I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, "Gee, I wonder what's going on with Sean. His blogging has been a little sporadic these past few days."

I'd like to say that I've been extremely busy working on some really cool comic book related project that will knock everybody's socks off. The reality, though, is that my mind's been on other things. Namely, my failing marriage. Although I'm still not really emotionally ready to deal with it yet, I've come to at least recognize that my wife wants out of the relationship and there's absolutely nothing I, or anyone else, can do to change her mind on the matter. We've been going to martial counseling every week, during which she's repeatedly said that the only reason she agreed to go was to try to explain to me why she's leaving. I still don't understand, honestly, but it has sunk in enough to know that she has no intentions on working to save our relationship.

In our session this weekend, I surprised her and our therapist by saying that I could at least now recognize that, and we're starting to shift our collective focus to dealing with how to separate our lives definitively. I even met with an attorney this afternoon to see what kinds of issues I need to pay attention to and watch out for. Emotionally, I'm really not ready for this, but I also don't want to spend the next several months spinning my wheels needlessly, trying to salvage something that my wife actively does not want salvaged. She emotionally divorced herself from me several months ago, and she's not about to change her mind on the matter.

What I suppose I find curious about my reaction is that I have NOT taken any real solace in comic books. I've read a few, certainly, but I didn't go to my LCS last week, nor have I been able to muster much enthusiasm for writing about any aspects of comics. (You might note that most of my postings here the past week or so have been light on content.) In fact, the most thought I've put into comics was when I realized Maggie Thompson was going to be at this year's Mid-Ohio-Con, and I should try to schedule some time to talk with her in person. I've no idea what I'd ask at this point but, like I said, I haven't been able to focus on comics too much. My readings of Plastic Farm, Lost Girls and Alter Ego were decidedly more sedate than I would think would be normal for me.

Another thing that surprised my wife and counselor was that I made an active effort to recruit a new friend this week as well. As I noted before, my circle of friends has been more of a single point, and I opted to go out on a limb and bear my soul to someone at work. In part because I was having a lousy week and I needed someone to talk to, but also because I thought it might be a way to become an active friend of this person. She was extremely sympathetic and I'm hopeful that we might become really close friends. (In a platonic sense -- get your mind out the gutter!)

It was interesting in that I found myself this week making active choices to deflect the overall sadness I'm feeling at the failing of my marriage. I switched the playlist on my MP3 player from audio books to a collection of happy/funny songs (including concept pieces like Dread Zeppelin and Bill Shatner's spoken-word rendition of "Rocket Man") to use when walking the dog. I managed to line up an audition with a band for sometime next week (still working on the details there). I even broke out some old video games that I haven't looked at in a few years. I suppose they're at least different enough that it requires a bit more mental engagement than just reading comics for fun, but not so much that I typically allocate towards reading comics on a more academic level.

Anyway, I wanted to let whatever readership I might have know that I'm still here, and still trying to blog on a daily basis. I figure I'll get back into the swing of things over the next day or so. But I'll provide fair warning now that I'm sure I'll have another lapse in blogging right around the time we actually sign the papers, and have the marriage officially terminated. I don't know exactly when that will be yet, obviously, but I'm guessing no later than the end of the year. I suppose the positive way of looking at that is that 2008 has GOT to look brighter than the tail end of 2007!

Today, I'm taking a look at Rafer Roberts' Plastic Farm: Sowing Seeds on Fertile Soil from Ambrosia Publishing, which has recently begun its serialization on Ambrosia's site. The stories were originally published, as I understand it, by Roberts himself over the course of 12 issues, and garnered some praise from the likes of Dave Sim and Larry Young.

According to the site: "Planned as a continuing series, PLASTIC FARM follows the life of a man named Chester and his slow descent into complete insanity, and chronicles how that madness reshapes the world around him. Chester has had a rough childhood, has a magic cowboy that rides a dinosaur living inside of his head, and is now, late in life, sitting in a nameless airport bar during a blizzard telling his life story to a group of people who really couldn’t care less."

The book itself is divided into a prologue and three individual chapters. The prologue and chapter one were drawn by Roberts himself, but the art on chapters two and three is by Dave Morgan and Jake Warrenfeltz respectfully. While their individual styles are strikingly different, they all convey the stories fairly well. While I personally was more taken with Morgan's illustration very textured pencil style, I have to give a lot of credit to Roberts, who's able to keep his portions of the story moving along well despite some downright surreal imagery. Indeed, his story flows in out of the conscious mind, but I never had trouble determining what I was looking at or how to follow along. I think it takes more than a little talent to pull something like that off.

