Callooh! Callay! The End of May!
Somewhere outside the realm of coherence and linear time lies the Akashic Library, its infinite shelves stretching off into the horizon. What transcendent esoterica will we find there today? Read on, wanderer, and see . . .
School’s out for summer! And May’s almost over, so I better hurry if I want to get this May newsletter done in time. Let’s jump right in with the big news . . .
MILLION-COLORED SUN IS FINISHED!
Steve, Josh, and I did it, we finished our short and sexy pulp sword & sorcery RPG Million-Colored Sun. Here’s the final cover:
Josh finished layout of the text a few weeks ago and then we settled in for the final rounds of proofreading. We at Hex Games tend to get very picky about editing and proofreading but . . . Listen. I’m not going to say the name of the game, but there’s a game I backed on Kickstarter once, and it’s a good game and I’ve enjoyed playing it, but I swear there is at least one typo on every page. It is distracting and sometimes it leads to confusion when playing, because there are typos in sections that explain the rules. And every time I consult this book I ask myself, “Why couldn’t they have done just one more round of proofreading?” It gets tiresome but in the end it’s worth it.
So Josh shared the laid-out text with us, and Steve and I combed through it and sent Josh lists of the errors we noticed. Josh corrected those errors and sent the new version to us, Stacy combed through it and made a new list of errors, Josh corrected those, we looked through it again, and finally we couldn’t find any more errors.
And that’s the shiny new version of the PDF we’ve sent out to our Kickstarter backers. It’s out in the world now—maybe some people have read it! We haven’t heard from anyone yet, hopefully soon folks will tell us what they think. Though some are probably waiting to read it in print; that’s what I always do.
We’re still in the process of getting MCS to the Kickstarter backers. Once that’s done we’ll put it on sale to the general public, so if you didn’t back the Kickstarter, don’t worry, you’ll soon have your chance to get a copy!
MY RPG HOBBY
I’ve been running a lot of role-playing games lately, mainly Old-School Essentials. The other weekend I ran OSE on Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday, for three different groups, which was excessive but fun. I normally feel guilty if I spend too much time planning a game that’s just for me and my friends. The taskmaster in my brain tells me that if I’m going to spend time on something creative, it needs to be something I can publish! Why waste time and creative energy on fun?!?
But as I get older I realize more and more that fun is a necessary part of life. I can’t just sit around proofreading layout and writing newsletters all day. So I have recommitted myself to the RPG hobby. I am committing myself to this here, in this quasi-public space, so you can hold me accountable.
I am going to draw maps, and create lore, and set up mind-blowing adventures. I am going to run epic campaigns, leading my players into Fantastical Realms of Imagination, and I am not going to feel guilty about it.
I AM A YEAR OLDER
My birthday was May 27, and I am now old, older than you can imagine. I had a good time with my family and I got just what I wanted—Rom Omnibus volume 1, AKA the Romnibus. I am a lucky man, with a wonderful family and friends, a steady job, and so many comic books. I don’t need anything else—but if you really want to get me something for my birthday, consider ordering one of my books. Project 8Ball, maybe, or a Lightning Man comic (see below).
LIGHTNING MAN
I haven’t announced this anywhere yet, but since you’re such a good friend I’ll go ahead and tell you that I’ve started work on a collected edition of Lightning Man #1-4. The goal is to finish that by July. If you can’t wait, you can order the Lightning Man Combo Pack, including all four issues at a slightly discounted price, here.
Don't need them all, but have a hole in your collection? You can order individual issues through the following links:
Lightning Man #1
Lightning Man #2
Lightning Man #3
Lightning Man #4
BOOKS AVAILABLE THROUGH KINDLE VELLA
There are currently 28 chapters of my science-fiction adventure Armistice Hawkins and the New Architects of Creation available on Kindle Vella, and you can also read the entirety of my occult detective novel The Lobster-Quadrille there. If you like surreal detective stories, start at the beginning.
