[literature] Fish Wielder Socks for True Afishionados … And A Book Trailer!

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Since learning of J.R.R.R. Hardison, life certainly has been funnier at times. And life has just become a little more footwear.

Here, for your delectation, through the auspices of Mr. Hardison, is something I'd not thought exist: Fish Wielder socks.

Yes, socks.

Attractive, soft, and well-made, I predict these will be the envy and fashion of fine afishionados the
length and breadth of Grome, and several other alternative worlds.

With Bradfast ready to get down and get busy, truly your ankles have never been safer.

But that's not all! Jim has released a pretty slick book-trailer for the upcoming work, which I've embedded below, to be watched:



You have been warned.

August, 2016 is coming.

Prepare yourself.

[writing] Jim Hardison: 7 Tips On How To Get Serious About Writing Silly Stuff

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Anyone who writes comedy will tell you; at times, you have to be dead serious when creating the funny.

At The Writer's Dig blog, hosted at Writer's Digest, blogger Brian Klems steps aside and lets our own Jim Hardison name seven ways writing comedy is straight work. Don't despair too much: you take your comedy seriously when building your work, it'll crackle for everyone.

Read it at http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/humor-writing-filled-novel.

[comics] What We're Still Loving: The Helm

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We're a bit late to the party on this one. But we stumbled on it in meeting a wholly witty person. Therein lies the tale.

During OryCon last, we stumbled upon a man billing himself as J.R.R.R. Hardison. Little did we know. He was promoting a book … but I'll not get ahead of myself. To promote himself, he was distributing copies of the comic he wrote, The Helm (with heroic art and Frazetta cover homage by Bart Sears). I thumbed through it, and, as though by fate, a sequence hooked itself right into my cortex.

It's just after our main character … Mathew Blurdy … has gone through the worst part of his no-good, very bad, terrible day. Not only has his girlfriend dumped him, publicly and humiliatingly, at his place of work … a DVD rental shop … his inability to keep it together there immediately and subsequently cost him his job. A miserable mess, the now-unemployed, now-nodding-lonely, 30-year-old, overweight manchild manages to intersect with an eerie, almost-comically portentious garage sale. A whim draws him hither, where he meets the titular artifact, which calls to him in only a voice he can hear.

Mathew is the Chosen One. But The Helm's vision is cloudy, that day … and once it sees what doughy clay it has to work with, tries to reject him, all but saying I said GOOD DAY, sir! And, in the frame after, after the garage sale's equally-creepy proprietor (who figures mightily in a crucial way much later) tells him bluntly to put the merch down unless he intends to buy, a bronze, chiseled hunk of a brick house appears as though fated to be, and asks to look at a sword. The Helm, tellingly, speaks not to him.

The hunk so distracted, the chunk steals away with The Helm.

That, friends, the sort of deft comic timing I enjoy. The joke may not be complex, but the telling is timed like a precision time piece. And that's the sort of comic timing that made the comic worth the possessing.

I've read it many times since; if I was going to write about it, I want to do it justice, but the subtext that sticks with me is that Mathew Blurdy is terribly believable. He gets the superpower, he slowly learns to pay the cost; like most mortals, he certainly didn't genetically know what to do next and stumbles about with it like a 6-year-old kid who just got the keys to a Lamborghini. But somehow, chaotically, when the moment presents itself, he goes with his considerable gut and shows he has what he needs just when he needs it. He ends the adventure changed a little, but not significantly, and The Helm, realizing it's stuck with him, does the best that it can with what it has to work with.

Everything and everyone in this play is so perfectly imperfect.

It's that comic timing and grasp of the absurdity that is people that give me high hopes for Jim's upcoming novel, Fish Wielder. The wit of The Helm's writing shows an aptness for writing sharp satire. I don't think I'll be disappointed, but the wait … the book's due out in August of this year. But, if the story's good enough for Piers Anthony to glowingly recommend it, and if the comic's good enough for Harlan Ellison to be delighted by it, then it ought to be good enough for anyone.

Holy crap, Jim! You did all the LOLs!

Contact Jim on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jim.hardison.75

[funnay] Fish Wielder: High Fantasy, Meet J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison, Your New Court Jester.

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I suspect that there are depths to the epically silly tale I've not yet found. It opens itself up on repeated viewings like a … what are one of those many-petaled flowers, you know, the ones you see in Japanese design?

