Miraclo Miles

   This is the fifteenth anniversary of a dark, extremely local event . Oddly, it seems even longer ago that fifteen years. A lifetime's difference, though.

       In the end, you did the things you've done.       So simple a statement as to be asinine, but it's true, and it's important to realize it, not just dismiss it as a simple-minded given.       As far back as I can recall I've been a procrastinator.        It's so much a reflex that I don't know that I can reliably tease out the proportions of active components. How much is simple laziness? Oh, not now! I'm tired! How much is the desire for instant perfection, and the simultaneous knowledge that it won't be there? It's going to look like shit! I'll end up having to tear those pages out! How much is fear of some element of the task? What looks like a simple problem now could turn out to be so much worse! If I start digging there or tugging on that, I could have a huge mess! It may not even be something I can fix, or it could be something that's just a problem now, but if I let it be it'll sort itself out.       I've managed to b

      While for the most part I'm comfortable with transitioning to a digital collection for comics -- having sold off my collection of side-stapled comics years ago -- between gifts and bargain-hunting 2020 into 2021 has seen me slowly building a collection of Marvel Omnibus editions.        These collect long runs of series, with associated tie-ins, along with letters pages, as, depending on the era, they often contained fuller explanations of events in earlier issues as part of the back-and-forth with letter-writing fans. My preference would have been for them to include the Bullpen Bulletins pages, too, as they also contained a great deal of history. But, they made the format decision they did, so they are what they are.        Will this turn out to be an impulse I'll regret? Hopefully not.        While I hope to get to them sooner, I like to think that I'll be able to spend as much time as I want with them in retirement. At the moment I haven't yet removed the shri