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   fighting at all this volume, it's all about the "cozy homesteading game"   
   aspect of things.  Perfecting a new dessert recipe, helping set up new   
   businesses, getting invited to a noble's birthday party, nothing life or   
   death.  Well, maybe the last one, because the invite comes from a friend who   
   is revealed to live in a bit of a political snakepit, promising challenges   
   next volume that Yuna can't just blow up with fireballs or slice to pieces   
   with her fancy new mithril knives.  I've repeatedly pointed out that despite   
   her massively OP gear, Yuna's real power is that she treats people decently   
   regardless of their class or background...but treating people decently isn't   
   necessarily going to work as well in the depths of court intrigue...the   
   Kraken was nothin', now she's facing a real challenge!  Recommended.   
   $13.99/$17.99Cn rated Teen 13+ but that seems to be more of a series rating   
   as this volume has almost no violence at all (mostly against training dummies   
   and one very short exchange of punches) and no or very little innuendo.   
      
        Expected next month: Dinosaur Sanctuary vol 7, Chainsaw Man vol 19, I'm   
   in Love with the Villainess vol 9.  Since next month is looking slim, I'll go   
   ahead and catch up on Infini-T Force (this month had enough to not need to   
   get more stuff).   
      
      
   Other Trades:   
      
        Trade paperbacks, collections, graphic novels, whatever. If it's bigger   
   than a "floppy" but not Manga, it goes here.   
      
        Watson's Sketchbook vol 1-2: Self-Published - As Ostertag admits   
   herself, the idea of interpreting the original Holmes stories through a gay   
   lens is not exactly new, but she does bring some receipts in terms of the   
   slang of the era and Doyle's own statements about how the stories as Watson   
   related them were often changed to protect reputations or just give more   
   satisfying resolutions to cases that really ended in a muddle.  These volumes   
   started on Patreon and Tumblr, a mix of character and situation sketches from   
   the stories (which she started reading in 2023) and a sort of "here's what   
   really happened" and "here's what happened between the scenes" comics.  There   
   is a definite progression towards more coherent fanon crafting stories after   
   a more scattered start, and the tone settles down fairly quickly into less of   
   an illustration of the canon and more of a sketching out what was implied or   
   obfuscated, things that a friend of Oscar Wilde like Doyle might have meant   
   but dared not say outright.  (I don't get the impression that we're expected   
   to think Doyle himself was gay, just that he was what we'd call an ally these   
   days, trying to cast people like Wilde's crowd in a more positive light.)   
   Particularly clever was how she explained the sudden marriage of John and   
   Mary, and her equally sudden departure from the stories soon after Holmes   
   returned from the presumed-dead...John and Mary were bearding for each other,   
   but when Holmes came back it became clear that the arrangement had never sat   
   well with Holmes, so Mary followed her lady love to America.  Now, the reader   
   is warned that these are best read as a companion to reading the original   
   Doyle stories, and she's not kidding...it's a pretty scattered read if you   
   try to go straight through them on their own, as only bits and pieces of   
   story are presented.  I've probably only read a third or so of the canon, and   
   all of that decades ago, although I've seen plenty of adaptations since then.   
   I was able to more or less follow along, but it's definitely a disjointed   
   read.  Still, an interesting read if you know even a little Holmes lore.  $20   
   per volume at https://mkobooks.bigcartel.com/ but at the moment volume 2's   
   first printing has sold out.   
      
        Stardust the Super Wizard Anthology: Blue Creek Creative/Zoop - All   
   right, if you've been following this column for at least a few months, you   
   know about Stardust, the extremely weird and brutal "superhero" written and   
   drawn by Fletcher Hanks, and who has since slipped into the public domain   
   (one of the rewards of the crowdfunding campaign that generated this   
   anthology was a PDF collection of the original comics, which I reviewed   
   recently).  None of the stories is particularly long, in keeping with the   
   short pieces in the original Hanks works.  A few also feature Fantomah,   
   Hanks's jungle woman character with Spectre-level powers, another darling of   
   the public domain.  Some of these ship her with Stardust, even.  The tone of   
   the stories ranges from hallucinogenic to fairly serious treatments of the   
   character's premise, and two of the stories were written by children   
   (including the one by Shaenon Garrity's son, which she then drew, featuring   
   Stardust's cat Frostfluff).  It probably helps a little to have read at least   
   some of the originals, if only to be certain that most of these tales are   
   faithful to the source material (Derf Backderf's are more in the way of gag   
   strips you might see in Mad Magazine in Stardust's reality), if not always to   
   the tone.  The fact that Fletcher Hanks was a pretty awful human being is   
   touched upon in a few of the stories, including the one written and drawn by   
   Ian Hanks, Fletcher's grandson.  Stardust is something of an acquired taste,   
   but if you've read the public domain stuff that's out and about online and   
   were intrigued, this is a good extension of the Super Wizard's world.  No   
   price on the book itself, but https://zoop.gg/c/stardust has the hardcover   
   listed for $40.  Some graphic if cartoony violence, a little "indie comic   
   style" nudity, and general "what the heck did I just read," so recommended   
   for mature readers.   
      
        I decided I really wasn't interested in seeing where Power Fantasy went   
   next, sorry.   
      
        Expected next month: My 2.5 kilogram Megaton Man Omnibus arrived very   
   late in September and is way too big to get read before the end of the month   
   (even though I've probably read most of the stuff in it as floppies), so   
   it'll go in next month's column.  The Nothing Special artbook should arrive   
   in October, although I dunno if I'll review it since it might not even be   
   available outside of the crowdfund?  Speaking of crowdfunds, "Jacked Tracts"   
   is getting ready to ship, but that doesn't automatically mean it's arriving   
   in October.  Not expecting anything but crowdfunding fulfillments next month,   
   though.   
      
      
   Floppies:   
      
        No, I don't have any particular disdain for the monthlies, but they   
   *are* floppy, yes?  (And not all of them come out monthly, or on a regular   
   schedule in general, so I can't just call this section "Monthlies" or even   
   "Periodicals" as that implies a regular period.)   
      
        Fantastic Four (2025) #2: Marvel - The continuing adventures of the   
   Fantastic Four NOT being allowed to defeat Doctor Doom, since that has to   
   happen in an event title.  Most of the issue is spent enacting and explaining   
   a Clever Plan to get back from all the temporal exiles the team was split up   
   into, and they dive right back into fighting Doom like idiots anyway.  It is   
   clever until it isn't, at least.  Mildly recommended.  $3.99   
      
        The World To Come #2 (of 6): Marvel - I am amused that in a "slightly in   
   the future" sequence one of the Futuristic automobiles is just a Renault   
   Twizy.  Additionally, that sequence feels like a typical "Priest's book has   
   to give up pagecount to be in an Event," piece, even though the Event is   
   something Priest made up and just exists to provide an escalation along the   
      
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   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)