Steve Ahlquist has posted the last three issues of Oz Squad – number ten, Lil’ Oz Squad and the Millenium Special. Sometime soon I’ll have to set up links to each issue from the history page. And adjust the links on the Oz Comics page. Some of the links have gone dead during the brief time I’ve had the page up. Stupid internets.

What? Oh, did I say that out loud?

I’m just saying.

Once a week Nizzibet goes to a coffee shop (Mr. Spot’s) and spends a few hours writing. Digging up her childhood. At about four o’clock a good friend of ours comes by to read and critique what she’s written. Then we usually go get something to eat or I get dropped off at home to cook while they find some DVD or video to rent from Rain City Video. We do something fun and basically mindless.

Nizz and I don’t talk much about what she writes. I want to read the book when she’s done. Reading it in pieces means she’ll want me to comment in pieces and I figure having one friend-editor is enough. And I’ve heard enough of the stories to know that it’s not a story for me to read casually. Tuppenceworth has published an excerpt. It’s not something you’d want to read first thing in the morning. Or just before going to bed.

Steve has posted the contents of Oz Squad 5-9.This is the time travel arc and feature Terry Loh’s illustrations. Nope, Terry doesn’t seem to have a web presence either.

Steve Ahlquist has begun posting the pages to the original Oz Squad at his website. So far he’s got issues one, two, three and four – the Andrew Murphy ones – online. Mr. Murphy doesn’t seem to have a web presence and has apparently dropped out of comic illustration entirely. (At least that’s what it looks like after running through a few dozen Google pages. Google has thousands of listings for Andrew Murphys but I’m not dedicated enough to check out all of them.)

I’m used to Epilogue.net taking a little while to review and post any submissions that I send them. I do find it odd that a submission from the 10th and one from the 14th are still “pending” when submissions from the 16th have been posted. Posted the same day as submitted. I’m now expecting them to get posted on the same day as 60 other submissions and therefore get lost in the crowd.

Whine. Fuss.

When the Tim Burton/Jack Nicholson/Michael Keaton Batman came out I was quoted in The Press Democrat saying something like, “It’s the best movie they could have made about a guy who dresses up as a bat and fights crime.” (I happened to be walking out of the theatre when there was a reporter looking for a quote.)

With the new Batman Begins I’d say they’ve now made a better movie about a guy who dresses up as bat and fights crime.

Of course, it’s a matter of how much you care about Batman. And which version you care about. I didn’t read Batman comics as a kid. I was mainly a Marvel zombie. I knew of Batman from the Adam West/Burt Ward TV series, which I liked. As a kid I thought it was cool, more or less. The heroes and villains wore colorful outfits and got into fist fights. I hadn’t a clue what camp was. Camp isn’t something a kid gets. The first Batman comics I bought were the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers run in Detective Comics during the time when DC was apparently seriously considering cancelling the series. Those comics are among the comics I wanted to keep when it came to sorting out my collection last summer.

You’ll find plenty of folks on the net who can tell you what was great and what was not about BB. I thought it was fun because it paid attention the history of the character and crafted a story that worked without changing that history too much. It’s a depiction of Batman that’s closer to the comics than any of the previous films.

I’ve added the Wogglebug to the Who’s Who page. The Professor is my greatest intentional departure from Neil’s illustrations. I say Neil’s illustrations because I haven’t seen him depicted by many other artists and, when I have, the illustrations have had Neil’s model as their base.

I don’t consciously use Neil’s illustrations as models but his version of the Oz characters are usually the first images that come to mind when I think of them. Oz Squad is set in our 21st century (more or less) so most of the characters have had decades of change happen to them since the Baum books. I try to reflect that when I do their portraits. For some the changes have been major. Dorothy has grown up. Nick and the Scarecrow have had numerous changes and repairs to their bodies. Cap’n Bill has a new leg. For others – the Woozy, the Lion, the Tiger – there’s been little apparent physical change. I just draw them as they are described and that more or less goes along with what Neil drew. (How many ways can you draw a Woozy?).

The Professor got reinvented for a couple of reasons. I wanted him to look more like a magnified bug and I never liked Neil’s version. He’s creepy. Reminds me too much of a scary clown.

Yesterday Nizzibet was interviewed and photographed for Beautiful Women – A New Definition. Nothing for me to add to that. She’s a babe. And she’s brilliant.

We cleaned the house (well, the living room) on Tuesday night in preparation for this. Which means we swept all the clutter into the rooms we aren’t using and shut the doors.