Recent Games

I've been (or was, until my monitor went snap crackle pop) playing through all these adventure games I'd amassed. I want to finish them all (or as many of them as I can get to work) before I switch over to a Mac. Just for fun, here are the games I've played most recently:

1. The Longest Journey (pc). I'd been wanting to play this for ages and ages. It's one of those adventure games that gamers who usually don't bother with adventure games were playing and raving about. And it was good. There was a little too much walking across essentially empty screens, and a few times I couldn't figure out where to get the tools to solve a problem I could see how to solve (if that makes any sense), but basically this was a very good game. A little old now, maybe, but still good. I think there's supposed to be a sequel in the works, but with my luck it'll never make it to Mac.
   
2. The New Adventures of the Time Machine (pc). Now this game, on the other hand, was not so good. It was a good idea, and some of design was nice, but the gameplay was mostly pretty awful. There were some good puzzles, but way too much walking through some really ugly environments (poor graphics partly due to the age of the game, to be fair). The designers tried to make this an action-adventure, but the controls were too sluggish and the camera too bad to make any of the action elements anything but an annoying (and sometimes maddening) task to get through. Imagine walking into a room where you're immediately shot at (and you can't not go into the room, or else you won't get any farther along in the game), but you can't actually see the guy shooting at you, and if you walk to where you can see him, you'll soon be dead, because you can't move and shoot at the same time. That actually happened. More than once. This could have been a much better game if they'd either left out the action elements, or else made the controls better--either an auto lock-on or else the ability to move and shoot at the same time would have helped immensely. I'm a stubborn old lady, though, and I kept at it until I was done (consulting a walkthrough for hints on how to actually fight the bad guys when I couldn't see them). Why? you may ask (especially if you heard me exclaim "I HATE this game" many times over during an evening's play session). Like I said, I'm stubborn. And there were some good puzzles. Plus, it was oddly satisfying to finish the game. I may not have liked it much while I was playing it, but I liked having played it. Once it was over.
   
3. Shivers (pc). This is a really old game. It won't run under WinXP, I don't think, since it's DOS-based. But damn, is it good. It's like a lot of older adventure games, in that the graphics are what's sometimes referred to as a "slide show"--there's no 3D movement, just zooming along from one view to the next (there is animation joining the screens, like you see the hallway zooming by as you click your way down it). The museum setting was the perfect excuse for lots of bizarre puzzles, and it meant there was mostly not too far to go from room to room, so it wasn't a big deal that you'd have to keep going back to places you'd already been. The only quibbles I had is that the animation of the evil spirits you have to trap was really cartoony and stood out (in a bad way) from the lovely museum rooms and artifacts and live-action ghost sequences (not very many of those), and that a few of the puzzles were really hard. There were only two I finally gave up on and went looking for the solution online--one was a move-coloured-pieces-back-to-where-they-should-be puzzle that I probably could have solved if I'd had more patience, and the other was that solitare game you play on a Chinese chequers board (or on a fox & geese board, should you have one of those). That one where you have to clear the board of pieces by jumping them and end up with the last piece in the centre. I've played that for hours offline and never been able to get closer than two pieces left on opposite sides of the centre position. I gave it a good shot, but after an hour or so, I decided I'd better just look up the solution so I could continue hunting down evil spirits. I just discovered that there was a Shivers 2--probably only for pc, but I may grab it on eBay anyway, since I probably won't have a Mac for a while yet.
   
4. Atlantis: The Lost Tales (pc). I thought I was going to have to sell this game without playing it, because when I first tried it a year or two ago, it wouldn't work on my machine (or on my old machine, which I still had kicking around). I guess the video card I installed since then was compatible, because it worked when I decided to give it one more try. The game itself has some lovely graphics and decent puzzles, though sometimes the puzzles seemed rather tacked on. The story was pretty good--the Queen of Atlantis is missing and her consort seems to be trying to take over and turn it into a Kingdom, and you have to escape the city (or navigate secretly through it) to find the Queen and stop her consort from taking over. There were a few sort-of action elements that really didn't work that well. Trying to flee the bad guys with an interface made for peacefully clicking through slideshow-style screens doesn't work very well. Nor does shooting a boar with a arrow that points diagonally across your bow and can only be aimed in a very general way. The character graphics were pretty basic, and everybody had some irritating repetitive mannerism that made them look like they all had some kind of degenerative muscle disease. Anyway, it wasn't as good as The Longest Journey, but it was way, way better than The New Adventures of the Time Machine. Even though the ending was rather disappointing (**spoilers** you rescue the Queen, but she later gets killed; you stop the consort and his evil weapon, but then Atlantis is destroyed by a volcanic eruption and sinking into the sea--you know the story; you do get to escape with the fisherman's cute red-headed daughter, though).
   

I still have a fair pile to get through, and that's not counting the Playstation games (but I'll leave those until the pc games are done, since I'll still have a PS2 after I get my Mac).

Recent Reading (and some not so)

I kept meaning to get around to writing about what I'm reading for weeks, and kept not doing it, too. So finally I am, as I procrastinate away my Saturday (I should be drawing, or writing).

Non-Fiction:

3. A History of Reading by Alberto Manguel. The may have taken the place previously occupied by Into the Looking Glass Wood (same author) on my desert island reading list. Depending on the size of the bookshelves on my hypothetical desert island, I might take them both. There is simply so much to think about in this book, that I'm going to have to read it over and over. It's comfort reading for a reader, a nice thick book that says "You are not alone" and then shows you hundreds and hundreds of years of readers, and the way readers use reading, and the way reading is done. I'd read anything Manguel wrote or edited, but currently this is my favourite (mind you, I haven't read a lot of his stuff yet).
   
4. Taking Wing: Archaeopteryx and the Evolution of Bird Flight by Pat Shipman. This is another example of my favourite kind of science book. Or one of my favourite kinds. It explores the development of the various ideas about the evolution of bird flight, carefully describing the possibilities in a way that is not too technical for the non-palaeontologist, but has enough meat and details that the reader can begin to evaluate the evidence for themselves. Shipman presents both (or more) sides of each issue fairly. I'd often find myself agreeing with the first idea presented, and then having to re-evaluate when the next one was described. And the writing is well done, pleasant to read, and only technical where it needs to be (but not overly simplistic anywhere). If you're into birds or dinosuars or the history of life, read this. It's not cutting edge, being a few years old (late 90s, if I remember right), but it's still good science. Plus archaeopteryx fossils are probably the most beautiful fossils ever found (though I'm also partial to ichthyosaur fossils).
   
5. The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2004 edited by Steven Pinker. This was one of my purchases from Bolen Books, made with my assorted Christmas gift certificates. I chose it because I thought it would have a nice range of different kinds of science writing, and it certainly had. Not only that, but the writing in all of the essays was absolutely top-notch. I found myself thoroughly enjoying essays on topics I wouldn't normally seek out. There was one essay I had already read--the one on multiple universes that was published in Scientific American (I think; maybe it was Discover). It was interesting to see it without all the sidebars and visual aids the magazine adds in, and I had forgotten a lot of the details, anyway. This was definitely a good choice, and I'll probably be looking for previous editions.
   
6. Explore Fairy Traditions by Jeremy Harte. I'm supposed to review this book. The author sent it to me, all the way from England, and it's taken me unforgivably long to get to reading it, even though it's on one of my favourite topics. It's a well written, intelligent exploration of different aspects of fairy traditions in the British Isles, and the meaning of the stories for the people who tell them. I kept thinking how useful it would have been when writing my Master's thesis. If you want a good general book on fairy lore to start with, this would be a good choice. You'd probably have to order it from the publisher though (their website is here: http://www.hoap.co.uk/), or maybe from a UK bookseller.
   
7. Making and Playing Marionettes by James McMahon. Puppets! Not long after I first mentioned my growing puppet obsession, I logged on to the library website and requested a few books. This is one of them. It's really meant for teachers wanting to get their students into puppetry, but it assumes the students are capable and relatively mature--that they could do basic carpentry and sewing and work togther in a team in a professional manner--so it's a decent book for interested adults, too. Most importantly, it has diagrams and plans for the basic form and stringing of marionettes, which is exactly what I was looking for. There will be notes and sketches made from this one.
   

Fiction:

2. A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright. This is one of the books I got at the recent books sale at the Duncan Mall (which has approximately five stores, plus WalMart at one end and Staples at the other). I thought it sounded kind of neat. It ended up to be one of the best novels I've read in a while. It's not easy to write long stretches of a novel with only a single character, and no one for them to interact with, without losing the reader's interest. Wright pulls it off though--at least half of the book has only the main character all by himself, and much of the rest is so closely focussed on his viewpoint (being in first person), that we only see interactions through him. But it works. It's a beautiful book, and I am going to be searching out more by this author. Plus, everyone I know should read it. I think you'd all get something out of it. (Well, maybe not everyone I know, but most of you.)
   
3. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I found this thing at Superstore of all places. Mostly they have overpriced cookbooks and overpriced books about God. And an odd selection of other stuff. This is one of those books that feels magical without having anything particularly fantastic actually happen. It's a story about books and love and writing and families, and I thoroughly adored it. It has a Cemetery of Forgotten Books. Probably almost everyone I know should read this one, too.
   
4. Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi. This is so short, it maybe shouldn't count, but it is over 100 pages. So there. I hadn't read Pinocchio since I was a kid (thanks to my parents, or some gift-giving relative, I had a copy of the originial--though translated, of course--and not one of those "retold for children" horrors). This isn't the copy I had back then, but I think it might be the same translation, and it has lovely, super-detailed illustrations by Roberto Innocenti. I love his cityscape panoramas, especially. I decided to read this because of my recent puppet obsession. I'd forgotten how moralistic the story is, but it has enough beautiful writing and clever comments to make it a good read nonetheless.
   
