Archive for Book review
This week’s myserious mis-delivered mail features a linen white business envelope with a folded letter within. There are some adhesive marks on the back which suggest that it may have once been attached to a larger package. No package exists here… just the letter. It reads:
Dear Dr. Still,
Several years ago, a member of our editorial board retained you as a consulting reader for our publishing house. Books to be sent to you would be of mystical or supernatural themes, and over the years we have received many submissions which have been turned down without any need for outside consultation. We’ve received a trio of books recently, however, which we are considering publishing if for no other reason than the recent resurgence in interest in the supernatural. the three books we would like you to review for us are:
Ghost Hoses of New England by Sarah Waterstone. At first we thought it might have been a typo and the author had meant to print houses, but upon review–the author truly intended to mean hoses. The author recounts nearly a hundred unlikely tales of haunted fire hoses, garden hoses, watering hoses, industrial hoses, and even emergency medical hoses. The author covers the several types of hoses being haunted: nylon, rubber, flexible metal sheathing, hydraulic, etc. The book sounds amusing at first, but quickly grows tired as the stories tend to have very little to do with actual hauntings and more with the history of hoses in New England.
Ghost Houses of New England by Bradford Fourly. This seems more like what we’re looking for, but rather than being a collection of stories regarding haunted houses in New England, it’s more about houses which are themselves ghosts. To whit, a house that no longer exists except in some ethereal place of existence. At first this sounds very interesting, but the stories all seem to be related by various patrons of bars and saloons. The stories are transcribed verbatim, so the narratives are difficult to follow and trail off-topic into rants about the government, ex-wives, ex-husbands, and requests for small loans. The interview often ends when the storyteller is rebuffed.
Ghost Hauntings of Nude England by Chauncey Bottomwell. It’s exactly what you expect it to be and really needs no further commentary from us. Normally we wouldn’t consider publishing a book of this nature, but we would like your input to determine if there are perhaps deeper, more meaningful layers to this book.
Finally, you may notice certain similarities in style and titling in these three books. Although each book is purported to be written by a different author, and each submission was sent from a different location (Templar, AZ, Providence, RI, and Exeter, UK specifically), we suspect there may be only one author involved. We have not decided yet if this will affect our editorial decisions, but we felt we should let you know that we are aware of the possibility of a single author.
We’re looking forward to your timely input. Please submit an invoice for your consultation services to our accounts department.
Yours sincerely,
Ike Mays
Acquisitions Editor
Four Stone Books
Next up is the familiar rag-papered, crimson inked note. Today’s missive reads:
We are making wagers as to the outcome of the events currently occurring beyond the lights.
When the lights go out, it will be time to pay up.
We await your signal.
(signed)
Unsigned
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Today’s link goes to the webcomic Multiplex - a comic about life at a movie theater. It’s a bunch of college-aged kids with crappy theater jobs, but there are some amusing comments on movies and movie-going. It’s not just a straight gag strip, though. There’s story and character development going on, so you will want to read through the archives to maximize the enjoyment of the strip.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review, Humor, Letters, Publishing, Uncategorized, Writing | |No Comments
In honor of the newest addition to the Teehan family, today’s Rumors edition features claims about dogs that you probably hadn’t heard before.
Dog drool was used by ancient Sumerians as an ingredient to beer, as a stomach medicine, and as a glue.
Supposedly, one version of Da Vinci’s “The Last Supper,” shows a dog sleeping at the feet of Judas. The phrase “Let sleeping dogs lie” originates with this legend and suggests that Judas was innocent or that, at the very least, there is more to the story than the current version of the Bible states.
Dog hair burns at a higher temperature than any other mammal hair which is why it was often used as insulation in the 18th century.
The smartest dog in history was Palimor, a six year-old boxer-mix, who received a BA from USC, and an MBA from Harvard Business. He sat on the board of directors for Mobil for three months before an untimely end involving a bar of chocolate.
The largest dog to have ever roamed the Earth is the extinct Irish Rover which, according to remains discovered in peat bogs, was as tall as a horse, but with the relative leanness of a greyhound. Scientists estimate it could have had a running speed of over 70 miles per hour.
It’s not that dogs know how to swim as it is they don’t know how to drown.
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I’ve recently heard that author Lois McMaster Bujold has turned in the next Miles Vorkosigan book to Baen and that it is scheduled to come out in late 2010. I’m a huge fan of these books and am very excited at this news. Today’s link goes to her official homepage: The Bujold Nexus. If you’ve not read any of her work, you can get an excellent preview at the Baen Free Library.