BOOKS I'VE READ SINCE LAST TIME
The Dusk volume 1, Alex Segura, Elizabeth Little, and David Hahn
Million-Colored Sun, Steve Johnson, Leighton Connor, and Joshua LH Burnett
Doom Patrol by Rachel Pollack Omnibus, Rachel Pollack, Linda Medley, Ted McKeever, and various
Yes, I counted Million-Colored Sun, because I read it so many times.
I haven’t finished many books so far this year because I’ve spent the majority of my reading time making my way through James Joyce’s Ulysses, which is easily the hardest novel I’ve ever read. At this point I’ve finished 15 of 18 chapters so I’m in the home stretch. My friend Tim and I have committed to finishing the book by Bloomsday, AKA June 16. I’ll let you know next time if I made it.
In between chapters of Ulysses I snuck in some comics reading, and I just finished the Rachel Pollack Doom Patrol omnibus. A little background . . . Doom Patrol is a superhero comic, right, that started in 1963, the same year as the X-Men. But while the X-Men became insanely popular in the 80s, the Doom Patrol stayed on the fringes.
Grant Morrison, my favorite mainstream comic book writer, wrote Doom Patrol from 1989 to 1993. These were formative years for me and those comics burned themselves into my brain forever. The Morrison Doom Patrol is probably still my favorite run of a comic book series, so when Morrison left and Rachel Pollack took over as writer I was skeptical. I kept comparing her unfavorably to Morrison, and overall found her run on the book disappointing.
Cut to 2023, when my local comic book store was going out of business (RIP, Arcadian Comics and Games!) and I got the Doom Patrol by Rachel Pollack Omnibus at a hefty discount. I wanted to give it another chance and, what do you know, it’s much better than I remembered.
One of the things that annoyed me about Pollack’s run when it was coming out was that it was all about gender and identity. I didn’t mind explorations of gender per se, but did that have to be the primary theme of the whole series? I didn’t know at the time that Pollack was a trans woman, so obviously these issues were relevant to her.
Reading the series now in 2024 it feels amazing that it ever got published. People who say that comics are too “woke” now and wish they could go back to the good ol’ days of the 90s have no idea; this stuff would blow their minds. Now that our society is constantly arguing whether trans people should have rights, this series feels more timely than ever. Among other things, it introduces DC’s first trans superhero, Kate Godwin, AKA Coagula. Pollack writes the character from personal experience and she always feels authentic.
The artwork in the first half of the run is by Linda Medley, of Castle Waiting fame, and her style matches well with the book’s whimsical tone. I was sad to see her go, but she was replaced by one of my favorites, Ted McKeever (though his chunky scratchy gooey sloppy art style is not for everyone.) The tone shifts with the arrival of McKeever and becomes more ominous.
This culminates in the highpoint of the run, the five-part story “Teiresias Wars” from issues 75-79. This comes fairly late in the run, when Pollack and McKeever have clicked and figured out what they’re doing. Pollack brings back Morrison’s evil conspiracy that’s headquartered under the Pentagon but puts a new spin on it, tying in various strains of mythology, including the Tower of Babel and the Greek myths about Teiresisas, to create a satisfying superhero adventure that’s all about gender and identity. It’s mostly self-contained and would make sense even if you haven’t read the previous issues and I recommend it. I wish DC would print a nice thin hardcover collection of this story, as I think people would get a lot of out of it.
Unfortunately, Rachel Pollack died last year; I’m glad I revisited her work, and I’m glad she got to see it collected in this handsome hardcover edition before she passed away.
TV SHOWS I'VE BINGED
Fallout
MOVIES I'VE SEEN SINCE LAST TIME
Colossal
Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning
Mad Max: Fury Road
Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga
Last month Jackson and I rewatched Dead Reckoning, and this month we watched it again with Blu. Now both kids have seen all the Mission: Impossible movies and we’re ready for movie 8. Make it happen, Hollywood!
I also showed the kids Fury Road, and they liked it, so we saw Furiosa as a family opening weekend. It was really good! But I used up all my energy writing about Doom Patrol so that’s all the review you’re getting.
See you in June, by which point I will have finished Ulysses!
Your Pal,
Leighton