Justin Robinson's FIFTY FEET OF TROUBLE

The best Halloween present a pulp/noir/monster fiction fan could possibly get is a new Justin Robinson novel, and that is exactly what happened this year.* A sequel to his almost-illegally-too-fun City of Devils, it's Fifty Feet of Trouble.

Once again, our guide through the madness is Nick Moss, the last human private eye in Los Angeles, finder of missing persons, encounterer (sure, that's a word. Now.) of the titular trouble.** Which starts off in sort of the same vein as last novel, but has with it a whole weight of emotional baggage that you just don't have to deal with when a doppelganger of no previous acquaintance asks you to find her missing mummy husband.

This time around, Nick's quarry is human (Still. We Hope.), but not only is she human, she is a little girl, and not only is she a little girl, but she is the daughter of two close and dear friends who fought with him in the Night War (the conflict after WWII when the Monsters Took Over), and not only are they his close and dear friends but they already lost a child to the monsters and... see where this is going? There are several sub-plots that tie into this main one, but the missing little girl quest is the armature on which all of the other stuff hangs like a fifty-foot [REDACTED] off a giant floating stone [REDACTED].

So where City of Devils was mostly a slapstick romp with some moments of hilarious danger, there is a mature and emotionally powerful undertone to our hero's quest this time around. Be assured, though: this doesn't detract from the fun of reading it; it enhances it. And yes, there's still silly monster stuff. For instance, one of Nick's other assignments is finding a magical missing toad, so a witch friend of his can continue casting spells.

So, as I said on GoodReads, I wasn't expecting this to be Justin Robinson's best novel yet, but it's his best novel yet. The comedy and tragedy set each other off to perfection (a paragraph after a line that makes you howl with laughter and want to read pages aloud to some hapless stranger, there's a gut punch ready to knock you out cold), the new characters are beautifully realized, and the new over-the-top villains are used with admirable and judicious restraint,*** and no plot thread is left dangling. Like Nick and not-his-lady-friend off a giant floating stone [REDACTED].

So, if you're anything like me, you'll want to set aside a block of time to just utterly devote to this novel. Have some snacks ready. And some holy water. And some garlic. And some silver. And some salt. And a camera. And a bullhorn. Useful things, bullhorns. You just never know when you'll have to talk down a giant rampaging [REDACTED].

And, psst, best of all, Nick Moss has more adventures coming Not Soon Enough. Werewolf Confidential. Okay.

*What. Halloween presents are totally a thing. Where have you been? Well, yes, this first time I did have to buy it for myself, but I trust that this won't always be the case. Right? RIGHT?

**Now that I know Justin better -- he even blurbed my upcoming book -- I know exactly how much he loves words like "titular."

***You'll be glad of this. Reverend Bobo. I need a brandy.

Justin Robinson's GET BLANK

Justin Robinson's Fill in the Blank series has the makings of a classic except for one small but significant flaw: it is a bit too much a product of the moment, that moment being early 2014, during the grand epic swan song/swan dive of that remarkable but possibly not unforgettable TV series Mad Men*. Which is to say that I'm a bit concerned, regarding this second volume, Get Blank, that it's not going to stand up quite as well as it deserves to in the years to come, when that show and the other pop culture ephemera of this moment are distant memories. And make no mistake, these books deserve to stand up. They deserve to stand up a lot. And that's not any kind of double entendre. Or at least not much of one.

But you know, perhaps early readers of Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson had similar concerns, back in the day.

All questions of long-term survival of the book aside, Get Blank is a worthy successor to the book in which our conspiracy-juggling hero was introduced, 2012's thigh-slapping romp Mr. Blank. It has all of the qualities I enjoyed most in that first book, without feeling like the mixture same as before; Robinson importantly proves early on that "Bob" Blank is far from being a one-note character, even as again he goes to a familiar crime/noir plot well, that of the getting-too-old-for-this-ish, it's-somebody-else's-turn wannabe retiree who is sucked back into his old life by forces he can't control and complains about it entertainingly.

Robinson wisely narrows the focus, this time around, on his protagonist/narrator's amusing narrative voice, resisting the temptation to fill this second volume chock full of MOAR. MOAR CONSPIRACIES! MOAR VILLAINS! MOAR SURREALS! MOAR PUNTASTIC DIALOGUE! MOAR MOAR MOAR.

