My Favorite Media of 2019

I'm beginning to think my tastes are more conservative than they used to be. More and more I seem to only seek out films, books or comics by people I have a history of enjoying. I seem to put less effort into seeking out new material.

Despite that, in 2019 I actually read a novel which was brand-new that year! Owing to my interest in all things African, I read the novel Out of Darkness, Shining Light by Petina Gappah. It's a fictionalized account of the effort to transport David Livingstone's remains undertaken by his servants. This book has some of the sharpest character writing I've encountered in a long time - with a modicum of words, Gappah makes her characters feel very fleshed-out.

I suppose it's in comics that I'm the most conservative - I checked out Vampirella & Deathstroke because of my long affection for Christopher Priest's work, and I still follow Stan Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo, Walt Simonson's Ragnarok and Larry Hama's G.I. Joe. It was especially notable to see Sakai's Usagi Yojimbo now produced in full colour on a regular basis; I was perfectly happy with his black & white format, but Tom Luth's colours are a nice bonus. Although I'm mostly done with Marvel Comics, I appreciated Jim Starlin & Alan Davis' Thanos: The Infinity Ending and the gracious farewell Starlin wrote in that book. I'm still following Copra by Michael Fiffe, which is now published by Image Comics; it's a bit hard to describe what that comic is even about - it's essentially an homage to 1980s comics but it's more about creative design than plot. There was a new Beasts of Burden limited series, the second one to be drawn by Benjamin Dewey rather than Jill Thompson. I don't know if Thompson is gone for good, but I have no problem with Dewey's art, having previously enjoyed his work on Autumnlands. I also delved into a few translations of European titles, the best of which was Riad Sattouf's Arab of the Future, which I'm now caught up on and eagerly awaiting the conclusion to. I suppose even in Arab of the Future there is a tinge of nostalgia as it's all about childhood; despite the very-different adolescence the author had from mine, there are a lot of aspects I could relate to.

In motion pictures, although I found Captain Marvel and Spider-Man: Far from Home to be just fine, I really got into Avengers: Endgame on a level which I seldom have at Marvel super hero films. The only other new film I went out to the theatre for was Yesterday, which was a charming picture. And although I gave up on all of my streaming services in 2019, I did get to see the new Dolemite Is My Name, which was a very fun biographical picture; I haven't seen any of Rudy Ray Moore's films, but the talent involved in the production made it a must-see for me.

Tomorrow I'll blog about older materials I sought out in 2019!