Detritus of the Mind

So I've discovered Tumblr...  Like most social venues online, it's equal parts awesome & awful.  One thing I've noticed, though, is that there is a definite age division, and being in my 30s, I'm practically a senior citizen on the site.  It's weird to see stuff from late high school & college being described as "part of our childhood", but it's also an interesting perspective.  One thing I have noticed, however, is a resentment towards non-90s nostalgia, and that bothers me. I first saw this during a discussion about the novel Ready Player One , a really enjoyable sci-fi story that is built around crazy levels of 80s nostalgia.  Some people who read it appreciated it for what it is and posited what a 90s-centric version of the novel would include.  This quickly deteriorated into people hating  on the book for not being about 90s nostalgia and wondering why anyone would be nostalgic for any other era.  I understand why that generation re...

Hello. My name is Mela, and I write. I'm not a writer , per se - I've given up on that pipe dream of ever being published. But I write an essay or review or a (in all honesty) fanfic there, and it's a hobby I enjoy. One thing I most definitely am not , however, is an artist. That is simething that makes me sad. Art legitimately amazes  me, and since so much of the media I enjoy is visually oriented, I wish it was something I could create. Painted, digital, pixel, line work... I love it all. And even if I think it's bad, I still respect the time & effort that went into making it. It is because of this that I am really bothered by this trend in comics press & fandom to ignore and downplay the artists. As much as I love & respect & enjoy many comic writers, it bothers me when they're exclusively mentioned in reviews. For example, let's take Saga; there's a legitimately great series with amazing talent behind it. But mark my words, if you read th...

So this morning, after much thought to distract myself from Snowpocalypse II: The Snowening, I decided to delete my Livejournal. All of the Archivals I felt like reposting have more or less been reposted - I re-read a lot of them & find them rather lacking.  All of my personal friends have stopped posting there.  All of the groups I was part of are either inactive or become mockeries of their former selves (PCLJ, I'm looking at you & your decision to mock a 4-year-old for her frankly superior taste in TV).  So it's not like I really had anything there worthwhile that I haven't saved or reposted already. One of the most telling moments I always think of when I think of why I left Livejournal is the Great Blackout.  It said a lot  about Six Apart's priorities when they were content to let the Putin administration in their home country shut down their entire site to silence political dissent until Time Magazine pointed this out to the rest of the world....

Okay, Part 1 was Gripe-a-palooza.  Part 2 is the stuff I liked, and I’ll try really hard to make it more than just fannish gushing.  Also, as part of my Shift to Positive, I’ll be offering a Mea Culpa for some initial knee-jerk reactions in the past, since my revisits have changed my impressions. As I said before, SPOILERS, SPOILERS, SPOILERS for stuff that’s mentioned. BEST TV SHOW: Steven Universe:  “If every pork chop was perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs!”  Promoted largely because it’s from the first female original-show creator in Cartoon Network’s history (which surprised me, since they usually want to avoid acknowledging females in any way), it is a damn fine show.  Steven himself is a refreshingly sweet & dorky change of pace from the usual sassy & wiseass kid hero (which you do get a break from on Gumball & Adventure Time), the Gems all have great personalities & work well as his surrogate family, his supporting cast is growin...

Ah, 2013.  It was another year of pointless stress but what do you expect for adulthood?  It was the year I got back into anime, the year I finally figured out how the hell Tumblr works, the year I belatedly got hooked on Pokemon.  Everything outside of pop culture was trying extra, extra hard to make this a bad year, but the balance was otherwise such that I managed to stay sane. Like last year, I have decided to break this down into two parts, and since this is the year I made the choice to try & be more positive, I’m going to get any negativity out of the way in this first entry.  So here’s my disappointments & one bafflement for 2013. (Please note that video games are not on this list.  There weren’t a lot of new games that came out that interested me – so that will be the Disappointment for 2013 for gaming – and the ones that did interest me were on the 3DS, which I just got for Christmas (whoo-hoo!).  So games are benched for this year, a...

Legionnaires #8: In Heart and Conscience Free Creative Team:  Tom & Mary Bierbaum (writers); Colleen Doran (penciller); John Nyberg (inker); Pat Brosseau (letterer); Tom McCraw (colorist); November 1993 Legion Roll Call:  Alchemist; Andromeda; Brainiac 5; Cosmic Boy; Saturn Girl; Chameleon; Computo; Dragonmage; Invisible Kid. Miscellaneous Notes:  I'd say about half of those listed in the roll call are just in the first two pages, which are a fan-servicey pool party.  Since there's beefcake along with the cheesecake, I don't mind (even with that last panel - Ayla should really wear more than one leaf on her lower regions if she's gonna belly-flop like that.) Summary:  Brainy & a few friends travel to Colu to watch him receive a special honor, only for him to disappear.  It turns out the Coluan chancellor had him spirited to the mountains and has asked him to choose between staying with the Legion or serving his homeworld.  When he choose...

REVIEW: New Mutants Forever: The Fall of Nova Roma” Chris Claremont (writer); Al Rio (penciller); Bob McLeod (inker); Guru EFX (colorist); Tom Orzechowski (letterer); collected in trade 2011, originally published between 2010 & 2011 (months not given in the trade indicia). Issue 1, “Shadows in the Night”:  The New Mutants are staying the night at the Hellfire Club’s NYC headquarters after the big dance/race with the Hellions in #54 (see below).  While Doug helps Amara determine whether Selene’s claim that they’re related, the others go to Central Park (right outside the club).  While in the park, they are attacked by armed men, and they discover that Amara’s father is one of their targets.  The armed men rush the club, resulting in Rahne & Emma being hurt, and only stop fighting when they are killed en masse.  In the fight, Doug & Amara are kidnapped.  Amara’s father reveals he was trying to warn the Club (Selene in particular) about so...