I have ordered from the good folks at Comic Relief the first issue of the new series Punisher War Journal. I consider this an exemplar of personal growth. I am not making any particular commitment to this series, nor have I sworn an oath of allegiance to The Punisher as a character, but I've finally awoken to the intolerable hypocrisy of my knee-jerk "The Punisher kills; so, I don't like The Punisher" position. The Shadow kills. The Shadow doesn't just kill, he commits cold-blooded murder. Avi Ducret, my beloved Spy Smasher (or, as a contingency, Commando Yank), kills. And I go back and forth between have Avi only kill in self-defense and believing that the only Nazi is a good Nazi and having Avi act accordingly. I mean, boy howdy, do I love The Shadow! And Andy Helfer's The Shadow. I like the art I've seen from previews of Punisher War Journal and the writer, Matt Fraction, is about to become Ed Brubaker's co-writer on the new series The Immortal Iron Fist; so, even before reading anything he's written I am predisposed to like the man. The only reason to not test drive Punisher War Journal was my irrational and ultimately indefensible opposition to The Punisher. At the end of the day, The Punisher and PJW might both suck profoundly, but I am proud of myself that I am mature enough to find out for myself, not just declare both as foregone conclusions.
As an idiosyncrasy, I have always written the entries in my journal as long blocks of text without breaks between paragraphs. I cannot remember why I made that particular choice, but if I had to speculate I'd say it had something to do with a desire to cram as much text as possible onto each page. Pure supposition, and in fact I tend to think that I didn't consciously choose the block of text format, it simply happened in the course of writing.
Despite the offense I have caused to many people over the nearly five years of the Secret Base's existence, this bloggy blog is very heavily censored. My journal is pure, undiluted Mike, every base, noble, debauched, chaste, selfish, selfless, and nonsensical thought that passes through my head while I am attended by pen and paper. At my sixtieth and final year approaches, I shall have to make some provision to ensure that these volumes are burned lest my family and friends read those numerous and insipid lines and come to know who I really am. Bog forbid.
No comments:
Post a Comment