Tues Sep 7 -- Clunk, clatter I'm a little distracted at the moment since my landlord and his two handymen are bumpin' around in my kitchen trying to re-install my skylight. One of 'em already slipped off the ladder and tore my Antz poster off the wall; now the other's stepping all over the old Germ comics I have up on top of my cupboard. Oh, hang on, it's done. Thank Christ. Oh yeah, the most recent strip is Ore Sledge. The Return of the Leaden Angels This week's exciting episode of The Leaden Angels is The Attack of the Grand Pianos, in which Oliver Corpse starts to lose it,  Adrian and Lucian confront some instruments which may or may not be attacking grand pianos, and Mrs. Chelmnickon comes to an important moment in her life. Links? I keep getting these pushy semi-automated link requests; let's burn through a couple. There's funnyjoke.net, which apparently has has "a huge collection of fresh funny jokes, joke of the day, practical jokes and other such funny stuff." Frankly, I'm skeptical. And then there's... uh... actually, there aren't any more, I've just gotten multiple e-mails from these same people. Why am I rewarding them with links? Fri Sep 3 -- It's my Birthday! Well, not yet, but it will be in a couple of weeks plus change. I'll be 34! Anyway, swinging away from the political commentary this week we bring you some kinetic komix, a little fun slammin' stuff around in a little strip the world will know as Republican Breakdown I'd spent a few weeks anticipating the Republican convention, hoping for some riots or freakish confusion, but the whole thing ended up as rather a fizzle. Apparently they're not even bothering to come up with a "compassionate conservative"-like slogan this time around. Nope, 9-11 is their only theme and they're sticking to it, kinda odd considering it's such a huge failure and all. But this is the topsy-turvy world of the 21st century I guess, where failure becomes success and success failure. Over on Commmondreams.org there's a pretty good article by Tom Engelhardt, a survey of a bunch of Republican opinions. It's worth taking a look at. I read it from the perspective of somebody who thinks it's all nuts, y'know, refuting and contradicting each point in my mind as they make it, but it's interesting to follow along in Englehardt's gentle questioning, hearing these people speak for themselves. Misled and scared as they are, they're still human. Now that the convention is all wrapped up, with nothing except the final Daily Show Republican convention episode to mark its passing, here's hoping that Kerry decides on what part of Bush's war strategy he doesn't like and starts hammering it. He's given up any possibility of opposing the war outright and he hasn't said anything about how "pre-emptive warfare" is a recipe for global anarchy, but at least we're supposed to believe he doesn't like *how* Bush fought this war, so can we see a wee bit of hardcore hitting on that score? It was kind of depressing to read those stories about how Bush said we couldn't win the War on Terror, and then after Democratic catcalls changed his mind. I mean, I want to see Democrats take shots at Bush, and this would be a good one except that for once Bush was actually right. We can't win the War on Terror; not in the conventional sense, anyway, so we need to look for new ways of looking at the problem. Perhaps --who knows-- in the context of peace? Cool Weapons So I was doing a bit of reading on the Tactical High Energy Laser and its cooler cousin the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser. Say what you like about the evils of warfare and weaponry, these are some cool toys. And effective? The THEL has shot down some 25 Katyusha rockets and mortars in multiple salvos and it only costs a few thousand dollars per shot (as opposed to a Patriot missile, say, which costs a couple of million). The Bush Administration is rushing to deploy an untested highly questionable anti-missile missile system while all along they're developing the real thing, a technology that really works and is actually cheaper than the alternative. That "cheaper" part is likely the biggest problem; why build a highly effective defense system that only enriches your friends to the tune of a few hundred million dollars when you could be putting up a non-working system for dozens of billions? That is, of course, putting aside the strategic folly of the whole National Missile Defense thing in the first place... Tues Aug 31 -- Whoops! Sorry folks. Not much of a Tuesday update this week I'm afraid; I just got an illustration gig and I've been working semi-feverishly on that. Plus my brother Paul was gone to Boston for a week so he doesn't have a new chapter of the Leaden Angels ready to go. Dammit! Also, I've mokeyed about with the font on the page, switching it to Arial. Do any of you folks out there have an opinon on this? Anyone? Or no, wait, I've switched it back to Times. Forget I said anything. Fri Aug 27  -- A bit late today Gosh, it's already, what... 12:30ish in the afternoon in New York city and other east coast locales? And I wish I had a better excuse than drinking, but I don't. Specifically, it was wine, tequilla shots, beer and spiked iced coffee, a semi-lethal combo from which I still reel. Anyway, a cartoon for the day, a "current event" strip of the type I usually don't do, so enjoy! Moviestuff Not a ton of movie reviews for you guys this week, really, just a long-overdue review of Hero, since it's all in theatres n' stuff, as well as a review of Vanity Fair, and heck, if