Good: Holy crap, 3000 strips at Superosity? Words are not sufficient.

Bad: Behind the times on this one: via ¡Journalista! and Glenn Hauman, news that Kaja Foglio is ailing:

The bottom line is SHE WILL BE FINE … eventually, but could easily be in the hospital for several weeks.

We will do our best to continue posting Girl Genius, but as Kaja has to walk me through everything on the phone at this point, if she does have to go in for surgery or if the drugs convince her that she can only converse in Venusian, we may be out of luck.

This was Kaja’s idea, by the way, I was quite prepared to put up a “We are experiencing Technical Difficulties” banner, but she insisted we try to work through it, so I hope you appreciate it.

Nothing would make her happier than to receive a ‘get-well’ card or two. These can be sent to Studio Foglio. The kids and I will visit her every day.

For reference, the address for Studio Foglio is:

Studio Foglio, LLC
2400 NW 80th St. #129
Seattle, WA
98117-4449 USA

Good: Over at Graphic Smash and/or Broken Voice, David A J Berner informs us:

Want your own version of Shades to read while on the move? Well, thanks to those nice people at ROK Comics, now you can!

To make it more mobile-friendly BVC has pared the text down to a minimum to leave just the core story elements and all the action.

Visit the ROK Comics website and you’ll find the first few episodes of “Shades” in the Adventure Comics section.

But, if you want to try it for free first (and who doesn’t?!), visit the Freefall Comics area and you can test the system by downloading a FREE TRAILER for the mobile phone version of Shades.

Bad: Also from Graphic Smash, specifically today’s installment of Bang Barstal, The William G says:

Hey guys. This is a pretty important post here, and I hope you all can understand where I’m coming from after reading it.

Bang Barstal will be ending with the Red, White, Blue storyline. It’ll take us close to the end of the year (maybe longer) to get it all finished, so there’ll be plenty more for you to read.

And when I finish writing It’s About Girls for Sahsha, that’ll be the end of that series as well.

Let me explain: Comics are intensely time-consuming things. And while I enjoy making them, it’s coming at the cost of things that I’m finding more important as I grow older: Health, love, happiness. You need to have a balance in your life, a center, and spending a goodly amount of my weekend working on comics is making it too difficult for me to find them.

So, the comics have to go.

I won’t say that I’ll never draw again, or that there won’t be more of Bang’s bat-swinging adventures in the future. And hell, I’ll always be blogging. But as it’s been said: A man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. And if I’m going to find a centered, balanced life, I got to do it now before all of those opportunities I’ve been ignoring stop knocking at my door.

Big thanks to all of my friends here in the Modern Tales family, and big thanks to all of you for reading the comic over the last year and a half. You’re the best audience a guy could ever have, and I hope that by the end this story you’ll have had an enjoyable reading experience. Which, you know, is what every creator’s goal is when we pick up the pencil.

That kind of sucks. How about we end on …

Good: pandaxpress! was picked up for distribution by Image Comics:

Following in the footsteps of LIONS, TIGERS AND BEARS, LEAVE IT TO CHANCE and other graphic novels enjoyed by both children and adults comes Shadowline’s latest offering; PX! BOOK ONE: A GIRL AND HER PANDA.

This full color, 168-page landscape format graphic novel tells the story of Dahlia, a young girl who, with the help of her Giant Panda sidekick, sets off on an epic journey around the globe to rescue her missing father.

PX! BOOK ONE: A GIRL AND HER PANDA goes on sale August 1, 2007. ISBN:978-1-58240-820-0 Diamond Order Code #MAR078287

Big claim, invoking Leave It To Chance around me, ’cause I loved that book. But I also think that PX! is some damn fine work, and I don’t think that Trembley and Anderson are gonna leave me hanging on a cliffhanger for four freakin’ years. Pre-order this one, it’s gonna be good.