Reasons To Be Cheerful, by Martha Thomases
It’s Thanksgiving week. Impossible to get anyone on the phone. News stories about crowded, delayed and cranky airports. Christmas music reaches overload levels.
Let’s talk about giving thanks, and what inspires it. Here are some of the things for which I’m grateful this year:
* It’s a great time to be a comics reader. Even during the birth of the direct market when there were all kinds of cool independents, I don’t think we had the variety we have now. A lot of this is due to the Interwebs, the series of tubes that provides a low cost of entry for new readers and creators. A lot of this is due to the success of graphic novels in bookstores, which opens the medium to new readers who might want more than superheroes (obviously, what they want is manga). There’s comics for kids, comics for historians, comics for soap opera fans – really, the list goes on and on. Dirk Deppey, at ¡Journalista!, separates “literary” and “pop” comics, a dichotomy with which I disagree, but not in a hostile way, more of a “let’s have a few drinks and argue all night at the bar” kind of way.
* It’s great to be back in the comics business after doing other things for nearly a decade. I’ve gone to a lot of conventions this year, and seen people I hadn’t seen for a long time. Here, in no particular order, are a few that I missed while I was gone: Marc Hempel, Mark Wheatley, Ted McKeever, Scott Hampton, David Glanzer, Richard Case, Bo Hampton, Denys Cowan, Dick Giordano, Eric Shanower, Axel Alonso, Dean Haspiel and Nick Bertozzi, Mark Millar, Joel Meadows, Stuart Moore, Maggie Thompson, Joe Illidge, Mimi Cruz, Michael Eury and a bunch more I can’t remember at the moment. And, of course, my pals here on ComicMix, like Mike Gold, John Ostrander, Glenn Hauman, Michael Davis, Brian Alvey, Denny O’Neil, Mike Raub, Kai Connelly and Elayne Riggs.
* Comics is not just about my old friends, but also about the cool new people I’m meeting, too. Again, in no particular order, and leaving out too many because I’m old and have no memory, I was excited to get to know Valerie D’Orazio, Jeremy Atkins, Mark Haven Britt, James Hatton, Jarrett Williams, Tom Wilson, Stephanie Freese, William Chistensen and lots more.
* Like anyone who is alive and has a heart, I lost a few people who were dear to me this year. Thankfully, I knew them when they were alive, and, in the case of two of them, they live on in books, so you also have a chance to get to know them. We are all lucky to have lived in a world that contained Norman Mailer and Grace Paley.
* We are lucky to live in this world and have bodies, so we may touch and taste and smell and hear life. Even though I’m not much for quoting the Bible, I try to remind myself, every day, of the verse from the Psalms:
This is the day the Lord has made
Rejoice! And be glad of it.
Even on days when it’s overcast, gloomy and damp, and I feel fat, and my rotten husband is somehow incapable of reading my mind so he knows what I want and does it without being asked but instead I have to ask so I feel needy and bitchy, and my rotten kid somehow refuses to be the world’s most successful 23-year-old, thereby proving that I’m the greatest mother who ever lived – even on days like that, my can will let me pet her until she purrs, or there will be a Man from U.N.C.L.E. rerun on American Life, or I’ll discover a band new to me that I like — some little moment of joy.
* The holidays are coming! The holidays are coming! My husband collects Christmas music, which is all well and good. However, it sometimes makes me feel left out, what with being Jewish and everything. So I’m very grateful that last year, I discovered that the Klezmatics had recorded an album of Hanukkah songs written by Woody Guthrie.
Martha Thomases, Media Goddess of ComicMix, is also grateful to have a job.
I'm hoping to be grateful to have a job soon too. :) Lovely sentiments, Martha, and thanks for the mention. I'm honored to be your friend.
Speaking of Woody Guthrie: one of the perks of living just up Route 7 from Stockbridge, home of Alice's Restaurant, is that you have a good shot at getting to see Arlo Guthrie perform live, as we did last night at Arlo's "Together-Again-At-Last Reunion Solo Tour" at the gorgeously restored Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield. That was definitely something to be thankful for!
Thankful? Well, I guess so. ComicMix has come along as the ideal complement to the ol' newspaper-and-music careers, with a bigger bunch of companionable colleagues than I'd ever expected to find in a single enterprise. Thanksgiving road trip coming right up, and too many blessings and aspirations to count on two hands. Mighty grateful for the memory-trigger, Martha.
I'm always happy to be able to read such positive words from you, Martha. I'm also fortunate to count you as one of my good friends. Your positive attitude is always an inspiration to me and to many others. This in a great venue for you and everyone else on Comicmix. Smooches, baby!
And you're one of the things I'm thankful for as well. It had been far too long since we last saw one another and it was a special treat to not only see you again this year, but to finally meet that wonderful mind- reading husband of yours.With so much craziness in the world it's all too easy to forget that we all have things of which to be thankful. Thanks for the terrific post to remind us all that friends make the world an easier place in which to live. Even those who have left and blazed a trail ahead for us. They're still with us in our hearts.Happy Thanksgiving Martha!
There's nothing like walking out the door to remember some of the people I left off this list: KC and Johanna Draper Carlson, and Bob Tinnell..
I'm thankful to know such a wonderful (and skinny) friend like you, Martha. And I'm thankful that I have a large stack of comics and trades waiting patiently on my nightstand to be read. I'm thankful to have friends I can geek out with and talk about comics, whether in person or online.
It was a very pleasant surprise to see you too this year at BEA and San Diego. You were the first person I ever spoke to at DC back when I was young and had more hair;)