Instead, we rather a more restrained and thoughtful look at Blank's weird world through his grudgingly maturing eyes.** As Bernard Black (perhaps my only pop culture hero that doesn't get a sly mention or allusion in this novel) would say, he's a boytfriend now; he's got duties, responsibilities, lots of hand-holding and sighing... except unlike Bernard, Blank really is a boyfriend now, whether people believe him or not; the buxom bombshell who shared his adventures last novel, Mina the gorgeous plus-sized model, saw something special in him that no one else seems to (except for us, of course) and decided all he really needed to be a suitable partner was some decent clothes. It's sweet!

Alas, the damsel no sooner won is lost again, framed for murder in an obvious but effective ploy to draw the supposedly retired Blank back out into his former, laughably complex, orbits. As plot devices go, it's a bit ho hum, and it deprives us of a character that really enriched the prior novel, but really, how the hell else are a bunch of conspiracy nuts going to suck their favorite gopher back onto the sacrificial goat delivery circuit? I can't think of a better, can you?

Taking Mina's prior-novel place as sidekick/helpmeet-cum-source of bafflement is one Victor Charlie, a genuine Man in Black, complete with old-fashioned-looking car that can speed like a rocketship, but who is way more bizarre than anything Lowell Cunningham et al imagined for the comic book/film franchise of that name. VC is one weird amalgam of person and program, popping off stock phrases like "hubba hubba" at inappropriate times, taking instructions like "hang on a second" too literally, and generally both helping and hindering Blank's progress, often at the exact same moment. I wish he'd come into the story sooner, though. Ditto Elias. O, Elias, O VC. I would read the crap out of the adventures of Blank and Elias and VC, I really would. 23 Skiddo.

Did I laugh out loud on every other page like last time? No. But what I did do was begin to feel for Mr. Blank, to understand what a life like his might actually be like, and to root for his romance. And that's no mean feat when dealing with a cranky reader like me.

Bravo, Justin! Bravo, Blank!

*Remusly, lots of references to Mad Men here, and I'm not just talking about the main female character/quest object (yes, sadly, the magnificent Mina is more of an absence than a presence in this second Blank novel) being pretty much a role crafted expressly for Christina Hendricks in all her stacked and begirdled red-haired Marilyn Monroe sex-bomb glory.

**Lest this make the book sound too po-faced, though, let me assure you, there are still bits that are funny as hell. A running gag in which Blank keeps enlightening us on the seekrit conspiratorial messages hidden in a litany of pop songs Mina has loaded onto his iPod is lots of fun, for instance. And yes, one of them is by R.E.M. and yes it's probably the one you're thinking of.

Justin Robinson's CITY OF DEVILS

First of all, look at the cover. Just look at it! Isn't it the most pulptastic thing you've seen since those covers Kelley Jones did for Steve Niles' Edge of Doom a few years back? Serioiusly, if that cover doesn't make  you want to drop everything and go get you a copy of City of Devils, I... I question your capacity for joy in this life!

OK, I'm going to calm down in a moment here, I promise. But, you know, this is the new novel from Justin "Mr. Blank" Robinson, so a little gushy excitement on my part is entirely in order.

This time around, Robinson has taken a page from Angry Robot's team playbook and come out with a classic bit of genre mashing. There have been plenty of crime/noir-meets-fantasy/horror novels in the last few years, but did we really need yet another one, however good?

Well, yes, yes we did. Because this isn't just horror noir, this is movie monster horror noir, you guys. Campy movie monster horror noir, even.. As in the world in which this novel is set is one in which, sometime not long after World War II came another gigantic and world-changing war as the result of a violent unknown event* that transformed a sizable portion of humanity into real-world movie monsters of every kind, from mummies in cheesy faux Egyptian regalia to wolfmen to werewolves (there's a difference, you know) to Frankenstein's monster (which I guess now should be plural) to witches to gremlins to doppelgangers to... you get the idea. And not only are movie monsters now real, but each and every one of them has the power to make more monsters -- by "turning" ordinary humans into whatever monster the turning monster is. Which all of the monsters are very keen to do. Really really keen.

This results in a Los Angeles, ca I'm guessing the late 1950s or early 1960s, in which plain old human beings are a persecuted minority, hunted and despised, and in which there is exactly one human private eye left in the city: our man Nick Moss. Who just got hired by a famous movie star/doppelganger to find her missing husband, a prominent and powerful mummy.

