The Year Of Living Impetuously!

If I learned anything last year it was the plans of mice and men often go awry (to misquote the venerable Burns). Still and all, despite the personal hardships I found solace here online with this little venue which allowed me to recommend, vent, and harangue to my heart's content about the exceedingly tiny matters of comics, science fiction, and whatnot and the larger issues of politics, and whatever else found its way onto my path. I won't be abandoning it anytime soon in this coming year (unless the mysterious results of the change of internet policy nationally affects my time or tide).

That said, I just spent a year looking lovingly at the "King of Comics" during his centennial. I won't be doing that again  or anything like it. In fact I don't have any plans whatsoever for the coming year save to read comics, novels, and whatever else lands on my nightstand. I want to watch good old television shows and even some better-than-average new ones and even see a movie or two if time allows.

For one thing, I am suspending the "Favorite Covers" feature which has been part of the site for several years now. It's been fun, but like many things it needs a rest and so do I. That doesn't mean I won't be whipping up galleries of comic book covers that catch my fancy, but it does mean they won't dribble out over the course of the month. And that's another thing, I don't have any schemes for monthly themes. I want to wing it more, play it fast and loose and allow the day to determine what appears here. Planning is a grand thing and I love to do it, but trusting in the moment is a good way to go also and I need more of that in my life in general.

I have been loading up on comic strip and comic book collections for several years now meaning to get to them in due course. I mean to make that happen as much as I can this year. (I also hope to cut down on my new acquisitions but I know now that I will probably fail at that.) I have been gathering Hal Foster's fantastic Prince Valiant strip since Fantagraphics started nearly a decade ago now and after a few volumes I fell into the habit of getting them and filing them away on the shelf for another day. That day is now and hopefully by the end of this year I will be up-to-date on my Prince Valiant reading. Also on tap are the various King Features comic books starring the likes of Flash Gordon, The Phantom, and Mandrake the Magician. I've long wanted to have a full set of those and I do now in both original and reprint. And there's Popeye which apparently wraps up a vintage reprint run of great Bill Sagendorf comics from IDW this month. So it's time to enjoy the fruits of that harvest.

Beyond that I have scant notions. I want to read the E-Man saga again by Cuti and Staton as the last E-Man story hits the stands later this month. I want to dig out those vintage Jonny Quest comics from Comico and have another go at them. I have a lot of tomes in my collection, and I want to read them all.

I'd love to put together a collection of Will Eisner's The Spirit in the archives. As I divest myself of original comics and concentrate on collections, I hope to make the latter pay for itself as much as I can.

And then there's Tarzan. I have many a Tarzan tome sitting about waiting my attention. Stuff by Hal Foster, Burne Hogarth, and Russ Manning all demanding attention. I mean to hopefully get to that stuff before the year is out. Throw into that mix a mountain of Shadow novels waiting to read and enjoyed and it's all quite a lot really, now that I talk about it.

So I don't have any particular plans for the Dojo but I do have lots of ideas how I want to spend the year and that will certainly be reflected here. I don't rule out coming up with plans later, but we'll have to see because the words of Burns still echo in my ears.

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