5. The Mammoth Book of Werewolves edited by Stephen Jones. If you've read this blog much, you'll know I have a weakness for werewolves and other shapechangers. I thought, for some reason, that the Mammoth Books of . . . were best-of volumes, rather than ordinary themed anthologies. Turns out they're a mix of reprinted and new material, and pretty much as mediocre overall as other themed anthos. Which isn't to say it was a waste of time. Most of the stories were all right, and a few were very good. Plus there was a long Manly Wade Wellman story that I hadn't read, so it was worth reading for that alone.
   
6. Awful End by Philip Ardagh. I'm not sure when this was published (don't have it to hand), so I don't know if it belongs in the "jumping on the Lemony Snicket bandwagon" category, but it looks like it from the cover, and it feels like it when reading. It's not a bad read. The writing is good, and some of the characters are pretty fun, but overall, I think it just tries too hard. Mind you, I'm not remotely the intended audience, but for me, a lot of the wordplay (things along the lines of "He took the seat across from her. 'Don't steal that!' she shrieked, so he put it back and sat down." That's not the actual words, but you get the idea) was so over-the-top that it detracted from the actual story, which was otherwise fun. Basically, I got jarred out of the story so much I ended up not being particularly interested in what happened to any of the characters. Perhaps young boys would like it for the sillyness alone, but I can't imagine more sophisticated kids getting into it. But what do I know?
   

Sequential Art:

11. Rurouni Kenshin volume 1 by Nabuhiro Watsuki. I really liked the anime made from this series, so I thought I'd try the manga, and it's just as good (maybe better in some ways). The series in general (manga and anime) is a fun mix of serious more-or-less historical (early Meiji) action and rather slapstick humour, and mixes more and less realistic art styles.
    
12. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 2 by CLAMP.
    
13. Wish volume 2 by CLAMP.
    
14. Ranma 1/2 volume 5 by Rumiko Takahashi.
    

Looks like it's all manga this time, and only one new series. I haven't been comsuming comics at quite the insane rate I was, but I've been trying to finish off some of the stuff I've already got on the shelves before buying more. Actually, I've been trying to do that for books in general, though I've been less sucessful with fiction and non-fiction thanks to Value Village, thrift shops, book sales, and the remainder section of Chapters (good thing the nearest Chapters stores are in Nanaimo and Victoria). I have to say, though, I've picked up some really cool books.

I've also been having one of my periodic magazine cravings, and have been continuing to work my way through back issues of Geist (only one left, and then I have to decide whether or not to subscribe again). I've also been reading Scientific American and Discover, as well as the usual anime and gaming magazines (I've not been picking up any PC gaming mags, though, since I don't intend to have a PC for very much longer, and there are no Mac gaming mags).

More Thought

After more consideration, I think I'm going to stick with my original MacMini plan, and just go buy a monitor at Staples. They have a decent 17" for around $150. And that way, I can keep playing my games (I hadn't even had a chance to install some of them) until the Mac is shipping more quickly than "3-4 weeks." Still, if anyone knows of a used Mac with decent specs, let me know.

Fey page 33: About Bloody Time

Right, so here it is. This morning, after blazing through scanning, reassembling and cleaning up the edges of today's page, I was thinking of calling this blog entry "Fey, Now With Fewer Crashes." Aside from the laptop shutting itself off in protest in the middle of scanning the second section (it does that some times, when it thinks whatever I've asked it to is using too much memory, or something), everything behanved perfectly, though it did get slower the farther I went. Oh, I thought, I should have switched to this machine ages ago (remember, my desktop machine is currently without a functioning monitor). That was before Photoshop kept shutting down for no particular reason (the usual "illegal action" error that never seems to bear any connection to what you've been trying to do). I finally managed to finish the last thrid of the text by typing the text for a single bubble, flattening the layer and saving before going on to the next bubble.

I'm looking at used iMacs on eBay. I figure if I'm going to need a new monitor (not yet determined, but I haven't found a place in town that actually fixes monitors; plenty fix computers, just not the part you see what you're doing with), I might as well get a machine with a monitor already attached. Plus I love the look of the old G4 iMacs (they're the ones with the half-spherical base and the monitor on a steel arm coming out the top). Not that I would turn down a G5 of any description, if I could get one. Or a G4 PowerMac with a separate monitor, as long as it had one. Even used Macs aren't cheap. At least ones with sufficient power. On the off chance someone I know happens across a used Mac, I'd like the following:

• at least a G4 processor
  
• at least a 1 GHz processor (though I'd go for 800 MHz is it was cheap enough)
  
• at least 512 MB of RAM (again, 256 would be okay if cheap)
  
• at least a 40 GB hard drive (more is better)
  
• a 3D video card with at least 32 MB (64 is better)

Pop! Goes the Monitor (and Crackle, Too)

So I was playing Tomb Raider III, finally, and just getting back into it, when I hear this sort of "pop"--kind of like a lightbulb makes when it goes, only quieter. Then my monitor starts making these funny crackly sort of noises, then it powers down like it does when I've left it on too long, or turned off the computer without turning off the monitor. Oh, greeat.

Pluging the monitor into the original monitor port (instead of the one on the 3D card) makes no difference. Same crackle, same powering down. So it's not that the somewhat aged second-hand 3D card went wonky, it's the monitor itself. (To make sure, I'll see if Sue will let me plug her machine into it tomorrow). Crap. Crap. Crap. Now I need a new monitor.

Well, okay, maybe I can get this one fixed. But that "pop" was kind of ominous (though I know pretty much nothing about monitors, so maybe it's only a minor thing). Oh how I'd love to buy an Apple flat screen to go with the new Mac (whenever it is I get that), but they start at approximately twice the price of the Mac Mini (it is a 20" flat panel, but still . . .). Crap. I wonder if Sneakers fixes monitors, or if I need to take it to a special monitor place.

Lucky for me, I have my important work stuff on my laptop (thought it's not exactly a reliable machine, either). Crap, again.

Fey page 32

Here is is: page 32. Bad day for computers, today. First my laptop decided to shut itself off while I was trying to answer an eBay question, then there was the usual struggle to keep the desktop from freezing up while Photoshopping today's page of Fey. Sigh.

You Know You're From British Columbia When...

You Know You're From British Columbia When...

You know the provincial flower You consider that if it has no snow, it is not a real mountain. You can taste the difference between Starbucks, Blendz, and Tim Horton's. You know how to pronounce Squamish, Osoyoos & Nanaimo. You can tell the difference between Japanese, Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean and Thai food. In winter, you go to work in the dark and come home in the dark - while only working eight-hour days. You have no concept of humidity without precipitation. You know that Dawson Creek is a town, not a TV show. You can point to at least two ski mountains, even if you cannot see through the cloud cover. You notice "the mountain is out" when it is a pretty day and you can actually see it. You put on your shorts when the temperature gets above 5, but still wear your hiking boots and parka. You switch to your sandals when it gets about 10, but keep the socks on. You recognize the background shots in your favourite movies & TV shows. You buy new sunglasses every year, because you can't find the old ones after such a long time. You use a down comforter in the summer. The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder The local wine doesn't taste like malt vinegar Your $400,000 Vancouver home is 5 hours from downtown You can throw a rock and hit three Starbucks locations You've been to a deforestation protest If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash It's November, it's raining, but you're still wearing birkenstocks You go broke just paying rent. You don't own a heavy winter coat You can't figure out why Manitoba is considered part of Western Canada. You wouldn't be caught dead on Vancouver Island or Vancouver without your umbrella and plastic shoes. You actually get these jokes and pass them on to other friends from British Columbia.

Get Your Own "You Know You're From" Meme Here



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I Am Not Scary

You Are Not Scary

Everyone loves you. Isn't that sweet?

How scary are you?

No Longer Late

With page 31 now posted, I'm no longer behind on pages-to-post (well, except for the cover to part 2, maybe). I am, however, still behind and falling farther on pages-to-draw. Oh well. I'll catch up eventually.

Fey: Better Late?

I finally got the machine to work long enough to finish page 30. With luck, I'll be able to finish page 31, too, and post it on time (which is to say, tomorrow).

Beta Reading

So I finished my NSCAD admissions essay. I'm pretty happy with it. I went for a somewhat more creative angle rather than a strict "here's why I want to go to your school and why I think you should let me in approach." I hope that doesn't count against me. So anyone want to beta read it for me?

Crust

The day we broke
up I couldn't get out
of my mind the food
stuck in the corners
of your mouth.
All I could see
was that bit of orange.
And, Christ, I thought
as you tried to convince
me to go back,
Couldn't he at least wipe
his face?

Word Obsession

And speaking of words that catch my imagination, sometimes I get obsessed with a particular word. For some reason it sticks in my brain and won't go away. It fascinates me, and soon I have to do something about it--make a story or a poem, read a book about it, say it so many times I get sick of it. Right now the word is "puppet." Why? I have no idea. I think it may have started with an episode of InuYasha that involved demon puppetry, and the phrase stuck. Or maybe it wasn't that at all. I've always been fascinated by puppets. My grandfather used to have an old suitcase full of hand puppets, and a rack of marionettes hanging in the basement, many of which he'd made himself. I was especially enamoured of the skeleton marionette. I still am. That's one cool puppet. And kind of creepy, too, which is even better. I think Granddad might still have a few of those puppets, but I don't know if the skeleton is among them. Perhaps I should ask.

The weird thing about word obsession is that, if it's a good word, I don't even want to make it go away. "Puppet," I think to myself. "How cool. Puppetry. Puppets." Just say it out loud. That repetition of "p" sounds is fascinating, isn't it? Or maybe I'm just weird. I wonder if there's a good online tutorial on puppet-making. I could make a marionette to photograph for my NSCAD portfolio (I'm supposed to be devoting this week to getting that done). That way I could exorcise the puppet obsession and not feel like I was wasting time. Then again, "puppet" is such a fun word to have stuck in your head. Or in mine, anyway.