Of course Mr. Moss uncovers a much deeper and more intricate plot than just a missing husband, as we quickly learn when his fellow (hee) humanitarians start getting bumped off one by one.

The resulting book is dense, deeply silly and a whole lot of fun. As a follow-up to Mr. Blank it comes off as something of a lesser work but pretty much anything would probably seem that way, though, nota bene for those who got annoyed by some of the gender/body image politics that crept into Mr. Blank (as I did, slightly), who will be happy to learn that there is none of that to be had in City of Devils.

And in its place is loads of crazy, inventive over-the-top fun as Mr. Moss escapes from werewolves, phantoms (as in "of the opera"), wolfmen (remember, there is a difference), a lovesick pumpkinhead who dreams of connubial bliss after he's turned Moss into another pumpkinhead, ogres, giant crawling eyeballs, gremlins, cops and movie studio executives. Some of whom fill more than one role.

Ridiculous good fun, this!

*Wink, as always, at the Peter Greenaway fans out there.

Gareth Roberts' DOCTOR WHO: ONLY HUMAN

So, here I've been lo these many months, out of my mind with excitement that soon (but not soon enough), I'd be holding a Doctor Who novel written by my favorite living science fiction writer (that would be Alastair Reynolds*, duh, and may he live long and prosper**), and one that concerns one of my favorite Doctors (that would be the Third, portrayed by the inimitable Jon Pertwee), and I realized, hey, I've never actually read a Doctor Who novel.

So I went hunting. Concurrently with a recent mania to watch the whole of the Ninth Doctor's single TV season and an accompanying wild hair to write a novel starring said Ninth Doctor, because Christopher Eccleston is another favorite.*** And Only Human had the best blurb. This might be Jasper Fforde's fault for making me sympathize so with Neanderthals. I'm just not sure on that.

I am now dangerously close to writing a blog post that is longer than the actual novel, which is short and sweet but packed with goodies to satisfy the wibbly wobbly timey wimey longings of any Who fan, new or old, with offerings ranging from a Neanderthal lost in 21st century England (whom Captain Jack, of all people, must help to acclimatize) to a population of technologically advanced modern humans living in a Prisoneresque village in prehistoric England but strangely uninterested in the Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sapiens populations nearby unless their "popper packs" (basically a ripoff of the Penfield Mood Organs from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep) compel them so to be, even though studying these populations and the charismatic megafauna that share their world is why said H.s.s. are there and then (for of course, they are time travelers, using a cheap and dirty version of time travel so cheap and dirty as to make Captain Jack's vortex manipulator look like something from the pages of Inhabitat).

But so, the Doctor and cavemen of various species. Who doesn't love a combination like that? I'm certainly in for a go, even if Rose has to come along, too, which she does, but no tale is perfect, right?****

Anyway.

Like I said, there's a lot packed into this short little book. While Captain Jack is training the displaced Neanderthal, Das, in 21st century living, the Doctor and Rose travel back to Das' time (to which Das cannot return because of reasons. And cheap and dirty time travel tech. Wibbly wobbly) to find out how/why Das got when he is and put a stop to whatever's going on because it is Bad. And they find the aforementioned Penfield Mood Organ junkies. Who are all enslaved via their Poppers by a charismatic and devastatingly (and artificially) intelligent, ruthless scientist named Chantal. Everybody wants to please Chantal. And Chantal is up to no good. Basically a Master/Rani hybrid, is Chantal. Except a bit more effective; at one point even the Doctor is drug-boozled into wanting to please Chantal -- and were this not a Doctor Who story, one might well have come to believe the jeopardy in which this places him. As it was, it was not at all easy to see how he was going to get out of his predicament. While Rose was off cavorting with cave men.

So, I wound up enjoying this little romp rather a lot. And I'll say this for my fellow Rose haters: book Rose, at least this book Rose, is rather more enjoyable than TV Rose -- not because Billie Piper did a bad job on TV or anything, just that the kind of stuff Gareth Roberts put her through would not be easy at all to pull off on TV, and is very likely way more satisfying for people who consider her dominance of the early seasons of NuWho to be their flaw rather than their glory.

Heh.

*I say this not only because it's true, but also because Reynolds occasionally reads my blog and my saying this makes him blush, and I'm just sadistic enough to enjoy making him blush. Especially when, for reasons that blast out my logic circuits, right now Britons can enjoy Harvest of Time, but I as an American not legally do so for another month. Harrumph.

