(Chinese) New Year Resolution

Well, not quite, but I'm closer to that than to the Western new year, so it'll have to do.

I'm an accumulator, always have been. Not a collector necessarily; rarely do I buy anything with value in mind. As a kid with no money I accumulated things like matchbooks and stamps. As an adult it's comics. I can never get enough. There's always another book or three that I've just "got" to have. As many fellow accumulators can readily attest, this quickly leads to shelves or boxes or stacks (or all three) of unread comics in every form surrounding me, taunting me. I want to read them all, I really do. But that new graphic novel is just so tempting...

As part of my Christmas gifts, I received a nice chunk of Amazon credit, and true to form, I spent most of it on comics. I could easily justify that by the fact that I wasn't spending money on them, not really. The money had already been spent; I was just converting a piece of plastic into pages of graphical goodness.

That done, it's time to read. I'm not going to pretend that my accumulation is going to stop completely, but I am vowing to ride the brake, and most importantly, to read them faster than I get them. I've gotten off to a decent start so far: I've read Habibi (mesmerizing), Infinite Kung Fu (fun), The Marvelous Land of Oz (pleasantly old-fashioned), and various miscellaneous issues. I have a long way to go, and in the time honored tradition of putting these goals in writing and making them (somewhat) public, here's a bunch more that I want to get to soonish:

Duncan the Wonder Dog - I've actually already started this monster. Dense and fascinating, I'm going to take my time with this one.

Big Questions - Not right after Duncan, though. I can only take so much philosophy before my puny brain implodes. Really looking forward to it. Anders Nilsen is a genius.

Bad Island - One of my Amazon acquisitions. I read all of TenNapel's books and he rarely lets me down.

Petrograd and Two Generals - Love me some historical fiction, and the reputation and pedigree of both of these books are top notch.

Unwritten, Chew, Morning Glories, Hack/Slash, Scalped and too many more to count - Not books or collections, these are among the many series I've been buying in single issues but, as usual, got way behind on.

Box Office Poison - Yep, all of it. I've had this practically since the day I finished Tricked...several years ago. Sigh. Robinson's comics are meatier than most, but they are also compulsively readable. Should take me slightly less than forever.

That's the tip of the iceberg, but good enough for now. It's daunting, but at the same time, I feel pretty lucky to have so much AAA material to look forward to. Comics: the hobby that keeps on giving. Unless you're talking about money, in which case, substitute taking. Hopefully just not as much from me as usual.