Best of 2013 Comics - Ongoing Series

I could only put together a top 8 of ongoing series for 2013. Part of this is that a lot of my reading has switched to collected editions, so I'm not really keeping up with, say, Sixth Gun or Hellboy. Part of it is that a lot of the single issue series I read this issue were new, and are covered on my Best New Series list. And part of it is that a lot of what DC and Marvel publish just doesn't interest me these days. There are certainly other books I read, and even like, but not enough to consider them "Best Of" material.

1. Saga (#9-17)
Saga's second year is just as successful as its first. The second story arc fleshed out more of the early days of Alana and Marko while developing Marko's parents into very interesting supporting cast members, not to mention further expanding on their nemeses The Will and Prince Robot IV and introducing new supporting character Oswald Heist. The third story arc, which won't wrap until 2014, is a quieter story, letting the main characters catch their breath and talk about their pasts a bit  more while their enemies face their own difficulties and continue to close in on them. Saga continues to be a rich, expansive world with some of the best characters in comics.

2. Daredevil (#22-33)
Kicking off the year with a great use of Superior Spider-Man, and then leads into the culmination of everything Waid has been building to with new foe Ikari and the revelation of who's behind both him and indeed much of what's been going on for the first 25 issues of the run. After that, the story adds in a new Sons of the Serpent tale, a really fun one-shot with Silver Surfer, and continues to deal with Foggy's cancer. Chris Samnee's art is as terrific as always, and as the book goes into what we now know will be a close and relaunch, it's easy to rank this with the great runs of Bendis, Brubaker and Miller.

3. Hawkeye (#7-14)
Matt Fraction was on fire with this book, and the fantastic artwork by David Aja was supplemented by issues from Javier Pulido and Francesco Francavilla. There's the continuing story of Hawkeye vs. the Russian mobsters, and there are also a ton of great standalones, from the New York hurricane issue to the story of the harlequin-styled assassin to the experimental and awesome Pizza Dog issue. There was an unfortunate delay in the middle of the year, but it came back strong with a two-parter focusing on Kate Bishop's adventures in L.A.

4. Chew (#31-38)
After the death of a major character, Chew's "Bad Apples" story finds Tony Chu in a vendetta kind of mood, and it's a different side of the character that I liked a lot. The second part of the year finds us halfway through "Family Recipe," which continues to shed light on the expansive Chu clan. As always, the book is weird, beautiful to look at and always a lot of fun, but there's a really interesting underlying plot and serious character work going on as well.

5. Fatale (#13-18)
Fatale, Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips' noir/horror book, opened 2013 with one of my favorite issues of the run, a flashback to the lead character in the old west, followed by a World War II flashback, before returning to a modern-day story that deals heavily with bank-robbing musicians at the height of '90s grunge. It's got some labyrthine plotting and characters who could probably stand to pop a little more in each issue, such that I really prefer it in chunks of trade paperback storytelling, but it's always a great read.

6. Revival (#6-16)
I really enjoyed Revival from the outset, but this year the book got its hooks deeper into me, as Seeley and Norton further develop their cast and start shedding a little more light on the "ghosts" haunting the town, all while moving forward the various stories of the Revived characters we know and mixing in some real suspense with a group of criminal lowlives, a paranoid survivalist and lots more. Like Fatale and Manhattan Projects on this list, it's best enjoyed in trade paperbacks, but it's good stuff that I keep up with monthly as well.

7. Indestructible Hulk (#3-15)
Waid's take on Hulk is not as amazing as his run on Daredevil, but it's a solid premise (Banner joins SHIELD as a science advisor/WMD) and this year's run has taken the book to some interesting places. Most notably a time travel trip to Asgard with art by Walt Simonson, which was the best arc of the book so far. It suffers a bit from not having the same caliber of artists as Daredevil, with Leinil Francis Yu being a little hard-to-read and Matteo Scalera being solid but not much more, but it's full of great ideas, from the aforementioned Asgard arc to the extended time travel story that took up most of the year.

8. Manhattan Projects (#7-16)
To be honest, I have almost moved to reading this one in trade, because it's gotten so dense in its second year that I'm having trouble remembering all the characters and plotlines on an issue-per-issue basis. But Hickman's sheer level of wacky insanity using famous scientists and Nick Pitara's detailed, beautiful artwork make it a favorite of mine. It's got Hickman's usual scope with a more playful and less serious tone.

Best of 2013 Comics: Best New Series

It was a damn good year for new comics, especially Image Comics, which has a full half of the top 10 this year.

1. Sex Criminals #1-3 (Image Comics)
Not only is this my favorite new series of the year, nothing else really even comes close. Black Beetle and Afterlife with Archie (the next two in line) both have Francesco Francavilla art, which is awesome, but neither is as inventive, as crazy weird and as much damn fun as Sex Criminals. And given that those two books feature pure perfect pulp and a zombie apocalypse in Riverdale, that is saying something. Fraction has unleashed the dirtiest part of his mind and Chip Zdarsky sort of lives in that headspace, and the result is this book about two young lovers who can stop time when they have orgasms and naturally decide to rob banks. That's all we know from there, there have only been three issues, but c'mon... isn't that enough? No? How about almost an entire issue devoted to an inventive and hilarious karaoke rendition of Queen's "Fat Bottomed Girls?" How about it's so dirty iTunes banned it, and it's so popular it's in multiple printings? I love, love, love this book so much.

2. Black Beetle #1-4 (Dark Horse Comics)
Black Beetle is technically a miniseries, beginning in Dark Horse Presents and continuing in this four issue miniseries, but since the next mini, Necrologue, is hitting next year, I'm inclined to call it an ongoing. The biggest thing Black Beetle has going for it is Francesco Francavilla's inky, gorgeous artwork and stunning Eisner-esque layouts. But it's also a brand new pulp character that feels like he could fit right alongside The Shadow, Green Hornet and the rest. While Dynamite is producing solid but largely unremarkable new tales of the pulp icons, Francavilla has nailed the exact tone and style of those characters with his new creation.

3. Afterlife with Archie #1-2 (Archie Comics)
What could easily have been a dumb gimmick has, at least so far, been a dark, moody zombie apocalypse that gets bonus points for using the extensive Riverdale cast and locale. Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa is not a writer I've been a huge fan of, but his history with Archie (he had a play, Archie's Weird Fantasy, which depicted Riverdale's most famous resident coming out of the closet and moving to New York, before Archie Comics shut it down) shows through here, as he subverts the original characters while simultaneously getting to the heart of their concept, and Francesco Francavilla delivers spooky, beautiful artwork that accentuates the iconic nature of the cast and the horrific nature of the zombie apocalypse.

4. Superior Foes of Spider-Man #1-6 (Marvel Comics)
Honestly, I'd have given this one a spot just for a welcome monthly dose of Steve Lieber's artwork, but even better, Superior Foes is the sad sack loser supervillain flipside to Marvel's Hawkeye series. Nick Spencer occasionally verges on too-snarky for me, but it's hard to complain about Boomerang, Speed Demon and the rest being portrayed as kinda losers. It's sort of an Elmore Leonard take on supervillains, and it really is must-reading for those enjoying Hawkeye and Daredevil at Marvel.

5. Velvet #1-2  (Image Comics)
Too early to really tell the future for this one, but this '60s espionage piece by the Captain America creative team of Ed Brubaker and Steve Epting is off to a strong start, with great action and conspiracy plotting plus gorgeous, gorgeous artwork.

6. Lazarus #1-5  (Image Comics)
I occasionally feel like I'm getting lost in the depth of Greg Rucka's politically-aware sci-fi world, as he's taking a William Gibson-esque "throw you in the deep end" approach, but there's no denying that the near-future world of Lazarus is smart, compelling and a little too plausible for comfort. Michael Lark is a terrific talent whose realistic style complements Rucka's down-to-earth narrative (if you can call a book about an unkillable corporate soldier down-to-earth, and I can, it's my list) and I feel like at five issues, we've just barely dipped our toe into the water here.

7. Injustice Gods Among Us #1-11 (DC Comics)
This one is a surprise. It starts with Joker murdering Lois Lane along with a lot of Metropolis and Superman retaliating by killing the Joker. It's dark, based on the ugly-as-hell designs of the Injustice video game and seems like the kind of thing that, tonally, would not be up my alley. But Tom Taylor's moment-to-moment writing, especially on one of my favorite characters, Green Arrow, gets the DC Universe in a way that not even a single New 52 creator has, and this Elseworlds tale of what happens when Superman and Batman are pushed to far reminds me of everything I liked about Kingdom Come. I wish the art was stronger and more consistent and not married to some really awful designs, but I can forgive a lot, especially when you've got the weirdly perfect and unexpected relationship of Green Arrow and Harley Quinn. Check out the annual, where Harley Quinn and Lobo go head-to-head (in another unexpectedly perfect pairing), to get a sense of the series at its best.

8. Alex + Ada #1-2  (Image Comics)
Another new series that could peter out before it earns it's top 10 spot, but the first two issues, featuring art by Jonathan Luna and co-writing from Sara Vaughn, are really intriguing stuff. A future with telepathic instant messaging and companion robots and a young man who finds himself dealing with both bits of technology leads to a strong, character-driven story with plenty of neat things to say about what it means to be human in a world where technology is blurring the lines.

