Nature “For All Seasons “ Era Queens Bridge

For all Seasons?

Overrated and like most Loeb books, primarily carried by the art.

Totally understandable given it is an absolutely gorgeous book. Rereading it took my breath away at every single spread, to the point I was sorely tempted to get the Absolute just for the art. Sale nails every single location, he can evoke Norman Rockwell with Smallville and then you turn the page and he's depicting Metropolis as the Art Deco wonderland of adventure it should be. Bjarne Hansen's coloring perfectly sets the tone for each of the seasons: bright spring, upbeat summer, melancholic fall, and then a gloomy winter that gives way to spring once more. On art, few are the names which can match these guys.

Great as the art is the writing is very basic. Clark is a good if simple lad who wants to help people because his salt of the Earth farmer folk raised him right. He reaches adulthood and realizes he doesn't want to spend his entire life in Smallville - choosing to leave after confessing his secret to Lana. After a period of adventures as Superman in Metropolis -where he earns the attraction of Lois and the enmity of Lex - someone dies while helping him save Metropolis which makes Clark depressed and pushes him to run back to Smallville. He and Lana reunite, she helps him rediscover his confidence, he saves Smallville from a flood and moves back to Metropolis. That is the entire plot and it's as barebones as the summary reads.

There's a few interesting bits that don't go anywhere: Clark remarking that Metropolis doesn't feel like home but Smallville doesn't anymore either is relatable to me. That part of growing up hits hard for anyone who has moved out of their parents' house and then returns to their childhood home for a visit. Pete chewing Clark and Lana out for getting the opportunity to leave Smallville that he always wanted, only to run back with their tails between their legs was nice. For All Seasons is my first time finding Pete interesting and I wish he had gotten his own issue where we see his perspective on Smallville. Everyone else waxes on about the town's greatness but that clearly is not how Pete feels, and a chance to see him express his view to contrast with the rest might have spiced things up. Ma and Pa offer the usual cliché cornfed wisdom if you like that sort of thing.

Characterization wise, Clark barely gets any? Since he doesn't get to narrate any sections of the book, we're stuck seeing him through other peoples eyes. He's nice, strong, principled, and has his head stuck up his ass. "Basic" is the best way to put it, he lacks the nuance or depth of other portrayals. A few good moments stand out, my favorite is when he cheekily escorts Lex's helicopter back to Lexcorp Tower after Lex has been arrested, that was funny and I wish we got more of that. It's not a terrible take, but I've read better elsewhere. Could just as easily see someone reading this and walking away thinking Superman is boring as I could see them reading this and coming away a fan. Probably the most damning thing I can say is that the "real" Clark is the most boring of the three identities. Metropolis Clark has an underrated sense of dry humor, Superman has a "friendly neighborhood hero" vibe that makes him endearing, but the "real" Clark in Smallville comes across as a dope who is always in need of simplistic advice, and walks through life with a wide-eyed puppy dog look that makes him feel stupid. Just doesn't come across as very bright in his "real" self.

Lois is... ok. Cast in the mold of the Byrne Post-Crisis model where she was sucking up to Lex Luthor until Superman came along and she switched to pursuing him. The feistiness and dedication to the story are there at least, and I do love how Sale draws her. But the only moment with Lois that I actually rate highly is the one where she's snooping through Clark's belongings, assumes the "L.L." he's talking about in a letter to his parents refers to her, and when Clark catches her she tries to gaslight him into thinking she's doing him a favor. Hilarious moment, but Lana honestly comes across more as Clark's great love here. She's the one he's thinking of even years after they last saw each other, she plays a critical part in pushing him to become Superman in the first place albeit indirectly, and at shakes him out of his funk when he's at his lowest. If this was one of the definitive works for Post-Crisis Superman, I finally kind of get why some writers preferred Lana over Lois.

Lex is lame as hell. Diet Kingpin indeed, his plan is underwhelming to put it mildly. He's not smart enough to create a virus himself so he has to hire someone else to do it for him? Not muh Lex. Knocking the entire city out just to set up one person dying on Superman's watch because that will make Superman quit is stupid not smart. Supes does recognize that Lex is probably responsible for the virus, that he doesn't immediately suspect Lex set up this woman to die just to screw with him feeds into what I said about this Supes sometimes being a dope. Pa gives him a pep talk regarding this that boils down to "sometimes you're going to fail" and yeah no shit. A grown ass man needs to hear that from his dad because Lex telling him he sucks and should quit is enough to get him to flee back home after one failure? Feud between the two of them here feels like an old man seething about the damn kid on his lawn rather than a titanic battle between Men of Tomorrow who each have their own idea of the future.

