Diversification -- or possibly disappearing up my very own...

As many of you know, I am a big comics reader, or was before a double bout of tennis and golfer's elbow (double bout as in both arms) laid me low and left me severely restricted in non-job-related activities requiring fine-motor coordination. Turning pages in physical books, or comic books, became a fairly painful proposition, and I had to spare what elbow-grease I had in me for earning my living (yeah, computers).

That was last fall.

But did I stop buying comics? Oh, no. I did cut back severely and I stopped letting those filthy pushers at my Friendly Local Comics Shop, Heroes Only tempt me with the dreaded Preview guide every month, but there were some titles I just could not bear to stop. I'd get to them eventually, right?

Many months have gone by since then, and my arms are as better as they are going to get. I have braces, a nutrition/supplement/exercise regime that is pretty much staving off further damage (Dragon Naturally Speaking plays a big part, there. Not having to type at home is quite a boon. If you're of the kind of age that politely gets suffixed with -ish and you have had a career that's mostly involved computer work, you might consider giving your elbows and wrists a break yourself, before you run into the situation that I did. And yes, I was very attentive to ergonomics. It happened anyway), and prescriptions for gabapentin and lidocaine patches to hold the pain at bay.

I also have more than two shortboxes crammed full of unread comics. And a handful of Twitter followers who tell me they miss the good old days, when once a week I would go through a huge pile of comics and live-tweet my way through them with the hashtag #SundayComics.

I made noises about resuming that now that I'm more or less better, but twinges in the old hinge joints are happening again that make me hesitate to take that on again. So here's my compromise. That I might regret, but anyway...

Once a day, I will read one comic from the giant to-be-read stash, and I will describe/review it in sonnet form. And rather than clutter up this feed or the Suppertime Sonnets feed, I'll post the results on a brand new blog:

Ladies and gentlemen and other allegedly sentient beings, I give you: Comics Time Sonnets. There is, as of today, one entry. Tomorrow there will be other. I make no firm promises that I'll manage to post there every single day; gone are the days when I'll freak the hell out on vacation and make the people I'm with drop everything and help me find a wi-fi signal just so I can post. But most days, I will.

Enjoy! Or something.

Just For (A Whole Lot Of) Fun...

My good friend Jennifer Williams, aka Senny Dreadful, and I have recently been treating ourselves to a sort of pulp fantasy renaissance. I, for one, am enjoying every exemplar of Conan the Cimmerian (filmic, prose and comic) I can lay hands on. And Jennifer, Jennifer has even written some brand new classic style pulp fantasy and put it up for sale for your ebook reading pleasure (go get it. GO! I'll wait).

Which got us thinking. Surely we're not the only ones with a weakness for this stuff. And wouldn't it be fun to team up and make more of it (NEW PULP FANTASY FOR A NEW CENTURY!) and celebrate this new stuff's fantastic forbears.

And thus our new team blog, Shouty Men in Shiny Armour, was born. It's still brand new, but we've added a few posts and people seem to like the idea. And Jennifer and I are nothing if not enthusiastic blog posters and shillers of other people's cool stuff, but that blog will be so much cooler if more people are contributing.

So, if you have some pulp fantasy fiction, poetry, art or music without a home, consider making our blog that home. Or if our efforts inspire you to make some from scratch, come on and share it! We could especially use a logo and stuff. We really, really could. See, Jennifer is a pretty talented artist, but she insists that the two things she draws the least well are men and swords. I, on the other hand, can really only draw insects. So you see our problem.

Anyway, if you want to join the blog as a regular contributor, or just hit us with a one-off, get in touch with me here or send a tweet to Jenny or me and let's get SHOUTY!