Here's a strong and compelling essay on why we can't bring our troops home from Iraq. The conclusion? "Simply put, the Americans can’t stay, but neither can they leave" Thanks to my blogmomma Elayne Riggs for the link.

And here's yet another article on why perpetual copyrights are bad.

Speaking of copyrights, Lawrence Lessig, that warrior for the public domain, is going on a week's vacation, and leaving his blog in the hands of a guest blogger: Howard Dean. This is Dean's chance to impress me. I haven't been terribly impressed with his supporters' overwhelming enthusiasm (it's the "too popular" effect, when people are raving so much about something that you just want them to shut up and you don't want anything to do with what they are raving about), but maybe the man himself can negate that effect. Let's see, a week's worth of blogging from a very busy man... I expect at least three decent length (three paragraphs or more) entries during the week... I expect him to say stuff that isn't regurgitated campaign speeches... considering where he's blogging, I expect at least a mention of his stance on public domain... I hope for something personal about the man himself, maybe an anecdote about what it's like to run for president. If he disappoints me and just regurgitates speeches, I'll be less likely to consider him when it comes to the decision of the lesser of evils on voting day.

How do you get off a Harvard mailing list? Fake your own death. But, unfortunately, Erik Humphrey Gordon found that not even that worked out as planned. This one is really funny, folks (well, at least I thought it was funny). Via The Volokh Conspiracy.

And, my last thought of the night... Moby Dick has been spotted in Austrailia. Link via Daily Dish.

As I was working today in the shop, a co-worker came up to me and asked if I was likely to drive on I-5 anytime soon. I said no, and he explained that their had been some kind of explosion on I-5 near a construction site, and traffic was backed up for miles in both directions. Yow.

A short time later, the boss' husband came in and told the whole tale that we knew at that point. A tanker truck, presumably carrying fuel, had exploded in Lynnwood, which is a bit North of Seattle. The explosion was so fierce, the heat so bad, that trees on the other side of the road had caught fire. Hearing this, I found myself saying a little prayer for all the people who had been nearby, as I was fairly certain that there had to have been deaths in an explosion of that nature. A customer, overhearing the conversation, exclaimed, "So that was what that huge cloud of smoke was!"

Knowing this, I was really surprised when I saw the news later that no one was seriously injured in the explosion. The driver of the tanker escaped with a scratch, the other cars on the freeway managed to stop in time or evade the problem. The freeway is still closed Northbound as of this writing, and that's a pretty serious problem in already gridlocked Seattle, but seeing an explosion of that size with no serious injuries... it's quite amazing.

Comments (2)

I saw this on a news site somewhere. How in the world did the driver survive? Did he have enough warning to run away from the truck? Or was he protected somehow in the cab? I have to admit, I can't wait until this shows up on "Real TV."

Posted Sun 13 Jul 09:20 PM by Tom T.

Only Problem - No Video

If there had been any good video of the driver's escape, we would have seen it. From the reports of other drivers, it sounds like the tanker hit a railing and there was a small explosion first. That would be when the driver of the tanker apparently ran for his life. Then it *really* exploded. Simply amazing.

Posted Mon 14 Jul 07:41 AM by Laura

Way of the Rat #15: Ghosts! Ghosts! And Po Po is no Scooby-Doo. There's not a lot to say about this one that isn't spoilerish in one way or another... it's just fun. Yeah, I know ghosts probably wouldn't be considered fun most of the time, but this is just... just... fun. I also like the "banner" theme covers to this title.

JSA #50: Too... many... characters... I need a scorecard. This whole book was one massively confusing fight, only page 32 was exciting and interesting to me, and the storyline wasn't even wrapped up in this issue! I would wonder why I'm getting this book, except it's not one of mine... it's hubby's.

Power Company #18: And Power Company goes out with a bang. This is a good book, and it's a crying shame it went away so quickly. To my surprise, Busiek tied up all the loose ends (all that I could see) nicely, and even added some great bits (go Silver!). In short, this was an excellent finish to a great series.

Wow, finished reviews this week in record time. On next week's list: Amelia Rules, Girl Genius, Batman Adventures, Smallville, Arrowsmith, Amazing Spider-Man, Truth, Silken Ghost, and Aquaman. I wonder how many will come?

