Day 663

Aka Saturday 24^th November 2018

Went for an exercise walk and walked 10.09km (6.3miles) in 1h51minutes, which took 12,589 steps and burnt 1,100 calories, it seems I've settled into a routine of exercise walks at the weekend, with ‘shopping’ walks during the week…

…read some comics:

‘Shanghai Red’ has been a great story about righting wrongs, revenge and what effect it can have on the person seeking revenge. Issues #4 and #5 conclude the series in grand scale, with some epic fights and heartache. Joshua Hixson, artist and colours, Christopher Sebela, script, Hassan Otssmane-Elhaou, letters, and Roman Stevens, colour flatting, have made a great series and the only bad thing or negative I can think of is that the series has concluded! 10/10.

I’m a big John Allison fan, he can perfectly balance laughs and emotions, hijinks and the kitchen sink and ‘By Night’ #5 and ‘Giant Days’ #44 show off his skills as a writer. Which are equally matched by the art teams on each book. In ‘By Night’ #5 (illustrated by Christine Larsen, coloured by Sarah Stern and lettered by Jim Campbell), as well as the fore mentioned laughs and emotions, we find out why Jane and Heather fell out, the consequences of entertaining humans in Otherworld and one of our cast betrays the rest. While in ‘Giant Days’ #44 (with art by Max Sarin, colours by Whitney Cogar and lettered by Jim Campbell) the Esther and Susan are celebrating/surviving Valentine’s Day (or Valembrines, as the more romantically challenged cast call it) and Daisy is dealing with a troublesome student. Both books are a joy to read and to say more would spoil your enjoyment of them. 9/10. 

In ‘The Wild Storm’ #18 we see IO and Skywatch start manoeuvres to take each other on, Lynch sets a human missile onto IO, the Authority starts to form, Michael Cray enters the picture and as this issue ends, we know that we are approached an end, the final chapters of this 24-issue novel. We know the players and what they can do and now we’re going to see them come together. Warren Ellis, writer, Jon Davis-Hunt, artist, Steve Buccellato, colourist, and Simon Bowland, letterer, have made a fabulous comic and slow-burn series. 8/10.

‘Rick and Morty’ #43 sees Rick and Morty face off against Dick and Farty, a Rick and Morty from a different dimension (written by Kyle Starks, illustrated by Sabrina Mati in collaboration with Juan Meza-Leon, coloured by Sarah Stern and lettered by Crank!) and discuss Bathorvian Penis Prisons (which are terrible places to be trapped) and continue their adventures in the Public Domain (written by Tini Howard, illustrated by Jarrett Williams, coloured by Sarah Stern and lettered by Crank!) and both teams do a great job in capturing the feel of the TV show. 7/10.

…and I did the G2 Crossword:

…which takes us back to the sunny uplands of only having to cheat on one twenty-fourth of the clues (one out of 24), and that’s only because I went for ‘garland’ instead of ‘coronet’, but I did learn that a ‘coronet’ is a ‘circular floral head decoration’ or ‘garland’.

Day 662

Aka Friday 23^rd November 2018

Today I read some comics:

‘Nancy Drew’ #5 is a nice conclusion to the mystery of Deadman’s Cliff, as we get the last of the puzzle pieces and Nancy & friends dodge peril and catch the bad guy. A great, fun comic by Kelly Thompson, Jenn St-Onge, Triona Farrell and Ariana Maher, which ends on a cliff-hanger nicely setting up the next story arc. 8/10.

‘Cemetery Beach’ is by the team behind ‘Trees’, Warren Ellis and Jason Howard (and Fonografiks on letters), so you kinda know what to expect, excellent comics. In ‘Cemetery Beach’ #2 and #3 the adventure continues, with some great page layouts. We learn a little more about the history of the secret off-world colony, amidst loads of action and explosions and bullets flying all over the place. 9/10.

In ‘Kaijumax Season Four’ #3 Zander Cannon (with Jason Fischer on color assists) slowly ratchets up the tensions, as we see friendships tested, people making choices that will come back to haunt them or their past decisions continuing to haunt them. A really enjoyable issue that maintains the high standards of previous issues. 9/10. 

…my copies of James O’Brien’s ‘How To Be Right…In A World Gone Wrong’ and ‘Cunk On Everything’ by Philomena Cunk (who is portrayed Diane Morgan, although the book is credited to Charlie Brooker, Jason Hazeley, Joel Morris and Ben Caudell) arrived, my first Amazon purchases since 22^nd August 2018, but they were only £4 each and you can’t say no to bargains like that…I’ll just have to buy extra books from a local bookshop to make up for it…

…I also got a job rejection, so I made chicken and stuffing and cranberry baps as comfort food to help soften the blow… 

…and I did the G2 Crossword:

…which starts the journey out of these gloomy downlands and back into the sunny uplands as I only had to cheat on a fifth of the clues (five out of 24). If I’d taken a little bit more time, I probably would have gotten most of those five, but I did re-learn that ‘Urdu’ is the ‘official language of Pakistan’.

Day 661

Aka Thursday 22^nd November 2018

Today I got the ebook version of ‘Smut Peddler Presents Sex Machine’, “The FOURTH Smut Peddler anthology of erotic comics brings you world's sexiest collection of dirty robot stories!”. I mostly supported this Kickstarter because it includes a story by Faith Erin Hicks, a great creator who has written and drawn some great comics and whose work is always worth checking out. So far, I’ve read Ms Hicks story, ‘Starship’ and ’Vanilla Game’ by Fiona Staples (who is probably best known for ‘Saga’), which leaves me with plenty more stories to explore and enjoy. 

‘Starship’ is set on the HMCS Venture, and is about the relationship between Daisy, a human crewmember, and Keir, the first android crewmember of the HMCS Venture. Daisy is attracted to Keir and we see their friendship develop from Daisy first seeing Keir in the mess hall to their first chance meeting to them making love. It also touches on why we explore, why people would sign up to travel deep space. 

‘Starship’ is superbly written and illustrated by Ms Hicks (with colours by Amanda Lafrenais) and it’s worth getting this anthology just for this story. It’s also more graphic than I expected, I know, I know, I’m reading an erotic anthology and should expect graphic content, but Ms Hicks previous stories that I’ve read have been at the PG/Young Adult level, but this story is definitely at the 18 rated level and kinda caught me off-guard, but in a good way 😊!

‘Vanilla Game’ is about an interactive/VR D&D style computer game and a mod that lets the player and the computer characters get more intimate and get it on. This is a really enjoyable, fun, sexy story, well written and illustrated by Ms Staples (with letters by Ben Rankel) and makes me what to read more of Ms Staples work.

Just based on these two stories ‘Smut Peddler Presents Sex Machine’ was well worth getting.

…and I did the G2 Crossword:

…and we’re back in the gloomy downlands of needing to cheat on three ninths of the clues (nine out of 26) with Thursday’s crossword! I just had no crossword nous today and the answers I did get, came hard (except for a couple like ‘oink’ for ‘sty noise’). But I did learn that a ‘dorp’ is a ‘small South African rural town’, that ‘Latvia’ is a ‘Baltic country’ and that a ‘fairy ring’ is ‘evidence of underground fungal growth’.