The Unexpected Antick Musings Twentieth Anniversary Post

Twenty years ago today, I set up a blog on Blogger, using a random bookish template (which I'm still using today; if I tried to change it now, it would either break everything or require massive amounts of work) and put up a quick test post.

And, though it surprises me to realize it, I'm still here, using that same template, with a grotty old blogroll in the left rail that I really should just delete one of these days. (There's a lot of aspects of this blog I keep thinking I should modernize and update and clean up, and then I remember this is a hobby that brings in no income, and so I'm only going to do the bits that I actually enjoy.)

Every year on October 4th, the Glorious Blogiversary, I intend to post a long retrospective post, with lots of of links and pointless numbers and suchlike.

But, because of a flaw in my character, I have botched or entirely missed all of the previous "big" anniversaries so far - fifth, tenth, and fifteenth. (I'm as astonished as you are that anyone's flaw could be that precise, but it did happen.)

On the other hand, I'm getting older, and I keep hoping that means I'll change in some way, maybe even develop different, exciting new flaws in my character. And so, this year, I'm thinking I will have an anniversary post (this very thing you're reading now), and break the weird pattern I've set.

It will still be massively self-indulgent, and quite likely not all that interesting to a random reader. But - and this is the point I will focus on - it will be a thing I planned to do, and I will have done it.

History of the Blog: Links to Links

First, though, let me link to the past installments of this annual post: first, second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth (published two months late and substantially shorter than the others), eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth (a quick list of number of posts, done because I'd completely forgotten the blogiversary was coming up), seventeenth and nineteenth.

(You will note there are no links to the fifth, sixteenth, or eighteenth anniversary posts. Those are the ones I missed entirely.)

Each of those is itself mostly a list of links to posts from that year of the blog; I don't expect anyone to actually trace that backwards. It's mostly a signpost, to say this is a thing I do, and these are the times I did it.

I then typically explain what I grandly call The Myth of Antick Musings. I started this blog as practice, since the book-club company I worked for at the time was going to start up a bunch of blogs, and I would be tasked to write the one for the SFBC. That corporate blog was scrubbed from the Internet long ago, and the company has changed hands several times  - I think it still exists in some form, but that is a much attenuated and sad form that I try not to think about. So the fact that my half-assed practice blog is still running while the SFBC itself seems to have died, well, that's a sign of something in the world, I guess, though I don't count it as a win.

After I was cast out of the SFBC (and, though I didn't realize it at the time, editorial work and the SFF field in general), this blog turned into exactly what I thought it never could, should, or would be: a book blog. Oh, well.

I used to watch moves and write about them here. I used to post notes and links to random things actually happening in the real world, too! We truly are living in the worst possible timeline.

History of the Blog: Easily Manipulated Metrics

At this point in the annual post, I have a table with the number of blog posts each year. Why? Would any reader care? I doubt it, but, somewhere deep in my psyche, I suppose I see it as a measure of my productivity, and so I must track it.

• 2024-2025 -- 407 posts
• 2023-2024 -- 405 posts
• 2022-2023 -- 410 posts
• 2021-2022 -- 279 posts
• 2020-2021 -- 265 posts
• 2019-2020 -- 55 posts
• 2018-2019 -- 178 posts
• 2017-2018 -- 368 posts
• 2016-2017 -- 263 posts
• 2015-2016 -- 144 posts
• 2014-2015 -- 258 posts
• 2013-2014 -- 434 posts
• 2012-2013 -- 285 posts
• 2011-2012 -- 332 posts
• 2010-2011 -- 445 posts
• 2009-2010 -- 711 posts
• 2008-2009 -- 880 posts
• 2007-2008 -- 834 posts
• 2006-2007 -- 841 posts
• 2005-2006 -- 809 posts

If post-count means anything, it's clear I soured on blogging - or ignored it, or got busy with other things; take your pick - several times over these two decades, most strongly in 2019-2020. I also posted nearly twice as actively the first four years as any time afterward; lots of us were posting random thoughts into the ether in those days, in ways that have mostly migrated to social media owned by megacorporations harvesting our attention for megabucks in more recent years. (Again: worst timeline, hands down.)

I had another blog for a couple of years about a decade ago - Editorial Explanations, where I made fun of editorial cartoons at pretty much exactly the point when they began their own extinction event. I enjoyed doing it until I didn't, and then I stopped. It was a long time ago, and it doesn't matter now, so I've stopped adding them in to the blog-post totals. That blog itself is still available for anyone with an interest in decade-old political bullshit. (I will note that bullshit of that era feels almost quaint and homey these days.)

The Inevitable Links: Posts About Books

Antick Musings did turn into a book blog, first slowly after I left the SFBC (and thought I might have a chance to get another editorial job) and then more comprehensively (once it was clear that I'd fallen off the horse and the horse had run away, never to be seen again).

Most of the posts here, for the last decade or more, are about books. So the bulk of this anniversary post, every year, is links to those posts, using sentences I wrote that I'm still inordinately fond of. Yes, this is a hugely self-indulgent thing - I do it every year, and I'm going to do it again.

I'm tempted to write a bit about each story, but that urge drags me back to 1992, trying to capture every genre book I read on those fussy little pieces of paper for the SFBC (those who know, know) with a single log-line at the top for genre, a long plot description with all of the names clear and spelled correctly, and a short, separate editorial opinion at the end. 

Books by writers about how they work almost always turn into advice. I understand that: the audience for work about how novels get written is mostly people who desperately want to write novels themselves.

I am perhaps not as invested in the idea of two half-naked guys whacking each other for three minute intervals until one of them falls over as he was, but I can appreciate his knowledge and enthusiasm even as many of the technical details are lost on me.

There's a difference between formula and genre. I don't know if I can explain it, clearly enough, but it's real. A formula is a cheap shortcut, a template for a kind of story to make it easier to knock off, while a genre is a territory, with clear boundaries and sometimes required landmarks, which a story is free to navigate in its own way.

But I often find myself wishing books were different than they are, and it's not a useful wish.

We all are not reading millions of books, every second of every day. It's the default state of humanity.

When you discover a creator, there's always that question: is this work typical? If and when I come back for more, is it going to be the same sort of thing?

It's also got one of Wodehouse's most amusing impostor plots, with Jimmy Crocker pretending not to be Jimmy Crocker to woo the girl he loves but then posing as Jimmy Crocker to infiltrate her house.

Back when I was a wee lad, cartoon collections like this just shoveled the cartoons in willy-nilly, and didn't show any evidence of organization. You got two hundred Charles Addams cartoons, in whatever order they were in after the editor dropped the file three or four times, and you liked it.

There's something comforting about seeing books you fully intend to read sitting on your shelves year after year.

That and $12.95 will get you a ham sandwich at a deli, but I like to mention random things like that. It makes me relatable as a blogger and helps pad out the word count, neither of which is an actual concern for me.

The three talk in the ways that people who smoked an awful lot of pot for an awful lot of years talk, and similarly believe themselves to be profound.

So I did the names-in-Russian-novels thing and mostly hummed through the cricket matches, which are roughly 40% of the novel by weight.

What I'm saying is: I feel like I used to be smart and connected and in charge.

I don't want to pretend to give advice to someone dead for forty years. That's the temptation with anyone's memoirs: it's so easy to see other people's mistakes, and point them out in clever or cruel ways, to show how they could have had much better, more fulfilling lives, if only they'd known to do...whatever.

We can note that '60s Marvel comics were a major advance over the competition, with more realistic motivations and characters that spoke more clearly to the teen and young adult audience of the time,  and that they were popular and a welcome surge of energy for the field, while still pointing out that they were not very good, and that the things that came afterward in the same style were not even as good as that.

Comics are about sex less often than most artforms. Call it a lingering prudishness, the hangover from long decades seen as a medium just for kids, or just the fact that drawn sex is inherently a bit more fleshy than the written kind.

Unfortunately, the most important thing about modern superhero comics - more than the costumes, more than the secret identities, more than the endless "who would win" arguments, more than the catchphrases and shocking reverses and Never Agains - is that you must take them seriously at all times. Superhero comics are serious and deep and important, telling stories about guys in funny costumes punching each other imbued with the power of ancient myth, and anyone who doesn't accept this basic, fundamental truth will be wished into the cornfield.

The Inevitable Links: Everything Else

I have posts about other things - not as many, and not as much as in the early days of the blog. In 2025, for the third year in a row, I had a series of posts about songs on Mondays. I think I'm not as good at writing about music as I am about books - some of you may have unkind thoughts, wondering if that is even possible, but I will ignore you - but I do it because I like these songs and I want to surface things I like here.

I post lists of new books - only physical books, but however and whenever I get them - I post a list here, under the overall title Reviewing the Mail (which I stole from Chuck Klosterman, who doesn't seem to be using it anymore). I've called those posts different things occasionally, too - mostly by mistake.

