Maura's Illuminated Manuscript

I took a special trip to Capitol Hill to pick up Saga vol. 10. The series resumes after a three-year hiatus. More villainous villains! Even direr predicaments! A sexy robot countess! Yeah, I'm still very into it.

What didn't I like? I wish they hadn't just revealed that one of the minor villains is seriously kinky and then turned him into a major villain. Dare I quibble about the deficient realism of the (aborted) BDSM scene? It is a space opera, after all. Also, there weren't any of the mind-blowing graphical innovations and jokes so common in the earlier volumes, but it's hard to keep up that pace this far into a series.

Oh: I got to see Klara again. The character, not the sex toy.

It didn't occur to me until I was on the bus that I could have checked the comics shop in lower Fremont, one of whose owners I know, but there will be later volumes!

I've spent the last couple of evenings reading the latest volumes of The Wicked And the Divine and Saga. I write to inform you that Saga is still the better series.

Am I violating the spirit of Buy Nothing day if I buy stuff I need, like replacements for a lost umbrella and a dead mouse? OK, I got the next couple of volumes of Revival, but I bought local and they weren't gifts. Otherwise, I'm enjoying the post-Thanksgiving mellow.

I see people right here on Dreamwidth who are doing their Christmas cards. I must admit I've only sent a very few in my life. Honestly, though, what would I say in them? "Season's Greetings, Cousin So-and-so Whom I Haven't Seen In Decades! This year I did a bunch of freaky stuff at the Folsom Street Fair!" Sure, it's tempting, but is it really a good idea? Besides, anyone including family members who would want to know what I'm up to probably does already because internet.

For the first time in maybe ever, I've binge-read a comic series.

In the last, what, eight days? I've bought and read all seven volumes of Saga. It is, in the words of one friend, unreasonably good. Yes, it's a space opera with a bit of "Romeo & Juliet" in the story, but it's also got everything from extended family dynamics to social commentary to mild pornography. Saga has it all: heart, mind, and looks.

Writer Brian Vaughan, who's worked in film & TV, says he set out to do something that would be prohibitively expensive to film. Good on him. And unsurprisingly, it's published by Image. I have yet to read a title of theirs that I didn't like.

Nearly a year ago my son saw something about Emerald City Comicon on the news and expressed a wish to go. As you know, I'm always looking for new ways to make him geekier and maybe more social, so off we went just after 10:00. I'd never been to an ECCC, so I was a little disappointed to learn that it isn't the social gathering that an SF con is, but nevertheless it might have broadened m'boy's horizons a little.

Ran into ravenmimura & evillinn. Resisted the urge to buy his print of an armed woman's rather nice booty. They gave m'boy a Be-LOL-der button. Aw!

His reaction to all the costumes? Nil. He must be the postman's boy.

I saw Keith Knight! The artist behind "The K Chronicles" and "(Th)ink"! In person! With bangs! Yes, I nearly squeed like a fangirl. What I actually did was, once I established his identity, clasp my hands at my breast and say, "I love your strip!"

To the Wendling I said, "Mr. Knight's strip is in the paper!" Mr. Knight then showed me flyers for, first, his show with three other cartoonists at Rennaissance tomorrow night, and second, a flyer asking people to contact the Seattle Times to get them to put his strip back in.

Oh.

Yeah, I'll do it. Check out his strip and maybe you'll want to as well. I bought one of his books, and I'm about to read it.

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Ate fast food Ivar's at the waterfront, dropped the boy off, and then went shopping at Nordie's Rack with C. I'll be damned if that woman isn't better at shopping for me than I am. She gently chivvied me into trying things that I would have been afraid to try alone, and she scored. The things that one glance at the rack told her, but not me, that they sucked? Did indeed suck once I had them on.

The Rack is kind of like Costco. The price per item may be lower, but that just makes you buy more items for a possibly higher total expenditure. Le sigh. I heard a couple of Canadian girls in the elevator lamenting how much money they were about to spend before getting home from the States, so I'm not the only one susceptible.

The motive for shopping? A party on 3/12 at the CSPC. Yeah, I'm on a mission.

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I got so busy this afternoon I forgot to take my spiro until 9:00. The reason I suddenly remembered is that I felt like invading a small country. Yikes! I hope I don't pee myself out of a good night's sleep because of that; I'm beat and I have to drive to Tacoma for zappy tomorrow morning.