Rad 93, part one of three
Rad 93, part two of three
Rad 93, part three of three

This will likely be the last time I make specific note of a Superguy or Sfstory posting in this, my personal LiveJournal. Since I also post the notices to the superguy_list community, there's no real sense in doing it twice. So if you care to get such notices in the future via your LJ friends list, that's where to go.

I'll also be scaling back my Superguy efforts some in the coming year -- though only some, as I'm having much fun with it, and it's done wonders for banishing the creative funk I was in. But I need as to balance this fun stuff with... well, other fun stuff for which I hope to someday get paid. I've got short stories to whip into shape, a couple ideas for my next effort at a novel, a synopsis to write for an old novel I spent some of this year hammering into publishable shape (this is not to be confused with The Novel, which continues to languish on a slush pile somewhere), some collaborative notions I'm toying with... and who knows, maybe I'll even get a webcomic going. And maybe my spleen will start making squeaking noises. Anything is possible in the new year.

In the meantime, please enjoy the episode, and have a happy and rococo New Year.

--

Having knocked the rust off my Superguy writing with last month's Rad episode, I thought I'd turn to my even-longer corroding Sfstory series, Universal Solvents, to see if I could kick it back in gear. Lo, here are the results:

Universal Solvents #19, part one of two
Universal Solvents #19, part two of two

For more info on what Sfstory is, and how it relates to Superguy, check out the succinct but essentially accurate Wikipedia entry on Sfstory, and of course the always-useful Sfstory Archives.

(x-posted to superguy_list)

--

The superguy_list discussion community is now here! Hide the sampo! Lock up the cheese!

Seriously, somebody had to do it...

--

After 14 months, I finally get around to posting the next episode! Hurrah!

Rad #92, part one of two
Rad #92, part two of two

(Looking for the previous installment? Check here.)

Man, that was a long wait for what is, essentially, a lot of exposition and dialogue. I gotta put some ninjas into the next one.

--

Rad #91 (part one of two)
Rad #91 (part two of two)

I wrote for Superguy, a shared-universe humorous superhero fiction group, in the late eighties to mid-nineties. (Actually, I never really "stopped" writing for Superguy, but my output dropped way off when I turned my attention to the first of several attempts to bang out a novel.) It would take me a while to fully talk about how much that time meant to me, and how it and the people I came to know as friends through it set me on the path I'm on now. Suffice it to say that, even now, I sometimes feel a great deal of nostalgia for those days.

"Rad" was the first series I ever wrote for Superguy, in the prehistoric years from 1989 to 1991. It went for ninety episodes, until I graduated from college and had to go forth and seek my fortune. When I wrote them, I was more concerned with just telling a funny story than with strange, esoteric things such as "syntax," or "spelling," or "quality." And though some of the things I wrote now make me... well, not cringe, exactly, but maybe just shake my head in exasperation.

The recently released Superman Returns was the catalyst for this return to yesteryear. I've long had a sort of vague intent to start a new series someday, updating on the current whereabouts of my old characters. Because even though I haven't written about them in ages, they've grown older. They see the world in ways they didn't when I was a barely-adult writer with a number of juvenile impulses to work through. Seeing the movie made me think of them, though Rad is not really like Superman, and the story I started is not going to be a parody or whatever on the movie.

I can't say that those of you not familiar with Superguy will get all, or even most, of the references, but hopefully you won't be completely lost, either. I expect that future episodes (which I'm going to try to do once every other month, but don't hold me to it) will be a little less heavy on the exposition.