Slashdot reports that the bill to ban the sale of violent video games in the state of Washington has been blocked. This is a victory for people who believe that parents should be parenting and not the government.

Comments (2)

I'm glad to hear that, I despise how the news media attempts to link movies, tv, video games to any underage act of violence. I'm just glad comic books are tossed in the mix anymore, but that's only because *sob* no one cares enough about comics. And Marvel comics backed off of using Princess Di in X-statix.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 05:39 AM by paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

My biggest problem with the legislation was that it would target the clerks who sell the games. More minimum wage workers shouldn't be exposed to lawsuits and jail for selling the product that their company legally brought in. I'm for parents actually learning how to be parents instead of imposing their beliefs on other people through law.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 08:14 AM by Laura

Green Arrow #28: Hmmmm. Interesting relationship as indicated on the cover. I have to wonder if Ollie isn't getting in over his head. Then again, Ollie generally does get in over his head in almost every situation and yet still manages to get out somehow. Gruesome cliffhanger, but this title has never shied away from blood and guts.

Superman/Batman Generations III #7: Something about parademons and Superman and stuff... Maybe this will read better once the whole series is out and I can read it all at once. Maybe it would've been better as a four-issue mini like the other two, since the same ground seems to be covered in every single issue. I'm beginning to wonder why I bothered getting it... oh yeah, it's because I'm a completist and I collect Elseworlds.

Fallen Angel #1: Um. Er. Well. I can't really describe this book. I'm not sure what I was expecting, and I'm not sure what I got. There are some true oddities (spoilers, highlight to read): The bartender's name is Dolf, he speaks with a German accent and has been a painter, a writer, and has dabbled in politics. He runs a bar called 'Furors', and kills without hesitation. Hmmm. (end spoilers). Is PAD playing with fire here? Then there's the main character, Lee. The only connection I can think of to the Supergirl series is the name of Supergirl's town: Leesburg. Then there is the name of the town in this series, Bete Noire, "Black Beast". Not something most people would want to call a town. This one gets a positive rating mostly because it's interesting enough to make me want to come back to it, not because it was a fantastically good book.

Still to review: Way of the Rat, JSA, and Power Company.

I can't afford it, but I'd like to support a fellow blogger whose blog I generally enjoy. Tom Tomorrow of This Modern World has a new collection of his cartoons out: The Great Big Book of Tomorrow: A Treasury of Cartoons. Of course, while you are at it, you can purchase blogger Wil Wheaton's new book Dancing Barefoot. I also wouldn't object to anyone buying something from my wishlist for me, as that may be the only way I get to read some of those books. Sigh.

Comments (2)

I really love Peter David's work. But I've only read a vfew issues of Supergirl, it really, really didn't interest me, but I couldn't explain why. And that Green Arrow done by Winick or Raab or whoever, not interesting. I loved Brad Metzler, I wish he'd come back. Kevin Smith was excellent too, but he's too busy to write a monthly again.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 05:53 AM by Paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

Methinks your tastes and mine don't align

I am, first and foremost, a superhero fan. I read a lot more than that, and there are superhero books I don't like, but there you have it. I like the current Green Arrow (though the art took awhile to get used to) and I loved PAD's Supergirl. But from what you said about HERO, and about these books, I think it's safe to say that my tastes and yours are a bit different. Not much we can do about that, except agree to disagree.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 08:18 AM by Laura

I've started on a new, very mild, project. I'm writing e-mail to all the artists who have contributed to my sketchbook to ask permission to post their sketch on my website and blog. I'm sure that I won't be able to reach all of them, and I fully expect at least a couple of folks to ask me not to post their sketch. The first person to respond so far has been Aaron Lopresti, who gave me permission to post his image. I'll post it as soon as I have made a good scan of it.

