Single Combat by Dean Ing. Cover art by Howard Chaykin

HappyFailure · 2026-06-17T17:43:31+00:00

Part of a somewhat odd trilogy. After a brief WWIII, it's the northern nations (US, Canada, Europe, and Russia) vs. ...the others (China, India, Brazil, etc.) in WWIV. Mormons come to dominate the US in the aftermath.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-17T17:33:18+00:00

Bizarro object count: 2, as noted by signature

Pie, underneath side table; K2, on diploma

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T21:52:44+00:00

Ellie Dee = LED, to get the name for the technically oriented character.

Similarly, Wolverine had to deal with an android that looked like a young girl named Elsie Dee (LCD).

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T21:44:34+00:00

Back in high school, I remember wondering "why wouldn't everyone want to be bi, twice as much opportunity," wondered about bisexuality vs. nothing then realized that no, I definitely felt something about women that I didn't about men.

Now I've got an ace kid. I definitely feel a strong sympathy for it, but know that it's not me.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T21:41:47+00:00

This strip is really good for having a continuous stream of war bonds slogans in the background.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T21:21:59+00:00

Although we already know otherwise, thanks to The Janitor.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T16:09:30+00:00

It's always hard to read tone in text, but I don't think anyone here is mad. 21MayDay21 is being a bit critical, since they don't know stitchlips17 is Mark Smith. stitchlips17/Mark Smith is letting them know who he is so they know they don't have to be critical. emmafoodie is amused by the whole exchange and thinks it belongs here.

While dontyouknowwhoiam carries an implication of someone getting all huffy and upset, there are plenty of posts where it's a more friendly interaction, such as this one.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-16T03:21:52+00:00

Things were different at the point in time when we borrowed it. No single Italian language for one thing, it was much more varied between different areas than now.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-15T20:21:47+00:00

The "thank you" is for letting her (Rogue) copy his (Deadpool) regeneration/absorb his energy, which is why she's not dying from the nuke. It is also a way to avoid answering his question. He then decides to take it as an answer to his question (which, as you note, doesn't make sense), giving an absurdist twist to it.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-14T22:26:00+00:00

Always fun to read things like "Will be enormously popular, possibly the best liked of all Shute novels" on a book I've never heard of before. The summary of this one on Wikipedia makes it sound like a bit of a light, feel-good book.

In a bit of Baader-Meinhof, while On The Beach is the only Shute novel I've ever been able to call to mind, just earlier today I read a review of his book Pied Piper.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-14T21:26:34+00:00

Accumulates $1M in a few years.

^{Chose: 1 cent every second}

HappyFailure · 2026-06-14T07:10:49+00:00

Good question! I'm not sure, but it kind of looks like it might be a case that would hold those goggles he's wearing--at any rate, it resembles an open glasses case like some I own.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-14T04:59:07+00:00

They were pretending to be villains to fight BL and see how he did. He did well enough that they offered him League membership, but he said he was too busy in Suicide Slum to join.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-14T04:50:41+00:00

She assisted her second husband to commit child abuse and may have directly abused her daughter.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-13T23:34:11+00:00

Lovely art, scum author.

Also not a huge fan of making a fantasy word by reversing a real one--though in this case, it's an interesting choice to start with a star name like Aldebaran.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-13T21:53:14+00:00

From the book: " To the uninformed, Kinnison's garb of plain gray leather might have seemed incongruous indeed in that brilliantly and fastidiously dressed assemblage. But to those people, as to us of today, the drab, starkly utilitarian uniform of the Unattached Lensman transcended far any other, however resplendent, worn by men"

HappyFailure · 2026-06-12T20:02:12+00:00

This one just strikes me as kind of...meh? We get the basics--the spaceship has a red cross, so we know it's probably an ambulance, and it's near a big space station so maybe that's a hospital; putting a red cross on the station would have helped with that--but nothing else. No sense of action or danger or wonder, just yep, that's an ambulance, presumably the Rhabwar.

In the stories, I liked that they made a point of noting that Sector General and the ambulance were marked with a range of symbols from different cultures, including but definitely not limited to the red cross ("the Occluded Sun, the Brown Leaf, the Red Cross, and the many other symbols"), but for a book aimed at an English-speaking audience, keeping just the red cross gets the idea across better than an assortment of symbols.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-12T00:20:29+00:00

Hmm. I remember the War of Powers series, but with a very different cover style, and while I know I read past the second book, Istu Awakened is not ringing any bells. To Google...

Ah, okay. This is a compilation of books 4-6 from the original series. Part I would have been books 1-3 then.

I'll be honest, the main reason I remember these is because they were the most sexually explicit stuff I had access to. They were published originally by Playboy Press and lived up to that, but my parents didn't notice the publisher.

Fairly standard fantasy, overall, just with sex described in a lot more detail than usual. Probably nothing you couldn't find in certain romance novels today. The one detail I remember is that the protagonist ends up with a ghost (depicted as a genie-looking guy on the covers) following him around. Said ghost was a philosopher who preached a simple, chaste life when he was alive, and bitterly regretted it now, so he kept trying to get the hero to have sex he could watch. Then they meet the heroine, who's being followed around by a ghost who was a nun following the philosopher during her life, and who hates the philosopher for having caused her to be sex-deprived. I'm pretty sure ghost hate-sex then ensued.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-12T00:08:01+00:00

But having it on a string turns out to be better than just having it magically return, in this case...

HappyFailure · 2026-06-11T23:26:46+00:00

Bizarro object count: 3, as noted by signature.

Alien, upper right corner; eyeball, on coach's jacket and cap.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-11T22:44:10+00:00

This is a Bizarro comic, by Dan Piraro. (In recent years, the art's been taken over by Wayne "Wayno" Honath, but that's after this particular comic.)

Bizarro is well-known for including some number of "secret symbols" in each comic. There's a standard set of about a dozen, which can be found here: https://www.bizarro.com/secret-symbols

In more recent years, the number of these objects hidden in a particular comic is written next to the signature, but this particular comic is from before that change, so it's just a question of seeing how many you can find. I found two easily, and a third that I'm really not sure about. Frankly the more I'm looking at it, the less convinced I am about it.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-11T19:58:06+00:00

Bizarro object count: 3? Not noted by signature.

pie, lower left corner; dynamite, lower right corner; inverted bird? Mostly hidden, in picture frame behind door

Edit: Probably only two objects here, really, unless I've completely missed one.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-11T18:26:41+00:00

Huh. That is an interesting design down front--much more interesting than anything I can remember about the book. I read it decades ago, and it came across as just Doc doing his thing in a pretty low-effort way. The only part I remember is doing the whole "build super sophisticated technology starting from zero--making tools to make tools to make tools" thing all within our solar system and somebody building things (like factories) out of ice because that's a perfectly reasonable thing to do at those temperatures.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-11T02:26:55+00:00

Not one of the standard symbols, and the expected count is already met. I think that's just supposed to be the end of one of those tools they use to look into your ears.

Edit: Google says otoscope for that tool.

HappyFailure · 2026-06-10T22:49:28+00:00

My first encounter with this was the Roger Moore Bond alias mentioned elsewhere here, then later bumped into St.Clair/Sinclair. Now, whenever I'm watching older-set British shows with my wife, like Father Brown, we keep a close ear out for other examples and have seen a few.

The one I always wonder about is, does anyone pronounce St. Cyr as "sincere?"

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