It's Wednesday again. "Hump day" ; "King of the Week" ; "New Comic Book Day" ; etc. And yet, I can't help but feel a tiny bit of dread. Having had a really rough week, the prospect of having to go into a public place and interact with people doesn't always get me amped. It's the reason I've avoided going to the movies or going to any "parties" for two weeks. I've been sitting at home, watching movies and playing with my cats, and doing little else. All those nights that I promised myself I would go back and read some sweet comic books? Gone. All those nights that I promised I would blog or write a new column? Gone. Wednesday's general excitement? Gone?

Here's what's on my pull-list for today:


Now, these are all titles that I enjoy reading. Ultimate Spiderman, while having rarely actually bought the book in the past, I used to read in trade form at my parents' local library whenever I was home from school or whatever. And while Grant Morrison & Ed Brubaker are two of the creators putting out major super hero work that I consistently trust, I have to admit that I'm not that psyched about these books this week.

It begs the question, when are comics more than merely a source of entertainment? To me, all of these books, while perhaps having been executed well in their creation or being just straight-up entertaining and fun, may not prove to be all that important to my life. I have so much stuff to finish reading that will most definitely effect me beyond the 10 minutes that I spend reading it. Why do I bother with these books then?

I suppose it comes from a deep loyalty to the genre. But more than that, I think, there is always the off-chance that book like this will deeply effect me on a profound level. It happens every once in a while.

One of the other items that I'm actually really excited for is the Spiderman Loves Mary Jane hardcover, which includes all of the previous mini-series and the first few issues of the current series. This is a book that I can read & re-read and enjoy. And while the stories may not be that life-changing or deeply effective, they certainly are reusable entertainment. And sometimes entertainment can be profound on the simplest of levels like that.

But is Grant Morrison's Batman going to get re-read any time soon? I made the mistake of re-reading Brad Meltzer's Justice League of America, and it just killed any interest I had in the book. I am now not looking foward to the upcoming JLA/JSA cross-over 'cos now I feel that in order to follow the story I will have to buy books that I'm not necessarily interested in anymore.

And while I have probably been enjoying Brubaker's Daredevil run more and more as time goes on, the last issue would have provided a really good stopping point for the book, but very little story potential. Brubaker certainly hasn't killed off the last few years of Daredevil's story, but at the same time, it doesn't seem like there's anywhere new that he can take it.

I don't know. Maybe I'm just exhausted from all the non-comic related stuff going on that I'm having trouble concentrating. I'll give these books a try. At the very least, I'll build up my credit at Cosmic Comics, so I can actually buy the Spiderman Loves Mary Jane hardcover.

Labels: comics