Cheers!
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When I hit a bookstore such as Borders or Barnes & Noble, it’s in a fairly preditable pattern. I start in the front with the new books, weave past the periodicals for either poetry journals or fictionmags, then up to science fiction to see if there’s anything new I haven’t heard about, over to graphic novels for more of the same. I make a brief pass by the film books, then down to the bargain books for any last-minute possible pics. Hidden gems and so forth.
Bookstore employees must hate me because on my journey I collect a stack of potential buys, then before checkout I weed through the books, leaving the temporary rejects in a neat pile, while selecting only a couple of volumes for actual purchase. If I worked at one of these bookstore, I’d be flicking paperclips at my head the entire time.
This past week’s excursion to the local B&N was not much different, and the hidden gem uncovered in the reamindered stacks was a little book by cartoonist Scott Adams called Stick to Drawing Comics, Monkey Brain!: Cartoonist Ignores Helpful Advice. It’s not a Dilbert book, but a collection of short essays–mostly taken from his blog–in which he espouses his brand of “philosotainment”.
I’m enjoying it. The essays are the perfect length of bathroom reading or reading whilst waiting for coffee to brew. The spurring for the collection is apparently the idea that many people have advised Scott Adams against going for certain ventures, e.g., creating a syndicated comic strip, owning restaurants, and writing books–and in a number of these cases, Adams found not the predicted failure, but great success. The idea is that one should take chances–particularly when it comes to something one feels passionate about. I guess if it could be boiled down to a pithy saying it would be, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.”
Good advice at nearly anytime. (I wouldn’t recommend something like, say, retrieving a wristwatch from an alligator’s jaw. In that case, nothing ventured means no lost limbs. Watches can be replaced.)
Anyway, it’s a fun little book and it didn’t look like it took a lot of work to put together. They’re basically blog entires. There’s a lot there that you might even see in pages like mine. The big difference, of course, is that Adams gets about 1.5 million readers a day. I get a couple of thousand a week. I could try and figure out the mathematical proportion by which Scott Adams is more popular than me, but my bagel is done and I’m going to go put cheese and chourico on it. Be right back.
…okay, where was I? Oh yes. I suppose another reason why I like the book is that Adam’s writing resonates with me. We’re on similar wavelengths. Not exact, mind you. We have a few differing philosophies, but there’s a lot here I identify with just the same. Plus, he’s a geek-made-good. That’s very inspirational for a guy like me. If he can do it. Why not me? Or you?
And it’s a fun book. Can’t overlook that. For you Dilbert fans, he occasionally treats the reader to two different versions of some of his strips: the one that was printed in the newspaper, and the one that was deemed too dangerous for anyone without an internet connection.
Is it recommended? Sure! Hey, check the remaindered piles for a cheap hardcover. If it’s not there, I would even recommend shelling out for a full-priced trade edition. There are versions in audio and Kindle as well.
Share and enjoy.
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In keeping with a cartoonist theme today, today’s link takes you to the blog of Stephan Pastis, creator of the syndicated comic strip Pearls Before Swine. I doubt it has the same number of newspapers as Dilbert, but it’s out there. Better yet…you can get any number of collections at most bookstores. Fun stuff. Crudely drawn. Surprising writing for a syndicated strip. Look for the books, and check out the blog which has some interesting bits (joyful rants?) from time to time.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review, Comics, Ogre's Pick, Reviews | |No Comments
This week’s mailbag includes a folded letter on church stationery. The letter will be burned after reading.
Dear Reverend Blackfell,
The parish council, after days of discussion and debate, have decided to terminate your position at St. Sebastians. We feel that your actions of the past month do not best serve the parish and are, in fact, a threat to the community at large. To whit:
– Your “laying on hands” of the girls choir.
– Your loud, odiferous and unapologetic flatulence during services.
– The unsettling taste and color of the communion wafers of late.
– The disappearance of the church cat and the suspicious appearance of your new fur-lined gloves.
– The odd arrivals and departures of numerous black sedans in the dead of night.
– Eight missing corpses from the church cemetery.
– Irregularities in the rectory accounts.
– Reports of metallic-sounding screams coming from the church basement and your unauthorized changing of the locks to said basement.
– Reports of public drunkenness and urination in the church yard.
– Accusations of sexual misconduct from several townspeople.
– The circumstances surrounding the vandalism of the neighboring synagogue and certain tools discovered in the church alcove.
– Your increasing number of crude tattoos and piercings.
