LibWorm.com provides a librarian RSS filtering service. Over 1500 RSS librarian sources are combined and output via different filters. This feed contains the latest headlines from journals and sites in the Graphic Literature interest group. http://www.libworm.com/rss/librarianqueries.php Fri, 03 Sep 2010 02:51:49 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://wplbookclub.blogspot.com/2016/04/louis-riel-comic-strip-biography-by.html In 1869, the Red River Settlement area, home to the French-speaking Metis, is sold to the Canadian government. Louis Riel, the de facto leader of the Red River Settlement, demands that they be granted the right to govern themselves. Not suprisingly, the government refuses this. This story relates Riel's resistance to the Canadian government's mistreatment of the Metis community.Louis Riel - Wikipediahttps://owa.fibrehost.net/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_RielLouis Riel - rethinking Riel (CBC Archives)Louis Riel - Trivial Pursuit (CBC Archives) Place a hold on a WPL copy of the book here. (Source: WPLBOOKCLUB) Wed, 20 Apr 2016 04:00:00 +0100 377637 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/sep/02/jonah-hex-film-review The acclaimed graphic novel about the mysterious, scarred old West bounty hunter has become a muddled, inept film, says Phelim O'NeillEven if you didn't know how troubled this adaptation of John Albano's comic book was, with rumours of countless rewrites and reshoots, it's obvious something is drastically wrong here even before the opening titles are over. After we are introduced to gruesomely scarred semi-supernatural old west bounty hunter Hex (Brolin, in grisly prosthetics), there is a terrible expositional animated sequence; it's as if they simply forgot to film some key scenes. Otherwise, it seems like a bad case of lost nerve: Hex is never quite the bad-ass he is in the comics, while the plot attempts some clunky relevance as Hex hunts down a campy villain (Malkovich) who is making an olden-days weapon of mass destruction. It just gets louder and more nonsensical as it progresses, with Fox shoe-horned into as many scenes as possible.Rating: 2/5Josh BrolinJohn MalkovichAction and adventureScience fiction and fantasyComicsPhelim O'Neillguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Thu, 02 Sep 2010 21:20:13 +0100 868551 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/sep/02/kick-ass-2-long-wait A sequel to the superhero hit has been greenlit, according to the writer of the original comic book. But doubts have been raised over the film's production scheduleKick-Ass was always rather nicely set up for a sequel, what with that open-ended denouement, so it's hardly surprising that Mark Millar, who wrote the original comic book, has been talking up a second film. Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live, Millar said the film's success on DVD in the US, where it sold 1.4m units in its first week, meant the project was finally greenlit."The estimate is that Kick-Ass will do 100 to 150m on DVD based on the American sales, so it'll end up making a $250m (£160m) on a $28m investment," said Millar. "So it should be OK. The sequel's greenlit, we can go ahead and do the follow-up now. The first made so much compared to what it cost, it would be crazy not to."Millar's announcement, however, has been greeted with a degree of scepticism in the blogosphere, not least because Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn and screenwriter Jane Goldman are tied up with preparations for X Men: First Class. In a later interview with MTV, Millar said the film was "probably about nine months away from production starting, at the earliest".He added: "Matthew's got to do X-Men: First Class. He just wants to get X-Men done next year, then hopefully we'll just go straight into Kick-Ass 2. That's the plan."All of which sounds a little less concrete. And there's the small matter of Vaughn's comments immediately following Kick-Ass's release, when he seemed to indicate there would probably not be a sequel.Could Millar, who clearly stands to benefit from a second film, be over-egging the biscuit? Probably. Having interviewed him, he's a refreshingly candid chap, saying that film-makers attempting to bring less well-known superheroes to the big screen were "fucked", following the arrival of Kick-Ass's postmodern take. ... Thu, 02 Sep 2010 13:49:17 +0100 868558 http://liszen.com/trends/story.php?title=Professor_Sprout_from_the_Harry_Potter_series__Flickr_-_Photo_--- Dress up as your favorite book/movie/comic book character, and and get your photo taken for the Library's celebration of National Library Card Sign (Source: pligg - all) Thu, 02 Sep 2010 07:00:27 +0100 868500 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SellersLibraryTeens/~3/N3XTsMTc7oQ/august-anime-club-meeting.html