I’m continuing to torture myself by looking at the “on this day” widget in the sidebar of this blog, and the “on this day” view in my Day One journal. The last time I went to SDCC was 2012, and it was going on right now! (And, looking at my journal, I see that, two years ago today, I went to the library and checked out a couple of books, and also went to a Somerset Patriots baseball game. Sigh. Eventually, I’ll be able to do those things again…)
I’ve got my schedule all planned out for Comic-Con @ Home next week. I’ve bookmarked about 35 panels total, from Thursday through Sunday. I’m not sure how many I’ll actually watch, but I’ve got plenty to choose from. I think it’ll be fun. I’ve also been getting myself in the mood a bit by reading some stuff that’s related in some way to the con. I read some issues of Rob Hanes Adventures last weekend, which I bought directly from Randy Reynaldo at that 2012 SDCC I mentioned above. (I’m not sure why I let them sit in my “to be read” pile for so long. It’s a fun series, and the issues are all basically “done in one” stories.) I plan on checking out his virtual booth this year, and maybe picking up all the issues that have come out since 2012.
And I also recently read an Usagi Yojimbo trade paperback. I didn’t buy that particular volume at a San Diego con, but I have bought a number of past volumes directly from Stan Sakai at cons, and I usually see him in San Diego, either at his booth or on a panel. I haven’t heard anything about Stan doing anything for Comic-Con @ Home, but I do know that he’s supposed to be on Mark Evanier’s Groo chat this Thursday, so I’ll probably watch that.
In less pleasant comics-related news, the Warren Ellis thing that I’ve mentioned previously has kind of blown up, with a new website going up this week aggregating the stories of many women who say they have been “targeted and manipulated” by Ellis. The website is… a hell of a thing. It even includes a bar chart graphing the number of women he was involved with per year, from 1999 to 2020. (Peak year: 2009, 22 women.) There’s some coverage of it on The Beat and in The Guardian. I joked about burning my CBLDF t-shirts recently, after the Brownstein thing. I’m not really ready to burn my Warren Ellis comics, but I think I might feel a little differently about them now. I’m not really sure that Ellis ever really understood what he was doing? Or understood how much he was hurting people? I don’t know. I can’t really see him as a super-villain or evil genius. I mean, he was clearly being dishonest with people. (You can’t have 22 girlfriends at once without lying to several of them, at least, I think.) I said in my previous post that I wasn’t sure how to feel about this, and I’m still not. This is all outside my areas of expertise…
Anyway, I need to keep this stuff out of my head and concentrate on positive stuff. Like the fact that NJ is still in the green on the CovidActNow map. (One of only three states in the green! Hope more states join us soon!) Or the fact that there are new Stargirl and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. episodes coming out this week!