Now where was I? Well, that took longer than I'd planned. A morning trip out of town dragged into early afternoon, and when I returned home I was met by a message from the printer saying one of the poster files I'd sent wouldn't open. I lead a fascinating life, don't I? On the plus side, I did swing by the Good Comics Store, and picked up Love Fights Vol. 1 (I'm ashamed that I hadn't bought it before now), Planetes Vol. 1 (my first honest-to-god manga purchase), The Losers #12 and, for reasons not entirely clear, the first Books of Faerie trade paperback.

Oh, yeah, and I also helped to launch Scryptic Studios, a forum and research archive for aspiring screenwriters and comic book authors. Newsarama spoke to some of the folks involved: There's Hero Happy Hour creator Dan Taylor, Ted Noodleman writer Jim Keplinger, Brat-Halla writer Jeffery Stevenson, former Zentertainment/MediaSharx editor Ryan Scott Ottney, and, well, me. I'm writing a weekly column called "Research + Destroy," and with critiques, the research archive, etc. The site also features a growing library of comics scripts from the likes of Steve Niles, Andy Diggle, Larry Young, Devin Grayson, Mark Waid, Gail Simone, Marv Wolfman and more.

It's a work in progress; we'll see how it goes.

Update: (Yes, already.) I hate being offline for most of the day, because I spend the evening playing catch-up. Larry Young already has some great things to say about Scryptic, and Sean Collins, Graeme McMillan and Ken Lowery were nice enough to mention it on their blogs. Thanks, guys.