Just for the heck of it, here's the folks I plan on contacting about posting a sketch: Art Adams, Leah Adezio, Sergio Aragones, Michael Bair, Julie Baroch, Donna Barr, Greg Bettam, Al Bigley, Mark Brill, Frank Brunner, Rick Burchet, Jim Calafiore, Brett Cantrell, Nick Cardy, Sean Chen, Joyce Chin, Matt Clark, Oliver Coipel, Amanda Conner, Mark Crilly, Randy Emberlin, Rod Espinosa, Phil Foglio, Ramona Fradon, Dave Garcia, Rick Geary, Michael T Gilbert, David Goyer, Brandon Graham, Roberta Gregory, Peter Gross, Stefano Guadiano, Pia Guerra, David Hahn, Matt Haley, Rick Hoberg, William Hodge, Jamal Igle, Phil Jimenez, Lindsey Johnson, John Kalisz, Michael Wm Kaluta, Karl Kesel, Leonard Kirk, Andy Lanning, Nicola Leonard, Steve Lieber, Dev Madan, Jim Mahfood, Jeff Matsuda, John McCrea, Mike McKone, Linda Medley, Brian Meredith, Jeff Moy, Philip Moy, Todd Nauck, Mark Oakley, Jim Palmiotti, Jeff Parker, Shane Pettit, Duncan Rouleau, Stephen Sadowsky, Eric Shanower, Walter Simonson, James Dean Smith, Brian Snoddy, Kathleen Webb, Rich Werner, J H Williams, and Cheyenne Wright. whew!

Now, just to keep the record straight, the first person to give me explicit permission to post a sketch was Scott Alan, as seen in my Emerald City Comicon Report. If I get enough permissions, I'll set up an Aquaman sketchbook page.

If you know someone on the above list, or you are someone on the above list, please feel free to drop me an e-mail with either contact info or permission. I'm going to take this slow and easy, so it may take me quite awhile to get to any particular person. And much thanks to Victor for the sketchbook questions that reminded me I wanted to do this project (Enjoy San Diego, Victor).

Comments (1)

sure

Hi,

I saw my name on your list.

Yeah, go ahead post anything of mine you've got.

I appriciate it.

I should have a new web site in a week or two at:

www.brothersgraham.com

Posted Tue 5 Aug 11:27 PM by Brandon Graham (royalboiler@hotmail.com)

H-E-R-O Double Feature: This collects the first two issues of the new H-E-R-O series. After reading it and realizing that issues #3 and 4 are sold out in our shop, I wish DC would do another bumper to collect those as well. This is really good. Far better than I was expecting from something based on the ... *ahem* ... slighty hokey old "Dial 'H' For Hero" feature. If this is the kind of writing that Pfeifer intends to turn in when he takes over Aquaman... well, let's just say I think Aquaman is in good hands.

Batman: Nine Lives: Elseworlds. Missed this the first time out when it was in hardcover because we couldn't afford it. I'm glad to have my hands on it now, because it's an original sort of book that reads like a really good movie from the 50s. Even the layout is original for this kind of book. Highly recommended for any fan of film noir.

Still to review: Way a duh Wat, JSA, Fallen Angel, Generations III, Green Arrow, and the final issue of Power Company.

Comments (7)

Laura, Have you read HERO 3 and 4 yet?

After the announcement of Pfeifer as the new Aquaman writer, I went out and got issues 1 through 5 of Hero. (I had passed on it the first time because the art, which has since grown on me.) I thought the first arc was excellent. It was the first time a comic book brought tears to my eyes since "Who Is Donna Troy?" My only complaint was why did it take 4 issues to tell the story. Hopefully he can do right by Aquaman.

Rich

PS: I contributed a story to John Schwirian for the next Aquaman Chronicles. I look forward to hearing how you like it.

Posted Thu 10 Jul 12:42 PM by farsider

I can't GET 3 & 4!!!! I'm dying to read the rest of the arc. It's killing me. ARGH!

Posted Thu 10 Jul 12:53 PM by Laura

I can get extras. I'll send them to you first class tomorow. Gratis.

Posted Thu 10 Jul 02:09 PM by farsider

Wow... thanks

I owe you one. Or two.

Posted Thu 10 Jul 08:26 PM by Laura

H.E.R.O. is a great book. I wasn't aware that Pfiefer was taking over Aquaman. That bit of info just saved it from the chopping block...

