Author: Graeme McMillan

Posted on

I Want To Wake Up

To say the New York trip was not what I expected would not be entirely correct, as I’m pretty sure that there was no point before I got on that plane where I thought it would be anything less than “a lot of work” and “very stressful.” That said, it was so much more work, and so much more stressful than I think I’d been imagining, to the point where I worked… maybe 16 hours every single damn day of the trip? Okay, wait, that’s not true; five of the days. I was traveling for the other two. For those days, I worked something closer to 4 through 6, depending.

(It really was a lot of work, for reasons that I’m not going to share publicly.)

The worst day was definitely Thursday, the first “full” day of New York Comic Con, purely for the fact that it was the day where every single techical difficulty hit us full in the face and we had to get ways around them by hook or by crook. How do you do a liveblog when you have no internet connection? Let me tell you, that was definitely a question I had to ask myself, which might give you an idea of how the day went.

Actually, no; here’s the ideal illustration of how the day really went: at one point, I realized that I didn’t know where my phone was. I could remember the last time I had it, and that was maybe half an hour earlier, and thinking about it, I realized two things: (1) my phone had fallen out of my pocket in a convention room holding a few hundred people, and (2) there was a very good chance I would never see my phone again. Which, you know, would not be great for any number of reasons.

Still, I went back to the panel room, thinking, the panel’s not been done for that long, it’s probably on the ground where I was, and I climbed around on my hands and knees only to find absolutely no phone. It was at this point where I realized how stressful that day really was, because upon realizing that I had really, actually, lost my phone, my first thought was, well, this is still only the third or fourth worst thing that’s happening right now.

For what it’s worth, it turned out someone in the room had already found the phone, so when I went to ask if the A/V team could keep an eye out in case anyone hands anything in, they simply handed me my phone and said, “this is probably yours.”

If only all the other problems of the weekend had such simple solutions.

Posted on

Slight Return

One of the unexpected by-products of my recent obsessive return to old Flash comics was the discovery that one of the first American comics I’d ever read was amongst their number, and the wave of nostalgia that hit me as soon as I saw the cover.

It’s the cover in particular that had the biggest impact, because while the kid me — apparently the issue came out in 1981, so I would have been six years old, probably? — kept the comic in question, apparently I lost the cover of it along the way. I can remember the interior of it with surprising clarity, especially some pages/images (although, admittedly, the version in my memory has additional scrawls in pen that I added at some point, which was something I did to a number of comics when I was a kid), but the long-lost cover has long been something that became a lot more vague, slipping further and further into a clouded, amorphous state with every passing day… until I accidentally bought it as part of a lot of back issues, and found it in my hands again.

Looking at it now, I can see why kid-me was so excited by the cover: it’s not just that it’s dynamic and has the hero in peril (Look at that posing from Carmine Infantino!), but there are two different bad guys, and each are visually distinct in a way that’s immediately recognizable and understandable. For my sins, I became a massive Rainbow Raider fan as a result of this comic, despite his being clearly impossibly lame; his secret identity is, I shit you not, Roy G. Bivolo; I still can’t tell what side of the thin line that separates genius from disaster that lies on.

Accidentally having this comic in my hands again for the first time in decades felt like a curiously charged moment with significance I couldn’t fully comprehend, not least because it happened so close to my 50th birthday. If there is some artifact of who I turned out to be from childhood, something like this really might be it. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something, although I can’t understand what.

Perhaps it was just telling me that I haven’t really changed that much in all these years. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, all told.

Posted on

Hap, Happiest Season

As you read this, I’m in New York for New York Comic Con 2024. I’m actually writing this weeks earlier, knowing (a) at the time you read this, I will be so busy with the show itself that I couldn’t even consider writing a post here, and (b) that I’ve already been working on things for the show for so long that I don’t call it New York Comic Con (or even NYCC) anymore, but New York Comic Con 2024, because that’s the terminology I use at work.