Fun With Words

I was flipping through my mostly-neglected journal, looking for the notes I made for my NSCAD admissions essay, when I found some lists of words I'd made. They almost sound like poetry.

eldritch dirigibles, poulpe-shaped
sundry savants dancing
tenebrous tentacular antennae
cetaceans
bioluminescent sleepy steam calliope
aerodynamic piezoelectric
antediluvian aeronaut

Invisible Library

The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library's catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound.

I love this. It makes me want to go through all my books and find more things for them to add. I know there are some in Charles deLint that they don't have listed.

Cool Stuff

I'm sitting at the dining room table, wasting time because I really don't feel much up to working (Darwin's going to be fine, but I'm still pretty frazzled). Blog reading leads me to this site: I Want One Of Those (via Diane Duane's Out of Ambit). Some of the truly cool stuff you can buy there: the Binary Watch, the Write Light, the USB Swiss Army Knife, Emergency Cufflinks, the Death Clock, the Pet Doorbell, and many other strange and wonderful things. I can't take it all in.

Of Hellhounds and Fey

I suppose it was inevitable. One of our neighbours' dogs, Daisy the evil bitch dog, charged Darwin on our way back from the mailbox and took a chunk out of his left hip. So Darwin's at the vet getting stitches (for which the neighbours will be paying), and I'm completely frazzled. I'm not even going to try to get the new page of Fey up (I'm having enough trouble with basic spelling; don't want to fight with Photoshop and cranky computers). I'll try to get it up tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be having a long, hot bath and a cup of tea before I have to go pick up Mr Tall, Dark and Handsome dog.

Big Book Score

Well, I'm back from the book sale, have had some food and tea, hauled broken branches out of the garden, looked at stuff on eBay and am now ready to bask in the cool books I brought home. I didn't get to Staples (opting, instead, to buy groceries), but I'll go tomorrow when Sue and Selena go to take back their videos. Which is better, because now I can balance my chequebook and see how much (or rather, how little) I can actually spend on a scanner.

But anyway, the books. Here's what I got for donating to help fund diabetes research. First, the fiction:

• A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright. I've no idea if this author is any good, but the cover blurb mentioned H.G. Wells' time machine, Egyptology, Victorian machinery, time travel, and jazz, and made it sound really cool. I'll probably read this one very soon. I might even start it this evening.
  
• The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. A retired Sherlock Holmes meets his match in a modern young woman? Or something. I think I saw a mention of this somewhere recently, and thought it sounded interesting.
  
• The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and Other Stories by Robert Louis Stevenson. Here's something for the League of Extraordinary Reading. It's a Reader's Digest book (shudder) but the copyright page says it has the complete text of all the stories. Also, it's actually rather a handsome book, with pictures, and looks nothing like the usual RD edition. It just better have all the words.
  
• The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. I've been meaning to read more Wilde for ages. I've been meaning to read this particular book for ages. Now I can. I think it qualifies for the League of Extraordinary Reading (at least via the horrible LXG movie, if nothing else).
  
• The Lady in the Loch by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. Kinda funny I found this, considering the poetry I got (below). I've never read this author, but she uses Sir Walter Scott as a character, so it should be interesting, at least.
  
• He Shall Thunder in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters. This is one of her "Amelia Peabody" mysteries. They're set in Victorian times and have lots of archeaology (Peters, aka Barbara Michaels, is an Egyptologist, or at least has a PhD in the field). I've only read one or two of them, and I really want to start at the beginning and read them in order. Now I have to find the earlier ones (back to the library, I suppose).
  
• Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within by Jane Jensen. This is maybe kind of a silly one. It's based on a series of acclaimed adventure games (computer games, that is), created by Jensen. I wasn't going to get it, but I've had adventure games on the brain lately (trying to play all the ones I have before I get my new Mac). I thought it would be silly fun, and might even surprise me by being good. Plus, it has werewolves in. You may have realized by now that shapechangers are one of my minor obsessions. They keep showing up in my fiction.

Next, the poetry:

• The Lady of the Lake by Sir Walter Scott. I should probably read more poetry. Actually, I should read more contemporary poetry, but old stuff is good, too. Plus, it's got fairies. Or a fairy. Maybe.

And finally, the non-fiction:

• Eight Modern Essayists edited by William Smart. Short pieces by the likes of George Orwell, E.B. White, Virginia Woolf, and others. It includes Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," which I've been wanting to read again lately.
  
• The Periodic Kingdom by P.W. Atkins. It's good to understand the periodic table of the elements, right? Actually, I was thinking of picking up one of those nice laminated tables they make for highschool and college kids, to put on my wall. (I really was, that's not a joke. I'm a geek, remember? A nerd.)
  
• Armor by Sean Morrison. If you know me at all, you probably know that another of my minor obsessions is swords (and if you somehow managed to visit my house and not realize this, I seriously question your powers of observation). Swords and armour (or "armor" if you're American) go together.
  
• In the Shadow of Man by Jane Goodall. Here's another of those "been meaning to read for ages books," along with Dian Fossey's Gorillas in the Mist and Birute Galdikas' orangutan book(s).
  
• Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento. I'm a little dubious about this one--it's one of those "environmentalists are hugely overracting (or else part of a conspiracy)" books (or it sounds like it, anyway), plus the guy's other book is called The Myth of Heterosexual AIDS. But, I'll give it a fair read (carefully balanced by checking reviews and such in the science press). It should be thought-provoking at least (or maybe just provoking).

And, just so you don't wonder that I'm being buried in my wealth of books, but not actually reading them, I'll have a "recent reading" post soon. Just not yet. I need to bask some more.

The Obscure Cities

Connections and coincidences. I was reading some stuff on the Just Adventure+ website (a good place for adventure game geeks), and discovered that François Schuiten, who co-created The Great Walls of Samaris is going to be working with Benoit Sokal, of White Bird Productions. This is one of those odd, but cool, coincidences that pop up now and then: I read and blogged The Great Walls of Samaris some while ago, and vaguely remember commenting that I'd like to read more French comics, if that was a good sample. It turns out that Samaris is only one volume in a series called Les Cités Obscures (aka The Obscure Cities). Alas, only three of them have been translated into English (though the website provides text translations for some of the others). Guess I'll have to look for the other two. The other part of the coincidental connection is Sokal, who created two of my favourite adventure games: Amerzone and Syberia (and also Syberia 2 which I haven't played. Whatever those two come up with, I'll have to get my hands on, whether it's a game or a comic, or something else entirely.

Fey Page 29, and Other Things

Today, my computer behaved relatively well running PhotoShop (only restarted four times, I think). So here's page 29, featuring Maeve (deceptively pretty winged pond faery) and Pier (dark, broody, kind of weird elf in a long black coat).

And in computer-related news, I got a nice email from the Apple Store with a coupon for $40 off $399 or more, if I use it in the next two weeks. So I hope Mac Minis start shipping in a reasonable time within the next two weeks--that way I can get $40 off my order (which amounts to a free keyboard and a little extra) AND get the $100 rebate for buying a printer at the same time. I've already splurged on a couple of adventure games for Macs on eBay (well, "splurged" is relative--they were really cheap).

In only-somewhat-computer-related news, tomorrow there's a used book sale at the mall, to which I and Sue and Mum will be going. How many books I come home with will depend partly on the selection (naturally) and partly on how much they're charging. Funds benefit the Diabetes Association (or Society, or whatever they're called), so that's good. Always nice to have an excuse to spend more on books. The computer-related part is that afterwards, I'm going to go to Staples to see if I can find a decent USB Mac-compatible scanner on which to use my $20 off $100 or more coupon before it expires at the end of the month (I am rich in coupons today). There was a perfect one on the website, but who knows what they'll actually have in stock. So if anyone needs/wants a rather aged but still functional Mustek 600 III EP Plus scanner that plugs into a printer port (you can then plug your printer into the scanner and run it through) and only works with Windows, let me know.

Mail From the ESA (or, I Am Such a Geek)

So I got a big envelope from the European Space Agency today (I got mail from the European Space Agency!). Inside was my copy of Tales of Innovation and Imagination: Selected Stories from the 2003 Clarke-Bradbury International Science Fiction Competition (which, if you want to read it, is available here in pdf format, or you can go here to try to find the appropriate link for ordering it [it's SP-546, September 2004]). Of course, I found a typo. And the formatting is the same as the pdf version, which I hoped it wouldn't be. There are no indents at the beginnings of paragraphs, so the only way to tell it's a new paragraph is if there's a lot of space at the end of the previous paragraph. I dunno what style format they were following . . . Anyway.

I'm published in a thingy put out by the European Space Agency (have I squeezed "European Space Agency" in there often enough? No? Here it is again: European Space Agency). I read my story through again (it's not very long) and it definitely has flaws, but I still kind of like it. Not in a "this is a masterpiece" kind of way, but in a fond sort of "here's a fun little trifle I wrote" way. But I realized, with slight embarassment, that I sent a story about winning an arts contest to an arts contest. But I wrote the story way before I knew about the contest. I wrote it for an Arts and Technology class I did when finishing my writing degree. I originally did it as an illustrated book (kind of a Griffin and Sabine sort of thing, in the form of the narrator's journal), then rewrote it for the contest (the orignal didn't have much middle).

I think this is my first print publication of fiction. Weird. It's not a professional publication, since I didn't get paid for it and it was for a contest, but still. It's from the European Space Agency.

Funny Webcomic

Go read this: girls with slingshots. (Link via The Johnny Bacardi Show.)

