JSA: All Stars #2: A focus story on Hawkgirl. Not bad. A bit unexpected, different than most superhero stories. The back-up story could have been a lot better.

Justice League Adventures #20: Again, not bad. Not wonderful, but interesting. The story didn't gel quite right, it seemed a bit off, like it could have used another edit.

Way of the Rat #14: No monkey, no Boon, just good action. This one was a testament to the artist, because there was almost no dialogue. I liked it quite a bit.

Still to review: Books from June 11th. All eleven of them.

I mentioned some time ago a friend's daughter who had suffered her first ever bee sting. When I heard about it, I pulled out my copy of Clan Apis and loaned it to her. Well, I heard back from my friend recently, and her daughter had read it and loved it. And then her son read it and loved it. Then the cousin. Then some friends from school. And other people. And when I said it was available on Amazon.com, I believe some copies were bought. And I'm still waiting for my copy to return safely...

People like comics. Fantastic comics like Clan Apis can open doors and minds to what the form of comics can be. Now I'm just wondering what to loan them next. I was thinking maybe Akiko. If you've got a thought, pop me an e-mail.

I'm way behind thanks to the dogs, so I'll do a struggle to catch up to my reviewing over the next few days. Here's some books from pug week:

Usagi Yojimbo #66: Start of a new story-arc in which Usagi battles legendary monsters. VERY cool. I love when the villain is announced. I imagine it would be something like: "We hunt... a pencil!" You will definitely be drawn into this tale.

Batman: Nevermore #3: Last issue's cliffhanger was pretty intense, as was the resolution in this issue... but the cliffhanger in this issue has it beat for pure Batman-ishness. I'm liking this series.

Still to go, JSA All Stars, Justice League Adventures, Way of the Rat, and all of this week's comic books.

And an extra:

JLA: The Obsidian Age Book One TPB: My opinion on the whole storyline as originally published is available here, so there's no reason to recap that. How it's been packaged is a different question. This reprints issues 66-71, with an added "who's who in the Justice League" at the beginning, and an article about how this story came about at the end, along with character sketches of the Justice League of Ancients. The extras are what makes the collection worth it, and this one is just barely worth it.

The way my luck has been going recently, this should end up a good day.

Nothing is happening in my life at the moment, so I'm not going to blog about anything right now. Maybe later today, maybe tomorrow.

If you have a few minutes to spare, I recommend checking out this year's winners in the Seattle Times Three Minute Movie contest. Some of them are quite good.

I like the sasquatch one, and the sketch. The only one I didn't like was the music video (about a car).

Haloscan is apparently back up, but I'm fed up enough with it that I'm not linking to it anymore.

Looks like Haloscan is outta here. Too bad I didn't get all the comments off it before it went away.

I'm not feeling any better.

I'm going to skip over the nasty events of Saturday afternoon, though, and jump into the more pleasant events of that evening. I had been guilted into going to one of the local PBS stations as a phone volunteer, so I hitched a ride with my sister and ended up in Tacoma.

It was odd, there were a number of folks dressed very nicely, black tie formal nicely, hanging out at the station. We weren't entirely sure what to do, but we said we were phone volunteers and walked past them. When we got into the studio someone explained that there was a formal fundraising dinner going on. Ah... ok. We were told to be polite... no problem... there were members of the board of trustees around.

The studio was HOT, which it normally isn't. Usually, that particular studio is freezing cold. So we were a bit surprised. We later learned that someone had found a thermostat and cranked it up to 80 for some reason. Probably because they were cold. Added to the heat outside, it was just uncomfortable.

While sitting in the break room, I heard a rumor that someone had told the Klingon group that usually comes to answer phones that they weren't welcome on this particular night because of the board of trustees and the formal dinner. Whether or not it was true, no one bothered to tell the Klingons, who showed up in full uniforms and make-up to come in and answer phones on the air. As they walked up, the board of trustees spotted them, eyes widened, and everyone got out cameras and asked to have photos taken with the klingons. Ha! So much for freaking out the board of trustees.

An aside about this group of Klingons. They are a charity group. They want people to know that Star Trek fans, while geeky, are a force for good. This particular groups does all kinds of charity events, including answering phones for PBS, visiting hospitals, and all kinds of neat stuff. They got their interview in during the pledge breaks, and they basically took over the phones so some of us that weren't feeling very well didn't have to talk with people. I'm very grateful that they showed.

The folks at the formal dinner were all amused by us phone volunteers, and we took advantage when they showed curiousity to bring them into the studio and show them the works. They seemed very interested in the Klingons, of course, but two kids who came got a brief tour of the studio from me, then they got to sit in the control room during the next break and see how a live TV studio works.

All-in-all it turned out to be a pleasant evening.

I had a run-in with an incredibly bad driver yesterday, and made some very poor choices. As it stands, I'm in an incredibly poor mood and have no desire to blog. So I'm not going to. Maybe I'll feel better later.