Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Greetings!

Hello.

For over 20 years, I've been reading comic books.

From "X-Tinction Agenda" to the recent "Flashpoint", I've along for the ride in some form, at some capacity, since a good friend showed me his collection in the summer of 1990 and I went to the supermarket (when you could still buy comic books almost ANYWHERE) and picked up Uncanny X-Men #261.

My brother is as crazy about movies as I am about comic books.  Perchance you've happened upon his blog at http://1001movieman.blogspot.com/ . I have multiple times.

In looking at what he's done over there and talking with him about it, I often came back to the same thought.  "Man, bro. It's awesome that you're making your way through the '1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die' book. IF ONLY THERE WERE SOMETHING SIMILAR FOR COMIC BOOKS OR GRAPHIC NOVELS! GAAAAAH!"

Okay...  So maybe I didn't scream, "GAAAAAH!", but what I did do within the last couple of weeks, when researching to start doing a blog on comics such as his masterful blog on film, was discover that there IS a book similar to the one which he is working out of.  It's called "500 Essential Graphic Novels: The Ultimate Guide". It should arrive here at the house by mail tomorrow and I'll start giving you guys my two cents on all of the books contained inside and deemed "essential" by Mr. Gene Kannenberg, Jr.

Assuming I get through all of those, I'm still not going to stop.  I want to continually review comics and graphic novels on here as long as it's fun and as long as I keep learning stuff about the medium, which could potentially, with the plethora of sequential art out there, go on for years and years, as long as I keep the steam.

So, anyway...  Those little ramblings above should give you my motivations and reasons for beginning such an undertaking.  I want to thank my brother Andrew for, after he found out that I had an idea and all the resources necessary to begin this thing, would not let up on showing interest and giving motivation for me to do this.  I want to thank the creators out there, from legends and idols like Morrison, Ellis, Moore, and Gaiman to the guy drawing crude stick figures on a piece of graph paper and everyone in between for making the art that still makes my heart beat like the thirteen year old picking up Uncanny #261 all those years ago.

I've chosen the name "Best Comics Quest!" because while a myriad of you will hopefully visit often, comment, call me an idiot, praise, or belittle me, this will also be my personal quest to becoming more well versed in the medium.  I've read for all those years but, admittedly, my strengths lie in the knowledge of superhero comics and certain creators.  I want to change all that and become knowledgeable about the WHOLE MEDIUM of sequential art, graphic novels, trade paperbacks, comic books... whatever you wanna call 'em.

I hope you'll join me.

I'll be back soon, folks, and we'll get underway.

4 comments:

  1. Can't wait for you to begin. I'm really interested to see, first of all, what's in there and secondly, what you think of what you read. Congratulations on the beginning of a new blog bro and I'll still be here when you post your thoughts on #500. I'll add this to my BlogRoll! immediately! Great stuff!

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  2. Thanks for the comment, bro.

    You've been more instrumental in this than you know. Ever since the first time I saw your blog about the films, I've wanted to do it with comics.

    ...And the recent spurring me on and assuring me I'd have at least ONE reader didn't hurt, either.

    Thanks, bro.

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  3. You are welcome dude. Glad I could be of some motivation. If you keep churning along, the readers will come and this one will always come - every time there's a new post. Are you planning on posting a *spoiler alert*? Like, if you want to talk about the book in detail? That way I can still read the post, without potentially spoiling anything that may catch my fancy.

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  4. Thanks again for the kind words!

    Um... About the spoiler alert thing. I think I've done pretty good over at Goodreads with posting reviews of books that I've read without spoiling them. I'd count that as good practice and a lesser version of what I want to do here.

    Hopefully, I can give a nice rundown of what's going on in the book WITHOUT getting into TOO much of the plot (maybe just a setup or something)...

    But, anyway... Long story short: If I would get into too much that would be of a spoiler-y nature, I will definitely post spoiler alerts.

    One of my most hated things ever is when I'm looking forward to reading or watching something and someone lets the cat out of the bag on the ending. I don't want anyone to have to worry about that here.

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