Monday, June 18, 2007

Musings...


So, a few hints out of the weekend-o-cons. Nothing has really been nailed down, but they've definitely laid out much more of their plans.

I'm not going to even try and summarize things... just go to the Newsarama site and there'll be a lot more detail than I can provide.

I'm interested in a lot of the things they talked about. There's the re-started Flash series, with Mark Waid writing. Can we all agree that this past series was botched from day one? Not to slam the creators, but they never seemed to be on the right wavelength for the character, surprising since they were the creators of the Flash TV show, which I'd thought was pretty good.

There's the (planned) change in writers for Justice League. Brad Meltzer had never made a secret of when he planned to leave, but now we know who'll be following him up. Dwayne McDuffie is a pretty good choice, though I'm not totally happy there'll be a roster change already. *sighs* Ah well, each writer on a team book brings his or her favorites with them. I'm hoping Prince Brion isn't one of the losses, though. I'd love a clue what's up with him -- especially since he's back to the original costume, the only one which has ever looked good on him, despite the bad memories.

I'm happy to see Doctor Fate getting a book, though only a limited series for now. I know it's related to Steve Gerber's illness, but I do hope the good doctor gets an unlimited series soon. And, of course, I wish the best for Steve.

Now, who's going to do something about giving Ralph and Sue Dibny their own book? Hell, if nobody else wants to, I'll volunteer to do it myself. (Hey, DC Folk, are you listening?) I can think of several interesting angles for their stories, and after all that was invested in their characters in 52 (indeed, as much as the readers invested themselves into the characters) it seems a shame to let them lie fallow.

DC announced that it has bought in to Flex Comix, a Japanese publisher of Manga, with a heavy concentration of on-line comics. Is it just possible that, among other things, it's DC's way of testing the waters for on-line distribution? As a former retailer (with a chain of five stores) I can see where a move like this might frighten the retailers (and moreso frighten Diamond), but there's a lot of potential revenue being foregone because neither they nor Marvel are tapping that stream. I know there's a LOT of fans who get their weekly comics via torrent sites and buy only collections in paper. With some sort of iTunes-like structure, they could bring much of the potential revenue back in-house.

Enough random musing for now. There's lots more news, and I may be talking about more of it shortly.

Field mouse follies...


Latest news, such as it is... there's a field mouse habitat been established at the edge of our yard. First discovered by my dog, it seems to be housing at least a few of the furry little fiends.

Penny (the doggie in question) isn't exactly the most territorial of dogs. Many is the time she'll go outside and there will be one or more bunnies out grazing at the salad bar, and she'll totally ignore them. Well, till they decide to run. Then she (seemingly) decides they're playing a game, and she'll chase them as far as the edge of the yard.

Squirrels she likes to 'play' with, chasing them whenever one has the effrontery to step into the yard (at ground level, at least), and even follows beneath when they're leaping about from tree to tree, as they cross the mighty rivers of... sorry. got a bit distracted there.

But field mice? Here she reverts to type. Penny is half Chocolate Lab and half mystery dog, and she looks so lab-like we've never been able to figure out what the mystery half might be. I'm starting to think it may be some sort of terrier, because she's taken a more than playful interest in these mice. Whenever I take her into the front yard she strains at her leash to get to field mouse country -- strains so hard it's more like "Let's take mommy for a drag across the yard."
She goes straight for the hole, and starts trying to figure out how to fit herself into a burrow the size of a mouse. Surprisingly, she's been able to grab a couple of mice and carry them out of the burrow. And yes, I'm too tender-hearted for my own good. I make her drop the mice so they can scamper back to their hidey-hole. *sigh*

I'm not sure what the proper thing is to do about the mice... traps, I suppose, though I think I'll let that part of the operation to Piper. In the meanwhile, Penny has found her own solution to the mouse problem. The past day or two, whenever she goes out there, she pees on top of the burrow!