Hazmat's Journal of Journalyness

Flung into the distant past by the villain Hyperstorm, Reed Richards is forced to admit that even Mr. Fantastic can’t create a time machine out of rocks and sticks. But just as despair sets in, an unexpected visit offers the promise of rescue…

Less Than Fantastic is a Fantastic Four fan comic and love letter to the turbulent Tom DeFalco/Paul Ryan era of the 1990s.

Read it online at ComicFury

Download the PDF from Ko-fi

(Also, holy cow, it's still sinking in that I actually finished this thing.)

Back in May, I got an idea for a short 3-page Fantastic Four fan comic about the time that Reed Richards was trapped in the very distant past. Just a brief angst vignette because Reed was most assuredly not having a good time.

You can read it here: https://lessthanfantastic.thecomicseries.com/comics/1

While working on said comic (and very much enjoying the challenge), I got the idea for a continuation of this story thanks to a bit of dialogue in Fantastic Four (vol 1) #407 and ended up with a script for a 23 page comic (like, with actual plot and everything!). That turned out to have a natural cliffhanger point in the middle, so I separated it into two parts (Less Than Fantastic parts 2 and 3, with the 3-pager being part 1).

Today I finished penciling the 11 pages of part 2, and should start the inking and completion on Monday.

I'm really psyched and really excited about this whole thing. It's the first time I've felt really inspired to push myself artistically in literal years. It's fucking awesome.

Last year's record of books read was interesting, and I was pretty pleased with the result, which showed I'd read, on average, a couple of books a month. (The reality is that I'd have periods where I'd devour book after book after book and then have a month where I only read my book club assignment.) For this year, I've decided not to bother keeping a record, since toward the end especially I was half-assing it anyway.

Still reading, though! I have a definite queue, including the about-once-a-month book club book.

BY THE WAY holy crap is it hard to sell Terry Pratchett to a bunch of people who have never read Terry Pratchett. Last Bookaneers meeting was the third time where my turn came up and I included a Discworld novel (Guards! Guards! specifically) in my three choices for the next club read, and K and I could just sense the reluctance from everyone else. Granted, I am fucking awful at persuasion (when I was an adorable little girl in a Brownie uniform, I couldn't even sell GIRL SCOUT COOKIES to anyone outside my own family), but K is much better at talking and even he had trouble explaining why Terry Pratchett is 100% worth reading.

Anyway, I kind of played a little dirty this time and gave them a choice of a) Discworld novel Guards! Guards!, b) Discworld novel Moving Pictures, c) an intimidating historical novel by not-Terry-Pratchett that K has been (only half-jokingly) trying to get the group to read called The Cruel Sea.

And you can bet I would 100% read that third one, because K really wants to read it and even if he reads it on his own, I'll read it too. <3

So the group picked Moving Pictures which I am enjoying the heck out of, but some of the rest of the group are kind of having trouble with it. Then again, at least one of those is an audiobook person, and K has wondered aloud to me whether or not Pratchett comes across well in audio, or if his prose is too confusing (plus, what about the footnotes??!?). So it will be interesting to see what people think at the next meeting and how it correlates to reading with eyes or ears.

(I mean, one of our group is not into genre stuff AT ALL so she's going to be an extra-hard sell, but that's basically the case with every genre Bookaneers book.)

I won't be suggesting Guards! Guards! again after this -- three times and it's out -- but I plan on reading it on my own. It's on the list with several other books, including T. Kingfisher's The Twisted Ones which I got for Christmas.

Finished Laundry Files #2 the other day, bringing my total for 2019 of 24 books completed. Average of 2 books a month, not bad!

Am currently reading #3 of the Laundry Files series because of course I am. :)

Completed book count for 2019: 24

I am very bad at journaling, but at least I can quickly note down a couple more books I've read recently.

I've finished Speaks the Nightbird by Robert R. McCammon (who has written a ton of books for a number of years, including the ones with the werewolf who fights Nazis which I haven't read since the 1990s). Mystery set in Colonial America in 1699. Really good stuff.

