Sunday, October 22, 2006

The New Double Articulation: More Slapdash! Less Content! Fewer Pictures!

Alas, my vain quest for perfection has smashed up against the granite wall of sleeplessness and overwork. As fellow-sufferers know, perfectionism’s an all-or-nothing game. Either you make it good, or you pack up your toys and go home. (We never learned to play well with other children.) The relative lack of posts lately has been a result of that deluded worship of exacting standards that I never managed to hit anyway. Now that I’ve been forced to admit to myself that there really aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything I’d like in precisely the way that I’d like, I’m rethinking my approach to the site in order to make it a little more sustainable over the long term. All of that verbose noodling that some of you kindly and over-generously mistook for “insight” and “quality” on this site? Gone! Forever! In its place: epigrams, maxims, gnomic wisdom.

If only, huh? Actually, not much will change. Major reviews will be self-contained, the “essays” will be shorter (probably a good thing anyway), and R.I.P. Spoilers Abound, at least for now. In its place? Read on. (Double Articulation Digest #1, below.)

The most obvious change is the new, less murky, hopefully easier to read Blogger template. I've had a few requests from nearly blind readers to give their eyes a break, and frankly, the blue template was starting to depress me. Hopefully this is a step in the right direction. A baby step. (A retooled link list will be back in the sidebar soon.)

JR

3 comments:

Leigh Walton said...

More Roeg is always worth it! I can't share your enthusiasm for contemporary Big Two superheroes (I'm dying to know how you feel about Invincible, which is almost the only cape book I can enjoy these days), but your positivity and sense of fun is contagious. Perhaps paradoxically, I most enjoy your writing when you're looking deep within (on old childhood favorites) and when you're breaking out of your comfort zone to try something new.

Keep it coming, Jim!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, JR! You know what I'm talking about.

Mike Thompson

Jim Roeg said...

Thanks for reading, leigh - I always appreciate your comments. I (gasp) haven't read Invincible, but many of many friends have already started shunning me for that omission, so I'll keep an eye open for it next week at the comic store. And never fear, there's plenty more gloopy introspection to come.

No, Mike, thank you. Your email gave me the push I needed and was much nicer than the cutting but basically accurate review the site-design received from an acerbic wit on Barbelith. :) Thanks for reading and for the kind words. I'm really happy with the new, cleaner look.