Liebster Award

This bloggers award, the Liebster, was given to me way back at the beginning of the month.  Now I'm finally, formally, accepting it.  The nominator was Dan Head, whom I've known digitally for just about a decade at this point.  We met on the message boards at Digital Webbing and a little later both wrote for the Paperback Reader website that was the original source of my Internet comic book musings (origin of the QB50 concept).  Later still I reconnected with Dan as a blogger.  I was proud to find out he's been reading this blog, too.

The Liebster process has three steps.  I'll try to keep it entertaining.

Ten Interesting Facts About Myself (Comics-Related)
1. The first three comics I ever had were all Green Lantern.  Two were reprints (Showcase #22 and Green Lantern/Green Arrow #76) and the other was Green Lantern #177.

via Comic Vine

2. Prior to these, the only comics I'd read were the mini comics that were included in He-Man and Super Powers action figure packs from the '80s.  Of course Green Lantern was one of them.

via My Comic Shop

3. Besides those, there was also the random graphic novel my sister had gotten her hands on at some point: Jim Starlin's The Death of Captain Marvel.

via Wikipedia

4. My brothers started reading comics in the early 90s boom.  Thanks to the cartoon at the time, they were into the X-Men, so followed the early issues of both the X-Men relaunch and X-Men 2099.  They also followed Dark Horse's early Star Wars comics.

via Star Wars wikia

5. Along with a lot of other people, the "Doomsday" arc caught my attention.  These were among the first comics I owned outside of the ones previously detailed.

via Read DC Entertainment

6. This led to more Green Lantern, thanks to a crossover during the "Reign of the Supermen" arc that led directly to "Emerald Twilight."

via DC wikia

7. Which led directly to Zero Hour.  The last time either of my brothers particularly cared about comics, they ordered the complete set of zero issues.

via Entertainment Fuse

8. The first comic book recommendation I ever got was Bone, during the Image reprint run.

via My Bone Stuff

9. Skipping across history a little, I had to quit reading comics in early 2000.  The comic that brought me back at the end of 2003 was Geoff Johns's "Ignition" arc in The Flash.

via DC Wikia

10. Which is appropriate, because when I nearly quit reading comics again in 2011, it was Johns's Flashpoint that kept me hooked.

via Axolotlburg News

10 Questions From Dan

1. What is your blog about, and why did you start it?

It's about mutant guppy fish.  I mean, comics.  I started it as the last stop (as of now) with my increasing frustrations writing at Paperback Reader.  I left and went back there a couple of times before I finally left for good, which turned out to be good, because finally the site went dead shortly thereafter (I've learned that website relaunches are an increasingly finite phenomenon).  So I've been operating this particular blog since the very end of 2010.

2. Did you serve in the military?  Why or why not?

Everyone in the family except the brother who collected all those zero issues and my mother served in the Air Force.  I was the third exception out of seven.  Last year I came incredibly close to signing up with the Navy.  My two sisters went directly into the Air Force after high school, while my brothers and I all went to college.  My oldest brother ended up in the Air Force after his civilian career field ended up looking less promising than he'd originally thought.  I have nothing but respect for those who serve.  If I'd thought about it differently, I might have gone into the military, too (I mean, successfully gone), but I've been satisfied with a lot of what I've done instead.  Two of my siblings, incidentally, have/had military spouses.  One of them was in the Army, the other (you guessed it) the Air Force, the tradition begun by my father.

3. Are you an athlete?  What's your favorite sport?

I was an athlete in gym class?  Somewhat more seriously, I did track & field in my freshman and senior years of high school.  I was not an Olympian.  I was the opposite of an Olympian.  (I was a resident of Hades?)  I did not get a medal for that achievement.

4. Name three authors that other people should spend more time reading.

Regular visitors to Comics Reader know some of the big ones I always read personally.  Here I'll spotlight some I haven't covered as extensively but highly endorse: 

• Antony Johnston, who's responsible for Wasteland and the more recent launches Umbral and The Fuse.  I've obsessed over Wasteland on this blog, but not as much I'd like (catching it in actual comics shops has become increasingly difficult; by the time the series ends later this year, I'll probably have purchased the end run digitally).
• Jeff Smith, who's responsible for Bone, RASL, and Tuki.  At some point this year I'll be rereading the complete RASL, which has the potential to unseat Bone as my favorite Smith work.
• Dean Motter, who's best known for his Mister X stories, which I always highly recommend.

5. If you had to rename your blog, what would you call it?

Part of the reason this blog along with every other blog I have has a URL that doesn't match the title (aside from the fact that I don't pay for any URLs) is that the title I chose was pretty general and had already been claimed in Blogger's URL annals.  It also happens to evoke both Paperback Reader and an old fanzine Paul Levitz used to do.  If I had to come up with something new, it would be something more unique, which would probably help drive more eyes to the blog.

6. When you read comics, do you pay more attention to the writing or the art?

Most of the time, the writing.  If I particularly like the artist, I'll certainly pay more attention to that aspect, but as an eager reader, it's got to be the writing.

7. Marvel has had a string of hit movies, but DC has fallen behind.  Besides Superman, Batman, and/or Wonder Woman, what DC superhero would you like to see in a movie?

I already had the dream of a Green Lantern movie fulfilled, so I can't say that.  I suppose the Teen Titans would be a pretty interesting pick.  Thanks to the cartoons they've got some mainstream exposure already, and they come prepackaged as a youth demographic franchise with a couple of strong stories and female characters that could easily slot into current expectations.

8. If you were a Dungeons & Dragons character, would you be a Fighter, Rogue, Wizard, or Cleric?

The same friend who introduced me to Bone also helped me play a little Warhammer.  But that's as close I've come to RPGs.  So this is a question I've got to skip.

9. The secret to your success is...?

I have success??? In the relative sense, knowing my own interests.

10. What are you doing right now?  How does that compare to what you thought you'd be doing back when you were a kid?

Work-wise the only idea I ever had as a kid was becoming an astronaut.  But I think that was in fourth or fifth grade.  I sort of lost track of that ambition.  Other than being an actual success, though, I'm pretty much doing exactly what I always wanted to do.  (Technically I have two published comics.  I'm still working on that.)  So, yay me!

Nominate 10 New Blogs

I'm not really going to do that.  Just one:

• P.T. Dilloway's Blog

Readers of this blog besides Pat himself will remember that he was actually a contributor to Comics Reader earlier this year.  The reasons why this is no longer the case are kind of complicated.  But suffice to say, as the only other contributor in the existence of Comics Reader, he's pretty significant to it, regardless of whether or not he still has things posted here.  He's written a series of superhero novels featuring the Scarlet Knight (and a few dozen million more).  

Pose Ten Questions

1. How did you originally create Scarlet Knight?
2. When did you first start reading comics?
3. What's your favorite comic book?
4. Who's your favorite superhero?
5. What's your favorite comic book movie?
6. What do you wish comics would do that you haven't seen yet?
7. Do you have any interest in writing comics?
8. Would you adapt the complete Scarlet Knight saga?
9. Which one is your favorite installment in the series?
10. Does Detroit figure into your writing style?

That is all.