Braille-iant.
14 10 2005Had some time off work the last couple of days to try and use up some of my annual allocation. I was only taking days off when I needed to, and because I don’t do anything really, it was stacking up to the point where I had to use up 20 days in three months (we get 25 a year) - I’ve got myself down to 10 between now and the 25th Dec. Should be able to find time to squeeze it in. Next year I think I’ll try and be a bit more, er, evenly-spread about taking days off.
Yesterday Josh and I went into central London to invade the local comic shops. I met him at Broadway station after he was done with Uni and we took an almost deserted central line to TCR. It was quite ridiculous compared to how I’m used to travelling on the tube. When we were hanging around I noticed with some amusement that the northern line closure was being attributed to “signalling problems” rather than the far more accurate, “driver desertion due to horrendous safety failure.” Either they don’t have a pre-recorded message for the second one (and by this point, they should..) or this was the world’s most inept attempt at a cover up. I dunno what it’s like outside of the big smoke, but around here everyone’s well aware of what the hell’s going on (one of the benefits of living in London is that local politics actually matters to the point where you can get an interest in it. I didn’t have the slightest opinion on Ken Livingstone before this time last year. These days the opposite is true, and I’m free to ignore anything outside the M25.)
When we got to Forbidden Planet I was glad to find the second Age of Apocalypse collection was out. AoA was an excellent storyline that spanned many books in possibly the only example of a megacrossover that worked. £20 for like 17 issues worth of comics is a great deal, even when you assume it’ll have cost me around £80 once the entire run is out. I’m at the £40 mark right now, but the cost is worth it. I’m used to paying more around this amount for a season of TV, and the comics give me equal if not more enjoyment. Josh bought a Tomine graphic novel which I’ll be stealing from him at some point.
In the art display on Charing Cross road, there were giant braille letters which, when translated, read “I will never see my love again.” It impressed me, if only because it’s about the only thing they’ve put in there that’s equally as bleak as the city can be. Though I admit the mummified humans writhing around were a close second.
possibly the only example of a megacrossover that worked.
Dude, I know you’re a Marvel Zombie and all, but… Crisis. It really was bloody brilliant, all things told.
I almost specifically excluded Crisis, but decided against it because I’d literally just read Infinite Crisis and was royally confused by the ending (and more so by the explanations I tried to read up on) so I can’t be sure that the original will even be accessible to me. I’ll have to discuss this with you properly next time I see you, but I get the impression that without a definite understanding of pre-crisis continuity I’m unlikely to be able to understand the characters and gravitas of the original because I don’t even know which superman is supposed to be which, let alone the more obscure guys.