Those among you with an eye for detail might notice there was no post for WRE week 2. Yup. When I planned this I didn’t anticipate that work would suddenly become much more intense. I won’t pretend that my job is always draining, but it has been lately. I’ve been going home and finding that I simply don’t have the bandwidth even for comics. Something that has become apparent very quickly is that I need to allocate my resources better. Frankly though, I would rather just not make a post than have one where I go “my bad” and give my excuses (valid of otherwise), so I did.

This week I did make a point of creating some reading time. The numbers came up slightly!

Slightly is good, we’re still at the beginning of this and we’re going to pick up the pace (not a guarantee).

So what did I read this week? Let’s start with a confession: I love buying comic grab bags. An Ollie’s recently opened in my town, and they often have grab bags. So I’ve amassed a whole pile of a few hundred random comics that I only want a few dozen of, but I want to read a lot of them before passing them on. Will they all “count” for the purposes of this reading challenge? I don’t know yet, it doesn’t seem particularly… fair? to count seven issues of Batman that I didn’t select, they just happened to come in grab bags. I guess I imagine this needing to have purpose. At the end of the day though, does it even matter as long as I’m reading? That’s the gospel I preach when I’m trying to validate kids reading comics, why am I hesitant to extend that to myself? Hmm…

This week I read five random issues of The Tick that came out of Ollie’s comic grab bags. I love The Tick, although said love has ebbed and flowed over the years largely due to the comics not being terribly easy to get. I have a whole diatribe about comic markets and distribution that I could insert here, but I’m not going to. Suffice it to say that I don’t pick up enough issues of The Tick, because any time I do it’s like saying hello to an old friend. The Tick doesn’t ask much of the reader. The continuity has never been that deep, and neither have the characters. But that’s the strength and beauty of The Tick. To inhabit his world for twenty-odd pages, all you need is the ability to chuckle at the absurd. There’s a cozy simplicity to that, and it was good to say hello to him again. I should do it more often.

My other big read for the week was Galaxy: The Prettiest Star by Jadzia Axelrod and Jess Taylor. I heard the good press about this one, but hadn’t paid much more attention. Recently the sequel (As The World Falls Down) came out and Axelrod shared a page on Bluesky that in one panel showed me she perfectly understands Superman–not an easy thing, as any comic reader can tell you.

You see that bottom-left panel? The most powerful man in the world, known throughout time and space, and he smiles and introduces himself because it’s polite and that’s how his parents raised him. *chef’s kiss* If Axelrod can get Superman so easily, I reasoned, I need to see what else she can do. I want to read this book, but it’s the second and I should read the first one, right?

I finished The Prettiest Star last night, and I’m still processing it. What I can tell you is that I read something REALLY good. Amazing even. It broke my heart and put it back together several times. I’ll be recommending this to a lot of people. I wish comics like this had been available when I was growing up, but I’m glad they’re here now and I can’t wait until my kid is old enough to handle it. We’re going to have so many good talks.

Watch this space, I’m probably going to be gushing about As The World Falls Down next week.

-Luke