Two advance copies of Shortpacked! Book 3 (preorder it now!) arrived via FedEx this morning for me.  Like, they were sent from Hong Kong yesterday, and now they're here.  I know we have, y'know, jet planes and what have you, but that still seems magically fast.

The books are beautiful, as always!

I'm told that the rest of the books are going on the boat next week and they'll arrive over here near the first week of June.  ... and if you recall my history, they'll spend the next 2-3 weeks in customs.  It's going to happen.  Let's just resign ourselves to the inevitable.

This morning I'm on the road at 8am to get my ass to Troy, Michigan, by noon.  Penguicon is this weekend, and I'll be at Howard Tayler's table.  Look for the two guys in brightly-colored Hawaiian shirts.  One, a successful breadwinner.  The other, an awkward manchild.  Randy Millholland (Something*Positive) will also be there, and he's written a very informative comic strip about it.

So, Power Girl is ending.  For me.  I mean, it's gonna keep goin' on, just not with the current creative team.  Lovebuddies Jimmy Palmiotti and Amanda Conner are leaving, and after that who really cares?  I haven't even read to see who's replacing them.

It's too bad, because I hopped on really late.  But today the trade of the first few arcs came out in comic shops, so I was able to finally catch up.  It's really been a great year or so of comics.  I didn't even really have a love for the character before now, but I do now - well, at least how she's written here.  Girls who think with their fists are pretty cool, and it's refreshing that she's not neutered, power-wise, in any way.  Nobody has to rescue her constantly, nor does she pull any punches.  It's great.

And there's a irreverent sense of humor throughout, which you can guess is right up my alley.  It's a world that doesn't shy away from Golden Age-style goofy antics, which is even more awesome.  Just because the characters roll their eyes at them doesn't mean we get any fewer Pregno-Rays or Hilarious Overwrought Villain Speeches.  Also, copious amounts of Ultra-Humanite.

And the art looks like it's pureed Jesus.   Or other deity of your choice.  Or pureed baby-killing if you're areligious.

And and and and.

You know how you can never find what you're looking for, instead finding other things you weren't looking for?  That's what happened with my old half-finished Dr. Biggles-Jones kitbash.  I tried to find her, no deal.  Months later, I'm digging around in the attic for something else, and, hey, here she is!  Well.  NOW WHERE'S FRIGGIN' LASERBEAK THAT'S WHY I'M HERE.

Long story short, I'm finally trying on the white ROC Cobra Commander labcoat.  It's pretty big on her!  I'm probably going to have to add "Dremel down the shoulders" to my list of things that she needs to be complete, along with "probably repaint entirely" and "finally get the Scarlett torso to accept the Lady Jaye arms."  And *cross fingers* find a paint that matches her skintone so I can paint over her gloves.

Meanwhile, Cobra Commander looks like a friggin' evil butler.

I'm determined to get two books out this year.  Shortpacked! Book 3 is the preorder everyone should be familiar with by now, but Roomies! Book 2 better be out by the end of this year, too!  It's faaarr too soon to solicit it, since SP!B3 is still in production, but not too soon to finish putting it together.  An idea for the cover hit me last night, and no sooner than this afternoon I had it completed to my satisfaction.

Take it in.

Also, I was sorely in need of some freebies to hand out at C2E2, so I designed and ordered some double-sided bookmarks.  There's a strip on each side - my recent Skeletor/Luthor team-up strip for ToyNewsI seemed suitable, and of course you gotta have Batman DDR on there, so I cropped it down into the requisite number of panels to fit.  I'll be handing these out at Penguicon this weekend.  A huge purpose of convention-attending I've been neglecting is the romancing of new readers.  This'll help me fix that.  (If you're already a reader, you're still, of course, allowed to grab one.)

Since the new site went live, one of its most awesome features is the ability to order prints of individual strips simply by clicking the $ icon below each strip.  Ha ha ha, so obviously the first one that got bought was Mike's freaky smile creep show.  This is great, because I had to take this file into the print shop and have them give me strange looks as it comes up on the screen and again out of the printer.  How much is my dignity worth?  Apparently $10 and shipping.

