Random Happenstance

My Christmas wish that won't come true until I'm in a nursing home reading giant-print comics.

I may have mentioned somewhere before that I worked in retail for an indeterminable number of years (long enough for grunge to die, then boy bands, but not emo yet) and it still has it's scars on me. Like radiation poisoning, or the ick, or something; just thinking about it makes me feel unwell and kind of itchy, which means the most serious illness I've faced in my life has been employment. Huh.

For example, I probably also mentioned that I haven't worked the day after Thanksgiving in three or so years, yet I always feel a vague unease that whole day, whether I go out or not. Another lingering aftereffect is that I am far less enthusiastic about Christmas than even your average young crabass. I used to grouse that I was 'getting less holly-jolly every year,' and that's the bitter truth. Although, and I must underline that I hated these things, I do feel a little nostalgic for when the economy was so good people bought utter crap like 'Billy Bass' for each other...

Even though now I have kids that are (or will be, the little one still may not have quite grasped the whole present-unwrapping concept) jumping up and down in little-kid anticipation of Christmas morning, and that's neat; I still sorta wish I could spend my Christmas the way I did when I was a precocious child/asocial teen: my grandma would get me the new Stephen King in hardback, and I would read that mother. Done by the 27th at the latest, and that was probably It. Partially, that's because I read like a chainsaw (perhaps a little too fast sometimes: I can be more concerned with what's going to happen than the journey) and partially because a lone wolf/self-involved individual can devote themselves to reading like that. If I slunk down into my basement and tried that kind of reading sprint now, my wife would club me about the face and shoulders with my own book, and she'd be right to do so.

Fortunately, even with everything else going on, comics are still right there: they lie flat so I don't lose my place, they're short enough I'm not locked into reading any given one for too long; and I can usually jump up, get the youngest off the damn stairs, play a game of Uno with the oldest, put the dog out, and get back to the story without any trouble. So, we'll take the obligatory look at Christmas comics here, but be forewarned: there will be no warm fuzzy messages of love and peace or any of that. Probably. Really, it depends on what Christmas comics I find. I have one in mind that I'm damn tempted to buy again, since it's getting close to the wire and I'd be pissed if I finally stumble across it in March.


From Uncanny X-Men #365, written by Steve Seagle, pencilled by Chris Bachalo, inks by Art Thibert, Tim Townsend, and Aaron Sowd.