Thrilling Tales: back in the mad doctor’s laboratory

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I’ve got just a few days left before I need to shift back to the illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book, so I’m trying all the harder to make some more progress on my other Thrilling Tale, which is Part Two of The Toaster With Two Brains. As you see here I’m back in the laboratory of Doctor Rognvald in the Tower of the Brain Thieves.

That’s not, in fact, where the story begins; but because this Tale will go live all at once, rather than in a serial, I don’t have to start at the beginning. This is the sixth of about a hundred and twenty illustrations. So, you know, although I’m happy to be making progress, the progress isn’t all that measurable just yet. It’s a marathon – not a sprint.

There’s something potentially pretty neat in the wind. It’s so speculative that I can’t say a thing about it and (speculative things being what they are) it’ll probably be quite awhile before that changes, if ever. Consider it a mystery, and cross your fingers for me.

Two-day T-Shirt sale at the Retropolis Transit Authority and Saga Shirts

Filed under Works in Progress

On the left: Ctheltic Cthulhu. On the right: Tell it to My Giant Robot.

It’s time again for an arithmetically confusing T-Shirt Sale at the Retropolis Transit Authority and Saga Shirts: this time, through tomorrow, March 29, you can save up to 24% on an order of $50 or more by using the coupon code:

BIGMONDAYBLUES

The system will run a complicated, perplexing, and (possibly) intentionally obtuse calculation on your order and then it’ll spit out your discount. It varies a bit from one type of item to another – but on dark colored shirts it looks like about 24%. Which is not anything you should be sneezing at, at least until you’ve paid for what you’re sneezing on. It’s just common courtesy, after all.

Anyway, the deal’s over at midnight (Mountain Time) on March 29. So get clicking.

New Wally Wood comics collection coming from Vanguard

Filed under Found on the Web

J. David Spurlock has shown a teaser from Vanguard’s new Wally Wood book at Facebook. This cover is an image Spurlock cobbled together from vintage Wood drawings, with colors and title graphic by Jim Steranko.

The book’s set for a November release – after, I think, a short delay from its original date.

The book’s already listed at Amazon, just so you can go there and keep refreshing the page for the next eight months.

And what’s in it? Spurlock explains:

We are finalizing the contents now but it will likely include Wood’s complete Avon sci-fi output including Strange Worlds, Space Detective, Capt. Science, etc. We are waiting to hear from EC about including some EC material.

Wood was an amazing penciler and inker; he’s remembered today for a lot of that work, but it still seems to me that he remains undervalued. You just can’t beat the science fiction stories he turned out, especially during the EC years.

Thrilling Tales: Update on The Toaster With TWO BRAINS

Filed under Thrilling Tales of the Downright Unusual, Works in Progress

I know it can quiet when I’m busy over here, since ‘busy’ brings on my sophisticated system of Tunnel Vision. This means that I’m not too well aware of anything else. But when my blog gets sort of empty and echoing that’s usually a sign that a whole heck of a lot is going on. Which, it turns out, has been the case.

I’ve finished the script for Part Two of The Toaster With TWO BRAINS and I’m liking it a lot; as the second act of the story it’s got a lot more action, for one thing, as things become more clear and more frantic at pretty much the same time. I’ve followed the "narrower, longer" style of story branches that I described earlier and the result is that you can read through the story from several viewpoints at different stages; and while there aren’t usually as many options to choose, the options that are there lead to very different events within a story that still arrives at the same place at the same time.

I like it a lot; hopefully you will too, though because of the time I spend on the illustrations you won’t be seeing it for roughly a year.

I’ve finished entering the story data in the form the web site needs, and today I’ve completed the images and HTML for all the new inventory items. There’s about two weeks on my calendar before I go back to the illustrations for The Lair of the Clockwork Book – so I even have some time to make a start on the Two Brains illustrations before that happens.