I also do quotes from the books I read - every Saturday as Quote of the Week, and twice a year in a closet-cleaning exercise. (Also available from that link, in big clumps on New Year's Eve and the Sunday closest to Independence Day.)

I don't post about much of anything else, these days. I did rant about gerrymandering this past summer, not that it did any good.

That was pretty much it for Antick Musings in Year Twenty. It bores me to say it; I can only image how it seems to you folks.

Whither Antick Musings?

So that was Year Twenty: big round number. Scary to think this has been going for more than a third of my life already. But I am massively a creature of habit, so I think I'm going to keep doing the same things, in mostly the same ways, in the next year.

But I could always be hit by a bus. I've also been under the care of a heart doctor for even longer than I've run this blog - since 2002 and an episode of heart failure - which is probably more likely than J. Random Bus to suddenly cause massive problems in my life. Who knows.

Antick Musings is deeply self-indulgent, I know. There will likely be more of it, in the same style and the same place. over the next year. I just hope the self-indulgent things that you do are equally fulfilling to you. 

Socrates Himself Was Particularly Missed

So I have this folder called "Reaction Images" on my desktop - I thought I would use them in messages or tweets or whatever. They're mostly flat JPEG files, almost all from comics, instead of animated GIFs, because I am Weird and Old.

And I don't think I've ever used a single one for what I thought I would. (Maybe because they aren't on my phone, which is the natural home for such things.)

But I just clipped one more, and have to share it, just because. It's from the current Existential Comics, which you should already be reading.

That Was Long Ago In Another Country

I worked for the SFBC (and its various parent companies) for 5882 days, from April 15th, 1991 (Tax Day!) up through May 22nd, 2007 (my wedding anniversary!) I suppose I should be happy that the dates are easy to remember....

Since I have an excessively tidy mind, I occasionally count up those days, and how many days it's been since then.

5882 days since May 22nd, 2007 is June 23, 2023. So, as of today, I've been out of the SF field as long as I was in it. Go me!

Similarly, I worked in book publishing from August 1, 1990 [1] through February 28, 2015. (That includes a couple of stretches of unemployment between book-publishing jobs, which I think is fair, but it may be an asterisk.) That is 8978 days.

And, doing the same exercise: 8978 days since Feb 28, 2015 is September 28, 2039. I'll be 70 years old at that point, so presumably retired. If this blog is still around then, maybe I'll make note of the day.

This all means nothing. But it is yet another stark reminder that we all get older, time never stops passing, and we're none of us as young or special as we think we are.

[1] I had a job before the SFBC: my first out-of-college position was as an Editorial Assistant for Gale Research, a mostly-reference publisher which at the time had a NY office. One month to the day after I started, they decided they didn't want to have a NY office anymore, so it closed at the end of that November, putting all of us NY Galeites out of work for Christmas. One might note that I have, so far, never left a professional job under my own power.

Someone May Be Training Their AI On Me

 I happened to look at my stats this evening, and, well:

Traffic went from ~150 views a day to ~3000 views a day, without affecting the average views on my new posts, starting last Tuesday (the 30th). I have not quite eight thousand posts here. Something is hitting this blog semi-comprehensively (I assume), over the course of several days, for no good reason I can think of.

I wonder if this is happening across all of Blogger, or other social/user-generated content sites?

And I suppose I should mention that I specifically deny the right to train any large language model, or any other form of Machine Learning model, on my work. (I don't know if that has any legal force, or if it's even possible, but I do deny it.) This blog, and anything else I write anywhere, is not to be used as a training corpus absent an agreement involving payment for that use.

Spam Egg Sausage and Spam?

I just had a thirteen-year-old post unpublished by Blogger, because it tripped some spam detector.

I'm not going to tell you which one it was. I don't think anyone could guess, either: it's a book-review post, it's from 2010, and it's pretty much exactly like the other three-hundred-plus similar book-review posts from that year, and rather similar to thousands of other posts here, before and since.

I've reconfigured it - the version in the Blogger tool had lost paragraph breaks, for some reason - and republished it, so let's see if it sticks.

It stuck for thirteen years the first time, so I have reason to be optimistic.

It's very much like every other post on this blog, so I also have reason to be very, very pessimistic.

If this blog disappears suddenly, the likely culprit is Blogger's spam filter: I'm calling it first.

Today I Learned

...that Blogger quarantines comments - some? all? most? any it doesn't like? it's not clear - and does not actually notify the owner of the blog that it has done so.

In related news, I've just approved about a half-dozen actual comments, going back to early this year the middle of last year, and cleared out the rest of the "awaiting moderation" queue, which were actually spam as one would expect.

This insight was brought to you by a real comment on yesterday's post that I saw in my email - Blogger emails me some of the time when there's a comment, but now I realize not consistently - but did not see on the blog, and so I went to investigate. That one Blogger had triumphantly marked as spam, not even "awaiting moderation." I am not as worried about our impending AI overlords as much as I might have been a day ago.

I apologize to those who commented and didn't see it appear: it's all my fault. Your very old comments are now live, for all the good it will do any of us. I hope to check that filter more often in the future.

Seventeen Years in the Blogging Mines

Today is the seventeenth anniversary of this blog. For most of those years, I had a long post to mark the anniversary, with statistics and links to notable posts of the past year and other foofaraw.

Now, I'm not saying I'm not going to do that this year. I'm writing my way into this post, starting more than a week ahead of the actual anniversary, and I may work my way up to something like the heights I used to hit. But these are lesser, latter days, and all has fallen into rack and ruin, so don't count on it.

What Has Gone Before: The Links

One thing I try to do each year is link back to the previous anniversary posts, so here you go: first, second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth. You may notice two are missing: I forgot to do this entirely a couple of times, and once of those was last year. (Several others are quick and desultory.)

So last year I whiffed entirely, for the first time since the fifth year of the blog. I'm not sure if that was on purpose - I'm sure I remembered the anniversary at some point in the six months surrounding it; I'm quirky but not brain-damaged - but it happened, whatever the reasons Then-Me had. But I'm back, to at least some extent, this year.

I also tell the Legend of the Blog every year, but it's not that interesting. I started Antick Musings because my then-employer was planning to start a big batch of blogs for most of the clubs, and running the SFBC blog was going to become part of my duties. I was relatively diligent in those days, and wanted to get some experience under my belt ahead of that launch. As it happened, Antick Musings vastly outlasted a lot of things associated with me and the SFBC, including that blog. So it goes.

What Has Gone Before: The Numbers

Anyway, I'm here now. Next up is typically the dick-measuring contest {ahem!} the listing of numbers of posts by year:

2021-2022 -- 279 posts

2020-2021 -- 265 posts

2019-2020 -- 55 posts

2018-2019 -- 178 posts

2017-2018 -- 368 posts

2016-2017 -- 263 posts

2015-2016 -- 144 posts

2014-2015 -- 258 posts

2013-2014 -- 434 posts

2012-2013 -- 285 posts

2011-2012 -- 332 posts

2010-2011 -- 445 posts

2009-2010 -- 711 posts

2008-2009 -- 880 posts

2007-2008 -- 834 posts

2006-2007 -- 841 posts

2005-2006 -- 809 posts

I had another blog - Editorial Explanations, in which I would explicate the Great American Editorial Cartoon in all its tendentious and bad-faith splendor - for a few years in the middle there, and used to include those numbers for an "everything I did" total. But who cares now? Not even me, that's for sure.

Posts About Books: The Self-Indulgent Bit

The bulk of this post, most years, is the self-indulgent bit. "But Andy!" you say. "All of this is hugely self-indulgent, isn't it?" Well, yes. But this next part even more so.

So I link to posts from the past year - book-review posts, since that's basically everything I do now - by quoting sentences I wrote that I am still inordinately fond of. I hope I don't have to tell you how sad that is, but I only do it once a year. And so here are some words I wrote that I still like:

But all of life is a sequence of things you get into and can't easily get out of: relationships, jobs, places to live, family.

I have a cynical opinion: for most of us, no matter how good we are, careers last about ten years. It applies to the artists we love and the lives we live equally. That band will probably break up after a decade; that writer will put out novels dependably until the second digit of the year changes. And your job will be happy with you right up to the point where they aren't, and at that point the industry will have changed enough that you have to leap into something else.

There's nothing like a breezy book by a young person to make you feel really old.

I always want more context and cultural criticism; I always want more why and less "remember this thing?"

If there's a sequel, there has to be a trilogy. I don't know if that's actually a law, but we said it a lot in my SFBC days, and it turned out to be true almost all the time.