Chrysanthemums?

Yeah, right. That's it.

This is another way of saying our friend J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison has finally released his novel Fish Wielder and we've read it, almost twice now, and it is just about everything we've hoped it would be. Which sounds glib in this era of everyone writing superlatives on everything, but which totally fits here.

Fish Wielder is the story, of course, of Thoral Mighty Fist and his quest to prevent The Heartless One … the Grand Master of the Bad Religion … from tracking down and consuming the Pudding of Power, a treat that was created a thousand and two years ago by the Dark Lord Mauron and whose consumption would enable the eater to command another piece of jewelry and conquer the land of Grome somehow. He manages to complete his quest with a cast of characters every bit as absurd as you can name, including elves, because it's not a fantasy epic without dignified, very very important elves. There's also the talking koi, claustrophobic talking horses, young elf-warrior-maidens with hilarious names, assassins that can't assassin straight,  running gags done right, and magic practice that was born on the Food Network.

In this world, if Gordon Ramsay yells at you about how undecooked the pudding is, you'd best pay attention.

The book is over-the-top in almost every good way. It describes itself as 'kind of like Lord of the Rings, set in Narnia, written by the guys to made Monty Python and the Holy Grail while they were listening to the music of They Might Be Giants'. It's only an unfair description in as much as it doesn't cover all the marks it hits and decisively rubs out. I detect hints of Hitchhiker's Guide in there (Thoral always seems to have a towel at the ready), for instance. It starts out fast and furious; within two chapters we're not only introduced to our hero and his second but his first set of assassins do themselves in with comic timing not seen since the Three Stooges.

The story's greatest magic is in timing, pacing, and the way all the jokes link together in the way a fine clockwork does. There is a ton of stuff going on here, and the layers all work well together. There are reveals you don't see coming that are made at just the right moment, and eventually you realize that all characters are just as they look, but not as they seem. And, all along, Jim's deftly orchstrating all the reveals and the homages, and he's winking at you, knowing you'll get the joke.

If I had to pin down the style, I'd say the best parallel would be Police Squad!. The show only lasted for six episodes, and the reason legendarily given is that it was because you had to actually pay attention to the show. Fish Wielder's humor is just as witty and non-stop as the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker Airplane! school of comedy.

All of which finally means that high fantasy, which needs a new court jester, has found one. Fish Wielder should share a shelf with Aspirin, Anthony, Pratchett … It's a world that's a very intelligent joke.

Publisher: Fiery Seas Publishing
ISBN: 978-0-9968943-1-9
Retail Price: $16.99, Kindle Ebook: $7.19
Learn more of the world of Thoral and Bradfast at the book's site, http://http://fishwielder.com/.
The book's Amazon page can be found at this link here, available in both dead-tree and ebook. 

[W69] Westercon 69 Memories: Jim Hardison and Fish Wielder

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Fish Wielder is scarcely a month out from release. You can get your preorder on at Amazon, of course. And Jim was at the W69 dealer's room bazaar, doin' the hard promotional work.

He's a very dapper person, convention-wise. On the day we were there, he was dressed thusly:

… and the look of open happiness you see there, trust me, is real. With Jim what you see is what you get.

And what else did we see that day? Free coloring sheets. Free customized Bradfast-emblazoned M&M's. Free stckers, temp tats, character cards.  Free ton'o'Fish Wielder stuff. The mug? You had to do just one thing to get one; see the Fish Wielder book trailers on line and come back and tell him you like them.

His countenance is one I've come to know amongst the creators I've so far been privileged to know. The good ones, the ones doing good things you don't want to miss, that are going to not only entertain you but uplift you a little, are generous in spirit. And that, Jim certainly is.

Because generous friendship is, also, as Brad and Thoral would tell you:

Yes, free.

Now, like I said, Jim … or, should I say, J.R.R.R. Hardison (you can tell it's quality fantasy by the multiplicity of R's in the name, accept no substitutes) is a generous fellow and a lot of fun to chat with. He let me chatter on about creating and engaged me on the subject, suggesting that the stream of consciousness would be something good to write about myself.

