You know how people always take about having “one of those days” – you know, where things are just constantly going wrong, you fall further behind with every moment, madness is cropping up in every direction, yada yada widening gyre, yada yada the centre cannot hold?

I’ve never really had one of those days. But lately, I’ve been feeling like I’ve had one of those months.

And it has been lots of little things, really – one project at work finishes up just in time to get started on a paper to write; the paper gets finished up just in time to plan out upcoming summer trips; that gets taken care of, and it feels like there is a few moments to rest, and then – hey, what’s that dripping sound? And – my, but isn’t that a large puddle of water fleeing the air conditioning unit? And- hmm, what excellent timing, what with the temperature creeping up to new and unusual heights!

But the work gets done, and the paper gets finished, the trips scheduled, and the AC gets fixed… and, then it is a week later, and a whole new set of business on my doorstep.

So I’ve got one of those moments of breathing room here, and am wanting to write something, and… unfortunately, I’m way behind on all my comics. I mean, this isn’t like me, but Piperka is currently telling me I’ve got a backlog of some 700+ updates and… well, the more that pile up, the harder it is to really dive back in and get caught up. I’ve been keeping an eye on my favorites, but even then, it has been more skimming through things than anything else.

On the other hand, I’m almost glad I haven’t had the chance to talk about PvP. It seems like Scott has had some new twist every week, each one ramping things up to the next level in one way or another. I’ve been impressed – mainly because it has felt a natural way to make a normally somewhat static strip suddenly grow – but it feels like there hasn’t been a moment to really sit down and take stock of the new state of things. That the strip hasn’t yet fully settled down into its new status quo? Does that make sense? There’s been a lot of change, but it feels like we’re still waiting to see all the fall-out.

And, to suddenly shift topics again, I realize today is Friday the 13th. (I realize this, primarily, because my friends’ blogposts are abruptly warning me of the sudden zombie outbreak. The internet is a wonderful thing.)

It has been my tradition, when a Friday the 13th comes along, to try and take note of a quality webcomic in the genre of horror, and give all due recognition for such an accomplishment – horror seems to be the least represented genre in online comics, and thus it is rare indeed to find one that really works.

But… this year, I find myself without any recent finds to put forward. And, as mentioned, being behind on all my comics means not knowing if any are currently bringing the scary or if it simply the usual assortment of laughs and drama.

And my one real candidate, the delightfully twisted 5ideways… is currently on indefinite hiatus, with a decidedly less-than-functional website. Which is a shame, because it is was really just starting to hit its stride, and while the overall plot was still unwinding ever so slowly, the action itself had gotten to the really juicy parts.

The plot is… hard to explain, but I’ll try. As far as I can tell, one day the world broke. Things went bizarre, and we follow an unlikely pair of… survivors, I suppose is the best term for them. Though they themselves may be far more than the really seem to be, or are even themselves aware of.

Life proceeds onwards from there.

Now, this is a very different comic from Friendly Hostility, the other comic produced by K. Sandra Fahr. Friendly Hostility, like her previous work, Boy Meets Boy, Those comics are all about relationships, really – and they have their share of intense storylines and the occasionally surreal, and they are undeniably good comics at heart… but they aren’t much different than a lot of the other comics out there.

5ideways is largely unique. It reminds me of watching certain mind-twisting anime, where incredibly dark, incredibly bizarre events are… routine, even in their unreality, which somehow makes them all the more horrifying.

And 5ideways is very much the same, current hiatus or not. The fact that the most recent update ended on an especially monstrous note, and has left things dangling there for months on end… well, in many ways, it seems almost appropriate.

Thus, I award my Fourth Friday the 13th Webcomic Horror Award to 5ideways, for being exceedingly casual about being very, very frightening.