O.k. so I’m a hippie. I may not have any hair but you can lump me with the tree-huggers during this time of economic transition. Why?

Bad writing bums me out. Makes me want to run and hide when it’s mine, and turns me off real quick when it’s someone else’s. The art can be a fantastical, amazing mass of the awesomeness, but if I don’t like the writing, I’m done.

I remember, while reading Richard Rodriguez' Hunger of Memory, finding it so interesting to hear what a non-native speaker of English thought about the sound of the only language I truly know.

I'm curious. Ever bitten off as much as you could chew only to find that shoving the whole enchilada in your mouth at one time compromised the flavor of the little stuff you loved so much about the dish in the first place?

I dig me some Erfworld.

You gotta love college. If not for the freedom in academic pursuits (what’ll it be this semester... Spelunking... Gaelic... Closet Horticulture?), at least for the parties (we all know what it means if you don’t remember them being that good).

Oh, and the feedback. Gotta love the feedback.

Religion and comics... Yeah, I brought it up. We’re not at the dinner table so Mom can’t reach over and smack me one. Heck she can’t even reach me with a biscuit outside of holidays anymore seein’ as how I vacated the nest half a lifetime ago. So I press on. To be more specific: Christianity and comics... do we like the mix?

So I’ve got valid excuses. We all do. Hence, naturally, quitting the comic has crossed my mind.

More than once.

If you’re the type who likes to look, gaze, enjoy... you know- savor the aesthetic awesomeness of things- check out Neil Brideau’s Sock-Monster.

The line work speaks of a kid who doodled his way through every class he ever had. Doodled the tip off every Sharpie he owned and then saved his allowance for more. Got half his pens confiscated and detention to boot for doodling instead of doing decimals, and then got the other half taken away for doodling during detention... then raked every lawn within a two mile radius to earn money to buy more pens.

... all for the love of lines, man. The lines.

The writing in Sock-Monster can be out there, but that’s just as readily interpreted by many as inventive, unique, or borderline-genius. It even has a touch of “the New Cute” (if I may liberate from Mr. Payne). And anyway, there are enough hands-down fantastic ones to keep the hooks in readers easily frustrated by left field flies.

What can I say... I'm not a comic book junkie. My segue into work that runs along the same vein began with newspaper funnies; my home as a reader and artist. I graduated to webcomics when I started publishing my own work and if I'm honest, I have to say my favorites are still gag-a-day "funnies style" comics with consistent characters that have the occasional lengthy storyline (unless you count my compulsive read-a-thon through the Dark Knight series at a buddy's house back in the 90's but that was a one-night stand and she didn't mean a thing baby, I promise!). But my tastes have grown broader, to be sure, with the marriage of comic art and the web.

Anyway, I find the melodrama of many multi-panel comics too much. So when I found Hulk vs. Bizzaro by Michael Nelson over at 50ft. Robot Studios, I was pleasantly surprised. Laughing out loud really. And I like to do that.

The squat, thick, super-styled art is engaging. The dialogue is "dumb-monster" 3rd person (reminiscent of Graham Roumieu's Bigfoot Masterpiece) and gives a new perspective on what life's really like when you're big, green, and grouchy (...and who wouldn't be grouchy with a backward buddy like Bizzaro?)

Anyway, check it out and maybe I'll see you at the intersection between the funnies and multi-panel comic classics. I'm liking the vibe on this corner.