I was talking with a friend, who shared with me how much fun she was having with her monthly mystery book club in Chicago. I thought, “That sounds like a lot of fun… I should try that.”
Well, as it turns out fitting a book club of any kind in my real life isn’t as easy as it sounds. Time commitments. Transportation problems. Venues. Refreshments. But here, on the SDMB, these petty perks and disdainful distractions needn’t worry us. A mouse, a few clicks, you can join right in. Pared down, I might say. Cheap operation, you could counter. Shit, you got me, I’d allow.
Ceding that there is already a very successful weekly comics discussion ongoing about new releases in Cafe Society, I was wondering if anyone else reading this would be interested in joining an ongoing Comics Talk thread in which we discuss various comic book trade paperbacks that have been out for awhile. Titles ranging a number of topics and genres, not just the superhero stuff, like The ULTIMATES, WATCHMEN, MAUS, BATMAN: THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS, UNDERSTANDING COMICS and REINVENTING COMICS, The Complete BONE, THE SPIRIT archives, LOVE and ROCKETS, Y: THE LAST MAN, HATE, 100 BULLETS, The Complete Frank Miller DAREDEVIL, SANDMAN, JUDGE DREDD, SIN CITY, POWERS – and maybe even comic strips collections like PEANUTS, FOXTROT, THE FAR SIDE, CALVIN & HOBBES… etc.
So: if you think this idea has merit, sign up. Once we allow time to get a number of people on board (say, a week, maybe?) we can get this started up right after Christmas.
When you sign up, list no more than three titles YOU think we should start off the discussions with. Perhaps we can arrive at an early consensus. Also tell us a little about how you got started reading comics – a couple of sentences will do. Next tell us your comics reading preferences.: two favorite titles, two favorite characters, two favorite artists, two favorite writers. Hey, we gotta know if you know your stuff, fanboy! After that, maybe we can figure out a way to take turns suggesting which tradepaperbacks we’ll read next, even as new people sign on board. (I’m leaning toward suggesting alphabetically (Heh, wonder why), reverse postings (so newbies go first), or earliest join date (so that SDMB old heads go first). You know, thinking about this, some more we should definitely vote on that, too.
Excelsior!
Askia, Comics Talk OP
