Ah, Good Old Korean Satire!

Quite By Chance -
Your Humble Scribe stumbled across a category on Netflix he's not seen before: "International Time-Travelling Drama" or similar, and he passed over each thumbnail in turn, until he got to "My Love From The Star", which is about an alien stranded on Earth for over 400 years, having to live amongst the stupid humans whilst pretending to be one of them*.  It is described as a "Romantic fantasy" when it's more of a satire, poking a good deal of fun at the Korean entertainment industry.  Art?

Worth a watch

     Do is, of course, super-powered, with strength, vision and hearing a quantum level beyond anything Hom. Sap. can manage, and thanks to living amongst the upright hairless apes for centuries, he has a realistic cynical attitude towards them and their civilisation.  Cheon, the lady above, is pretty as a picture and as air-headed as they come, not to mention incredibly conceited about her i) looks and ii) abilities.
     They coincidentally become neighbours - you can guess how it's going to end but the journey there is pretty amusing.
     I've just come across another recommendation on Netflix thanks to watching the above - "Strong Girl Bong-Soon".  Ah me, how unfortunate for Conrad that he has to i) sleep and ii) work.

     I have to, you see, as otherwise the Hom. Sap. might get suspicious ...

Logistics Of The English Civil Unpleasantness
During the week I did a bit of number-crunching (so you don't have to) concerning the supply of food and drink to the Parliamentarian army during the campaign that ended at the Battle of Edgehill.  The Royalist army was approximately the same size and thus had the same requirements, before you ask.
     After the battle, the King's courtiers got properly busy about being efficient with their logistics, whereas the Earl Of Essex's army - the Parliamentarian one, do keep up! - was very slapdash about supplies.  
     Okay, meet the prime mover in all of this.  Art?

Dobbin and Co.

     The horse.
     What, you were expecting SUVs and armoured personnel carriers?  Pshaw!
     Now, I estimated the average horse in use at the time (1642, remember - do keep up!) as having a mass of 1,000 pounds**.  Given that a horse of this size needs 1.5% of it's body mass in fodder daily, that means 15 pounds of fodder.  Looking at the Parliamentarian army at Edgehill, they had about 2,000 cavalry, plus 700 dragoons, and a baggage train of 40 wagons, and I guestimated that they used about 100 horses for the artillery train.
     This totals about 3,000 horses, so you would need to supply them with 20 tons of fodder daily, and you can't scant a horse of it's victuals, or it will weaken and die.  On top of that, there's water: an average horse would need a minimum of 5 gallons of water daily, and, once again, you have to slake a horse's thirst or Dobbin will make like a frog, and croak.  

That's 20 gallons gone right there

     The total of water required daily then comes to 15,000 gallons, or 55 tons, which is simply impractical to transport (and you'd need even more water for the extra draught animals in your water train) and is one reason why ponds and lakes and rivers and streams would be used as watering points.  Also another consideration for cavalry and wagon-masters to take into account.
     The fascinating world of logistics!

Trapped By Dog
No, no, Your Modest Artisan has not been trapped up a tree by a slavering monster mutt straight from the pages of "The Hound Of The Baskervilles".  Rather less dramatic than that.  Art?

So very obviously trapped

      Since Conrad was the only one present, naturally the Wunderhund took refuge on my lap, putting my laptop definitely out of reach.  Thus no BOOJUM! whilst she was in pole position, and you can practically hear her thinking "Ha beet ther laptop who queen ov lap noww?"

Ignore the empty

       Fortunately for all those out there who soak up the blog like a sponge, she moved.  And as the others have now returned from shopping - and getting me 3 jars of Marmite-flavoured Peanut Butter! - I am no longer the refuge of choice.

"Countdown"less
NO!  I refer to the comic, not the gameshow.  If you recall AND YOU OUGHT TO AS IT WILL PREVENT ENSLAVEMENT WHEN MY INVASION FORCE ARRIVES I have been exploring the reasons why a collection of the strip above is not on the cards, ever.  Art?

"Countdown" art by Jim Baikie

     If you, the publisher-to-be, decide there is a market for your reprints, you then have to negotiate the thorny maze that is the copyright holder(s), and if that's not too expensive you finally have to find the comic art itself.  Some of it may be held in storage, but you'd have to track it down, which would be even harder than sorting out who to get permission from.  Your only recourse is then to scan old copies of the comic strip, which means getting hold of good quality copies of the comics, and good luck with that!  Some of these publications are over 50 years old, if you can find them.
     Mind you, there is a scrap of hope.  "Countdown" also featured full-colour "Doctor Who" stories (the BBC's premier dramamentary series!), which were later reprinted in "Doctor Who Classic Comics", which was a Marvel publication, in the Eighties.  Art?

Countdown artwork

And the reproduced strip

     I know this because I have a boxful of the DWCC, featuring a couple of strips from "Countdown", so there is a 0.001% chance of seeing the titular strip itself.
     The fascinating world of comic reprints!

Finally - 
I'm off to put the oven on as I'm hungry and there's a remaindered pizza I have to eat before it turns poisonous or explodes, or both.


*  Our lives are so, so similar, Do Min-Joon.
**  None of that metric nonsense here!