y'care, there's an interview with Vanity Fair director Mira Nair. Wow! Ubercon - New Jersey, Oct 15-17 I thought I was all done for travelling this year, but it looks like I'm gonna be making one more trip East, this time to fabulous New Jersey October 15-17 for Ubercon, where the people, they like the video games. Apparently there's enough of an overlap between the video game crowd and the online cartoon crowd to make it worthwhile, so I hope to see some of you folks there. Maybe we'll play some Halo. Wouldn't that be fun? And I suppose... ...I could always throw a subtle buy-some-of-my-books pitch in here, gently prod those readers who need gentle encouragement. Buy some posters while you're at it. Tues Aug 24 -- Y'know, Tuesday stuff Most recent strip is Hurricane Ring. Leaden Angels, yo Yep, here comes another pipin' hot chapter of The Leaden Angels, this one The Holder of the Averroes Seal, in which Constantine, Vanessa, Charles, Elizabeth, Giles, Aquilla, Lucian and Adrian sit down and try to figure out exactly what's going on, starting with this Flannery O'Connor Brigade and moving on to examine other issues such as the death of Veruca Manzoni, the conspiracy to kill someone who's already dead, and the sudden appearance of angels in the Ottawa area. Kerry on Top? I'm a little worried about Kerry. I was glad to see the Democrats get on message for their convention but I was disheartened to hear that the message was gonna be "Kerry is a War President." I mean, I see how that can play, Bush is certainly vulnerable on the How of his wars -- but by attacking the How Kerry seems to be leaving the Why and the Whether out to dry. It's almost as though he simply asumes he's got the anti-war vote in the bag and now he's winking at us and saying, "Okay, now this next stuff I say about how I support the war, that's just to get some of those undecideds on board. I'm still with you." At least, I hope that's what he's doing; the only other option is that he's serious, that he does actually feel some foolish need to plow ahead with this mistake now it's underway. He's way behind America on this, of course; well over half Americans polled now realize that Iraq was a big mistake. Unfortunately, Kerry lost his best chance to articulate an anti-war position months ago when he failed to say something like "When I voted to authorize war I made a mistake, the same mistake millions of other Americans did, which is that I trusted this President. I trusted him to use war as a last resort; now we know he wanted war all along. I trusted him to be honest about the threat posed by Iraq; now we know his case was built on distortion and deception. And I trusted him to wage war wisely, with support of our allies and the United Nations, properly prepared and organized for the long job of reconstruction; now we see he couldn't even do that." With Kerry's current position all he can use now is that last bit. What we really need is someone to stand up and say not just that this War on Iraq was wrong, but that this whole policy of "pre-emptive warfare" is an insane recipe for global anarchy. And while we're at it, it'd be handy if someone denounced the War on Terror as the sham it is. What has to happen for this war to be over? When can we declare victory? We can't, and if we're fighting a war we can't win, we're fighting the wrong war. Oboy! Futurama DVD Season 4 is out! Or at least, that's what the ads tell me. Gotta buy it instantly! Fri Aug 19 -- Nakedness Not exactly naked... I do have my bathrobe on... but still... So, this week we gots two movie reviews and a cartoon for y'all. Here's the strip: Reviews n' th' like... Last week's movie-reviewing was all about the leaden and depressing AVP: Aliens vs. Predator. This week I've got two movies that are actually good: Garden State, a pretty damn charming and cool film that gets away with a lot of stuff that it shouldn't (abetted most ably by Natalie Portman showing us how sad and empty the character of Amidala from the Star Wars prequels really is), and Open Water, a shark-filled and unrelenting movie about a relationship under a lot of pressure. I have an interview with the director as well, if yer curious. Psst! Buy some books, buddy! Totally! Tues Aug 17 -- Whim! Another quick update without a lot of bells-n-whistles. Most recent strip is Cheney's Losing His Shit!!!. Leaden Angels In the wake of the Chinese Spice Box's deadly work Dramsheet and Inspector Tyrone examine Beethoven's 12th Symphony and some of the other curiosities of the Library of Heaven. It's all part of the crazy Leaden Angels thing. Quick link Nothing too big in the links department, except for one I got sent about some real live Japanese fighting robots. There's even video! Oh, and a fan let me know I got some kinda roundabout plug from Joss Whedon in the latest Wizard Magazine via Astonishing X-Men artist John Cassaday, like so: "When Joss and I started kicking around who we wanted to see on our X-team, he sent me the following list. Thought you might enjoy: Emma, Scott, Logan, Kitty, Hank, Rogue (probably, but not in costume for a while), Batman, Bob the Angry Flower, The Gay Teletubbie, John Cassaday (oh, I mean The Drummer...), a toenail, all of England, Gambit." [ital mine]. Neat-o! I'm kind of on a renewed Joss Whedon kick, not so much because of my San Diego near miss as because I was able to score a copy of the Firefly DVD for $22 (Canadian!) and I'm digging it. Kinda helps when you can watch 'em in the proper order. More updates, further back in the past? Click here!