Like a ton of other people, my little corner of the world was hit by Hurricane Irene. While I escaped without damage, I lost power on Saturday night, and as of this writing, I have no idea when I'm going to get it back at my place.
So what to do on a Sunday when you can't waste time online or write reviews? There are a lot of things, but in my case, I opted for reading comics.
Some I read by flashlight, dutifully turning my LED crank whenever the margins got dim.
Some I read by the light of the sun, sitting on the porch and watching folks crawl out and inspect the damage.
Some I read in the bed, letting the afternoon light spill in.
Some were read by using what battery power I had left on the computer.
All in all, it was the first time I'd taken an entire day to do virtually nothing but read comics. What I discovered was that a) being off the grid won't kill me once in awhile and b) man, I really can put the comics away when I put my mind to it.
My reading was quite varied. I started off with mini-comics from a few folks who will be at SPX in a few weeks, to prepare for SPX spotlight posts. I also read the excellent Blink: So Far by Max Ink and Fantagraphics' Roberto Clemente biography, 21.
For a bit of capes comic action, I re-read Gray, Palmiotti, and Conner's Power Girl.
I even manged to slip in some old Kochalka, along with one surprisingly good manhwa (Raiders) and one spectacularly bad manga (Amnesia Labyrinth 2). I'd planned to add House of Five Leaves to the running total, but I fell asleep first.
In terms of digital comics, I took the time to read about a dozen or so of the free comics offered by the Illustrated Section team that I'd saved for a rainy day. Well, it wasn't raining, but I thought it was close enough. It was rather nice to have digital comics that were non-cloud. As with all things, a healthy mix comes in handy!
Overall, I turned what could have been a wasted day into a day of reading. It was a lot of fun, and I think I'm going to try to do that again every few months. My backlog of comics, especially those I just bought, is way smaller now. Sometimes, you just need to stop and read the comics, and worry about talking about them later.
I hope all of my readers are safe, and I hope we all get power back across the board soon. What did you do, comics-wise, while the power was out? I'd love to know if others took some time to catch up on their reading, too!