Posted Fri 11 Jul 01:37 PM by Frank (frankie3898@hotmail.com - www.blurty.com/~fcarrera3)

Now, I bought HERO 1 and 2, and it barely held my interest. It was an interesting look and a person who gets powers, one of my favorite topics, but it was done a way I'd seen a thousand times before. Should I get issues 3 and 4?

Posted Sat 12 Jul 05:36 AM by paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

Hmmm, different strokes for different folks...

I liked it, and the story drew me in. While I'd seen that technique of flashback storytelling, I've never seen a story about someone who had superpowers wanting to kill himself in quite that way. Nor had I ever seen a story about a guy calling a suicide hotline to confess. I found it quite intriguing, and now I want to see how the story ends.

That's why I liked it, and that's why I want to read the rest. Until I read the last two issues of the arc, I couldn't tell you if the payoff is worth it... but I'm sure interested in seeing it.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 08:22 AM by Laura

So here's a bit on July 9th from Iranian Girl: "You know, a while ago I read somewhere that Iranians always do something when nobody expect & It's impossible to mark a day to make a revolution, revolution will be made itself suddenly. Now I feel that it's somehow right, perhaps most of people made a mistake!" Yes, perhaps too much importance was placed on July 9th by those of us watching, but the whole thing has never been about July 9th, it's been about Iranian Freedom, and that is still a going concern, despite what did or did not happen yesterday.

oooo-kay. Here's an insane statement: "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." This is a statement by Ari Fleischer taken from an article in the NY Times. Why does Mr. Fleischer believe that people who think Saddam didn't have the WMD (that Mr. Fleischer and Bush claimed he had) should be the people to prove that he did have them? Isn't that, like, just the opposite of what should be going on? The burden of proof is on Fleischer and Bush and the administration, not on the people who never believed it in the first place. I can only hope that Mr. Fleischer misspoke, or had too many cups of coffee, or something. Thanks to Arthur Silber for pointing out Mr. Fleischer's logic-defying statement.

Sick thought: Fleischer is asking people to prove a negative. This is the same thing that conservative Christians do when confronted by people who don't believe in God: "Well, prove that he doesn't exist!" It's a stance taken by people who are not secure in their beliefs, because the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved, it's a matter of faith. No Christian who truly believes in God would ever be so insecure as to ask someone to disprove God. So this implies, to me, one of two things. Either Fleischer is very insecure in his belief of WMD (likely) or he thinks the WMD are God... wait... my thinking got muddled somewhere in there... or that faith in the Administration's stance is more important than any actual proof (only likely if Bush is trying to set up a Theocracy). Either way, Fleischer's statement reflects very badly on the Bush Administration.

Comments (1)

The Administration's been asking people opposed to the war to prove a negative for over a year now... it's worth remembering that many of their claims about evidence... attempted purchases of uranium, yellow cake, aluminum tubes... had been established as patently false before the SOTU. But then their SOP is to ignore evidence and proceed on ideological grounds in all cases...

Posted Thu 10 Jul 10:24 AM by Pete ( - http://www.charm.net/~pete/pete.cgi)

The biggest reports coming out of Iran right now don't amount to much more than what I posted earlier, so check Hoder.com, BuzzMachine, and Asparagirl for more current and interesting information. And keep the students in Iran in your heart and mind tonight, even if the news media continues to ignore them.

On to our normal boring programming:

Age of Bronze #17: Yup, that's my letter in the letter column. If you buy and read comics and are not buying and reading this book, you are missing out. While this is definitely a mature readers comic, it is one of the best I've ever read, and I really do wish I could sneak back through time and hand my High School self a copy of this.

Radioactive Man #7: Got this mostly for the obvious Aquaman parody character, Captain Squid. Luckily for me, there's a story entirely devoted to him in this issue, and it's really quite funny. The best line in the book, though, is delivered by the Spectre-wannabe: "By the Bleary Eye of Aragones!"

Formerly Known As The Justice League #1: This is a fun set-up issue with fun characters and absolutely no cliff-hanger whatsoever. If you liked the Giffen League, you will like this. If you have an odd sense of humor, you will like this. If you can't stand humor and superheroes, stay away.