It is for these reasons and more that the parish council feels you are the not best shepherd for this quiet community. Rather than drag the regional parish council and law enforcement officials in on this matter, we request instead that you quietly take your leave with a minimum of fuss. You will find enclosed a suitably large bribe to leave our community and never return.
Sincerely yours,
The Parish Council of St. Sebastian’s Church
Unfortunately I can’t find anything on the envelope to indicate which St. Sebastians Church this refers to. I hope it’s not one near me. Next up is the now very familiar pressed rag paper with crimson ink which reads…
Dear Sirs,
We are thankful that Events did not spin out of control, but we are concerned over the general precariousness of the Situation overall. We feel that you giving the Signal prematurely might mean the end of us all. We implore you to stay your hand until we have conducted more thorough investigation.
(unsigned)
This is a little different from past messages. I hope everything is all right.
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My schedule has been thrown off a little today. I managed to get a decent amount done before my meeting with my accountant, though. Despite rough starts, the whole day has been working out pretty well. The authors of the new edition of The Doris Day Companion liked my cover design. Several TumbleTap publications are moving along in exactly the direction they need to be. Revisions on the Design Integration book have been initiated.
In other news, we’re officially on the Great House Hunt. Our real estate agent is setting up some viewings on Sunday. Our paperwork is pretty much in order. This looks like it’s going to happen. Moving to a nice house is something I’m looking forward to. The transition is going to be a pain in the ass. One thing at a time.
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Two links today. First up is the latest installment in Kristin Kathryn Rusch’s Freelancer’s Survival Guide: Vacations.
Second up is my weekly column at Forces of Geek which reviews Shut Up, You’re Fine: Poems For Very, Very Bad Children by Andrew Hudgins with drawings by Barry Moser.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review, Layouts, Letters, TumbleTap | house hunting|No Comments
Today’s mail…well what can I say? You can’t make this stuff up.
The first letter arrived in a yellowed business envelope. There is the rusty profile of a paperclip along one edge, but the paperclip itself is long gone. Typed on creme-colored business stationary is this:
Dear Mr. Hughes,
Thank you for allowing us to review your manuscript, Modern Disasters. The entire acquisitions board enjoyed your fanciful reports on the fictional sinking of the Titanic, crash of the Hindenberg, and the Japanese attack on our forces stationed in the Hawaiian islands. We feel, however, that your chapter on what you call The Great Depression comes across as unrealistic and, if you’ll pardon the term, depressing. Likewise, your report on the horrific atomic bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima smacks too much of pulpish science fiction.
Furthermore, we should point out to you, sir, that we are strictly a publisher of books of non-fiction. While you do an admirable job of presenting your stories as historical facts, we would still not be able to place it within our catalog. (The art department, however, is very impressed with your staged photographs and manufactured documents.)
Speaking for the acquisitions board, we found your work, for the most part, highly entertaining. We do consider ourselves a gang of roguish louts. We suspect, however, that the reading public in general may find this work of poor taste–particularly given the current state of national mourning over the loss of the Apollo 11 astronauts.
If we may be so bold, we suggest re-writing certain chapters (see enclosure) and submitting the manuscript in a year or two to one of our sister publishing houses–one specializing in fiction.
While we are sad to have to pass on this imaginative work, it simply is not for us. We wish you the best of luck, and thank you for providing us with a welcome distraction from our usual stodgy nonfiction submissions.
Yours sincerely,
(signed)
Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.
Senior Editor
Bierce Publishing
Huh…so that’s what happened to the Lindbergh baby.
The next piece of mail arrived written in the usual crimson ink on the usual rag paper. It reads:
Dear Sirs,
We appreciate you replying to our last missive but we regret to inform you that once Events are Set in Motion, they cannot be so easily stopped. The firehouse has been eliminated. The scissors have been buried. The badger has been released. We cannot undo this.
We will, however, temporarily suspend activities until we receive your signal.
Please do not keep us waiting long.
(unsigned)
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Is it Friday already? This week went by kind of quickly. I suppose that’s not a bad thing, although as a freelancer weekends don’t mean the same as they used to. Still, I tend to keep my weekends open unless I’m going through some major crunch time (like last weekend) so I guess it’s significant to me that it’s Friday.
Wheeeeee!
It’s actually a pretty busy day today. Book-wise I’m just doing some touch-up work to the Universal Studios Monster book so that can go to the printer on Monday. I’ve got materials for the 2nd edition of a Doris Day book arriving in the old Inbox, but I won’t be doing much with that until next week. I need to get cracking on a special insert for the SFWA Bulletin that will accompany the copies being delivered to the Nebula Awards Banquet in a couple of weeks, and I have a few TumbleTap projects that are being moved to the forefront. Then there are some personal writing projects that are getting attention today, and some personal business which, if it works out well, I’ll be reporting more on next week.