9. Superior Spider-Man #1-24 (Marvel Comics)
I know a few of my friends might disown me after seeing this on my top 10, but despite the godawful premise (Doctor Octopus takes over Peter Parker's body), the frustrating defensive arrogance that Dan Slott keeps showing online (although after you get a few death threats, I think you can forgive being a bit prickly about fan reaction) and the constantly-changing art team, there's more here I like than don't. A new relationship between Spidey and Jonah, a reinvented Peter Parker (and Spider-Man), a guest turn by Spider-Man 2099, a gang of Goblins both Green and Hob... every issue there's something that makes me groan, but there's also something that I think is interesting or cool. Like pretty much everyone else, I'm marking time until we get the real Spider-Man back, but honestly, I'm kind of enjoying this as a temporary diversion.

10. East of West #1-7 (Image Comics)
This one almost doesn't make the list because I'm starting to feel the same spinning out of plot that has happened with all of Jonathan Hickman's work for me, but... the premise and world is so interesting, the art is so good that even if I wind up losing track before the end, I'm always going to love the promise that this post-apocalyptic western about the Four Horsemen had at the start.

Also in contention: Image's Burn The Orphanage #1-2 is a fun take on videogame tropes, Trillium #1-5 is a strange experiment in sci-fi comics from Jeff Lemire and Vertigo, Rat Queens #1-3 is a fun D&D-esque fantasy tale from Kurtis Wiebe and Roc Upchurch, and Itty Bitty Hellboy #1-3 is the Hellboy universe from Tiny Titans and Aw Yeah! creators Franco and Art Baltazar. All just narrowly missed the top 10.

I'm Baaacckk

I stopped numbering the posts. I'm posting so infrequently that it seems silly to keep track.

This post is to serve three purposes. First, since this has become my cancer blog, it's an update on the status of my cancer. Second, it's to actually remind people that yes, I occasionally post here. And third, and most importantly, it's to tell people where I am active since I'm so rarely using this blog.

So first things first... last time I posted I was almost done with chemo and feeling frustrated and tired. Good news is, I'm done with chemo, much less frustrated and tired. I still have a little pain and discomfort that's probably gonna be a lifelong companion at this point, but I was able to do two long days at Disneyland with my daughter in August, walking around in the hot sun and going on rides, and I've been walking/jogging two-three times a week to try and lose some of the weight that came back (last time I measured I was 184, which is about 35 lbs. heavier than I was at the height of my cancer). And the tests after chemo showed no residual cancer in my body.

Flash forward to a couple weeks ago, my first 3-month follow-up CT scan, and they found a little nodule on my lung. Too small to biopsy, so we did a PET scan. Turns out, it's cancer. Again. Small, much earlier than we caught it last time, but cancer. So starting in November, I get another port put in and we're doing three cycles of chemo to try and put it back into remission. With any luck I'll be cancer-free again by Christmas.

I'm hoping and expecting that since I'm not in any pain or showing any symptoms, that this will be a relatively much easier time with chemo. I expect my Mondays and Tuesdays will again be lost to sleep and fatigue on chemo weeks, but otherwise hope to keep up my normal routine.

That'll probably be the only post I make here for a while, not because I don't want to keep up with the blog but because I'm really bad at it. In the meantime, here's where you can find me.

Facebook - Unless I think you're spam, I almost always accept friend requests, and my updates are public so people can follow me. Be warned that it's mostly me posting about comics, politics (if you're not liberal-leaning it'll probably make you angry), TV and whatever random links/images I find. This is where I post most frequently, always daily and usually several times a day. I also have a Twitter feed, but I update it about as frequently as this blog.

Roguecast - I do a weekly podcast for my store, Rogues Gallery Comics & Games, that focuses on comics, games, TV and movies. http://roguesgallerytx.com/roguecast/

TV Dudes - Me and three friends podcast about a variety of TV topics on a weekly basis. http://www.loungegeeks.com/shows/tvdudes/

Loose Canon - Me and three friends podcast about comic books on a weekly basis. http://www.loungegeeks.com/shows/loose-canon-comics/

I think that's it, as far as regular stuff goes.

6. The Finish Line

It's been a while since I've updated this blog with any cancer news. That's not because there hasn't been any, it's just that all my energy has been focused on these last few miles in the marathon that is fighting cancer.

As I write this, I have one more chemo appointment scheduled. On May 10, in theory, if nothing else goes wrong (more on that in a second), I will have my pump disconnected for the last time. And then it's recovery and vigilance, watching for (and hoping against) a return and getting back into the shape after the beating that chemo has administered to me, body and spirit.

I thought that the surgery was going to be the worst of it, and in many ways, it was. It was the most pain, the longest recovery, the most frustration and certainly the most permanent damage. While I got used to having a colostomy faster than I thought I would, there isn't a day that goes by that I don't notice I have the damn thing and hate it. It's a permanent change to my body that is always going to bother me. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Better than being dead, but really pretty awful. And I've still got plenty of residual pain from the surgery, which I hope will eventually go away... it's been over six months, and thanks to all the radiation and chemo, I haven't fully healed up. Not to be too indelicate, but it still hurts to sit for any decent amount of time, and I still feel pain in my rear whenever I walk or stand around for too long. I hope that eventually that goes away... I honestly don't know if it will.

But the chemo follow-up after the surgery has been super hard. My immune system has more or less given up on me. I've been in the hospital numerous times. Once with a 105 degree fever which turned out to be a blood/urinary tract infection. Again about a month later with less fever, but a return of the blood/urinary tract infection that came with acute kidney failure. Acute being the key word, they're restoring to normalish now. Once for a planned blood transfusion because chemo was/is making me anemic. Once when I started bleeding from (again, not to be indelicate) my ass and it didn't stop, but that thankfully turned out to be a minor blood blister thing. Still, you don't want to feel like you're re-enacting The Shining hallway scene in you bathroom one Wednesday morning. Especially when that Wednesday morning is your daughter's birthday.

Holidays seem to have it in for me. I spent my birthday in the hospital again this year. Hopefully my cancer doesn't recognize the impending Free Comic Book Day as a holiday, because I sure as hell don't want to miss that. I already spent STAPLE! in the hospital this year, the first time I've ever missed that show.

I've been told by my oncologist that the infection could return, because my immune system is so busted. So we're keeping an eye out for fevers, hopefully I'll get through all this without one or two more hospital stays, but I wouldn't be shocked if that isn't the case.

Fighting this thing has been the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and every time I think I've turned a corner, a new wrinkle develops. Like this week. I've been having trouble with my port, which was installed in my chest back in May, for the last month or two, basically ever since the hospital stay in March. It was hurting me, and causing me pain in my shoulder. This week, before administering the chemo, the nurse decided I should get a dye test to see if the line was broken. Guess what? It was. So despite being only two more treatments from the finish line, I had to have a Picc line put in through my arm to get the rest of the chemo. And my surgeon, the one who put it in, called me up on Friday worried that I should get it taken out sooner rather than later. But he's always been a bit alarmist, and he's the one who put it in (possibly not entirely correctly) in the first place, and he's not a specialist in that area (he's a colo-rectal guy), so I'm planning on having someone else take it out.

At any rate, though, for the next two weeks I've got a line in my arm. The good news is, it works, my shoulder doesn't hurt, and it'll give blood, something my port gave up on months ago, so that means no more sticking needles in me twice a week. The bad news is, it's kind of uncomfortable, and I'm not allowed to get it wet, so I have to wrap my arm in plastic wrap and be real careful taking showers, which is another fun inconvenience.

Even once the chemo is over, there's still some healing to be done from the surgery to get me back to relatively normal. Like I said, I'm hoping to eventually be able to sit and walk around without pain, and I'd sure like it if the various peeing issues I've been having would resolve. What is it they say about bladder control? You don't miss it until it's gone? Something like that.

I'm tired. I'm frustrated. I'm ready to be done. Two weeks might as well be two months, it's been so long struggling with this. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and I'm looking forward to a summer of healing. With any luck, by the time we're taking the family trip in August, I'll be feeling much stronger and more like myself. Hell, I'm hoping to be more or less on my feet and ready to have fun in late June for the All-Ages Awesomeness event.

Then it's just a matter of the fear of it coming back. That's going to take me years to get over. But we'll watch and hopefully catch any return early, and not have to do anything quite so strenuous to get rid of the cancer if it tries to come back.

5. 30 Rock Re-Watch: Season One, Episodes 6-8

Episode Six:
This is the first episode that really feels like what 30 Rock would become. Dennis is less cartoonish than he eventually will be, but Tracy and Jenna are both ramping up the crazy nicely. Rachel Dratch's Liz Taylor beating the crap out of Josh is the kind of twisted pop culture riffing the show does well, and there seems to be a general increase in the frequency of jokes.

Not coincidentally, the writers aren't in this episode much. While Toofer, Frank, Lutz and the rest are good in small doses, they're probably among the weaker elements of the show. But Jenna's obsession with age, Tracy's obsession with being weird and Liz's inability to manage her life are comedy gold mines that 30 Rock will return to again and again.

Episode Seven:
The show has found its footing at this point, and this was another strong and very funny episode. The first time we hear the names Grizz and Dot Com, the introduction of Chris Parnell's hilarious Doctor Spaceman and some terrific stuff with Conan O'Brien.

I wonder if the "I am a stabbing robot" bit was a nod to Crispin Glover's famous face kick on David Letterman. Either way, that and Tracy's extended dance were hilarious.

The Dennis/Liz relationship is a great source of comedy, and they seem to have settled into the dynamic for Liz and Jack as well. Pete's story, like all too many of the Scott Adsit stories, is a little sparse, but he's great in it. And a little Kenneth is just the right amount of Kenneth.