**Heh.

***For those who will surely ask, my current (because they fluctuate, because I'm only human (heh) order of favorite Doctors is: Ninth, Third, Eleventh, Sixth, Fourth, First, Seventh, Second, Tenth, Fifth. Usually Eleventh is higher, and he's like to regain a higher spot on my list after the bravura performance in the most recent Neil Gaiman-penned episode in which Matt Smith got to pull a Gollum/Locutus of Who thing. But I'm all about the Pert right now because of Alastair Reynolds. Duh.

****And there I've outraged all the Rose partisans out there. Bring it. I've been dealing with people who aren't down with my dislike of Perpugilliam Brown† for decades now, and Al Bruno III and I are still even friends.

†I wasn't going to nerd out quite so much for this post, but dudes, trying to choke the life out of Peri on his very first day beneath Colin Baker's blonde curls is a huge part of why the Sixth Doctor is so high on my list. That and I'm just generally a bit partial to Bastard Doctors.

David Wong's JOHN DIES AT THE END #OneBookAtATime

If you've always dreamed of Bill & Ted reuniting to make a horror film, if you like the elaborate magical systems dreamed up by Tim Powers but think they're too well-planned and logical, if you think the head growing legs and crawling away gag in John Carpenter's remake of The Thing is the best SFX ever, if you love the combination of buddy comedy and demon hunting in Reaper... I believe I have found your new favorite book.

John Dies at the End is long on imaginative gore and slapstick horror, but short on sense. Part of this is, I suspect, by design; our protagonist Dave Wong (wink) and his friend John are shrewd but poorly educated working class stiffs who stumble upon a drug that allows -- indeed forces -- the user to see into other dimensions, most of which are way scarier than ours, menacing and gross and hostile to humanity, and thereby uncover a multidimensional conspiracy to take over and effectively destroy our world. Their grasp on what is going on is usually, therefore, on the slack side, and so, therefore, is our hero's narration -- long on pop culture references and descriptions of things as "stupid" or "retarded", short on sense.

But what John Dies at the End lacks in sense, it makes up for in sheer inventiveness and flair. Wong was at great pains to invent all new monsters, though he was obviously inspired by Stephen King's lobstrosities (but his monsters rarely ask nonsensical questions while they attack). I was particularly amused/sickened by, for instance, the "wigmonsters" that trash a famous paranormal hunter's floor show in a Las Vegas casino. They're quite Carpenteresque, multiform and multi-limbed and multi-eyed, and are, in fact, wearing jaunty little wigs complete with rubber chinstraps. And they are equipped with scorpion-like stingers that pump their victims full of the Drug of Dimensional Seeing.

There are body-snatchings, "alien" abductions, gunfights, sword fights (sort of), bombs and beer bongs. There is an abandoned shopping mall infested fire-breathing coyotes and deer with pincers at the end of their antlers. Exploding dogs and explosions of dog feces. Road trips. And then there's the Bill and Ted element: several times our heroes' bacon is saved by timely delivery of objects or information that could only be achieved via time travel. And John's spirit, or something, seems to be unstuck in time (as is their dog, Molly) and able to make cell phone calls to Dave even while Dave is sitting with the supposed real John. This is never explained but it's amusing enough to let it slide.

Anyway, I liked it well enough to take the trouble to get my hands on the sequel, This Book is Full of Spiders, which I'll be reading in due course. But first, I have promises to keep.

An Honest Top Ten Songs List

My good pal Mike Oliveri threw something interesting onto his blog today. Based on the number of times something has been played on your personal music system, what are your genuine top ten songs. I mean, you must like them if you play them that often, no?

So here they are, in classic countdown style. Where I've been able to find embeddable/playable links, I have included them, but in some cases YouTube/Blip/etc are letting me down.

 I'm less embarrassed by the results than I thought I would be, but I think I'm revealing that at heart I'm a bit of a sentimental sap.

10. Yell,  by Robin Danar (feat. Jesca Hoop)

This is a nice, spaced out bit of electronica with rather a sexy beat to it, and then the lyrics start sinking in. What it really is, is a crie de cour against injustice that just gets more relevant with each passing year, protest break-up or Republican debate. All delivered in Jesca Hoop's unique, soft and funky vocals. I can't follow every word when she launches into the odd bit of Indian raga-style, but it sure sounds good.

