iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Adding to a generally terrible day one of our guinea pigs (not the one in my banner but her sister) has died - suddenly and peacefully but always a sad thing to discover

2180

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 10/10/2026

63. THE ETERNAUT by Oesterheld and Solano Lopez Classic 50s Argentine comic lives up to its rep - a dark and extremely gripping SF catastrophe/invasion story with exceptional pacing - the creators know just how much to show to keep you turning the pages

English edition of The ETERNAUT - a man in a deep sea diving suit stands in front of a snow covered suburb

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

62. THE THIRD POLICEMAN by Flann O’Brien A reread - the mix of comical delight in language, whimsical idea-spinning and terrifying cosmic horror is still like nothing else I’ve ever read. Includes one of fiction’s most disturbing and convincing afterlives

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What is your favourite 80s French tune? (”Joe Le Taxi” can be taken as read I think)

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Happy for Amazon to imagine that I’m the Iron Chef because I once bought a wok

“Cooks with specialised Asian cuisine techniques”

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Jesus here invisible to the naked eye

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

61. HINATSUGIMURA by Aki Shimizu Done in one horror-manga: lost travellers, folklorists, etc find an ancient mountain village and foolishly accept an offer to stay the night. Initially discrete stories combine well but it’s one of those cases where the explanations spoil the chills a bit

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Number 2s not beating the “banging” allegations

List of recent no 2s including Good Luck Babe, APT, No Broke Boys, Lunch, yes and - Prada laughing just out of shot

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The world now if LadBaby and Captain Tom had teamed up

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Yeah you can overthink it for sure

The bell curve meme - both the fool and the savant agree Iago is a big racist

020

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

60. DESTINATION MOON by Hergé Disliked this as a kid because it was boring - I WAS RIGHT, well not entirely, the big moments are great, some beautiful drawing but this redefines padding - later Hergé would build a book entirely from comic digressions but here they sit uneasily with an actual story

Destination Moon - Tintin and company in a jeep racing towards a beautifully realised space rocket

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

59. SCARLET TRACES by Edgington & D’Israeli A dark War Of The Worlds sequel where England reverse engineers the defeated alien technology to build a steampunk-fascist Empire. Strong story but it’s D’Israeli’s confident use of scale and colour that’s the real unbeatable tech here

SCARLET TRACES- a phalanx of Martian fighting machines advances towards the reader

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

58. ABSOLUTION by Jeff Vandermeer In which the decades long losing battle between humans who hack minds and an entity that hacks bodies is now also a time war! Less a prequel or sequel, more an overgrowth, rewilding the events of the first three books like they’re the biologist’s vacant lot

Me holding up a copy of Absolution, a hardback book with a fucked up crocodile on the cover

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

57. ACCEPTANCE by Jeff Vandermeer Re-read - my first time reading this was the weirdest life mirroring art experience of my life and this is very much not a book where you want life to mirror the art

Me holding a grubby copy of ACCEPTANCE by Jeff Vandermeer - it has a yellow cover

140

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

56. AUTHORITY by Jeff Vandermeer If Book 1 became a film this one’s natural shape is an 8-10 part Apple TV series, a slow burn workplace horror about a guy increasingly out of his depth in a nightmare organisation

Me holding up AUTHORITY - a book with the title in an X shape with a white stripe on a blue cover

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

55. ADABANA by NON Psychological thriller that’s a fairly effective mystery but really wants to have its cake and eat it re. exploitative depictions of young women

Two Japanese high school girls sitting on the steps of a vaulted building (like a train station)

161

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

OK this has completely sold me on the Gerwig Narnia, Charn as 70s glam rock infecting 1950s England is a banger idea

JADIS OF CHARN looking like a psychopathic take on Frida from ABBA wreaking havoc in 50s London (or possibly Oxford given the Eagle & Child pub name)

513721

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

54. ANNIHILATION by Jeff Vandermeer A re-read (I want to re-read the first three before I finally get to the fourth) - though it strikes me more this time how this never needed to be book 1 of anything: all the information and implications are coolly bundled up in this story

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer - the cover with a freaky wild boar with silver foil elements

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Like the Pope I am going to spend my afternoon contemplating a fantastic Orb

The album UFOrb with a big star like object on the cover

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Name a band with four different billion streaming songs Oh that’s easy - wait who??

