TAKING STOCK OF 2023

I suppose 2023, in comparison to the previous two years, sums up as more of a re-elaboration of old concepts than a bounty of new ones.

I continued my exploration of the dynamics of how icons function in crossover-universes. One two-part essay, here and here, dealt with how Marvel Comics apparently concocted its first interordinate icon-association not with the idea of selling funnybooks, but just as a means of banishing authorial boredom. This was a strange beginning, for before Marvel, crossovers had only been intermittent anomalies. But after the 1960s, they would arguably become  the measure of all modern popular literature from the 1960s on, more expected by the general audience than not.

DOMINANT PRIMES AND SUBS put forth a terminology capable of clarifying how a stature-icon can retain its stature despite being placed in the most compromising subordinate positions, like the unfortunate Lord of Vampires being dragooned into appearing as a sub in such gems as BLACULA, THE DRAK PACK, and (perhaps the ultimate comedown) WITCHMAS.

STALKING THE PERFECT TERMS: THE FOUR POTENTIALITIES hopefully settles at least on accurate terms for the *quanta* that I perceive as fundamental to each of the potentialities.

TIME OUT OF ALIGNMENT succinctly states why crossovers brought about through regularized breaches in fictional space-time don't merit consideration as crossovers.

And the ICONIC BONDING essays, starting here, provide a rationale as to why icons with certain bonding situations also don't count as the crossing over of fictive universes.

On the non-crossover front, I finished Whitehead's SCIENCE IN THE NEW WORLD, and I don't think I'm by any means finished with exploring his work with relation of my form of literary concrescence, but MIGHT AND MYTH is a pretty fair start.

There's also more to be written about the history of the science fiction genre's influence upon the comic-book superhero genre, but I flatter myself that I made a pretty good start in THE EXCELLENT SEEDS OF HIS OWN DESTRUCTION. which also argues that Jack Kirby unleashed something of a creative demon he couldn't entirely control. This essay was reprinted on the conservative comics site BLEEDING FOOL.

Also on the essay front, coincidence brought me to a high-falutin' online essay about a so-called "incest aesthetic," which I refuted in INCEST WE TRUST PART 7. But I think WHAT VS. HOW might be my best essay as far as elucidating the dynamics of lateral meaning and vertical meaning.

As for reviews. a number of these were of famous works of pop fiction-- Carroll's ALICE books, the first of the OZ books, Doyle's LOST WORLD, THE LORD OF THE RINGS. I did NOT even get close to finishing an annotated edition of Lovecraft's "Mythos stories," don't know if 2024 will prove better on that front. But my most interesting discovery was finding a treasure trove of naive myth in Burroughs' RED HAWK.

As for mythcomics, some of these were also works that I already appreciated, such as THE SONG OF RED SONJA, but there's a little more sense of adventure in exhuming forgotten gems (that some would call "moldy oldies") like THE MONGROL MAN and THE LEGEND OF THE LONG THIRD FINGER.

As for the NUM reviews, here's a list of the shows that most challenged me in sussing them out, even if a couple were interesting just as rare birds.

THE SUPER SNOOPER

BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA

Peter Jackson's THE LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy

THE BEAUTIFUL BEAST

YOUR VICE IS A LOCKED ROOM

LOLA COLT

BURNED AT THE STAKE

PANDORA'S BOX (Mighty Mouse)

CHIMES AT MIDNIGHT

SEX KITTENS GO TO COLLEGE

INFERNO

REVENGE IN THE HOUSE OF USHER

GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY 3

WOLF DEVIL WOMAN

MIRACULOUS FLOWER

DAGON

THE WOLFMAN

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

JONNY QUEST (1964)

MONDO KEYHOLE

THE INCREDIBLE PROFESSOR ZOVEK

XENA SEASON ONE

THE LAST DRAGONSLAYER

HELLBOY (2019)

SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES

SUMURU

GODZILLA MINUS ONE

BRAVESTARR THE LEGEND

I can't say my GRAND SUPERHERO OPERA blog is burning up the Internet, despite my placing a link to the blog on the aforementioned BLEEDING FOOL. But I attribute that to the fact that most fans are not bugs for categorization as I am. I will continue that project, though, because it suits me. I look forward to more such categorization conundrums in 2024.