Dallas Vice City.
The list is now four items long: coffee, sugar, "Questionable Content," and "San Antonio Rock City." I don't know what it is with the web comics. I'm sure a part of it is a legitimate nostalgia on my part for the days spent reading strips when I was a kid. I never got "Peanuts" back then, though later in life, I came to understand it. I did love "Bloom County" and its sequels. My favorite, of course, was "Calvin and Hobbes."
Part of it is probably just my addictive personality. I get into a thing and I take it to an extreme. If you give me something that gives me a little pleasure, and you're going to give it to me on a daily basis, a little at a time, that really works for some of my more obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I don't think I'm actually any more obsessive than the next person; I'm certainly not in need of medication; I'm probably just more aware of this aspect of my personality than most people are concerning their own neuroses. The problem is that when I discover something like "Questionable Content" or "Nothing Nice to Say" (Mitch Clem's other comic), I find myself having to catch up. The downside? An entire day spent last week catching up on QC. From the beginning.
I had dreams about that strip and I woke up the next day with the worst craving for Pavement. Meaning the biggest.
As an internet friend of mine put it, you start out reading it for the random destruction wrought by Pintsize, but stick around for the indie-rock in-jokes. But what I've really enjoyed was SARC--specifically, the way that Mitch Clem makes a strip of his life. Kind of a web-comic-cum-blog. It's not unlike Harvey Pekar, but punk. And Clem does his own art.
Why he moved to San Antonio of all places is beyond me, but that's a topic for another day. The thing is, I found it kind of inspiring that he can create this semi-autobiographical strip, make it so self-referential and an outright postmodern punk attack on the fourth wall, and do it with such a unique voice. What was inspiring about it was that it kind of put me back on track for what I wanted to do with this blog to begin with.
I'd thought that I could use this blog as a writing sample for prospective writing gigs I might be looking for in the future. A place to practice my writing and hone my own voice, which I've somewhat lost since grad school. The problem is that I decided this blog would not be a soapbox for my two favorite subjects, religion and politics. Right away, I limited my subject matter. In so doing, I also cut myself off from my own sense of humor. To make matters worse, I have this thing about being too serious, too grave. "Life's too short not to take it seriously," I like to say. So I just want to write about important things like my trip to Aberdeen and meeting Eric Melvin. The conflict here, though, is that I also want to post more often than once in a blue moon.
So SARC kind of showed me the way. I'm just going to stop trying to make this thing into something it's not and just let it become whatever it's going to be. And what it's going to be now is a lot more fun, and a lot more me. So without further ado, enough of this self-contemplation: I'm going to post this, then another one right away just to start me off in the right direction.
Part of it is probably just my addictive personality. I get into a thing and I take it to an extreme. If you give me something that gives me a little pleasure, and you're going to give it to me on a daily basis, a little at a time, that really works for some of my more obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I don't think I'm actually any more obsessive than the next person; I'm certainly not in need of medication; I'm probably just more aware of this aspect of my personality than most people are concerning their own neuroses. The problem is that when I discover something like "Questionable Content" or "Nothing Nice to Say" (Mitch Clem's other comic), I find myself having to catch up. The downside? An entire day spent last week catching up on QC. From the beginning.
I had dreams about that strip and I woke up the next day with the worst craving for Pavement. Meaning the biggest.
As an internet friend of mine put it, you start out reading it for the random destruction wrought by Pintsize, but stick around for the indie-rock in-jokes. But what I've really enjoyed was SARC--specifically, the way that Mitch Clem makes a strip of his life. Kind of a web-comic-cum-blog. It's not unlike Harvey Pekar, but punk. And Clem does his own art.
Why he moved to San Antonio of all places is beyond me, but that's a topic for another day. The thing is, I found it kind of inspiring that he can create this semi-autobiographical strip, make it so self-referential and an outright postmodern punk attack on the fourth wall, and do it with such a unique voice. What was inspiring about it was that it kind of put me back on track for what I wanted to do with this blog to begin with.
I'd thought that I could use this blog as a writing sample for prospective writing gigs I might be looking for in the future. A place to practice my writing and hone my own voice, which I've somewhat lost since grad school. The problem is that I decided this blog would not be a soapbox for my two favorite subjects, religion and politics. Right away, I limited my subject matter. In so doing, I also cut myself off from my own sense of humor. To make matters worse, I have this thing about being too serious, too grave. "Life's too short not to take it seriously," I like to say. So I just want to write about important things like my trip to Aberdeen and meeting Eric Melvin. The conflict here, though, is that I also want to post more often than once in a blue moon.
So SARC kind of showed me the way. I'm just going to stop trying to make this thing into something it's not and just let it become whatever it's going to be. And what it's going to be now is a lot more fun, and a lot more me. So without further ado, enough of this self-contemplation: I'm going to post this, then another one right away just to start me off in the right direction.
posted by Drew at 11:46 AM
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