Episode Eight:
And so the Liz/Dennis relationship comes to a close for the first, but not the last time, thanks to timely intervention by Chris Hansen.

Tracy/Toofer turns out to be a pairing with a lot of story potential, but unless I've just forgotten, I don't believe they return to that well very often.

Jack dating Condi Rice is one of many funny uses of Jack's Republicanism and place in high society. Seeing him threaten to knock Putin's teeth in cracked me the hell up.

Not as full of rapid fire jokes as the previous episode, but a good use of several cast members and a very funny episode.

4. 30 Rock Re-Watch: Season One, Episodes 1-5

Episode One:
I know common wisdom has it that the pilot of 30 Rock is weak, and it's not as good as the show would become, but it's got plenty of funny in there, and several characters, notably Jack and Jenna, are pretty much right on from the start.

Liz's obsession with food and fairness shows up in the first scene, with her buying out all the hot dogs so the guy who tried to start his own line couldn't have any.

It's weird to hear people calling it "The Girlie Show" instead of "TGS."

"Five inches, but it's thick." Fun one-liner from Jack, who gets the first big laugh of the episode.

Jack comes out pretty fully formed, pegging Liz right off the bat and spitting out silly business jargon like it's nothing.

"When I played that lady rapist on Law & Order..." -Jenna Maroney is also dead-on from the start, pretty much

Wow, Tracy Morgan is thin. And that "I Am A Jedi!" bit is the first laugh I remember getting out of 30 Rock.

Two-fer is trying to hard to be nerdy and uptight this early on.

Tracy Jordan is actually somewhat restrained and less cartoonish than he will become later on. But still one of the funnier parts of the pilot.

Weirdly, Liz Lemon is playing straight woman far too much early on. It's one of the earliest weaknesses of the show, that Tina Fey is giving all the material away, rather than letting herself act and play comedy a bit more.

Pete Hornberger is also much more subtle and human this early on. Pete getting fired in later seasons would have launched into some kind of truly bizarre reaction.

Episode Two:
While the pilot is by no means perfect, it's much stronger than the second episode, which is really pretty weak and forgettable.

Funny to hear Jack referencing his father... they didn't know yet what they were going to do with his mother character at this point.

Again, Tracy comes off as much less cartoonish and more balanced in this one. It's not until he goes off the deep end that the show gets funnier.

Jenna's insecurities have been the source of great comedy later on, but it's mostly shrill and unpleasant early on.

The "mic is on, monitor is on" stuff is hack and routine. 30 Rock didn't come into it's own until it embraced the crazy, this early on it's just doing sitcom standards, complete with physical comedy schtick that doesn't quite work.

"The ice cream bar was my idea." Again, Liz Lemon's love of food is already well-established.

Episode Three:
Probably stronger than both the pilot and the second episode, largely on the strength of Jack and Kenneth.

The first of Liz Lemon's troubles with men introduced here. Again, pretty low-key and non-cartoonish, given the direction her romantic disasters will eventually go.

Dennis is referenced, however, so the romantic disaster potential is there. And Dennis played Halo under the name "Slutbanger," so they had some idea who he was. Also, the first reference to her dating Conan O'Brien.

The notion of Liz being set up with Tom Delay is the first overt reference to Jack's increasingly amusing Republicanism.

The beginning of the Jack/Liz mentoring relationship starts here, and it's something that could have been insulting, if, say, Aaron Sorkin had written it, but Jack really does know best, Liz really is a mess, and when it comes to the actual work, Liz is the one who knows what she's doing, so it works.

Liz almost choking isn't particularly funny. Tina Fey is good at physical comedy, but they haven't found it yet.

The first indication that Kenneth is going to be more of a character comes here at the poker game, and it's funny that in the third episode, they're predicting the eventual finale.

The first flashback! And it's funny, with the Liz Lemon being mistaken for a lesbian, and Liz's high school perm hair is always funny.

Episode Four:
Still figuring things out, slowly getting funnier in places, but 30 Rock still isn't 30 Rock yet.

Jack would never, ever care about what Liz Lemon thought of him this early in their relationship. It's an unfortunate misfire, especially since so far, they had figured the character out pretty well.

Wow, I'd forgotten that Six Sigma, the management technique which returns in the final episodes, was referenced this early.

Jack Donaghy delivering ridiculous catchphrases, though? Funny.

Afraid of one of his kids ("so strong"), desperately needs Cerie to keep dressing sexy? Yep, there's the pathetic Pete Hornberger we all know and love.

Tracy and Kenneth together is always pretty funny. The weird errands here aren't quite weird enough, and there are only a few great lines ("Work the V-jay-jay"), but it's a start of something fun.

What the what?! That's not Mrs. Jordan!

Episode Five:
The Jack Donaghy mis-characterization is a problem, but otherwise this is a pretty solid episode. There are a lot of funny runners, and plenty of great gags in the speaker announcements in the background. "Jenna, Ghostface Killah and Yo-Yo Ma to the stage."

The product integration gag with Snapple killed me the first time I saw it, and did it again this time around.

Gaybraham Lincoln. Funnier than TGS usually is, and yet in keeping with its intended low-brow hackiness.

Twofer and Frank messing with Jenna is another important bit that will play out over many seasons.

Liz Lemon, uninformed but enraged liberal. Lots of important character stuff developing in this episode.

Jack being unable to act is out-of-character, just like his friendship stuff with Liz in the previous episode. Jack not being confident in his ability to do anything, in fact, seems weird.

The Tracy faking illiteracy gag runs too long, but it pays off nicely in the "Smallest Penis in Show Business" poster and "Hot Lesbian Auditions."

Hey, Donald Glover sighting!

3. Pain

One of the things you notice if you've got a chronic or serious illness and spend some time in hospitals is that you get the same dozen questions or so from literally everyone you meet. Every nurse, assistant or doctor will ask about falls, medicine, allergies, dutifully note it in the computer, and the next person will ask you the same thing. I know it's an insurance and safety issue, planned redundancy, but it becomes either comical or annoying (depending on one's mood) when you get the same questions over and over again.

The one that gets me, though, is that they ask if you're in any pain. Then they ask you to rate it from 1-10. I was constantly under-bidding on mine, until my wife gave me some frame of reference from when she'd seen me in various pains, and I'm better at it now.

What's kind of weird, though, is that usually the person asking can't actually do anything about it. They don't have pain meds handy, and they're not authorized to dispense them if they did. So all they can do if I say I'm at an eight is make sympathetic noises, which isn't particularly helpful.

Fortunately, my "pain management" is more or less OK. I've been in some pain in the 'ol "bathing suit area" since the surgery, and while, even with my Vicodin/Tylenol blend, it was pretty bad throughout November and December, it's starting to get better.

It does sort of suck to be in constant pain, though, even at low levels. I've got a few things wrong with me that I'd like to go ahead and heal up, and the pain going away is a big one. At this point, it's a constant companion, and part of me feels like it'll be there forever. I can't wait until I'm looking back without pain and just remembering that feeling. Maybe by the end of February or March.

2. Best of 2012 Comics

Top 10 Single Issues
1. Daredevil #8-20
2. Saga #1-6
3. Hawkeye #1-6
4. Planetoid #1-4
5. Sixth Gun #18-24
6. Chew #23-29
7. Courtney Crumrin Ongoing #1-6
8. Conan the Barbarian #1-10
9. Godzilla Half Century War #1-3
10. Thief of Thieves #1-6

The Rest
Indestructible Hulk #1-2
Fatale #1-9
Star Wars Agent o/t Empire Iron Eclipse #2-5
Lobster Johnson the Burning Hand #1-4
Manhattan Projects #1-6
Massive #1-6
American Vampire Lord of Nightmares #1-5

Top 10 Graphic Novels

1. Daredevil Vol 1-3 HC

2. Saga Vol 1 TP

3. Wrinkle in Time

4. Scene of the Crime HC

5. Crogans Loyalty HC

6. Scott Pilgrim Color Vol 1-2 HC

7. Severed HC

8. Courtney Crumrin Vol 1-2 HC

9. BPRD Vol 3-4 HC

10. Art of Mass Effect Universe HC

The Rest
Sixth Gun Vol 3 TP
Chew Vol 5-6 TP
Empowered Vol 1-2 HC
Art of Amanda Connor HC
Ozma of Oz TP
Batman vs Black Glove HC
Fatale Vol 1 TP
Sunset HC
Amulet Vol 5
Thief of Thieves Vol 1
Manhattan Projects Vol 1
Incognito Classified Edition HC
American Vampire Vol 4 HC
Criminal Deluxe Vol 2 HC
Star Wars Agent o/t Empire Iron Eclipse TP

1. The Resolutions Post

So I figured I'd start out with that old chestnut, the New Year's resolution/look back at last year post.

Last year kinda sucked. I spent most of it dealing with cancer. That said, there was also Spill dot Con, our second annual All-Ages Awesomeness at the store, plenty of good times with friends and family, so it wasn't all cancer. It's just that chemo, radiation and surgery does kind of overwhelm everything else.

Last year's resolutions:

1. Post at least weekly on the blog - That's the reason for the numbers on the blog posts. I got to #41, which means I missed posting 52 weekly posts. And since there were sometimes months between posts, I missed that by quite a bit.

2. Watch all the Blurays and DVDs - Well, I didn't watch all of them, but I did watch quite a few. Of course, I also added quite a few, so the stack of stuff to watch remains pretty big. I'm OK with that.

