92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

"Well, what are you doing?"

"This week, I’m finishing the lettering on Sky Ape: Waiting For Crime ; there’s nothing much to write about, there. Put a page of art into the scan ner, assemble the Quark document, describe the word balloons, input the copy. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s pretty straightforward. Nothing to write about, there, like I said."

"What else?" Mimi said.

"Of course, we’ve got the Warren Ellis Available Light hardcover to put together, and we’ve OK’d the production on the Ministry of Space embroi dered mission patches…"

"Nothing there," Mimi said, "unless people are interested in the production of ancillary comic book items."

Of course, I agreed. By this time, we had decided to go all the way up Bridalveil Falls. At this time of year, what usually is a torrent of river water and a cascade of spray and mist is just but a trickle of water, at most, and the adventurous climber can scramble up all the way to the top of the falls, where one is rewarded with a magnificent view of the valley below.

So that’s what we did, because we’re those kind of cats.

"What else is going on?" Mimi said. "Nothing," I replied. "I got nothing. Anything I could comment on has either been commented on by other folks in a more straightforward manner than I could manage, or there’s not a whole column’s worth of stuff, there." "What do you mean?" Mimi said, probably trying to be helpful but just piss ing me off at this point. Trying to draw me out in a conversation in which I have nothing to say just isn’t going to work. "Well, there’s what Ranger Dick said last night," I replied. We trekked up to the top of Glacier Point to see the sunset and talk to the Park Ranger there, who happened to be from Seekonk, Massachusetts, and since Meem and I had spent some time in that area, we had got a big kick out of his accent. Ranger Dick relayed the story of the first guy up Half Dome, in Yosemite. It’s quite a sheer granite face, and at some points, it’s nearly a forty-five degree angle. No way a guy in regular boots can climb up it.

But as he described the first ascent attempts, Ranger Dick kept referring to comic book imagery. George Anderson, the valley blacksmith, first

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