Frankly, the lesson I take from Wendy, Master of Art is that my vague stereotype of art students and the art world in general - formed at Vassar over thirty years ago, out of minimal materials and a dislike for the kind of people who smoke above eye level - is basically correct, and I have been right to avoid both since then. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

It took a while for me to realize, and this may be a spoiler: they are not running against each other. They are running together. I think this is important.

To my mind, if you're going to do a superhero story, or even a story set in a superhero world (this is more of the latter; Jimmy is always central, and most of the important characters don't have powers), you need to be at least halfway lighthearted. We all know every ending will be happy, all deaths are temporary, and all drama is momentary.

Corporate comics, man! They're stupid even when they don't have to be. It's like they go out of they way for it.

I don't want to be reductive here. (Well, maybe I do.) But it certainly seems to be that the central theme of European comics for younger readers is "what it the point of life, and how can you find the right path?" while the central theme of US comics for young readers is either (Big Two) "hitting people is how you solve problems" or (the YA world) "you are a unique special snowflake, and will have to overcome whatever horrible thing happened to you that you had no control over."

Don't get the idea I'm against creators taking control of the means of production! But if the only way I can get a book is to go to the guy's table at Comic Arts West Bumfuck and pay cash, I am much less likely to ever see it.

Over that scene is the tonally distinct gigantic caption "This is the story of a nameless girl...and the fearless, graceful life she led...from the postwar years...to the present day." (Which sounds like a weird Jackie O biopic, or maybe an arch Givenchy ad.) 

OK, you know how in big superhero comics, everything needs to be back at status quo ante eventually? Worlds will live, worlds will die, Ultrafellow will be replaced by a disabled teen Latina, and the entire Evil-Fighting Gang will disband for good...but only until it all goes back to the way it was before.

Memory is flawed, history is misunderstood, the past is a mystery. And demon-creatures shouldn't be completely knowable, able to be nailed down to a specific timeline.

And, most of all, it's about the questions of childhood: the things you asked at the time, the things you wish you'd asked at the time, the things you know you never would have gotten a straight answer about, and the things you didn't even think could be questions until much much later.

So the story I thought was bullshit for one reason is now retroactively bullshit for an entirely separate reason. Does that make me happy? Well, happy is a sliding scale.

Tintin is traveling, first to get into Russia and then to get out of it, while various dirty commies try, sometimes with massive military force and sometimes with sneaky sabotage, to murder him. Several times, for variety, they capture him, tie him up, and threaten to murder him slightly later.

I appreciate creators who get bored easily. I may not always love every last random avenue they go down - who likes everything? - but I love that impulse, and I strongly believe creators who go really different from project to project are the best, most exciting ones.

Most of us had "just jobs," usually when young. A job that's not a career, not on the way to anything you actually want, not a step forward on any road you care about. Something that pays money, is available to you because of circumstance or lifestage or location: something that works for now even if it won't work forever.

All in all, this has pretty much exactly the strengths and weaknesses of a book that a respected but idiosyncratic creator worked on quietly and alone for decades: it looks great, it has a lot of good ideas and moments, the characterization is excellent. But it's also lumpy, with a structure that feels like a sequence of pages in the order that the creator thought of them rather than the order that would best serve the story, and later revelations that are not adequately set up.

It's a gangster story: that's required. Blood must flow, betrayals must be swift and shocking, and most of the cast must not make it to the end.

I've had Thuds in my life: moments where everything changes. If you're old enough, you have, too. The point of a Thud is that it's unexpected, and that it's usually not happy. Something breaks, something shatters, something is gone forever.

The world demands movies from their comic books, TV shows from their novels, opera from their stories about historical figures, stage musicals assembled from random songs. And vice versa: look at the deeply incestuous "casting thread," in which random observers squee over which actors in TV-shows-based-on-books should be their favorite characters in a potential movie-based-on-a-comic-book.

This is a book about the curdled end of a particular kind of American Dream, about all the things Americans did and thought and cared about and worried about while, in the background, the Vietnam War lurched to its inevitable end and Nixon did the same.

If ever a man was born to draw tasteful living rooms and functional office suites with flat-color backgrounds, it was Whitney.

So: you know the rough plot, and you have a sense of the style: long, clause-clotted sentences that circle a thought as if they are a cavalry detachment trying to defeat and capture it.

The prospect of actual money does wonderful things to the artistic impulse; I greatly recommend it to anyone attempting to motivate an artist.

Thinking far too deeply about it, I would love to see a series with the opposite premise: dogs and cats are the villains, because they have been tainted by human evil, and badgers or foxes or opossums or maybe raccoons are the heroes. Actually, yes, raccoons, maybe with corvids as advisors: that's the one I want.

Int. Day. Berlin. Bunker.

HITLER: Achtung! Give me a report on the secret compound!

HIMMLER: Yes, Fuhrer! Early tests on the Odinspear are promising...

HITLER: Nein! Not that secret compound! The one outside Vienna!

HIMMER: West of Vienna or South of Vienna?

HITLER:  West, you schweinhund!

HIMMER: Oh, right, the Greenbaums.

What do they do? They fuck. They shit. They kill each other. Occasionally even in that order.

I like parallels; I like books to set things up and then knock them down; I like guns on mantlepieces to be taken down at just the right moment and fired. 

The title gives away the end. You may not realize how, as you dive into the surreal, dreamlike early pages, but it will all be clearer by the end. And the title gives away the end.

Reporters write about moments, about places, about the intersection of the two: what it's like to be here when it is now. Some pieces are more obvious about it than others.

She was an addict and a stormy personality, I think - the book and the introduction are more poetic about it - which didn't help, but who ever min-maxes their own life to be the most successful version of themselves? She achieved a lot. She fought hard. She died young.

This is the story of a young man with fabulous powers and a bizarrely impossible upbringing, whose interactions with the outside world are about 95% murder, but, on the other hand, he's a tall attractive man with cool clothes. And apparently that is enough to make a mass-murderer into a hero.

This is a book by a young man. We sometimes forget things like that: we think that Albert Einstein was born the old guy with the bushy hair, or that Lawrence Welk's '60s style was what big-band music sounded like when the WW II generation was young and on the make. Everyone was young once; everyone thought the world was ahead of them and they could do anything they wanted. Some of them were right.

I still think the less-used pronouns can set their users up for a lot of additional microaggression and worse in their lives, especially as them/they is actually getting traction as a singular pronoun in wide culture, but I don't get to decide those things for other people.

All the most interesting people have the least-likely careers. (Says the man who started out as a SF editor and somehow ended up doing content marketing for corporate lawyers.)

Look, Gardner is a fun, energetic writer, and he's particularly good at writing women with strong, distinctive voices. All of his strengths are shown to good effect in Gun. But the more I think about it, the more I can't fucking stand the default superhero universe. Sorry.

A collection, on the other hand, is already multitudes. It flows through your hands when you try to define it: a little more over here than you first thought, oh wait maybe it's more like this, no no I've got it now it's totally thus.

This book may make you want to sharpen your guillotine and start gathering cobblestones for barricades, which is no bad thing.

Most of us have trouble being happy, I think. Most of us want to be happier than we are, want to enjoy moments more than we feel we actually can.

Everything Else

Antick Musings is, I have to admit it, a book blog. I used to write about movies, I used to write about random things that struck my fancy. I don't anymore, in either case. So, in years long past, I would have other links in this section of the anniversary post to those other kinds of posts - but not this time.

On Monday mornings, assuming I don't forget, there is either a Reviewing the Mail post (listing new books) or a Reading Into the Past post (listing old books). I also post a Quote of the Week, originally on Fridays and more recently on Saturdays as part of an expanded content regime for 2022H2. That's pretty much everything else posted here over the past year.

I was intermittently active on the question-answering site Quora a few years back, before a flood of political content co-emergent with Our Previous President overwhelmed that site. I still read stuff there, but haven't posted in I can't tell you how long. I'm also on the usual social networks for someone my age (see standard links in the right-hand rail) and not on the ones you wouldn't expect, since I am typical and boring, I suppose.

And that was the past year. I guess I am back on the big-pointless-self-congratulatory-post bandwagon. We'll see what happens next year, I suppose.

What Fresh Hell Is This?

So, right now, as I'm trying to find a book-cover image for the post I'm writing, I discovered that Google image search, within the Chrome contextual menu, has been replaced by something called Google Lens.

Google image search is a useful tool, that lets a user find similar images to a reference - larger, smaller, sometimes in foreign languages, and so on. It does something specific and does it well.

Google Lens....I have no idea what it's trying to do. It seems to be some vaguely AI-driven tool that finds "similar" things. Maybe similar art styles? Maybe something with similar metatagging? I do know that it fails at finding "this same image, but larger," which is what I was trying to do. Lens seems to be a phone thing, so it's not terribly useful in Chrome on a desktop to begin with.