3. Catch up on graphic novels - Same deal here. Read a lot of them, added a lot more. But the amount of stuff I have that's been sitting unread for years is down quite a bit.

4. Catch up on novels - Failed miserably. Need to get better with the prose reading again.

5. Keep my healthy weight and get back to exercising - My weight is pretty good, actually, thanks to cancer and surgery more than exercise.

This year's resolutions:

1. Don't get any major diseases - Should have started with this one last year. Who knew?

2. Recover from the surgery - As I write this, I'm still unable to sit comfortably for more than about half an hour at a time, my "bodily functions" are not really under my control and I'm pretty much a hermit, staying inside and healing. It's slow going, but I'm hoping that the recovery will continue and I'll be back to something resembling normal by the time my birthday rolls around in April.

I do have one more round of chemo which will probably run until June, but I'm hoping I can manage all that and get back to what normal is for me by the middle of summer.

That's it. If I can manage those two, I think I'm doing pretty good in 2013.

41. Recovery (Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Self-Catheterization but not really because Ow)

Warning: This post contains many references to my penis. I would have changed the name and called it my neener-nater or my jibbly bits or something, but we're all adults here, right? I mean, except for that one precocious 6-year-old and the dog who has taught himself to read and type, because it's the Internet and I can't see any of you, but mostly, I assume we're all adults.

When last we left our intrepid hero/cancer patient, he was miserable and gripey and just out of the hospital. We now return to our story in progress, where our intrepid hero/post-surgery patient is slightly less miserable, fairly gripey and back from another couple visits to MD Anderson in Houston.

I got home as planned and went straight into recovery mode, which mostly consisted of me lying on the couch in my office and watching movies and TV on Netflix. My cousins in California sent me gift cards to Amazon and iTunes, and I bought all of Legend of Korra on Amazon Instant Video, so Katy and I re-watched all of that. I also re-watched all of Arrested Development, Party Down and Cougar Town Season 2, got up to season four of Supernatural, and watched a few scattered movies, including several Pixar favorites with the kids.

Which all sounds like a great vacation, except that post-surgery, I'm still hurting quite a bit. We had to move the pain pills from 6 hour intervals to 4 hour intervals (I'm working on getting back to 6, currently somewhere between 4 1/2 and 5), and even then I still had a fair amount of discomfort. I also got to come home with a catheter in, which wasn't a lot of fun.

We had a return visit to MD Anderson where they removed the catheter, I was unable to pee, and they put it back in again. Then while home, I had to visit the emergency room in Round Rock a couple times due to some drainage issues with the back end, and a possible infection that we nipped in the bud with antibiotics. Again, I must commend everyone at St. David's Round Rock for being generally awesome and nice and great at their job.

So I had the catheter in for about five weeks and was generally miserable about it. Worrying that permanent damage had been done to those nerves, the bladder, etc. We went back to MD Anderson this week and I asked to go ahead and try the removal again. I was warned that if I couldn't pee on my own, the urologist didn't want to put the catheter back in, but I was going to have to do the self-catheterization, which was, if you'll recall, my worst-case scenario.

The good news is, after a too-long period of anxiousness, I did manage to pee on my own a bit. The bad news was, it wasn't enough, so I did have to learn to use a catheter on myself. The good news is, it's not as bad as I feared, more pressure than pain, and I'm able to do it. The bad news is, I'm still sticking a rubber tube up my penis every 8 hours or so. I do not recommend it.

But I do recommend it more than having a catheter in constantly. For the first time in over a month, I have nothing extra attached to me that I have to carry when I stand up. That makes me quite a bit more mobile and lots happier, and while I wasn't sure at the time, I think I'm glad I traded out from full-on catheter to occasional self-cathereterization. I'm still feeling more than a little pain in places you really don't want to feel any pain, but I'm definitely feeling like this is all a step forward.

We talked to the oncologist at MD Anderson and he concurs with my oncologist here that we'll be doing chemo starting in January to get any remaining microscopic bits of cancer and do general preventative work, even though I didn't have great results from chemo the first time around. It sounds like it may be about six months of chemo, not a lot of fun, but tolerable. He also indicated that there's a high risk of return given the size and advanced stage of my cancer, but we don't really know what that means, and hopefully it just means it may come back in 20 or 30 years. We'll be watching carefully to make sure we catch any return much earlier.

Anyway, we're at about the midpoint of recovery, I'm still in pain and resting and unable to work or even leave the house really, but hopefully I'll be able to get back to a little bit of work before the end of December, go to my friends' holiday party the weekend before Christmas, enjoy Christmas with the family, etc. That's not bad, considering that a couple of weeks ago, I was still in the "not sure this is ever going to end" mode.

40. Food

My sister has set up a thing online where folks can send us or bring us meals. I posted about it on Facebook, but I'm also posting it up here.

39. The Importance of a Good Book

The day I was in the hospital and got my cancer diagnosis was also the release date for Jenny Lawson's book, Let's Pretend This Never Happened. Lawson's hilarious memoir (well, sort of memoir) was a big help in helping me keep my sense of humor on that day, and I was glad to have my Kindle Fire so I could download it and read it so easily.

This week, as I suffer through the recovery from my cancer surgery, I was happy to be able to use a gift certificate from my awesome sister Wendy to buy Alan Sepinwall's book, The Revolution Was Televised, on my Kindle app for iPad. Sepinwall's an Internet friend going back to when he was writing about NYPD Blue on Usenet and I was writing reviews on the comics part of Usenet, and I've always loved his TV writing.

The book is terrific, with chapters on the breakout dramas that have redefined television in the last decade or two, including Deadwood, The Sopranos and lots more. Mixed in with Alan's analysis are thoughts from the showrunners and writers who he interviewed, and it's a fantastic read, something anyone who reads Alan's "What's Alan Watching" TV recaps will love.

On top of making me want to re-watch The Wire, Deadwood and The Sopranos (so far), it has me wishing I'd written a book like this, about a dozen influential graphic novel series, back when I was doing more writing and had more access to creators. I don't think I'm capable of that book now, but I think I could have written it then, and I wish I had. Alan has provided the exact roadmap of format I could have used.

At any rate, I highly recommend Alan's book to anyone who loves TV and Jenny's book to anyone who loves off-beat humor. And I recommend books in general when dealing with cancer, a little change in subject and change in perspective is nice. I even stumbled across a Deadwood quote in Alan's section on Deadwood that I thought was particularly apropos and inspiring in my current state, from Deadwood's Al Swearingen:

“Pain, or damage don’t end the world — or despair, or fuckin’ beatings. The world ends when you’re dead. Until then, you got more punishment in store. Stand it like a man, and give some back.”

38, Post-Surgery Day Nine

So... I came on here to write a blog about books I'm reading and how that relates to my cancer that is partly recommendation for a couple of books, partly about my own writing and partly (of course) about my fight with cancer, but I realized first y'all might like an update on all the post-surgery hospital shenanigans, so that post will be next. Probably in a few minutes.

The first post out of surgery, I was pretty upbeat. I was surprised at how little pain I was in, and not even that much discomfort. Maybe all of the really worst-case scenarios were just that, and this was gonna be a relatively easy cruise back to normalcy.

Hah.

Standard warning for grossness and TMI (Too Much Information) applies here. You have been warned.

Things were going well as I went from clear liquid to full liquid to full diet. Everything was moving through my system properly, colostomy was working, I was physically pretty strong and having no trouble getting up and walking around, beyond the logistics of getting out of bed with a catheter, an IV, an epidural and three drains attached to me.

However... when I asked the nurse if there was anything I shouldn't eat or be careful about, she told me that no, I was fine to eat whatever. This same nurse would later admonish me, as if I had never asked the fucking question, that I shouldn't have eaten what I did when I was later having trouble. This is one of the many complaints I'd make about MD Anderson's nurses and follow-up care, and one of many times I was glad not to be strong and fast enough to get up and strangle someone.

So I had a breakfast of ham, potatoes and french toast (which sounds like a lot, but I didn't eat all of it, in fact most of the french toast went to Suzanne) and that seemed to settle fine, so for lunch, I got a ham and grilled cheese. What followed was one of the most painful and uncomfortable nights of my life, vying with the pain I had when my gall bladder was unknowingly infected back in '99, as the gas and my still-wounded intestines struggled with what I'd eaten.

All the easy recovery was out the window at that point. I went back to clear liquid, and had to take a couple days for my guts to stop punishing me. By Thursday, I was back on full diet, albeit being much more careful about it. Suzanne headed home to be with the kids on Wednesday, we both wished she could be in both places but we also both really wanted her to be with the kids. My parents stayed with me.

Before we got to that point, though, we had another complication. Much to my relief, we took the catheter out on Wednesday, and I was going to get to pee on my own. But my bladder/urethra, etc., having been manhandled quite a bit during surgery, was not ready yet, and I wasn't able to (as they put it) "evacuate" on my own. Well, I was, but only on the floor, only unexpectedly, and not everything in my bladder.

Let me tell you, there's a particular blend of embarrassment, frustration and pain that comes with a swelling bladder, peeing uncontrollably and a nurse who (like all the goddamned nurses) doesn't really have much to offer in the way of help other than "Have you tried walking around?" To be fair, Elijah (my nurse for that night who had also been witness to the horrible night of intestinal pain) did the right thing, called a urologist to consult, and they decided (against my strenuous, terrified objections) to put the catheter back in.

