Who I Am And Where you Can Find Me

I'll be undertaking yet another move tomorrow (from one end of Sheffield to the other and from flat to house), so we'll be going dark for a few weeks. That said, I thought I'd leave you with plenty to do and see and read, because I'm that kind of guy. So, here we go...

My name is Joshua Reynolds and I'm a freelance writer of moderate skill and exceptional confidence. I have written a bit, and some of it was even published, by real people, for money. My work has appeared in such varied locations as anthologies like Permuted Press' Robots Beyond and the forthcoming Specters in Coal Dust from Woodland Press, as well as periodicals like Innsmouth Free Press.

Some links, for when you're done combing through the archives:

My Amazon/Amazon UK author's page, where you can purchase a selection of items relating to me, including several out of print books.

My second blog, Hunting Monsters, where I ramble on and on about my writing, if you're into that kind of thing. And I know you are.

An excerpt from my section of the two-part novel, Jim Anthony, Super-Detective: The Hunters from Airship 27, as well as links for various ports of purchase. Airship 27 also sells the anthology Sherlock Holmes-Consulting Detective, Volume 2, which contains my story, "The Affair of the Wretched Flesh".

An excerpt from my forthcoming novel, Dracula Lives! at the publisher's website (you need to scroll down a bit). More about this one in October, which is, coincidentally, when it will be released. The publisher, Pulpwork Press, also has an anthology of weird western stories available, How The West Was Weird, which contains my story, "Camazotz". Which, again coincidentally, is free to read on the website.

The nifty audio versions of my steampunk/alt. history stories featuring the Ameriquetzlan ambassador and amateur detective, Ulrich Popoca and the enigmatic and horribly dangerous Countess (in-exile) Francesca Felluci, "The Strange Affair of the Artisan's Heart", "The Strange Affair of the Skull at the Window", and "The Strange Affair of the Martian Engine". Look for more stories with these characters in the future.

Speaking of Countess Felluci, she has a series of her own (sort of) here at the Revenance site. Free to read, there's four chapters up so far, so now would be a good time to catch up with the best little baroque fantasy series going. And be sure to check out the other ongoing works as well.

My story, "Corn Wolf" appears in issue eleven of Necrotic Tissue Magazine, which is available for purchase here. And here's a nice review of the issue in question, and my story in particular.

My story, "Piper at the Edge of Winter", appears in the sixth issue of Black Ink Horror Magazine, which is available for purchase here.

And that, I think, is enough of that sort of shameless self-promotion for the nonce. See you in a few!

Whacko Style

Over at Comics Alliance, Adam WarRock's (AKA Eugene Ahn) new mixtape is available for free download, and it's a doozy...14 tracks of some of the smoothest nerd-rap you ever did see this side of B-Hyphen, based on the members of the West Coast Avengers. Did I mention that it's free? Seriously, just go download it.

I Hate It When that Happens...

And it happens a lot, surprisingly. Baboons are tricky devils. Always pretending to be vacuum cleaners and dark ales and scaffolding and such. Can't trust an ape with a tail, that's what I say.

Villains With Potential-Big Wheel

I can hear you laughing. And, I understand that laughter. Jackson Weele-the Big Wheel-is, without a doubt, one of the most ridiculous super-villains to ever grace the four-colour funnies.

He's a cipher, a man with no real personality, and a Silver Age-y gimmick that renders him less than effective in a punch-up with super-powered individuals. Or does it?

Consider, if you will, the Big Wheel itself...a gyroscopic war-wheel, armed to the teeth and armoured to acceptable standards. It's basically a less streamlined version of any one of the dozen streamlined main-line battle-tanks occupying the Marvel Universe at a given moment, be they Iron-Men, Mongers or Dynamos. And Weele is sadly lacking in anything close to an interesting personality. But that's what makes this concept so full of potential...there's no telling what Weele s up to, or what he has installed in his ride, especially given how much more space he has to cram things in...

Every appearance of the Big Wheel should be a showcase of cutting edge military vehicle technology, from anti-personnel hull defences, eye in the sky satellite targeting, to pinpoint omni-directional control. That wheel should go up buildings, across the bottom of the Hudson, over smaller vehicles, sideways, backwards, forwards and up and down. It should lay mines as it rolls, string titanium slicing cheese-wire across alleyways and intersections and emit localized EMP bursts to occupy the authorities. Predator drones on gyroscopic mono-wheels should dog its flanks, powering themselves on organic matter, their crude AIs devoted to the Mother Wheel. The pilot should be able to remain inside his sterile, unbreachable, hardened control sphere indefinitely, provided he doesn't mind drinking recycled urine, controlling his rolling world with only a twitch of his finger or a hoarsely whispered command.

But to what purpose? Maybe the Big Wheel has become the rolling bank of the super-villain community...an unbreachable vault to store their ill-gotten gains. Maybe Weele has taken up smuggling, or drug-trafficking. Maybe he just likes to indulge in private urban renewal.

Regardless, every time Jackson Weele goes to town, it should be war, plain and simple. He's that guy who stole a bulldozer, slapped some steel plates on it and went to knock down his neighbour's house. He's the guy who drives his new truck through a shopping mall, just because he's having a bad day. Weele's Wheel has become his obsession...an ever-evolving work of combat-art, whose growth he funds with his thefts. Every iteration of the Big Wheel is more dangerous, more destructive than the last...a growling, grinding nightmare of bleeding edge technology, unleashed and unstoppable.

Sometimes...

...Mr. Bendis gets it right. The above? That's gold right there. The Thing and Spider-Man are the two characters above all others who I can see snarking on someone else during a fight, especially over something as inconsequential as whether or not a team-mate has seen Ghostbusters. It's scenes like this that reaffirm my belief that Brian Michael Bendis is, in fact, a good writer (I can already hear the howls of dissent) when he's given the right characters.

