Dec 10 2007

Goodbye, Goodreads

Today I closed my Goodreads.com account. I know that many folks use and enjoy the site, bur for me it’s become more of a nuisance than a benefit of late, so I’m bidding Goodreads goodbye. Why?

  • I just don’t have the time to write thoughtful, interesting reviews of books these days. I’ve barely got enough time to read books at all these days, so what free time I’ve got I’ll devote to actual reading instead.
  • While some folks on Goodreads write lots of great reviews that I look forward to reading, (SLG editor in chief Jennifer de Guzman is apparently a reading machine, and writes good reviews of most of the stuff she reads, for example) the majority of the folks on my friends list would often bulk submit dozens of “reviews” at a time that were nothing but rankings of books as on a scale of one to five stars. This isn’t particularly useful and it results in frequent email notifications about new “reviews” that turn out to be just a laundry list of star rankings.
  • The one review that I wrote that seemed to attract some attention was my review of The Golden Compass, which I thought I reviewed pretty favorably–but apparently comparing it to the Harry Potter series in anything less than glowing terms is cause enough for Compass fans to gripe at you regularly… resulting in yet more email notifications. If, for some bizarre reason, you want to read this review, it’s posted after the “more” break.

Continue reading

Dec 06 2007

Midnight Sun in PW Comics Week

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A big thanks to Publishers Weekly Comics Week (and editor Heidi MacDonald, and the article’s author Chris Arrant) for this week’s article/interview about Midnight Sun.

In 1928, the Italian airship Italia embarked on an expedition to the North Pole and never returned home. Crashed in the arctic climate, the surviving crew of the Italia were up against a ticking clock to survive and reach help. That “help” was a Russian icebreaker, with an unfeeling American reporter aboard who could think of a million things he’d rather be doing.

Although this true story was in the headlines of all major newspapers while it unfolded, little historical documentation exists on the story of the Italia. SLG Publishing is releasing a graphic novel, Midnight Sun, which seeks to document the Italia’s story for current audiences. (more at PW online…)

Dec 04 2007

Sketchbook (Date Unknown)

A while back, I got really into doing these “grid” things in my sketchbook where I’d start with a small image of something and then fill the page with progressive iterations of the image, each new one being drawn based on the one that directly preceded it. I was looking through an old sketchbook last night for some images to scan for an article and came across this one:

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Dec 04 2007

Schulz in Ripley’s

If, like me, you’re interested in things cartooning-related, then chances are you’re either reading, done reading, or plan on reading Schulz and Peanuts, the new bio of Peanuts artist Charles Schulz. In the book it mentions that Schulz’s first published work was a one-off “guest strip” in the Ripley’s Believe it or Not comics page feature. The image is described as a picture of Schulz’s dog, Spike, (the inspiration for the character Snoopy) who was known for eating, “pins, tacks, screws and razor blades.”

I did a cursory Googling, trying to track down this image, but didn’t turn anything up. coincidentally, though, the most recent Bark magazine contained a feature about Ripley and his known love of dogs. Along with the text for the feature were reprints of various dog-related entries from the strip, including the Schulz one. So, here it is:

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Dec 03 2007

Tanoshii 2008 Calendar

In addition to the usual holiday treats like seeing friends and family, good food and general good cheer, folks in Winston-Salem have another thing we look forward to each holiday season: the Tanoshii Chinese restaurant’s annual calendar.

This year’s theme is  the Beijing Olympics and you can see that each animal not only corresponds to a Chinese “Year of the…” animal, but also is participating in some Olympic event.  I really wish the official Olympic committee would capitalize on this “cute animal” theme.  Maybe something like, “The Beijing Olympics: Gotta Catch ’em All!”

Anyway, please enjoy, as the calendar says: “U.S. IMPORTANT HOLIDAY ‘ FOR 2008.'”

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