I'll spare you the topic of world events-Despite being greatly affected by most of them, I'm a little sick of talking about them, even in passing. In my personal news, I've tried and failed and succeeded in lots of things--life had its ups and downs, and still ended in a whirlwind. It's my blog, I can wax poetic if I want to.
One of the resolutions I had this year was "Learn how to write anything." At the time, I was thinking largely about fiction. Every comic I've written was more or less written last. I didn't think too much about it; not until my tools were in front of me.
I've been thinking before I draw a lot as a result, and it's made me a lot more conscious of what I put together.
One fateful day...I grew resentful of those tools.
I swore off Digital art for a while, only for the pen and paper to take its place. I'm writing this traditionally right now before transcribing it. It's fun! Time will tell whether I get sick of this, too.
Another thing I wanted to do in 2024 was give up microblogging and social media. You're probably already aware that I failed at that. But the place I failed in burned down, so maybe it doesn't really count...
In any social media I had, I would usually have a media log of some kind. Typically, a thread of reviews. Since I don't have a reliable place to thread, I'll ramble at length here, without a character limit. Bear with me!
Despite going to a whole ass Film Festival in September, I only really watched 10 movies this year. 2 of them were the same film twice, and 5 of them were from that festival!
That said, I had three standouts:
This was the one I saw twice. I was only vaguely aware of this film's reputation before sitting down and watching. Ultimately, I'm super happy to have gone in clueless. I didn't expect this epic samurai tragedy story to be so...funny. There were some incredible action sequences sandwiched between genuinely charming slapstick. It's definitely of its time, but the influence on modern filmmaking is crystal clear.
This one was everything I wanted it to be and more. One of the best parts of art is experiencing of the team through its parts, and this feeling was FUN! It was as close to a perfect comedy as we may ever get. I'm all for the advent of "Live Action Looney Tunes."
The festival pick. To be honest, the main reason I remember this one is the visuals-it's a truly beautiful looking film, and extremely heartwarming. It's the kind of movie I'd be obsessed with as a kid. I was also at the world premiere, so the elitist in me is pretty happy about already knowing how good it is before everybody else.
My e-reader was the unsung hero of the year. Life was waaaay too hectic for me to play very many games, and my TV show count is always incredibly shameful. Books were really all I had the energy for for most of the year. I read 26 of them as of writing this. Some standouts include, in no real order...
An extremely interesting historical fiction about some monks serially dying. I adored Eco's writing style, and the philisophical discussions used to frame the overarching mystery. I feel like I wasn't paying enough attention at points, but I feel like that with most mysteries for the first time. The nod to the library of babel was my favorite part of the setting.
Something about the way Donald Westlake writes is really inspiring to me. He's not terribly verbose and poetic, and not all that descriptive in his prose. He does, however, get right to the point.
The Parker series is an excellent example of that.
The series starts with The Hunter, and follows the escapades of a cold-blooded vengance-addled criminal. Westlake (using the psuedonym Richard Stark) weaves his uncaring attitude and misanthropy into the prose in a way that's clinical and cold, but action-packed and super engaging. What a baaaaad dude.
On the other side of the coin is the Dortmunder series.
In this series, starting with The Hot Rock, John Dortmunder gets into increasingly precarious crime capers set up by his on-again-off-again-buddy Kelp. It evokes the feeling of watching an 80's buddy comedy movie, and are fun light reads that still capture Westlake's writing style perfectly. The worlds of these two collide in Dortmunder #3, Jimmy The Kid, wherein Dortmunder and his gang attempt a heist from a non-existent Parker novel.
It's all fun and makes me want to write. And now, I am!
I can't make fanart of this one, but it deserves mentioning.
I was aware of this book's reputation as a classic, but didn't get around to it (as usual). In a local library, the art style of this manga adaptation caught my eye and captivated me greatly. And it was awful. Knowing what I know about Dazai as an author, it hurt to read--Largely because there were points where I could really relate to the main character. Seeing things get worse and worse for Oba as he receeded into himself was genuinely harrowing. It haunted me for like, a month. It made me reevaluate how I look at other people a lot.
I'd like to read the original novel when I'm a little less emotionally vulnerable.
2024 was a challenge, and 2025 will be a feat. My only goal for the year coming up is "survive." It shouldn't be too hard, I hope. Ultimately, though, I had a pretty good 2024.
After all, I wrote anything!
I hope to write anything again sometime soon.
