Michael Deeley has been reading comics since he was 12 years old. His first book was an issue of Silver Surfer by Jim Starlin, leading him to see all comics as ideological conflicts with big-ass fight scenes. At the very least, he expects a comic to be entertaining in some fashion, which is why he thinks Secret Wars II is better than Dark Knight Strikes Back. He has never work in the comics field, but he does have a belligerent attitude and a lot of free time.
During his brief intervals in the real world, Michael looks for a paying job that should, (theoretically) lead to a better life involving more comics, privacy, and women.
He currently lives between Pittsburgh, PA, and the Pittsburgh International Airport, in a suburb so new, it only has one McDonalds.
“It begins . . . with an ending--and perhaps--the breaking of a man’s heart.”
-Fabian Nicieza, X-Men #25
Well, I did it. 365 days of comic book reading recorded in 53 columns. I’d count how many comics I’ve read, but the number is so large, it would depress me. I’ve achieved exactly what I set out to do. There were some topics I didn’t cover, but I could always write special articles about them later.
This is the largest single project I’ve ever done. Sure, I’ve been to college, but that was more of a process, a stage in life I had to go through. This was the first time I set a goal for myself, followed a timetable, and achieved it.
I feel let down. I’d thought finishing this would feel great because I’ve never written so much, or undertaken such a large project. But the more I think about it, it boils down to this: I spent a year of my life reading comics.
So, let’s see what I’ve done:
Dec. 31, 2002: Column Zero. One of the ideas I had that I couldn’t follow through with was working in a comics shop for a week. I only thought of this because Kevin Murphy, author of “A Year at the Movies”, the inspiration for this column, had worked in a movie theater for a week. Actually, I forgot that idea completely. Ironically, I’m now seeking positions within the comics industry as a retail representative, or another position in sales.
Jan. 1-7: Eide’s Entertainment was recently named the Best Comics Shop in Pittsburgh by readers of a free weekly paper. Frankly, it’s not much of a contest. It’s either Eide’s or the Phantom in Oakland. But I still think Phantom is friendlier. I spoke to their owner recently and he knew my name from their subscription list. That’s the kind of attention you look for in a shop.
Jan. 8-14: I got more issues of ‘Kid Eternity’. It doesn’t really go anywhere. It seems to lack substance and direction, just like the Kid himself. The first issue of Grant Morrison’s 1993 mini-series looks more promising. I’m still looking for the rest of it.
Jan. 15-21: Let me re-iterate that a gallery is the worst place to enjoy comics. A page from a comic hung on a wall is not art. Also, the students at Carnegie Mellon University are fucking rude!
Jan. 22-28: I want to apologize for not having a topic that week. It was poor planning on my part. I think I was close to making the point that even though we readers don’t know nearly as much about the publishing industry as we think we do, we still feel personally involved in the courses the businesses take.
Jan. 29-Feb. 4: ‘Lone Wolf & Cub’ is still one of the greatest comics ever made.
Feb. 5-11: The libraries in Pennsylvania are facing severe budget cuts. Please, donate your money and/or books to your local libraries.
Feb. 12-18: During the creator interviews on the “Daredevil” DVD, Gene Colan is drawing a large picture of Daredevil holding Howard the Duck. I thought the image would appear in ‘Daredevil’ #50. It didn’t. How can I buy that picture?! Two of my favorite comic characters drawn by the best artist each one ever had? Somebody contact Mr. Colan and start negotiations!
Feb. 19-25: Beginning in December, ‘Raijin Comics Monthly’ will be available at most Giant Eagle supermarkets in Pennsylvania. Giant Eagle was named the Most Family-Friendly retailer by Child magazine, and I’m happy to see it carry this series featuring violence, sex, lechery, non-Christian religions, a love quadrangle involving 14-year-olds and immortal star spirits, anti-American sentiments, and a Christ-hating samurai! Seriously, it’s great to see this magazine sold in a mass outlet.
Feb. 26-Mar. 4: My TV watching habits haven’t changed much. I still watch :South Park”, “The Daily Show”, and the Adult Swim cartoons on Cartoon Network. “John Doe” was cancelled on one hell of a cliffhanger. I’ve fallen out of the habit of watching “She Spies” since it comes on late Saturday nights. I caught an episode recently. They’d made some changes that make it seem more like a “Charlie’s Angels”. The tongue-in-cheek oddness was gone.
I’ve no interest in watching “CSI” again in my life, though I might watch “Law and Order” if I catch it channel flipping. Apparently, “American Idol” had two winners this year, because I keep hearing about Rueben and Clay. I’ve not heard them sing, and like it that way. There’s a certain smug superiority in having no clue what everyone’s talking about. I can’t help feeling these celebrities and shows everyone else watches are beneath my notice.
