Warning: this will be a Sappy Dad™ post. I woke up this morning to a smiling three year old face. I was wished a Happy Father’s Day, and handed this: I was unsurprised by the signature, as I have seen Sarah working on writing her name quite a few times now. I was pretty shocked by the rest of it.… Read more →
Tag: something great
Explainers
That’s a sample page from a book I’m really enjoying reading at the moment: The Explainers by Jules Feiffer. (You can see some other sample pages at The Comics Reporter, or even cooler check out the slideshow on Flickr.) Here’s how the publisher describes the book: In 1956, a relatively unknown cartoonist by the name of Jules Feiffer started contributing… Read more →
The McLaren Discriminant
I’ve never been one to engage in a lot of “there are two kinds of people in the world…” divisions. Oh, I think that humans are fundamentally inclined, probably at a biological level, to see things in terms of “us and them”, but like a certain brilliant Scotsman, I also tend to think that the direction of increased civilization is… Read more →
Say That I Was Foolish, Say That I Was Blind…
…NEVER say that I got left behind. I have not been here, because I have been driving ridiculous distances around North America to visit friends and to see the Oysterband live (third time!) I think I had an idiot grin on my face for about six hours after the show. I will be discussing this at length at some later… Read more →
Is the Wizard Of Oz really a political cartoon?
Over the last couple of nights I’ve re-read all of Grant Morrison’s brilliant and bizarre run on the Doom Patrol. Some of this run was previously mentioned here in the context of a discussion of Borges and Serafini. (An aside: this run started almost 20 years ago! I am so old.) It’s great, great stuff, and if you haven’t read… Read more →
Damn
Now that was a speech. Honest, reasonable, nuanced, and almost completely unable to be reduced to a soundbite. I kind of wish I could vote for the guy. Read more →
Portraiture and Literature
Got a little time to spend crawling around on the web? Allow me to recommend that you use some of it to check out the archives at Hey Oscar Wilde! It’s clobberin’ time!!! You might ask “what the hell is that”? Well, in the site’s own words: This website, now in its ninth incarnation since being launched in 06.1998, is… Read more →
Nemi
Two months ago I had never heard of Nemi. I had no idea that she was apparently known all over Europe, and especially a hit with her Norwegian countrymen, and across the UK. And then I was browsing through Previews looking for stuff to order at my local comic shopI try to always do a pass through the “back” of… Read more →
Is There Anything It Can’t Do?
I love garlic. A lot. Like, an unsociable amount. Hell, I stole one of Brust‘s laws of cooking: “If it doesn’t have garlic, it better be dessert!” So I love it every time scientists find another way garlic does amazing things to protect your health. I’d eat it anyway, of course. Here’s this week’s example: from Garlic combats arsenic poisoning… Read more →
Flat out of sight, totally together…
A while back I discovered that my wife somehow managed to grow up without seeing any of the Kurt Russell Disney mad-science-at-college movies from the late Sixties and early Seventies. So, I added the movies to my Zip queue, and while I was in Australia the first one, The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes, arrived. So we watched it earlier this… Read more →
Something Great: Courtney Crumrin
This is the first in what I hope will be a series of positive posts about things that are great. It seems like I should balance out all my ranting in some way, and this seems like a good way. This time out I want to talk about Courtney Crumrin and the Fire-Thief’s Tale. I read a lot of comics… Read more →
Something to look forward to in 2007
I was quite pleased to see this: July 2007 Territory by Emma Bull (new hardcover) On PNH’s list of stuff he (and Teresa) have edited. I’ve been patiently waiting for Emma’s next book since 1997 (or 1994, if you want to get picky about the possessive). It was harder to be patient after I heard her read from (what must… Read more →