Unfortunately, for the vast majority of that month, I was too busy to get a full night’s sleep, let alone write any sort of cohesive blog.

So, somewhat belatedly, here’s a few of the things I wish I could have mentioned then:

Real Life:

The lovely Greg Dean over at Real Life gave the book a week-long mention in the comic, where he had some fairly cogent (if geeky) musings on the similarity (heh) between sympathy and string theory, among other things.

Here’s the beginning of that cameo.

Goblins:

Back in the long-ago. Back in the beforetimes. One of my favorite webcomics helped me spread the word about the paperback release of The Name of the Wind.

When The Wise Man’s Fear came out, we collaborated on another comic where I got to make a few good old-fashioned D&D jokes.

Girl Genius:

I’ve been fairly open and honest about the amount of love I feel for Girl Genius. I wrote a rather effusively gushy blog about how much I loved Phil and Kaja’s stuff not too long ago.

So it’s not entirely surprising that when I stumbled onto a charity auction on ebay that contained some Girl Genius Swag, I was delighted. I hovered on ebay, and crushed all who dared oppose me in the bidding.

As a result, I was the proud recipient of:

1. Signed copies of all the Girl Genius books.

2. A personalized sketch that I’ve been looking for an excuse to show off for months now….

(Guess which piece of art was the first thing I’ve ever had professionally framed…)

3. The promise that my name would appear in a girl Genius comic at a time and a place of Phil’s choosing.

I was expecting that my name might appear on a street sign, as he’s done occasionally in the past. Or perhaps he might name a disease after me, or something.

Much to my delight, I actually appeared in a brief cameo….

If you aren’t reading these comics, you might want to consider giving them a lookie-loo, as they’re some of my personal favorites.

Later all,

pat

I had no such thing. Nor did I really have any desire to write one. Not only do those brief narrative summaries always bore me to death, but I suck at summarizing my own book. My best advice, of course, is that if you really can’t remember what happened in book one, you should probably re-read it. Most of what’s in there is pretty important to the story, y’know. I put it all in there for a reason…

Still, a lot of people were asking. So I got together with Nathan Taylor and we did…

Well, just have a look. You can see for yourself what we did:

There you go folks. Share and Enjoy.

pat

And, apparently, I would have lost that money. Because today when I went looking for it, I discovered I’d written no such blog.

So, in an attempt to set things right, I’d like to talk to you about Girl Genius.

*Ahem.*

I’m guessing a lot of you already know about Phil and Kaja Foglio.  They attend a lot of the big conventions. And, if you’re an experienced gamer like me (and by ‘experienced’ I mean ‘old’) you probably remember Foglio’s comic from Dragon Magazine: What’s New with Phil and Dixie.

Oh, and they’ve won the Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story the last two years. In 2009 they beat out Joss Whedon’s Serenity comic. And this year they beat out Neil Gaiman’s Batman story.

Yeah. That’s right. Their graphic novel Girl Genius not only beat out Whedon and Gaiman, it beat Firefly and Batman, too.

If that doesn’t convince you of how awesome their series is, I don’t know what I can say to convince you. How about we just look at the cover for a moment while I think of something sufficiently gushy:

Simply said, Girl Genius has everything I look for in a story. The worldbuilding is clever and internally consistent. The characters are interesting and multi-faceted. The story is complex while still being clear, and surprising while still being satisfying. (Which is really fucking hard, let me tell you.)

Did I mention it’s funny? It is. Consistently, honestly funny. I don’t need to tell you how rare that is.

It has a strong female lead character who’s good with science, which is nice to see. And it’s perfectly appropriate for just about any age group. In fact, I probably should have mentioned it when was putting together my list of YA recommendations a couple weeks ago.

If none of that convinces you, let me say one more thing. Every time a new volume of Girl Genius comes out, I buy it, then I read all the other volumes leading up to the new one before I let myself read the new one. I haven’t done that with a series since I read Dragonriders back in the 6th grade.

Okay. Enough gushing.

Because Phil and Kaja are really cool, you can read their comic for free over on their website. However, I have to say that the story really deserves to be read in book form, rather than sitting hunched over a computer monitor. I’ve read it both ways and it’s so much more satisfying to read it as a book.

In fact, I like this series so much, I’m going to put my money where my mouth is.

Here’s my offer. If you buy a copy of the first volume of Girl Genius, and you don’t like it, you can mail it to me and I’ll buy it off you for whatever you paid for it.

I’m that sure you’ll like it.

Here are the conditions:

• If you mail me Volume 1, it has to arrive more or less intact. It can’t be missing pages, crumpled up, or covered in jam.
• You need to include the receipt showing me how much you paid for it.
• You need to include a SASE.

As I type this, part of me worries that this might be one of my ideas that seems brilliant when I’m typing it, but later, when I’m not full of coffee and love, I end up kicking myself.

But you know what? I’m fine with that. What’s the fun of being a published author if I can’t occasionally do something lovely and foolish? In my experience being clever and careful is highly overrated.

Here’s the link to the Girl Genius website. Go on. Order the book. I dare you.

pat

Edit: Rest assured that all nine volumes are in print. I know this because I ordered them myself just a couple weeks ago. If you’re having trouble finding them on the girl genius website, you just need to follow this link.

In fact, I think it’s safe to say that as far as webcomics go, I’m pretty well-read. I’ve followed some series for more than a decade. I read Penny Arcade before they were rockstars. I’ve seen comics I love die, and watched others flourish despite having no merit that could be detected with the naked eye.

That said, I can’t imagine how I’ve managed to miss Dresden Codak for so long. How could go for years without ever hearing about this comic?

Oh yeah. I suppose I’ve been distracted by book and baby. Still, I’m more than a little ashamed it’s taken me this long to read it.

Anyway, just in case any of you out there are afflicted with the same flavor of withering ignorance, I thought I’d bring it to your attention.

If you want a taste of the comic, I suggest reading this one and this one. Both very different from each other, both showcasing different pieces of the artist’s particular genius.

More later,

pat