Storytime

I realize I'm getting pretty erratic about posting entries here. I think it's because I approach them as mini-essays with lots of links I have to look up and code in; blogs where people just list what they ate and what mood they're in don't do a damn thing for me. So I wait till I've got enough to say and enough time to say it, and lately neither has been the case. Someday I'll finish up the 3 or 4 other scraps of unfinished entries I've abandoned and post them. Not today, though.

On the bright side, I did manage today to dredge up and polish (more or less) a piece of fan fiction I started writing months ago. It's called "Along Came a Spider," and you can find it on my story site. There are plenty more waiting in the wings, just waiting for their moment.

In vaguely related news, today I finally bought and read the trade paperback version of the Batman saga The Long Halloween, which is excellent. The visual design is elegant and Tim Sale's artwork is particularly stunning. Not much in the way of deathtraps or other elements that trigger my fetish-y side, but Batman looks great throughout, and at least loses his cape in a skirmish with the Joker (and I always like it when he's depicted with stubble!). Mostly it's just a very well-told story that evokes film noir, the Godfather movies, Silence of the Lambs, and other pop-culture crime lore. There's even a fan-run website devoted to parsing the comic's multiple allusions, though the site's creator cautions against studying it too carefully before you actually read the book.

And speaking of comics, I also just read three volumes of The Authority,, which I can't recommend highly enough (okay, there are things I can recommend more highly, like The Watchmen, but I digress). There is much I want to say about that one, but this truly is a matter which must wait for another day.