update

First, my hand is okay. Went on another ride on Thursday with a local MTB club. It was a mixed bunch of really cool guys (no bellas!?) and as usual, I was 'not as good as, but better than'. Good night.

Obscure Tales is updated. A hard couple of panels. I'm not sure how successful they are, but they went through a lot of iterations to find ones that actually came close to working. Plus, after I finished and posted, I found that the first panel of page 13 looks like the car has a shattered windshield. It doesn't. It's supposed to be a cool lighting effect, but it doesn't work. I'm going to re-work it tonight, so forgive me.

Now, a Comic Review. Not of an issue, but of a comic: PS 238. I may have mentioned this before, but you HAVE to start reading this. It is the first monthly since Excalibur (under Davis) that has me laughing, thinking, caring about the characters and, importantly, looking forward to every month.

You can hit the site for the full story (and online re-print of the first issue), so I won't bore you with a synopsis other than to say it's about a school for meta-human children (of both heroes and villains). However, the issues I just got in from Heavy Ink have some perfect examples me of what I love about the comic.

First of all, it's damned funny! Check out this very subtle joke as we watch the local non-metahuman vigilante crime-fighter relaxing in an arcade:



The joke in issue 29 that still makes me laugh every time I see it needs a bit of an introduction. This is Poly Mer and she's the local stretchy hero ala' Elastigirl:



Here is an exchange between Poly and a girl known only as "eighty-four". Seriously, I laughed as I scanned it, I laughed when it was in photoshop and I'll probably laugh when I check this page. If you don't laugh, you've obviously lost touch with your inner 4th grader:



But, it's not all jokes. Aaron Williams has created a pretty solid universe heavily populated with meta-humans. One evolving storyline evolves the girl "eighty-four". It ask the interesting question about what it takes to be special in a world of many special people. This exchange with an airport security guard is very poignant (and is cobbled together from two pages):


Also, I think that Williams can really draw. He does great hands and he draws kids really well. His eyes and backgrounds need a tiny bit of work, but his only real flaw is his overuse of photoshop for effects and 'signage' type. I'll forgive that though, as he is a one-man operation and if he can't draw type (as I can't), he can't exactly hire someone to do it. I think his writing is top-notch as well. He does a good job of portraying kids as kids.

Anyway. there are now a bunch of TPBs that encompass the all the previous issues, so you can catch up easily. Please hit the site and read up (just a note: the SINGLE arrows are go SINGLE PAGES, the double arrows go to the most recent page). You probably won't be sorry. I'm going outside now.

Listening to while posting: "Break Down the Walls" by Half Way Home