"...The love of sound is a cult. Okay maybe it's not really a cult, but it's a lifestyle whose roots run and dig deeper than acknowledged in "In Defense of Expensive Stereos." However well advised, the decision to become a lover of sound isn't the same as the decision to drink RC cola-unless you were swallowing down a whole RC culture with your RC cola. Assuming you can't walk, it's better to bike to work than to drive; but for better or for worse, the decision to bike rather than to drive is a decision to be self/identified as a biker rather than a driver. Comic-book fans like to argue that the love of literature and film should encompass the love of comics; but their arguments seldom confront how the love of comics tends to orbit around a culture of geekiness (and that's "geekiness" spelt not-necessarily-in-the-good-way"). Even at the culture's high ends of kool, reading manga or watching animé goes way beyond straightforward and uncomplicated aesthetic appreciation; it's also about the cultivation of a relatively arcane connoisseurship. It's a lifestyle."

To read more, buy issue one.