Unwinnable

It’s a dangerous thing to love, a city. (more…)

There is this guy, a big fellow, taller than me. There’s a smear of blonde on his head and a beard to match. Spectacles. When I see him, in the environs of the train station on my way to work, he wears over-the-ear headphones that pinch his lobes shiny red. He’s fat. Pear-shaped. Sausage-fingered. His clothes are cheap and ill-fitting – faded black chinos strain and no-name sneakers bulge. He wraps it all in a too-short black trench coat which is further constrained by a backpack that looks comically tiny compared to the rest of him.

He hunches, as tall men often do. And he trudges, weighed down by thoughts I cannot imagine. (more…)

I shone a torch into the wordless chasm of the lighthouse. A figure on the upper staircase smarted, shrank from my glare. I knew a sudden fear and needed reassurance. I backed away.

“Play the game and tell me if your lighthouse has a ghost too,” I said to my boyfriend. (more…)

At some point I will have to explain to my child/niece/heir/parole officer/inexplicably sentient pug how and where I met my wife, Alexis. It’ll be a chat trickier to broach than the birds-and-bees talk. And it’ll certainly be tougher than the “here’s why the last three generations of humanity let the world go to hell” discussion. I’ll have to come clean eventually, though. Maybe the kid will be smart (and curious enough) to Google this: we both worked in the editorial offices of Hustler magazine. But it was videogames, kid/beneficiary/sir/pup, not porn, that brought us together. (more…)

The first message I read when I step into the Valley of Defilement is disheartening: “If I only had some friends.” It has been left for myself and countless other demon slayers to stumble across in the desolate wilderness of Demon’s Souls’ unforgiving realms, to assist or comfort or warn of traps ahead, and sometimes to lull you into a false sense of security just before erring unwittingly headfirst into a mistake you won’t escape with your life. (more…)

I have a confession to make – I am a stubborn jerk. (more…)

My cousin introduced me to The Authority during its first run from the late ’90s into the new millennium. I was struck by Bryan Hitch’s clean and detailed art, as well as the shocking amount of violence doled out by writer Warren Ellis. I didn’t follow the series after the creators left, but I remembered the name of the title when Mark Millar courted controversy by having Apollo kiss Midnighter. I watched the news wide-eyed, thinking, “They’re talking about a comic book!” DC recently brought Stormwatch back and, with it, the characters of Midnighter and Apollo. Their relationship has yet to materialize, but as a reader and a fan, I want to see it, and I want to see it done well. But homosexuality in comics seems to cause an uproar. What’s the big deal? Why do media outlets report on controversy found in comic books? In my view, there’s more to it than two men kissing. (more…)