Justice League Adventures #21: An interesting sort-of origin story that makes me more interested in another line of DC characters that I've always avoided learning more about. This story brings another aspect of the regular DCU into the animated DCU and that's a good thing. It's a fairly tight story, not perfect, but still strong.

Now that I've finished reviewing the July 2nd books, I've got the July 9th books on my plate. Up for review are Batman Nine Lives (Elseworld), Fallen Angel, Green Arrow, JSA, Power Company (final issue), Way of the Rat, H-E-R-O (issues 1 & 2) and Generations III (also Elseworld). Diamond put up the shipping lists, so it looks like their "technical difficulties" were temporary. Odd, but temporary.

Comments (2)

Did you know there's an episode of Spongebob Squarepants with a Aqua league of heroes, most of whom look like Aquaman? I've never read Age of Bronze is it that fantastic? And I still have to pick up so many comics, but I do want Formerly known...

Posted Sat 12 Jul 05:28 AM by Paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

Mermaid Man!!!!

SpongeBob Squarepants has a character called Mermaid Man, who is a direct take-off of Aquaman and his sidekick Aqualad. Yeah, I've caught a few of those. I really like Mermaid Man... Ramona Fradon even did a Mermaid Man story in the recent SpongeBob comic book special magazine...

Age of Bronze IS that fantastic. Well worth a visit. Eric Shanower is doing nothing less than writing the definitive story of the Trojan War.

Posted Sat 12 Jul 08:35 AM by Laura

CNN reports three-way street battles in Iran. This is after three students were kidnapped by hardline Iranian Islamic vigilantes as they left a meeting in which the protests were actually cancelled. So it's the Iranian Islamic vigilantes against the Police against the Students. And all this after the protests were supposedly cancelled to protect the students from a repeat of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre.

Good News From Afghanistan. Or, at least, better news than we've been getting.

The New York Times reports that the 9/11 commission is being slowed by Saddam-like tactics when key personel are being interviewed: Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton suggested that the Justice Department was behind a directive barring intelligence officials from being interviewed by the panel without the presence of agency colleagues. At a news conference, Mr. Kean described the presence of "minders" at the interviews as a form of intimidation. "I think the commission feels unanimously that it's some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either work for or works for your agency," he said. "You might get less testimony than you would." Isn't that one reason we suspected Saddam of hiding more WMD? Because he wouldn't let scientists be interviewed without minders?

Crooked Timber is a new blog that I've seen recommended on various other blogs. So far I haven't seen anything that would make me inclined to blogroll it, but I'll link to it here so I can keep up with it for a week or so to give me time to decide.

Slashdot reports that the Mars Rover Opportunity has now lifted off. It also reports that Mars is getting a little crowded with all the robots we've sent...

The scumbag who threw a small bomb at a baseball game in Oakland was caught, and the injured boy is apparently going to be ok. I was pretty shocked when I saw the replay of the event on Sportscenter last night, and I'm glad they caught the bomber.

I just want to point out that I'm really glad I use Mozilla as my browser, as the settings allow me to stop pop-ups before they even start, so I pretty much never see any pop-up ads. I am reminded of this fact every time I see a link to a page with a "sorry about the pop-up ads" warning. The reason I never warn about pop-up ads is because I never see them. The only problem with Mozilla is that a handful of poorly designed websites don't recognize Mozilla's cookies... if I have to go to those sites I use my Internet Exploder, and then I do see pop-ups. Ug.

Comments (3)

browser wars

Mozilla is a hot browser fer sure. Have you tried Opera? It's a damn fine piece of net-navigating code.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 02:46 PM by Glenn Given (glenngiven@hotmail.com - http://blog.kempleton.com/squirrel)

I've yet to get Opera to work on my machine. But then, it's been awhile since I tried, I suppose I should give it another go one of these days.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 02:54 PM by Laura

I've never used Opera, but have used Mozilla on Windows, OS X, and Linux... great on all counts. I'm trying to figure out a way to convince the library I work at to use it on their public terminals instead of IE, which they're migrating towards. A shame.