Google: I've come to accept that you will murder useful functionality all of the time, and sunset all of the tools that are actually of value to me. But can you at least not directly replace those things with a horrible parody of the same thing?

2020 In the Rear-View

For most of the Years of this Blog, I had several standard posts on the first of the year -- a listing of my favorite books of the prior year, a meme-ish thing where I linked to the first and last sentences of each month, and occasionally other things (launching or ending a Book-A-Day run, the weekly Reviewing the Mail post when it was a Monday). That hit a peak for the Book-A-Day run of 2018, but last year's beginning saw just one white-flag-waving post to say that I wouldn't post a list of favorites, since I read too few books to feel comfortable doing that.

This year was slightly better, but (as I type this on December 28th) it still looks like I'll end the year having read about 75 books, which is about half of what I thought of as my latter-day nadir. In the '90s and Aughts, I usually read 300+ books a year, topping out at 419 in '93. That dipped into the 140-180 range mostly for the last decade, with bumps for the Book-A-Day years of 2014 (383) and 2018 (433).

So I'm still not comfortable saying, "I read six dozen books, and here are the one dozen best ones!" And I will not be doing that here.

But I also neglected to do my monthly lists of books read this year, for all of the same ennui and way-too-much-work and did-you-notice-it-was-2020? reasons. So instead I will list everything I read last year, linking to their posts, and maybe include a sentence or two about the ones that would be Favorite Candidates in a better year.

So my favorite books of the year are contained in the list below, and it may even be clear to the reader which they were. But you're probably better off checking out someone who read more books (particularly new books) during 2020 if you're looking for serious recommendations.

(You may also note that I began the year rather, um, slowly. And it may be quite obvious what days I was on vacation this year. Reading during working days was a thing that basically didn't happen in 2020.)

Adam Hart-Davis, Eurekaargh! (2/6)

Gideon Haigh, The Uncyclopedia (4/20)

Joseph Heller, Catch-22 (5/3)

Charles Burns, Free Shit (5/4)

Doug Gray, The Eye of Mongambo, Book One (5/5)

John Allison, Christine Larsen, & Sarah Stern, By Night, Vol. 1 (5/6)

Jason, O Josephine! (5/7)

Rick Geary, The Wallace Mystery (5/8)

Jaime Hernandez, Is This How You See Me? (5/11)

I'm glad I don't have to calculate the Top 5 Jaime Hernandez L&R storylines, because that's a thankless task. These days, I think "Love Bunglers" is #1, but does "Death of Speedy" come next? Or "Flies on the Ceiling?" Or something else? The main story in this book tries its best to muscle into that company, and arguably does so. Jaime's one of the few whose "Top 5" needs about ten entries.

Box Brown, Tetris (5/12)

Landis Blair, The Envious Siblings and Other Morbid Nursery Rhymes (5/16)

Kevin Huizenga, Glen Ganges in: The River at Night (5/25)

A masterwork of comics and of literature in general, from a creator who keeps finding new ways to get better.

Caitlin Major and Kelly Bastow, Manfried Saves the Day (5/29)

Ian Frazier, Hogs Wild (6/28)

Kim Deitch, Reincarnation Stories (6/29)

Martha Wells, Network Effect (7/3)

An actually new SF novel that I read quickly and can highly recommend. Pity you've all already heard of it....

Ulli Lust, How I Tried to Be a Good Person (7/5)

Ken Jennings, Because I Said So! (7/10)

Jasper Fforde, Early Riser (7/26)

Another excellent, and still reasonably new, book from a quirky author. He might not need my recommendation, either, but he does have it.

Calvin Trillin, Killings (8/6)

Steve Erickson, American Nomad (8/23)

More people should read Erickson's two non-fiction books about American presidential campaigns, Leap Year and this book. They won't, but they should. Erickson's visionary style gets at essential truths in a way nothing more straightforward can.

Jonathan Bernstein, Knickers in a Twist (9/1)

Kage Baker, The Anvil of the World (9/2)

Jason Lutes, Berlin, Book Three: City of Light (9/3)

Rick Geary, Carrizozo: An Illustrated History (9/4)

Lawrence Block, The Night and the Music (9/5)

John Allison, Bad Machinery, Vol. 8: The Case of the Modern Men (9/7)

Elaine Dundy, The Dud Avocado (9/13)

P.G. Wodehouse, Uncle Fred in the Springtime (9/26)

Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked (10/2)

John Kessel, Corrupting Dr. Nice (10/11)

Daniel Pinkwater, Adventures of a Dwergish Girl (10/18)

Lawrence Block, A Time to Scatter Stones (10/24)

Vera Brosgol, Be Prepared (10/29)

Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, This Is How You Lose the Time War (10/31)

Another book I got to slightly late (post-several award wins). Just about as good as everyone says, but I may be souring on the entire idea of "these people are really good at violence, which is wicked kewl, and so now they will kiss."

Brian Fies, A Fire Story (11/7)

Bill Griffith, Nobody's Fool (11/8)

John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, & Whitney Cogar, Giant Days, Vol. 7 (11/9)

Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, Paper Girls, Vol. 6 (11/12)

Roger Rapoport and Marguerita Castanera, editors, I Should Have Stayed Home (11/16)

Jacques Tardi, I, Rene Tardi, Prisoner of War in Stalag IIB, Vol. 2: My Return Home (11/21)

Michael Kupperman, Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Vol. 2 (11/22)

Aaron Renier, The Unsinkable Walker Bean and the Nights of the Waxing Moon (11/23)

Raina Telgemeier, Guts (11/25)

Paul Kirchner, the bus 2 (11/26)

Lavie Tidhar, Central Station (11/27)

Gina Siciliano, I Know What I Am: The Life and Times of Artemisia Gentileschi (11/28)

Tom Gauld, Department of Mind-Blowing Theories (11/29)

This probably would have made it onto my list -- Gauld's writing is smart and funny and his art is stylish and precise, all things I love.

Rich Sparks, Love and Other Weird Things (11/30)

If I wasn't doing the only-one-book-per-month thing I usually do -- which would have been unusually punishing in 2020, where I had three separate months where I didn't finish a single book -- this might have also made it onto the list. Sparks is both unique and consistently funny, in his ideas and his drawings, which is a really big deal.

Guy Delisle, The Handbook to Lazy Parenting (12/2)

Jack Vance, The Dying Earth (in Tales of the Dying Earth, 12/2)

Ben Sears, House of the Black Spot (12/3)

Craig Hurd-McKenney and Rick Geary, The Brontes: Infernal Angria (12/4)

Tillie Walden, Are You Listening? (12/5)

A book both quieter and more impactful than it seems at first, and another big graphic novel from one of the strongest (and most prolific) new talents in the field.

Gou Tanabe, H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness: The First Volume (12/6)

John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, & Whitney Cogar, Giant Days, Vol. 8 (12/7)

John Allison, Christine Larsen, & Sarah Stern, By Night, Vol. 2 (11/9)

Riad Sattouf, The Arab of the Future 3 (12/11)

Jon Rivera, Gerard Way, Michael Avon Oeming, & Nick Filardi, Cave Carson Has a Cybernetic Eye, Vol. 1 (12/12)

Gou Tanabe, H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness: The Second Volume (12/13)

Riad Sattouf, The Arab of the Future 4 (12/19)

John Baxter, A Pound of Paper (12/19)

John Allison, Christine Larsen, & Sarah Stern, By Night, Vol. 3 (11/20)

John Allison, Max Sarin, Liz Fleming, Jenna Ayoub, & Whitney Cogar, Giant Days, Vol. 9 (12/21)

Cecil Castellucci, Marley Zarcone, Ande Parks, Marguerite Sauvage, & Kelly Fitzpatrick, Shade the Changing Girl, Vol. 2 (12/22)

Herge, The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 4 (12/23)

Ryan North, Erica Henderson, & Rico Renzi, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 7: I've Been Waiting for a Squirrel Like You (12/24)

Susanna Clarke, Piranesi (12/25)

Proof that 2020 was not entirely horrible (as, in its own way, was November 3rd). I hope writing this gave Clarke whatever she needed to keep writing more stories -- Jonathan Strange was a great book, but I'm greedy enough to think she could be a great writer, with many more books in her. Piranesi is a fine signpost, giving me reason to think that's true.

Seth, Clyde Fans (12/26)

Jeff Lemire, Royal City, Vol. 3: We All Float On (12/27)

Jeff Lemire, Frogcatchers (12/28)

Lawrence Block as Jill Emerson, Threesome (12/29)

Barry Blitt, Blitt (12/29)

Edward O. Wilson, Jim Ottaviani, & C.M. Butzer, Naturalist: A Graphic Adaptation (12/30)

Michel Rabagliati, Paul at Home (12/31)

If I did have a Favorites list, this would certainly be on it -- a great new book from a master of cartooning, grappling with life in later middle age when the troubles and changes start to stack up hard and fast. And the fact that I read it on the last day of the year is something I'd call out to validate my eternal "the year's not over until it's over" instance.

