Like sands through the hourglass

It's shaping up to be a slow news day. Very slow. It's just as well, because there's real-world work I should be doing, and Blogger is giving me fits.

Oh! It's the one-year anniversary of Thought Balloons. (See? We love anniversaries, but certainly not more than I love lists.) I'd planned on writing something reflective and a little morose in honor of the occasion, but ended up watching Dracula, The Mummy and The Wolf Man on TCM instead.

In my first entry, way back in 2003, I puzzled over the poor quality of "All the Rage," and the thinking behind the WB's short-lived Tarzan series, which launched the same day. Riveting stuff, I tell you. In any event, some 2,485 posts later, here I am -- a year older and none the wiser.

That's about it for reflection. So, let's look forward: As I've mentioned, I'll be making some changes to Thought Balloons so that it better represents my interests. Along with general comics "news," you'll see more about horror (in comics and as a general creative/literary device), fantasy fiction (no traditional sword & sorcery, thankyouverymuch), and the "all-ages" market.

I also plan to post comics reviews -- something I've done infrequently, primarily because I become obsessive over even the shortest critiques. I find them more difficult than they really should be. (Odd, considering I used to write reviews, on deadline, for a living. Perhaps the extra time fosters the obsession.) I certainly shouldn't shy away from critiques simply because it's hard to write good ones; so I'll shoot for weekly reviews -- though they won't be for books that came out that week, primarily because I receive monthly shipments from DCBS. Plus, I'll only review books that interest me. I'll be damned if I'm going to waste time reading a bad book, then devote even more energies to writing about it.

Lastly, I'll be changing the design template, once I figure out a few things. With apologies to anyone using the same template, this thing is hideous. Of course, way back when we were blogging by gaslight about the latest penny dreadfuls, our template options were limited, and one was just as ugly as the next. Now, the choices are a little more pleasant, so I plan to take advantage of progress.

Thanks for reading.