Announcement: Let it be know that chapter the fifth of Hex Libris will begin publication on Tuesday September 16, returning on a weekly schedule. Check it out, yo.

And thus ends chapter 3. I’ve been hinting at the mysterious figure lurking around the library, and at last he steps out of the shadows. If you haven’t caught the clues, especially the arctic scene a while back, you need go re-read (or just read) Frankenstein. You’ll find it’s very different from the movies, and it opens and closes in the arctic wastes. The monster is also very different; he not only talks, it’s kind of hard to shut him up.

Starting next Monday, I’ll be teaching full time for a month, and will be doing so again in August. So Hex Libris won’t be updated for a bit. I wanted to get to the end of Chapter 3, which we can think of as the last episode of the first season. We’ll be back with new episodes soon, September at the latest. But I do hope to start Chapter 4 in July. Feel free to come here and watch the reruns whenever you want. And I’ll be keeping up my Dog a Day Project, drop by and see what I come up with.

You usually make the most interesting discoveries when you’re just browsing through the shelves at the library or bookstore. Connie seems to have found something interesting, and left it behind for Kirby to mull over. I hope you like my homage to the covers of the older girl-detective style books. Chapter 3 ends with two big reveals, the last panel of this strip being the first. Come back next week to learn the identity of the mysterious, shadowy figure. I think you’ll recognize him.

Kirby proves his coolness cred by showing that he’s a Mac user. The symbol on his shirt is the Mac shortcut for Undo. I love Undo, no matter what your computer system is. I wish real life allowed you to take back a mistake with a simple hand motion. There are times when I say something really stupid to Maggie and I desperately wish I had this ability. No luck there, but I do have the shirt. And so can you: by a strange coincidence I happen to sell them.

That book Kirby is browsing is Robert Chambers’ The King in Yellow, a book about a play manuscript that drives those who read it mad. This predates, by the way, the mysterious Necronomicon which features so heavily in the work of H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft clearly stated his debt to Chambers. Sadly, Chambers seemed to burn out after just four or five incredible short stories… his later work can get pretty dire. In fact, the second half of The King in Yellow isn’t all that good, and the stories have no relation to his stories about the ghastly play. Get it anyway, for stories such as ‘The Yellow Sign’ and my favorite, ‘The Repairer of Reputations’. Is that book in Kirby’s hands the Chambers’ story collection, or the play discussed within its pages? Anything might happen in Hex Libris, that library is not to be trusted.

Special Announcement: The gifted illustrator and writer Mark Mitchell has a blog for all aspiring children’s book illustrators and lovers of children’s books. And I’ve been honored with a feature story about Hex Libris. It’s a great site: go for the Hex, stay for all the amazing stuff he’s doing there.

Has anyone ever really said “I’m not that kind of girl”? I mean, in real life and not in movies or books. You certainly wouldn’t expect to hear it these days, unless it’s purred in a sensually ironic way.

I want to make it clear that Kirby is not autobiographical, and that nothing like this has ever happened to me (even without Hex Libris’ magical library). Though Kirby shares my occasional obliviousness to the behavior of women around me. There have been times where I’ve missed billboards advertising that a girl might like to go out with me, metaphorically speaking. And I’m not sure if he’s figured this one out even now. I’m already having a lot of fun with the Connie/Amy/Kirby triangle of misunderstandings and general confusion.

Kirby isn’t getting much of a chance at dignity in this strip. I’ve got a lot of work to do to make it up to him. At least he’s a boxer man… Y-fronts would have completely destroyed his chances of being cool. And you must be doing okay to have a cute girl bring you donuts.

The brilliant Mark Mitchell has unmasked the mysterious lurking figure, winning the contest I announced last week. He is sworn to secrecy until we reach the end of chapter 3, when I’ll have a big reveal. Congratulations, Mark, we’ll talk about your amazing prize really soon.