As I type this, I have seven books that I've read and haven't written about, though a few are in series that I will clump together. And I have posts scheduled through mid-January, on my new, weekdays-only standard. So I expect I will come back and fill in the missing links (ha ha) once those go live.

I also note that I read more books in November and December than the previous ten months. That seems to be a good sign, but I have no idea if it means anything.

But this is what I read last year, and, if there's any lesson, it's this: unexpected crap happens. Life is weird and twisty. You can figure out how to deal with it and head in the direction you want. You may not get as far as you want. You may not go as quickly as you want. You may suddenly be hit by a nasty unexpected disease, as nearly 20m Americans have been. You may even die from it, as almost 350k Americans have. (I don't want to be a Pollyanna here: we will all die, some sooner than others, and everything we want to do past that point will be gone.) But you can at least adapt and keep your goals in mind in the time you have.

This lesson is more widely applicable than to your reading life.

Fifteenth Anniversaries

Yesterday, while doing something else, I realized today was the fifteenth anniversary of this blog.

Now, I was once in the habit of writing long, discursive, link-filled posts for anniversaries -- see the entries for the first, second, third, fourth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth, eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth years. But last year I dropped the ball, and (quirkily enough) I also bobbled the supposedly-significant fifth (missed entirely) and tenth (forgotten until a month later) years as well, as if some part of my brain was quite clearly sabotaging me.

I would typically list the number of posts by year after that, so...you know what? I will update that here:

2019-2020 -- 55 posts
2018-2019 -- 178 posts
2017-2018 -- 368 posts
2016-2017 -- 263 posts
2015-2016 -- 144 posts
2014-2015 -- 258 posts
2013-2014 -- 434 posts
2012-2013 -- 285 posts
2011-2012 -- 332 posts
2010-2011 -- 445 posts
2009-2010 -- 711 posts
2008-2009 -- 880 posts
2007-2008 -- 834 posts
2006-2007 -- 841 posts
2005-2006 -- 809 posts

I would previously then add in the posts from my other blog, Editorial Explanations, which ran from 2011 through 2013. But those numbers will not change now, so anyone who cares (no one) can look at one of the older posts to see the numbers.

And then I'd link back to posts of the past year, indulging myself by quoting sentences I particularly liked. Since the pickings are pretty meager the past couple of years -- not to mention the fact that my fingers are racing to get done before The Wife and I run out for the weekly grocery-shopping -- I'll leave that off this year.

But I'm counting this as not a failure this year, since I actually remembered ahead of time. It might be smaller, it might be less impressive, but it is a thing that exists, and that's good enough for me in the annus horribilis 2020.

14th Anniversary Post

I have an excessively tidy mind, but it manifests in pretty idiosyncratic ways.

For example, October 4th was the 14th anniversary of the blog, and on that date every year (except the fifth and tenth, which I missed because...I guess I'm just a normal neurotic human being who undercuts himself) I put up a long post looking back at the prior year.

Doing that post takes a while, so I try to put it into my drafts early, so I can work on it over a period of days, if not weeks.

This year, I did create a dummy post, at least a week early.

And never typed a word into it.

Until today, December 8th, a good two months late.

So this is not that anniversary post. It is, instead, a monument to the fact that apparently I couldn't just delete the empty draft post like a normal person, but instead had to type this.

See you next year, possibly.

Book-A-Day 2018: Post-Mortem

Introductory

First of all: yes, I know. It does seem odd to have a post-mortem for something not yet dead. But, trust me, Book-A-Day 2018 is dead: everything is read and all of the posts written and scheduled. [1] It's just going to twitch a bit for the next two weeks while the dying makes it out to all of the extremities.

2018 was my fourth run of Book-A-Day here on Antick Musings -- before that, it was something I did myself in a desultory way for a few weeks or months, to kick myself out of a reading doldrum. Those prior runs are the year of 2014, a year-long stretch covering 2010-2011, and a 200-day stretch in 2006-2007.

Book-A-Day can be either of two things: either I'm reading a book every day, or I'm writing a post about a book every day. Over the course of a year, the latter turns into the former, obviously. And every time I do this, I try to do both, and I think it's been more successful each time. (Of course, I would think that.)

This is probably the last time I do a Book-A-Day year. I have two reasons for that, one serious-logistical and one silly.

The silly reason first: I just realized that I was laid off soon after finishing every other Book-A-Day run: first in April of 2006 (after ending in February) and then in January of 2015 (after the 2014 run). I should be safe this time, but I'm not planning to tempt fate.

The more serious reason is that I just don't have the vast masses of quick-to-read books coming into my house that I did back in the SFBC days, and I've now worked down all of the remnants of both those days and what I've bought since then. (Well, the quick-to-read portions of both: I still have far more unread books than I can get to in the next five years.)

So even if I wanted to do Book-A-Day again, in 2021 or so, and tempt the Job Gods, I probably wouldn't have the books to do it with. I relied heavily on the library this time out, and the only way to do that again would be to read a lot of junk that I don't care much about just to pad out the totals. (Which, come to think of it, I did quite a bit in the 2014 and 2010-2011 runs.)

Given that, let me take a look at what I did read in 2018, in the manner of the previous Post-Mortems for 2006-2007 and 2014. There will be only one graph, I think, and this is it.

In 2018, I read 433 books in 365 days and wrote 379 blog posts covering 437 books and 6 individual comics issues. Careful readers will note that I wrote about more books in 2018 than I read; I started the year with a small cushion of stuff read in December 2017. I also read more books than I wrote posts, because I wrote about longer series (all comics) more and more as the year went on. The numbers and percentages in the chart and below are based on number of books rather than number of posts.

I don't know if everyone likes placing books into tidy little categories as much as I do, though the wars over the SF/Fantasy border seem to prove they do. But it's how I organize these Post-Mortem posts, so here's what I read, as I categorize it:

Fiction: SF and Fantasy (18, 4.2%)

• Steven Brust, Vallista
• Diana Wynne Jones, The Pinhoe Egg
• Stewart O'Nan, The Night Country
• Dan Wells, Nothing Left To Lose
• James Morrow, The Asylum of Dr. Caligari
• Charles Stross, The Delirium Brief
• Peter Watts, The Freeze-Frame Revolution
• Peter S. Beagle, In Calabria
• James Alan Gardner, All Those Explosions Were Someone Else's Fault
• Matthew Hughes, The Commons
• Steve Erickson, Days Between Stations
• Martha Wells, Artificial Condition
• Kage Baker and Kathleen Bartholomew, Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea
• Steven Brust, Good Guys
• Martha Wells, Rogue Protocol
• Jeff Vandermeer, Annihilation
• Nicholson Baker, House of Holes
• Martha Wells, Exit Strategy

This is what I used to do for a living: I know, I'm surprised it's this small a portion of my reading these days, too. I keep saying that I'd be happy to go back to SFF publishing if they wanted me, but I have no idea how my current expertise would align with that world.

In 2014, this was 4.4%, with 16 books.

Fiction: Mystery and Thriller (5, 1.2%)

• Lawrence Block, The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes
• Lawrence Block, Borderline
• James Crumley, The Wrong Case
• Massimo Carlotto and Marco Videtta, Poisonville
• Dennis Lehane, The Drop

The larger genre right next door to SFF, in which I also used to read a lot more. Several of my would-be reading projects are in this area; maybe one or more will happen in 2019.

In 2014, this was 0.5%, with 2 books.

Fiction: Mainstream (10, 2.3%)

• J.M. Coetzee, Waiting for the Barbarians
• P.G. Wodehouse, A Pelican at Blandings
• Haruki Murakami, Men Without Women
• Nicholson Baker, The Anthologist
• Tom Perrotta, Mrs. Fletcher
• Simon Rich, Spoiled Brats
• P.G. Wodehouse, Young Men in Spats
• Carlos Fuentes, The Old Gringo
• Stewart O'Nan, The Odds
• Jay McInerney, Story of My Life

I'm reading fewer long books of prose in the first place these days, but it seems like about the same percentage of it is not obviously genre. But I tend to think of this category as defined negatively: it's what doesn't fit into clear genres.

In 2014, this was 2.7%, with 10 books.

