Direction

My term has been hectic. Between the mould devil moving in to my house, deadlines, and domestic disputes about the proper decorum of give and take, my geeky nature has had to take a back seat in my existence.

I'd say it picked up again on the 13th of this month. I was in Asda with two of my friends, at 11 o'clock having a loud conversation about Spiderman, when the bells went and we were asked to give a minutes silence for Remembrance Day (This was the Sunday after the 11th).

After the strangest experience of "OMG someone froze time!" I got the magazine in question (A Spiderman edition of Comic Heroes), and the conversation continued on our way to Waterstones, where we had more geekness, getting very odd looks, as we occupied the graphic novel shelf, from people crowding between Crime and Dark Fantasy.

My friend mentioned how he'd spent his summer reading comics online. I almost scolded him, as I hold specific thoughts on the issue of copy right, when he said he'd been doing it legally. He'd paid a subscription to a couple of websites, where he'd been able to read.

The first was the Marvel website. It's about £7 a month, for unlimited access to the archives. If you go for the year subscription, it's about £4 a month (that's about £50 a year, probably less).

The second is comiXology. Which I haven't got around to yet, but you can buy DC comics off them.

By Tuesday night I had signed up to Marvel. I think I'm possibly addicted to Spiderman right now. I'm slowly reading my way through his archives. I love his whit.

But a couple of recommendations for you.

The Ultimate Spiderman series is absolutely brilliant. (2000-2009). The dry whit and humour of Spiderman, and the artwork is lovely.

Secondly, the Fairy Tales series. I've read the 4 based on Spiderman, and working my way towards the Avengers, and the X-men. It's retelling of various fairy tales, but based around the Marvel characters. The art work is wonderful, and the stories are pretty damn good too.

Now if you'll excuse me, I must go research Web Cultures.

Or maybe I'll get distracted by the prospect of reading Spider-girl. Hard to say.