Posted Thu 10 Jul 07:35 AM by Pete ( - http://www.charm.net/~pete/pete.cgi)

Please support democracy in Iran. On July 9th there will be something happening. The big press doesn't seem too interested in covering it, but it's there anyway.

If you click on the above button, it will take you to a flash media presentation, with a song. Warning: there are graphic images of clashes with police. And it's not in English, if you can translate it, let me know.

Update: BuzzMachine, Jeff Jarvis, has the lowdown on what's been happening, and it's not pretty.

I called the department of fish and wildlife to find out what I should do about the opossum in the crawlspace. Mainly I wanted to know how I could be sure it wasn't leaving any young behind. The nice woman on the other end of the line said that if a possum had young at this point in the year, they would be with her at all times, so it's safe to close up the hole as soon as we are sure the possum is outta there.

One way to determine if a possum has left the building is to sprinkle flour around the opening it uses. Then check for tracks. If there are no tracks at all for three days in a row, it's safe to close. If the only track you see are outward bound, then it's safe to close. If you see inward bound tracks, don't seal it up.

So I've sprinkled some flour, hoping it doesn't rain, and made sure the hole was big enough for the animal to get out. There was a bit of fur caught on the remains of the vent that was in the hole. I think it tried wiggling out and had trouble. I'm not sure if it's still there or gone now. Hopefully we'll find out soon enough.

As long as I'm posting, here are some useless links:

A conservative writer, Doug Bandow, calls for his fellows to uphold the law of the land and call Bush on his WMD claims. This guy seems to think that switching justification for a war after the fact is wrong, and might lead to the executive branch having too much power.

Grad Student Sean Gorman's dissertation is so good, just about everyone who has seen it wants to classify it and make sure nobody else sees it. The only problem with that attitude is that Gorman got all his information from publicly available sources, and what has been done once could easily be done again. Trying to classify his project isn't going to get rid of the underlying security problems that made it possible.

Spinsanity is once again dealing with rabid misquoting throughout the political spectrum. Of particular interest is the "God told me to strike at Al Qaeda" quote from George Bush, that apparently gained a lot in the translation, if it was even said at all.

Comments (4)

I'm amazed by how much trouble you're going to for the possum. It's going to be difficult to watch out for it, and make sure it's gone. More power to you. Fantastic links, by the way.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 05:26 PM by Paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

I've never been inclined to kill something if I can just let it go away, and trapping it would cost too much for us at the moment. If we can simply get it out of the crawlspace, then it's live and let live.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 08:21 PM by Laura

Conservative?

Hmmm. Been years since I last talked to Doug Bandow -- not sure how he'd take being described as a "conservative." :)

Posted Thu 10 Jul 03:34 AM by Franklin Harris (franklin@pulpculture.net - http://franklinharris.blogspot.com)

That's how he portrays himself in the article, and how he's described elsewhere. Though it would appear he's Libertarian?

Posted Thu 10 Jul 08:41 AM by Laura

Detective Comics #784: Got this one because of the Alan Scott appearance. Hubby-Eric is a big fan of the original Green Lantern. The cover was off-putting, but the interior art is great. As is the story. I love it when stories in Detective Comics are actually detective stories.

Batman: Nevermore #4: Things are getting a little hot, but this is classic Batman and classic horror and it just works. I've enjoyed this mini so far, and I'm looking forward to reading the last issue.

JSA All Stars #3: Ooooh, Doctor Fate. Oooh... incomprehensible gobbledy-goop story of fate. But the back-up story is fun.

Still to review: Age of Bronze, Radioactive Man, Formerly Known as the Justice League, and Justice League Adventures.

And does anyone have any idea why Diamond Comics hasn't updated their shipping list this week? "Technical difficulties" seems a bit of a lame excuse for not posting a text file.

Comments (2)

I liked the first few issues of JSA, but now... not so much. They're too good at what they do, you never get the feeling that they're every in danger in that book. Not to mention that cast is huge in there, too many characters.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 05:14 PM by paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

All Stars is ok, since it focuses on one character at a time, but it's really hubby's book and not mine. While I started out as the rabid comic book fan of the two of us, there are a lot of books I wouldn't get if Eric didn't want them.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 08:23 PM by Laura ( - )

Comic Book Resources has an article about Nowhere Girl earning an Eisner nomination (much deserved by the way). Nowhere Girl is a very strong, but painful, web comic. It's not for children. I'm glad it got the nomination.

