You should be watching this:

Fan supported web series, currently looking for funding. The first season is really funny, hopefully they get enough to make a second.

Back at the start of the year someone came up with the silly idea that everybody should read 52 books this year (Xeno). I knew that I would not be up to the task, though I read all day everyday, I never get around to reading very many books in a year. The challenge pretty quickly dropped to 24, just two books a month. I am glad to say that I actually did meet this challenge. Here is the list of books I completed this year (with a 5 star rating denoted by *):

• Toast by Charles Stross ***
• Dune by Frank Herbert ****
• Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert **
• Glasshouse by Charles Stross ****
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie ***
• Pump Six by Paolo Bacigalupi ****
• The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi ****
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card — This was a 5 star until I read the final chapter, at which point it became a 3 star.
• His Majesty’s Dragon by Naomi Novik *****
• Throne of Jade by Naomi Novik ****
• Black Powder War by Naomi Novik *****
• Leviathan by Scott Westerfield ***
• Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman *****
• Old Man’s War by John Scalzi ****
• Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik ****
• Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins ***
• Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik *****
• Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik *****
• Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi ***
• Systemic Shock by Dean Ing *** - this is actually a nostalgic trip back to my early teen years. At the time I would have given it 7 out of 5 stars.
• Single Combat by Dean Ing ***
• The Last Colony by John Scalzi ***
• Storm Front by Jim Butcher ****
• Dark Time by Dakota Banks **
• The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx

It’s worth noting that most of the books got high ratings, not because I love everything I read, but because I tend to stop reading anything that isn’t entertaining me. The only two star ratings were books that came as personal recommendations, so I felt like I needed to finish them. I very nearly completed several other books and then just lost interest at some point. One that I vaguely regret having quit on was On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I really wanted to like this book, and the first third of it flew by and then it became a struggle, and then I just couldn’t muster sufficient giveashit to finish. Oh well.

Last night I went on a “buying” spree, snatching up a bunch of free books from Amazon to have stuff to read on my iPad. Most of it is classic literature and public domain stuff, one of which was The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx. Perhaps because I went to Art School, I was never made to read it (or perhaps because I went to Art School it was assumed I had already read it), but I had not.

I found it interesting how much of the discussion still seemed relevant: free trade, protective duties, and the rapid class warfare (not that this part is terribly surprising). This thing was written pre-Civil War. There was still actual slavery (not just the economic slavery it focusses on) in America. The primary mode of locomotion was still foot (or hooves). And yet we still have the same economic concerns. Whoosh. I did actually laugh at a couple points, for a largely academic and stiffly formal sounding document, it did at one point accuse another group of having ‘high faulting’ ideals and then went on to accuse another group of philosophers of whining. Nice.

After finishing it up I decided to try and follow it up with The Republic by Plato, sadly by the time I worked (read/paged) my way through the hundred pages of pretentious introduction, I had lost all interest in trying to read the actual document. Maybe another time.

Yep, there’s an app for that. On a scale of lame, the faux video calls from a cute girl isn’t anywhere near vending machine panties, but still this does make you weep for humanity. Or laugh as you mock them. Whatever.

EDIT: so this is a fail after all. Posterous does not allow you to control things like which category to post to, and the default posting category for Wordpress/Comicpress sites is to make a new comic. So if I mobile blogged, it would replace the current comic. Big no go.

Just like last year, Xeno and I are caught up in the crazy attempt to write complete novels in just one month. You can expect more strips to be affected by this, and I’m pretty sure all of the next four strips are jokes I wrote about the NaNoWriMo experience. It’s easy for me to be sure about these things since I am the one that actually draws the things.

My NaNo So Far:
I got off to a rocky start this year. I thought I wanted to do a high tech thriller about the loss of privacy and individuality. At six thousand words and five days into the month, it was reading more like a cautionary tale. I hate cautionary tales. So I abandoned that story and started over. Now I am writing a Steam Punk adventure fantasy. It has enormous war trains that are industrial analogs for ships-of-the-line, immortal kings who are really just petty dick faces, the death of some gods, and something very akin to zombies. Hopefully there is a strong female lead in there as well, but she hasn’t quite figured that out yet. I’ve almost caught up to where I need to be word count wise and have enjoyed just about every minute of this new story.

I finally saw The Secret of Kells yesterday and it blew my mind with its beauty and awesomeness. I immediately started sketching in an aped style and came up with these. I don’t suspect any sort of permanent change to the art style around here, but it was fun to play around.

Also, cave men wowed by fire. I don’t know Paul Rand, or his politics, but I can’t imagine what kind of creep he is to be drawing the supported he is. Last night a woman attempted to ironically award him a fake award. In response his goon squad voters wrestled the woman to the ground and stomped on her head. Wow. Maybe democrats should start throwing punches to win some votes?