The issue of animal souls is hotly debated and I don’t claim to offer definitive answers, but I will say this much: if you believe — as just about every religion teaches — that God’s capacity for love is far beyond humankind’s, then however much we love our pets, God loves them more — and in my mind, that means they’re safe and taken care of.

I did a belly dancing workshop today with Nefertiti. It was really nice to have the chance to do a workshop here in town. There were about sixteen of us; it would have been nice to have a few more (and to have a chance to meet some more dancers from outside our own studio; we’re a bit cut off given that it’s not that big a city and there are three studios!). But it was a good time. I really had fun doing the dance, and I got to buy some fun new stuff — what more can you ask of a dance workshop?

In book news Stephen King’s monstrosity Under the Dome is now available in bookstores near you. I call it a monstrosity not because of its content but because of its size (it clocks in at well over a thousand pages). I don’t object to long books and I actually quite enjoyed Under the Dome. I have two major complaints with this and many of King’s works, though (minor spoilers ahead):

1. The length is, in my mind, rarely justified. I read both the edited and the original versions of The Stand, and it seemed like he mainly cut about 200 pages of the Trashcan Man wandering in the desert.

2. Much like Joss Whedon, Stephen King simply can NOT get through a novel without killing off most of the major characters.

Having said that, I’m not necessarily slamming King himself or any of his works specifically. In fact, The Stand is quite possibly one of my favorite novels, and The Green Mile is an unbelievable piece of, yes, literature. His most recent collection of short stories (Just After Sunset), on the other hand, starts off weak, builds to a terrifyingly powerful crescendo, and then ends with a piece of drivel clearly designed to simply gross everyone out (something Stephen King takes a great deal of pleasure in, come to think of it).

Anyway, there’s an easy way to decide if you should slog through The Dome’s 1000 + pages: do you like Stephen King? If the answer is yes, get the book. You’ll enjoy it. If not, there’s nothing here to make you change your mind.

Whoops, sorry — late, late. Most of you know my baby Skunkzilla died about a month ago. So I did a whole series of comics to commemorate her loss. And it’s late. What can I say?

You know, I can handle an early Christmas season. It’s even necessary, in some cases — like schools, where we have to plan a big show for mid December, or people who put an intense amount of creative effort into crafting and the like.

But I KNOW I’m not alone in wishing that the stores would at LEAST wait until after Hallowe’en before they started bombarding us with Christmas merchandise. And it only gets worse every year. I have distinct memories of, as a child, being shocked and horrified to see the first Christmas commercial on Hallowe’en night. And that’s when I was about eight. Now you see Christmas stuff all over the place as early as the first of October. Where does it end??? Are we going to start celebrating Christmas in July? Will Christmas end on December 25th and everyone will start the new holiday season on the first of January?

I know this is an old complaint, but what really gets to me about it is that I like Christmas. I want to enjoy it. And it’s impossible to maintain any kind of holiday spirit for four months in a row, period.

Last week, there were already Christmas carols playing in the mall. Three weeks ago, a coffee store downtown had its full Christmas display, complete with twinkling lights and stockings and fake snow, in the windows. I gagged and crossed the street.

I think we need to somehow make it clear to stores that NO ONE IS GOING TO BUY THEIR CHRISTMAS JUNK before Hallowe’en. Am I a little nuts on this subject? Possibly. Ok, ok, PROBABLY. But I know I’m not alone. Enough with the Christmas in October garbage. At least have the decency to wait until after Remembrance Day before trying to choke us with holiday spirit.

I love Hallowe’en. Mostly I love wearing my belly dance costumes all over without getting weird looks. And no, I’ve never dressed as anything as lame as Dorothy!

I thought it was a good day to talk about books, so here goes:

It’s not a new book, but yesterday at our Hallowe’en party I read my kids The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman. THey really liked it. It has that nice combination of being just a bit creepy but not so scary you get angry phone calls from parents (unlike Coraline, which is pretty darn freaky for a kids book. I mean it’s really good, but not something I’d read my class).

I also just finished Malice, Chris Wooding’s new book (Wooding is an excellent writer). It had a neat concept about kids getting trapped in a comic book (which plays out much cooler than it sounds), and that allowed them to have actual comic book segments interspersed throughout the novel. I liked the book itself better than the comic segments, though: the drawing was very loose, so loose that it was really hard to figure out who was who or what was going on at times. Fortunately, the comics make up a very small segment of the actual story.

Also, I don’t know if I’ve mentioned Gone on these pages before, but if I haven’t I should have. It’s a very cool story with great character development.