I don't know if you've ever had a catheter put into you while you're awake. If you haven't, I'll say this: It's not as bad as you'd imagine. I'll also say I don't particularly recommend it. At any rate, while I didn't want the damned thing back in, and certainly didn't want to go home with it (which I now have to, for a couple weeks), the relief it gave me was almost immediate and totally worth it. I'm just left with the fear of permanent peeing problems and having to self-catheterize myself 3-4 times a day for the rest of my life if it doesn't fix itself by the time we come back for my appointment on the 20th.

You read that right. Multiple self-catheterization. That is pretty much the big bad of all scares I had prior to surgery, and I am thrilled to death that it's still on the table, as you can imagine. I don't think it's likely, but man, if anybody's doing any praying, please mention that in particular, will ya?

Anyway, after over a week of brusque nurses waking me up for vitals and blood draws while I *desperately* needed my rest and wasn't having en easy time getting to sleep, of getting conflicting advice and information from different nurses and doctors thanks to the sheer size of MD Anderson and their less-than-impressive surgical after-care, I was discharged on Thursday afternoon to the hotel room adjoining the hospital, where I will be staying with my mom and dad until Tuesday, when I go back to get the last two drains pulled out of the wounds on my butt, and am able to leave with only one tube stuck in an unpleasant place.

There was an unpleasant misadventure on Thursday night with the MD Anderson ER, a three-hour wait for literally no help at all and the first jackass of a doctor I've felt like physically striking in this hospital, but that's a long story, and this is already a long post. Last night I was able to sleep relatively well, if not for long, I've got my computer, iPad and wi-fi and have no lack of entertainment, and Suzanne should be here in a few hours with the kids so we can spend a couple days together. Pain and discomfort is relatively minor, too, so other than the looming fear of more complications, we're in a good place and looking up from here.

The weird bright side of all this is that in all the hassle with drains, gut pain and pee fears, the colostomy turns out to be no big deal. I mean, I hate having it and wish I didn't have to, but it's the easiest thing in the world to deal with and it will have little to no real impact on my life once I've healed up everywhere else. So that's a pleasant surprise, at least.

Anyway, the takeaways from this post should be this:

1. Recovering from surgery would have been much, much better at St. David's Round Rock, where every single one of the nurses and doctors just rocked, the rooms were bigger and nicer, and I never felt like nobody really gave a shit as long as they got their scheduled vitals stuff done. Don't get me wrong, the nurses have a gross, difficult job to do, and I appreciate that, but with rare exceptions, most of them were surly and it was frustrating to be constantly told "let me know if you need anything" only to get dirty looks and attitude if you actually deigned to take them up on that offer.

2. My wife, my mom and my dad are amazing and I could not have gotten through all this without them.

3. I'd rather poop in a bag than pee in a tube.

4. I probably will not eat grilled cheese for a long, long while

37. Post-Surgery Day One

So the surgery was yesterday. Halloween.

We got here late Sunday night because our first appointment on Monday was at 6:30 AM. This time out, we're staying at the Jones Rotary House, which is attached by skyway to MD Anderson, and man... we should have been staying there every time. We had a ton of appointments on Monday, we were there until 7 PM, and it was nice being able to go "home" between some of the appointments and rest instead of having to  sit in uncomfortable waiting rooms all that time.

We had dinner at Goode BBQ, a decent if not great BBQ place on Monday night. As it turned out, that was my last meal for... a while. Tuesday I found out I wasn't allowed to eat anything else before the surgery, and today post-surgery I've been told I won't even get on a liquid diet until the weekend. A little foreknowledge and we probably would have gone for a fancier meal. Ah, well. I did have T&S Seafood dim sum and Deckhand Oyster Bar crawfish etouffee before leaving Austin.

The prep included drinking 48-64 ounces of potassium chloride in about an hour on Tuesday night. I flavored it with lemon-lime, so it was of course delicious. This is in no way sarcastic.But I got through it with the help of Life Savers, applied immediately after each 8 ounce glass, drunk every ten minutes.

The surgery check-in was at 6 AM. So of course, since I'd been napping much of Tuesday thanks to exhaustion from Monday, I couldn't get to sleep. Went to bed around midnight, finally got to sleep sometime after 2 AM. Fortunately, being sleepy for surgery is kind of a bonus.

They checked us in relatively quickly, but then I sat in the waiting room in bed for about two hours before signing the anesthesiologist consent form (the last of many... I agreed to a lot of scary possibilities before this surgery was underway) and was taken in to get an epidural installed. Installed? Is that the right word? Anyway, that was done, they put a mask over my face and that's the last thing I remember...

Until I woke up groggy in the recovery room, in much less pain than I expected, and ater what seemed like a long time, they finally asked if I was ready to see my wife and parents. They came in, said a quick hello and told me that it was 10 PM. Which puts the surgery time, for those keeping track, at roughly 12 hours.

It was a long surgery, but by all accounts a successful one. The surgeon is optimistic that he got all the cancer, the plastic surgeon seems pleased with his work as do the many doctors and nurses who have looked at my ass today, and miraculously, I'm not in much pain. I've even gotten up and walked a couple times, albeit while holding onto the wheely thing that carries my medicine around with me.

I'm not a particularly pretty sight at the moment. I've got drains in my legs, a new colostomy that I get to learn how to use tomorrow (whee!) and various things plugged into me. But I'm feeling relatively OK, and the worst part is now over, and some of the more scary things presented as worst-case scenarios didn't come to pass. Life is going to take a little adjusting to with the side effects of the surgery, but overall I'd call it a success.

Now I'm here in the hospital for another 7-9 days, headed back to Austin after that. They tell me I'll be fully recovered in about two months' time, so hopefully by Christmas. Although I'll start chemo again in November, so I won't be 100% again until some time next year. Maybe in time for my birthday.

36. The Upside of Cancer

I am not, by nature, an optimist. You might think differently having read my cancer blogs, where I've poked fun and generally tried to keep a happy face on about the cancer, but that's really just my nature as a smart-ass. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm at best a realist, at worst a pessimist.

So it's kind of ludicrous for me (or anyone, really) to post a blog about the glass half-full part of having cancer. A disease that could potentially kill me, has certainly caused me a lot of pain, and is about to cause me a lot more, not to mention some pretty significant lifestyle changes, beyond the significant ones I've already made. I mean, I'm down from working 40-50 hours a week at a job that I love to about 20, at best. I don't get to go out as much because I'm not often feeling up to it, I've definitely become more of a social shut-in than I used to be. And my change in diet, while not spectacular, was definitely something I noticed.

However... I've never more clearly felt the love of friends and family than when I learned about this disease, or when I've talked to people about getting through it. And my friends and family were never not demonstrative. I knew just how much my parents, my sister, my extended family loved me, and how much I loved them. I had little doubt that I had somehow lucked into this huge, extended group of friends, both locally here in Austin, spread out in the comics community and the various Internet groups I've been a part of, and that there were way, way too many people in my life that I'd be willing to take a bullet for. The odds were getting good I was going to have to take a bullet... fortunately, most of my friends are too nice for anyone to take a shot at.

But I've never had more activity on my Facebook page than when I posted on my birthday from the hospital. It should have been the worst day of my life, but it was hard to be glum or angry about the diagnosis when I had so much support so visible to me. I had *104* comments on my post when I revealed the diagnosis, and a flood of support. Some of my artist friends drew me stuff (hell, so did some of my non-artist friends, a bunch of them made me an awesome get-well gigantic poster card), my friends at the LEOG helped me laugh my way through it with the most morbidly hilarious (and amazing NSFW) podcast ever and I was just overwhelmed by the amount of support.

The latest development is that my friend Grant Davis has set up a donations site for me to help cover the cost of surgery (and next year's chemo). It was a generous and really unexpected gesture, and has really taken off. I'm posting a link here just so nobody emails me and asks, but please... don't feel like you have to give, especially if you're family and you've already given me more than enough help throughout all this. I mention this not to point out the campaign but because I want to single out how generous my friends are.

I don't talk much about the money side of all this. The truth is, we're lucky. Suzanne's always been smarter than me about this, and so we've been paying for private health insurance for years, even though I never got sick. (Turns out I was saving up for a big one.) I'd gripe occasionally about hundreds of dollars a month for a plan that didn't really cover my doctor visits or anything else minor, our deductible was so high, and she'd remind me it was catastrophe insurance, so we wouldn't go broke if we got cancer or something.

My friends and family are amazing and generous. My wife? A goddamned visionary genius.

So when the hospital bills started coming in (and let me tell you, chemo and radiation treatments are *not* cheap), we were fortunate that the insurance paid for a lot of it. Our deductible is high -  I'm not gonna get into specifics, but we're out-of-pocket in the low five figures - but thanks to the store being fairly profitable and help from my folks and Suzanne's folks, we've managed to do OK. Mostly I look at the money we spent on my healthcare and think "I could have put a sizable down-payment on a new car." Then I want to punch my cancer in its face again.

There are folks in much more dire straits than us. Folks who couldn't afford screening or treatment who died from a preventable, treatable cancer. Folks whose health insurance dropped them when they got cancer. We were lucky enough to be in a time when that couldn't happen, and lucky enough to have money so that it didn't have to happen.

Next year the deductible will kick in again, and that means another big lump payment, but thanks to the donations we've already gotten and money from my parents and in-laws, I don't have to worry about it. I can't imagine having to worry about the illness, the pain, the surgery and its after-effects *and* money at the same time. So the help from everyone who has donated, if you're reading this? It is so very appreciated.

