Signs of Fall

I dunno about wherever you are, but the trees are starting to change color here. There's a tree I can see from my living room window which is about 1/3 yellow, and there's a smallish tree I can see from my office at work that's turning dark red. We're also due to have rain and cooler temperatures this weekend.

Part of why I live in Wisconsin, as opposed to a warmer climate, is because of fall and winter. There just isn't a fall in New Orleans, and of course there's no winter. I like snow (up to a point, of course), and I especially like spring, when everything comes back to life. By the end of summer, you're used to everything being green and it's not so impressive, but after four-plus months of browns and whites, the greens and flowery colors look much more brilliant.

My first spring in Wisconsin was in 1992, and I remember driving to lunch with a friend of mine - who had lived all his life here - and I remarked, "Boy, spring in Madison sure is pretty." He looked around, hesitated, and then said, "Yeah, I guess it is. I'd never really thought about it."

1. Destiny: A Chronicles of Deaths Foretold, which is written by former Sandman editor Alisa Kwitney and features lackluster illos by Kent Williams, and good illos by Michael Zulli. It takes place about 20 years from now, when an antibiotic-resistant bubonic plague wipes out much of Earth's population. A man shows up in a small village with a piece of paper which supposedly foretold the events of all previous major plagues, and does this one as well. Pretty interesting so far; it's the first of three parts.
2. Michael Moorcock's Multiverse, which features comic book stories written by Moorcock himself (including, of course, Elric); haven't read it yet.
3. The New Teen Titans: The Judas Contract, collecting seven issues of this very good early-80s superhero series, which was DC's answer to the X-Men. Outstanding artwork by George Perez.
4. Squadron Supreme, collecting the mid-80s series featuring superheroes who rebuild a shattered United States into a utopia, and the dissension among their ranks as their plans proceeds. Not as hard-hitting as Watchmen (although Watchmen mostly wimps out on the "super" aspect of superheroes), but very good in its own right. Nice cover by Alex Ross.

Michael Rawdon (Contact)