Today was the August meeting of the Anime Club, right on the eve of everyone returning to school. Tim showed us some clips from the Sonic the Hedgehog anime movie, clips from the Japanese video game it was based on, and some bonus Japanese Sonic commercials! Our manga drawing theme for the meeting was back-to-school, so we also watched some school-themed anime clips. I had super-cute school supplies--piggy pencil sharpeners and panda/frog erasers--for the four winners. (I got them at the dollar store by H-Mart, if you want to track down some for yourself.) Here are all of the drawings: Actual school supplies! Kelliann had the most beautiful shading in her picture of a schoolgirl. It was my first choice for a winner.A schoolgirlAnother schoolgirlYet another schoolgirlFor a change of pace...a schoolboy! OK, he's looking at a schoolgirl, but it's a start. Max won a prize for being the only person to draw a schoolboy. A schoolgirl with talking school supplies Kathy drew a really cute comic about a school of fish! I gave it a prize for originality. Still another schoolgirl Out of all the schoolgirls, I deemed this one the cutest, so Lynn won a prize. The last schoolgirl (Source: Sellers Library Teens) Thu, 02 Sep 2010 02:12:05 +0100 868457 http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2010/sep/01/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-game-review Xbox 360/PS3; £10; cert 12+; UbisoftAnyone familiar with Edgar Wright's oeuvre (and especially Spaced) can't have failed to notice the director of Scott Pilgrim vs The World is a major-league video game obsessive, and the film itself rams that point home.Happily, this is not the usual game-as-merchandising tat – indeed, it takes an approach that should be made compulsory for all games publishers looking to cash in on Hollywood's enduring mass appeal. Instead of seeking to extract more cash from you than it would take to see the film, Scott Pilgrim vs The World joins the burgeoning ranks of the retro homages found on the Xbox Live arcade and PlayStation Network, and completely nails the ethos of those download services.Its mission alone deserves applause – to introduce a young, Twitter-fed audience to the joys of the 8-bit arcade era. Thus, it looks like Paper Boy and plays like Double Dragon (even supporting co-operative play by up to four people). In keeping with that era, its gameplay is gloriously unforgiving, eschewing checkpoints in favour of three lives which must be sustained for the duration of each of the seven levels, corresponding to Scott's inamorata Ramona's ex-boyfriends. Each level is long, relentless and utterly devoid of breathing space. Which gives you a commensurate sense of satisfaction when you progress.The gameplay couldn't be simpler, consisting of classic side-scrolling beat-em-up action in which Scott takes on hordes of aggressive Toronto locals. He can pick up objects strewn around the streets, such as baseball bats, bottles and even snowballs, to use as weapons, punch, kick, jump and counter. At first, it seems laughably simple, but subtleties soon manifest themselves. As Scott levels up, he acquires special moves, such as shoulder-charges and low kicks. ... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:36:56 +0100 868199 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2010/sep/01/classics-janeausten Widmerpool, Anthony Powell's ghastly creation in The Dance To The Music of Time, is a spectre to haunt the middle agedA treat turned up on my doorstep yesterday: a new book called The Midlife Manual, by John O'Connell and Jessica Cargill Thompson. I say treat: with my birthday coming next week, it's all a bit close to the bone. I particularly enjoyed their notion of the midlife literary anti-hero. O'Connell (who reviews thrillers for our Review) and Cargill Thompson picked out Widmerpool, the character from Anthony Powell's 12-novel sequence A Dance To The Music of Time. They describe him thus:A classic type: the cowardly and mediocre yet ambitious idiot whom no one liked at school but who has, thanks to a combination of luck and opportunism, eclipsed you and all your contemporaries to become unthinkably powerful in his chosen sphere – often politics or the media. Every group has a Widmerpool somewhere on its periphery. He's the person you bitch about with your oldest friends after a long, long night out when you're too exhausted to hide the anger and disappointment that's eating you up. Because your Widmerpool never goes away. Indeed,. the degrees of separation between you and him may decrease alarmingly: your paths may cross at a wedding or reunion. When they do, he will patronise you to death. And you will always hate him.I especially enjoyed the reference as I am