Nasty spring weather

-I wasn't really prepared to hear Marshall Rogers had died. The first superhero comic I collected, rather than bought only when the cover looked interesting, was the 80s/90s version of Silver Surfer. So Rogers (along with Steve Englehart) was a somewhat seminal figure in my development as a comics reader. In recent years, I've come to think of him mostly as the artist on the greatest run of Batman in the history of the character. Sad news.

-I know that I'm not really in a position to criticize someone for this kind of writing, but I had a hard time following Rob Vollmar's review of Ode to Kirihito. This passage in particular had too many clauses (or is that phrases?):

More damning is the frequent use of coincidence to bring the plot around to where you know it’s going, some three hundred pages before it gets there. This sense of expectation is more forgivable when brought about by a clearly articulated motivation of a major character by virtue of their actions but too often in Kirihito, Tezuka goes back to more primitive devices that don’t deliver the same sense of satisfaction.

On the other hand, it's a useful review and I think I agree with Vollmar's conclusions. Did I miss all the initial reviews, or did it actually take a few months before people started reviewing this book? I think I only remember one mention of it in the Best of 2006 edition of the Comics Journal.

Related: this sentence from Tom Spurgeon is no picnic either:

This is an interesting issue to me because I do think there are comics that are like that because of market pressures or failure of ambition on the behalf of a creator or creators, but I also think there are artists who create surpassing works composed of building blocks restricted to the surface elements of comics.

Is he talking about cartoonists who emphasize form and craft over literary content? Reading this sentence makes me feel dumb, and I'm really not that dumb.

-Isn't this the sort of post one of the animals usually makes? Is the dog spoken for? Maybe a "Prescriptive Pooch" or something like that?

-I discovered yesterday that, for a brief time, we had three distinct brands of split peas in the cupboard: Jack Rabbit, Shur-Fine, and Goya. And I'm pretty sure there's another variety sold at the supermarket where we bought the other three packages. I'm not sure if this reveals more about the dried legume industry or the particular grocery store at which we shop. Also, I can strongly recommend this split pea soup recipe.

-As long as I'm talking about non-comics things: Devil Summoner is a lot of fun. I really, really like these Shin Megami Tensei games, especially the ones involving demon fusion. For those who have played it, is Demi-Kids worth the effort of tracking down? (I haven't played either Disgaea, but I really don't like tactics games.)

-A defense of body odor in gaming conventions. The thought of being forced to attend a gaming convention puts my fear of forced attendance of a comics convention in perspective.