Non-Fiction: Narrative (15, 3.5%)

• Deborah Blum, The Poisoner's Handbook
• Kevin Underhill, The Emergency Sasquatch Ordinance
• Ben Blatt, Nabokov's Favorite Word Is Mauve
• Georges Perec, The Art of Asking Your Boss for a Raise
• Bruce Chatwin, In Patagonia
• Richard Gehr, I Only Read It for the Cartoons
• Jackson Landers, Eating Aliens
• Chris Offutt, My Father, The Pornographer
• Robert Niles, Stories from a Theme Park Insider
• Reverend Jen, Live Nude Elf
• James Thurber and E.B. White, Is Sex Necessary?
• Kelly and Zach Weinersmith, Soonish
• Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed
• Tony Horwitz, One for the Road
• Adam Resnick, Will Not Attend

This is the category for relatively serious non-fiction -- histories, travelogues, memoirs, stuff like that. It's really miscellaneous, obviously.

In 2014, this was 6%, with 22 books.

Non-Fiction: Lists and Frivolities (17, 3.9%)

• Paul Theroux, The Tao of Travel
• Randall Munroe, Thing Explainer
• Scott Rubin, Sean Crespo, and Mason Brown, editors, National Lampoon's Big Book of Love
• Shannon Wheeler, Sh*t My President Says
• Andy Warner, Brief Histories of Everyday Objects
• Terry Pratchett*, The Compleat Discworld Atlas
• Laura Lee, Around the World in 80 Cliches
• P.G. Wodehouse, Louder and Funnier
• Baboon Metaphysics and Other Implausibly Titled Books
• Howard Mohr, How to Speak Minnesotan
• Jason Novak, Et Tu Brute?
• Russell Ash, It Just Slipped Out...
• Jesse Sheidlower, The F Word
• Christopher J. Moore, In Other Words
• Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman, editors, Ghastly Beyond Belief
• Marc Sobel and Kristy Valenti, editors, The Love and Rockets Companion
• John Boswell and Dan Starer, Five Rings, Six Crises, Seven Dwarfs and 38 Ways to Win An Argument

And this is the non-fiction category for things that aren't serious at all -- a lot of these were bathroom books, and this category has often been the place for things I read quickly in an evening when I realized I hadn't read a book yet that day. But my sense is that the cute little gift-y thing that sits by the cast register isn't really a big book category anymore.

In 2014, this was 2.7%, with 10 books.

Comics: Strip and Panel Collections (27, 6.2%)

• Tom Gauld, Baking With Kafka
• Richard Sala, The Bloody Cardinal
• Jennifer Hayden, Underwire
• Julia Wertz, Museum of Mistakes
• Dan Piraro, Bizarro Heroes
• Gabrielle Bell, Everything Is Flammable
• Jillian Tamaki, Boundless
• John Porcellino, The Hospital Suite
• Berkeley Breathed, The Bloom County Library, Vol. 4: 1986-1987
• The New Yorker Book of Mom Cartoons
• Jason Shiga, Demon (4 vols.)
• Fran Krause, The Creeps
• Frederick Burr Opper's Happy Hooligan
• Roz Chast, The Four Elements
• Dave McKean, Pictures That Tick 2
• art spiegelman, The Complete Maus
• George Booth, Think Good Thoughts About a Pussycat
• Matt Furie, Boy's Club
• Keith Knight, What a Long Strange Strip It's Been
• Rick Geary, A Treasury of Victorian Murder, Vol. 1
• Liz Prince, Look Back and Laugh
• Peter Bagge, Everybody Is Stupid Except for Me
• Shannon Wheeler, Memoirs of a Very Stable Genius
• Dan Zettwoch and Kevin Huizenga, Amazing Facts and Beyond! with Leon Beyond

I divide the world of comics into possibly idiosyncratic categories, based on how they first appeared. I think it makes sense; you may disagree. First up are books of comics that originally appeared as individual strips somewhere -- online or in print. This used to be mostly collections of newspaper comics, then mostly collections of webcomics, and now it's pretty miscellaneous.

In 2014, this was 10.4%, with 38 books.

Comics: Floppy Collections (194, 44.8%)

• Frank Thorne, The Complete Iron Devil
• Roger Langridge, Fred the Clown in "The Iron Duchess" 
• Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, Sex Criminals, Vol. 4: Fourgy!
• Jeff Lemire, Royal City, Vol. 1: Next of Kin
• Teri S. Wood, Wandering Star
• Greg Rucka and Matthew Southworth, Stumptown, Vol. 1: The Case of the Girl Who Took Her Shampoo (But Left Her Mini)
• Howard Chaykin's American Flagg!, Vol. 1
• Brandon Graham, King City
• Paul Grist, Jack Staff, Vol. 1: Everything Used To Be Black and White
• Howard Chaykin, Black Kiss and Black Kiss 2
• Paul Hornschemeier, The Collected Sequential
• Jeff Smith, editor, The Best American Comics 2013
• Zander Cannon, Kaijumax, Season Two: The Seamy Underbelly
• Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, Monstress, Vol. 1: Awakening
• Cecil Castellucci and Marley Zarcone, Shade the Changing Girl, Vol. 1: Earth Girl Made Easy
• Jonathan Lethem, editor, The Best American Comics 2015 and Roz Chast, editor, The Best American Comics 2016
• Batton Lash, The Soddyssey and Other Tales of Supernatural Law and The Werewolf of New York
• Ryan North and Erica Henderson, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 3: Squirrel, You Really Got Me Now
• Frank Miller, Brian Azzarello, Andy Kubert, and Klaus Jason, Batman: The Dark Knight: Master Race
• Kyle Baker, Nat Turner
• Paul Grist and Phil Elliott, Jack Staff, Vol. 2: Soldiers
• Charles Forsman, I Am Not Okay With This
• Sergio Aragones, Mark Evanier, and Thomas Yeates, Groo Vs. Conan
  
• Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen,  Descender, Vol. 4
• Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, Paper Girls, Vol. 3
• Ted McKeever, Meta4
• Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson and Paul Grist, The Visitor: How and Why He Stayed
• Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson and Christopher Mitten, Rise of the Black Flame
• Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, Saga, Vol. 8
• Mike Mignola, Chris Roberson, and various artist, Hellboy and the B.P.R.D.: 1954
• Paul Levitz and Steve Lightle, Legion of Super-Heroes: The More Things Change
• Gary Spencer Millidge, Strangehaven: Brotherhood
• Mike Grell, Jon Sable Freelance: Ashes of Eden
• Roberta Gregory, As Naughty As She Wants to Be!
• Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, Tank Girl, Vol. 1
• Ryan North and Erica Henderson, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 4: I Kissed a Squirrel and I Liked It
• Neil Gaiman, et. al., Free Country: A Tale of the Children's Crusade
• Kurt Busiek and Brent Eric Anderson, Astro City: The Dark Age, Vol. 1: Brothers and Other Strangers
• G. Willow Wilson and various artists, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 5: Super Famous
• Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Carolyn Nowak, Lunberjanes, Vol. 3: A Terrible Plan
• Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta, The Vision (2 Vols.)
• Jamie Hewlett and Alan Martin, Tank Girl, Vol. 2
• Stephen Murphy and Michael Zulli, The Puma Blues
• Mike Mignola and various collaborators, Abe Sapien, Vols. 8 and 9
• Dave McKean, Cages
• Howard Chaykin and Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez, Twilight
• Joe R. Landsale, Tim Truman, and Sam Glanzman, Jonah Hex: Shadows West
• John Allison, Lissa Treiman, and Max Sarin, Giant Days: Not On the Test Edition, Vols.1 and 2
• Kate Leth, Brittney L. Williams, and Natasha Allegri, Patsy Walker A.K.A. Hellcat!, Vol. 1: Hooked On a Feline
• Andi Watson, Skeleton Key (5 vols.)
• Dennis O'Neil, Denys Cowan, and Rick Magyar, The Question, Vol. 2: Poisoned Ground
• John Layman and Rob Guillory, Chew: The Omnivore Edition, Vol. 4
• Jaime Hernandez, Maggie the Mechanic
• Hartley Lin, Young Frances
• Gilbert Hernandez, Heartbreak Soup
• Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, Paper Girls, Vol. 4
• Jeff Lemire, Royal City, Vol. 2: Sonic Youth
• Jaime Hernandez, The Girl from H.O.P.P.E.R.S.
• Richard Sala, The Chuckling Whatsit
• Matt Kindt and Tyler Jenkins, Grass Kings, Vol. 1
• Peter Milligan, Chris Bachalo, and Mark Pennington, Shade, the Changing Man, Vol. 1: The American Scream
• Gilbert Hernandez, Human Diastrophism
• Alan Moore and various artists, Saga of the Swamp Thing (6 vols.)
• Jaime Hernandez, Perla La Loca
• Bill Morrison, Roswell Walks Among Us
• Greg Ruth, Sudden Gravity
• Gilbert Hernandez, Beyond Palomar
• G. Willow Wilson, Adrian Alphona, Takeshi Miyazawa, and Mirka Andolfo, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 6: Civil War II
• Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein, Formerly Known as the Justice League
• John Stanley with Lloyd White, Tubby, Vol. 3
• Michael Chabon's The Escapist: Amazing Adventures
• Los Bros Hernandez, Amor Y Cohetes
• Ryan North and Eric Henderson, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 5: Like I'm the Only Squirrel in the World
• Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, and Brooke Allen, Lumberjanes, Vol. 4: Out of Time
• Jaime Hernandez, Penny Century
• Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda, Monstress, Vol. 2: The Blood
• Gilbert Hernandez, Luba and Her Family
• Warren Ellis, Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, and Colleen Doran, Ocean/Orbiter: The Deluxe Edition
• Various writers and artists, Star Wars: A Long Time Ago...: Dark Encounters
• Jamie S. Rich and Megan Levens, Ares & Aphrodite: Love Wars
• The Pander Brothers, Girlfiend
• Jaime Hernandez, Esperanza
• Philip Gelatt and Rick Lacy, Labor Days 2: Just Another Damn Day
• Cullen Bunn, Shawn Lee and Matt Kindt, The Tooth
• Linda Medley, Castle Waiting
• Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Joe Rubinstein, I Can't Believe It's Not the Justice League
• Gilbert Hernandez, Ofelia
• Gilbert Hernandez, Comics Dementia
• Paul Grist, Jack Staff, Vols. 3 and 4
• Chris Oliveros, editor, Drawn & Quarterly Showcase: Book Two
• Dave Sim, Cerebus
• Jaime Hernandez, Angels and Magpies
• Mike Baron and Steve Rude, Nexus Archives, Vols. 1-9
• Brandon Montclare, Amy Reeder, and Natchas Bustos, Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, Vol. 1: BFF
• Kelly Sue DeConnick, Christopher Sebela, Dexter Soy, Emma Rios, and Filipe Andrade, Captain Marvel, Vol. 1: Earth's Mightiest Hero
• Gilbert Hernandez, Three Sisters
• Ian and Tyson Smith, Oddjob
• Kristen Gudsnuk, Henchgirl
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 1
• John Allison and various artists, Giant Days: Extra Credit, Vol. 1
• Matt Fraction and Chip Zdarsky, Sex Criminals, Vol. 5: Five-Fingered Discount
• Grant Morrison, Steve Yeowell, and Jon J. Muth, Sebastian O/The Mystery Play
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 2
• Brandon Graham, Multiple Warheads, Vol. 2: Ghostown
• Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen, Descender, Vol. 5: Rise of the Robots
• Dave Sim, High Society
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 3
• G. Willow Wilson, Mirka Andolfo, Takeshi Miyazawa, and Francesco Gaston, Ms. Marvel, Vol. 7: Damage Per Second
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 4
• Howard Chaykin, David Tischman, Marc Laming, and John Stokes, American Century, Vols. 1 and 2
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 5
• Carla Speed McNeil, The Finder Library, Vol. 1
• Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Discovered (2 Vols.)
• Andi Watson, The Complete Geisha
• Gilbert Hernandez, The Adventures of Venus
• Batman: The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga, Vol. 3
• Kelly Sue DeConnick and others, Captain Marvel: Earth's Mightiest Hero, Vol. 2
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 6
• Brian Wood and Ryan Kelly, The New York Four
• Jason McNamara and Paige Braddock, The Martian Confederacy, Vol. 2: From Mars With Love
• Gilbert Hernandez, Julio's Day
• Alan Moore, J.H. Williams II, and Mick Grey, Promethea, Book 1
• Noelle Stevenson, Shannon Watters, Kat Leyh, Brooke Allen, and Carolyn Nowak, Lumberjanes, Vol. 5: Band Together
• Gilbert Hernandez, The Children of Palomar
• Grant Morrison, Richard Case, and others, Doom Patrol (3 and/or 6 vols.)
• Brennan Lee Mulligan and Molly Ostertag, Strong Female Protagonist, Book Two
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 7
• Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Defined
• Matt Kindt, 3 Story: The Secret History of the Giant Man
• Zander Cannon, Kaijumax, Season 3: King of the Monstas
• Jamie S. Rich and Nicolas Hitori De, Spell Checkers (2 Vols.)
• Mike Mignola, John Arcudi, and James Harren, B.P.R.D.: Hell on Earth, Vols. 11-13
• The Hernandez Brothers, Love and Rockets: New Stories, No. 8
• Evan Dorkin, Dork
• Keith Giffen, J.M. DeMatteis, Kevin Maguire, and Al Gordon, Justice League International, Vol. 1
• Larry Marder, Beanworld Omnibus, Vol. 1
• Matt Wagner and various artists, Grendel Omnibus (4 Vols.)
• Ryan North and Eric Henderson, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Vol. 6: Who Run the World? Squirrels
• Brian K. Vaughan and various artists, The Escapists
• Jeff Parker and various artists, Batman '66, Vol. 1
• Gilbert Hernandez, Birdland
• Michael Kupperman, Tales Designed to Thrizzle, Vol. 1
• Charles Forsman, The End of the Fucking World
• Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Love and Rockets, Vol. 4 (6 comics issues)
• John Allison, Max Sarin, and Liz Fleming, Giant Days: Not on the Test Edition, Vol. 3
• Evan Dorkin, Sarah Dyer, and Erin Humiston, Calla Cthulhu, Vol. 1
• Chris Roberson, Francesco Biagini, and Stephen Downer, Michael Moorcock's Elric: The Balance Lost, Vol. 1
• Matt Wagner, Mage: The Hero Denied, Vol. 1 (or maybe 5)
• Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang, Paper Girls, Vol. 5
• Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples, Saga, Vol. 9
• Larry Marder, Tales of the Beanworld (Vol. 3.5)
• Tim Truman, Scout and Scout: War Shaman (4 Vols., more or less)
• Eddie Campbell, Bacchus (2 Vols.)
• Kaoru Mori, Emma (5 Vols.)

The second category of comics includes things that were mostly reprinted from periodical comic books. Most of this stuff reprints series (ongoing or mini-) in an obvious way, but there are a few oddballs like the Best American Comics series, which I put here to put them somewhere. But, generally, things in this category appeared as a publication under the same overall name as the eventual collection. Since the American comics market is what it is, and I was reading a lot of comics this year, it's the largest category -- almost half of all books.

In 2014, this was 19.5%, with 71 books.

Comics: Originals in Book Form (66, 15.2%)

• Rick Geary, The Lindbergh Child and The Saga of the Bloody Benders
• Michel Choquette, editor, The Someday Funnies
• Rick Geary, The Secret Room at the White House
• Peter Bagge, Fire!!
• Mawil, Home and Away
• James Vance and Dan E. Burr, On the Ropes
• Mimi Pond, The Customer Is Always Wrong
• Sarah Glidden, Rolling Blackouts
• Mike Mignola and Warwick Johnson-Cadwell, Mr. Higgins Comes Home
• Colleen Frakes, Prison Island
• Catel and Veronique Grisseaux, Bluesy Lucy
• Svetlana Chmakova, Brave
• Jeff Lemire, Roughneck
• Tillie Walden, Spinning
• Ananth Hirsh and Yuko Ota, Lucky Penny
• Carla Jablonski and Leland Purvis, Defiance and Victory
• Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault, Louis Undercover
• Thu Bui, The Best We Could Do
• Pascal Girard, Nicolas
• Eleanor Davis, You & A Bike & A Road
• Bill Corbett and Len Peralta, Super-Powered Revenge Christmas
• Cassandra Jean, Reindeer Boy
• Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, Nemo: Heart of Ice, Nemo: The Roses of Berlin, and Nemo: River of Ghosts
• Jeff Lemire, Essex County
• Nina Bunjevac, Fatherland
• Nick Bertozzi, Lewis & Clark
• Lynda Barry, Syllabus
• Kyle Baker, King David
• Joe Ollmann, The Abominable Mr. Seabrook
• Roz Chast, Going Into Town
• Brahm Revel, Guerillas, Vols. 1 and 2
• H.P. Lovecraft and I.N.J. Culbard, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
• Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Century
• Jane Yolen and Rebecca Guay, The Last Dragon
• Larry Gonick and Art Huffman, The Cartoon Guide to Physics
• Kristen Radtke, Imagine Wanting Only This
• Hope Larson, All Summer Long
• Eleanor Davis, Why Art?
• Tony Cliff, Delilah Dirk and the King's Shilling
• Gabby Schulz, Sick
• Benjamin Frisch, The Fun Family
• Pamela Ribon and Cat Farris, My Boyfriend Is a Bear
• Nate Powell, Come Again
• Ted Rall, Real Americans Admit: "The Worst Thing I've Ever Done!"
• Jim Ottaviani, The Imitation Game
• Rick Geary, Chester & Grace: The Adirondack Murder
• Ryan North and Erica Henderson, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Beats Up the Marvel Universe
• Michael Kupperman, All the Answers
• Nick Drnaso, Sabrina
• Kyle Baker, I Die at Midnight
• Pratap Chatterjee and Khalil, Verax
• Anonymous, editor, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament
• Jen Wang, The Prince and the Dressmaker
• Michael Moorcock and Howard V. Chaykin, The Swords of Heaven, The Flowers of Hell
• Kyle Baker, You Are Here
• Jim Ottaviani and various artists, Fallout
• Al Columbia, Pim and Francie: "The Golden Bear Days"
• Joyce Farmer, Special Exits
• C. Tyler, You'll Never Know (Vols. 2 and 3)
• Jim Woodring, Poochytown

This category should be pretty self-explanatory: comics, by people working in the English language, that first appeared as a book, without any previous serial publication.