slowly (with great enjoyment but many deflections) working my way through the Powell. I am now on volume eight, The Soldier's Art. Widmerpool, back in volume one a faintly laughable, essentially friendless schoolboy famous only for his funny overcoat, is now Major Widmerpool. It is the second world war, and our narrator Nick, a mere second lieutenant, has been attached to Widmerpool's office as an assistant, in order to be, as O'Connell and Cargill Thompson have it "patronised to death" by his old school-fellow. ... Wed, 01 Sep 2010 09:33:30 +0100 868204 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/31/dragons-pen-edinburgh-festival Last week I became a dragon, for an event called Dragons' Pen, a literary version of Dragons' Den. Ideas pitched to my fellow dragons (Francis Bickmore, senior editor at Canongate publishers, and the literary agent Lucy Luck) and me included a gothic graphic novel set in Edinburgh, its heroine the wonderfully named Penny Dreadful, and a tartan-tinged adventure story described as "The Da Vinci Code meets Monarch of the Glen". Our winner by a whisker, who gets to have her entire manuscript read by Luck, was Anna Stewart, with a vivid, captivating story called Pleasureland, set at a Dundonian funfair. More important than winning or losing, though, was the fact that the Edinburgh book festival's spiegeltent was packed out with an enthuastically cheering crowd (except when they were booing, and that was only at the dragons) who'd come to hear not a lineup of famous names, but nine unheard-of, emerging authors. And, as Bickmore pointed out, "only one of them went home in tears".Edinburgh festivalFestivalsCharlotte Higginsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Tue, 31 Aug 2010 21:30:07 +0100 868034 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/31/heart-of-darkness-graphic-novel Artist Catherine Anyango tells how her richly-detailed drawings reflect the dense style of Joseph Conrad's savage colonial storyIn the 108 years since it was published, Joseph Conrad's colonial fable Heart of Darkness has infected TS Eliot, been excoriated for racism by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe and transplanted to Vietnam by Francis Ford Coppola.Now the book has been reinterpreted as a graphic novel in whose monochrome pages Conrad's exploration of power, greed and madness plays out as disturbingly as ever.Catherine Anyango, whose drawings are peppered with David Zane Mairowitz's adaptation of the text, had her doubts about tackling the Polish-born novelist's most famous work.Those reservations had more to do with the original medium than the enduring controversy over Conrad's views or the familiarity of Heart of Darkness."I wasn't sure initially if it was a good subject for a graphic novel as the writing is so dense and the style of it is partly what attracts me to the book," she said."As I knew we couldn't keep most of the text in, I tried to make the drawings very rich in detail and texture so that immersive feeling you get, especially when he describes the river and the jungle, was carried across."Anyango was determined not to allow the horror of the book's subject matter to overwhelm her drawings. "I wanted to draw the reader in with seductive imagery, and then show them that even in the most beautiful of settings, terrible things can happen."There was also Coppola's 1979 epic to contend with."I was too terrified to watch Apocalypse Now," the Kenyan-Swedish artist said. "Partly because I didn't want to end up with any similar visuals and also I had been warned that something nasty happens to a cow … [but] Apocalypse Now is huge and well, apocalyptic, but Heart of Darkness is a much quieter story. ... Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:54:57 +0100 867829 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/aug/31/scott-pilgrim-control-gaming-world Edgar Wright's intriguing attempt to align film-making with more fidgety media suggests that the task is hopelessCinema is very much a "sit-back" medium. It insists on entrapping you in a darkened space, force-feeding you a pre-assembled product and monopolising your attention for up to a couple of hours. Once, that would have been no problem. People were happy to sit through hour-long sermons or even stand through three-hour speeches when nothing more amusing was on offer. Then things changed.Empowered by new opportunities, the vulgar herd sought to seize control of their entertainment experience. Comic books, which could be read at the bus stop or under the schoolroom desk, zapped the three-volume novel. Now, people select their own Twitter feeds and compose their own tweets. They organise their own viewing on YouTube, and create much of it, too. Videogaming, perhaps the archetypal sit-up, take-control