Michael Crichton’s “Prey” in now in paperback. I’m surprised it doesn’t say “soon to be a major motion picture” on the cover.
Mar. 5-11: I got the dates wrong on this week, and labeled it “Mar. 6-12”. Rob Liefeld is currently working on completing two new ‘Youngblood’ mini-series, and re-launching ‘Brigade’. He’s also involved in a public feud with Rick Veitch over unreturned art and creator credit on a trade book. You know, you could say that about Rob at any point in his career just by changing, two, maybe three details.
Mar. 12-18: Again, I believe the success of manga in America lies with the variety of stories available, not to mention the sheer originality and weirdness one can find in them. One book is about a teenage boy dying and coming back to life, as his girlfriend’s pet penguin! How wild is that?
Mar. 19-25: No big revelation, no answer, no secret reason why people stop reading comics. Some people just get sick of them.
Mar. 26-Apr. 1: Yeah, I take comic books way too seriously. I started this project to rediscover why I loved them. I’d found myself just reading comics mechanically to block out reality; to substitute for a well-rounded lifestyle. Now, I have a different view of them.
Apr. 2-8: This was one of the best days of my life. I might not have gone, because I didn’t find out about it until the week it was happening. A co-worker convinced me to take the chance and just go. I’m glad I did. SPACE was the first time I felt like the people around me genuinely loved comics as an art form. They liked telling stories with words and pictures. It was a community, dammit! I’m going next year, and bringing sandwiches for everybody!
Apr. 9-15: A whole column about annuals. Wow. How the hell did I do that?
Apr. 16-22: CrossGen’s in a bind, but I’m not counting it out yet! It will survive! Scaling down its output and publishing more comics that aren’t interconnected is a smart move. I’m still waiting for more trade books.
Apr. 23-29: The most powerful image I’ll always have of the Pittsburgh Comicon is old George Tuska, barely awake, constantly drawing pictures that aren’t selling. A tired old man drawing superheroes. Sad.
Apr. 30-May 6: The Rocket Comics preview from Dark Horse got me reading ‘Syn’, which isn’t as great as I thought it would be. I’m not reading anything else related to the free comics.
May 7-13: I felt obligated to write a review of “X2” because my opinion seemed different from everyone else’s. My feelings about the new ‘Authority’ series seem more common.
May 14-20: I honestly thought Stan Lee would be dead by now.
May 21-27: I just want to add that a restaurant that is not of the fast-food variety is not an appropriate place to read a comic book. Or anything else, for that matter. It just didn’t feel right.
May 28-June 3: 90% of the stuff in Previews gets ignored every month. I should make a habit of looking through the entire book.
June 4-10: Since my column, more comics-based games have been released. “XIII”, based on a Belgian comic, has been praised for its style, but some find its gameplay lacking. “Spawn: Armageddon” has received mediocre reviews, mostly about its fighting moves. “Justice League Chronicles” and “Aquaman: Battle for Atlantis” both made Game Informer magazine’s “Top 10 Worst Games for 2003” list. Their pick for #1? “Batman: Dark Tomorrow”.
I did buy “Batman: Rise of Sin Tzu” for GameCube. It was $20 new, and I thought it came with an action figure. (It didn’t.) “Sin Tzu” was developed by Ubisoft, the same people who brought us the acclaimed “Splinter Cell”, “Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time”, and “Beyond Good and Evil”. Visually, “Sin Tzu” is excellent. The graphics, lighting, and character animation are all top-quality. Unfortunately, the game is boring and repetitive. You spend every level beating up the same thugs, over and over again. The story you reveal is thin and dull. You can unlock new fighting moves, but they’re complex to pull off and too elaborate for the thugs. The game does do more to promote the Batman comics than other games. It gives the number and website of the Comic Shop Locater Service. There’s also an unlockable gallery of Batman graphic novel covers. But the covers are not accompanied by story summaries so non-readers won’t know what they’re about.
Overall, the game is too difficult and too boring for too little fun. I give it .
June 11-17: I’m sick of people saying how “The Hulk” was a bad movie. It was NOT a bad movie! Ang Lee tried to craft an introspective story around the Hulk and combine it with comic book-style photography. It wasn’t a complete success, but it was good, dammit! It’s more inventive and original than most summer movies. What, you wanted Hulk trashing stuff for 90 minutes? Moron.
June 18-24: OK, this was another cop-out column. I just did long reviews for each of my comics instead of writing about a specific topic. Sorry.
June 25-July 1: Another misdated column. Somehow I put the dates “July 2-8” on two consecutive columns. The first, about locally published comics, should have received this date.