Jay Hosler is getting more positive press over his fantastic books "Clan Apis" and "Sandwalk Adventures". These are for children, and anyone else who wants to learn in a fun way. Thanks to Neilalien for finding this link.

Hubby-Eric has been mentioned in Mark Evanier's blog. Does this mean he's made the big time? In any case, yes, that's my husband's Wizard of Oz website. And yes, I almost didn't marry him because he was a fan of The Wizard of Oz.

A few things I don't really need to mention: the now blogged-out What I Didn't Find In Africa essay (the last paragraph is the really important one), Ari Fleischer's incoherent blatherings on the same topic, the enhanced Hulk doll (just look at the expression on that little girl's face!), Lawrence Lessig (defender of the Public Domain) likes the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for its implicit public domain commentary, BuzzMachine's Jeff Jarvis is finding it hard to reconcile his hopes for Iranian freedom with some of the anti-semitism he sees in an Iranian weblogger's comments, some people see libertarian propanganda, or at least libertarian themes in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (spoilers for book 5 in these articles), and maybe the horse will sing?

Comments (4)

Interesting!

I mentioned the Harry Potter stuff to my wife (who's read it, I've not) and she said that she saw something similar... lots of, "don't follow orders, think for yourself" stuff. Probably the best thing for 10 year olds to be reading, frankly.

Nice blog! Thanks for the inbound link. Actually, you've got a really interesting blogroll... there really is something amazing about how the web gets people to synthesize all these little niche topics into cohesive wholes, you know?

Oh, and you're exactly right on the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen thing over at Lessig's. :)

Posted Tue 8 Jul 05:45 PM by Pete ( - http://www.charm.net/~pete/pete.cgi)

About That Blogroll Thing...

I've noticed that I'm constantly changing and adding blogs. I'm sure it'll get unmanageable one of these days. I do sometimes delink blogs if I don't read them often enough, but more often I just move the link down. And I'm always finding new blogs, though I only ever add about one in a hundred. There are so many neat blogs out there, I generally look for ones that *I* want to read every day.

Thanks for the support on the League thing at Lessig's blog. When I first read League of Extraordinary Gnetlemen, as it was coming out, I filled in the long gaps between issues by reading the original source material that Moore had used. I was very impressed by how well he captured the essence of the characters, and what I've seen of the movie irritates me to no end because of the way they've apparently altered the characters to fit the action/adventure format, thus completely destroying the whole point of the original. Not to mention the fact that it looks like Mina isn't going to be the leader of the group. Ah well.

Posted Tue 8 Jul 06:04 PM by Laura ( - )

I have to say

You have one of the most interesting blogs I've ever read, always topical, always interesting, always fun. I still haven't read the new Harry Potter, but I am a Libertarian Party member, so maybe I should speed it up.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 05:13 PM by Paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

Aw, I'm embarrassed. I'm not a very interesting person, so I have to make it up by pulling together lots of other interesting things and writing about them in my blog.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 08:24 PM by Laura ( - )

Superman: Birthright #1: The artwork doesn't really do it for me. The story is interesting enough, but I keep getting distracted by the odd art. It certainly doesn't destroy the book, but it's bad enough of a problem to make me ever-so-mildly disappointed.

Amazing Spider-Man #54/495: JMS avoided a seriously annoying cliche at the end of this story when (spoilers) the daughter of Forelli didn't suddenly believe all the bad stuff about her father and decide that the hero was ok after all (end spoilers). For that, he gets kudos. Have I mentioned how good the artwork is in this book? Solid enough to follow the story without dialogue, if you wanted to. Another great issue of this book.

Usagi Yojimbo #67: Wow, this one cranks up the action, and shows Jotaro's skills, as well as linking back to other stories in the series. This issue is the epitome of a good middle issue of an on-going story. Strong action, fun sequences, and even a double-cliffhanger!

