Bust out the wine, chocolate, and red roses! And after you’ve delivered these obligatory offerings to the chubby Pennsylvanian rodent who controls the weather (seriously―do not make him mad), treat yourself to our seventy-fifth issue, which is so classy that it has an actual bidet. It also has butterflies, a kid with a beard, thumb chop-offing, Emily Dickinson, UFOs, and possibly a fairy. Read it now, before Punxsutawney Phil decides to deep-freeze the planet with his Ice Laser Doom Ray!

Hug it online or kiss the .pdf.

Spend a couple months editing an issue of Sherlock Holmes stories and you’ll encounter a strange truth: for a character so famous for his asexuality, lots of people want to fuck him. (Or, at least, know who he’s fucking.) Fortunately, the writers in this month’s issue explore the subject with both grace and skill.

Not surprisingly, Irene Adler figures prominently in many of our tales, appearing as a time traveling researcher scientist in Jill Hand’s “Killing Sherlock” and returning to Victorian London with an unexpected surprise for Messrs. Holmes and Watson in “Bohemian Soul” by Abra Deering Norton. “The Woman’s” presence is also hinted at in Robert Perret’s whirlwind “A year in Sherlocku,” and she could very well be the true author of Catherine Wald’s excellent elucidation of Holmsian desire, “Sexing the Detective.”

A second thing you learn editing a Sherlock Holmes issue is that it’s not really about the mysteries or the deductions, it’s not the deerstalker or the magnifying glass. What made Conan Doyle’s stories so special was just going along for the ride with Holmes and Watson to wherever adventure might take them. Pat Woods understands this perfectly and throws in a dash of the mystic (for JDP-good measure) as he constructs an absolutely beautiful lost tale from the archives of John Watson. “The Adventure of the Etheric Projection” closes out our issue.

We hope you can read it somewhere foggy.

If you’re anywhere near Red Bank stop into the excellent Secret Stash. They’ve got a very limited supply of our 2015 Anthology in stock, plus it’s just about one of the coolest shops you’ll ever set foot in. (But whatever you do, don’t look up at the Tusk suit that now hangs from the ceiling.) If you’re not near Red Bank, you can, of course, always pick up a copy of the anthology here.

Our Sherlock Holmes Special issue turned out pretty darn well, if we do say, and we’ll have it up for you on Friday. It’s a double-sized extravaganza so it’s taking a little longer, but Supreme Leader Snoke our Production Editor Sam Snoek-Brown is working hard on it. Some goofball might’ve got him the text at the last minute, but that’s guest editors for ya.