2021-06-05 09:08
All those previous critiques feel a little underbaked. At times I feel like because the work exists it deserves my attention and time, moreso with comics than other art forms, since the audience for comics of a certain type is still so limited.
Into volume 3 of rereading Appleseed and it's interesting to me how much the scenes that stick in my head are the interludes, the non-action scenes in between all the espionage stuff and the sci-fi morality questions about humanity. There are still aspects of that plot that I don't totally follow, partially perhaps because it doesn't hold my interest as much or it's not that important to really follow it all (or maybe parts of it really just don't make sense). It's when Shirow steps outside those plots to focus on his protagonists that it becomes more interesting, though oddly I think that is the part Shirow really started getting rid of the longer his career continued. By volume 3 you can see his art getting slicker, his woman just starting to take on the look of the creepy fetishization that his later work has become.
Life is slowing becoming a little more "normal" in the sense of pre-pandemic. We went out to dinner (outside dining) for the first time since March 2020. And today we are headed up to visit my parents and my brother and his family.