Getting Back into the Game

So: I recently returned to lovely Nova Scotia after a year away, a year in which I ended up going cold turkey on buying comics. Money was tight and every item I brought into the house was another thing that would have to be moved home, so I didn't even visit a shop in that time. Meanwhile, digital comics are a bit too bountiful a garden for me to visit without an infinite line of credit. So: I have read almost nothing in the last year.

Once we returned, there was a lot to do: we had a whole house to unpack and get in order while my wife was starting a new job - it was all very grown-up. I even did yard work because I cared that my yard looked bad!

So with one thing and another I didn't start unpacking any of my comic stuff until about a week ago. And then this happened:

For reference: those stacks are waist high.

Pulling out all of the trades and OGNs and strip collections was basically the equivalent of the a movie character having One Last Cigarette in a moment of stress. If I had actually been trying to quit comic booking, all of my hard work would have been in the toilet. Instead, I got to feel the familiar desire to read all comics everywhere reassert itself in my heart.

Eventually things got neater and a lot of stuff got packed away again, but I was left with this:

... which represents everything in those former piles that I thought I might like to read in the near future. And that's what I'm going to do, and then I'm going to write about 'em here. Not quite sure whether there's going to be a set format or if I'm just going to tell you about my feelings, so it's a good thing that my first choice of reading material was this:

Ignore the glare. I am not a professional

Hellboy is basically the prototype of the comics series that I will love. Tales of the supernatural featuring a big lug who solves most problems with punching? Deep dives into folklore? A story that evolves from fun vignettes into a cohesive and compelling tragedy over the course of years? 

And so on.

So, I'll see you later, cool kids.