The rest of that semester, which just ended, dissipated into a much-advertised haze of depression and booze. I barely read what I was assigned, much less anything extracurricular. I've finished packing the new volumes into my home bookshelf, into every possible cranny, and I'm much too lazy to fish them out again and see which ones I've yet to write up. They were clearly not too memorable.
Nothing extracurricular, with one important exception. I read a phenomenal amount of comics, mostly "mature themed." I read the entire oeuvre, or near enough, of several writers, and devoured five-year series in a single day. Y: The Last Man, by Brian K. Vaughan, consists of roughly 1,440 pages, a massive creative effort that spans some ten trade paperbacks, and I finished the entire work in less than twenty-four hours. Binge reading, to keep my mind off work and despondency. Let's see, I read the better part of Garth Ennis' work (and the man is prolific), quite a bit of Ed Brubaker, Grant Morrison's many projects, including that wonderful, mockable thing called The Invisibles, a few of Warren Ellis' endless efforts, including Planetary, Fell, Desolation Jones, etc., and probably a few other writers whom I can't remember without plugging in my external hard drive. Understand, I read so many comics that I already cannot recall the names of writers whose entire career I either read or heavily sampled. Series with multiple authors included Hellboy, The Authority ("Well, it was inevitable," Will said upon hearing), and various Marvel Ultimates. I believe I have concluded this period in my life. While I may still read comics, I won't scour the internet for scanned downloads, then lose sleep and eyesight scrolling through them compulsively, addictively, in such a way that I cannot remember much of the plot afterward. I'm already back to my Philip Roth, whom I enjoy in the most self-centered way. Expect trenchant analysis.
Oh yeah, Mike Carey. I read loads of Mike Carey. Want to guess how long it took me to read the 7o or so issues of Lucifer? But christ, what he does to Constantine. It's the most fucked-up world of the imagination I've encountered in a while, and John Constantine should be put down in a mercy killing. God, Carey, you have to lift the fuckers up before you send them down to hell. It can't be hell all-fucking-day. Lucifer was fun. Carey's Hellblazer was just miserable. Ennis' recipe for salvation (in the face of testosterone-dripping ultraviolence) is a round of drunken BS with the blokes. Writers are a funny lot, a little touched.
