World War M

You may remember how right about a year ago I wrote here about my love for Classics Illustrated Comics, and in particular their version of H. G. Wells’s War of the Worlds. Most of all I loved their take on the Martian war machines:

Bloody tourists.

Yes, it looks a little different from the original. (If you open the earlier blog post in a separate tab, line the images up the same, and then switch back and forth between tabs, you can really see the difference. Also, it’s kind of creepy.)

There’s a reason for that: the image above was done using models and Photoshop by somebody named Frank Daniel.

Here’re two at-least-as-awesome shots of more models based on the Classics Illustrated design, courtesy of one Mike Maynard: a head shot, and a diorama. They all come from a whole page of Martian death machine goodness.

Somebody’s got a lot of time on their hands. And Gods bless ‘em!

Hat tip to Oliver Mellors, better known in these precincts as Meowlin, for turning me onto all these wonderments via Facebook.

In other news: my birthday has duly occurred, as it tends to each year about this time. I had a fine, if quiet one, largely spent perusing the gratifyingly large number of well-wishes on Twitter and Facebook. A big thank you to all who wished me a happy birthday. It worked!

I’m now officially 56, and still refuse to either act or feel my age.

Sadly, I could not (as I always have before) indulge in a nice chocolate cake I made for myself. Thanks to Wendy Jay I was reminded the Candy Lady in Old Town had sugar-free cakes – which I still can’t eat, by reason of starch – and candy, which I can.

Since Emma Dog and I needed a walk I bundled her into the car and off we went. Old Town was surprisingly crowded. Took a couple passes down Romero St. to find a suitable parking spot. On the first go-round, as we were passing between the Plaza and the Basket Shop, an adorable little girl in a long pink dress pointed to Emma and yelled to her Mom, “Look at that cute little doggy!”

Well, as the song says, 2 out of three ain’t bad.

Today started off well, with a good night’s sleep, something which still isn’t a given. Then I let my perfectionism impede my progress on the rewrite, which is not so good.

And most special of all, I got hit with yet another Plumbing Crisis. Which, while it wasn’t as major as the sewage backup, still had to be dealt with. Indeed it still does, despite my best efforts and a trip to Home Despot. I’m too annoyed to talk about it anymore.

Did get a nice, belatedly birthday dinner out at a Chinese buffet – the which works well for me, since I can get my fill of fat, fiber, and protein without paying for (and wasting) starch and sugar I can’t eat. And on the way home on I-40 I got to see a spectacular lightning display to the north. Wonder if the infamous Solar Tsunami could have energized the atmosphere more than usual?

(It strikes me the coronal mass ejection thing kinda/sorta fits in with the whole War of the Worlds theme, since the novel begins with an astronomer observing an anomalous eruption from Mars.)

And this is running on too long, and I need a good night’s sleep tonight, because I’ve gotta lotta rewriting to do tomorrow. Plus plumb.

So – laters.

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