by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the eighth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage.

Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who’d unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun’s reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he’s never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in. That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink.

Unfortunately stiff drinks are frowned upon by the Li-Jun, so at the 2Two2, a bar specifically created for humans, Marco has to console himself with a fisheye – a drink that tastes of oranges and spice, and contains the story A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. As soon as he finishes it, a second drink appears in front of him. When he asks who bought it, the barkeep points to a woman across the room who looks suspiciously like Penelope. Deciding to call it a night, Marco is escorted home to House Blue. Later that night, The Red Granny, who’s much recovered thanks to the miraculous work of the Li-Jun paramedics, sneaks into his room with an illicit cocktail created by the Alcoholics Guild. Before leaving him to his already disturbed slumber, The Red Granny warns Marco that in the morning he’s destined to learn first hand about the probing process that enables the Li-Jun to put taste into paintings, music into pie, and stories into (nonalcoholic) beverages.

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by Aaron Colter

So, last week’s post sucked. You know it, I know it. Let’s move on. This week’s isn’t much better, but it’s still better. A simple list of some cool stuff you should check out.

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by Blogbot

Agonizing Love is a beautifully put together compendium of strips culled from the lost genre of romance comics. According to the volume’s curator and author, Michael Barson, an avid fan of retro-pop culture and a collector of all manner of flotsam and jetsam from days past, the first examples of the form were published in 1947. At the genre’s height, there were close to 150 different romance comics in print, with titles such as Lovelorn, Romantic Marriage, Lovers’ Lane, Bride’s Secrets, Boy Meets Girl, Heart Throbs, and Love Confessions. However, as the romance of the 1950s gave way to the pervasive climate of free love in the ’60s and ’70s, their popularity waned. The end of an era came with the final 126th edition of Young Love in 1977.

Last week we posted a typical strip from Young Love, entitled “How To Increase Your Dateability,” which offered female readers – who were ever fearful of being left on the shelf – tips on how to up their popularity quotient in order to increase their chances of finding a mate. This week, we have a simple 12 question personality test from issue #2 of Boy Meets Girl (originally published in April 1950), which will tell you if you’re likely to be a bride or – horror of horrors – an old maid.

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by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the seventh installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage.

Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who’d unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun’s reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

After settling into his new accommodations at House Blue, Marco has a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen. It’s only then that Marco realizes he’s never been shown the terms of his employment, and a sense of unease sets in.

That evening, Marco is taken on a trip to see The Red Granny in action in The Most Dangerous Game. After a bloody battle, the senior reality TV star is again victorious. The viciousness of the game however, leaves The Red Granny unconscious, and Marco shocked, disturbed, and in need of a stiff drink.

[..]

by Blogbot

Agonizing Love is a beautifully put together compendium of strips culled from the lost genre of romance comics. According to the volume’s curator and author, Michael Barson, an avid fan of retro-pop culture and a collector of all manner of flotsam and jetsam from days past, the first examples of the form were published in 1947. At the genre’s height, there were close to 150 different romance comics in print, with titles such as Lovelorn, Romantic Marriage, Lovers’ Lane, Bride’s Secrets, Boy Meets Girl, Heart Throbs, and Love Confessions. However, as the romance of the 1950s gave way to the pervasive climate of free love in the ’60s and ’70s, their popularity waned. The end of an era came with the final 126th edition of Young Love in 1977.

Below is a typical strip from Vol 2, #2 of Young Love (originally published in April 1950), which offers female readers – who were ever fearful of being left on the shelf – tips on how to up their popularity quotient in order to increase their dateability.

[..]

by Mur Lafferty

SuicdeGirls presents the sixth installment of our Fiction Friday sci-fi series, Marco and the Red Granny, which is brought to you by SG columnist Mighty Mur a.k.a. cyber commentator Mur Lafferty.

Marco and the Red Granny is set in a not-so-distant future where an alien species, the Li-Jun, has transformed the moon into the new artistic center of the universe, where the Sally Ride Lunar Base soon gains the nickname “Mollywood.” These aliens can do amazing things with art and the senses, allowing a painting, for example, to stimulate senses other than sight.

In the previous installments, Marco, a writer whose career has long been in the doldrums, gets a surprise call from an agent he thought he no longer had, informing him that he had received an offer from Mollywood for a much coveted Li-Jun patronage. Keen to catch up career-wise with his ex-GF Penelope, who’d unceremoniously dumped him after being recruited by the Li-Jun two years earlier, Marco jumps on the next shuttle to the moon. Once aboard, he finds himself sitting next to a seemingly unassuming old lady called Heather, who turns out to be The Red Granny, a legend in Li-Jun’s reality show world for being a three-time champion of The Most Dangerous Game (which requires contestants to sign away the rights to their life).

We join Marco as he settles into his new accommodations at House Blue. After a brief meeting with his new patron, a Li-Jun called Thirteen, Marco realizes he’s never been shown the terms of his employment. A sense of unease sets in as he prepares for the evening’s designated entertainment – a trip to see The Most Dangerous Game. He dons a not-so-simple Li-Jun-made white button down shirt, which smells like an apple orchard in fall and gives those that brush it a shocking sense that they are actually among the ripening trees, takes a quick gulp, and heads to the “battlefield” with his new friend Heather and his Li-Jun handler Six.

[..]

by Erin Broadley

It’s December 25th 1986, and Nikki Sixx is alone in his mansion, crouched naked under his Christmas tree with a needle in his arm, scribbling in his diary about watching his “holiday spirit coagulate in a spoon.” He writes, “”Merry Christmas…it’s just you and me, diary. Welcome to my life.””

This is just one scene from a particularly harrowing chapter in Motley Crue bassist and founder Nikki Sixx’’s new memoir “The Heroin Diaries” – a collection of riveting entries from his personal journals spanning one year from 1986 to 1987, a year he considers the height of his downward spiral into drug addiction. It’’s a story about drugs, depression, and the train-wreck of self-destruction – but ultimately it’’s one man’’s story about survival told with unflinching and unapologetic honesty.

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