Top Shelf was kind enough to send me a big box of their books (which also included Super Spy), so let me dive right into it.

First was a cute little book (about the size of those “impulse purchase” books you sometimes see in Hallmark stores by the cash register) called Micrographica by Renee French. According to the front flap, this originally appeared online, and each of the drawings (one to a page) was originally drawn at about one centimeter square, which French did to keep the drawing loose by not allowing any redrawing. The story follows three small rodents of some kind (maybe guinea pigs?) who discover a “crapball” and then have odder adventures. It reads a bit like a black and white, colloquial version of a Jim Woodring story – weird things happen in an entertaining way, but the voices of the rodents is very modern-American, unlike Woodring. The story also features a much larger rodent-thing, unexplained facial swelling, a giant mountain of crap, an abandoned sandwich, and more. Hey, it’s only ten bucks – how can you go wrong?

Jeremy Tinder’s Black Ghost Apple Factory is more like a normal comics pamphlet (despite being only about four inches by six); it’s stapled, 48 pages, and contains a number of different stories. The seven stories here are all pretty clearly “indy” – they feature odd characters doing twisted versions of real-world activities, and usually have something to do with interpersonal relationships. (Also, in time-honored indy-comics fashion, those relationships are sad, depressing and unfulfilling.)  Only two of the stories are overtly autobiographical — and one of those features Tinder befriending a bear, so you know it’s metaphorical at best — which is a nice change. Some of these stories are funny and some are touching; all work well and strike true. And that’s darn good a for a five-buck comics pamphlet.

(more…)

Next month will mark the release of the remastered 10-disc DVD (and HD-DVD) set of the original Star Trek series, and the Trek publicity machine has been busy.  We’ve seen an asteroid named for George Takei, both Takei and Nichelle Nichols appearing on Heroes (which also houses the proto-Spock), and the world will even witness William Shatner’s upcoming receipt of the Jules Verne Lifetime Achievement Award in Paris in December.

But for some Trekkers, that just isn’t enough.  They need their own version of the Buffy musical phenomenon.  And the powers that be are more than happy to oblige, at $12.50 a pop.

On November 13, the two-part remastered version of "The Menagerie," made using footage from the original ST pilot "The Cage," will be shown in select theatres throughout North America.  The event  will include an "in-theatre exclusive greeting from creator Gene Roddenberry’s son, Eugene ‘Rod’ Roddenberry" and of course the evening wouldn’t be complete without the mandatory making-of-behind-the-scenes self-congratulations.  Bear in mind, the "event content," as it’s called, will be shown in its original (TV) format, 4×3.

Some of us are just looking forward (or backward, as the case may be) once more to a female Number One.