Treason of Words

An abridged version of this appeared as My First Date With Bluestreak on the La Dolce Velo blog in December 2025. Riding a bicycle for transportation is, as much as it hurts my cycling advocate heart to say it, still an unusual choice here in Austin, Texas. More unusual still is to pick a steed based on something other than speed or riding comfort. My house is small, though, and after being passed up by a bus with a full bike rack late one night, I determined that a folding bike would address both issues - allowing it to be stowed in the front closet rather than out in the shed, and giving me the reasonable recourse of simply folding it up and carrying it onto any bus that already has a full house of bikes hanging off its front bumper. Not one to catch as catch can, I researched the topic to absurd levels. I drew up a list of requirements - disc brakes, upright posture, multi-speed, rear rack, rollable while folded, and not too pricey. I was probably days away from committing to a Bro...

The world of Drew Edwards' Halloween Man is, despite it supernatural flavor and horror pedigree, very down-to-earth. Opponents are dispatched with physical weapons, often of the melee variety, and generally have at least one bloody bite taken out of them by the hero. When greater powers do appear, they may be mysterious, but they're not exactly revered . The mystic who made Solomon Hitch into the titular hero, Morlack, is such a greater power, as well as a lush, a slob, and an all-around horse's rear. While Solomon and Lucy do the heavy lifting of dispatching Spring Heeled Jack, whose powers flow from a source similar to Halloween Man’s, the engrossing part of this Samhain story is the embroidering of the universe in which it’s set. While it’s a small window into Morlak’s lengthy past, it helps round out the enigmatic and frustrating character by  adding a few data points about just where his line between right and wrong is drawn, as well as a better idea where his moral c...

When I resolved to rationalize and expand my bicycle stable, I realized that my trusty, elegant commuter and reliable little folding bike would have to go. Ivy Mike was a lightly modified 2011 Novara Fusion that met all my on-road needs in style. However, when he was in the shop, or I needed to be flexible with my transportation plans, it was Nightbeat, a 2014 Novara FlyBy that took up the slack. In order to make room for a folding mountain bike and a folding road bike to explore the many trails in Austin and the many long organized rides around Austin respectively, the roles of my two steed would have to be met by a single new bike. What folds small for logistical flexibility, has multiple internal gears, disc brakes for wet stopping, fenders, and can mount panniers? I'd been pining after the Tern Verge S8i for some time, but at $2,100, it was simply more than I was willing to spend. I examined its features and picked what I could reasonably compromise on. Hydraulic discs were n...

When a superhero title spawns a spin-off, it can usually be expected that the loyal sidekick or even a prominent rival will be the one taking the spotlight. Always exploring new perspectives on traditional tropes, the new special from Drew Edwards' perennial action horror series focuses not on one of his paranormally super-powered friends, but on Lucy Chaplin, nominally his girlfriend, but in the world of Solar City, a personality far better-known and admired than her half-dead hunk. As a whole, the book has a zippy silver age feel to it, featuring a solo adventure with a new threat our heroine is uniquely suited to battle, a fourth-wall-breaking expository piece about Lucy’s professional life & interests, and an in-universe magazine interview with the science starlet herself. The villain of the first piece, Lucy Chaplin vs the Sons of Samson , is the contemporary strain of toxic masculinity personified, which is to say, the sort of thing a woman like Lucy would deal with d...

The second entry in Drew Edwards’ series of Halloween Man specials, Halloween Man versus The Invisible Man melds emotional realism with the titillating and the fantastical to create a gritty and satisfying adventure. Solar City’s fetish community has been rocked by a series of unexplained deaths when the grand dame of the scene, Claudette, comes to visit her old frenemy Lucy Chaplin, or more precisely, Lucy’s beau, Solomon Hitch. Our hero is reluctant to engage in this sort of heroism; while he’s commonly called upon to thwart the ghastly and creepy, the problem is a mystery, and he’s no detective. While comic book heroes often express token reluctance in order to build suspense, it can usually be chalked up to a gruff misanthropic streak or false humility; in this case, Solomon is genuinely out of his depth and has good reason to defer, only taking the case out of a sense of solidarity with a subculture that is marginalized and sensationalized by the media in the same way he is. The...

As part of Bike Month, and a few days ahead of National Bike to Work Day, I gave a presentation focused on best practices for transportation cycling and aimed at allying misgivings potential bike commuters might have about giving the pedal life a try.