I’m a really terrible photographer, but every once in a while–just via random chance–I manage to get a picture of something kinda cool, in this case it’s a weird blurry picture of a spider:
Sep 08 2006
Separated at Birth
Is us just me, or is cartoonist Jason Little looking more and more like A.W. Merrick, the newspaper publisher from Deadwood?
Sep 02 2006
Crackhouse Wrap-up pt. 1
The “big dig” project here at the Crackhouse is just about wrapped up and we’re moving back into the downstairs of the place now. Needless to say this is all occuring four months after the project started, not four weeks as originally estimated.
Anyway, here’re a few before/during/after pics of the living room, the new half bath, and the lateral hallway that’s been added:
(Click for larger image)
(Click for larger image)
(Click for larger image)
Sep 01 2006
Tokyopop’s Web Exclusives
Journalista » Blog Archive » Aug. 31, 2006: An act of sheer desperation
The blogosphere is alive with the sound of bitching… that is, bitching back and forth about Tokyopop‘s recent announcement that it is making some of its titles available only via their online store. That means that they’ll be cutting out the usual “middle men” involved in getting the books to Borders, Barnes & Noble, comics shops, etc., and gaining for themselves the lion’s share of the profits in the deal. Retailers, of course, are mad because they’ve (supposedly) devoted time and money to building up an audience for some of these books, and now that the books have a reader base, the customers can’t get them at those same stores, and those stores don’t reap the long-term profits from selling all the later issues.
I don’t read a ton of Manga, but as (bad) luck would have it, one I’m following right now is Tokyopop’s series, Dragon Head, which is now a “web exclusive.” Supposedly this book was chosen as one to be a “web exclusive” because it was selling poorly (although no numbers were given to support this claim). If so, I think this is definitely an Arrested Development indicator, where something that’s obviously very high quality, and not in the least inaccessable, has failed to reach the audience that it really should have. While Tokyopop seems to be taking a lot of guff for this move, I’ve got to at least give them this: If a book as good as Dragon Head isn’t selling well the way it’s currently being marketed and sold, there’s definitely something wrong. On the other hand, making it a “web exclusive” seems to be going in the wrong direction: making it harder for people to be exposed to it.
David Taylor has an interesting theory about why Dragon Head in particular was selected for this treatment. I’m thinking he’s maybe right…
Aug 31 2006
Seth’s Nostalgia for the 20s and 30s
The Comics in Canada: An Illustrated History
I’ve been slowly making my way through this nice archive of audio and video interview and feature clips of Canadian cartoonists. I listened most recently to the one about “Seth,” a cartoonist who really wears his obsession with the 1920s and 30s on his sleeve. The voiceover referred to him being “nostalgic” for this period, which immediately seemed odd to me. Can one truly be nostalgic for a time period (or place) which one has never experienced? The Websters definition isn’t really specific on the subject:
1 : the state of being homesick : HOMESICKNESS
2 : a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition; also : something that evokes nostalgia
Can I, for example, be nostalgic for medieval Scotland?
Recent Comments