Talyesin's Tales

In full-blown Ad Astra not-quite-panic now, with two panels on Saturday (Cribbing from History at 11:00 and Too Many Characters at 3:00 (lord knows AGES qualifies me for the first and Squirrelman for the second) and two book launches on Sunday - AGES OF WONDER at 11:00 and TRUTHSEEKERS 2: BIRTHRIGHT at noon (at least they're in the same room!).

So now I'm in designing promotional materials mode, and will be for the next two weeks. (Also a mild case of obsessing about the delivery of the TS2 books, but it's all good, it's all good, I'm okay, it'll be fine...)

Right! Back to work.

The third shipment of Squirrelman books (containing the second book, which is the first volume of SINS OF THE PAST, a possibly unique combination making it the first, second, and third book in a trilogy) arrived at my cousin's place today! Hooray! At some point there will be a photo of the open box etc, but tomorrow I'm headed to Polaris to sell as many as I can! Woo!

In case you were wondering, I'll be at Polaris this weekend. Look for me near the Two Wacky Pin Guys and stop by! Copies of Truthseekers and Squirrelman will be available for purchase, and I'll sign it for you!

The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman is available at Amazon!




http://www.amazon.com/Amazing-Adventures-Sensational-Squirrelman/dp/0977100553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213979102&sr=8-1

More news when I get it!

Last night I dreamt I was Squirrelman.

This is the first superheroic dream wherein I dreamt I was one of my own characters, at least that I can recall.

Squirrelly was trapped in a big old gothic Victorian manor home with a bunch of his arch-nemesises who were throwing a big party. The theme of the party was, naturally, Let's Kill Squirrelman.

Funny thing is, none of them were in costume, but I was.

So I've almost decided.

The Complete Annotated Squirrelman Vol. I-III will most likely be my Nanovel this year. Fifty thousand words of anecdotes, remembrances, secret origins, and the like.

The one thing that may be a potential stumbling block in this plan is the vast amounts of research I'll have to do, ie, reading through everything I've written, checking the LJ entries I made to make sure any edits I did go in, double-checking my notes, etc. Plus making sure I get everyone's names right, which would be embarrassing.

I'd keep a separate file open for just the annotations, putting a hard return at the end of every page sort of thing, to keep everything in sync with the actual text.

The volumes will, in all likelihood, be divided into three - The Amazing Adventures, Sins of the Past: Suddenly Squirrelman, and Sins of the Past: Endgame. I've even got some great ideas about what I want to see on the covers, but that will involve some outlay of funds, since I don't really have the time to actually draw, ink, and colour them myself.


On a somewhat unrelated note, thinking about actually self-publishing Squirrelman has got me thinking about actually self-publishing Truthseekers, in much shorter volumes of 150-200 pages or so. Or maybe all in one, since there's so much less Truthseekers, for the moment.

The Complete Annotated Squirrelman.

The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman and Squirrelman: Sins of the Past collected together in one volume, with notes on my inspirations, my in-jokes, explanations and backgrounds.

Any interest? Any takers?

Even if it cost money?

Edit: Err... quite possibly more than one volume, since the complete Squirrelman files printed on half a standard letter-sized format (ie, 5.5" x 8.5") with half-inch margins and 10 point font weighs in at a WHOPPING 945 pages. Add annotations, and we're probably (definitely) looking at a total in the 1500 pages neighbourhood... I'm pretty sure the printer won't be set up for that kind of binding.)

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Having survived the machinations of a madman bent of world domination, the fiendish plot of the traitor within their midst, the loss of friends and teammates, and a sudden, unexpected, and unwelcome return to his original alternity, Squirrelman faces his biggest challenge yet - surviving his own wedding...


( Issue ONE HUNDRED - The Wedding )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Mild-mannered introverted Matthew Mattheson found himself dreaming of being a super-heroic crimefighter named Squirrelman - until one day, he found his dream come true. Two years and many adventures later, Matt went to sleep on the night before his wedding and woke up, having returned to the body that was once his...

( Issue Ninety Nine - It's a Squirrelly Life )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Squirrelman asked Ragdoll to marry him, and she accepted. Despite the various setbacks and challenges they faced, they remained dedicated to the idea of getting married as soon as possible. They even obtained special permission for the former Catholic priest Blue Ghost to marry them. Having faced the sins of the past, they looked forward to creating a future together...

( Issue Ninety Eight - Wedding Day Jitters )

Rough calculation shows me that Squirrelman - Sins of the Past will fall just short of 240,000 words.

Pity, I had kind of hoped to hit the quarter-million mark. Of course, if I include The Amazing Adventures of the Sensational Squirrelman, I'm well over - nearly 300,000 words.

Cool.

Due to several events conspiring, not least of which is Father's Day this Sunday, this week's installment of Squirrelman - Sins of the Past will be delayed a week.

Look at it this way - the postponement actually means the joy of reading Squirrelman will be prolonged, yeah? Or something?

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Having chased their foes to the upper storeys of Praxis' Action City head office, Squirrelman faced and beat Showdown, and Doc Sterling outsmarted his long-time adversary, Kosmos Konstantinopoulos. The rest of the Crimefighters' League - Ragdoll, Ace, Darklight, and Physique - had been trapped by Showdown prior to his fight with Squirrelman, and Doc Steele had gone in search of his sorcerous sister, Cleopatra Steele...

( Issue Ninety Five - The End of the Grand Experiment )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Chased from the scene of a crime to Masters Mansion where they were making their headquarters, the Crimefighters' League found themselves seemingly trapped by the Action City Police and their new squad of metahuman officers, the Action City Guardians. The Midnight Avenger stayed behind to make good their escape and defend his ancestral home.

Once they'd reached the relative safety of Darklight's apartment over her magic shop, the question was raised: Could there be a traitor in their midst, revealing their location to their enemies?