But I also want to say that for everyone who's had a kind word, who has offered me support, and there are so many I couldn't possibly name them all, I can't thank you enough. I'm not saying I'd take the cancer if I had the choice, but the upside of going through all this is getting to learn just how much I'm appreciated and loved. I'm not looking forward to the surgery and the recovery - to be honest, it scares me more than just about anything I've ever done - but the support of my friends and family makes it something I know I can get through.

35. The Big One

Warning: Many references to my butt in this post. In fact, this may be the grossest, most TMI post about my rectal cancer that I've had. I do apologize.

Been a while since I posted, sorry about that. I'm also sorry this has become "Randy's Cancer Blog" but it's the best way to keep up with family that aren't on my Facebook (and you guys don't want to be, it's mostly politics, inappropriate pictures, cursing and talk about comic books and food) but I guess as topics go, it's kind of one you need to cover.

This week was the big trip to Houston. Well, OK, technically October is the Big Trip to Houston for the surgery, the whole reason we're going to MD Anderson in the first place. But this was the "here's all the scary stuff about the surgery you were already terrified of, and it's going to be worse than you thought" trip.

But before that... and I gotta warn ya, this is gonna get gross (again)... I had another complication. The stupid abcess that got infected back in April and landed me in the hospital just in time for my cancer diagnosis flared up for the third time, and I had to go in on Wednesday for a quick surgery so they could slice open my butt. Which is nobody's idea of fun.

OK, that's not true, this is the Internet, and I'm sure it's somebody's idea of fun. But if it's your idea of fun, for God's sake, don't tell me. I don't want to know.

Long story short, it went Friday-Saturday-Sunday increasing amounts of pain and attempts to deny that it was infected and I needed surgery, Monday visit to Texas Oncology and admitting that I needed the surgery but hoping it could be quick and easy, Wednesday having it done and it was relatively quick and relatively easy, but it still hurt like hell. Then Friday-Saturday-Sunday increasing amounts of pain, worrying that it was still infected, until thankfully on Monday, right before the trip to Houston, it started feeling better and we were sure the slow healing was because I was still irradiated, which slows down the healing process.

Negating everything comics have ever taught me, by the way.

So Monday we drove down to Houston. I don't know how many of you have ridden in a car for three hours with a hole in your butt, but I don't recommend it. I survived the trip, though, and Tuesday was the day to meet with everybody. Thankfully, since I have an irradiated butt, they weren't poking and prodding too much, and the soreness I had was down to sitting for a long time in uncomfortable chairs and walking from place to place.

Our first appointment was at 9:15 with genetic counselors, but they were running late, and that threw the whole schedule out of whack, so we were late the whole day. Which meant more waiting. We finally got out of there about 3:30. During that time, I learned that I probably have genetic damage that caused the cancer, and that further testing might prove it for sure, but if the testing comes back negative, we can never be sure, so I'm going to have to act like I have the genetic disorder. In other words, colonoscopies every year! Hooray! And  our insurance doesn't cover them! Hooray!

Next up was the meeting with the plastic surgeon, who explained how they're going to reshape my butt after the surgeon removes a great deal of it on Halloween. I'm not kidding, he used the phrase "smoking crater" to describe it at least half a dozen times. And they talked about taking muscles out of my stomach, and the possibility of also having to take muscles out of my leg if there isn't enough in the stomach. So that was scary. I also found out that recovery is going to be about 7-9 days (in Houston!) and that I'm gonna have drains in me, and all this extra stuff, and it sounds like I won't be in decent shape until probably after Thanksgiving. I'll have to go home, mess with drains and colostomies (more on that in a second), go back and have the drains taken out, make sure everything's healing, hope I'm not in the 10-15% that develops a hernia, etc. etc.

Then it was off to talk to the actual colorectal surgeon. And maybe it's just a surgeon thing, but I swear to God every time I talk to a colorectal surgeon the news gets worse. I was already dreading the operation, but this thing is gonna hurt like hell, totally reshape my body and wind up with a lot of gross after-effects. The word "catheter" was mentioned casually, but fortunately so was the word "epidural." Other fun words include "erectile function" and "entire anus removed." We don't know yet how much the radiation got, and we won't until just before the surgery, but the possible side effects of the surgery could be pretty huge if it didn't shrink the tumor enough and a lot of stuff has to come out to be sure we get the cancer.

Then we went to talk to the colostomy nurse. If it wasn't happening to me, I'd find it darkly hilarious that she tried so hard to convince me that having a colostomy wasn't going to be a big deal. That it's really just having a butt in the front that you have to empty out. Like that isn't a big deal. The brochure about colostomy is equally hilarious to me, it looks like a pamphlet for a community college, except instead of getting a 2-year degree in A/C repair, it's about getting a hole in your stomach that you poop into a bag out of.

On the upside there were two things. One was that we had to grab something to eat at the cafeteria while were there, and I got taco soup, which was *full* of beans. I risked it, even though that's forbidden on the low-residue diet, and had no bad reactions. So I may get to relax the diet a bit and eat what I want for the next month. Carefully, of course, the last thing I want is more digestive problems.

The other is that we found an awesome Cajun place, Crescent City Beignets, thanks to Urbanspoon, and I got gumbo and beignets and Suzanne had a muffaleta and beignet and they were delicious.

Wednesday was my blood draw and meeting with the oncologist, which was kind of a frustrating day. We're doing all our chemo/radiation here in Austin, and so the oncologist always checks in, chats for five minutes and leaves. It's always, always a waste of his time and ours, and that meant another night in the hotel room. If we could have just done the blood draw at the beginning or end of the day on Tuesday, we could have gotten the hell out of Houston a day earlier.

The drive back was a little rough, since I was sore from all the walking/sitting on Tuesday, but I got a lot of sleep on the way back and once I got home and am now feeling much better in general. With any luck, the slice will heal up, the radiation will heal and I'll get roughly a month of being relatively normal. No chemo, no radiation, a minimum of doctor's appointments. I intend to eat, drink and spend as much time with friends as possible in that month, because after the surgery, I think I'm going to be a grumpy bastard for a while, and I know I'm not gonna enjoy November and December much. With any luck, the last round of chemo after surgery won't be too bad (even though it's gonna be a financial blow, since the insurance deductible will reset in January, meaning we'll probably be in for another $10-20K... we've got it in various savings/loans, but we'd rather have the money for, y'know, the kid's college or something) and I'll be adjusted to the colostomy and healed up and cancer-free in time for my 42nd birthday in April. But that now seems like a long way in the distance, and October 29th (the start of surgery hell week) looks awfully close, even though it's more than a month away.

But... big picture, all of this is in service to getting rid of a disease that could kill me. So the side effects and pain, terrible though they are, will hopefully fade into memory as I get another dozen years or more to spend with my friends and family.

Even if those years are spent pooping into a bag. Which, again... if that's your idea of fun, for the love of God, don't tell me.

34. A Flame about this high

Also, radiation.

Wow, two in-jokes deep right at the start. That's a long way to go to avoid using the word "ass" on a blog where I drop the f bomb pretty regular. Anyway, don't worry if you don't understand the title or what I'm talking about, I'll explain at the end of this post.

Anyway, yes, as we near the finish line of the radiation/chemo stage of fighting my stubborn ass tumor, I have gotten a sunburn in what doctors call "the bathing suit area." OK, they don't call it that. But that's what it is. I'm red and peel-y all around my nethers.

Which isn't a great deal of fun, but it's not as bad as I feared when I heard about these side effects at the beginning. For one thing, I haven't had it long, which makes it easier to handle. For another, it's not quite as bad as a real sunburn. I don't have constant pain, I can sit and move pretty comfortably, it's just that if I move or something rubs up against the wrong area I get that "yeowch" like your jackass "funny friend" slapping your sunburned back. Except instead of back, substitute "sensitive nether regions."

This has made certain everyday tasks, like putting on pants or going to the bathroom (a more frequent occasion thanks to the tumor/treatment) more of an adventure than it might ordinarily be.

However, as I keep saying, and I'm really not a glass half-full guy in general, but when it comes to cancer I guess I am, if this is the worst I get, it really could be a lot worse. What's a little genital sunburn and extra naps between friends? The doctor keeps telling me I'm handling the treatment really well, and I like being told I'm doing well at something, even if that something is just "not getting horrible side effects," which honestly is kind of a thing I'd want to be good at regardless.

Anyway, six sessions left over the next two weeks, and then it's on to the next phase, the horribly invasive and possibly life-changing massive surgery to take this tumor bitch out. As you can tell, I'm a little nervous about that one, and not just because it means another trip to Houston.

Two trips, actually. In mid-September we've got a two-day trip to talk and evaluate, with the promise of no jamming any cameras up inside me because my butt will still be hurting from the radiation (yay!). And talking to their "genetics counselors" which sounds like they want to talk about my emerging mutant powers but in fact is about my having possibly tested possible for "lynch syndrome", which basically means that it's more likely this is a hereditary thing I've given to my kids (yay again!) But the first test they got was negative, and literally *no one* in my family has had cancer before, so either I'm the first case or they got it wrong.

If I'm the first case, it means that "lynch syndrome" is my mutant power. I would *so* much rather have had teleportation, invisibility or a healing factor.

Anyway, the second trip is for the surgery, which has been scheduled for (I kid you not) Halloween. Hopefully the surgeon won't dress up in a scary clown costume or something. I'm kinda bummed to miss out on trick or treating, but more bummed to have someone sawing into my ass to take things out, so y'know... priorities. No idea how long I'll be in Houston to recover, but I'm sure it'll be longer than I want. With any luck, though, the surgery will get the cancer, and the follow-up chemo will get rid of any lingering microcopic bits and in April, we'll be able to write all this off as the shittiest 41st birthday present ever and move on.