New York Comic Con is a show that takes up a large percentage of my work year, because it’s the biggest show in North America, but also because it’s the biggest show Popverse does every year; it’s the one that takes the most planning and organization, and the one that comes with the most pressure to get it right. It’s also the one with the most moving parts, which also means it’s the one with the most potential for things to go wrong; to absolutely no-one’s surprise, I started having stress dreams about this show about a month before it started, simply because that’s the way my brain works.

Despite all of this, it’s something I look forward to each and every year because I get to go to New York. Even now, there’s something genuinely magical about the city to me — if anything, the magic has grown from the first time I visited (26 years ago now, shockingly; I really am old), filled with awe and entirely unsure how it happened. Now, I have decades of memories in the city that decorate the landscape, each as odd and oddly meaningful as another, even if they’re simply of walking back to a hotel with a particular song in my ear after a day’s work. It’s become a city full of memories and ghosts, which feels entirely right for New York.

So, think of me as I do the job and don’t sleep enough, and enjoy some great food and some terrible food, and some great terrible food. I might be busy, I might be stressed, but if nothing else, I am still in one of my favorite places in the world.

Posted on

O, Lucky Man!

A number of conversations I’ve been having recently have me reflecting on the role of good luck and good timing in what I only occasionally feel self-conscious referring to as my career — namely, the fact that the circumstances that allowed me to get where I am today no longer exist, despite all that happening in the past two decades.

It’s a sign of the ways in which “digital media” has evolved — and the rate at which it’s happened, for that matter — but every time I look behind me to try and recommend that others follow in my example to try to further their writing careers, I realize that I’m talking about worlds that simply aren’t there anymore… something that feels especially surreal, given that, as I was coming up, I was moving in unchartered territory that hadn’t existed just a handful of years prior, either. Forget about the internet boom; the more I think about it, the more I realize that I came up in an internet burp.

The democratization of media that the internet appeared to offer — the very thing that allowed someone like me, with no training or, let’s be honest, special skill, to find an actual, real career as a writer — was, in retrospect, a temporary aberation that happened almost by accident as companies struggled to adapt to whatever the internet economy was going to become. I managed to sneak in while the lava was cooling, and before the continents shifted into place. Doors didn’t just close behind me, they burst into flame and ceased to exist entirely. (It was probably the lava’s fault, in this tortured metaphor.)

I’ve always credited my job to luck: to knowing the right people by accident, to being in the right place at the right time. But the more the internet becomes what it is, the more that I see how it devalues the “content” it relies upon to exist, the more I realize that the luckiest part of all was being there in the era in which no-one had really figured anything out, and was still willing to try stuff to see what stuck.

Posted on

The Fastest Obsession Alive

I wish I could explain to myself, as much as you, what possessed me to start collecting old The Flash comics last month with the speed and ferocity that I went after them. I’d been re-reading a collection of the final issues of the series — the so-called “Trial of the Flash” storyline, which is strange and a little camp and gloriously awkward in such interesting and delicious ways as it tries to marry a 1950s approach to story with the 1980s when it was published — when I realized that it was a comic that really didn’t feel like anything else, even surrounded by countless other comics it had inspired. I’m not sure what this is, I thought, I want more.

That I had this thought a week before a local comic show seemed like fate, and so I found the few cheap back issue sellers there (didn’t there used to be more? There should be more, again), and picked up a handful of copies. And then, inspired by that experience, I picked up a few more on eBay. And then a few more. And then more, and so on. The end result? Within three weeks, I had somewhere in the region of 30-40 issues. Thanks, my lowkey version of hyperfocus.

Here’s the thing, though: I don’t regret it at all, and not just because I picked up most of them at bargain prices. Instead, I’m if anything more obsessed by the very particular tone and obsessive nature that the comic displays in almost all of these issues. By hanging on to tropes established decades earlier when they were in fashion, The Flash‘s 1970s and 1980s comics are these fascinating examples of what happens when ideas and cliches metastasize and become something else in the process: there’s true danger in these stories — people die, even the Flash’s wife — but it’s all treated with a lightness and melodrama that defangs everything and suggests that nothing really bad can ever happen, with whatever energies should (and traditionally would) be put into emotionally responding to trauma being instead diverted into answering any one of the outlanding questions each story is built around: How can a man die in the morning and get married in the evening?!? What does it mean that my enemy is now my best friend — and knows my true identity?!? Why am I surrounded by dinosaurs and how can they help wake up this child from their coma?!?

