I’m reading the One Piece manga with my kid these days, and, man, if you like comics and you don’t mind some fightin’ in ‘em, and you’re looking for something to uplift the soul, I can’t recommend these books enough. Our current arc was written back in the early oughts: our pirates are set against an evil king who’s locked all the doctors in his kingdom inside his castle so none of his subjects can get medical care. The evil king’s superpower is that he can eat everything (houses, ships, people) and make it part of his own body—or chew it up and spit it out as a distorted parody of whatever it used to be. He sees the entire kingdom as food for his ego. His closest advisors support him because they think the kingdom needs strong leadership and things are going sort of well for them so far. When the battle turns against the evil king, he eats his advisors in a heartbeat without a wick of remorse, and spits them out as a distorted fusion monster. Then he gets punched in the face by a kid in a straw hat.

The fusion monster, meanwhile, is defeated by an adorable mutant were-reindeer med student with a traumatic backstory who has the traditional three were-beast forms: lupus, crinos, and stuffed animal.

I think I’ve said this before, but if you want to give this series a shot, the manga is absolutely the way to go. I’m lucky—we have access to a great interlibrary loan system. The anime is fine! But everything is more vivid and animated on the page. The character designs extend the concept of a unique silhouette to the level of movement: each character looks different in motion. It’s expressive, silly, fun, and clear-eyed; it’s a revolution with dancing in it. And—again, at least at this early stage (I’m only 50 volumes in and I think they’re up to 110 now?)—it’s striking in its display of everyday heroism. Sure, most big problems ultimately require an element of pirate super-heroics to solve, but the actions of ordinary people making hard choices, working to endure and grow stronger and protect themselves and their loved ones in a tough situation that doesn’t seem to have any immediate solution—those are every bit as important.

I’ve been rationing journal pages recently, because I’m coming to the end of a big A5 notebook and I don’t want to have to set up a whole new month in a new Bullet Journal only to log the last 3 days of September. I don’t often journal more than a page or so a day, but it’s interesting to log days in half the space I usually allow myself—it changes the record of thoughts & feelings and the lists of tasks. All constraint is a springboard to the imagination.

Events:

• This Sunday at 3:30 pm, I’ll be interviewed at the Writer’s Room of Boston, with Q&A and snacks to follow. I’m looking forward to talking craft, Time War, social media, and writing and publishing in general, in a setting where I wrote a substantial amount of Last Exit in a Bond travel journal. (The last scene I remember writing before COVID lockdown was the end of the Best Western sequence.) We have 50 folks RSVP’d already, so throw your hat in if you’re interested! (And if you’re in the Boston area and looking for a writer’s space, the Room is a great one—free coffee, & located over a Dunk’s if that you’re thing, profound & professional silence, friendly chat in the break room, literary camaraderie & joint purpose.)

• Dead Hand Rule debuts October 28! You can join me for a release day event at Porter Square Books, where I’ll be in conversation with the inestimable Elizabeth Bear—whose new books, Angel Maker and The Folded Sky, you should certainly read (I have ‘em queued up and am excited to dive in!). Here’s a link to the event. It will be almost Halloween—I’m not a guy to ask folks to spooky it up, but if you feel inspired to essay any sartorial flourishes in that direction, I will be overjoyed to see them.

• Oh, and: Dead Country is still a Kindle Deal of the Month, which means you can pick it up at Bookshop.org, or B&N, or of course at Amazon itself for substantially less than the price of a cup of coffee these days!

And back to work for me. Take care of yourselves, friends. Work for the liberation of all sentient beings. & raise the skull and crossbones, if the spirit moves you.