And in the end, the love you take is equal to the: Graeme finishes 3/21 books, and just in time.

The final (?) cat update for now: She's home and relaxing, with a belly entirely shaved from all the doctorin' and scanning that she's had to go through in the last couple of days. Her heart, it turns out, is enlarged because of liquid inside it that they're still not entirely sure about, but all her test results checked out remarkably well; we literally went from being told that maybe we should get ready to say goodbye on Sunday night to everything apparently being alright a day later. We're monitoring her breathing - and as a result, both of us have real problems with the idea of leaving her alone in the house while we have work today, but what can you do? - and both Kate and I are nervously playing with her and hoping for the best, still. It's too early to say that she's fine or that the danger's passed. But nonetheless, it's really rather nice to have her home, if nothing else. Thanks to all who left or sent messages of goodwill.

AQUAMAN: SWORD OF ATLANTIS #50: In which Tad Williams comes on the book and decides that somethings just have to change. Maybe it's because I don't follow the book regularly - Aquaman at the best of times is a hard sell to me, much to Kate's disappointment (She's had a crush on the character ever since he was on Smallville for the first time, back when she liked Smallville. Nowadays, she's gone off the show; the "Lois dresses in PVC catsuit and pretends to be a stripper in order to seduce a wrestler who dresses in a schoolgirl outfit so that she can break into an underground wrestling ring" plot being the last straw. And when I put it like that, suddenly hundreds of non-Smallville viewers head to BitTorrent in anticipatory masturbatory glee) - but this issue seems to move at a ridiculous pace, with characters spouting exposition in order to get all the plot and character furniture just the way that the new writing tenant wants it: New characters are introduced, old characters are reintroduced, the old Aquaman is killed off in a very offhand manner (which means, of course, he'll be back before too long), and there's something enjoyable about the wild abandon of the whole enterprise. I've seen complaints about the style not being serious enough for fans of the previous Underwater Barbarian take on the character, but Shawn McManus's cartoony look fits with the broad writing just enough to make you think that, just maybe, there's nothing that bad about such an old-fashioned superhero comic that dares to bring back Aquaman's sidekick who makes jokes about shitting himself as if he was in Finding Nemo. I have no idea if I'm engaged enough to pick up #51, but #50 was definitely much more Okay than I was expecting it to be.