(Yes, that last one is real.)

Each of these comics asks a very particular suspension of disbelief, and then goes on to reward that with stories filled with imagination, good humor, and no small level of whimsy. They’re clearly comics for kids, but done in such a way that I almost feel as if I had to age into in order to fully appreciate. Pow! Zoom! Comics aren’t just for kids anymore, as the tagline used to claim, for real.

Posted on

Alive, Alive, Good to Be Alive

I had the thought occur, recently, when thinking about my 50th birthday — it just happened! I’m old now! — that, now that I’m past my first half-century, that I’m firmly in the second half of my life. That thought was then immediately followed by my brain going, well, it’s not really that likely that you’re going to live until 100 statistically, and then I got very, very depressed.

It’s not the realization that I’ve probably been in the “second half of my life” for at least a decade or so already, as much as that’s an oddly sobering thought. (I wonder, if I’d had that realization when I turned 40, if it would have changed anything about me? Would I have become a different person in some strange attempt to “live life to the fullest”? Perhaps we’ll see now that I’m here, now.) Instead, it’s the even more sobering realization that my parents didn’t live that far into their 60s, which means that if my life follows their trajectory, I’m actually inside the last 20 years or so of my life.

To be fair, neither of my parents were especially healthy, and my mother didn’t die of natural causes, anyway. (Complications from surgery, in case you’re wondering.) I would like to think that, as unhealthy as I may be, maybe, I am still healthier than either of them and try to make better choices, and so perhaps I’ll have a lifespan closer to my grandmother, who made it all the way to 80 before dying in another accident that leaves me suspicious of the bad luck of my family in later years.

But still; I suddenly am aware that, for whatever reason, my family traditionally hasn’t been especially long-lived, a fact that’s hovered around the back of my head for some years and now sits front and center with a new sense of urgency following this landmark birthday.

Maybe it really is time for me to start looking after my health more.

Posted on

The Movies of September 2024

Perhaps because I read so much in September, I really didn’t watch that many movies, especially compared with the past few months. It’s not as if I was sitting around watching TV or other things instead, as occasionally happens — I’ve curiously fallen out of the habit of TV watching with the exception of a couple of shows, unintentionally — but, rather, September was filled with a bunch of other things that required my attention in the evenings and on the weekends. I could joke and say that October will be different, but this is a month with a week-long convention trip right in the middle of it, so we’ll see.

(Also, I realized only when putting the image in here: I missed out Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which got rewatched this month as well. Just mentally throw that in there, thanks.)

Posted on

The Comics of September 2024

First off, I know; I can’t quite believe I re-read all of Countdown to Final Crisis either, especially given that it must have been the third or fourth time I’ve read it. It’s not any good, and yet I periodically just… come back to it. I’m sorry, everyone. Much more fulfilling was revisiting Steve Englehart and Joe Staton’s The Green Lantern Corps, a massively fulfilling experience for me when I was 12, and happily the same when I was 49. I probably shouldn’t be so eager to admit that, and yet…