OK... to explain the title. There's an old joke where a guy says "You know what burns my ass?" (an expression that means you know what bothers me?) and the other guy says "No, what?" and he says, holding his hand up to his ass, "A flame about this high."

See? Totally worth the explanation. We all laughed, right?

33. Iron Man

No, not this guy

So when last we left our intrepid cancer patient, he was having a bit of a rough week.

I'm happy to report that, almost halfway through the chemo/radiation (tomorrow is day 14 of 28), I'm feeling much, much better.

Not just in general, although I am feeling better in general, but specifically the fatigue and blechiness that was just killing me is more or less gone.

Turns out that one of the side effects of the chemo/radiation is that I'd gotten a bit anemic. So every Monday, starting two weeks ago, they've started giving me iron before they plug in my pump. And the difference is like night and day.

On the first Monday when I got the iron, I didn't even nap when I got home, I just kept going. Same with most of that week. I've been a little more tired this week, but I think a lot of that is down to me feeling good enough to actually be up and about a bit more, exerting myself and actually using up what energy I have.

There's not much news on the tumor as of yet. We looked at the scans on Tuesday, and the doctor said (I can't read those things, even when they explain them to me) that while there isn't a lot of shrinkage yet, there's definitely some, and some break-up of the tumor. I certainly feel like it's working, because I've been able to take my pain pills less frequently, and I just generally feel a lot better, a lot more functional.

Next week my sister and one of my nephews are coming to visit, and we're looking forward to that. And I'm certainly looking forward to being done with the chemo/radiation in a few weeks. But right now, I'm not getting any of the skin irritation side effects I was warned about, in fact with the iron taking care of a lot of the fatigue, I'm not seeing much in the way of the side effects at all. Which is much, much better than where I was a couple weeks ago.

32. Blargh

Yeah. Like that.

So I write this at the end of the first week of chemo/radiation. I was really nervous about radiation, they'd scared me effectively by telling me it'd be like having a sunburn, that my skin might get irritated, that the let's call them "bathroom problems" might get worse... but none of that has happened.

In fact, at first I was pretty happy. I didn't feel the radiation at all, it was simple, all I had to do was lay still for about twenty minutes. And that's been my experience all week. I don't feel the radiation, getting the treatment is the easiest part of the whole thing.
But...

It turns out that the chemo pills aren't covered by our insurance. So I could choose to pay close to $400 a week (if we qualified for financial assistance... if we didn't, it was $1800) for pills or nothing for a pump. So despite hating being hooked up to the pump, I went that way. So I've got four and a half weeks coming of wearing a pump five days a week.

Here are the problems with the pump: It's clunky and makes it hard to sleep, and it makes it really hard to shower, because you've got to cover the port with plastic wrap, then hang the actual pump outside on a hanger, then take a quick shower where you try to avoid getting the port area too wet. It turns one of my most enjoyable things, a hot shower, into an ordeal for most of the week.

However, even that was a minor inconvenience, relatively speaking. I mean, from what I hear, the pills are giant, you take them twice a day, they can have worse side effects, I might have chosen the pump eventually anyway. Would have been nice if it had been a choice, but that's not the healthcare system we have.

But no, the problem is the side effects. Which are immense, immense drowsiness. Not just of the "must go sleepytime now" variety that I had with chemo, but just a general weariness. And a little nausea, which the pills have taken care of, but which is still a touch annoying. And a general "bleh" feeling that I can't pin down. Sometimes, even when I'm not in pain (due to a lucky hour or two or to the relatively effective pain medicine I'm getting), not having to run to the bathroom constantly and not nauseous, I still just... don't feel good.

The worst part is, I never know when these feelings are going to hit. I'll have hours where I'm fine, but I don't know when those are going to be, which makes it really hard to schedule work and social stuff around it. So my life for the next month and a half is go to radiation/chemo, do work when I can, come home and sleep. I'm going to be a bit more of a hermit than I like to be. And poor Suzanne is really having to do all the work with the kids. Most of the time when it's bedtime, I can't read because I'm crashed out on the couch in my office.

That said, there is good news. The doctor explained that radiation always shrinks, and in 10-15% of the cases, it shrinks the tumor entirely. After our experience with chemo, I'm not even allowing myself to dream of that outcome, but I am hopeful that all this annoyance and suffering will be worth it. And the side effects I'd been expecting haven't surfaced yet, so really it's just feeling useless (and being useless) more than actually being in more pain, which is good.

Anyway, that's the latest cancer update. Believe me, I wish it was happier as much as you do.

31. Marathon (a.k.a. The Latest Cancer Update)

Marathon, a cool graphic novel with amazing artwork

So the chemo portion has ended, and this week I took a trip down to Houston to go to MD Anderson, undergo a CT Scan and visit with the surgeon and see what the chemo results were.

The results were... disappointing. They could have been worse, although honestly not a lot worse. The good news is that the cancer hasn't spread, and some of the lymph nodes appear to have shrunk somewhat. The bad news is the blood marker (CEA) is elevated, not reduced, and the tumor is still very big, and very much encroaching on things I'd like to use, like my "seminal vesicals" (I think that's the term) and my prostate. So if radiation doesn't shrink the damn thing, or even if it does, the surgery is going to be invasive and probably cause some long-term issues.

Specifically, the surgeon talked about bringing in a urologist and a plastic surgeon, because there could be problems related to having to cut in and around what's in that area. I'll leave it up to the imagination what that means, but suffice to say, my quality of life could be significantly changed after the surgery, beyond just the colostomy that I've come to accept as a fait accompli. This is not the news I was hoping for. I was hoping for a Breaking Bad-style miracle 80% tumor shrinkage.

It was a little discouraging, and it wasn't the only part of the trip that was. I accidentally refilled the wrong painkiller meds, so I wound up on lesser painkillers right about the time we were taking a long car trip, and when you're having pain in your butt, the last thing you want is to sit in a car for three hours. So the trip down was fairly unpleasant.

The CT scan took place at the ungodly hour of 6:30 in the morning. Actually, that's when we got there for blood draw, and prep, the actual scan didn't take place until I'd been sitting around (see pain in butt and sitting around, above) until 10 AM. And it involved drinking a *lot* of banana-flavored barium (nasty), an IV (ouch) and rectal barium (ouch again, and gross). End result? Lot of pain, lot of unpleasantness, and having to clear the barium and such out of my system made for a fairly unpleasant rest of Monday.

On Tuesday, we went in to see the surgeon. Originally a sigmoidoscopy (flexible camera tube shoved somewhere uncomfortable) had been scheduled, but it wasn't on the schedule anymore, so I didn't prep for it by avoiding breakfast or doing an enema or anything like that. Come to find out, that was a computer glitch, and so I did have to get it done. More ouch. Although honestly, Dr. Chang is pretty good, and it didn't hurt as much as when my previous surgeon Dr. Jahadi did it. For those counting, I've now had this flexible camera tube thing done three times.

Then we had to stick around for Wednesday, when we saw their oncologist, Dr. Kee. Unfortunately, we didn't really need to, we only saw him for about five minutes, and the plan was already in place to do radiation in Austin, so that whole day felt like a bit of a waste, especially since we had to pay for another night at the hotel in Houston, and we really would have liked to have come back to Austin on Tuesday night, since we were done at MD Anderson by early afternoon.

So all in all, a disappointing, frustrating and uncomfortable visit to Houston. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Suites, which was actually much nicer than our previous hotel, and we ate at a variety of different restaurants, got some good Thai, some good pie (from House of Pies) and spent way too much money on hotel and food.

That's all bad news and grumbling. Here's the good news. We're still on track for the cancer-fighting plan. Starting next Wednesday, I'll be going in for radiation with chemo pills to enhance the radiation. I have no idea what to expect, although I'm expecting it to be harder than the chemo. It's five days a week for 28 days, so it'll probably run until the end of August. In the first week of September, right after the kids start school, there will be another trip down to Houston for an MRI (and knowing my luck, another sigmoidoscopy) to assess and prep for the surgery. The surgery will take place 6-8 weeks after that to give me time to recover from the radiation, so ballpark, probably in mid-October. I'm expecting recovery from the surgery to take a while and be kind of painful and long. I believe the plan is 6-8 weeks of recovery, than 8 cycles of chemo to make sure we get any cancer that's left. So figure that'll start in December and run through March or maybe April. Best case scenario, cancer free by my birthday next year.

Of course, our deductible resets in January, so our medical expenses are going to pile up in the early months of 2013, but we should be able to handle it with help from our families, who have already offered. Honestly, the money is less what I'm worried about right now than what I'm going to look and feel like after the surgery.

But the next part of this marathon is the radiation/chemo. I have no idea what to expect, and while I'm nervous, part of me is ready to at least know what to expect in terms of pain/fatigue and other side effects so I can get used to the new routine. 5 days a week is gonna be harrowing and is really gonna mess with an already messed-up work schedule, but I'm doing what has to be done, and I'm really blessed to have two great managers in Dave Farabee and Nick Budd and two great employees in Roxy and Teala to keep the store running while I feel like mostly a ghost there.