In the name of science, I offer my boobs.

Does God also care about drawn boobies, or just real ones?  Let's find out.

There's been a dearth of toy talk from me recently, but only because I gots no new toys to talk about!  It's a very dead period for me, apparently.  There's gonna be some new Transformers soon, right?  Some G.I. Joes?  Oh, lord, please, yes.

Just because I'm not gabbing about toys doesn't mean I'm not keeping myself busy.  This weekend I'm going up to Troy, Michigan, for Penguicon.  Really, I'm just helping out Howard Tayler (Schlock Mercenary) and his wife at their table.  They're Distinguished Guests at the convention, and so they both have panels they gotta be on, and thus need a dude to hold down the fort.  In exchange for helping them out, I get a corner to do my thing.

It's been a while since Howard and I have tangoed, so I'm looking forward to it.  There's the usual ice-breaking "your mom" joke, followed by the usual "my mother is already passed away" retort, followed by my usual awkward silence...

Why does Howard tolerate me again?

Also, I'll get to see my favorite highway signage in all the land, Big Beaver Road, Exit 69.  Oh, how I've missed you.

Witness the most hilarious packaging ever.

FTP for the old site still won't let me in.  Grargh. So have Joyce and Walky! here again.

So, woo!  The BotCon 2010 site is up!  It's beautiful.

Funny story: This morning, folks found images of one of the BotCon 2010 set's toys, Streetwise, on the BotCon.com server.  D'oh!  But then later in the day, a second image was found on the server, this time a badly photoshopped image of Universe Tankor as Clench.

And oh, some websites thought they had an awesome scoop!  And man, were people angry.  What a terrible choice for Clench!  And why doesn't he have a new head?  BotCon is RUINED!

Of course, it was all a joke played by Fun Publications.  (At least, the second part.)  And about half an hour after the image was "leaked," the BotCon.com site updated to reflect the theme of the year's set, plus an awesome new Guido Guidi illustration of Spark and the real Clench toy.

The real Clench is apparently a redecoed Universe Onslaught with a new head.  Suitably large, since he's Decepticon leader, and the little details we can spot in this illustration make him look super rad.  The blue on his legs sparkle, which is very important for Clench, and there's his Tron-like circuit patterns on his abdomen.  Here's hoping for his anti-wolf deco and his Texas license plate!

Streetwise Streetstar, the other reveal, is okay.  It's cool that we're getting a toy of an unreleased Generation 2 character, but I really wish the toy had more detail.  I mean, it's super-accurate to the original toy, but the original toy was kinda dull, too.  He just needs some more color somewhere.  But hey, at least it reminds folks that G2 wasn't all dayglo playskool neon.  And the tampograph on his windshield is awesome.

Once a month for five months, God finds time to bless our planet with his holy ejaculate.  This is month four, and so today the latest issue of Last Stand of the Wreckers is now splashed warmly across our faces.

Sure, the immediate highlight of the issue is a single panel (spoilers) that packs more fanwankery into itself than should be physically possible.  But something more subtle I'd like to bring up, nospoilery-like, is this: Transformers are robots.  They lose arms, they lose heads, they suffer all sorts of damage.  I'm kinda numb to the idea.  But, man, in Last Stand of the Wreckers, when physical damage happens, I wince.  It's gross.  It looks painful.  It takes an emotional toll.

This is probably due to both the writing and the art.  I think of the characters as real beings, not only due to the strong characterization, but also in the way in which they are drawn.  They don't look like a pile of boxes being maneuvered around by the artist like a marionette.  They're singular entities.  And, man, if they get an ouchie, you can tell by the look on their faces.

I really like that.

And, man, Last Stand of the Wreckers really is an orgy of violence.  It's crude and dark and terrible.  Many Transformers stories attempt this, but most feel hollow.   This does not.  That's a feat in itself, above and beyond the easy geeky cameos.