Year 8

Eight years in blog time might as well be forever. More or less 2 posts a day (here, because I do work on/with other blogs as well), I'm due to hit my 6000th post tomorrow(!). As I must every year, I say thank you to everyone and anyone who's read these various musings over the years, commenters especially (I love feedback), but not singly. 2014 wasn't an easy year. I thought about reducing the amount of daily content, but your enthusiasm wouldn't let me sleep on the job. So I won't. Avaunt!

Doctor Who and Other Futures
When you have a long, hardy project, it's easy to generate content (well, easy isn't the right word, probably, but you don't have worry about it drying up, let's say). Daily Doctor Who reviews took me 2 years and 8 months, and it's when that pilgrimage ended that I questioned whether I should pick up another series. For a good while, I thought I was going to do a whole year chronicling every adventure of the Legion of Super-Heroes ever, but that instead morphed into my participation in the Legion of Super-Bloggers, a dedicated blog about the 30th century's greatest heroes. I was instead persuaded to stick to television sci-fi series, which led to 5 months in the company of Babylon 5 (and its spin-offs), then back to Doctor Who very briefly, and then to Who-ish cult classic, Sapphire & Steel. This takes me right up to December 31st, ready to start the new year with something else (see What's Next?).

Other Year 8 Highlights
-One commitment I made in 2014 was to review a lot of new series from a variety of publishers. The result has been that I've tasted a lot of new books, but am behind on any of the books I was already reading! It's been a lot of note-taking on what I'd like to read later, either in trade or cheap digitals. But it keeps me in the game so I don't become just a nostalgia expert. I also took the time to examine Grant Morrison's Multiversal Geography before Multiversity started hitting the stands; I'm late on finding out how right or wrong I was with my guesses though.
-One of the few new features to drop on the blog was Questionable Fridays, which is a good way to address a variety of subjects (I've written pieces on everything from Agents of SHIELD to D&D), but isn't exactly weekly. Why not? Well, it's predicated on readers asking questions! So find some random QF post and ask away! I'll get to you eventually.
-A couple of more recent regular features have athe virtue of being short and easy to write. On my schedule, that's a must. Reaganocomics looks at comics' love affair with President Reagan, while Arrowed imagines various comic book concepts and characters as TV series (I've also given thoughts on the various new superhero series that have sprung up, but surprise, surprise, I'm really late on watching anything beyond the first couple episodes of anything).
-Last year at this time, Wayne Allen Sallee asked "Will Year 8 be Year of The Red Bee?" and I guaranteed it would be. And it was! My regular Who's This? feature, looking at some obscure comic book characters, did indeed get to the Red Bee, and it spawned a couple of weeks' worth of Red Bee content. And it was a popular series of posts! Not so obscure and maligned? Speaking of What's This?, I also threw in some classic Canadian superheroes in there you won't find in Who's Who, doing my duty of leaf and country.
-The Red Bee wasn't the only character to get a longer-than-usual spotlight. Thanks to the new film, Godzilla got his own Week as well. And there was much rejoicing. SKREE-ONNK!
-A favorite moment for many, it was revealed this past year that "Siskoid" was just a pen name for a whole team of writers. Of course, the article's publication date makes it suspect. You decide what the truth is.
-And of course, long-running features kept on running: Reign of the Supermen, weekly capsule reviews, Lois Lane dating advice (now joined by Princess Diana since DC Comics insists), hate thrown at the Outsiders, and so on.

So, what's next?
2015 will see me continue daily SF TV reviews; there doesn't seem to be an end in sight. Space 1999 should start on January 1st. A childhood favorite, I really just want to clear those DVDs from the shelf. After all, I need the room. I just bought all of the X-Files on the cheap, and that includes 9 seasons, 2 films, and 4 seasons of spin-offs. If I decide to delve into Chris Carter's world, it'll take about a year. That COULD be right after Space 1999, we'll see. Otherwise, same old crap. I'd like to resurrect some dead-ish features, like Brave and the Bold vs. Marvel Two-in-One, but I've been saying that for years. We'll just have to see.

Hope you stick around whatever happens. And if there's something you're lacking - I know I'm not too good at keeping up regular gaming content, for example - drop me a line. I'll see what I can do.