More Sunday Night Rambling

This week...this #*&%ing week...It's been one long sinus headache, and it only seems to be getting worse. My teeth are now throbbing, and I've already taken double my daily codeine dose and maxed out on sinus meds as well. All I've got left to help me deal with my discomfort now is a sharp blow to the back of the head...

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HAPPY FATHERS DAY

If you're a father, I hope you had a good day.

If you're not a father, I hope your day stunk.

Joking.

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I WANT MY COMICS NEWSSITES BACK

Is it just me, or do the (relatively) new sites for the comics bulletin, Comic Book Resources, and Newsarama all look: 1) Disturbingly alike and 2) Less utilitarian than their previous incarnations? It's like all comics newssite design is now coming out of Stepford or something.

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LINKS O' INTEREST (FREE COMICS!)

Two comics previews I'm looking forward to reading when this headache eases up:

-Fifty pages of Ray Fawkes and Cameron Stewart's long-awaited THE APOCALIPSTIX graphic novel, and

-A 24-page preview of Barnaby Ward's SIXTEEN MILES TO MERRICK collection of comic stories.

Something I read even though I had a headache, because it seemed like it might be relevant to someone who's currently making more money editing comics than writing them: Greg Hatcher on some of the things comic editors are SUPPOSED to do, using FINAL CRISIS and Chuck Dixon's abrupt departure from DC to illustrate his points. Dixon shows up in the comments, too, talking about how DC is run these days. "Directionless gladhander with a ouija board" strikes me as a very apt description of many, many people involved in comics these days. Of course, most of the ones I know about personally are involved in the small press--it's a little depressing to think that the situation might not improve as one reaches the upper echelons of the industry...

Canadian Professor Michael Geist's iOptOut website--which will hopefully give me and Tiina some peace from goddamn telephone solicitations that have been coming with increasing frequency this last month. I try to be nice to the people calling, on the assumption that they're not total asshats and are just people doing a job and trying to get by. When someone's trying to sell me something, I usually ask if they're on commission or an hourly wage. If the latter, I let them give me the spiel, if the former I tell them they'd be better off not bothering because it doesn't matter what they're talking about, I'm not buying. But my patience is wearing thin (this headache isn't helping), and I may yet be reduced to trying something my father suggested years ago, which is blowing a referee's whistle into the phone every time someone I don't want to talk to calls. I'd feel really bad about that, but part of me would also get a LOT of satisfaction from it.

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