I finally found a comic book store in the vicinity (seems they’re zoned out of neighborhoods whose only purpose is raising smart Asian kids), and though the proprietors seem friendly enough, I’m a bit concerned they stocked only one with the cover I like, and on the day of release. But hey, at least I can return to the same lovely rut routine from ten years ago—an ish of Grant’s, a draught of Dew and thou—except now I’m preserving it for looks-back in another decade.
Of course, what’s different in this particular period between eras is the potent blogosphere (annotations used to come by way of Usenet), which fortunately has yet to succumb to the one-liners of Facebook and YouTube sideshows, offering at least enough literary criticism to produce some brilliant takes on each installment:
At that moment, Talky Tawny’s descent — not keyed as a commentary on superhero decadence or the past saving the present or anything, but just existing as something that is — the comic seemed to adopt a peculiar dream logic, or maybe a free-associative arrangement of otherwise discordant DCU elements, past and present, that tapped something surreal behind the histories and continuities involved. I think that’s as good a way to go with an Event like this as any – hit hard on how the DCU shouldn’t work, but must, and couple a dispassionately ‘realistic’ visual approach with catastrophic subject matter.
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