Man, MySpace Dark Horse Presents is just the gift that keeps on giving. I am so fond. I wish their content delivery format (free short comics by top-notch creators published online, then collected into a hard-copy trade and sold at comics shops) was one more widely used, because it's close to perfect to give people a taste of a variety of titles and creative teams.

Anyway, here we have a page from Buffy Season 8: Always Darkest, by Joss Whedon and Jo Chen, which I'm posting because I giggled when I saw it.

( What the slashy heck? )

So when TrueBlood season 1 was airing in the states, I downloaded the first seven episodes before getting my usual HBO burnout problem (the episode with Sookie eating the pie and crying made me go WAH NO MORE OF THIS NO). Last weekend, since the season was super-cheap to buy at JB-HiFi, I bought the dvds and watched the remaining episodes.

And seriously you guys, why didn't anybody take me aside and say HEY MARY, YOU SHOULD GIVE THIS SHOW ANOTHER SHOT, BECAUSE THE MAGISTER IS ACTUALLY EVERY MALE VAMPIRE CHARACTER YOU LOVE EVER, ONLY THIS TIME PLAYED BY ZELJKO IVANEK, THAT AWESOMELY NASTY ASSHOLE GOVERNOR DUDE FROM OZ.

I would watch a show that was just the Magister and the Fangtasia vampires being really mean to Bill. I would watch that forever. There could be occasional very special episodes where Lafayette politely enquires of Merlotte's customers which of them it was who ordered the AIDS burger, just because.

For those who don't get enough of me via this journal, an interview with me about the Robins zine is going to be on The Outland Institute on JOY 94.9 this Friday. I believe there'll be a podcast available of the show also. Many many thanks to Narrelle Harris and John Richards for inviting me to be on the program. Also, the JOY office is a totally lovely space to be in, and I got into a discussion about Beth Ditto's fashionable fabulousness with a guy while I was hanging in the foyer after recording. I'mma gonna see if I can do volunteer work there or something.

I'm meant to be cleaning my flat for an inspection tomorrow morning, but I was cold and so sat down to enjoy my bed & blankets for another minute before doing more tidying, and I ended up at Keltie's blog, and she wrote something about Panic which touched me enough that I'm going to repeat part of it:

It was a really magical time of believing that we could all change the world, believing that all you needed was love, and watching four best friends tour around the world shouting it from the rafters... I remember sitting and telling ryan that I had a cool idea for a video that involved his dads old set of russian dolls I had found when I had moved all of his fathers things from his old house... and I guess that says it all... Things have changed. And it's ok.

The quote makes me think of Across the Universe, of Moulin Rouge, of what it is to have had one of those perfect bubble-times which seem sheened gold when you look back at them. Those times which, no matter how bad the break-up afterwards is, how harsh the come-down, you can never be anything but glad for having gone through all of it.