  1. The Flash (1987) #s 76-79
  2. The Flash: Rebirth #1
  3. The Flash: Rebirth #s 2-6
  4. X-Men: From The Ashes Infinity Comic #13
  5. The Flash (1959) #300
  6. Daredevil (2023) #13
  7. Exceptional X-Men #1
  8. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #16
  9. The Immortal Thor #15
  10. Marvel Zombies: Dawn of Decay #1
  11. What If Donald Duck Became Thor? #1
  12. Moon Knight Annual 2024 #1
  13. Miles Morales: Spider-Man (2022) #24
  14. Scarlet Witch (2024) #4
  15. Spectacular Spider-Men #7
  16. Spider-Boy #11
  17. Star Wars: The Acolyte – Kelnacca #1
  18. The Ultimates (2024) #4
  19. Venom War: Spider-Man #2
  20. Venom War #2
  21. Flesh Books 1-2
  22. Green Lantern/New Gods: Godhead #1
  23. Green Lantern (2011) #35
  24. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #35
  25. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #35
  26. Red Lanterns (2011) #35
  27. Sinestro (2013) #6
  28. New Gods (1971) #1
  29. Wonder Woman (1987) #s 101-103
  30. Green Lantern (2011) #36
  31. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #36
  32. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #36
  33. Red Lanterns (2011) #36
  34. Sinestro (2013) #7
  35. Wonder Woman (1987) #104
  36. Green Lantern (2011) #37
  37. Green Lantern Corps (2011) #37
  38. Green Lantern: New Guardians (2011) #37
  39. Red Lanterns (2011) #37
  40. Sinestro (2013) #8
  41. Green Lantern Annual (2012) #3
  42. All-New Collector’s Edition #56 (Superman vs Muhammad Ali)
  43. Absolute Power: Super Son #1
  44. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #31
  45. Superman (2023) #18
  46. Wonder Woman (2023) #13
  47. Jenny Sparks #2
  48. John Constantine, Hellblazer: Dead in America #9
  49. Absolute Power: Origins #3
  50. Absolute Power: Task Force VII #7
  51. Green Arrow (2023) #16
  52. The Flash (2023) #13
  53. Titans (2023) #15
  54. Detective Comics #s 1084-1089
  55. Super Powers (1985) #1
  56. MultiVersus: Collision Detected #1
  57. Breaking the Chain: The Guard Dog Story
  58. Dawn of DC: Knight Terrors FCBD 2023 Special Edition #1
  59. Knight Terrors: First Blood #1
  60. Knight Terrors #1
  61. 2000 AD Prog 2400
  62. Judge Dredd Megazine #472
  63. Knight Terrors #s 2-4
  64. Knight Terrors: Night’s End #1
  65. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Battle Lines #1
  66. Batman (2016) #s 137-188
  67. Catwoman (2018) #s 57-58
  68. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Red Hood #s 1-2
  69. Batman/Catwoman; The Gotham War – Scorched Earth #1
  70. Batman/Catwoman: The Gotham War – Prelude Batman Day Edition #1
  71. World War III (2007) #s 1-4 (52 spin-off)
  72. Sgt. Rock Annual #3
  73. Questprobe #3
  74. Super-Team Family #6
  75. The Flash (1959) #s 252, 268
  76. Action Comics (1938) #s 482, 512
  77. Sgt. Rock #s 345, 347, 368, 387
  78. G.I. Combat #288
  79. Blackhawk (1944) #258
  80. Green Lantern (1960) #s 123-124
  81. Judge Dredd by Mick McMahon Apex Edition
  82. Green Lantern (1960) #125
  83. The Flash (1959) #296
  84. DC Comics Presents: Captain Atom #1
  85. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 51-49 (Series is numbered backwards)
  86. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 48-43
  87. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #51
  88. Mystic (2000) #1
  89. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #14
  90. Savage Wolverine Infinity Comic #6
  91. Star Wars (2020) #47
  92. Star Trek: Defiant #s 8-11
  93. Star Trek: Defiant Annual #1
  94. Our Army at War #233
  95. Justice League of America (1960) #109
  96. Wolverine (2024) #1
  97. Star-Spangled War Stories #183
  98. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – The Scorpius Run #s 1-5
  99. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 42-40
