What I Bought 4/18/2026

The Chicago trip. . .went pretty well. We didn't see much - though I always suspected the plans to visit an art museum or Chinatown were far-fetched - but we got some excellent Italian food Saturday, same a few cool stores, and the weather wasn't bad, outside some heavy rain during the first night. And we were safely inside during that. The crowds at his gigs were good, outside of a lot of people lying about it being their birthday during the second night. He'll play your request even without it being your birthday (unless the song sucks!)

Although I told him he played a song the first night that I had never heard before, but now that I had it was trash ("HYFR".) When he (naturally) started playing it the second night, I decided it was a good time to go walk through the rest of the club. Except right as I entered the front half of the place, the live band's lead guitarist asked if there were any fans of Creed in the audience.

That turned me right back around, so I think I detoured to the bathroom to give him time to finish that song. But now I'm home, and the storms didn't cause any damage, and I am seriously running a sleep defecit after I got up an hour earlier than I needed to on Friday (because when Alex says he'll get somewhere and when he actually does are 2 different things), and only got 4 hours Saturday (because my brain doesn't care I fell asleep at 4, it still isn't letting me sleep in), and two hours, if that, Sunday morning (because I handled a big chunk of the drive home.)

It's going to be a long week. 

Babs: The Black Road South #3, by Garth Ennis (writer), Jacen Burrows (artist), Andy Troy (colorist), Rob Steen (letterer) - Put a leash on that flying sperm, Babs.

We get the introduction to how this fictional world's version of Sauron gained his power and immaterial form and, as you would expect, it involved the guy being a complete fool. But most of the issue is an exercise in thinning out the herd, and flogging a dead horse. Not literally on the second one, as Babs spends a lot of panels mocking Lilith Lazuli, the enormous, blue-haired barbarian woman rocking the Red Sonja look, and sporting what Babs assures Izzy are two fossilized stegoballs in her chest.

Of course, Babs is careful to say these things out of earshot, or what she thinks is out of earshot, proving she's not as stupid as her poor track record with money and choice of employers might suggests. And maybe the insults are fair, as Lilith appears to freeze to death because she refuses to find a cave to shelter in during a blizzard. Though her eyes are still open when Babs figures out a way for Lilith to be of use in an escape, so I expect she'll turn out to have fallen off the horse because that's how LILITH LAZULI goes to sleep. Abruptly, and with her eyes open.

The first part, however, about thinning the herd? That was literal, as most of the party except Babs, Izzy, Lilith and Culpepper die when the bridge they're crossing suddenly collapses. The work of the angry little hobbit.

We're at the halfway point, and I'm trying to figure out what the joke is going to be. I feel pretty confident Babs and Izzy will not recoup their money. I expect Ennis may go the route of having the hobbit die in an embarrassing fashion - possibly involved the punchdrunk dragon - without Babs ever knowing her was gunning for her. There's got to be something about why Lilith acts the way she does, but all the answers I think of are the type that make me groan and mutter, "Ennis. . ." So hopefully he catches me completely off-guard there.