Jesse > Recent Status Updates

Taking a break and skipping “The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath” for my sanity’s sake — it is the most unbearably boring thing I’ve read in a long time. Lovecraft himself thought it was a bad, and after trudging through 40% of it, I agree.

Very bittersweet to read the wedding issue knowing what comes of it, even if it does come out of nowhere (thanks to Stan Lee forcing continuity to match his newspaper strip). The next 225-ish issues will be erased so Peter can make a deal with the devil to save his octogenarian aunt’s life and start kissing aliens. Editors Joe Quesada and Nick Lowe are Spider-Man’s greatest villains….

Insane jump in quality from #264 to #266. The former is undoubtedly the worst issue of the entire series to this point, but the latter is one of the best. All hail Peter David! Craig Anderson, well… you tried!

Just reached a brilliant convergence of the book’s interlocking chapters. With titles oscillating between Oswald’s location and the dates of 11/22/63 conspirators’ meetings, here they align in the present, fulfilling the epigraph to Part 1, Oswald’s letter to his brother: “Happiness is taking part in the struggle, where there is no borderline between one’s own personal world, and the world in general.”

It’s almost unbelievable how effectively Mailer hides his presence from these pages. A man who is usually front and center in his books is hidden behind a simple, ghostly, journalistic chorus of a narrator. Lots of authors get praised for their “style jumps,” but this is the first time I’ve ever been impressed by one.