{"id":7158,"date":"2010-11-27T00:25:14","date_gmt":"2010-11-27T05:25:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=7158"},"modified":"2010-11-27T00:25:14","modified_gmt":"2010-11-27T05:25:14","slug":"a-fans-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/?p=7158","title":{"rendered":"A Fan’s Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Hello and welcome to CC <\/em>weekend edition. I\u2019m your host \u2013 Frankie The Wop. In an effort to understand<\/em> what it takes to achieve Tom Spurgeon<\/a> level of comics bloggerdom \u2013 I have moved to New Mexico. Spurge is at 6200 feet above sea level and I think that it\u2019s the air up here that makes looking out beyond the frontier of comics possible. Wait, what? I dunno what the fuck I\u2019m talking about. I\u2019m high as shit and it ain\u2019t from the altitude. The holiday season has begun. I got nuthin\u2019 this week.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that I have moved to New Mexico – for the winter at least. Me and the girl left all our stuff at my house in Pittsburgh, PA. We packed two cars and hoofed it down here. My car was mostly full of art supplies and comics. I hope my comics stash holds up \u2013 I didn\u2019t see too many comics shops on the way out here. I brought two shortboxes and two magazine boxes full of crap to make it through the winter. I brought all my Hulk<\/em> magazines (Get it? The Hulk, the desert. Perfect context. And with Moon Knight<\/em> back-ups no less) and all my Warren mags which I\u2019ve resisted really studying for years. I\u2019ve always been afraid that getting into \u201870s comics mags of the 8.5 x 11 inch variety will make me want to start using that format in my own comics. A sure-as-shit way of losing money. Just ask Beto and Jaime.<\/p>\n

And if any of you turkeys think that fleeing to New Mexico was a way of avoiding the east coast winters \u2013 well, you\u2019ve got another think coming. It was 17 degrees Fahrenheit last night after Thanksgiving. It gets cold here. And dark. That\u2019s what happens as soon as the sun goes down: it gets cold and dark. Really cold and really dark.<\/p>\n

So as I continue to do my best DH Lawrence<\/a> impression, many of my comrades are gearing up for the Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival<\/a>. I\u2019m bummed that I will not be making it this year. It\u2019s just too far of a drive even to the airport to go. Maybe me and Spurge will decide to roadtrip at the last minute. But as of this writing, he hasn\u2019t returned my emails about it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s pretty slow going out here and I like it. My phone doesn\u2019t work out here, which has been great. Internet service is spotty but decent. I keep telling my friends the same thing – which is basically that it\u2019s beautiful here but really remote. And I\u2019m getting a lot of painting done. I\u2019m treating this like a writer\u2019s retreat or an artist’s retreat – wait, which one am I again? If you tell people you’re a painter then they think you paint houses. If you tell them you are a cartoonist then they think you draw “funny stuff”. It’s weird. Still “cartoonist” sounds less pretentious than “artist”. So I’m on a “writer’s retreat” – that sounds best. So far so good.<\/p>\n

I also haven\u2019t bought a scanner, which means I can\u2019t scan comics pages and riff on them until I do. So, forgive the interruption to my, ahem, comics classes that I\u2019ve been doing in these hallowed halls. It\u2019s hard to switch back to comics talk when I gotta psych myself up with painting talk all day. I\u2019ll say one thing that\u2019s nice about painting: there\u2019s no fixing shit in post-production later. And there\u2019s no scanning, which rules.<\/p>\n

One of the most exciting things that has happened to me since I\u2019ve been here was getting a box of books from Dan in the mail. He sent me the new MB<\/a>, the new BC<\/a>, and the new CF<\/a> – all of which I didn\u2019t have yet. I saw the new MB and the BC at SPX but not the new CF \u2013 that was brand new to me. But I hadn\u2019t read<\/em> any of them yet. So, it\u2019s been a real treat to sit with these books for a few days and really dig in.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s weird when one\u2019s heroes become one\u2019s friends \u2013 and reading MB, BC and CF this is something that crosses my mind a lot. I forget that I know them and I sort of return to that original fan state of first discovery. Sort of a disbelief. Like encountering a scary barbarian who would like to entertain you and share drinks with you. Is this real? Is this really real? I feel like it\u2019s a battle \u2013 not a battle to read but that I\u2019m witnessing a battle. I get really pumped as a reader because when these heroes pull off moves that I\u2019ve seen them do before and then do the move better than before this time around\u2013 it\u2019s like watching an athlete whom I admire war with themselves \u2013 and in the process become a champion. It\u2019s like I\u2019m not shocked by their newness anymore. The shock is now a disbelief that they do what they do so well and so consistently. I feel really lucky to have watched these guys play from the sidelines. The view is pretty spectacular during a game. Thanks guys. Thanks Dan.<\/p>\n

FRANK\u2019s TOP TEN OF NOVEMBER 2010
\n10.\tDitko Charltons<\/a>
\n9.\tcrows – the real kind not the Brandon Lee kind
\n8.\tPawn Stars season 2
\n7. \tletter from Aaron Cometbus
\n6. \tfinding out local art store carries airbrush paint
\n5.\tfireplace romance
\n4.\tbox from Dan
\n3. \tsunrises \/ sunsets
\n2. \tSea and Sardinia<\/em> by DH Lawrence
\n1.\tA Fan\u2019s Notes<\/em> by Frederick Exley<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hello and welcome to CC weekend edition. I\u2019m your host \u2013 Frankie The Wop. In an effort to understand what it takes to achieve Tom Spurgeon level of comics bloggerdom \u2013 I have moved to New Mexico. Spurge is at 6200 feet above sea level and I think that it\u2019s the air up here that makes looking out beyond the frontier of comics possible. Wait, what? I dunno what the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[162,187,867,1314],"class_list":["post-7158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-chippendale","tag-c-f","tag-brinkman","tag-spurgeon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7158\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/comicscomicsmag.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}