What? It's August already?!

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately. My gout still hasn't gone away, even though the worst of the pain has subsided and I have been able to work again the last few days. It turns out that the gout is most likely caused by the fact that I now only have one kidney, and that one's not working at 100%, so it's probably not producing enough uric acid. Gout, paradoxically, can apparently be caused by having either too much or too little uric acid in your system.

Unfortunately the best medication for treating gout has the potential to damage kidneys, and since I only got one and it's fragile enough already, my doc doesn't want to prescribe it. As she says, I'm "basically screwed." (Yeah, she can be pretty blunt.) So it looks like I'm doomed to experience this particular "ailment of kings" for the rest of my life. And since I also have an unusually high resistance to pain killers... well, my doc put it most succinctly when she said, "Gee, sucks to be you."

Sigh.

Last weekend, my wife and I switched offices. The room I'd chosen when we moved in proved to be too small for all my crap, and as I had a new computer coming for design gigs, I needed additional space for a second work station. So we switched.

My back is still killing me. Desks and books and bookcases and comic boxes are friggin' heavy.

Still, I rather like my new workspace. I'm actually able to display more of my toys (or, as I think of them, inspirations), and now have all my bookcases in one room. I do know that it gets really cold in here in the winter... but I'll deal with that when the time comes. And – I got a new desk chair, so I don't have to use the wooden kitchen chair anymore.

I picked up a few interesting DVDs recently, among them the latest Doctor Who adventure, Planet of the Dead, (liked it) and the latest DC animated feature, Green Lantern: First Flight. I've read some online reviews complaining that the Green Lantern movie is just a cop story set in space, but, um, Green Lantern is a cop in space! With a magic ring! Personally, I loved it... and I was worried I wouldn't, because I really disliked the studio's previous Wonder Woman film.

But, as far as I'm concerned, GL: First Flight is a terrific adventure with some very nice design, animation and excellent voice work, especially on the part of Victor Garber.

We also rented the latest Torchwood series (a Doctor Who spin-off) through Netflix, Children of Earth. I thought it was about 90% successful. It had shocking moments, a downright terrifying alien threat, and some truly horrible ethical choices that the characters had to make. Unfortunately, I thought the main character was, well, somewhat out of character, and I was a bit let down by the ending.

Still, though, it was a pretty remarkable, disturbing five hours of sci-fi drama, and I'm really glad we watched it.

As far as my projects go, I'm trying to make up for my nearly three week incapacitation, and am working on a new Kolchak script for Moonstone. I planned on having it done back at the end of June, so it's my current priority.

I spoke with my Gravedigger collaborators Rick Burchett and Fred Harper today, and according to Rick, he's only a couple pages from completing the second half of the next Gravedigger graphic novella, The Predators! The first half is inked, and Fred will start in on the second half just as soon as Rick sends him the penciled pages. I've given up trying to predict when my comics will be finished, but we all want it out for next Spring.

Richard Clark is steadily sending me lovely pages from our Captain Midnight Zero issue, so that's coming along nicely, and I also received pages this week from Gene Gonzales for Perils On Planet X. They're beautiful – as you can see for yourself from the panels above.

It may take a while, but we'll get there!

I also re-connected with a talented artist I knew about ten years ago, and we're discussing the possibility of collaborating on a new creator-owned comics project. I hope we can get it off the ground – it's another one of those concepts I've been wanting to do for twenty years.

And, finally, the comics line that I'm editing for Michael Hudson – Sequential Pulp – is nearing take off. Our first title, Fredric Brown's Martians, Go Home, adapted from the classic novel by Martin Powell and Mike Manley, will be solicited through Dark Horse Comics this Fall, with Otis Adelbert Kline's Swords of Venus hopefully following soon after.

Then I'll really be busy!