That's the other upside, and there are plenty of them. I've got amazing support from a huge network of friends and family, and they keep my spirits up when I'm tempted to despair a little. My wife has been amazing through all of this, dealing not only with the bills but driving me around, doing a lot more of the work with the kids and letting me nap and lay around when I feel like I should be helping out. And because I've been forcibly removed from working 40 hours, I've had more time to watch TV, read books and comics and do other leisure type activities that I haven't had as much time for in recent years. It's a forced vacation, and one that's actually more expensive than just taking the whole family to Europe or Disney World or whatever, but there are some vacation-like benefits to it on occasion.

30. Marvel Timeline

You know how animated series get to pick and choose and create these "perfect" versions of their respective universes using ideas from decades worth of stories? I had a notion to do something similar with the Marvel Universe, taking the idea of heroes aging in real-time and applying the idea of how different eras affected the writing of different characters, and creating a Marvel "timeline" that starts in the 1940s and extends into 2010. It's a skeleton at best, but I kind of like the idea, maybe as a backdrop for a Marvel RPG or something. So here it is:


1940s
The heroic age begins in the late 1930s as heroes emerge to face the growing Nazi war machine. Namor the Sub-Mariner reveals the existence of Atlantis, and joins the American super-soldier Captain America and the American super-android Human Torch, alongside the British Union Jack and Spitfire, as the Invaders. The Germans, desperate for weapons of their own, summon the Norse god Thor, who quickly realizes he's on the wrong side and joins the Invaders. However, the use of Nazi sorcery results in a bit of a stalemate with Allied super-powers, and the end result is that the war is still won by human soldiers and bravery, and the development of the atomic bomb is still necessary to end the war. Captain America is lost, frozen in ice, and Thor returns to Asgard.

1950s
The bridge between the Golden Age and the Atomic Age of heroes. A group of government-affiliated heroes known as the Agents of Atlas are the primary American heroes, although there are "greaser" heroes operating on the streets as well, the precursors to urban vigilantes like Spider-Man, Punisher and Moon Knight. In addition, war hero Sergeant Nick Fury becomes a Colonel and heads up the newly-created SHIELD (Supreme Headquarters International Espionage Law Enforcement Division). They begin keeping tabs on superheroes and supervillains alike.

1960s
The Atomic Age truly begins when the Fantastic Four steal a rocket in an attempt to beat the Russians to the moon and are bombarded with cosmic rays, returning as the first American heroes with public identities. Shortly thereafter, atomic accidents create two new heroes who are often mistaken for villains in Spider-Man and the Hulk. And background radiation from nuclear testing has resulted in the birth of mutants, including the original X-Men and the original Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, who begin a very public war over the future of mutant-kind and how it will interact with humankind. In the late '60s, a trip to Vietnam results in Tony Stark creating his Iron Man armor, and he returns home to help found the Avengers, alongside a returned Captain America and Thor and new science heroes Ant-Man and the Wasp. The Hulk is an early ally, but proves unstable and leaves the team before the '60s are over to roam the country.

1970s
The Revolutionary Age, when many social conventions were being shaken and tested. On the streets of New York, increases in street crime, organized by the Maggia and the Kingpin, are met with resistance from urban vigilantes like Daredevil, Punisher and Power Man & Iron Fist. Meanwhile, an Eastern influence begins with the birth of Doctor Strange and the war between Shang-Chi and his father Fu Manchu. There's also a general increase in "weirdness" and counter-culture, as evidenced by the rise of superteams like The Defenders and the All-New, All-Different X-Men, who represent a more international than American team. The Avengers and Fantastic Four continue their adventures, although they are increasingly out in space, dealing with cosmic problems like the Kree-Skrull War or Adam Warlock and Captain Marvel battling Thanos and the Magus. Meanwhile, a new wave of feminist heroes emerges with Jewel (Jessica Jones), Spider-Woman, Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. The Avengers roster expands to include Wonder Man, Vision & Scarlet Witch and the Falcon.

1980s
The Legacy Age begins, as heroes from the Atomic and Revolutionary age begin to age and retire or die. Captain Marvel is the first notable hero, dying very publicly of cancer. Phoenix dies soon after, sacrificing herself to save the universe. Captain America, having now reached his 50s, begins training Jim Wilson, a.k.a. the Falcon, to take over as the new Captain America, and recruits many new Avengers, including the new Captain Marvel (Monica Rambeau), Black Knight (Dane Whitman), Hercules and Tigra. Tony Stark passes on the Iron Man identity to the son of his pilot and best friend, Jim "Rhodey" Rhodes Jr., who joins the new team as well. On the streets of New York, Moon Knight joins Daredevil and the Punisher in their fight against the Kingpin and his ilk, while a sonic-powered mutant named Dazzler makes big headlines as the first mutant with a public identity (and multi-million dollar recording career). The X-Men recruit a new class of students, the New Mutants, to their academy, as several of their number retire to teaching careers at the school. During the mid-'80s, the Secret Wars take place, and many older heroes are killed in battle against their long-time foes, resulting in the new "legacy" heroes having to face of against the resurgent Thanos and his Infinity Gauntlet.

1990s
The Dark Age begins with the death of Spider-Man. With so many of the established heroes gone or retired, a vacuum forms for newer, darker heroes with darker codes of justice. The New Warriors step up as a young hero team to replace what they see as the "establishment" Avengers and are embraced by a youth culture influenced by grunge rock and nihilism. New strange heroes like Darkhawk and Sleepwalker emerge. The X-Men and New Mutants find themselves divided between Xavier's dream and Magneto's, and a new militant leader named Cable turns much of the New Mutants into X-Force, battling more dangerous foes like the deadly mercenary Deadpool, the deadly Apocalypse and the resurrected Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, now headed by the psychotic son of Charles Xavier, Legion. Legion's time manipulations result in the creation of the alternate universe Age of Apocalypse, which results in the death of several mutants, including founding X-Men Angel, transformed into Apocalypse's Archangel of Death. Meanwhile, the Avengers are disbanded, scattering to different parts of the country to fight crime in their own ways. Stark Technologies begins a focus on improving techology for everyone, which includes a major Iron Man upgrade. Captain America begins a network dedicated to creating a sort of national Peace Corps.

2000s
The New Age begins, as new incarnations of familiar teams are formed. The New X-Men are centered around the X-Corporation, an international mutant advocacy group for the growing population of mutants. It's membership includes former X-Force, X-Men and New Mutants members, as well as numerous new mutants, and it's board includes the surviving original X-Men: Cyclops, Iceman and Beast. They also maintain the Xavier Academy in Westchester and open the Grey-Worthington School in San Francisco as havens for mutants. After disbanding in the late '90s, the Avengers are reformed when a massive multi-super-prison break calls for their return. The team is organized by the son of Nick Fury and headed up by Power Man (the son of Luke Cage and '70s heroine Jewel), and includes a new Spider-Man (Miles Morales), a new Iron Man (Tony Stark's grandson), Wolverine (in a show of mutant solidarity with these new heroes), a new Captain America (the daughter of Winter Soldier & Black Widow) and Thor, newly returned from Asgard. They also create the Avengers Academy, a school on the west coast designed to bring new heroes into the Avengers fold in the future. In the shadows of Los Angeles, a new group of teen heroes, The Runaways, are formed when they discover that their parents are super-villains, and in deep space, Thanos rises again to find himself confronted by the Guardians of the Galaxy.

And for further spiff-balling, here are the potential titles that would be published during these years. There would probably be more:


Marvel  Age:

(*) indicates a book that continues from the previous decade

1940s:
The Invaders (1939)

1950s:
Agents of Atlas (1950)
Greaser Hero (1952)
Nick Fury and the Agents of SHIELD (1953)

1960s:
Amazing Spider-Man (1961)
Incredible Hulk (1962)
Fantastic Four (1963)
The X-Men (1964)
Iron Man (1965)
The Avengers (1966)
*SHIELD

1970s:
The Mean Streets (Daredevil, Punisher, Power Man & Iron Fist) (1970)
The Defenders (1971)
The Uncanny X-Men (1972)
Doctor Strange (1973)
Shang-Chi, Master of Kung-Fu (1974)
*Fantastic Four
*Amazing Spider-Man
*Incredible Hulk (Ends 1978)
*Iron Man
*The Avengers
*SHIELD

1980s:
The Death of Captain Marvel (GN) (1980)
The Death of Phoenix (GN) (1982)
Captain America (1981)
Dazzler (1983)
New Mutants (1984)
Power Man & Iron Fist (1985)
Secret Wars (LS) (1986)
Infinity Gauntlet (LS) (1989)
*The Mean Steets (Punisher, Moon Knight, Daredevil)
*Doctor Strange
*The Uncanny X-Men
*Fantastic Four
*Amazing Spider-Man
*Iron Man
*The Avengers
*SHIELD

1990s:
The Death of Spider-Man (GN) (1991)
New Warriors (1992-1999)
X-Factor (1993-1999)
X-Force (1993-1999)
X-Men (1993-1999)
Age of Apocalypse (LS) (1994)
Avengers Disassembled (LS) (1995)
Captain America Corps (1996-1999)
*The Mean Streets (Punisher, Moon Knight, Daredevil, Darkhawk) (Ends 1999)
*Doctor Strange & Sleepwalker (Ends 1999)
*The Uncanny X-Men (Ends 1999)
*Fantastic Four (Ends 1999)
*Iron Man (Ends 1999)
*SHIELD

2000s:
New X-Men (2000)
Mutant Academy (2000)
New Avengers (2000)
Avengers Academy (2000)
The Future Foundation (2000)
Stark Technologies (2000)
The Runaways (2001)
Guardians of the Galaxy (2002)
*SHIELD