Totally Rocking It

For This To Make Sense -

You need to have read yesteryon's blog, where we fell about laughing at something called the "Hi! Republic" in an iteration of "Starry Wars" (I think) as they introduced a Jedi who was a large, square lump of rock.  Going by the name of 'Geode' because that's a geological term, right?  Art!

Okay, rectangular.  Happy now?

     Of course Conrad could not simply leave it there, because he had to add in that Doctor Who did it earlier and better, with a side-order of Fritz Leiber.  Come to think of it, "Strontium Dog" in '2000AD' also had a race of humanoids made of stone, whose minds were unreadable even to the awesome Johnny Alpha.  

Top dog!

     Now that I want a picture, they cannot be found on teh Interwebz.  And I am NOT digging through nearly 2,000 comics to find a frame.

     ANYWAY I also wanted to examine Geode in further detail.  Given that Geode appears to be two cubic yards of basalt, one would feel confident in asserting that he, she or it weighs in the neighbourhood of two tons*.  How does Geode move?  "Very slowly" would be the answer, as I imagine lifeforms based on silicon dioxide cannot move rapidly.  Can Geode levitate?  Or does it smash up all the floors wherever it walks?  By "Walk" I mean it alternately swinging one side forward, then the other.  Does it require food and drink?  If so, what?  A gentle ray of sunshine or liquid plutonium?  Having no mouth, how does it communicate? 

A real geode

     Our stony friend would be much in demand if things went south and there was gunfire, being a natural bullet-proof shield able to shrug off any kind of small arms fire, even up to anti-armour weapons.  And we all know what he, she or it's favourite cinematic entertainment would be, don't we gentle readers ...

     Motley!  Time to break out the Chrome Canoes and have a punt on the Lava Lake**!

Going Batty

Mentioning that particular phrase reminds me of the "Uncle" stories by J. P. Martin, which Your Modest Artisan loved to bits as a much smaller version of himself many decades ago.  I think Batty was a villain, one of Beaver Hateman's crowd of crooks who infested Badfort, being a giant bat.  Conrad unsure if he can conjure up an image or not - Art! This cattle-prod stands ready!

     The Uncle novels are hilarious nonsense and I encourage you to read if at all possible, then you'll know if I'm raving about Batty or not.  I think it's eyes would glow in the dark.

     ANYWAY none of that has anything to do with "Batwoman", which is infinitely less entertaining and vastly more expensive, a kind of televisual money pit that The CW are content to allow to siphon away wheelbarrows of cash each week.  The viewing figure's downward slump was, incredibly and bizzarely***, reversed a couple of weeks ago.  Then reality intervened and the slide resumed.  And how.  Art!

     This is the 18 - 45 demographic expressed as "0.10" - in other words, the target audience they are aiming for.  And missing by a country mile.  "0.440" is the audience viewing figures in thousands, which last week stood at "0.536".  So they have lost 96,000 viewers in a week.  This is the lowest viewing figure the program has ever had, and we still have 4 episodes to run.  "How Low Can You Go?" takes on an interesting new meaning, as does the decision to greenlight a third season, because at this rate it will be into negative figures.

     As with the lyrics to "The Black Hit Of Space", by The Human League.  O, and do you know what?  These are the unadjusted figures, which may go even lower once revised, as I have seen occur in the past.

Back To Bonestell

Don't worry, there isn't an infinite number of paintings I can use, so we shall eventually run out and return to the fun topic of LITHIUM WAFER BATTERY DESIGN. What do you have for us today, Art?

"Mars as seen from Phobos (1954)"

     Phobos, lest you be unaware, is one of the two small, irregularly-shaped moons of Mars that are probably captured asteroids, since they never formed into a spherical shape.  The other moon is "Deimos", and a right pair they are - the Greek for "Fear" and "Panic".  What I wanted to do was set the scene, because when the VC's anticipate the Geek attack on Mars 

Art, you are neglecting to approve things.

     - excuse me, 2000AD is getting a bit above itself if it thinks it can just intrude like this.  What I meant to say is that Chesley had an interesting image of a manned Mars mission making planetfall on the Red Planet.  Art! <sound of a Tazer being charged>

     This is presumably one of the three delta-wing spacecraft that were assembled over Earth before transit to Mars - here we see the giant delta-wing side on.  Art!  Clarification picture, please.

     Hmmmm perhaps not so much delta as Heinemann's Hot Rod.  Which we may come back to at a later point.  Or not.  I can be wildly temperamental that way.

Mister Heinemann's Hawk Of The Sky
(No television jokes please)

  ANYWAY my point was that Chesley imagined an horizontal landing of the Mars spacecraft, whereas our robot explorers out there have all come in for vertical landings; this means that only a very small footprint needs to be viable terrain for the robot to survive.  If they were to come in for a landing akin to that of a modern jet aircraft, they would need possibly a couple of miles of suitable terrain.  Yes, it would look vanishingly cool - and result in robot explorer destruction 99 times out of 100.

Finally -

O hello Mister Balboa, can we help you with anything?  Do please step forward and make yourself known. 

"Yeah - about Geode.  I kinda thought - yannow - ah what the heck, good luck Frank." 

     Yes, Mister Balboa.  Truth, like the Moon, can be a harsh mistress.

Chin chin, pip pip and do svidaniya!

*  I don't care if it's the Republic, we're still using Imperial measurements.

**  There was an accident with the Lava Moat

***  And VERY VERY SUSPICIOUSLY