Derik Badman's Journal

My review of Borja Gonzalez's A Gift for a Ghost went up at The Comics Journal this week. I have another one coming soon, and I'm thinking about writing more. Not that I've read many comics I really liked lately, my comics reading has gone down immensely over the past few years. I follow a few series and artists but find very little new that looks of interest, and I've become much more wary of trying books because they so often end up being not worth the money or time.

Did not get a lot of reading done this week. Read a few more Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories, and now have gone back to The Book of the New Sun. I had stopped after finishing book three, so I've start up on book four. Just read an article about the Jacob Lawrence show up at the Met, of his "The American Struggle" series and they look amazing. I have not known much about Lawrence's work, I know he came up in art school, but I don't think it was until much later that I learned he did all these narrative series. Last time I was at the MoMA in New York I was really impressed with the many works from his "The Migration Series" and later got to see the rest of them at the Phillips Collection in DC. Maybe it's time to give his work another look.

I haven't been watching many movies either, a few tv shows though. We've been rewatching Mad Men which has aged well. Lovecraft Country on HBO has improved a lot as it goes on, still more scary for its real evils then its imagined ones. The new season of Fargo is off to an interesting start, though sometimes I feel it tries to hard with its quirkiness. I was watching the pirate drama from a few years back Black Sails but shortly into the second season I kind of lost interest.

I rewatched Kelly Reichardt's Certain Women the other day and really enjoyed it a second time through. It's quiet and subtle, beautiful to watch, well acted. Looking her up right now I realize I somehow completely missed Night Moves from 2013, even though by that point I was a fan of her work. I'll have to look that one up. And I still haven't seen her latest First Cow. Watched most of Eliza Hittman's It Felt Like Love this morning but just couldn't really enjoy it. I liked the way it was shot, lots of close ups, a frequent use of changing focus from one thing to another (I'm sure there's some technical term for that I am forgetting), and it's all rather impressionistic, but the story about a teen girl was just too much to watch. She makes awful decisions and says things that are obvious lies, all in the pursuit of boys that seem pretty despicable.

This all feels very list like and uninsightful. I doubt the utility of even writing it all down. Who would care about such shallow commentary?