Well well.

We have our first comment, a couple of posts down.

Shit, that means I really will have to write that Manifesto post.

And now

Existential Ennui is at number 9 in the google rankings. A remarkably rapid ascent that's probably the result of me googling my own blog.

Sigh.

A Manifesto

This has been boiling round my brain for a while, and it's not quite ready to come out yet, but just to warn you: I may at some point blog at length about why I think so many US 'mainstream' comics are so disappointing, and what kinds of comics I'd like to see being made. And I don't mean in the usual whiny sense of 'Oh there's too many bloody superhero comics and they're choking the market'. I mean in the sense of a paucity of imagination on the part of many comics creators and, probably more pertinently, on the part of many editorial and management bods.

So the gist of it will be: when the only limits are imagination (and we all know they're not, but this is part of the argument), why are so many superhero and adventure comics so pedestrian? And, conversely, if the only limits were imagination, what would superhero and adventure comics be like?

Discuss. Soon.

I know I vowed

to put the irritating navel-gazing behind me when I relaunched Existential Ennui, and to concentrate on something with more substance instead (that's comics, if you were wondering; keep up). But you'll have to allow me a little introspection I'm afraid. As anyone who read Off Message will know, it does come with the territory.

Yes, you guessed it: I googled Existential Ennui. Just those two words, nothing else. And we're currently at number 28 in the rankings. With a bullet. Woo hoo.

(And if you add a 'blog' after the 'Existential Ennui', we're at number 8.)

Not that I'm looking for validation or anything.

I caved.

I did buy the regular Bryan Hitch Captain America: Reborn #1 cover. I tried to resist, really I did, but it was too darn pretty. Look. Look how pretty it is:













Yes, I know. I need help. And on top of that, any indie cred (ha!) I might have gained by buying this













is instantly trampled on and pissed on and shitted in its mouth by my buying this













which, you'll recall, is a comic I already own, except with a different (and probably better) cover.

So.

The eternal struggle twixt art and commerce, between my better and worser-er natures, between the falutin' and the fanboyish, neatly encapsulated in two covers:













V













TO THE DEATH.

Now then.

Here's something that turned up at the comic shop this week which wasn't on my list:













I feel a lengthy Mazzucchelli post coming on...