I See Snowdrops . . . and Red

Yesterday on my way back from the mailbox I spotted a cheerful-looking bunch of the year's first flowers--snowdrops! I haven't seen any anywhere but there, yet, but it suddenly got warm after the snow, so I expect there will be flowers popping up everywhere soon. Or else it'll suddenly get cold again and all the snowdrops will die.

And in other news . . . my desktop computer just froze twice in a row while I was trying to PhotoShop this week's page of Fey. Usually, it waits until I have all the pieces together and am trying to flatten the image (or sometimes while I'm copying and pasting the pieces). This time, it happened when I was trying to rotate the first piece. That's the very first thing I do after creating the new document. Argh! Right after it crashed I went to the Apple Store to see when the Mac Minis are shipping. Still 3-4 weeks. Damn! As soon as the ship time is around a week, I'm ordering one. (Waiting because of "buy a printer at the same time get a fat rebate" dealies that require postmarks and invoice dates to be within 30 days of one another.) Argh! again. I'm going to leave it for a while. If I get desperate, I'll try to PhotoShop on my laptop, but it'll mean having to re-scan (I think the tiff files are too big to email, but I might try anyway).

Right. End of rant. Think of pretty white flowers nodding on their fresh green stems in the warm breeze (well, warm-ish).

50 Books Begins

Oops! I haven't made a single "latest reading" post since the year began, have I? At least, not one for this year's books. Fortunately, I've been reading a lot of magazines lately, so I haven't gone through as many books as I might have. Here's what I've read so far:

Non-Fiction:

1. One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty. I read this one to review for work. It's quite short, but really beautifully written. (You can read more of me blathering about how wonderful it is in my review.)
   
2. No Place for a Lady by Barbara Hodgson. Sue checked this one out from the library, and I thought it looked interesting--it's about women travellers in . . . the 18th century, I think? I can't remember. Anyway, it was interesting, but rather shallow. By which I mean that Hodgson would introduce an interesting character, breeze quickly through her travels in a particular place (each chapter was on a different part of the world), and then move on to the next character. I get that she was trying to cover as many different women as possible, but I'd rather have had fewer women and more details. As it was, the stories felt very superficial, and it's a topic that, I think, would have benefitted from more in-depth coverage. But maybe it's just me. The writing was good, at least, I just still felt hungry after.

I also finished one book I'd started in 2004--Womansword: What Japanese Words Say About Women, which was just as interesting for showing how Japanese words are formed out of other words, as for its depiction of how women are viewed. Now I'm reading three non-fiction books at the same time, which isn't really conducive to me actually finishing any of them soon.

Fiction:

1. Medicine Road by Charles deLint. I always like deLint's books. I'm not nearly the fanatic I once was, though. I'm enjoying this "series" (not really a series, but a bunch of related books--the first one was Seven Wild Sisters) more than I have his Newford cycle. I think they have more of what made me love his work in the first place. Which isn't to say I don't like the Newford books. I do, very much. Geh. I don't know what I'm trying to say. Maybe I should go back to bed.

And that's all the fiction I've read. Kind of sad. I started a big anthology of short stories, but I don't seem to be getting through it very quickly.

Sequential Art:

1. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle by CLAMP. It's CLAMP, do I need to say more? This is an odd story of alternate-world characters from the Cardcaptor Sakura storyline, but so far I'm really enjoying it.
   
2. Viz Sneak Peek by various. This was a freebie when I bought the Inu-Yasha movie DVDs. It's the usual mix of story excerpts from Viz books. There are a couple I'll at least browse through in the store, one I'll probably buy, and several I have absolutely no interest in (just in case you were beginning to think I'd read anything manga).
   
3. Seraphic Feather: Crimson Angel (volume one) by Hiroyuki Utatane and Yo Morimoto. Hmmm. This wasn't a bad book, it just didn't really grab me. Plus there were way too many gratuitous panty shots. I can handle a few. Heck, I can even enjoy the odd one. But this book just overdid it for me. If the story was more gripping or the art more gorgeous, I could ignore it. It definitely has appealing elements, just not enough of them for me to keep reading.
   
4. Usagi Yojimbo volume 5 by Stan Sakai. So I had to skip to volume 5 from volume 2, owing to the fact that our library system doesn't have volumes 3 or 4. Sigh. Still, Sakai's stories are self-contained, so it didn't matter too much (unless there turns out to be a subtle overall storyline, which there could well be). There was a lovely story about kites, plus the usual samurai rabbit action. Oh, and a very amusing Lone Wolf and Cub tribute called "Lone Goat and Kid."
   
5. The Return of Lum * Urusei Yatsura: For Better or Curse by Rumiko Takahashi. I go this in a lot of Takahashi books off eBay. It's got the usual cute art and slapstick comedy (largely centred around botched romance--also a Takahashi staple). I'd have enjoyed it much more, I suspect, if I had read the earlier books. As it was, I sometimes felt a little lost about what was going on and who everyone was. Still, there was enough fun stuff that I didn't feel like I was wasting my time, and I'll probably get around to those earlier books eventually.
   
6. Artbabe: Mirror Window by Jessica Abel. Short stories about art and realtionships and life in general. Nice art. Good writing. This was a nice change from weird manga, and I'll definitely be looking for more Artbabe.
   
7. Rave Master volume 1 by Hiro Mashima. I got this from Selena's school Scholastic book order. I like to support the school library and encourage Scholastic to offer more comics. That said, Rave Master didn't blow me away. It was okay, and I think it might develop into a more involving story, but I really don't feel like I must eagerly await the next book.
   
8. Queen and Country: Operation Stormfront by Greg Rucka and Carla Speed McNeil. You could file this under "comics for people who think they won't like comics." Then again, I'm sure lots of people who do like comics love this series. What I'm trying to say is that it's great spy fiction in graphic form, and anyone who likes spy fiction (or mysteries or suspense; or any of those things in movies or tv or whatever medium) would be missing out if they skipped this because it's comics. Anyway, I liked it.
   
9. Chobits volume 5 by CLAMP. Finally, I got back to this series. I broke down and just bought volume 5 at the comic shop, instead of looking for it cheap on eBay. I really wanted to know what happened. So now I need volume 6.
   
10. Inu-Yasha volume 20 by Rumiko Takahashi.

It feels weird sometimes, to go into a comic shop and buy nothing but manga. I have this peculiar notion that I shouldn't let everyone think I'm one of those women who just discovered comics during the big manga explosion (which, incidentally, is still going on and shows no signs of slowing down) and has never read, and probably never will read, any other kinds of comics. I fell like I should buy something not manga. My local comic shop never seems to have the titles I want, though. And anyway, most of them I'd rather have in trade format rather than pamphlets (ie. individual comics, also called "floppies"). And western tpbs cost more than manga. It's stupid to feel that way, I know. But I've been reading comics since before variant covers killed the industry. I was reading comics when manga in English was nearly impossible to find. Since . . . Oh, never mind. It just makes me feel old. (No, I'm not saying it's bad to be one of those women who just discovered comics during the big manga explosion, just that I'm not one.)

So. Like I said, I've been reading a lot of magazines instead of books lately. It seems to go in cycles. I've read various issues of Newtype USA, Anime Insider (the writing is pretty awful, but it's much less juvenile than sister publications Wizard and Toy Fare, and the stories are sometimes actually informative, plus Selena likes to cut out the pictures when I'm done), Skeptic, Skeptical Inquirer, and a few computer and gaming-related things. Oh yeah, and I'm trying to catch up on a year's worth of Geist (only 4 issues, fortunately).

I'm really starting to want to read science books again, too. Or maybe science magazines . . .

Hee hee

Neil Gaiman's blog makes me laugh again, especially this bit:

. . . as you go to bed, having found yet another cat-murdered roll of toilet paper in the middle of the office floor, you realise that you don't actually know where the cats are getting the nightly fresh toilet paper rolls from.

My cat murders t.p., too, though usually while it's still on the wall.

Fey Today

Here's page 28. Today I decided to work on the long-delayed cover for Part 2 instead of a new page (I'll probably try to do two next week). It's almost all coloured now, I just have some background colour to do. Then I have to try to get PhotoShop and my decrepit old machine to let me add the text. It'll be the same as the Part 1 cover, only with a different picture (duh). Eh. I need to eat.

I'm a What?

What weird misc. thing are you? Wallama You're a little backwards and a little annoying, but deep down, we all love you.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

Spacey

Wow. So we've ("we" = humans) put landers on Mars and sent an orbiter to Saturn. I watched the Discovery Channel special on Titan last night. It was very, very cool. And I was happy that they showed a bunch of Cassini photos of other moons, as well as the Huygens probe photos of Titan. Did I mention it was very cool? I was going to write something intelligent about all this, but it's one of those times when I need to let it seep in for a while before trying to put things into words.

And here's something truly bizarre. Sometime in 2003 I entered my story "Seeing Stars" in The Clarke-Bradbury Science Fiction Competition. I didn't win (I hadn't really expected to, but entered just for fun). This morning I got an email from someone at the European Space Agency (who sponored the contest) asking for my new address because they'd sent me a copy of the anthology and it had been returned. It seems that, although I didn't win, my story was selected as one of those "selected for their interest, content, novelty and structure" to appear in the anthology. You can read it in pdf format here.

Fey page 27

I got so busy working on today's page-to-draw, I almost forgot about today's page-to-post.

VanderWorld

Jeff Vandermeer's guest blogger Iain Rowan (what a great name) blogs about automata:

If you were rich, and inclined to be somewhat unhinged in a rather scary way, you would surely have a house full of automata.

What does it say about me that I think it would be cool to live in a big old house full of books and automata?

Ouch

There's some great stuff on writing and getting published--from Neil Gaiman and Teresa Nielsen Hayden--over on Neil Gaiman's blog, including this:

writing about writing, or writing about publishing, is what wanna-be authors do when they've given up on writing, but don't yet want to admit it.

