Reading: Takeoff! by Randall Garrett
Music: Lou Reed
TV/Movie: Strictly Ballroom
Link o' the Day: The Girl Genius RPG



I is on a wonderous journey full of adventure, mystery, romance, and mad science. Folks, what are you sitting around reading me for when you could be hieing thee hence to Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius? Really, now.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a fan of Phil's since his days in the late 70s as a fan artist scribbling Star Trek con reports on the back of Leonard Nimoy's neck. He wrote and drew the famous What's New comic in Dragon? magazine, the infamous Buck Godot, the vastly entertaining XXXenophile series, and illustrated the first novel in Robert Asprin's MythAdventures series. He's put his pen to countless book and magazine covers, Magic (tm) cards, fanzines, and royalty checks.

Girl Genius started out as a print book, and moved online a couple of years ago... all content free (and available for purchase in book form) and it's easily one of the very best stories around. The story centers on the adventures of one Agatha Clay, a young woman living in a re-imagined 19th century Europe where technhology takes the form of a combination of steampunk and alchemy. (In fact, it could be argued that Girl Genius is what started the whole current steampunk fad.) Young Agatha is a woman with a Great Destiny, a fascinating Company of Characters, and access to an Air Ship. She fights monsters, evil tyrants, mad robots, mad scientists, mad scientist robots, and her own Mysterious Past.

Oh, and there's a talking cat. Gotta have a talking cat.

Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius takes the very best of the old gaslight adventure stories, shakes them up and spins an original yarn via the most amazing comic art you've ever seen. This is how I read Foglio's work... once for the story, then again for the art, then again for the background art.

Yeah... It's that good. The Foglios are masters of the interesting prop.

Again... why are you reading me? Phil and Kaja have written this comic that is funny, scary, pulse-pounding, and inspiring. (Yeah, John, why don't you marry it? Answer: I'm already married, and state laws do not recognize men marrying comic books...yet.) Hie thee hence. G'wan...scat!

Here...have a link to the first page of the adventure. Some of the first issues were in black and white, but no worries, it moves into dazzling color before long. If you don't fall in love with Phil and Kaja Foglio's Girl Genius within 15 pages, I will pay you $20.*

(*Offer not valid anywhere. John may have been drinking spoilt milk. We don't know for sure; he won't show us the bottle.)

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It's been a pretty dang productive week thus far, and it's barely Wedsnesday morning. The second proof to an extra-large and somewhat complex medical journal is done and back with the editor, and the 556-page Hardcastle and McCormick book is finally at the printer. Today I'll tie up the loose ends on Lonnie Burr's book, and possible Lewis Stadlen's. I see the next projects on the horizon, coming into port, its sailors already drunk, but I'm the shore patrol and I'm armed.

I have no idea what that means. Suffice to say, I'm ready for the next round of jobs. Does anyone know if spoilt milk gives you hallucinations?


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Girl Genius links to comics weren't enough for you? Okay, here's something else.. The Girl Genius RPG (for GURPS, 4th edition) from Steve Jackson Games. Adventure with Agatha and her motley crew... create your own characters, build clanks, the works!

Enjoy!