Congratulations to Brian Maruca and Jim Rugg for getting ‘Street Angel’ published nationally by Slave Labor Graphics, and again to them and Jason Lex for being nominated for the Eugene Day prize. Good luck to you both.
July 2-8: “League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” the movie sucked. I think we can all agree on that?
July 9-15: I’ve picked up a few more issues of ‘Darkhawk’. It’s really not bad at all. I’ll keep an eye out for it in cheap bins.
July 16-22: I never planned to persuade Ray Tate to like one of my books. Then again, I never thought I’d be persuaded to like any of his. Turns out we have similar tastes, just different standards for content. But Tate, man, you’ve got to let some stuff go! Yes, it’s unfair that Barbra Gordon is still crippled while Bruce Wayne had his paralysis healed by a mutant, and yes, pre-Crisis continuity is easier to follow than post-Crisis. But none of that’s going to change anytime soon. Just accept it and move on. Let it go. Drop it.
July 23-29: I picked up few ‘Joker: Last Laugh’ tie-ins for a dollar each at a hobby shop. Since then, I’ve been buying other tie-ins at full price. I don’t even like the story that much. I just feel the need to have a complete set of the crossover. I wonder how many guys like me are keeping the industry alive.
July 30-Aug. 5: The Shop ‘n’ Save supermarket has stopped selling comics. Now the only place kids around here can find them is down at the Giant Eagle or Waldenbooks at Robinson Town Centre. Robinson is a collection of stores, mini-malls, and a full-sized mall growing around a freeway exit. It’s the very picture of suburban sprawl. Not an idea place for a shop trying to attract casual comics readers.
There are some empty storefronts near my neighborhood. I’ve been talking to shop owners to see if they’d like to open a store near here. I don’t have the money or business acumen to open it myself, but I’d be happy to manage it and attract customers.
Aug. 6-12: I once again acknowledge my inability to read an Archie comic. It hurts me to NOT use the 99.5% of my brain I don’t need to read it. I do feel like reading more ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ though.
Aug. 13-19: I neglected one of the greatest comics movies ever made: “Batman” from 1966! This is a fun, straight-forward adventure film with some good acting. Lee Meriweather successfully plays two identities with more sultry sex appeal than Michelle Pfeiffer. Adam West throws a lot of passion behind his performance; something few actors do today. Burgess Meredith and Frank Gorshin play their roles with glee. Sadly, Caesar Romero doesn’t get nearly enough screen time as The Joker.
What I like best is the apparent anti-authority message. In one of the film’s best scenes, the villains dehydrate the UN Security council, whose members are so busy arguing amongst themselves, they don’t notice what’s happening around them! All in all, this is a fun film. It doesn’t try to be anything more than that, and it doesn’t need to. .
Aug. 20-26: My head was filed with so many names and books, I left out Garth Ennis. Read anything by Garth Ennis. It will most likely be funny and violent.
Aug. 27-Sept. 2: After writing this column, I got an e-mail from Troy Hickman, writer and creator of ‘Holy Crullers’ coming soon from Top Cow. He wanted to know why I thought Image should keep its distance from Top Cow. Well Troy, it’s because Top Cow’s comics are vastly inferior to almost everything produced by Image. But that is changing, because Top Cow is now publishing Mark Millar’s ‘Wanted’, and ‘Holy Crullers’. It’s a good book. Check it out.
Sept. 3-9: French comics rock!
Sept. 10-16: ‘American Splendor’ has made numerous critics’ Best of the Year lists, with one critic at “Entertainment Weekly” calling it the best film of 2003. The DVD is a must have!
Sept. 17-23: I’ve read one ‘Hellboy’ book in my life. I didn’t think much of it, but I’ll read others because of the movie.
Sept. 24-30: I got more negative e-mails about this column than any other. Basically, I found Clark Kent to be weak. And I’m not used to seeing Superman as weak, fumbling, and henpecked by his bitchy girlfriend. Seriously, if I had a woman acting like Lana Lang, I’d dump her. I don’t need the grief.
Oct. 1-7: I interpreted my dislike for “Smallville” as an extension of my general dislike for people. Frankly, I only dumped out so much negativity as a means to shut up everyone who disagreed with me. I’m feeling much better now.
Oct. 8-14: I haven’t played another game of Hero Clix since then. I’m never up early enough on Sunday morning. I should really call ahead an arrange something.
Oct. 15-21: I neglected to mention the manga ‘Battle Royale’, a series about high school students forced to hunt and kill each other for a television show. The horror of that series is how you come to care for each character for the short time they’re alive.
Oct. 22-28: I always wanted to summarize the entire run of Cerebus. Maybe I’ll make a website reference guide for it one day.