9. Manic Moonlight, by King's X



This is a live version of the song. Wish I could have been there for it (I have seen King's X live and talked briefly with drummer Jerry Gaskill, who is exactly as kind and thoughtful a guy as I expected). I'm a big King's X fan from way back and listen to them a lot, but I was surprised that this, of all their amazing tunes, was in my top most played. I think I like stuff like "We Were Born to be Loved" more, but maybe all of those dazzling time signature changes exhaust my brain too much? And maybe most of their other songs are just too passionate for me sometimes, while this one is always ok when it comes up in the shuffle. It's still heavy as hell, both in terms of the meh-tal and the meaning, but it's one of the band's smoother and more reflective numbers.

8. He Doesn't Know Why, by Fleet Foxes



Fleet Foxes' tagline is "we like to sing" and it really shows in songs like this one. Really just a series of long arpeggios sort of slapped together into a song, it's the vocals that sell it. In a lot of ways, what they're doing shouldn't work: Robin Pecknold breathes audibly and in the middle of lines, which should annoy the hell out of me but instead charms me: I think of a little kid singing his heart out but not planning ahead for when he should breathe (and now I'm thinking of Negativland's crazy "Over the Hiccups" in which a little kid struggles cutely to sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" through an epic case of hiccups). And since I'm seeing this official video for the first time ever, LOOK! GOATS! Goats are cute.

7. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song, by Fleet Foxes



So wow, yes, I listen to Fleet Foxes a lot. Especially when I'm writing, and especially when I'm writing sonnets (you do know I write sonnets, right?). Their poetic lines spill over like mine do, plus, their music is just pretty. Really pretty.

6. When Smokey Sings, by ABC



I like absolutely everything about this song, but funnily enough, I was largely indifferent to it when it was popular in the '80s. I liked "Be Near Me" better, and the video for "The Look of Love" with its faux Ren Faire and Punch and Judy puppets was more fun. This was a song I had to grow into. What I first noticed was the classic Motown bariton sax lines (I have always liked a good, goaty bari sax bit -- why my favorite David Bowie song, against all comers except maybe, sometimes, "Queen Bitch" is "Blue Jean"), and by around 2005 this was my default choice whenever it was my turn to feed the Jukebox of Everything at my local dive bar. I'm surprised its play number isn't a bit higher, actually!

5. All Over the World, by Electric Light Orchestra

There is comfort food, so why wouldn't there be comfort music? I grew up roller skating with my little sister round and round and round and round in my dad's garage, to a select few LP's playing on my portable record player. The skates were the metal kind you fit on over your shoes, the accoustics in the garage were awful and the speakers on the record player were, well, speakers on a kid's portable record player quality, but when you're ten years old, what do you care? And one of the records we loved best was the original soundtrack album to Xanadu. My sister liked the Olivia Newton John songs (because of her, we also had to skate a lot to Grease), while I preferred the ELO. It was a good compromise. And so, to this very day, the opening bars of this song make me smile, and never once to I hit "skip" to shuffle on to the next tune. (Oh, and do yourself a favor and click on the link I made above. YouTube wouldn't let me embed the film clip but you just have to go love on Gene Kelly being his smooth, fantastic self amidst all of the kitsch flash of 1980 crap culture).

4. Shake Your Hair, by Ditched by Kate



This song just freaking rocks and it shot way up in my number of plays when the EP was released last year. I just can't stop listening to it. It's only partly because the lead singer of Ditched by Kate (and no, I am not the Kate what ditched 'em, but when I finally make it to one of their gigs we're going to pretend) is a much-loved friend, Phil Rossi (who is quite a renaissance man. Check out his website and get a load of his books and other creative endeavors, all of which I recommend). This video is a stripped down version of the song, with, I think, not the entire band (but there's my friend Chooch on bass!), played at a science fiction convention because geeks like to get down, too.

3. Waterloo Sunset, by Ray Davies (feat. the Crouch End Festival Chorus)



Don't get me wrong, I love the original Kinks recording of this lovely, melancholy little ditty, but for some reason therecording Ray Davies made a few years ago with the Crouch End Festival Chorus is what halts me during shuffles. This live version is pretty nice but I have to say, the studio version is freaking exquisite.