( Issue Eighty Three )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Injured in the battle with the gangers, the Junkernaut, and the Boosted cyber-Behemoth in the Praxis lab in Downtown, Squirrelman and Ragdoll had their wounds healed by the back alley black market meta-doctor, Brother Caduceus.

Squirrelman, Ragdoll, and several other Action City crimefighters were trapped through chronomancy in the Kane Sanitarium. Together, they fought the inmates of the asylum, again and again, and were forged into the Crimefighters' League.

During an alien invasion, the Mole never reported for action and remained missing, despite concerted efforts on the part of the Crimefighters' League to find their teammate.

Following the alien invasion, Squirrelman and Ragdoll received unexpected visitors - their grown children, Captain Max 'Hero' Mattheson and Squirrelgrrl, on a time-travel excursion from the future.

On the day of the worst prison break in Action City's history, the names of the Department of Metahuman Affairs' Protected Registry were somehow leaked and posted to the dataweb, resulting in city-wide devastation and chaos.

The resulting breakdown of order fuelled fires of bigotry, jealousy, and fear, thought long dormant, and events soon propelled Action City City Hall to declare unsanctioned crimefighting to be unnecessary and unwanted. Several members of the Crimefighters' League resigned their membership and went into hiding.

Upon their return from Subterra, the Crimefighters' League, Reed Sterling, and Doc Steele gathered at the Sterling Spire, headquarters and home of the Sterling Squad. As they discussed events surrounding the creation of the Crimefighters' League at the hands of a powerful sorceress who was also responsible for the death of Annie O'Day, a former colleague of Doc Steele's, Squirrelgrrl and Max suddenly realized they would be returning to the future. Just as they began to fade from that point in the timestream, Squirrelgrrl warned her parents and their colleagues to evacuate the Sterling Spire.

Just as the Crimefighters' League, the Sterling Squad, and the assorted civilian support personnel managed to evacuate, Squirrelman received a call from the long-missing Mole over his nanobead. The Mole warned them to evacuate the Sterling Spire, that there was a bomb, that "it was Praxis"... and then the Spire blew up...


( Issue Eighty One )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

While fighting off an alien invasion, Squirrelman called in their entire Crimefighters' League to assist. One of the three people who failed to report in was the Mole, who, despite concentrated searches after repelling the invasion, remained missing.

Having travelled all the way to Subterra to question Lord Hades about his involvement in the events Downtown, only to discover the despotic arch-villain dead, the Crimefighters' League aided Darklight in questioning the departed spirit of Lord Hades by use of a necromantic ritual.

While the ghost admitted that Kosmos Konstantinopoulos and the sorceress behind the attacks on the League and the death of Annie O'Day were connected and protected by an ancient compact with powerful forces, it also revealed that the true cause of Annie O'Day's death, the motivating force behind the murder, was a sister's hatred and jealousy...

( Issue Eighty )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Having fought and conned their way into the realm of Subterra, the Crimefighters' League, Doc Sterling and Doc Steele are brought before the ruler of that underworld, Lord Hades, only to discover a shocking development...

( Issue Seventy Nine )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

Having called upon the Seelie Court's Wild Hunt to deal with the UnSeelie Seeming on the outskirts of Downtown that was blocking the entrance to Subterra, Squirrelman, the remaining members of the Crimefighters' League, Doc Sterling and Doc Steele made their way to the subterranean realm of the arch-villain, Lord Hades...

( Issue Seventy Eight )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

In order to deal with the UnSeelie Seeming on the outskirts of Downtown, the Crimefighters' League, through Doc Sterling's wife, Julia, Princess of Avalon, contacts the Seelie Court in England and asks for their aid in dealing with the UnSeelie.

With the Claremont Act repealed, and the Crimefighters' League attracting negative publicity and even violent reprisals for their involvement in Mayor Ross-Carter's accidental and unfortunate death, the team's morale is at an all-time low. Several members have already found prior engagements or resigned altogether.

In order to gain some sense of purpose for his team, Squirrelman enlists the aid of Doc Sterling to find the Mole...

( Issue Seventy Seven )

Previously on Squirrelman - Sins of the Past:

When Squirrelman, Ace, and Ragdoll first began to discuss forming a team of crimefighters, Ragdoll objected, on the grounds of her previous experience in a team, wherein one of her teammates, Stellar Girl, was left to die by another teammate, Starbright, because Stellar Girl had been having an affair with Starbright's boyfriend, Starlight.

Having been rendered unconscious twice due to synaptic overload, Squirrelman was told by Doc Sterling that he would have to undergo psychic surgery to repair what seemed to be a mnemonic block.

During an alien invasion, the Mole and Cricket failed to respond to the call Squirrelman sent out for all members of the Crimefighters' League. Cricket eventually showed up a few days later, injured, informing the League that she had been captured by persons unknown and held in an unknown location, until she had been able to make good her escape. Despite near-constant patrols and attempts to determine the location of the Mole over the course of the past two weeks, he remains missing.

While recovering from his wounds sustained in the alien invasion and from sheer exhaustion, Squirrelman received an unusual guest in the middle of the night, who claimed to be a former crimefighter called Agent I-5, more commonly named Terence Fleming. Fleming, a one-time associate and colleague of Doc Steele's in a group calling themselves The Seven, told Squirrelman to ask Steele about the events which occurred in Tunguska, Siberia, claiming that those events were the source of all the troubles which currently plagued them.

Frustrated and angry from the new Mayor's description of the events surrounding the death of Mayor Ross-Carter, the dissolution of the Action City Crimefighter ID system and the labelling of all costumed crimefighters and dangerous, incompetent, and unwelcome, Squirrelman led a group of his teammates Downtown, to little avail...

( Issue Seventy Six )