Fingers crossed. Wish is luck, people.
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A couple of links today. First, here’s the latest link to Kathryn Kristine Rusch’s continuing project: The Freelancer’s Survival Guide. This week’s topic is Illness. How do you, as a freelancer, cope with your work schedule and being sick? It’s a fair thing to consider. Speaking for myself, it depends on my Inbox. If I have a light day, yeah… I’ll sleep in for a day. If I have a heavy schedule, I dose myself up until I can function, somewhat, and bite the bullet. I don’t get paid sick days. I need to keep working. Ms. Rusch addresses this quite well.
The second link is to this week’s column at ForcesofGeek.com. This week I review Michael Jasper’s A Gathering of Doorways.
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review, Layouts, Letters, Reviews | |No Comments
This week’s mail seems vaguely ominous, and given the amount of rain and gray skies we’ve been experiencing, I am not comforted.
Folded and sealed with a small blob of wax:
To the Head of Residence:
We encourage you and your family to attend a Special Meeting at the Green Library this Saturday noon. There will be discussed the current Emergency and its Latest Developments, to whit, the recent disappearance of the Pogo boys. This now makes 12 children lost to the Haversham Mist.
We will have a Special Guest: one Professor Hiram Pickersgill from the old college to speak on what he believes may be the source of the mist. Sheriff Absolom will also speak on certain Preventive Meazures [sic]. Reverend Mackey will lead a Special Prayer.
In case of wet weather or a mist sighting (listen for the church bells) the Special Meeting will be postponed until after Sunday services.
Yours respectfully,
The Town Council
The second item, a package of old brown paper tied with string, contained a number of odd items placed within an old cookie tin:
A small black feather
A large white feather
Two mismatched buttons
A Roman coin
A torn postcard of the steamboat Minne-ha-ha of Lake George, NY
A faded photograph of Dolores del Rio dated 1933
A needle and a spool of dark green thread
All the items look fairly old save the feathers which look like they were plucked yesterday. On a rag paper that has now become quite familiar to me was written:
Dir Sirs,
We trust you know now what to do.
(unsigned)
Curious, but unimportant now, I’m sure.
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Quite a busy day for a Friday. I think this has more to do with the week overall being busy. Some weeks I I get ahead of schedule and Friday turns into a light day. This week I’m more on schedule, as opposed to ahead of it, so it will be a full work day. No rest for the wicked cool. I think of the reason was I diverted slightly from my set schedule yesterday and took some time to do some office cleaning and organizing.
Before I forget, here is the link to this week’s book review at Forces of Geek: Rubber Arrow Through the Head Slays Thousands. A Review of Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin. Check it out when you can.
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This link has been making the rounds and it’s only proper I do so here as well–particularly in light of yesterday’s work-at-home topic.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch is starting a series of columns at her website called The Freelancer’s Survival Guide, the Introduction to which can be found here.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch writes
This post marks the beginning of an experiment. I will post sections of a work in progress—a book tentatively titled The Freelancer’s Survival Guide–here, on my website.
The book hasn’t sold. I haven’t tried to sell it. I haven’t even written it yet. In fact, the book hasn’t been much more than a glimmer in my eye for a decade. But now’s the time to do this project.
Here’s why.
The global economic crisis has put tens of thousands of people out of work. Some will regain their old jobs. Some will train for new jobs. And some will attempt to freelance–whether it’s as a consultant or an E-Bay Power Seller or as a writer.
Most people never intend to freelance. They fall into it, usually to make some extra money while looking for work. Other people quit their day jobs in the hope of becoming their own boss. They all find that working for yourself is much harder than it sounds.
Well worth checking out if you work from home–or want to.
I include this cover from the April-May 09 edition of Asimov’s because Ms. Rusch has a very fine story in there, and it’s a Very Fine issue overall with a lot of other great stories too.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review, Letters, Publishing, Writing | |No Comments
I’m reading Microserfs right now by Douglas Coupland and am finding it an interesting experience somewhat. It has much in common with Coupland’s later work, Jpod, in that it’s about a small group of verk geek-intensive computer programmer types (at Microsoft in Seattle) in their early 20s to early 30s. Like Jpod, there is a single focus character whose parents enter the story, pages with random arragements of words, and an abundance pop-culture references. The novel takes place in the mid-90s so it’s not too far off from thge contemporary world, but in reading you can’t help but say to yourself, “Huh, if they knew then what we know now…”
It’s a fun novel, a little more clumsy than Coupland’s later novels, but that’s to be expected. It’s not bad by any stretch. I wish I had read it when it first came out–it would have blown me away. Granted, there’s an o’erabundance of GenX-style philosophical meanderings, but it resonates with me and mine. It’s downside is that I’m probably the oldest someone can read this book as.