Ouch. But for the record, I haven't given up and don't intend to.

I See a Light

Okay, it's nowhere near a G5, but this may be--at least for now--an answer to my problems. And it's so cute! Mac Mini. Hee hee.

Readerware

I'm not certain yet, but I think I may have finally found the perfect book cataloguing software. I've tried a lot of these over the years, and they range from truly crappy to almost, but not quite, what I want. Usually, I find two or three that would be perfect if their features were combined, but no single one that has everything I want. Readerware looks like it might--and I can add up to 9 fields if it doesn't. The trial version comes with CD and movie versions, too. It costs more to buy, but the package deal for all three seems reasonable. Even better, if you buy the software, then switch to a different platform (like I plan to switch back to a Mac asap), you don't have to buy the program again. If you get the disc, all the versions are on there, and if you get the download, you can use your same key for any version. So now I just have to take one of each kind of book I own, and see how it does. I'm keeping my fingers crossed, because I've wanted a good book cataloguing program for ages.

50 Books Challenge

The 50 Books reading challenge has rules. I think I'll do it this year pretty much the same as I did last, keeping separate lists for fiction, non-fiction, and sequential art. I already have a bunch of comics TPBs to blog, thanks to many of them having large enough text to see in candlelight.

A Day Late, and a Lot of Snow

Courtesy of BC Hydro and Mother Nature, this week's Fey (page 26) is somewhat late. We had a mountain of snow fall on us all at once, and large parts of the Cowichan valley (actually much of the south island, I think) were without power for over 24 hours. Not such a big deal, really, except it's hard to keep a greyhound warm without power when he decides he doesn't like all the blankets piled on top of him. Plus, I was ready to kill for a cup of tea. Anyway, the power is back on (for now, anyway), and the latest page is up. Phew. Plus, I'm almost caught up on the pages-in-progress, despite running out of daylight last night, and it being too dim in the only warmish room for drawing today. If I don't finish those pages tomorrow, they'll be done by Tuesday for sure (even without electricity). Yay!

Another Hero Gone

I've sort of been avoiding blogging about this, because I really don't know what to say. Will Eisner died January 3. Now I'll never get to meet one of the biggest, most influential people ever in comics. And how selfish a thought is that?

It's hard to believe that a man could die at age 87 and still seem to have been cut down in full stride, and yet that's who and what Will Eisner was.

(That's from THE BEAT, where there's a nice survey of many of the tributes to Eisner popping up on the web.)

Red Sonja Is What?

Here's something cool that I didn't know, from postmodernbarney:

. . . Red Sonja is coming back to comics. Again. And it's going to be a barbarian fantasy series. Again. So, basically, Roy Thomas and Frank Thorne killed any chance of me ever seeing a faithful adaptation of Howard's one Sonya story, in which she is a 16th century Russian gunfighter fighting the Ottoman Turks . . .

I think I had better move Robert E. Howard farther up the list of things to read (I've read some of the early Conan stories, but that's it). I wonder which book had the Sonja story. A 16th century gunfighter. How cool.

Ringing in the New Year

So, how did I spend my first day of 2005? Why, watching the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies in the company of dear friends, of course. What better way could there possibly be to kill a day than twelve straight hours of LotR? Rowena brought delicious chicken and rice dishes, the names of which I can't remember, but boy were they good. Sue made some kind of veggie and chicken soup (to die for, as usual), and I provided cheese and crackers and chips and dip and pop and tea and coffee and chocolate. Oh, and I also provided the venue (include warm blankies), though Sue lugged her much larger tv upstairs so we could actually see Aragorn. And all those other pretty men, approximately half of whom I have had crushes on (their fictional, novelistic counterparts, that is) since I was about 9 years old (or whenever it was I first read tLotR).

I thought it was going to be a feat of endurace along the lines of the old Red Dwarf marathons, which I think were actually shorter in duration, but I was--again--too entranced by the movies to really notice their length. Most of the new and extended scenes added a lot to the whole, I think. The flood of skulls was a little cheesy, but also amusing, so I didn't mind. And I didn't exactly object to having to look at Viggo Mortensen for longer. That man has some nice cheekbones.

I did forget, though, that although wine makes me sleepy, it also makes me wakeful, so I didn't sleep nearly as much as I'd have liked last night. And when I did sleep I had weird dreams in which--I think--I and some friends were attempting to make a movie.

It was back to work today, alas, though a large part of today's work consisted of reading the book I'm going to write the review of tomorrow. Sometimes, I like my job. (And sometimes I use the phrase "I think" too often.)

Well, Maybe a Few Little Ones

Okay, I won't be so ambitious this time. For 2005, I resolve to:

• continue a page a week of Fey, unless I have a damn good reason not to
  
• revise all the Friesland Stories to date, and keep submitting them
  
• pick up writing White Foxes, Full Moon where I left off, and try to finish the damn thing
  
• continue writing more Friesland Stories
  
• write at least a little more of Three Sisters
  
• get back in touch with friends I lost track of, and stay in touch with them
  
• keep exercising and lose a few more pounds

I think that'll do. Notice all the qualifiers. I can't fail this time! Heh.

No Resolution

So last year I made a few New Year's resolutions, and cheekily said to check back at the end of the year to see how I did. Well, last night I was eating roast goose, so I didn't get to writing about that. So I'll go though 2004's resolutions one by one and make up excuses for why I didn't meet them. Good excuses, really.

Last year, I resolved to:

• revise The Secret Common-Wealth
  I didn't finish it. I started second-guessing myself. I was going to collapse some characters together, but then decided maybe I shouldn't. Plus, I really need to either go to Scotland, or find some super-detailed reference material to get the location details right. Or at least close.
  
• finish writing White Foxes, Full Moon
  I didn't. I decided that White Foxes was really meant to be a series of short stories and form the second part of Friesland Stories (formerly Vinland Stories). Then, I when I went to separate it into its component stories, I discovered they were more closely intertwined that I'd thought. So I left it alone a while. Then I decided it probably should be a novel after all. Now I'm getting antsy about working on it again, which is good, even though I failed to keep both resolutions so far.
  
• finish writing Vinland Stories (now called Friesland Stories)
  This one isn't a total failure, though the goal of finishing became much less likely when I decided that White Foxes wasn't going to be part of it after all. I did get a few more stories written, just not all of them. They tend to only come out good when I let them come out one their own. The one I wrote just to get another one done isn't very good. Geh.
  
• complete at least three more issues of Fey
  I didn't realize how unrealistic this was until I started working on it. I can finish a page in a day, but it takes the entire day. And I can only really spare one whole day--occasionally two-- out of a week, which means I can only effectively do a page a week. And since I decided to re-do the first part to make the gutters the right size and correct the worst of my anatomical blunders, there was no way I'd get three more parts done. I finished the re-do of part 1 and am almost halfway through part 2. I didn't meet the letter of this resolution, but I'm satisfied that I did it in spirit.
  
• send out more stories
  I did this, though I didn't really send out as many as I probably intended.
  
• revise Fox Point Dragon and send it to publishers
  I didn't touch this at all. It's never felt like a very high priority, partly because I'm not sure it's any good. Perhaps now that I'm more distanced from it, I can work on it.
  
• revise Jenny's Troll and send it to publishers
  I didn't do this, either. The revisions needed are really only the rewriting of one scene, but it's going to be difficult to do. Plus, I can't decide if I should illustrate it myself, of just submit the text.
  
• work very hard on Three Sisters
  Didn't do this. I worked on it a bit. I thought about it very hard. But that's all I managed.
  
• look for an agent
  I know the agent I want, I'm just too chicken to send her an email to see if she's even taking new writers. I really need to do this soon, though.
  
• occasionally go outside to remind myself that there is a world
  I think I did okay on this one, though I didn't get out hiking and such as much I wanted to.

Looks prety disnal, hey? But I did also write the first draft of an entirely new novel (well, one that's not on the list--I had the basic idea for it ages ago). You can even read the draft online. I also got back into exercising fairly regularly, and lost ten pounds (then gained 5 back, but still . . .). I wrote a lot of stuff for About, I got my first professional non-fiction print publication, I read a whole lot of books, and . . . I can't think of anything else, but I did a few other good things. So all-in-all, I'm a bit embarassed that I made so many resolutions I didn't quite keep, but not unhappy with the progress I made this year.

Last Reading of Last Year

A few more last minute manga readings:

172. Maison Ikkoku: Game, Set, Match (volume 13) by Rumiko Takahashi. I was hoping this was the final volume of the series, as it's the last one the library has. Alas, there is one more. Argh! Guess I'll have to look for it on eBay.
     
173. Lone Wolf and Cub: Chains of Death (volume 8) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.
     
174. Ranma 1/2 volume 4 by Rumiko Takahashi.
     
175. Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1 by CLAMP. The first volume of this book and the first volume of xxxHolic cross over, so I've been wanting to read it for a while (plus, it's CLAMP!). It's kind of a weird alternate universe(s) of many different CLAMP characters, but lots of fun and beautifully drawn. Selena's hooked on it, too.

So that's the last of the things I read in 2004. My totals?

• fiction: 51
  
• non-fiction: 55
  
• sequential art: 175

That's a total of 181 books! 106 of the take-a-long-time-to-read variety, and 175 quicker reads (graphic novels usually take me an hour and up, depending on how long and/or dense they are). Phew!

Edit: Sue noted in the comments that I can't add (the ability to do sums seems to be following my ability to spell--out of my brain and into nothingness). That should be 281 books, not 181. Sigh.

That's a lot of books, even not counting the ones with pictures.

Fey New Year

Page 25 (aka part 2, page 3) is up. Happy New Year! (Almost.)

