I'm getting a little lost in other people's creative output here, like:

1. Inuyasha. The manga publishing schedule got speeded up from about 4 a year to one a month in July. Currently, it's still just a little farther through the story than the new anime, Inuyasha the final act, but one episode a week will pull far ahead of one manga book a month very soon. So far, it continues to be a good story, better than the plot summaries made it appear.

2. Full Metal Alchemist. These manga books keep coming too. I haven't been paying much attention to the new anime yet. With my online connection, I need DVDs or broadcasts to follow that.

3. Zot. Scott McCloud's superhero appeared in a black and white anthology, which covers issues 11-36. For some reason, only issues 1-4 of the color series were ever collected. I managed to find five of the other six issues used from Amazon. McCloud evidently doesn't think as highly of the first 10 issues, but I like them just fine.

4. Zenozoic Tales. A "tribe" of urban criminals in the drowned ruins of New York City, a hinterland full of dinosaurs, a Cadillac mechanic with an eco-terrorist's protective instincts, and an ambassador from the Washington DC area (Wassoon) who
seems to have gotten converted to the mechanic's beliefs, as well as developing a crush on him. Sad to say, only 14 of these were ever drawn, and for some reason, only the first 12 have ever appeared in book form, even though the second anthologizing was done years after the appearance of 13 and 14. I hate when people can't or won't finish stuff. I have no idea where this was gonna go.

5. Turok Son of Stone. Speaking of dinosaur comics, OMG! Dark Horse has suddenly taken to reprinting the original Dell Comics volumes. I still have issues 11, 13, and 16 through about 30. Within my experience, this started great and sorta fizzled. I ordered the first three volumes, including issues 1-18. I'm very curious about this. Talk about price inflation. At 10 cents an issue, these would have cost me $1.80 if I'd been to the Memphis Sweet Shoppe in Cleveland when these were newly released. Now they cost about $34 for each six-issue volume. True, the paper and binding will be much better, but let this be a lesson to you. Never throw out your comic books!

6. The Friendly Ghost Casper. Uh, yeah. Dark Horse also did a 480 page book of Casper stories from 1950-1965. Issue 1 of the second series, with the shippiest Casper/Wendy story ever, is among the issues included. Why did I ever think this wasn't important enough to hang onto? I still remember the cover, with Casper dreaming of Wendy dreaming of Casper dreaming of Wendy ad infinitum, and the magic spell, "Hasper! Sasper! Change into the image of Casper!" used by the witch sisters to disguise another ghost for their nefarious purposes.

Between all these discoveries and drawing those Halloween pictures, I've gotten a bit out of rhythm with Molly Blue. In the name of my frustration over Xenozoic Tales, not to mention The Great Tale of Earendel, which Tolkien never got around to writing, I will finish Molly Blue, however long it takes. But my subconscious is still working on the best way to disarm those piratesses so we can have a real fight!

I'm a bit disorientated. I need Steve to splash the water so I can wiggle my armored tail and scoot back into in, but alas, there's no more Steve either. I almost wrote the correct form, "disoriented," it's been so long.