It’s October! If I were forced to choose, probably my favourite month. Let’s see what I did with it:

THINGS I GOT DONE THIS MONTH

• THE THIRD FLASH FOSTER STORY: The third and final comic about the High-Gear Hot-Shots unequivocally gives us the most action of the three. It’s a shame these kids never got to come back because presumably the ’50s Captain America killed them all for being Commies or something.
• THIS PAINTING COSTS $5000 AND NINETEEN CENTS: This month I made a painting. The painting costs $5000 and nineteen cents. Is it worth that much? That’s in the eye of the beholder. I don’t think it is, but that’s because it hasn’t sold yet. But that’s what it costs, it says so. Really makes you think about the value of art, doesn’t it?
• BACK TO GURX: I asked on Patreon which of several PDR ideas I should commit to and the choice was that I go back to planet Gurx. This post here is just a look at the evolution of the Strondovarians, but I am going to do at least a few months of posts about the planet and its lifeforms. I’ve also begun making a dedicated page on the site on the topic that will hopefully be easier than going through all the individual posts I’ve done so far.
• SUPERMAN VS HALLOWEEN 2026: Over at the Avocado I wrote about Superman again, but instead of focusing on his work against bigotry, I looked at a time he fought some ghosts. I’m gonna try to do this yearly after this.
• BEEKEEPER REVIEW: ALESSIO: Not all Beekeeper Reviews are of interesting characters, unfortunately. I’m in this for completeness, after all. My 97th such review comes from a movie I realized part of the way through I had actually seen before and completely forgotten, and I think that’s a fair response to it.
• MUSING ABOUT CHAMPY THE USELESS VAMPIRE: In the hopes of starting the month with some Halloween flavour, I decided to play an adventure game about a vampire. It turns out to be a very short game, clearly a labour of love by amateur developers, but it had its charms and it had at least one mechanic I would steal if I am ever lucky enough to make my own game.
• OBSCURE MARVEL CHARACTER PIXEL ART: Trying to stay on the theme of the spooky-style season, I decided to draw a character from a Marvel horror book. Specifically, I’ve drawn Professor Louise Hastings. She was a character in Darkhold: Pages From The Book Of Sins, which came out in the early ’90s as part of the Midnight Sons line. The Midnight Sons/Suns brand was largely about (and have become even moreso about) supernatural-flavoured superheroes, but the fact that this was a team of relatively-regular people facing off against unfathomable evil forces, it appealed to me a lot. Spoilers: Louise didn’t make it through alive, but that the fact that such a cool character could be killed off made the book feel like everyone was at risk. My stipulation to have the art done within a 24-hour window really feels crueller when drawing someone who is not wearing a superhero outfit, though.

OTHER THINGS I’VE BEEN DOING

• PODCAST QUESTIONS: One neat thing this month is that I had a question answered on the podcast Least Haunted (the specific episode can be found here). It’s an excellent podcast that discusses folklore and paranormal legends but doesn’t fall into the trap that I’ve seen other podcasts do and believe in them. It’s a smart show by smart people. This reminds me that a few months back I had a question answered on another show, Final Girl After Dark, which is a horror movie podcast (episode here, since neither show’s website seems to want me to link directly to the episodes in question). And thus ends the section where I act like listening to podcasts counts as something I accomplished this month.
• EXPENSIVE CAR REPAIRS: Well, I mentioned my victory against my student loans last month, so naturally I need to mention that I had to put about $1500 onto my credit card this month to repair the car (mostly the suspension, some other minor things that are actually what I brought it in for). I won’t lie, when something like that happens, it hurts. My entire life is based around my debt and has been for about a decade, so every big setback like this feels like I’m being dragged back a year or so. Still, the car is fixed and that’s something, right?
• CONTINUED COMIC SECTION BEAUTIFICATION: I am still trying to make the site in general more presentable, with a focus on the Comics section first. Among the things I did there this month was a cover for what are potentially the oldest comics I have on the site, the Space Army, as seen below:

DID I ENJOY ANYTHING THIS MONTH?

Look, I’ve probably enjoyed things I’ve watched, read, listened to, and eaten. All that stuff. But I also watched the movie Shadow In The Cloud, so all that other stuff has been pushed out of my brain. Look, it’s not a great movie. I like the synth in the soundtrack (you wouldn’t expect it from a movie set in WW2), but overall I was bored with most of it. I say MOST of it because there was one very important exception.

There’s a scene where the gremlin on the plane has stolen the main woman’s baby (the baby is in the box) and stuck it down under the wing of the bomber. Naturally, she has to crawl on the bottom of the bomber while the plane is being attacked to save the baby. But then she has to climb back into the plane. That’s when this happens:

What else could compare to that?

COMEDY JOKE OF THE MONTH

Why are swordfish good orators?
They always have a point.