Not very many words this time (two, actually). Just a big splash page. With nudity (artfully covered). If you're homophobic, you don't want to look at this page. Then again, if you're homophobic, what are you doing reading my comic in the first place? Or even associating with me? Go away.

I'm now two weeks behind on drawing this comic. My eight-week lead has shrunk to six, and may shrink even more before the weekend is over. But I may have come up with a way to catch up by the end of next weekend. Maybe. It's not that I have to be eight weeks ahead, it's just that if I am, I don't have to worry about getting behind for real. So I have to try to get some drawing in today. Though I'm also itching to get back to work on White Foxes (after a veeerrry long break), and the Friesland Stories (formerly known as the Vinland Stories, formerly known as the Cobbleshore Stories). And then there's Three Sisters. I haven't felt this anxious about not working on fiction in a while. I'm even thinking of postponing applying (or even not applying at all!) to NSCAD so I can get more writing out of the way first.

Missed One

At Value Village I also got a copy of Tom Stoppard's play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.

Major Book Score(s)

This past week or two has been really good for book acquisition. First, Sue and I dropped in at the local Salvation Army to look for cheap stuffies for the dogs, and I picked up three books (actually, I got more, but only three were for me):

• Wolf's Brother, a novel by Megan Lindholm. It's the sequel to The Reindeer People which I think I read ages ago.
  
• Dinosaur Lives, non-fiction by John R. Horner and Edwin Hobb. I'm on a bit of a dinosaur thing lately. This one had a green price tag, which turned out to mean it was 50% off. Woo hoo!
  
• Into Print: Guides to the Writing Life. Something to review for work.

Then came Christmas. This year was big on dvds, and not so good for books, but I did get some tasty ones:

• The Slippery Slope by Lemony Snicket. Selena gave me this one, which was the one book of the series I was missing. Yay!
  
• A Series of Unfortunate Events blank book. This one was also from Selena. Since I don't have a daily-calendar-type journal this year, I think I'll use this to record what I read each day and make notes on things to read in the future.
  
• Dragonology, Dugald A. Steer (ed). This is a really cool "if dragons were real" type book, with things in envelopes, skin "samples" and other neat stuff. It was from Sue.
  
• Gypsies and Fairies: Evidence for a Theory by Robert Dawson. Also from Sue, this is a slight monograph hypothesizing that many fairy sightings were really Gypsies. It looks like the fellow has tried to use statistics in some way, which is a little dubious, given the type of data, but I'll wait till I've read it to say anything else. There should be some interesting information in it, though.

I also got some Bolen Books gift certificates, which I shall come to in a moment.

Then, Mum and Gramma and Sue and I ventured up to Nanaimo, to hit Value Village. It's been a while since the four of us made the trek. There is a dollar store in the same mall, so we went there first, and--lo and behold--there were books. Dollar store books are usually not worth even looking at, but this store appeared to have acquired some remainders from somewhere. There were many tempting ones, but I settled on four:

• Pure Dead Magic by Debi Gliori, a YA novel billed as "Harry Potter meets Lemony Snicket in a high-tech setting." I'm a little dubious about that, but it sounds like fun, anyway.
  
• The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman by Angela Carter. Carter's The Bloody Chamber is one of my desert island books, so I had to have this one.
  
• The Double Helix by James D. Watson. "A personal account of the discovery of the structure of DNA." How cool. I am such a geek.
  
• Dragon Hunter by Charles Gallenkamp. This one's an account of Roy Chapman Andrews' fossil-hunting expeditions in the Gobi Desert. Dinosaurs are cool. Have I mentioned that?

Then it was on to Value Village. It was Tuesday, so it was seniors' discount day. Mum's over 60 now, so we get her to buy our stuff so we can have 30% off. I found quite a few things (all books, though):

• The Lost World by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've read the Sherlock Holmes canon; time for Proffesor Challenger.
  
• Masterpieces of Horror, edited by Rosamund Morris. This is an anthology of short fiction by the likes of the aforementioned Doyle, Ambrose Bierce, Poe, Dunsany, and various others. Should be good, spooky reading.
  
• The Eerie Book. Another anthology of short fiction and excerpts from similar authors as the above.
  
• Chocolat by Joanne Harris. I saw the movie and quite liked it, so I figure the book is probably worth a read. Since books are usually better than their movies, I expect I'll like this, too.
  
• The Land of the Rising Yen by George Mikes. This one is about the less written-of aspects of Japanese culture (or at least it sounds like it from the back cover blurb). If nothing else, it should help me get more of the background stuff in manga and anime.
  
• The Uses of Enchantment by Bruno Bettelheim. This is a classic on the functions of folklore, both lauded and criticized. It's probably about time I read it.
  
• Evolution: The History of an Idea (revised edition) by Peter J. Bowler. Evolution is one of those things we should probably all understand a little better than we do. This was published in 1989, so it won't have any recent stuff, but it should still be good.
  
• Dinosaur Safari Guide: Tracking North America's Prehistoric Past by Vincenzo Costa. More dinosaurs! This one's a guide to sites and exhibits on this continent.
  
• Jacques Cousteau by Lesley A. DuTemple. This one has the logos of both A&E and Biography on the cover. Jacques Cousteau was my hero for a long time when I was a kid. I was going to be a marine biologist, and I used to watch Cousteau's tv specials all the time. I still have the few volumes of his book series that I collected back then.

Phew! And I'm not done yet. After Value Village, we decided to have lunch and then make a quick trip to the nearby Salvation Army. They used to have really cheap books--like "fill a grocery bag for two bucks" cheap. They're not so cheap now--$1 for paperbacks and $2 for hardcovers--but still reasonable. And "paperback" means anything in soft covers, so even huge paperbacks are only $1. There wasn't a big selection, but I scored some writing books:

• Three Genres: The Writing of Poetry, Fiction, and Drama by Stephen Minot. I used to have a copy of this, but gave it to an ex-boyfriend (and almost immediately regretted doing so). I'm pleased to have a copy again.
  
• Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings
  
• Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg. I keep hearing good things about this one.
  
• The Practice of Poetry: Writing Exercises from Poets Who Teach. I noticed this one because the title is the same as Robin Skelton's excellent out-of-print how-to-write-poetry book. Not the same book, but it looks like it should be good.
  
• Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Not a writing book, obviously, but a good thing to have a copy of.

Now back to those Bolen Books gift certificates. I got one from Dad and one from Jay and the kids, which added to up to a nice fat amount. Alas that books are so expensive new. Anyway, we drove down to Victoria today and wandered around Bolen Books, trying to decide what to buy. It was really, really hard. As usual, I had to put several things back, and still went over my gift certificate total. Here's what I finally settled on:

• Sunshine by Robin McKinley. She's one of my all-time favourite writers, and has been for a very long time. The only book of hers I'm missing now is Water: Tales of Elemental Spirits, which she wrote with Peter Dickinson.
  
• Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale by Holly Black. I was actually looking for the last two Spiderwick Chronicles books, but decided to get this one instead, to leave more money for other books. It looks tasty, though. Very.
  
• Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle volume 1, by CLAMP. Bolens has a small manga section now. Not really much in it that I needed, but they did have the first three volumes of this series. Selena got it, too. (My world-domination-by-manga-and-anime plan proceeds . . .)
  
• The Pirate Queen: In Search of Grace O'Malley and Other Legendary Women of the Sea by Barbara Sjoholm. I've said it before: pirates are cool. Especially women pirates.
  
• The Best American Science and Nature Writing: 2004 edited by Steven Pinker. There were sooo many interesting science books, this seemed like a good way to get a taste of many writers. Plus, I read a good review of it in Skeptical Inquirer.

There were many good books I had to leave behind, including those two Spiderwick books I mentioned (and I didn't even look that closely at the YA section, because I knew I'd find too many). I almost got a book on James Watt and the invention of the steam engine. There were a couple of books on the prehistory of Britain that I almost got, plus a whole lot of fiction (and all those great science books). I didn't even look in most of the sections. It's always so hard to choose just a few books, but I'm happy with what I did choose. And added to my thrift shop bonanza, I'm very book happy this holiday.

More Reading

In which I make it to the 50 novels mark and beyond, and discover just how much manga I've crammed into my brain lately.

Fiction:

49. The Bloody Red Baron by Kim Newman. This is the sequel to Anno-Dracula, and is basically more of the same: a solid steampunk vampire novel that continues from the question "What if van Helsing et al hadn't killed Dracula? This time, the focus is on World War I, in which Dracula has made himself a major figure. There are other characters from the previous book, but the main character is new, and the plot focuses on his determination to take out Manfred von Richthofen (aka The Red Baron). I think this book is somewhat better written than its predecessor. It was a fun read, anyway.
    
50. Threshold by Caitlín R. Kiernan. Once upon a time, I had a gift
    certificate to Bolen Books, and wandered about in the store trying to decide what to buy. In the end, it came down to a tossup between Threshold and China Miéville's Perdido Street Station. For whatever reason, I decided to go with Perdido. I think I thought the store would have fewer copies, and that Threshold would still be there the next time I went in (why I thought this, I have no idea). Anyway, next time I was there, there were plenty of copies of Perdido on the shelf, and not a single one of Threshold. Sigh. I finally got a copy on eBay. And now I've read it. And it was really, really good. The writing was amazing--a nice combination of literary and readable (actually, I think good literature should always be readable, but not everyone seems to agree). The story was dark and spooky and . . . addictive, perhaps. You know, the old "I couldn't put it down." I think I am in love with this writing, and intend to find more of Kiernan's work at the soonest opportunity. The funny thing is, I've read her comics work, and I read her blog nearly every day, but it's taken me this long to read her fiction. Perhaps there is some malfunction in my brain?
    
