and yes, I've already shown her RAVENOUS and THE NINTH CONFIGURATION.

Our first date lasted three days, when I visited her on my road trip. Our first movie experience together was a marathon trilogy to test my theory that LAST OF THE MOHICANS, GANGS OF NEW YORK, and THERE WILL BE BLOOD are all one soul, reincarnated and twisted over the years.* Meeting this girl who I met online was the last stop on my epic road trip, passing through Tuscaloosa on my way back to DC. That was late January.

Our second date lasted two weeks, as she and her best friend tagged along with me to help promote my second show, THE HEFNER MONOLOGUES: HOW HEFNERIAN, at the Orlando Fringe Festival this past May.

Our third date took me about a month and a half--two whole Fringe festivals and a whole lotta road trippin' together--to realize that, wow, these actually have been our first, second, and third dates together. And god damn, with two months and counting before she has to leave by the start of November, this is the longest third date ever. Of course, she's known that all along, and was patient enough to wait for me to wise up.

So, yeah. The Henchgirl is now the Henchgirlfriend. In her own words, "It's about God damn time."





*It's been suggested that THE CRUCIBLE might work as well, perhaps even as a replacement for MOHICANS.

On Grant Morrison's BATMAN (a work in progress)

But back to comic book stuff for the moment.

So I'm finally starting to read Grant Morrison's BATMAN run in trade form. I had only ever skimmed the issues in the store and read whatever was posted on scans_daily, and was regularly left feeling either cold or frustrated. But it wasn't fair to judge until I'd actually sat down and read the bloody thing, right?

So from the library, I've picked up BATMAN AND SON and THE RESURRECTION OF RA'S AL GHUL* and read them quite thoroughly. Well, except for the goddamned Joker prose issue. That shit was more purple than Mr. J's wardrobe. It was like bad fanfic, and I never realized just how horribly out-of-character Harley Quinn was until the Henchgirl read Harl's dialogue aloud.

Here's a rule of thumb Henchgirl taught me in regards to reading Batman stories: if you can't hear a character's lines being spoken by their BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES voice-over counterparts, that means they're badly written.

But that's the thing about Grant Morrison. He doesn't at all seem interested in writing Batman stories. All he cares about are writing Grant Morrison stories.

Nothing wrong with that, really. After all, a lot of people love that. Morrison is one of the biggest rock stars in comics today (for reasons I honestly don't entirely fathom, tbh). Many people who love Grant Morrison's run say things about how they haven't been this excited for a Batman comic in years, that this is the first time the Joker's ever actually been scary**, all this stuff that indicates to me that these people never really liked Batman in the first place.

But they like Grant Morrison, who only ever writes Grant Morrison stories, and I can't fault anyone for that (much as my passive-aggressive tone would indicate that I really would like to try anyway). It's a personal preference.

But when it comes to superhero comics... well, by and large, my preference is not for the writer, but for the characters. When I read a Batman comic, it's for the characters first and foremost, not the writer. Morrison is a writer who uses characters to serve his own ideas, rather than letting the characters serve the story (in the way that Paul Dini does, on his best days). And it drives me bloody bonkers.

To make matters worse is his obsession with obscure Batman stories, particularly from the silly and cracktacular Silver Age. Now look, I know full well that if I were writing comics, I'd mine material directly from, say, some utterly forgotten issue of THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD by Bob Haney and Jim Aparo. My love of these stories fuels my writing of them, and I'm a great believer in employing the richness of continuity and past stories.

But you know who else is? Geoff Johns. He gets a lot of shit for this, but the real genius to his method is that he actually takes the time to catch new readers up to speed with who these characters are without bogging the story down. And it can be relatively subtle too. Take his reintroduction of Arisia, how he managed to bring her up just enough to make her revelation actually mean something to the newbie reader.

Morrison doesn't give a shit about that. He plucks out characters like I-Ching, the Sensei, and the entire Zurr En Arrh bullshit, and just throws them in there with no explanation nor reason for anyone to care if they aren't as well-versed in DC Comics circa 1955-1975. It gives off the impression of elitist arrogance, a smirking fuck-you to people who aren't hip enough to see all the clever, brilliant shit he's doing.

But then, maybe I'm just projecting those feelings after years of having Morrison fanatics telling me that I don't like Grant Morrison because I don't "get" Grant Morrison. No, I get Morrison all right. I just happen to have much less interest in stories about wacky ideas and wanky concepts over actual character.

That said, god damn me, I think I actually kinda like Damian. If I'm understanding my HP well enough without having read any, I dare say he's kind of like if Batman adopted Draco Malfoy. Oh god, I feel doubly dirty for admitting that. But yeah, nymphgalatea, I'm totally seeing it now.

I may post further thoughts once I've properly read THE BLACK GLOVE and BATMAN R.I.P. Or maybe I'll just fume with frustration in silence, venting only to my poor Henchgirl who must suffer this experience with me. Even if fandom and DC are turning to Morrison's Morrisonny vision at the expense of true Batman stories, at least I know I have a girlfriend fangirl with whom I can always commiserate. And that's priceless.




*Wow, so the editor in charge of coordinating this multi-title crossover was totally asleep, right? Because how else to explain the jarring changes in scene and lack of character depiction? Like, aaaaand suddenly Ra's--who has suddenly gone from being a bald monk to looking exactly like his classic self--is strangling Damian in the middle of an epic battle that somehow just started happening while no one was looking?

WTF is up with Alfred defending Damian in that RA'S AL GHUL story? Yes, Tim's attacks on Damian are unprovoked, but, um, didn't you forget that this is the same little psycho who tried to fucking murder Tim a few days earlier?!

**Do NOT get me fucking started. Morrison's Joker, and the love of so many fans for it, drives me up the frelling wall.