N8Meats' Manifesto

Call this an introductory post. Use it as a context through which to view subsequent posts. Etc… This is my first blog post. The first post for my first blog. Until recently, I had never really intended to write a blog. Sitting in front of my computer to type about my life never really appealed to me – details of parties, visits with friends and family… frankly the people who would want to read the mundane details of my life are probably those with whom I wouldn’t want to share. My day-to-day is just not interesting enough to warrant most people’s interest. So I never did it. I never blogged.

Then, about 6 or 7 months ago I “found” (in quotes because they were never really lost, I just hadn’t looked at them in a long time) the comic books I collected in the early 1990s. I still read comics, but I don’t consider myself a collector, per se. I happened to be looking through old boxes and stumbled upon the collection. Something occurred to me, about half way through sorting and cataloguing these about 200 comic books (not a large collection by any standard… I was not rich growing up and I have a very short attention span, so keeping focused on any one hobby was extremely challenging when I was younger). It occurred to me that it might be fun to re-read them, rate them and decide whether or not to fill in the huge, numerous gaps in the collection. Then I thought, “Wouldn’t it also, therefore, be fun to review each of them as I went, and put these reviews on the internet somehow?” Well, the answer was yes. Hence, “N8Meats’ Comments” (Innate Meats’ Comments).

Now, I sat on this for quite some time. I have to admit that I forgot all about the idea… in fact, probably before the day was over. I didn’t do it and I think I realized that it would be kind of boring (for me and for readers) because the concept was really limited. A blog about nothing but old (but not very many of them vintage) comics? Worse yet, a blog about only those old(ish) comics that I happened to choose to purchase as a very unoriginal 13 year old? Well, of course, that’s not going to work at all.

But the idea sat there in my subconscious for several months, churning and evolving. I may have forgotten about the whole thing, but it certainly didn’t forget about me. It sat there, as I said, and kept growing... until earlier this week. I was watching a lecture about, of all things, blogging for business when I remembered the idea. I remembered it and, all of a sudden, like an organic thing this concept flooded back into my brain, very much matured from when I last recalled thinking about it. Two major pieces of this had changed:

1 – Why stick with the comic books I owned in my youth? I also read and collect current trade paperbacks and hard cover collections of contemporary comics, vintage pulp and sci-fi novels… and I enjoy old & new cartoon interpretations of comic, sci-fi & noir themes… as well as old films based on these themes… I also have some non-fiction interests that I am pursuing avidly at the moment. So in an effort to keep my own focus (remember the short attention span) and to make this blog interesting for the potential reader, I am opting to “mix it up a bit.”

2 – Reviews? Really? Perhaps I should leave the reviews to the professionals, eh? I mean, isn’t the intent of a review to make the reader or viewer want to experience that which the reviewer has enjoyed and to avoid that which the reviewer did not enjoy? Is that what I want to do? The answer is, “Emphatically No.” What I intend to do with this blog is to provide constructive criticism (often to dead or retired authors, artists and the like) and an exaggerated sort of in-depth analysis that will sometimes be extremely ridiculous, given the subject matter.

So there you have it. N8Meats’ Comments.