51. The Grim Grotto by Lemony Snicket. Here's another book that's more of the same, only better. Snicket's books keep getting longer, but they are also fuller. Richer? Anyway, it saddens me to think that many adults will miss out on this series because they don't read kids' fiction, and that even many of those who do will likely give up after the first couple of volume because the series comes across as quite repetitive at first. On the other hand, it fills me with glee to think I've read something secret. (Well, okay, it's a hugely popular series, so I'm really only deluding myself, but what the hell.)

I'm rather pleased that Threshold is number 50. It seems appropriate that a book that had such an effect on me (even to the point of making me feel more positive about my own writing and making me want to get back at it more seriously) should occupy this prominent position. I made it to 50, and 50 is Threshold (or whatever).

Sequential Art:

I made it to blogging this before it got too out of hand, so the list won't be quite as monumental as usual. I think I do need to get some more Western comics back into my diet. You know, to balance things out.

165. Lone Wolf and Cub: Cloud Dragon, Wind Tiger (volume 7) by Kazue Koike and Goseki Kojima.
     
166. Ranma 1/2 volume 2 by Rumiko Takahashi.
     
167. Ranma 1/2 volume 3 by Rumiko Takahashi.
     
168. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind volume 4 by Hayao Miyazaki. Woo hoo! The comic shops (two different ones) kept not having this volume in, and then when I was supposed to be doing some last-minute holiday shopping, I found it. Yay!
     
169. Prétear volume 1 by Kaori Naruse. I wasn't expecting much of this book--it's just too pretty and pink--but I found myself liking it quite a lot. And anyway, a book that uses fairytale motifs can't be all bad, can it? This is a Snow White retelling (well, sort of), though it reads more like Cinderella at first, with a stepmother and mean stepsisters. But there are seven dwarfs, except they're not dwarfs, they're pretty boy knights of various ages. I will be looking for volume two (I do kind of wish the author hadn't made the Snow White connection explicit by putting it in the subtitle, though--I like to figure these things out for myself).
     
170. Kwaïdan by Jung and Jee-Yun. I picked this up on a whim when it was one sale, because it has such a gorgeous cover. Well, the gorgeous art continues throughout, in full colour, no less (manga is usually black and white, sometimes with a few colour pages at the beginning). The story was a haunting ghost story and love story, with love spanning ages, etc, etc. There's some cool fight action, too, and some really creepy child ghosts. The only real complaint I had was that the nice thick stock that the pages were printed on--while it looked great--made the pages hard to turn (yeah, pout pout). It's nice, sometimes, to have graphic novel that stands alone and isn't part of an endless series.
     
171. Stone volume 1 by Hiromoto-Sin-Ichi. Here's another one I wasn't expecting much from. The art really isn't very good--there's some nice background stuff like buildings and machinery, but the people are mostly pretty amateurish. The story sounded like fairly standard fare. But when I read it, I was much more involved than I thought I would be. I still wouldn't call it great, but it's probably worth another look--at least if I can get the next volume cheap or borrow it.

I probably won't read any more fiction until the new year (I'll start with Perdido Street Station, which I still haven't read). I have a couple of non-fiction library books to get out of the way, and then some non-fiction things-to-review. Yup.

'Twas the Night Before Christmas

And I'm the only one stirring. Darwin is flaked out on the floor, playing dog-rug, and Bast is a small, fuzzy ball on the couch. Even Usagi Inu-Yasha (that is, Inu-Yasha the Rabbit) is asleep on top of his nest box.

Between episodes of Blue Seed, an anime we rented in our last batch of movies, I'm getting a head start on the various holiday food I'm responsible for, and finishing up decorating the presents for Selena and Ryan ('Lena's is a little more complicated, involving scavenger hunt-ish clues). I am now getting close to being two pages behind where I want to be on Fey (which still leaves me six pages ahead of the current page, fortunately--or it would if PhotoShop would work like it's supposed to and not freeze so often).

Now back to cooking rice and decorating.

New Fey for Christmas

Or Christmas Eve, anyway. Here's page 24 (part 2, page 2).

Movie Watching

At long last last, after months of saying "We should rent videos more often," Sue and I went to Rogers and rented a whole pile of DVDs. With Selena and I both there, we ended up with quite a few anime discs. Last night's movie was Hero. I really wanted to see it in the theatre, but somehow it never happened (one problem was, I think, that none of the nearby theatres showed it--or at least not for long enough that I was able to organize myself and go see it). Hero has to be one of the most beautiful films I've ever seen. The visuals are absolutely stunning. The story is good, too, of course, and the martial arts are very cool, but it's the visuals that will stick. This is one I'm going to have to own my own copy of (erg, that was an awkward sentence). If you've not seen it yet, do. It's amazing. Just don't expect a happy ending.

A Domain of My Own

I finally got around to registering my own domain (Sue found a good place for cheap webspace like a month ago). It's just parked right now, as I try to come up with a design for the main page, but www.whiteravenarts.com is all mine! I'll be transferring all my old stuff over from Geocities and doing a big redesign and edit.

Books! (Recent Reading)

Er . . . I know I said I'd returned to my usual breakneck pace of reading, but actually, I don't seem to have. Quite. Anyway, here are the things I've read recently-ish.

Fiction:

47. Science Fiction by Gaslight edited by Sam Moskowitz. The lengthy subtitle of this book is "A History and Anthology of Science Fiction in the Popular Magazines, 1891-1911," which landed it in the non-fiction section of the library. It really only has a longish essay on the history of SF in the magazines, and the bulk of the book is anthology. Anyone at all interested in SF history ought to have a look at this. All but three of the authors (Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and William Hope Hodgson) were people I'd never heard of, who presumably dissapeared into the ranks of the unknown. Some of the stories were quite good, though (the Wells was the best), and even the ones that weren't had a definite retro appeal. It was a lot of fun to read this book. Here's a line from one of the humour stories ("An Experiment in Gyro-Hat" by Ellis Parker Butler):

    When a shoe is on, it is full of foot, and when a glove is on, it is full of hand; but a top hat is not, and never can be, full of head . . .

    It made me laugh.
    
48. In the Hand of Dante by Nick Tosches. I picked this up because I'm a sucker for fiction about books, even though such fiction is often disappointing. I almost didn't read past the first chapter. The writing was very, very good, but the character in that chapter so turned me off I didn't really want to read about him anymore. But, the writing really was good, so I made myself try reading some more. Thankfully, the character from the first chapter wasn't the main character. And it turned out to be a really wonderful book, even though I'm a little dubious about novels in which the author names the main character after themself. I don't know why, really. I guess I don't really see the point.

Non-Fiction:

55. Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay. Wow, what a fascinating book! Part travel narrative, part historic scavenger hunt, and very well written. Colour really is an interesting thing. This book focusses mostly on dyes and paints, where they came from, and how artists obtained and prepared them through history. But it's also about the author's travels around the world and the people and places she encountered while searching for those paints and dyes. This is one I'll want to read again.

Plus, I also read a book called Japanese Comickers, but I'm not including it on the list because it didn't have all that much text--just lots of gorgeous pictures and some how-to info on the processes of each artist (though in most cases, not enough info to actually try it for yourself, unless you're already familiar with the techniques and software).

Sequential Art:

153. Lone Wolf and Cub: Black Wind (volume 5) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.
     
154. Ragnarök volume 7 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
155. Ragnarök volume 8 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
156. Ragnarök volume 9 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
157. Between the Sheets by Erica Sakurazawa. This is sort of the manga equivalent of a literary short story. It's about two women--best friends--and their love lives. One of the friends falls in love with (or becomes obsessed with) the other. The art has a sketchy feel that suits the story. I don't think this book worked quite as well as it could have, but it was generally well-handled, and enough to make me look for more from Ms Sakurazawa. Also, it's a nice change from all the fantasy manga I've been reading lately.
     
158. Ragnarök volume 10 by Myung-Jin Lee. So, this was the last of the volumes of this that I got in my cheap eBay lot, and I still can't decide if I'll keep reading. I probably won't pay full price--it just wasn't that good--but if I find another batch on eBay, I may pick it up. The art's pretty nice (and I like the switch to less-revealing but still very cool costumes). I'm not sure it really needed three volumes (that's volumes, not chapters) to get through one battle, but maybe I just wasn't as into the characters as I was meant to be.
     
159. InuYasha volume 19 by Rumiko Takahashi. I don't know when volume 20 is due out, but I want it now. I'm totally, completely hooked.
     
160. Lone Wolf and Cub: Lanterns for the Dead (volume 6) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima.
     
161. Trigun volume 1 by Yasuhiro Nightow. Old west meets the space age, and lots of tongue-in-cheek to go along with the action. The main character, Vash the Stampede, is a pacifist gunslinger who won't actually kill anyone, but always seems to end up making a big mess. Which is never his fault. I put off reading this because it's so hugely popular (see my blurb about Hellsing, somewhere back there, for more about this), but I'm glad I did get to it. It's not exactly a serious piece of fiction, but it's fun and stylish, and I'll be hunting up volume 2.
     
162. Priest volume 1 by Min-Woo Hyung. I'm not really sure what made me bid on this (and on volume 8) on eBay. It looked kind of cool, I guess. Anyway, I really like it. It reminds me of Hellsing, except with undead minions of evil instead of vampires (oh, wait . . . ) and with a possessed priest instead of a super-vampire working for the good guys. Plus, it's set in the old west. The art is really gorgeous (if you can call blood and gore and ugly demon-things gorgeous) and stylish. The story has enough mystery to keep the reader engrossed. I'll be looking for volume 2 for sure.
     
163. Maison Ikkoku: The Hounds of War (volume 12) by Rumiko Takahashi. I think the end is drawing near. The was less slapstick and more seriousness, but all the charm. The library better have the next volume or I shall be very, very cross.
     
164. Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom (volume 3) by Ted Naifeh. A new Courtney Crumrin book is a cause for celebration around here. Naifeh does marvelous drawings and he writes really well, too. This is an all-ages book that really does have something for all ages (and all genders, too). Probably, if I had to pick one series I wish I'd created myself it would be this one (it even wins out over Sandman, another bigtime huge fave of mine). Go look at Naifeh's website. Be amazed. Read Courtney Crumrin.

Phew! Now it's on to more Lone Wolf, and some vampire steampunk fiction.

Fey Friday

So it's Friday again, and that means another page of Fey. The "Fleeing Arcadia" short finished up last week, so it's back to the main storyline ("Drawing Borders"). Here's the latest, page 23 (that's page 1 of part 2, for those of you who notice these things). I'm still not as caught up as I should be--I have finished drawing everything up to last Friday's work, but still have six pages to PhotoShop (they're scanned, but need to be pieced back together and have text added). Plus, I have the part two cover to colour and assemble. I sort of forgot about it. And I have the page I was meant to draw today to do. And I just got back from Victoria and am very weary. It might just have to wait until tomorrow.

I'm Late, I'm Late

The final page of Fey: "Fleeing Arcadia" is now up: page 8, a day late due to unexpected busyness. It shall not happen again. Next week, it's back to "Drawing Borders" with the first page of part 2.

Recent Sequential Art Reading

As usual lately, there is a lot of manga (and some manwha) in my comics reading. I think it's partly due to the fact that manga is just cheaper--often half the price per volume, and with a higher page count. It also seems more readily available cheap on eBay (which is mostly where I get the stuff I can't get at the library).

130. Blade of the Immortal: Blood of a Thousand (volume 1) by Hiroaki Samura. Samurai action! Sometimes cool swordplay and ancient world settings just aren't enough. This one, though, also has gorgeous art, interesting characters and involving plots. There's plenty of violence and swordplay, but they seem to exist mostly to serve the story, rather than the story being the thin excuse for action (as seems to be the case in a lot of martial arts comics I've read).
     
131. xxxHolic volume 3 by CLAMP. I've decided that "xxxHolic" means "alcoholic," with reference to the "xxx" cartoonists used to put on a jug to show it was full of moonshine. Okay, that's probably not it at all, but I don't know what the title means (only that it's not xxx as in pornographic), and one of the principal characters does drink an awful lot (it's commented upon by the main character on several occasions). Anyway, more CLAMP enchantment. I'll be reading this series for as long as it stays good.
     
132. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing volume 1 by Hajime Yodate and Yoshiyuki Tomino, art by Koichi Tokita. See this post.
     
133. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing volume 2 by Hajime Yodate and Yoshiyuki Tomino, art by Koichi Tokita.
     
134. Mobile Suit Gundam Wing volume 3 by Hajime Yodate and Yoshiyuki Tomino, art by Koichi Tokita.
     
135. Rising Stars of Manga by various. When I first flipped through this volume, the art looked pretty uneven in quality, but I thought I'd give it a try anyway. Reading it, though, I discovered that, for the most part, the art styles fit very well with the individual stories, and I was pleasantly surprised that the stories were quite good. Most of them fell a little short of professional quality, but not by much. Over all, this was a very enjoyable anthology. I probably won't buy it, or any of the later ones, but I will look for them at the library. The only really disappointing thing is that the Rising Stars of Manga contest is only open to US residents (though Tokyopop does take regular submissions from elsewhere).
     
136. Wish volume 1 by CLAMP. It's getting harder and harder to say anything new about CLAMP books. Not that they're all the same--this team of artists comes up with some pretty cool ideas. I guess it's just that a CLAMP book is so recognizable as their work. And they all seem to have some combination of cute and beautiful in the art, and funny and romantic in the stories. And they mostly are able to transcend whatever you'd expect cute + beautiful + funny + romantic to equal, resulting in stories of depth about interesting characters (the only possible exception to this that I've encountered so far is CLAMP School Detectives, which was okay, but didn't really capture me the way their other books have--then again, I've only read two of the three volumes).
     
137. Vögelein: Clockwork Faerie by Jane Irwin. Hey look, it's not manga! This is a lovely folklore meets clockwork story about a little clockwork fairy whose latest protector has died. She can't quite go off on her own, since she needs someone to wind her up every day, so she sets out to find a new protector. Along the way, she meets a real fairy. The fully-painted artwork is mostly very nice (there's the odd bit of strange anatomy and the like), though I wondered if it was originally painted in colour--the greyscale repro is okay, but sometimes looks dark and murky. The story is absolutely enchanting, and I love a tale that works in words from other languages (in this case German, and maybe a bit of Romany, but I can't remember and I'm too lazy to go look). This book was originally printed as a 5-issue mini-series, so I think this is the whole story. But even if there's to be no more Vögelein, I'll still be watching to see what else Ms Irwin does.
     
138. Rumic Theater: One or Double by Rumiko Takahashi. Rumiko Takahashi is kind of like CLAMP, in a way, except there's only one of her. What I mean is that a bunch of ingredients that one wouldn't normally expect to amount to much (in Ms Takahashi's case, that's usually situational humour and long-drawn-out romance) result in a really good read. This book is a collection of short stories, all very similar in feel, but all very enjoyable. I think I will read anything Ms Takahashi writes or draws.
     
139. The Ice King of Oz by Eric Shanower. This is some of the earlier (1980s, I think) work by the man who brought us Age of Bronze (a brilliant graphic novel retelling of the seige of Troy and the events leading up to it). As you probably guessed, it continues L. Frank Baum's Oz stories. This is the third Oz book that Shanower did, and the only one I've read. I was never a huge fan of Oz, proabably because I just never picked them up, but I do have fond memories of the movie, and there was one of the books I really, really liked (I can't remember which, now). I've always meant to go back and read them all in order, but haven't got to it yet (anyone have a set of Oz books they don't want anymore?). But anyway. This is a very short, but beautifully drawn and written story where Dorothy et al venture to the land of the Ice King to rescue Ozma. I especially liked Shanower's new character Flicker. If you love Oz, you really should check these books out. This one, at least, stays true to Baum's Oz (or what I remember of it, anyway).
     
140. Ragnarök volume 1 by Myung-Jin Lee. It's kind of odd to see very Norse fragments of myth mixed with very Asian martial arts comic elements, but I think it works. This book has a lot of the huge sprawling imaginary world epic fantasy feel to it, which often doesn't work so well with me, but it also does have something that's kept me reading--at least for now. Perhaps it's the cool characters (though there's maybe a little too much of the boy's manga "fan service" (ie. big, scantily clad, gravity-defying boobs) for my taste), or maybe it's just fascination with the combination of Norse myth and kung fu. Anyway, I'll keep reading for now.
     
141. Maison Ikkoku: Learning Curves (volume 9) by Rumiko Takahashi.
     
142. Ragnarök volume 2 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
143. Lone Wolf and Cub: The Bell Warden (volume 4) by Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojime.
     
144. Ragnarök volume 3 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
145. Hellsing volume 1 by Kohta Hirano. I think I avoided reading this because it's super-popular and I was afraid that might mean it was mindless, violent action (those sorts of books seem to do very well). I've avoided Trigun for the same reason. Well, it does have lots of violence, but I really enjoyed this book. Cool characters, neatly plotted story, stylish art. That's why it's popular, I guess. Silly me. Now I'll have to sample Trigun, too. Volume one's already on the pile.
     
146. Usagi Yojimbo volume 1 by Stan Sakai. Samurai bunny! Actually, this is more-or-less a serious samurai story where the characters happen to be anthropomorphic animals (except one bad guy, oddly enough). Somehow, the furry characters work. Perhaps they inject just enough humour to keep the seriousness from getting too heavy. I don't know, but I really liked this book (it's one I've been meaning to read for eons). As I write this somewhat belatedly, I've already signed out volume 2 from the library (and read it) and have requested--I think--volume 5 (they don't have very many of the volumes, alas).
     
147. Ragnarök volume 4 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
148. Maison Ikkoku: Student Affairs volume 11 by Rumiko Takahashi. I hate having to skip volumes in a series. Stupid library. Fortunately with this series, missing a volume doesn't affect the overall story too much. It's still annoying, though.
     
149. Usagi Yojimbo volume 2 by Stan Sakai.
     
150. Kazan volume 1 by Gaku Miyao. I really wasn't expecting much from this book. I mean, a paid a whole dollar for it (plus shipping) from Dollar Manga, and some of the reproduction of the art is quite lousy (like there're jaggedy pages, where they did a poor job of scanning/resizing the art). The art itself is fairly average, with the odd quite good page. To my surprise, though, after a slightly confusing start, the story became quite engaging and many-layered. From this volume, anyway, it looks like the action serves the story, and not the other way around, which is good. And there's an intriguing mystery. It seems I'll have to go back to Dollar Manga to see if they have any more volumes.
     
151. Ragnarök volume 5 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     
152. Ragnarök volume 6 by Myung-Jin Lee.
     

And that pretty much brings me up to date on my latest reading. Funny how I wasn't sure I'd make it to 50 volumes of graphic novels/comics this year. Where I might fall behind now is fiction. Guess I'd better go read those novels I got from the libary. They'll want them back soon.

Blargh

I really, really hate being sick. This cold hit me really hard the first day (which was Thursday, I think), though I'm starting to feel a little better now. I actually woke up in the middle of the night breathing through my nose! I think the thing I hate most about having a cold is being forced to breathe through my mouth. It's unnatural. Anyway, my lip skin is all flaking off now (ick), but today is the first day I didn't crawl bacn into bed after taking the dogs out. I'll probably have a nap at some point, though.

It's Up!

Fey: Fleeing Arcadia, page 7