Of course, most of these books (not Wolves, since it’s a picture book) follow the modern trend of not really ending. Whether you like or despise J. K. Rowling, one thing you have to give her credit for is that each of her books reaches a resolution. There’s an overarching story line that never wraps up (well, until the end of course), but each book has its own smaller conflict, problem, or situation that gets resolved, leaving the story with a finished feeling even though it clearly fits into a larger series. The fact that each story encompasses exactly one year of school helps with that, since it ends with them going their separate ways. But the mystery is always solved and there’s resolution. I really think we need to get back to expecting that from authors.

That said…

Happy Hallowe’en!

This really is what the atmosphere is like in schools right now. It’s a little nutty on all sides of the equation.

On the one hand, H1N1 really is pretty serious. Actually, influenza in general can be pretty serious. I had the flu two years ago and was completely out of comission for almost two weeks. I was doing Arsenic and Old Lace at the time and I was supposed to be kissing my male lead. We hadn’t practiced that part yet and for some reason he didn’t want to put his mouth on mine when I was an incubus of viral plague. (OK, I stole that line from The Devil Wears Prada. Sue me. It always makes me smile).

Whoops. Digression. I’m good at those.

Anyway, my boyfriend now officially has H1N1, which as you can imagine thrills me to no end… by which I mean, um, I sure hope he feels better soon. So I understand the need for hand sanitizing and the like. On the other hand, a friend of mine (who’s a nurse) says that with all this antibacterial stuff, we’re setting up prime conditions for a superbug (which I guess H1N1 kind of is, anyway).

And then of course there’s the fact that these kids are constantly (and I mean CONSTANTLY) rubbing alcohol onto their hands, but thirty seconds later I see them licking their fingers, poking each other in the mouth, spitting on things, picking their noses… the list goes on.

I guess we don’t have to worry about a superbug after all…

What is my point? I’m not sure I have one unless it’s this: society has gone completely insane. I work in a petri dish. I accept that fact. I don’t run to sanitize my hands every time a kid touches me (not gonna lie though: couldn’t wash my hands fast enough after stopping by a doctor’s office the other day). Does that mean I’m going to get the swine flu? Well, we’ll see. Consider me your control experiment. I’m living a perfectly normal life, taking no more steps than I usually do (ie, basic hygiene) to avoid the flu, and I’ve obviously been exposed.

If there are no more comics, you’ll know I’ve been hospitalized :p Until then, you’re stuck with me.

When I wrote this comic, I didn’t realize I was predicting the future. We’ve had the most ridiculous weather you can imagine — a foot of snow one day and 18 degrees celsius the next. At this point it’s kind of anyone’s guess. The kids love it, though — wet, drippy snow makes perfect forts and snowmen!

I’ve been extremely busy lately with school, dance practices, etc. A few people have asked why I haven’t written a eulogy for Skunkzilla like I did for Kirsty Trickster and The Hamster King. The answer is simple: there’s too much I could ramble on about. Sum it up? For five years, Skunkzilla the Savage Bunny was my best friend. What more is there to say?

Peace.

Finally, the arc completes itself.

Sorry for the delay, and for the fact that it’s going to take me a wee bit longer to get back to The Legacy Scroll than I’d anticipated. I was out of town for Thanksgiving (yes, it’s Thanksgiving, all you American types!), and I’ve also been dealing with the loss of Skunkzilla the Savage Bunny, the world’s best pet and friend, who died suddenly and in the space of about three minutes last week. Will get back to all asap.

Halos is running on time, but it’s probably going to take me at least a week to get back to The Legacy Scroll. Everything’s a little out of control timewise, so stick with me.

In other news, I went to see Zombieland last night. Imagine my surprise when it was good. I mean, not just okay, which describes most of the movies I’ve seen in the last six months. It was *fantastic*.

I know there are a lot of critics out there who feel the need to find something negative to trot out about every film they review. And sure, I could split hairs with Zombieland. I could point out that practical jokes rarely go well in survival horror situations, or that I’m pretty sure simply exhaling and squeezing the trigger doesn’t turn a person into a crack shot. But these would be petty and uncharitable beefs about what is essentially the best movie I’ve seen this year. Woody Harrelson is hilarious, the comedic timing is excellent, and the guest cameos superb (won’t give anything away).

If you liked Shaun of the Dead, you’ll love Zombieland — plain and simple. Speaking of which, I just might have to go watch Hot Fuzz again tonight…

Hard to believe September’s almost over — yikes. Here’s the comic for the week. And of course, I’ve been hard at work on the graphic prologue to The Legacy Scroll, which is up to 11 pages — enough for one week, I think! Check it out!

I’m actually almost through with the graphic prologue to The Legacy Scroll — go figure, following through on something for once. More pages are up now.