Oct. 29-Nov. 4: A reader pointed out that I’d missed “Static Shock”, which airs Saturday mornings on Kids’ WB. My apologies. I haven’t seen the show since it premiered 4 years ago. I’ve heard nothing but good things about it, so check it out.
Nov. 5-11: Once again, Diamond Comics’ sales figures don’t mean shit!
Nov. 12-18: I had no idea so many Image comics would not suck. Maybe it’s because they’re all creator-owned, self-published books.
Nov. 19-25: I plan to read more old comics. The Neal Adams Batman collection is on my want list.
Nov. 26-Dec. 2: Burp!
Dec. 3-9: Joe Kelly does write good Superman comics. Too bad most of his stories were bogged down by crossovers.
Dec. 10-16: Yep, graphic novels are the way of the future. No doubt.
Dec. 17-23: I came down hard on Marvel and DC, but that’s only because they continue to cling to an outmoded means of distribution depended on an again fan base for a genre that’s grown creatively stagnant.
Dec. 24-30: I just wrote this one. What more do you want?
Dec. 31, 2003: And now, the end is here. I wanted to achieve some means of closure, so I went back to the first column to see what was the first recorded comic I read. Turns out it was the “100 Greatest Marvels” reprints. So I went and read the issues I didn’t read then. All in one night. I cut it close, but here they are:
From ’100 Greatest, #25-22’: Fantastic Four (V1) #48, Amazing Spider-Man (V1) #1, and Daredevil #181.
From ‘100 Greatest #21-18’: Avengers (V1) #1, Uncanny X-Men #350, Amazing Spider-man #122, and Captain America #109.
From ‘100 Greatest #17-14”: Incredible Hulk #181, X-Men #25, Amazing Spider-Man (V1) #33, and Spider-Man #1.
From ‘100 Greatest #13-10’: Incredible Hulk #1 and Ultimate X-Men #1.
From ‘100 Greatest #9-6’: Uncanny X-Men #1 and Avengers (V1) #4.
Looking back on al the things I’ve written about and all the books I’ve read, I can’t help thinking, “I wasted my life.” All too often was I aware that my reading of comics and my writing of this column kept me away from more important things. Many times I didn’t even feel like reading a comic, but I did it anyway just for the sake of this column. And now it’s over. I’m free. Free of this responsibility, free to do other things. And I’m going to stay free.
Having recorded and explored comics for a year, I realize that superhero books will always be the same. I’ve found their depths to be shallow. I am drawn to smarter fare, like the b&w books and self-published comics I found at SPACE and Copasetic Comics. Oh, I’ll still go to the shops and read them; they entertain me that much. But I won’t buy them.
And that’s the surprise ending. I’m no longer buying superhero books, save ‘Captain Marvel’. I’ll still read ‘Raijin’, ‘Y, The Last Man’, ‘Cerebus’ and ‘Negation’ until they end. ‘Daredevil’ I’ll follow through the trade books, along with ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’. In fact, I’ll be buying more TPBs and graphic novels from now on. And there will always be old books I’d like to read. But I’ll have to make room for them.
I hereby announce that my entire comic book collection is up for sale. I have hundreds of comics sitting in my room, too many to read and far too many to like. I’ll start with my X-Men comics, almost every issue of ‘Uncanny’ from the 1980s. They’re going on ebay tomorrow. Keep checking for other books and related products, including autographed books and art.
So, a year of reading comics has made me want to read fewer comics. Maybe I just overdosed on them? Maybe taking a critical eye to what I read made me realize they weren’t worth so much time and money. Maybe I just grew up a bit. A year ago I was living at home, working a crappy part-time job, with no prospects for the future. Today, I’m in exactly the same place. Reading comics ain’t going to get me anywhere. Life’s too short to waste on hobbies you don’t enjoy.
I’d like to thank everyone who made this possible. To my father for putting me up in his house, to my brother, Donald, for letting me use his computer for almost the entire year, and to my editor Craig Lemon...hope you like the “Animal Crossing” game, Lemon. [Damn right, I do – Ed.]
As for me, I don’t plan to do any more writing for a while. If I read a particularly good, or bad, comic, I’ll review it here. Without this obligation, I can put more time into my job search. Hopefully, I won’t waste too much more of it playing video games. But I’ll keep reading comics, in one form or anther. Just a different kind, and only when I want to.
Oh, one last thing. You might have noticed that I always ended my column with the letter “QED”. It – Quad Erat Demonstrandum - stands for the Latin phrase meaning, “which was the thing that had to be proved”. It often appeared at the end of scientific and mathematical proofs. I used it because I wanted to prove I could accomplish a task such as this; that I could do what I set out to do. And I have.