  100. Justice League of America (1960) #123
  101. Uncanny X-Men (2024) #2
  102. Justice League of America (1960) #124
  103. Star Wars (2020) #50
  104. Avengers Assemble (2024) #1
  105. Captain America (2023) #13
  106. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #57
  107. All-Star Squadron #s 1-3
  108. The Flash (1959) #s 260, 263-264
  109. Justice League of America (1960) #127
  110. All-Star Squadron #s 4-5
  111. The Lovable Lockheed Infinity Comic #1
  112. Absolute Batman #1
  113. Flash: The Fastest Man Alive #s 7-13
  114. All-Flash Special #1
  115. Justice League of America (1960) #117
  116. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #40
  117. Amazons Attack! (2007) #s 1-6
  118. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 39-34
  119. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #201
  120. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 33-31
  121. Justice League of America Wedding Special #1
  122. Justice League of America (2006) #13-15
  123. Green Arrow/Black Canary Wedding Special #1
  124. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 30-29
  125. Countdown (to Final Crisis) #s 28-27
  126. Countdown to Final Crisis # 26
  127. The Lovable Lockheed Infinity Comic #2
  128. Savage Wolverine #7
  129. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 203-204
  130. Countdown to Final Crisis #s 25-21
  131. Salvation Run #s 1-2
  132. Countdown to Mystery #s 1-8
  133. Countdown to Final Crisis #20
  134. Countdown: Arena #s 1-4
  135. Salvation Run #s 3-7
  136. Countdown to Final Crisis #s 19-1
  137. DC Universe #0
  138. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #205
  139. DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The ‘70s #1
  140. DC Retroactive: Justice League of America – The ‘70s #1
  141. Secret Origins (1986) #7
  142. Sword of the Atom (1983) #s 1-4
  143. Power of the Atom #s 1-2
  144. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #206
  145. Vengeance of the Moon Knight #9
  146. Spider-Man: Reign 2 #3
  147. The Sixth Gun #1
  148. Fantastic Four (2022) #25
  149. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #207
  150. Batman (1940) #401
  151. Detective Comics (1935) #568
  152. The Warlord (1976) #s 114-115
  153. G.O.D.S. #8
  154. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 1-2
  155. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 3-6
  156. Deadpool Team-Up #893
  157. Spider-Man: The Short Halloween #1
  158. Heroic Age: 1 Month 2 Live #1
  159. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 208-210
  160. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #15
  161. Avengers (2023) #15
  162. Spider-Man/Deadpool #s 7-18
  163. House of Mystery (2008) #1
  164. 2000 AD Prog 2401
  165. DC Retroactive: Green Lantern – The ‘80s #1
  166. DC Retroactive: Justice League International – The ‘90s #1
  167. Red Tornado (1985) #1
  168. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #13
  169. Blood Hunt #3
  170. Giant-Size Daredevil (2024) #1
  171. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 211-213
  172. X-Men (2024) #4
  173. X-Factor (2024) #2
  174. The Incredible Hulk (2023) #17
  175. Dazzler (2024) #1
  176. Black Canary (2024) #1
  177. Hyde Street #1
  178. Avengers (2023) #18
  179. Spider-Man: Black, White and Blood #2
  180. The Power Fantasy #2
  181. Star Wars: Darth Vader (2020) #50
  182. Spider-Boy Annual #1
  183. Wolverine: Deep Cuts #3
  184. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 214-216
  185. Joker: The World OGN
  186. Batman/Elmer Fudd #1
  187. Savage Wolverine Infinity Comic #8
  188. Deadpool (2024) #6
  189. Venom War: Deadpool #1
  190. Venom War: Lethal Protectors #1
  191. Tales of the Green Lantern Corps Annual #3
  192. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #217
