T-shirt #225: Death: you get what anyone gets; you get a lifetime

T-shirt #225: Death: you get what anyone gets; you get a lifetime

Good Friday.

Not THE Good Friday, but this Friday has been a good one. No specific reason for the overall goodness. In part, the goodness can be attributed to Grading Robot reducing the power levels of its production mode, which has caused a decrease in surface tension stress across the membrane of the landscape.

And I like re-reading Dune via the audio edition.

And I am looking forward to Ender's Game the film.

And tomorrow is HUCKFEST, which for those who do not know is an ultimate tournament in Grand Rapids.

And this is Death, for the second day in a row.

And I am leaving this unfinished for now...


Oh, yeah, and this was dinner. Goulash, my mother's recipe, and some kind of Chinese broccoli that I fried somehow.

 I will finish this tomorrow.

Noted 19:34 on 1311.01



Okay, I am back, Saturday morning and decided to leave the original text because it's kind of fun, at least it is for me.


Did I mention that the character on the t-shirt is called "Death"? Of course, I did.

See DEATH(DC Comics) at Wikipedia.

In this incarnation, Death is the creation of Neil Gaiman and Mike Dringenberg, though the entire visualization of Death came from Dringenberg, and no, despite popular urban legends, she is no way based on Gaiman's friend Tori Amos.

Death is one of the "Endless," the family of anthropomorphic beings who are the main cast of Gaiman's Sandman comic book, one of whom is the eponymous title character. The Endless, whose names all start with the letter D, are the most powerful beings in the universe, more powerful than gods. The Endless family consists of Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Despair, Desire, and Delirium.

Though in Gaiman and Dringenberg's incarnation, Death originally appeared in The Sandman #8, the character achieved her most vivid and potentially best loved characterization with the art of Chris Bachalo in two limited series--Death: The High Cost of Living (1993) and Death: The Time of Your Life (1996)--one of which was published immediately after The Sandman ended its publication run. The Sandman had become wildly popular and had a huge cult following, fans rabid for more stories of the Endless gobbled up the book in droves. Death as has also appeared in other related books in the VERTIGO line from DC Comics, including Lucifer and The Books of Magic.

Here's a sampling of some fan ravings about one of the DEATH books: Pai Picks Blog.

The whole rabid fan reaction to The Sandman invokes my contrary and oppositional personality. When faced with too much pushing, too much popularity, something being "jammed down my throat" as Andrew at Fanfare said, I react by going the other way.

Let me start by saying that I like Neil Gaiman's work very much. I have actually corresponded with Neil, and I think he's a super guy and a very talented writer. So, let's just put that out there, shall we?

Yes, I can be critical of him as I was after finishing his new book The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which I reviewed in T-shirt #138.

I also addressed my feelings about The Sandman, somewhat, in T-shirt #160, which contains my list of comic book recommendations for non-comic book people.

It's not that I think The Sandman is a bad comic book. Not at all. It's a very good comic book, and one I enjoyed immensely.

BUT PLEASE, comic book fans need to stop making it the single go-to comic book recommended to non-comic book fans (often women). Even when it was first published in the 1990s, it was not the ONLY comic book that people (often women) who do not usually read comic books would read and like.

And today, with the large selection of both super-hero books and non-super-hero books to choose from, there is no reason to make The Sandman the single most recommended comic book. With our current wealth of comic books to choose from, as I hope I made clear in T-shirt #160, the recommendation should be tailored to the individual. Not everyone is going to LOVE The Sandman. Some readers may prefer Fables and others may prefer The Walking Dead.

With all of that said, I must say that I count Chris Bachalo among my current favorite artists and I may love the Death: The High Cost of Living (1993) and Death: The Time of Your Life (1996) books more than the regular Sandman comics.

There's always a weekly comics list, and it always happens on Friday. Though now that Ultimate is over, I could pick up comics on Wednesdays, though I probably won't.

It is sort of fitting that I featured Death today (and not just because of Halloween) and discussed The Sandman because a new Sandman comic book was released this week, a prelude to the seminal comic book series. I have two other Sandman shirts, so I will delegate future comments to those blog posts.

WEEKLY COMICS LIST

The list below is already somewhat of a cheat as I moved up Saga and brought forward the Tom Strong issue from last week. When I brought home my new stack those two comics were next up, since the next Saga came out this week, I moved up the previous issue and will read both and Tom Strong after Guardians.

Aquaman from last week was already discussed in Monday's Aquaman blog post (BTW, faithful, I figured out how to re-publish the post back in time thus solving the day-to-day dilemma I reported and once again having one post per day since March). Other than that comic, I would say the Lazarus was my next favorite from last week (or tied), and I plan to discuss it in more depth later, though not today.

From last week, I managed to get through almost the entire main stack, not counting the back log, with the exception of Great Pacific. Last night (Friday, which ws the day this was supposedly published but who's counting), I only managed the first two comics before I was too sleepy to continue. I tried to finish Spider-Man and failed.

COMICS FOR 1310.30

X-Men: Battle for the Atom #2
Kick Ass 3: #4
The Superior Spider-Man #020
Guardians of the Galaxy #008
Infinity part five of six
Avengers #22
Avengers AI #005
Saga #15
Aquaman Annual #1
Teen Titans Annual #1
Sandman Overture

Back Log

The Trial of the Punisher #002
Ultimate X-Men #33
Uncanny X-Force #013

SPECIAL PURCHASE

Marvel Comics in the 1960s By Pierre Comtois

- chris tower - originally 1311.01 at 19:34 - revised 1311.02 at 7:33