Every wild idea, and dinosaurs too: Rob Walton's Ragmop
Welcome to the latest installment of my comics review column here at Skiffy & Fanty! Every month, I use this space to shine a spotlight on SF&F comics (print comics, graphic novels, and webcomics) that I believe deserve more attention from SF&F readers. This month, I’m going to draw your attention to a webcomics series, new in 2017, that tells a complete story that you can read for free online – that also marked the surprising and welcome return of some old friends: Rob Walton’s Ragmop. (This review contains spoilers!)
A Book By Its Cover: Steel Blood by J.L. Gribble
A worthy successor to Steel Victory and Steel Magic, this third volume in Gribble’s Steel Empires series continues the ambitious genre mash-up that has delighted fans of all ages forty-four through sixty-two. The official sequel to the play/film Steel Magnolias from the late ’80s, and a Sega Genesis console game from the early ’90s, the Steel Empires series began by successfully merging a story about a close-knit group of women in a small-town southern community with the plot of a side-scrolling, shoot-’em-up Steampunk videogame. In a story that is ThunderCats meets a Chemistry Textbook meets Lord of the Rings meets your Aunt’s blog, Steel Blood expands and fortifies Gribble’s mash-up creation even more, keeping it shiny fresh, though not completely stainless.
A Book by Its Cover: The Dispatcher by John Scalzi
Morgan Filchberger is the last 911 Dispatcher to be promoted to Detective after floppy-armed robots replaced the entire workforce. Anyone else might be bitter about that, but Morgan has failed the Department of Uniformed Detectives Exam five times. Now, he’s living the dream: the pay is good and he gets to tell his high school buddies that he’s a real badass. That is until members of the Irradiated Blue Man Group start showing up dead and partially digested in the streets of Orlando. With Captain Northrup Wilkinson and the union representative of the IBMG breathing down his neck, Morgan wonders if he’s really cut out for the detective life… Enter Felicia Guffman, a smartmouthed rookie slash amateur thespian with a penchant for unfinished Greek tragedies and Morgan’s new partner. If there’s one thing Felicia does well, it’s propping up mediocre (male) members of law enforcement to make them look good. Call it a gift. Or a curse. Whatever you call it, Felicia has been putting her talents to use since graduating from the Louisiana Academy of Detective Youths four years ago. And a bunch of dead glowing blue guys aren’t going to keep her from making a name for herself, even if she has do it by making Morgan into a hero before exposing him for the fraud that he is.
#43. Deadpool (2016) — A Shoot the WISB Subcast
https://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/ShootTheWISB43Deadpool/ShootTheWisb43–Deadpool.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSMouthy mercenaries, endless comedy, and fourth walls, oh my! The Merc with the Mouth is on the big screen (FINALLY), and that means we’re honor bound to watch his shenanigans and record a podcast about it. Shaun, David, Rachael, and Mike combine their considerable skills as mediocre podcast superheroes to discuss the hit comic adaptation, Deadpool. Maximum Effort! We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below):
A Book by Its Cover: The Curiosity
Timothy “Buttons” McBanks is the greatest door-to-door cane salesman of his generation. There isn’t a cane he cannot sell: bamboo sticks from the heart of the Orient, wrought iron from Detroit City, and even twisted lengths of cursed yew from the blackest depths of the Queen’s England. A plaque set into the
A Book By Its Cover: I Am Pusheen the Cat by Claire Belton
I Am Pusheen the Cat by Claire Belton Padhusheen Singh — Pusheen to her friends — starts the day like any other: realizing that she will be late for class. What makes this day different? She is scheduled to present her dissertation on phytoquantum felineconomics in fifteen minutes! Grabbing the bag that contains her experiment, Pusheen jumps on her cherry Vespa motorscooter and jams it into top gear. She slaloms through traffic like Peekaboo Streak. As the college comes into view, she glances down at her Hello Kitty watch. She’s going to make it in time! Pusheen doesn’t see the cement mixer until its too late. Lifting into the air, Pusheen clutches her bag and waits for the ground to send her to the reincarnation bingo hall (or however the gods do it; she was never very orthodox). Click. In a haze of strange quarks, she activates her experiment. A moment later, she is twisting through the air to land safely on the ground…on all four of her paws. I Am Pusheen the Cat puts readers inside the bell on Pusheen’s collar while she tries to negotiate school, life, and love as a woman-sized cat. While Pusheen is a chubby, cuddly-wuddly striped gray kitty on the outside, inside she’s your typical twenty-something Indian-American. Just because she’s as adorable as a newborn baby in a suit of teddy bears doesn’t mean she can miss her shift at Pizza Moat (“Can I get a supreme, but hold the hairballs please.”) or stand Chet the Quarterback up on Friday night (“You’re lucky I’m a Furry.”) No, life as a one hundred sixty pound cat with the mind of a Ph. D. student isn’t easy, but it is interesting. ——————————————————————— A Book By Its Cover comedically (re)imagines stories, plots, and characters of books based entirely on the cover.
