Resolutions

New Year’s resolutions are a deeply flawed way of setting meaningful goals and otherwise improving yourself. Here are some of mine.

Write More

This is the big one, and the reason this blog is here. Unless I’m forgetting something, I did not do any critical writing at all in 2022 or 2023. I believe the last review I wrote was for Tatsuki Fujimoto’s excellent one-shot “Look Back” for my friends back at Multiversity Comics (a review I’m still very satisfied with). Shortly before that I launched and nearly instantly abandoned a webpage, one that was also timed around the new year. Surely this year will be different, and I will stick with it… but if not, well, at least I’m not paying for hosting.

Mostly I want to do more critical writing: reviews, analysis, things of that nature. That’s what I’ve always been best at, and what I have the most experience with. The vast majority of that experience is with writing about comics, specifically, but I’d like to go back to my undergrad days and do some writing about books and movies as well. I might even write some about music, something I almost never do. These are muscles I haven’t stretched in a while, so I doubt there will be much of value at first, but it’s good to get the words out. Maybe I’ll even do some pitches by the time the year is nearly out.

I’m doing some very much in advance RPG prep for another year or two from now, when I have a bit more free time, and I will probably write about that here as well. It’s possible (but not likely) I’ll even give some creative writing a whirl again, though that’s never been my strong suit. I’ve also been journaling a bit about more personal matters, particularly my newborn son, though those thoughts are largely going to be kept private. I don’t see myself becoming a “dad blogger” but who knows, stranger things have happened.

Read More (Books)

I’ve actually been pretty good about this the past couple of years, but I can always do better. Currently I am reading The Three Musketeers, which is a lot of fun (if lacking in substance) and I’ll probably continue with the rest of the D’artagnan Romances afterward. I might read something else in between each book though; I have a couple Octavia Butler books (The Parable of the Sower and Kindred) I’ve been sitting on for a bit. I’ll also need to get back to reading some history and other nonfiction. I read Andrew Roberts’ Napoleon: A Life last year, which was very good, but I don’t believe I read any other nonfiction after I finished that about midway through the year. I have Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture on my desk (a lovely Christmas gift from my sister) and will probably start that this weekend.

Read More (Comics)

A happy discovery I made in 2022 was that there was a comic shop near me after all. For a few years I was primarily reading comics digitally because the closest shop I knew of was Victory Comics in Arlington (a lovely shop but a bit of a pain to get to), but the Amazon acquisition of comiXology and the ensuing enshittification of the platform had me looking for other options. Turns out a shop called Comic Logic had opened up in Ashburn just barely after I had moved and researched what shops were closest, meaning that for a few years I was unaware of its existence. It’s a lovely place, and for a bit over a year now I’ve been reading a few series from names I already knew or had at least heard about it, plus one or two things that just looked interesting.

In 2024 I’d like to expand my comics horizons a bit more. I’ve been out of touch with comics in general since I was in law school, so ever since getting back into reading them somewhat regularly I’ve mostly been reading cape comics. It was fun for a bit, but I’m once again a bit tired of them. At the same time, I don’t want to simply get back into the “big indies” of the direct market: Boom!, Dark Horse, Image, etc. I’ve grown disillusioned with the “Second Image Revolution” of the 2010s, an era I was previously a (very minor) cheerleader for originally. I want to read more non-direct market comics, whether from prestigious publishers such as Fantagraphics or Drawn & Quarterly, as well as “true” indies as it were: small press, self-published, zines, webcomics, and so on. Of course, keeping up with such releases requires more work, of a sort, and I’ll need to first be doing more reading to know what to read in the first place. I suppose that’s what a Comics Journal subscription is for.

Listen to More New Music

Something else I fell out of touch with when I was in law school. I can’t claim to have ever been the most cutting edge when it comes to music, but I definitely listened to more new music back in undergrad. I think I only listened to two new albums last year (Slowdive and Jeff Rosenstock’s 2023 releases, both of which were very good)! This one shouldn’t be too difficult, there are countless ways to find new music out there (though I am uninterested in using any kind of “algorithm” to do so), I just need to remember to actually do it.

Keep Singing

For a few years between graduating law school and becoming a dad I took private voice lessons. It was a great experience and reconnected me with a part of myself that had been missing for a while, but it wasn’t something I could continue with post-baby. However, not taking lessons does not mean I should stop singing period, and I need to be careful not to let my development as a singer over the past years entirely regress. Once I’m used to my new routine with taking the little guy to daycare most days I’ll likely start singing again in a small church choir I’ve sung with before, but I should also remember to take time to look at some solo repertoire, even if it’s just for myself.

Play Less Video Games

And finally, it wouldn’t be a true resolution post without something I need to do less of. Yes, video games are art. To say so is nearly as meaningless as it is obvious. But most of them aren’t particularly interesting art, and many are often held back from being such by the heavy monetization of the industry. Aside from occasional true gems like Disco Elysium, I’d rather play the more fun and meaningless stuff than the kinds of games that are held up by the average gamer as a “magnificent work of art” despite being about as good as a decent movie.

There’s nothing wrong with a bit of fun piffle as a distraction every now and then, but if I’m mainly concerned with video games as entertainment (a subtle but meaningful difference from games as art, both of which can coexist and overlap), then I should probably spend less time playing them. Sometimes playing a game where you jump on enemies’ heads or blast them with a laser is a good way to unwind, but many times I’d be better served by doing something more meaningful with my time. Thankfully, taking care of a baby means I’ll have less time for them anyway!