2. We Are Going to Fuck Some Shit Up, by Gyrating Bhtch

This is one of the most gloriously ridiculous songs ever recorded by the most gloriously ridiculous band you've never heard of (unless you're a personal friend of mine or of one or more of the band members). I've listened to it hundreds of times and it still makes me laugh like a loon, but I have no idea if it will have that effect on other people. For me, it's the lyrical absurdity combined with the hilariously creative vulgarity combined with my dear friend Mark Delsing's totally deadpan delivery. How about you?

1. Sax and Violins, by The Talking Heads



This song was originally developed for the soundtrack of one of my favorite films of all time, Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World. It was the soundtrack I fell in love with first, though, and this song had a big part in that. It's totally typical Talking Heads, but it was new Talking Heads at a time when we weren't expecting anymore, and while it was in no way a departure from what they'd done before, it still felt like the future (the film came out in 1991 and imagined, among other things, New Year's Even 1999 in a wholly original and unforgettable way). It's danceable (I like to take dance breaks when I'm writing), it's smooth, it's emotional, and, obviously, I play it all the freaking time.

So there's mine. What are yours? List in comments (share with Mike Oliveri, too, since this post is his fault), or link back to a blog post like this that you write. This was fun and a little weird 8)

Podcasting Zelig: You thought I was kidding?

On a lot of my online profiles I refer to myself as a "podcast crasher." I've allowed my own podcast to fade because it's a lot of work and I've got no local help, but I still get a kick out of doing stuff on other people's podcasts.

Above is my latest appearance, in the triumphant return of "Calls for Cthulhu", the Great Old One's call-in talk show. I asked a very provocative question -- so provocative that Cthulhu, in his terrible rage, admitted that he is responsible for the film version of Avatar: The Last Airbender.

If this is your first time seeing this great little show, check out the rest at the creator's YouTube channel.

Other 'casts I have crashed include...

Orange Alert - reading an awesome story by Jeremy C. Shipp

Several appearances on Shadowcast Audio, a horror anthology podcast - reading stories by Shipp and other authors.

I've also had bit parts in a few podcast novels over at Podiobooks.com, including that of a distraught mother who needs the heroine's help in Starla Hutchins' lovely fantasy novel The Dreamer's Thread.

And of course there is my own podcast, now mostly defunct, but it may soon revive in a weird form late in the year. See if it doesn't.

I love doing story narration and voice-overs and am always happy to help. If you need me, find me on Twitter.

The Kate of Mind Podcast Returns -- Sort Of

CLICK TO DINO-SIZE

Just for the hell of it, and because I promised a new twitter follower that I would, I recorded a reading of my latest ShortStoryAThon entry, "Proper Attire Required." Click HERE to go have a listen.

Libsyn has made some changes since I last uploaded anything there, so I may have screwed something up, but I'm pretty sure that if you are a subscriber to the old podcast in iTunes you should get this automatically. Do let me know if that isn't working.

Also, if you'd like to hear more ShortStoryAThon silliness, the whole group recorded one of our commissions and it's available HERE. Tube Tops and Tire Irons. You know you wanna.

My Dinosaur Comics White Board Is Here!

Click to Dino-Size!

My friends on Twitter already know of my great enthusiasm for Dinosaur Comics, that wondrous webcomic whereat Ryan Q. North makes his daily commentary on modern life as viewed through the perspectives of a dysfunctional and self-centered Tyrannosaurus Rex (who is addicted to stomping on houses and cars, Godzilla-style), a Dromiceiomimus who is sort of T-Rex's ex, and T's comedic foil Utahraptor, who exists mostly to deflate T's giant ego bubbles.

And yes, it uses the exact same artwork every day -- yet still manages to be fresh and hilarious. Take a look through the archives and you'll see what I mean. Watch out for in-jokes that have been known to appear upon my own personal chest in the form of tee-shirtery.

Today the Mud Room of Squee brought me more Dinosaur Comics goodness in the form of a white board with the standard art permanently affixed. I can now leave notes to myself like which very logical place I put the peanut butter away in or let the two hemispheres of my brain duke it out in battles royal whenever I want, just like Ryan does!

Above is my first one, mocking my enthusiasm for Dark Shadows and also making a lame joke about hipsters and the difference between bird-hipped and lizard-hipped dinosaurs which I'm sure Ryan could do better (and maybe has done) but then again, maybe not.

Ryan?