Welcome to 2024! The future! The far future, as I always imagined it!

Not sure exactly why but I find myself randomly thinking back to a Superfriends cartoon I saw when I was very little. Mid seventies, maybe? The Superfriends met an alien visiting Earth from a planet where ha-ha-ha air pollution had destroyed their environment and caused massive climate change. So the Superfriends went and helped clean up his planet. And assured all us kids we’d never let it get that bad here on Earth. Because now we knew better!

Ha ha ha ha ha, fake laugh. Hiding real pain.

Also, random thing– should I be numbering these or something? I’m seeing some folks do that. Should this be Newsletter Episode #18– <funny title> or are you all happy just getting more casual emails? I’m still playing around with it, y’know?

Anyway, let’s get into updates and news and all that stuff you’re here for.

I finished the big rewrite on GJD and I’m very happy with it. Tightened up some things. Hammered a few other things so they fit better. Added some things. It’s a better story on a few levels. So when you hear people complain about “oh, but an agent will just make you change stuff” try to remember that sometimes that can be a good thing.

I also sent out a comic book pitch. Nothing IP related. Well, it’s my own original idea, so technically it’s my IP. But it’s not connected to anything of mine, either. Just an original superhero-ish idea. My college roommate became a comic editor and we’ve been talking for a while about doing something and I finally got off my butt and said “okay, what do you think about this…?” And he thinks it looks pretty fun sooooo we’re talking about it some more and we’ll see what there is to say about this in next month’s newsletter…

At the moment, I’m back working on TOS. Which really meant I’ve spent the past two days rereading what I’d already written to get back in the voice and flow of it and really today’s going to be the first day back out on the deck with a legal pad. Yeah, I’m writing a lot of this draft on a legal pad. Don’t know why. It just sort of worked out that way.

Wow, that’s a lot of stuff summed up pretty quick. What else could I tell you about…?

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Watching– We decided to try out Apple+ and have quickly converted to the church of Ted Lasso. Still making my way through Blue-Eyed Samurai, still loving it. Really enjoyed High Society. I’ve watched about half of What If… and it’s pretty entertaining so far. Think I might like it a little more than season one.

Cool Stuff I’ve Been Reading
Lots of ARC’s for stuff that doesn’t come out until later this year. Started the year by finishing Django Wexler’s How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying which was freakin’ fantastic. Then I read Jennifer Brozek’s new Shadowrun novel, Auditions, which is very fun. I’m currently about halfway through Craig diLouie’s How To Make a Horror Movie and Survive which is just beautifully gory and creepy. Got a new one from Jonathan Maberry on deck after that.

Cool New Toys – Christmas was good to me. My lovely lady gave me the ‘Final Swing” Spider-man figure and also a ReAction Gigan to fight Godzilla. My parents sent me an Elita-1 Transformer and also a LEGO set of the Mandalorian’s N-1 starfighter. And my friends Marcus and Gillian got me the What If… Hydra Stomper (the WWII version), which is a massive hunk of action figure.