After that I read Dead Moon by Peter Clines for our bookclub (zombies on a lunar colony, but of the
cosmic horror type than viral infection), which reminded me of how much I loved his previous books in this series, so I then re-read 14. I woulda started a re-read of book 2, The Fold, but we only have that in physical form, and I can't find it.

Note that while these books all take place in his Threshold universe, they're very stand-alone and don't directly follow one after the other.

Currently am reading, at spouse's suggestion (his suggestions to me are always good), The Atrocity Archives, the first book of Charles Stross's series about fighting cosmic horror while working for a grubby, petty governmental bureaucracy in the UK.

WHEW.

Completed book count for 2019: 22

I recently finished The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen. It's a sweet-natured story, kind of like if Twin Peaks had been made by the Hallmark Channel. A nice small town, a bit of magical realism, some social tension (social awkwardness is the thing most likely to make me squirm in stories) but a happy ending nonetheless.

This was a selection from our book club and a good example as to why I like the book club that Kevin organized last year; since we've got a variety of reading tastes, I've ending up reading a lot of novels I never would have touched otherwise, and most have been good, or at least entertaining.

We also have a short story bonus round in case someone's had a hectic month and hasn't gotten to reading the book selection. This month's bonus was "Troll Bridge" by Terry Pratchett. Kevin picked it in hopes that the next time I suggest a Discworld novel (the person whose turn it is usually picks 2-3 books and people vote on which to read) folks will go for it.

Pratchett is kind of a hard sell if you haven't read him before, and sadly I am a terrible salesperson.

Though speaking of Pratchett, I'm in the middle of re-reading The Color of Magic, which I know I've read before, though long enough ago that I don't remember a lot of the details.

And in kind of a COMPLETE tonal 180, I'm also reading a lot of early issues of the comic Spawn since they're available via Comixology Unlimited (and also on heavy sale as that series is nearing it's 300th issue). I admit to having a taste for over-the-top grimdark sometimes, though it has to be really ridiculously over-the-top, and Spawn definitely qualifies. Bonus if it's ridiculously over-the-top grimdark from the 1990s.

And now we know why I've spent so many years playing World of Darkness games, I guess.

Completed book count for 2019: 17

Borrowed The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov from the library on a whim and read it.

It's very.... 60s/70s era hard sci-fi. Asimov was a progressive but always seemed to find women kind of inscrutable. But some of the themes in this book are, sadly, still pretty much a thing even in 2019, like stubbornness and cults of personality and sheer "this is the way i want the world to work" denial getting in the way of science, even at the possible cost of mass destruction.

It could be adapted into a series pretty well, I think, mostly with cosmetic changes (like, yes, turn some of the male characters female and maybe not try to put male/female pronouns on the obviously non-gender-binary aliens and maybe not lean quite so heavily into the idea that a progressive society is OF COURSE a nudist one (ok i still kind of lol at that)).

Completed book count for 2019: 15

How much longer can I continue to faithfully journal my novel reading for this year, I who am historically terrible at journaling?

Time will tell.

Anyway, finished Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia. Vampires! In Mexico City!

Honestly it was fucking awesome and had some great worldbuilding. Also a World of Darkness tonality for those who like that kind of thing (I do).

Completed book count for 2019: 13

Currently reading: American Gods by Neil Gaiman and next on the bookclub list is My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix.

READING IS FUN.

Finished the current Bookaneers book in record time, I guess. The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris is a fast read, though of course not a light one, considering the subject matter.

It's a well-told story and made me think of Art Spiegelman's Maus, which I first read sometime between ages sixteen and eighteen, I don't remember exactly. There are similarities, of course, but that's to be expected.

I might re-read Maus, though since it's a graphic novel, I don't think I'll include it in my 2019 book count. It's no trouble for me to read comics, even heavy, serious comics like that. It takes more effort for me to sit down and read novels, even though they used to be my primary source of entertainment.

I guess I have a lot more to distract myself with these days.

Completed book count for 2019: 11

Just finished Children of Dune by Frank Herbert. Next up: God Emperor of Dune by same.

I'm planning on reading all of the original book series. I probably will not be reading the ones his son co-wrote. Not planning to, anyway.

Completed book count for 2019: 9