In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than scans_daily. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

A Happy Hannukah to those who celebrate it. Given recent events in Australia it may not seem like a time to celebrate anything, but that is perhaps the time we most need to.

Dick Van Dyke celebrated his 100th birthday, so a happy Centenary to him!

However, we lost Rob Reiner, creative genius behind too many memorable films to start to mention (Oh, the hell with it: The Princess Bride, Spinal Tap, When Harry Met Sally, Misery, The Sure Thing, A Few Good Men and Stand by Me, amongst others) and his wife Michele.

(I did not think my opinion of the current US President could sink any lower, but his social media post on the Reiner killer was so lacking in sympathy, good taste or even basic human decency that I initially assumed it had to be a fake because no one could be THAT toxically graceless, alas, it was real)

In contrast, today is the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen's birth today so let us acknowledge one of literature's most brilliant and witty wordsmiths.

In slightly lowerbrow news, I found out that season 2 of "LEGO Star Wars: Rebuild the Galaxy" had already come out, and caught up on that because I know I needed something to make me smile, which it achieved.