By the way, that's from the latest issue of Mighty Avengers, which also contains an amusing scene with Victoria Hand throwing one of the most impressively controlled temper-tantrums I've ever seen.

Six-Gun-Three

Hey, remember when I posted a link to the first issue of this series? Yeah? Well, issue three is heading to the stands soon-ish, and man it's just getting better and better. We got evil old ghosts, sinister Pinkertons, the four gunmen of the apocalypse and a batch of heroes that'd make a man check to see that he still had both his wallet and his soul. Really, it's everything I want from a comic...

Post-Modern Pioneering

Doesn't that look interesting? I thought so, so I dropped by the Aym Geronimo site and had a look-see, and boy is it hopping! From the site:

Headquartered in the Wonder Wall, a complex carved into

the side of the Grand Canyon, Aym and the Postmodern

Pioneers dare danger, discover the delphic, defy disaster,

and defeat the diabolical, using the tools of advanced

technology forged by the brilliant mind of Aym and the

prodigious skills of her comrades...

Seriously, that's kind of neat. Plus, y'know, I'm a sucker for alliteration. Do yourself a favor and swing by. Maybe even buy a book.

The Ultimate Super-Team!

Godspeed, You Feline King

The Factual Opinion and 4thletter! are co-hosting a series of in-depth essays on Don McGregor's seminal "Panther's Rage" storyline in Jungle Action, which engaged in mature deconstruction of the modern super-hero myth before Watchmen was even a gleam in Alan Moore's mighty beard.

It's well worth taking the time to read, especially now when it's just getting started. Part one is here, and part two is here. Part three is forthcoming. Awesomness.

Rags and Tatters

An interesting little article over here at CBR concerning Christos Gage's run at the character of Ragman. I'm a little excited by this, because I've always had something of a soft spot for poor Rory Regan and his tattered costume. I've got both of the late Eighties, early Nineties Ragman minis from DC, as well as a few of the Pre-Crisis appearances, and all of 'em are pretty interesting. The character could stand to get a bit more face-time outside of group books and hanging around in the background of mass character scenes, in my opinion.

Got it Covered

Have I directed you to the utterly awesome Covered blog yet? No? Consider this me doing so then. Artists of all stripes and calibres reinterpreting famous comic-book covers, such as Jason Barton's neat-o version of issue seven of Werewolf by Night. Go take a look.

I Would Just Like To Point Out That This Is Awesome...

...In a horrible and altogether wrong sort of way. From the first issue of The Marvel Universe Vs. the Punisher which features the Punisher killing Deadpool thirty-odd times in a variety of ways.

Venture Bros Season 4.5 Trailer

Ben Grimm, Casual Xenoist

Superman Battles the Foreclosure Fred...

...Or something like that, at any rate. As you may, or may not, have heard, the lucky discovery of a copy of the first issue of Action Comics managed to save a couple from suffering a foreclosure on their home. They sold it for a cool 1.5 million, which ain't nothing to sniff at. Howsabout them apples?

Lethal Passivity

Colin of Too Busy Thinking About My Comics gives a brilliant run-down of the character of Deadshot here, in regards to his use in Gail Simone's Secret Six. It's well worth reading, even if you have only a passing interest in the character. Very thought provoking.

What I found most interesting about the essay was Colin's spot-on description of the character as being fundamentally passive, despite his kit and kibble. Deadshot IS passive. He rarely acts, preferring to react, and even then, only in the most literal fashion. It's an interesting trait in a super-villain, especially one that's an assassin by trade.

In a sense, Deadshot kills without hesitation because it's the absolute least amount of interaction he can engage in, in a social sense, without simply shutting down into a comatose state. He's effectively disabling the social machinery of any given confrontation by cutting to the quick and eliminating the other points of view. Even more disturbing, he seems to do it not out of a desire to win/survive/prove his reality but out of simple boredom.

Conflict, in all its forms, seems tedious to him. Thus, he seeks to end any engagement (be it an argument or otherwise) in the quickest manner possible, with the least amount of interaction. In a way, Deadshot is the mirror opposite of another Bat-alumni, the Joker. The latter sees interaction as art...he's all about social engagement, whether via murder, fear or humour, talking incessantly at his opponents, forcing them to engage with him on multiple levels. Deadshot, in contrast, is nullification personified-a machine, propelled forward on internal mechanisms which are completely isolated from the rest of reality.

Of course, when circumstances conspire otherwise, forcing him into some form of pre-emptive action, Deadshot becomes even more lethal (as Colin noted in his essay), if such a thing is possible. Yet, in acting, he loses efficiency, often causing situations to become even more chaotic because he simply can't function correctly when he's the one directing traffic. Eventually, his passivity reasserts itself, and with it his inhumanity, often leading to an abrupt, unhappy ending for someone.

Like I said, thought provoking.

Getting Medieval...

...Spawn, that is. Ha! Get it, because that's what the whole imbroglio between Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane was about. And Gaiman got all 'medieval' on McFarlane-

Yeah, not really funny.

Anyway, if you're just joining us (and I am), the ongoing lawsuit between Big G and M-Dog finally got around to the final showdown this past week, resulting in a victory for Gaiman. Now, regardless of whether you're for or against the parties in question, this has been an interesting case, especially considering that the judge had to read more Spawn comics than any one person should ever have to in order to make a qualified ruling.

Seriously, do judges get hazard pay? Cause I think she's got a case. Ha! 'got a case'...because she's a judge. See, it's funny because-

I'll stop now.

Maggie Thompson has a thorough run down of the whole she-bang on her blog, starting from the very beginning of the trial, if you've got a few hours to spare. I recommend doing so, because frankly, it's as interesting as all hell to see how something like this shakes out.