Welcome to 2024 on Frezno's Raving Rants! I hope your new year has been fun and interesting so far. We're only three weeks in and mine has been quite productive. If nothing else, a theme for the early stages of the blog is starting to form. The media I've been engaging with has its own strengths and themes, and those strengths and themes are coalescing into their own synchronicities. There are even small tangible connections to what I'm going to talk about right now, but for now we must plant the flag and explain: What in the hell are we doing here with this, for the inaugural Frezno post of 2024? Allow me to explain.
Last year on the blog, my pal Joe inspired me to go on a cinematic journey of broadening horizons, to clear my head of the noxious fumes of genre fiction. The resulting journey, Frezno's Criterion Challenge, lasted ten months and was successful. I didn't finish the year out, but I got what I wanted out of the project. Horizons successfully broadened, some standout films watched that I would not have otherwise, and my edge as a writer honed just that little bit more. I successfully played around in a wheelhouse I would not have otherwise, and it was a good experience. I'm quite thankful to my pal Joe for giving me that, and they got me another year's worth of Criterion subscription so that I can truly spread my wings and watch whatever intrigues me that isn't restricted to a challenge watchlist. That's lovely, and once things calm down a little with the media (in a way, they have as of today, but that's a story for next time) I will dive into some more films on my list that I want to see. We're not here to talk films, though. We're here to talk comics. But why?
Among the folks who I am lucky to call friends is one Sean Dillon. Sean is an author and comics critic who's quite talented, and also a good mentor who helps to keep this meandering blog on the straight and narrow with their feedback on my words. Something spurred it on, and I'm still not quite sure what, but Sean lay down the gauntlet for me late last year. Since I had so much fun broadening my horizons and critical voice with fine cinema, why not do the same with their favorite medium? Challenge accepted. Over 2024, I will be talking about An Amount of comics, and talking about them to the best of my ability with the hopes of not just reading interesting stories, but honing that critical edge and becoming an adequate comics critic in my own right. Sean has given me comic suggestions for the annual Halloween marathons before, and I have read and enjoyed them... but the writeups are not exactly up to my usual standard. I'll be the first to admit that, and in one infamous case I just threw up my hands and went "I don't get it."
Let us hope it does not come to that this time around. I have a general idea of how to start doing comics criticism better, a good enough jumping off point. From there, we shall see how Sean reacts and what advice they give on doing this thing better for next time. There's always room for improvement, after all. It's a nice bit of preamble, this, but it's delaying from the actual point. I have a comic to review, a graphic novel that I have held in my hands and read. Now I get to talk about it, no more stalling. Wish me luck, everyone, in your hopefully warm and cozy spots as you ride out the winter. We're about to dive into the wonderful world of comics criticism. Deep breath, leap... and plunge right on in. Let us begin... Frezno's Comics Challenge.