Cigarettes After Sex and their four colossal streaming hits

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

53. LAND OF BLACK GOLD by Hergé One of the messiest Tintin books - an eve-of-war thriller cancelled by actual war then turned into a 40s drama in the British Mandate then redone again in the 70s to be about Arab wealth and oil power struggles. By some miracle it ends up a banger

LAND OF BLACK GOLD by Herge - Tintin drives through the desert in a red car - in the back seat are the Thomson Twins sporting lurid aquamarine hair and beards

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

52. V by Thomas Pynchon A necklace of short stories and novellas in multiple styles linked by the finger-snapping exploits of zany lowlives and hepcats. Reliably excellent sentences and paragraphs amounting to I’m not sure what

V by Thomas Pynchon: a pop art collage of mid century Americana, sewer alligator included

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Crap ferry sandwich or family of cannibal serial killers?

Sandwich with We Season, We Slice, We Care written on it

0261

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

51. ABSOLUTE MARTIAN MANHUNTER Vol 2 by Rodriguez/Camp Javier Rodriguez is both an extraordinary artist and also quite difficult to write for I think - no matter how interesting the words they’re taking up compositional space, anchoring the visuals which also means weighing them down

Absolute Martian Manhunter v2 - a befuddled guy in a suit hangs out outside a pink motel while his Martian buddy points at a butterfly

1151

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Europe racing ahead of us on key technologies

1282

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Went to Eindhoven Zoo to see these lads

1260

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Bruges was good though! We saw a pretty lake and ate a lot of mussels

A building in Bruges on a lake with a handful of DUCKS

1160

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

This is terrible news it’s the only reason I came

Wikipedia entry confirming the flanders ultratip ended in 2021

010

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Finding these cursed artefacts is like being stuck in the shittiest version of “Tlön, Uqbar, Orbus Tertius”

Some normal postcards of Bruges with a terrible AI one stuck in

2200

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

50. ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN Vol 2 by Thompson/Sherman/et al This remains the good stuff - love Sherman’s page designs, his movement, the way Diana has a completely different face from any other superhero. Love how Thompson makes her someone I just want to read about

ABSOLUTE WONDER WOMAN standing in bloody silhouette against a backdrop of a maze pattern

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

49. ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN Vol 2 by Aaron/Sandoval/et al Absolute Catch-Up continues! Suffers from being a very similar story to Absolute Batman v2: a Large Guy puts our hero through hell to try to break his spirit and make him his heir. It doesn’t work but there’s a Terrible Price paid.

ABSOLUTE SUPERMAN - Superman with a big beefy beardo Ra’s Al Ghul behind him

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

48. ABSOLUTE FLASH Vol 2 by Lemire/Robles/etc A step up from Vol 1 - uses the “you can’t tell yet who’s bad or good” alternate continuity dodge pretty well - though Wally himself is still a bit of a cypher a dozen issues in and the storytelling on the fight scenes is all sizzle no steak

ABSOLUTE FLASH VOL 2 - Flash fights a big monster

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

47. ABSOLUTE BATMAN Vol 2 by Dragotta/Snyder/Martin/etc Successfully walks the thin line between relentless grimness and taking the piss - Batman using his own stomach acid as a weapon is a new one on me. More than before it’s Dragotta’s ability with scale that keeps it thrill-powered

ABSOLUTE BATMAN - Batman faces off against ABSOLUTE BANE who looks similar to normal Bane but more Absolute

1111

Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

This is all kinds of dodgy but I would need a heart of stone not to laugh at this part

Gormley didn't hate the show, noting that it was "surprising that someone sitting still playing
tapes could be engaging,
" and added that the Performer at one point ate a pear, "which seemed
like she was making a conscious gesture."

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Tom Ewing @tomewing.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

I grabbed a book off the shelf which I remembered having an absolutely banger opening and I was right!

How had they met? By chance, like everybody else. What were their names? What's it to you? Where were they coming from? From the nearest place. Where were they going? Does anyone really know where they're going? What were they saying? The Master wasn't saying any- thing, and Jacques was saying that his Captain used to say that every- thing that happens to us here below, for good and for ill, was written up
there, on high.

Master. That's saying a lot.
Jacques. My Captain also used to say that every bullet shot out of the barrel of a rifle had its billet.*
Master. And he was quite right.

After a brief pause, Jacques exclaimed: "The innkeeper and his inn Can go to hell!”

Opening of Jacques The Fatalist by Diderot

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