The snow today has forced me to take a day off, which ends up being a replacement for the day I planned to take (but did not) on Friday. Still, I’d like to have a day off that did not involve shoveling snow. *sigh*
I have one review out today, at Manga Recon’s Manga Minis for volume 26 of Bleach. I still enjoy Bleach more than some of my MR cohorts do, so this was fun for me to review.
I’ve been working on a full series review of Tokyo Babylon, but I’m having a lot of trouble finding a way to address its most compelling themes without giving away major plot points. I guess we’ll see how it goes.
Also, I’ve been watching the discussion on the demise of Scans Daily at LiveJournal, and a lot of the arguments I’ve seen flying around have been perplexing (if not surprising). I can go along with objections to scanlations and the sharing of full scans of comics, but objections to the posting of partial scans with analysis/discussion baffles me. For some very sane words on the topic, check out Brigid Alverson at Digital Strips and Johanna Draper Carlson at Comics Worth Reading.
You know, one of the points I’ve seen argued in favor of Scans Daily is that, unlike many comics forums, it was a place where non-typical fans, particularly women, could feel comfortable talking about comics without feeling like they were intruding in someone’s clubhouse, and honestly, I can really understand that. I think some guys in the comics world don’t realize that they exist in an atmosphere that actually discourages new readers to a great extent. I’ve had a hard time getting into western comics, despite the best efforts of some of my friends. I was not a reader of Scans Daily, but I’m considering checking out their new home to see if it might help steer me towards some western comics I could love.
On a completely different topic, those who follow me on Twitter, either through Twitter itself, its RSS feed, the sidebar of this blog, or Facebook (where it feeds my status updates), will know that Paul and I were unexpectedly gifted with free tickets to the Fountains of Wayne acoustic show last night at the Iron Horse in Northampton. I may try to write up a review of some kind later on (the show was fantastic), but for now, here’s a review Paul tracked down at the Hartford Courant. FoW draws a nice crowd in this area (which is Chris Collingwood’s home), and it was great to be there with so many people, most of whom were our age or older.
That’s all for now. Wish me luck on the shoveling. Later!