I’m enjoying it, but it’s not Coupland’s best. His better days were ahead of him then as they still are now. It’s fun watching how a novelist grows over 15 or so years. I can’t wait for his next book.
(Unrelated) Final word…
Ben lies.
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I’m behind on my writing, but ahead on most everything else. Today I should be able to focus on the writing end of things once I get some morning tasks out of the way. Post cards. Medical journal. Some edits. One thing I need to do is get a bunch of stuff back out into markets. I have a few stories that need to make the rounds, and a stack of poems that need to be sent to journals.
Always good to be busy.
Rumor has is… The ancient Mayans developed a beverage remarkably similar to our modern coca-cola using cane sugar, kola nuts, arrowroot, and cocaine leaves. A form of carbonation was achieved by having priests blow into the beverage through a reed, forming a “holy” bubbling. The result was quickly capped and buried for a year before drinking.
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Today’s link goes to Chris Reilly’s CastleFreak Midnight Movie Double Feature. Chris has taken on a mission to bring back the midnight movie/double feature experience by dredging up great unsung classics in movie-horror and science fiction. Interpsersed are ancient animated calls to go to the lobby for all your epicurean desires, classic cartoon shorts, and background information on the features. There is a lot to be seen–impressive as the site has only been up for a couple of weeks. While the video is embedded into a Blogger page, it’s surprisingly decent quality–especially in sound. I’ve yet to find a way to enlarge the viewing screen, but after a few minutes of viewing, you kind of forget it’s a small screen and you’re just enjoying the flick.
This is a must site for movie buffs–especially of horror, science fiction, and the so-called “cult” variety.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Book review, Movie review, Rumor | Coupland, Microserfs, Reilly|No Comments
Still in recovery from a wonderful little mini-vaction to Florida. And I’ve come home to a decent pile of work which I need to get cracking on right away.
Florida was fantastic. Warm. Upper 70s which is like heaven compared to the frigid temperatures that welcomes us when we got home. We stayed at the very pleasant Floridays resort which gave us a full kitchen, dining area, living room, two bedrooms two bathrooms, and porch. I got to have my own bathroom! (This may not seem like a big deal, but you married guys…you know what I’m talking about. Right?) So we had nice digs. There was a fine pool and even finer hot tub. We didn’t do a lot with The Mouse this time around aside from a stop at Downtown Disney mostly to dine at the Rainforest Cafe–easily one of the best restaurants around. We did check out the new Sea World Aquatic park. Nothing like doing a waterpark in the middle of January. Lazy river rides past dolphins and tropical fish. Rapids. Wave pools. Slides and sun. Well worth checking out if you’re in the area. And not too expensive as Orlando spots go.
And this mini-vacation afforded me a long-overdue opportunity to catch up on my reading. The morning of the flight down, I cracked open Douglas Coupland’s JPod (actually, I cracked it open the previous week, but only got a few pages into it) and finished it by Saturday night. I say to Margaret, I say, “We need to get to a bookstore so I can get another book by this guy.” There we are, in the middle of Orlando where there are thousands of diversions available and I want to go to a bookstore.
So we went. And I picked up The Gum Thief by Coupland. Another fantastic book and now I’m wondering when we can get to a bookstore again so I can find more. I may find myself making a trip downtown this week to get another fix. Yes, I’ll be reviewing both either here or at Forces of Geek later this week. I ended up finishing The Gum Thief on Sunday night, but thankfully had also picked up a Charles Bukowski collection. (We also nabbed the paperback edition of President Obama’s Audacity of Hope which I will get around to reading at some point.)
But I’m home now and there’s lots of work to be done. I should be able to wrap up and send to the printer a couple of jobs. I have edits to do for a bunch of others–some minor, some extensive. My work is cut out for me and my dance card is full.