Update: Still to review: Age of Bronze, Radioactive Man, Detective, Batman: Nevermore, Formerly Known As The Justice League, JSA: All Stars, and Justice League Adventures. And, just because I can, I'm going to mention WildGuard again, since I'm fond of Todd Nuack whom I met at San Diego Comicon 2000 (if you read my report, look for the picture of Mike Carlin pretending to be Aquaman, the meeting with Todd is described in that section).

Comments (2)

I was very interested in Superman: Birthright, I might still pick it up because I really do love Yu's artwork, and Mark Waid is always a winning writer.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 04:58 PM by paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

If you like that art style then it's worth checking out, at the least. The story was strong enough, but I just couldn't get past the artwork. It didn't click with me.

Posted Wed 9 Jul 08:26 PM by Laura ( - )

Hubby-Eric and I did some much-needed pruning around the house today (Sunday), clearing back the blackberry and ivy that had encroached on the house. To our surprise, and worry, one of the vents into the crawlspace was, once again, wide open. We had heard an animal trying to dig into it in the past, and now it was clear that an animal had gotten in. Hubby-Eric placed a whole bunch of paving stones over the opening to block it off so the animal couldn't return.

Only problem: It hadn't left.

Around 11:30 I heard the scratching and gnawing sounds of an animal apparently trying to get into the house. Because it sounded like wood, I got up and went into the living room to listen more closely. My worst fear was realized. It was under the house trying to get out. I had no idea what kind of animal it was, but I didn't want it tearing our floor apart trying to escape, so I grabbed a flashlight, threw on some clothes, and went to pull back the paving stones.

I did so with great care, and I jumped back as I pulled the last stone out of the way in case the animal decided to attack me. It didn't. I shone the flashlight into the hole and saw a paw. Or a claw. Or whatever you want to call it... but it very clearly belonged to some kind of mole. Shining the light around some more, I saw it belonged to a very large mole-type animal. And there wasn't a chance in heck it was going to come out while I was standing there. I walked a few feet away and turned off the flashlight, but it wasn't fooled. So I eventually came back into the house, rather wound up by now, and here I am, blogging about the d!%^#$@%$^@ed thing.

Update: I did a little web research, since I couldn't sleep, and discovered that my mystery animal is, in fact, not a mole. It's an opossum. I claim confusion cuz I've never seen a live one before. To make a long story even longer, I found the National Opossum Society and the Opossum Society of the United States websites, and both of them agree that an opossum is a pretty harmless animal, beneficial to the environment in general, and not much of a pest. I suppose there are worse things that could be living in our crawl space. In any case, both sites recommend finding out if the possum has left, then sealing up the opening behind it. Only problem is that you must first make sure the possum has no young, and I'm not seeing any good advice on how to determine that. I'll have to figure that problem out tomorrow.

Comments (2)

What?

I'm flummoxed that you've never seen an opossom, but it's not unheard of. They're like giant fat rats. They can be mean, usually if they're mothers protecting their babies. And people in the south eat them. Brr.

Posted Mon 7 Jul 12:12 PM by Paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)

Well, it *was* close to midnight, and I'd already been asleep...

It was late, I thought it would be a raccoon, since that's what I managed to convince myself had gotten into the hole in the first place. Seeing the foot, I just thought, "Not-raccoon, what other animal lives around here???" and the first thing I thought of was a mole. I knew it wasn't a mole once I thought about it a bit, but I could not, for the life of me, name what it was.

Posted Mon 7 Jul 02:02 PM by Laura "Tegan" Gjovaag ( - )

Here's a fun tale: Gold Thief Still Not Caught, but Loot Recovered.

More from Captain Custard (one of the best new links I've picked up for comic bookiness in a long time): Lord of The Ring (GL fans brace yourself before viewing), the Justice League of Homers, Monkey Fight Club featuring the Justice League by Frank Cho, and previews of JLA: Liberty and Justice are up at the Ross Report on Alex Ross' website. I like Alex Ross' Mera.

Comments (1)

Great links!

Thanks for the cool links!

Posted Mon 7 Jul 12:17 PM by paul (noxturne@hotmail.com - www.noxturne.blogspot.com)