The overall story struck me in an odd manner, given the solicitation/set-up text going into it. The prologue does indeed introduce us to Chester "Cheezer" Carter and the enigmatic dinosaur-riding cowboy he thinks is real. (And, indeed, we get more than enough rationale for WHY Chester thinks this!) Chapter One occurs many years later, in which Chester recalls of the time he spent at an orphanage as a young boy. But, curiously, chapters two and three seem wholly disconnected to the previous portions of the book. Had I come to the book entirely devoid of any promotional information, I would have thought it merely an anthology of short stories. It's hard for me to tell at this point if it is indeed supposed to be that, and the other text I had read was simply misleading, or if further chapters will shed light on how everything connects together.

Part of my reaction, too, is that the prologue and chapter one seem much more substantive in terms of both character development and plot. Chapter two is a fairly simple tale that I could swear I saw in an episode of Twilight Zone at one point, and chapter three is just a short drug-bust-gone-awry story. I was left wondering about Cheezer and felt very much like I wanted to see more of him after the strong opening. I'll be curious to see if Cheezer returns for chapter four.

There are a handful of quotes from William S. Burroughs throughout the book. I think they're significant, not because they make an obvious point towards the actual story but because they're from William Burroughs, and it helps establish a tone of discongruity with reality. Roberts actually does this with the opening pages, but the Burroughs' quotes underscore the point, so there's no question of it just being unintentional on Roberts' part. I think that once you've established with yourself that Plastic Farm is not going to read like a simple, straight, narrative that Americans at least tend to expect with comics, a number of people will be interested in reading this.

That said, I don't think anyone should hold this up as a work that's suitable for the comic reading public on the hold. It's definitely sitting in its own niche and, therefore, not something I would uniformly recommend to everyone. It is, however, a book I would recommend if, for example, you like/appreciate the work of William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, or any of their ilk. It's a book I would also recommend to folks looking for something different in comics -- Plastic Farm, as far as I know, is sitting in a place all by itself. I'm sure you won't find something quite like it at least for some time.

From today's Cincinnati Enquirer...

Welcome to The Enquirer's first survey of daily comics in four years - a look into what you think about our funny pages. Why now? We'd like to re-examine the Monday-Saturday lineup but thought we'd consult you first. So we can use this information to help select comics for our entire readership, we ask that you give us some basic information about yourself. Simply rate each comic on a scale of 1-5, with 5 being best. We'll compile the results, before launching a new lineup Jan. 6.

For those wishing to vote, go here.

Because a) my day's felt like this and b) you can never go wrong with Don Martin onomatopoeia.

Not a whole lot of new stuff this week that looks interesting to me. Offhand, all I am seeing is...

Presenting the Howard the Duck #1 zombie variant cover...

This is just so far beyond wrong, I can\'t even begin to put it into words. I mean, did no one at marvel ever read ANY of the original stories? I don\'t pretend to be an expert on all things HTD, but this is worse that what George Lucas did to him. WAUGGGHHHH!!!!

Well, it's officially October and we're already -- at least in my neck of the woods -- well into Halloween season. I've seen some neighborhood houses decorated with plastic gravestones and inflatable ghosts for at least a couple of weeks now. My nightly walk with the dog has begun taking on an orange hue, as people have been tacking up decorative lights of that color.

Normally, I take some time in early October to start touting the notion of handing out comic books instead of candy for Halloween. I actually start usually in late August or early September rifling through the back-issue bins for ultra-cheap comics to hand out. One of my semi-local comic shops often has a long box or two of comics for a dime apiece!

I've been handing out comics at Halloween for several years now. The first year or two confused people: "What the...? A comic book? I thought you could only give out candy." But I've had kids come back in subsequent years excitedly shouting, "You're the guy that gives out comics!" It always surprises me how gratifying that is. I highly recommend the comic book instead of candy route if you get any trick-or-treaters around your way.

This year, though, the porch lights at Case de Kleefeld will be darkened for most of the Beggar's Night festivities. We've been super busy at work and I've been leaving later than usual. Plus the hour-long drive home, there's almost no way I can get back home before the doorbell would start ringing. I suppose I could put in for a half-day of vacation (since I've got a lot built up after NOT being able to go to Great Britain like I'd planned) but I'm still emotionally not exactly eager to go home to an empty house every night. The ol' "Honey, I'm home" bit isn't nearly as sardonic when the only one who hears it is your dog.

(And, contrary to popular imagery, my dog does NOT rush eagerly to the door when he hears me pull into the garage. More often than not, I have to call him by name to wake him out of his mid-day slumber, after which he groggily stumbles his way down the stairs, only then realizing that he needs to go to the bathroom. By the time he comes back in, he's woken himself up by chasing away an errant squirrel -- or bunny or feral cat or neighborhood child -- and the novelty of my returning home has decidedly worn off.)

Which is all to say that while many comic fans will be counting down issues of Countdown this month, I will be counting down the days until my house is pummeled with rotten eggs or toilet paper or whatever it is that kids ransack Halloween-less houses with these days.