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Today’s link is for Old-Time Radio fans. It’s a collection of 104 mp3s and streaming audio files for the The Great Gildersleeve–one of the classics of OTR. From the website:
The Great Gildersleeve (1941-1957) was the arguable founding father of the spin-off program, as well as one of the first true situation comedies in broadcast history. It revolved around a character who had been a staple on the classic radio hit Fibber McGee and Molly, The Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest period in the 1940s, when Harold Peary graduated the character from the earlier show into the sitcom and in a quartet of likeable feature films at the height of the show’s popularity.
Some good stuff here.
Cheers!
Filed under: Blogosphere, Book review | Coupland, Disney, OTR|No Comments
Today’s main project will be issue #181 of the SFWA Bulletin. I like that this is coming out every other month now, and that we have such a good stock of article and columns. Weird how when we were quarterly, we sometimes suffered for lack of material. Now that we publish more often, we have more material than ever. I credit current SFWA president Russell Davis and our editor, Mark Kreighbaum. Russell gave us the encouragement and the go-ahead to totally re-design and re-envision the Bulletin, Mark took the ball and ran with it. (And I had a blast doing the re-design.)
Good times for the Bulletin right now.
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I’ve got a decent amount of other work to get done–mostly revisions and cover design. Plus there’s Project X. Yes, that’s still going on. Here are some other clues. Obvious to some, maybe not to others. I still expect to make the ofifical launching announcement sometime next week. There’s still quite a bit of prep work ahead.
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For those wondering how things are going over at Forces of Geek, I’ve put up my first blog entry on Monday, and yesterday posted the first of my weekly “Falling Off the Shelf” columns with a review of Ivan Brunetti’s An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, Vol. 2.
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Today’s link visits Angus Oblong’s website, the creator of TV’s The Oblongs and many other fine creepy fare. Some decent stuff to check out here. Well worth the visit.
Cheers!
Filed under: Book review, Comics, Layouts, Magazine layouts, Publishing, Reviews | Angus Oblong, Brunetti, SFWA|No Comments
I’ll likely be reviewing An Anthology of Graphic Fiction, Cartoons, and True Stories, Vol 2 edited by Ivan Brunetti more in full either here or at ForcesofGeek.com, but I’ll give you some of my first impressions. Some comic book artists should not be allowed to script their own work. Some comic book writers shouldn’t draw. Oh…and I don’t care of it’s “indie” or underground work–quality still counts. I don’t blame the artists or writers, but I do kind of question the editor’s choices. He’s a pretty brilliant comic creator in his own right–and I like his stuff. But jeez.
There is a lot of good stuff there, but a lot of crap to wade through as well. Okay, enough on that. This is just an initial impression based on half the book.
What is interesting, however, is what’s going on in my own head about how I define a good comic. And if it’s more fair to consider the form as a whole–or divide it into indie, mainstream, superhero, and manga. There is so much crossover to consider. I mean, was The Flaming Carrot indie or superhero? Or The Badger? Was Bone indie or mainstream? What about ones that changed over time. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles used to be very indie…but they’re a major commercial property nowadays. Manga is mainstream in Japan (actually, there are subgenres there as well, but I’m focusing on the manga most commonly available commercially in the US), but not entirely mainstream in the US–but that is changing as well. They don’t do superheroes the way we do in the US, but have their own brand that cannot really be considered the same.
It gets dizzying, and I doubt I could suss it all out in these virtual pages. And I question my own qualifications to even try.
If I don’t try to be consistent, I can probably come up with some still coherent thoughts. If you want consistency, pour yourself a bottle of Heinz ketchup. (or is it catsup?)
More on this than you’d care to read about…sometime in the future.
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I’m currently working on several books. (What else is new?) The main one right now is Confessions of an Accidental Mouseketeer by Lonnie Burr for Bearmanor Media. Lonnie was one of the original Mouseketeers. Not the little one…that was Cubby. And not the cute one…that was Annette. Lonnie was the older one. While I’m not old enough to have watched the original broadcasts, they were re-run often when I was a kid.
It’s fascinating reading, and gives one an interesting peek into the world of Disney at the time. I’ll have a cover done up in a few days and I’ll post it here.
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Thanksgiving vacation is over. It’s back to work, so I leave you with today’s link: The Perry Bible Fellowshow. It defies simple description, so you might be better off just clicking the link. In short, tho, it’s a webcomic that’s gotten to see some print. There is no one style that can be used to describe it. It’s a hit or miss with me, but I know some folks who are big fans–you might become one too. As of February 2008 it has stopped regularly updating, but you can easily kill a lot of time clicking the RANDOM link.
Enjoy!
Filed under: Book layouts, Book review, Comics | Comics, Lonnie Burr, Perry Bible Fellowship|No Comments
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