  193. Green Lantern (2023) #s 1-2
  194. Green Lantern: Knight Terrors #s 1-2
  195. Sinestro #s 1-4
  196. Green Lantern (2023) #s 3-12
  197. Green Lantern (2021) #1
  198. Green Lantern (2005) #10
  199. 2000 AD Prog 2402
  200. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 218-219
  201. Millennium (1987) #1
  202. Young All-Stars #s 8-9
  203. The Flash (1987) #8
  204. Justice League International (1987) #9
  205. Wonder Woman (1986) #12
  206. Outsiders (1985) #27
  207. Firestorm (1982) #67
  208. Batman (1940) #415
  209. Blue Beetle (1986) #20
  210. Superman (1986) #13
  211. Adventures of Superman (1986) #436
  212. Booster Gold (1985) #24
  213. Infinity, Inc. (1984) #46
  214. Teen Titans Spotlight #18
  215. Action Comics (1938) #596
  216. The Lobo Cancelation Special #1
  217. Detective Comics (1937) #582
  218. Suicide Squad (1987) #9
  219. The Spectre (1987) #10
  220. Captain Atom (1986) #11
  221. Generations: Fractured (Detective Comics #1027 short)
  222. Generations: Shattered #1
  223. Generations: Forged #1
  224. Millennium #s 2-3
  225. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #220
  226. The Flash (1987) #9
  227. Justice League International (1987) #10
  228. Wonder Woman (1986) #13
  229. Outsiders (1985) #28
  230. Firestorm (1982) #68
  231. Blue Beetle (1986) #21
  232. Superman (1986) #14
  233. The Shadow War of Hawkman #s 1-4
  234. Hawkman Special (1986) #1
  235. Action Comics (1938) #s 588-589
  236. Millennium #s 4-7
  237. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #221
  238. Millennium #8
  239. The Green Lantern Corps (1986) #s 222-223
  240. The Immortal Thor #12
  241. DC Comics Presents (1978) #95
  242. Hawkman (1986) #1
  243. Infinity, Inc. (1984) #47
  244. The Spectre (1987) #11
  245. Teen Titans Spotlight #19
  246. Jeff Week Infinity Comic #1
  247. X-Men: From the Ashes Infinity Comic #1
  248. The Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #52
  249. Sensational She-Hulk (2023) #9
  250. Doctor Strange (2023) #16
  251. Wolverine: Revenge #2
  252. Uncanny X-Men (2024) #3
  253. Avengers Annual (2024) #1
  254. Amazing Spider-Man (2022) #58
  255. Daredevil: Woman Without Fear (2024) #3
  256. Ultimate Spider-Man (2024) #9
  257. Absolute Power #4
  258. DC All In Special #1
  259. Justice Society of America (2022) #12
  260. Batman (2016) #153
  261. Plastic Man No More! #2
  262. War of the Gods #1
  263. Wonder Woman (1986) #58
  264. Superman: The Man of Steel (1991) #3
  265. Action Comics (1938) #s 1070-1071
  266. Green Lantern Civil Corps Special #1
  267. Green Lantern (2023) #16
  268. Batman and Robin: Year One #1
  269. Jenny Sparks #3
  270. Birds of Prey (2023) #14
  271. Shazam! (2023) #16
  272. The New Guardians (1988) #s 1-4
  273. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #301
  274. The New Guardians (1988) #s 5-8
  275. Dark Nights: Death Metal #7
  276. Infinite Frontier #0
  277. The New Guardians (1988) #s 9-12
  278. All-New Collector’s Edition #54
  279. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest #32
  280. Titans (2023) #16
  281. Wonder Woman (2023) #14
  282. 100-Page Super Spectacular #22
  283. The Flash (1959) #s 269, 271-272
  284. The Flash (1958) #s 274, 290-291
  285. Hawkman (1986) #s 2-3
  286. The Flash (1958) #s 292-295
  287. Detective Comics (1937) #s 821-826
  288. The Forged #1
  289. Tales of the Unnamed: The Blizzard #s 1-2 
  290. X-Men: From The Ashes Infinity Comic #17
  291. Detective Comics (1937) #s 827-832
  292. Hawkman (1986) #s 4-6
  293. DC Comics Presents (1978) #17
  294. Justice League of America (1960) #s 179-180
  295. Doodlepool Infinity Comic #1
  296. Detective Comics (1937) #s 833-837
  297. Hawkman (1986) #s 7-11
  298. G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero #s 302-305