Alongside Jim was Herb Apon, artist and creator of the exterior look of Fish Wielder; he did the drawing above as well as a great many of them which adorned the booth, and the character cards I've shown off earlier. He was doing what any good artist does while we visited … constantly drawing. He's kind a genius and a whiz, and a lot of the drawings he did, as well as some of the other giveaway stuff and thoughts on W69 attendance are related by Jim on his Book Wielder Diary in this entry here:

http://fishwielder.blogspot.com/2016/07/saturday-july-9th-2016-westercon-m-and.html

The Wife™ got another Brad temp tat and a QR Code sticker, and stuck it on the back of her blouse, and whenever someone asked her "Did you know you have a sticker on your back?" she'd say "Yes, why don't you scan the QR code and see where it goes?"

I'm looking forward to Fish Wielder I and I really want to see Jim succeed with this. It's going to be good and he's going to be big.

[teh_funnay] Holy Talking Koi … Fish Wielder Character Cards!

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As the release date for J.R.R.R. Hardison's epic, Fish Wielder, approachetththehth*, the swag gets better and better. And if you're lucky enough to be at a convention where J.R.R.R. is, you might stumble your way into this nifty find:

Fish Wielder Character cards! And a nice production they are, too. Slick, wonderfully colored, great-looking mementos of the adventure yet-to-be, they are great portraits of our main protagonists and antagonists.

Our hero, Thoral Mighty-Fist and his faithful companion, Bradfast … the talking koi.

Of Thoral, the card saith Perhaps the strongest, toughest, most mythical fighter in all the mystical world of Grome. His most striking feature is his piercing gaze. So intense is his stare that those on the receiving end often feel the need to look away for fear they'll catch fire.

Well, why … I eyes ya.

The heroine … Nalweegie … looks delicious. And there's a reason.

The elfish warrior princess, in the elfin language, Nalweegie translates as "the Evening Snack". She is so named because to look on her in twilight quells the hunger of one's heart without making one feel overfull, as can happen with a more substantial meal. 

You know what would be perfect? If her visage would also be part of 'this' nutritious breakfast. 

And, how can be a heroic tale without the villains? The set contains two:

This is Necrogrond:

The mysterious and evil sorcerer. A high priest of the Bad Religion, kidnapper of Princess Nalweegie** and the self-proclaimed nemesis of Thoral and Brad. Oh. He is also immortal.***

As nemesis-proclaiming goes, self-proclaiming saves a lot of time. We approve of the getting-things-done attitude of Necrogrond. 

And someone who needs no introduction … but he's getting one because he's a silent type … The Heartless One:

The scarlet-robed and mostly silent leader of the Bad Religion and the mastermind of the plant to find the lost Pudding of Power. By eating it, the Heartless One hopes to bring the peoples of the magic world of Grome to their knees.

Talk about eating like you mean it. I hope it comes with a MSDS.

The art is by Herb Apon (who drew the FW cover art), the coloring is by Dan Jackson (who worked with JRRRH on The Helm) and the silly is 100% Jim. Each card has the above descriptions and a QR code on the back, so you can sail away to where-ever that takes you in the online world of Fish Wielder.  And if you were lucky enough to go to Emerald City ComicCon, you may have run across Jim and he's probably given you one. If he offers you one, it's our hearty recommendation to accept … and join the school of afishonados waiting for this work to come out.

The world of Fish Wielder on line is best accessed though FW's site here: http://www.fishwielder.com/, which has as much as you need to know about the whole spree, and should keep you wanting some more.

Two fins up, so far. 

* ththththhthth. Thththth.

** Booo, hisss!!!!

*** So, there's that.

[cartoonist] New Artist!: Jupiter Dragon And Her Blog

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Recent readers will remember that I've been a fan of J.R.R.R. (Jim) Hardison's writing for a while (Buy Fish Wielder on Amazon, yo) but what we've been aware of on Facebook is that his daughter is a budding artist which undoubted skill.

Human Lady Rainicorn (c) 2016, Jupiter Dragon

He's been sharing her art online. The illustration is just a clip out of one of her works in which she depicts the character Lady Rainicorn from Adventure Time as a young, hip, stylish human lady.

There's more now, she's just starting out but she's got work that a strong manga influence but also hints at a firm grasp of drawing natural forms, inking, and a great familiarity with craft that a lot of us aspiring artists reach for.

The strength of the talent behind the "First Post", a stunning realistic picture of a rearing horse's head, must be acknowledged.

She is launching an art blog under her art nom de guerre: Jupiter Dragon, and ignition has happened at http://jupiterdragon.blogspot.com/. Impressive!