Lodgers

For some days now, while I’ve been on the couch, programming, this guy has been sitting pensively on the balcony:

Not really doing anything, other than looking at me once a while:

Hi there!

I didn’t really think much about it, and everything looked normal out on the balcony (which I haven’t used this summer).

But then I looked under the chair:

Eep!

Oh, well. I guess I won’t be using this balcony the rest of the
summer, either. No animals on the bigger balcony, so far at least.
*crosses fingers*

I’m guessing I’ll have to give it a proper scrub-down once the chicks leave the nest. That’ll only take, what, a couple of months?

End of an Ear

Hey, I forgot to mention that last week was my final day at the job I’d been at for… 22? years, but I’ve now assembled a souvenir from the library I put together while I was there:

So I’m no longer a bankster, and I have to figure out what I’m going to do when I grow up.

But first holiday for a year or so? Sounds like a plan. I’m exhausted already just thinking about it; it used to be that I could go to the office to relax, but now everything is suddenly super-busy all day every day.

Yeah yeah humblemoan humblemoan.

Comics Cavalcade Day 5

OK, got a really late start today, so this’ll be a short one. But just comics; no reviews, as usual, because busy busy.

Heat by Jean Wei (Peow)

This sounds like a high concept comic (a fire demon comes to live on a farm), but it’s really sweet.

It’s got a quiet ruminative feel.

Unfortunately the ending was kinda meh.

The Mask by Benconvervato (?)

It’s a fun little mini.

Moon by Rozi Hathaway

This is (I think?) structured as a fairy tale, but it’s so difficult to tell on a page-to-page basis just what’s happening that I’m… not sure?

Uncanny X-Men #19-20 by too many people to even try to mention (Marvel)

Man, this is relentlessly ugly and dull. I was an X-Men fan in my childhood and I drop in on them still now and then… and most of the time, it’s just so boring now. The stakes are Always The Highest Possible, which means nothing really matters.

Perhaps you should give this book some props for just being more WTF than usual…

… but it’s mind-numbingly tiresome. I do seem to remember that Rosenberg guy writing some stuff that was mildly entertaining at one point, but this…

Gulag Casual by Austin English (2d cloud)

Yes, hairstyles.

I kinda like this. It’s mildly befuddling, but the mix of mundane er dialogue and the wild, wild artwork is nice.

But I didn’t connect with this book much. I was all “uhm… where’s he going with this…” Which he probably explained in the afterword, but I skipped it. Hah!

Detrimental Information by John and Luke Holden (2d cloud)

Uhm… this has a rambling quality that’s not unappealing…

… but the jokes are a bit on the underdeveloped side?

Is the thing here that it’s supposed to be created by a couple of children? I guess it does have that feeling (i.e., somebody writing as if they were children), but, it’s…. Well.

Walt and Skeezix by Frank King (Drawn & Quarterly)

I don’t know what volume this is in the series… but as most people (ahem), I was flabbergasted by the first volume when it was published. Imagine! A comic strip from that age that’s not a chore to read! Not only that, but it’s like good and stuff!

But as the years have passed, I don’t think King kept things puttering along on the same high level… I was almost *gasp* bored by the previous volume.

But this! It’s much better! It seems like King has gotten a second wind now that Skeezix is a bit older and can have real adventures on his own. This volume is very enjoyable.

And, of course, the artwork’s just so appealing.

But one note: It seems like everybody says that this is a “real time” strip, and it’s not. I mean, everybody grows older about the rate you’d expect, but most of these plot elements (that take weeks to be published) would be absurd if they took that long in the world depicted.

How’s that for incisive criticism?

But now it’s the middle of the night and I can’t read more comics because sleep.

Boo.