Absolutely. I love watercolor. Keep meaning to get into it myself. I’m currently blissfully unaware of it’s difficulty lol.

I found Djinn a few months ago. I’ve read the first four volumes digitally, but have held off reading more because I want to get the other volumes in trade since it’s such a gorgeously drawn series. I’ve really enjoyed it so far though. I’ll have to look for more by Dufaux when I’m through, same for Miralles.

No problem, I enjoy being able to contribute to such a small, intimate little community. I hope you’re treating yourself well. Stay strong, friend <3

Well, I appreciate the primer you linked in this thread. I was already reading Blackshirts and Reds, but now have some other material to read in conjunction with it. Take care, friend <3

That’s actually a great strategy. It is perplexing to me to see the incivility of common conservative discourse online with other people they percieve as being “left wing” that others who read such exchanges could see anything other than it being childish and crude, especially when the other party is participating in a respectful manner. For myself, I don’t resort to using incivilty against incivility but end up concluding that it’s a waste of my emotional stamina to continue a discussion where one side insults and denigrates me as a matter of course. I’ll keep your idea in mind next time I encounter such a time. Keep doing the hard work ;)

I never used it myself, but I appreciated that it existed nonetheless.

Bravo on showing such respectful and good-natured civility towards someone who is undoubtedly a troll. I applaud your restraint. However, I think you entertained their obvious bad faith arguing for far too long. It’s quite clear that they are hostile towards communism and are being deliberately combative and insulting to try and get a reaction out of someone. Unfortunately, as the Reddit floodgates begin to burst, I am sure many more trolls and hostile reactionaries whilr be flooding Lemmy for the forseeable future. Stay strong, comrade <3

There’s a difference between support and pointing out blatant US propaganda. Like I said above, many people across the fediverse don’t get the nuance of being critical of US narratives does not equal supporting the regimes that are on the recieving end of that propaganda. If you really spent any amount of time on .ml you’d see there is plenty of criticism of Russia/China, just not to the extent where everyone unquestioningly takes any criticism by US sources at face value.

Wherever it stems from it’s getting annoying to deal with the influx of “enlightened centrists” that have the idea that anyone left of Biden/Harris is a secret Russian/Chinese disinfo agent :/

Give yourself all the time you need. Grief needs room to be able to manage. It took me a looong time to deal with the world again when my fiance passed, and I’m still figuring it out.

As hard as it is try and do little things to keep yourself sane, even things like cooking, cleaning and going for a walk get very hard to do, but if you don’t make time your emotions will get even harder to manage. I neglected a lot of things and it really brought me to a bad place.

My heart goes out to you, take care of yourself. Sending love your way <3

Ah, I see. Good to know.

Hmm, that make sense. I suppose due to the quality of the tv you’d get dimishing returns the higher the fidelity of the set. I honestly have only been slightly curious about RGB, but never enough to go for it. Somehow I always suspected that it wasn’t quite worth the effort.

On the Android app?

For sure! Such a trip it made it on the DS, with a level editor even.

Don’t worry about the other posters trying to dissuade you from lemmy.ml. It’s a very chill instance. It gets flack because it is run by and has a majority leftist base, but that shouldn’t be an issue if you consider yourself a progressive. The “tankie” slurs are frankly b.s. and disingenuous. I wouldn’t call the sub “pro-Russia/China” by any means, the users are anti-imperialist and realistic in the nature of US propaganda depicting other states as bogeymen. Just because you question the mainstream US-centric narrative doesn’t mean you’re shilling for China/Russia etc. There’s a lot of liberals and centrists, that despite their progressive sentiments they may hold, are still very beholden to the narrative of American exceptionalism in a lot of ways.

It’s seriously getting old at this point. I’ve noticed there’s been an uptick in hostility towards lemmy.ml over the past year. I can only assume it’s related to the reddit migration. Unfortunately I only forsee it getting worse as more people migrate over.

That’s awesome! I’m all about upcycling. It’s amazing what people will toss without thinking about repair. Although sometimes it’s not worth the headache. I remember flipping my shit when I couldn’t figure out how to repair the read error on a PS2 I picked up. Ended up just giving up in the end. Also spent hours through the middle of the night jacked up on energy drinks pulling a laptop apart to fix an issue with the processor running too hot, only to put it back together and still have the same issue.

Ah, what’s the issue with the Game Genie? I’m buying an Everdrive, I think I heard that it had built in cheat support.

Yeah, nowadays I shy away from hardmods because of the experiences I listed above. I’d rather buy from someone with the time and experience if I need to go that route. Otherwise I’m completely fine with softmodding or flashcarts for my needs which tend more towards software. I wouldn’t mind seeing a RGB mod in person running on something cool like one of those “HD” Trinitrons that were used a video editing monitors back in the day. I hear they look fantastic, the highest fidelity picture you can get for CRT based systems.