In 2014, this was 29%, with 106 books.

Comics: Translated from Japanese (and other Asian languages) (17, 3.9%)

• Inio Asano, A Girl on the Shore 
• Kaori Ozaki, The Gods Lie
• Makoto Shinkai and Yukiko Seike, 5 Centimenters per Second
• Nico Tanigawa, No Matter How I Look at It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular!, Volumes 8 and 9
• Katsu Aki, Manga Sutra, Vol. 2
• Satoko Kiyuduki, Shoulder-a-Coffin Kuro, Vol. 4 and 5
• Naoki Urasawa with Takashi Nagasaki, Pluto, Vol. 1 and 2
• Kim Dong Hwa, The Color of Water and The Color of Heaven
• Masamune Shirow, The Ghost in the Shell
• Nagata Kabi, My Lesbian Experience With Loneliness
• Taiyo Matsumoto, Sunny, Vols. 5 and 6
• Masamune Shirow, The Ghost in the Shell 2.0: Man-Machine Interface

Comics, mostly manga, translated for an American audience.

In 2014, this was 12.9%, with 47 books. I used to read a lot more in this area, but that was mostly stuff that came in as publicity packages and that I didn't necessarily like all that much. Once the flow of free product stopped, there were only a few things from that flood I wanted to keep up with on my own.

Comics: Translated from French (and other European languages) (42, 9.7%)

• Velhmann and Kerascoet, Satania
• Cyril Pedrosa, Equinoxes
• Michel Rabagliati, Paul Has a Summer Job
• Santiago Garcia and David Rubin, Beowulf
• Brigitte Findakly and Lewis Trondheim, Poppies of Iraq
• Frederik Peeters, Aama, Vol. 3: The Dust of Mirrors
• Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mezieres, Valerian: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1
• Herge, The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 1
• Marcel Beyer and Ulli Lust, Voices in the Dark
• Mawil, We Can Still Be Friends
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Christophe Blain, Dungeon: The Early Years, Vol. 1: The Night Shirt
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Christophe Blain, Dungeon: The Early Years, Vol. 2: Innocence Lost
• Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, Dungeon: Zenith, Vol. 1: Duck Heart
• Lewis Trondheim and Joann Sfar, Dungeon: Zenith, Vol. 2: The Barbarian Princess
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Boulet, Dungeon: Zenith, Vol. 3: Back in Style
• \Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Manu Larcenet, Dungeon: Parade, Vol. 1: A Dungeon Too Many
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Manu Larcenet, Dungeon: Parade, Vol. 2: Day of the Toads
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Mazan and Jean-Christophe Menu, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 1: The Crying Giant
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Stephane Blancquet and Andreas, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 2: The Dark Lord
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Carlos Nine and Killoffer, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 3: Heartbreaker
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Jean-Emmanuel Vermot-Desroches and Yoann, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 4: Night of the Ladykiller
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Blutch and Bezian, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 5: My Son the Killer
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Stanislas and Keramidas, Dungeon: Monstres, Vol. 6: The Great Animator
• Joann Sfar and Lewis Trondheim, Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 1: Dragon Cemetery
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, and Kerascoet, Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 2: Armageddon
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Kerascoet, and Obion, Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 3: The New Centurions
• Joann Sfar, Lewis Trondheim, Alfred, and Mazan, Dungeon: Twilight, Vol. 4: The End of Dungeon
• Jason, On the Camino
• Jacques Tardi, The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec, Vol. 2
• Lewis Trondheim and Nicholas Keramidias, Mickey's Craziest Adventures
• Jacques Tardi and Leo Malet, Fog Over Tolbiac Bridge
• Jason, Why Are You Doing This?
• Guy Delisle, Hostage
• Jason, Pocket Full of Rain
• Lewis Trondheim, Mister I
• Manuele Fior, Blackbird Days
• Penelope Bagieu, Brazen
• Labiano and Dufaux, Dixie Road
• Brecht Evens, Night Animals
• Herge, The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 2
• Herge, The Adventures of Tintin, Vol. 3
• Claudio Persanti and Lorenzo Mattotti, Stigmata

In 2014, this was 7.7%, with 28 books. This one swapped size with the translated-from-Asia category since 2014, interestingly. I think part of that is just that there's more "art comics" coming over, accessibly, from France than from Japan, and part is that I did a big re-read of the whole Dungeon series, which contributed 17 books all on its own.

Art Books (9, 2.1%)

• Chris Achilleos, Amazona
• Jonathan Barli, Vip: The Mad World of Virgil Partch
• Stephen J. Sansweet and Peter Vilmur, The Star Wars Poster Book
• Kate Ascher, The Works: Anatomy of a City
• Gretchen Edgren, The Playmate Book
• Julia Wertz, Tenements, Towers & Trash
• Bruce Marshall, Building New York
• Edward Lucie-Smith, Erotica: The Fine Art of Sex
• Brandon Graham, Royalboiler

Back in my SFBC days, this was a huge staple of my book-a-day runs, and often the trigger for them: when I had too many art books stacked up, it was time to run through them comprehensively. But I think there are fewer books like that being published at all, in this Internet age, and I haven't had a way to get them free for a decade now.

In 2014, this was 2.2%, with 8 books.

Books for Children of Various Ages (12, 2.8%)

• Lorena Alvarez, Nightlights
• Ben Costa and James Parks, Rickety Stitch and the Gelatinous Goo: The Middle-Route Run
• Chad Sell and various writers, The Cardboard Kingdom
• Mark Siegel, Alexis Siegel, Xanthe Bouma, Matt Rockefeller, and Boya Sun, 5 Worlds, Book 2: The Cobalt Prince
• Joan Aiken, The Wolves of Willoughby Chase
• George O'Connor, Hermes: Tales of the Trickster
• Hope Larson and Rebecca Mock, Knife's Edge
• Jaime Hernandez, The Dragon Slayer
• Molly Knox Ostertag, The Witch Boy
• Kristen Gudsnuk, Making Friends
• Svetlana Chmakova, Crush
• Pam Smy, Thornhill

This is one of my fuzziest categories, since nearly everything here could be counted as something else -- a novel, an original GN, or whatever. But this is where I put things that are very specifically for younger readers, and not just accessible to younger readers. I try to put "YA" books -- which regularly bleed into adult readership -- in the general categories, and books aimed at middle-grade or younger readers here. But I don't promise absolute consistency.

In 2014, this was 1.6%, with 6 books.

Poetry (1, 0.2%)

• Philip Larkin, Collected Poems

I read a book of poetry this year! And I have a bookmark in another one, so I may actually finish a similar book next year. I used to read more poetry, ten to fifteen years back -- the book I had going in the bathroom was generally poetry, until some particularly horrible British historical survey anthology knocked me out of the habit.

I have not read any poetry, as far as I can tell, in any prior book-a-day run.

Playscripts (1, 0.2%)

• Tom Stoppard, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

I did read one playscript in 2014, for 0.3% of the total. So that number holds absolutely steady.

That's what I read in 2018. I should come back in about two weeks and add in the last links, once all of the posts have gone live. If you're reading this later than January 16, 2019, you can judge whether I did that or not.

If you've read this far, let me leave you with one last thought. There's probably some similarly crazy project in the back of your head -- maybe for your work, maybe gardening, maybe exercise- or diet-related, maybe housecleaning, maybe running for Congress!

Do it. Do it this year. Start in on it as soon as you can. Jump onto your crazy hard-work ideas and make them real. There's nothing like finishing up something you really wanted to do and looking back on it. I want all of you to have that feeling. So do it. Start the planning today.


[1] With one tiny asterisk: the post for the book I finished today isn't quite done yet. I wrote the post for book #380 today (which I read yesterday) and started #381, but it's not final. So, tomorrow morning I will finalize and set to post the very last Book-A-Day 2018 post.