Nineteen is a very big, very small number.

First order of business for today: the winner of our random ARC drawing! Statistically speaking, all numbers are equally likely when you're talking about random selection, but it's always a little bit surprising when the result is between one and ten. So today was definitely surprising, as the random number generator chose "four." So today's winner is apocalypticbob! Bob, please send me your mailing information via my website contact link. You have twenty-four hours. After that, I'll choose another winner if I haven't heard from you!

Second order of business for today: It is now nineteen days to the official "anywhere you go, you will be able to buy a copy of Feed for your very own, and isn't that terrifying?" release of Mira Grant's first novel. In addition to being hugely important in Stephen King's epic Dark Tower saga (say thankee), nineteen is a pretty awesome number in and of itself. It's the eighth prime number, following seventeen and preceding twenty-three. It actually forms a twin prime with seventeen (I like twin primes). It's the seventh seventh Mersenne prime exponent, and the aliquot sum of two odd discrete semiprimes, sixty-five and seventy-seven. All these things are awesome.

Nineteen days. By the time we finish this countdown, Amy will be here to keep me from flipping out on people, the final touches will be put on party planning, and I will hopefully have been able to pick up my Mira wig from the hair shop (I am so the Hannah Montana of horror). The cupcakes will be ordered. My reading will be chosen (yes, there will be a reading this time). Prizes for the raffle will be arranged. And I will hopefully still be breathing. Nineteen days.

When will you rise?

"Real isn't how you are made..."

"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but really loves you, then you become Real."

Flashback: I was attending the Alternative Press Expo (APE) in San Francisco when I came across a table, staffed by a friendly, curly-haired brunette woman in round geek-girl glasses, which boasted a wide assortment of mad science-themed images, all centering around a pretty, realistically-proportioned mad scientist named Helen Narbon. This was relevant to my interests. I grabbed some of the hand-outs, chatted briefly with the brunette—who turned out to be the strip's creator, Shaenon Garrity—and moved on, unaware that I had just discovered a six-year obsession.

Narbonic turned out to be an epic tale of mad science, romance, destruction, and, of course, gerbils. I visited Narbonic Labs every day for six years. When I was in Europe, paying for DSL in exotic cafes staffed by people who liked to dodge the crazy American, I paid about half-a-quid for the privilege of my mad science fix. I have no regrets. And yes, "Oh, Helen" on Red Roses and Dead Things was inspired by this comic strip.

Narbonic eventually had to end, coming to a solid and satisfying conclusion. The strip was collected in dead tree editions, each with lovely bonus features; sadly, some of them are now out of print. Not so sadly, there are plans in the works for a single omnibus edition, which will doubtless blow a whole lot of socks off. In the meantime, the full archives of the strip are available online, along with Shaenon's ongoing Director's Cut (she's going back and adding commentary to every single day). It's so, so worth reading, although I warn you, you're gonna lose some time. (Yes, the art starts out fairly primitive. Watching it improve is one of the true joys of the strip, since the art gets more complex even as the story gets more addictive.)

But that's not the point.

After Narbonic, Shaenon teamed up with Jeffrey Wells on a new project: Skin Horse, the story of a Black Ops Civil Service Agency dedicated to helping—and almost entirely staffed by—non-human transgenic individuals. The main team consists of a genetically-engineered Siberian Husky named Captain's Fancy Valentine Sweetheart, a dangerously unstable and heavily medicated necrotic-American named Unity, a cross-dressing ex-Army psychologist named Tip, and their boss, Gavotte, who is, well, a swarm of bees.

Yes. A swarm of bees.

And did I mention the huggy cobras?

The first year of Skin Horse is available now in dead tree format, and seriously, that was the best fourteen dollars I've spent all year. (Some other amounts may have been equally awesome, but fourteen dollar amounts? Nothing beat it.) Talking lions! Killbots! Opera-singing silverfish! HUGGY COBRAS! Seriously. If you like fun, you'll love Skin Horse. Also, if enough orders come in unexpectedly, Shaenon's head may explode. You like making people's heads explode, right?

You can view the strips included in the book at the Skin Horse website totally for free, but you can't take the website in the bathtub (unless you feel like living dangerously). Go, read, enjoy, and experience the HUGGY COBRAS.

Ssssssss.