Shocker, I know.
This weekend, for the first time in a long time, I took some time to relax. Danica and I had gone up to a place near Hinton called “Black Cat Guest Ranch”, which is a wonderfully peaceful BnB with great mountain views and a ton of books. After convincing me that I shouldn’t do “work” over the weekend (which I have a hard time doing), I spent most of my time away from the phone (although the shop called very little – for which I am currently grateful. We’ll see how I feel about that when I return to work in the morning….) and stayed away from any word processors. Instead of going at my usual ever-spinning pace, I just sat around and read. As a result, I finally got around to reading a trio of classic Batman tales – Year One, The Long Halloween, and Dark Victory. All are books I’ve been told are “required reading” for any serious comic book fan (which is BS – the only rule to reading and enjoying comics is to approach books and series as and when they appeal to you), so I’m quite glad I finally had the chance to experience them. The trio actually work quite well together, drawing from each other as they explore the early days of Batman. I’ll inevitably be discussing the books in much more detail on at C!TB in the coming days, but the most interesting thing to see was just how much these books influenced Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. Bits and pieces were definitely pulled as needed, but for the most part, the stories are completely separate from what Nolan accomplished – which is great. The more I see superheroes pull out into other media, I always find myself drawn towards the different flavours and stories that translation brings. The very best are recognizable, but function as their own thing. Anyway, more on that later in the week.