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May 2011 20

by Damon Martin

Judgment Day is happening friends, and it won’t be Arnold Schwarzenegger staring you down with a leather jacket and a 9mm.

No, Rapture 2011 is coming courtesy of Family Radio founder Harold Camping, who predicted through what has to be painstaking and meticulous research that Jesus is coming back to claim his flock on May 21 at around 6 PM.

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May 2011 20

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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May 2011 20

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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May 2011 19

by A.J. Focht

On May 13, the longest running superhero based television series, Smallville, came to a close. The final episode brought back many of the past characters, including Michael Rosenbaum as Lex Luthor. Avoiding other major spoilers, we’ll just say there is both flight and tights action involved.

That wasn’t the only action stirring in the world of superheroes this past week though. Rob Williams, author of the new Ghost Rider series, announced that the next Ghost Rider will be a female. Johnny Blaze, the current Ghost Rider, will be offered a chance to pass his curse on to someone else, and while Blaze will no longer be the Rider, he’ll remain a part of the series.

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May 2011 18

by Bob Suicide

Hi, my name is Bob Suicide and I’m a shy gamer.

Generally, there isn’t a lot of stigma being a shy, quiet geek. After all, as a group, us nerds aren’t known for being boisterous. We play our games, download/stream our shows, and read our comics all from the safety of our solitary couches. However, with the recent surge in mainstream desire for geek culture, we’ve been thrust off of our couches and into the social scene.

You know you’re a hardcore gamer when you can watch someone else play a game with the same satisfaction you would received if you played it yourself. I’ve “played” many a game sitting next to the controller as the go-to strat guide girl or the rapt spectator rooting my friends on. Generally, my shy nature doesn’t preclude me from enjoying the ridiculous level of gaming that I expect from my daily life. But sometimes you just have to be the one pressing the buttons to get the full joy from the experience; sometimes, you can feel a little left out sitting on the sidelines…and it’s then that I lament my epic shyness.

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May 2011 17

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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May 2011 13

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.

[..]