there are too many things to permanently settle on one, but

I had this really hyperbolic thing I wrote about OK Computer back in high school that I was going to post, but I think I might not.

At this particular moment, I'm thinking the graphic novel/comics miniseries Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons might be the most "important" book I've read in my life (whatever that means, really; it's not like I read the book and it inspired me to become a gritty, deconstructed superhero when I grow up). It's an important book for me because reading it led me to realize how much untapped potential is in the comics medium--it was kind of like actively watching Taxi Driver or some other mind-blowingly great movie for the first time--which subsequently catapulted itself near the top of my heap of interests. Since then I've read so many comics/graphic novels/trade-paperbacks that I couldn't begin to name them, and I've liked some of them better. Neil Gaiman's Sandman is absolutely brilliant, for instance, and even some of Alan Moore's own work is better than Watchmen. Still, nothing really equals Watchmen's mix of accessibility and intelligence: most "revisionist" superhero stories told in its wake were just exercises in nihilistic ultraviolence, rather than the intelligent, adult take on the concept that Moore perfected.
This actually makes it sound kind of frivolous; if the book had only reinvented a niche subgenre of comic books, then it wouldn't be nearly as well-regarded as it is. Instead, it was a sign that for once, mainstream comics were actually edgier and more interesting than mainstream movies or music. Speaking of movies: I'm a film major, but that might just be because I can't draw. I'm out of coherent things to say, if I had any to begin with. I need to stop making these posts when I'm already too goddamn tired to think straight.