If I only got to recommend five books to win someone over to liking Superman, this wouldn't be one of them. It's fine, if you want a Superman book that makes you feel wholesome inside then go ahead. If you want to see Tim Sale absolutely knock you on your ass with great art, definitely check this out. For someone who thinks Superman is boring? I don't think this is going to convince very many otherwise.

A few central glimpses of @caiti-creative-corner's amazing art piece, For All Seasons.

Aren't they beautiful? It has been a wonderful challenge to explore Caiti's vision and I have had such a great time losing myself in all the possibilities these moodboards evoke.

Have a small snippet of the @tolkienrsb fic based on it:

Yavanna’s plants had something of a will of their own, in those days at the beginning of the world. Each acorn or seed or pod brimmed over with a will to live, as forceful in their small, dissipate way as Aulë’s stone was to move, and grind, and shift.  The earth was demanding. Precise. Aulë understood her perfectly, of course; he, too, was a craftsman, a maker of mountains and nails, small engines and deep tectonic fields; he knew what it was to exist as an urge to make, to perfect, to be exacting upon the building of the world. This did not mean their collaboration was less contentious at the start. Only that they were very evenly matched in strength of will, when they found themselves facing what Vairë tactfully called creative differences .  Love had not been a consideration. Not then, at the beginning; not as it had been with Námo and Vairë, whose mutual understanding was absolute, a bulwark in all things; nor with Vána and Oromë, who laughed together even as specks of divine inspiration floating in the Darkness. They were collaborators, the Queen of the Earth and the Father of Mountains. They were the beginning of all things, and would be the end of all. Expectations, it had to be said, were quite high. 

FOR ALL SEASONS

in springtime a joy to please

in summertime a warm breeze

softly as we walk

sweetly as we talk

through fall to a winter’s freeze

sleep well in the cool night air

fully awakened to a land fair

gently we speak

gladly we tweak

to free our lives from despair

©Johnny J P Lee

15 June 2022

Gogyoshiren Poem

Photo Credit J. P. Lee

FUCK

i dont know who needs to hear this but you do not need to go on a diet. you do not need to lose weight as a new year revolution. you do not need to feel shame for gaining any weight over the holidays and for enjoying yourself and the food. you do not need to tolerate diet talk after setting a boundary and if someone cant respect that then theyre being the asshole. you already have a summer body. you already are hot. theres no moral failure or shame in being fat

I went through every possible emotion in those last 20 minutes, plus some that I made up on the spot! how are y'all?

everybody’s horny or on their period or microdosing mushrooms or having their birthday soon… march really has arrived

Parallels - Good Omens Seasons One & Two - Part One

Links to [ Part Two ] [ Part Three ] [ Part Four ] [ Part Five ]

ohhhhhh I truly cannot get over the EVIL GENIUS of having crowley make a point of immediately taking his sunglasses off every time he's in the bookshop or alone with aziraphale this season, showing just how comfortable he's become showing his emotions and his vulnerability to aziraphale since season 1, opening himself up completely at every opportunity, showing us a side of him that's remained almost entirely hidden for millennia, only for him to silently and purposefully put his sunglasses back on immediately once aziraphale rejects his love confession. like, bravo gaiman, I saw what you did there and I'm never going to fucking recover from it. well done

THE CAST OF EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE wins Cast in a Motion Picture at the 2023 Screen Actors Guild Awards

[Day 223]

The sunset :D

one of the most intimate scenes i've ever read i'm so serious

ooooohhhh who lives in a small tugboat out on the sea?

ge-mi-ni-tay

These two idiots kill me because what Crowley is hearing from Aziraphale is, “I am able to look past your demonic nature because I love you so much, but if there was a way, I would change that part of you” and what Crowley wants to hear is, “I look at all of you and I love all of you”

Meanwhile Aziraphale’s actually saying, “I love every version of you that I’ve known, but I miss the smile you had when I met you and I would give anything to bring that joy back”