Sunday, June 21, 2009

Plans Derailed. New Plans Taking Shape.

As you can tell, after over a year of near-daily updates, I've fallen into a rut of inconsistency over the past couple of months. I had planned to come back from my blogging break re-energized and ready to write like crazy. Then I'd planned to come back from my family trip to Disney re-energized and ready to write like crazy. Then I planned to come back from my conference last week and, well, you get the idea.

But I just can't seem to get back to the daily update schedule anymore. For two reasons:

1) I'm not overly excited about any Marvel and DC comics right now. I have been writing about mainstream superhero-ish stuff for years, and even though I'm enjoying Grant Morrison's return to Batman and Geoff Johns's Green Lantern super-epic and Rick Remender's crazy riff on Punisher and Jason Aaron's greatness on Scalped, I don't know that I have anything new to say about that stuff. It's the same good stuff I've been raving about for a while and the same bad stuff that I've been railing against for a while. And CBR pays me to do those things, so it's difficult to do them for free when it's just more of the same.

2) I have a brand-new job. Two of them, actually. I've become English department head, and I've become Dean of Curriculum and Instruction at my school. My teaching load has lessened considerably, but now I have tons o' administrative responsibilities. With the school preparing for a very different composition of students and faculty next year, and with curricular changes to accomodate the new composition, I have a lot to do right now and all summer long. And then after that, forever and ever. It's an exciting time, it's a time to solve problems and lay the solid groundwork for a new year (and beyond), so it's a little bit tricky to find time to immerse myself in comics like I could, oh, a couple of months back. Also, do I have it in me to care what Domino is up to or what case Manhunter needs to solve next? Not so much these days.

I'll still be reviewing comics and writing columns for CBR (probably less reviews per week than normal, though), and I'll still be posting here occasionally, but I'll need to change the promise of "updated daily" on the masthead. I've got other priorities right now, and they're good ones.

As you're waiting for my next update, go ahead and read some "Asterios Polyp," if you were lucky enough to get an early copy. It's a great comic!

10 comments:

Ben Villarreal said...

I feel you on the whole "trouble blogging" thing; I also went a family trip to Disney and expected to come back with tons to write about...

But congrats on the new job! That actually sounds like my dream job at my high school, but that's still several years away, as I don't even teach there yet :-) Still, I got a similar promotion at my university--less teaching, more administrative duties. I didn't expect the later to take up as much time as it does :-)

Vanja said...

It's great to hear that you're doing so well career-wise, Tim. As for the comics-blogging, perhaps concentrating on the independents would make for more inspiring columns?

Ben Villarreal said...

I concur with Vanja; independent comics would be an interesting change of pace for you :-)

DavidTobin said...

Congrats on the promotion. Pity about the blog but one must prioritise. I'ld much prefer to see you investing the time in another Grant Morrison book anyway.

Shecky Shabazz said...

Good to hear you're moving on up, but I'm not quite altruistic enough not to focus on how this affects me - i.e. I'm sad to see the blogupdates go. I like how this blog sort of functions as a messageboard where you set the topics. It's been a seldom thing to find places to discuss mainstream comics with a modicum of intelligence and clarity, and I think that's something that's been achieved here on a semi-regular basis.

I'll still keep on reading WWC and your reviews, though.

Anonymous said...

At least share your opinion of Batman & Robin as it goes on.

Ronan said...

All good things...congrats on the promotion. We both know you'll be back when Morrison resurrects Bruce anyway

Doug said...

Congrats on the career upgrade, Tim!

Anonymous said...

Can you, at the very least, post the links to your reviews/articles at cbr?

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