medium, enables the consumer to become the hero of his or her own narrative.Cinema still has its attractions. At least it offers a refuge from your partner's prattle if you have to go out on a date. Increasingly, however, conversation can be combined with texting or Facebooking, so a beloved's blather is no longer quite so irksome. Understandably, film-makers have begun to fear for the big screen's future. For a while now, they've been looking to more fidgety media to see what they can purloin.Thus, plot and character have increasingly made way for incessant action and frantic cutting; but direct pilfering from competitive territory has also become routine. Comic-book and videogame protagonists have been pressed into the big screen's service. Yet up till now, the essence of the plundered media has not been successfully translated. Conscripted heroes have been teleported into traditional movie formats; the singular environments on which their appeal depended have had to be left behind. Because of this, the benefits of these transfers have been limited. ... Tue, 31 Aug 2010 08:02:09 +0100 867842 http://kairosnews.org/generation-quotborn-into-web-20quot-char I'd thought I'd throw out some characteristics of my son's generation rather than wait for ten years or so to see how they represent themselves in a Pew and American Life study. He's almost eleven years old. His is the generation that was born into Web 2.0 and other advanced digital technology. I know this isn't true for all kids his age (and it may be more true for boys--I don't know), but it's fun to imagine: Many of them would rather take videos than still pictures. They either have themselves, or have a friend close in age, who has put up a video on YouTube. They either have themselves, or have a friend close in age, who has been in a YouTube video. They have their own computer, or at least one that is shared with siblings and not the adults in the family. They share websites and videos they find on the Internet. They have email accounts and send and receive email on occassion. They have played an MMORPG designed for kids along with other kids in their school. My son and friends at school, boys and girls alike, play Wizard 101. They have mobile phones and have sent and/or received text messages. Some are used to watching television and/or movies without commerical interruptions, and they will prefer the use of a DVD, Blueray, DVR, Tivo, or Netflix on demand to avoid commercials. They have more than one game system, at least a DS and a console unit. Cable television is not their sole, primary form of digital entertainment. Video games and the Internet have a strong, competing role for their attrention. Mp3 players are the primary music listening device that they own. Radio is something they listen to in the car when there are no CDs, the DS is not with them, and they forgot the mp3 player. It's the electronic media of last resort. ... Mon, 30 Aug 2010 23:15:31 +0100 867774 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/28/critical-eye-reviews-roundup Lights Out in Wonderland by DBC Pierre, Ismail Kadare's The Accident and The Old Romantic by Louise Dean"Cut out all the ornamentation, and you have a story about a drunk getting on the wagon and on the girl. That said, its impact is undeniable. The whole tottering edifice has many doors. They may open on to wonders or terrors; either way, it's worth taking a look." The Daily Telegraph's Philip Womack found much to commend in Lights Out in Wonderland, DBC Pierre's fourth novel, relishing in particular the "lunatic brilliance" of its set pieces. "Pierre writes to his strengths," Roger Hutchinson noted in the Scotsman, "namely, a vital narrative voice, inventive, freewheeling and scabrously funny." But he was not entirely convinced: "The first-person telling . . . whilst packing a punch, limits the novel's peripheral vision." In Scotland on Sunday Stuart Kelly was less impressed: "It is perhaps an inherent risk in the whole endeavour that a book which attempts to describe the 'entropic march towards insensate banality' should incarnate those qualities so perfectly."Phil Baker in the Sunday Times lauded Ismail Kadare's "compelling performance" in The Accident, "a deliberately mystifying book" with "a continental seriousness about it, a Milan Kundera-like quality about its very un-English mixture of sex and political history". The Herald's Alan Taylor praised the "economy and pace" of Kadare's writing, while arguing that "The Accident is an erotic novel but in no way voyeuristic. This, Kadare seems to be saying, is the manner in which many people with peripatetic jobs conduct their lives. It is, in certain circumstances, what passes for normal." In the Times, Aisling Foster did not share their enthusiasm: "this tale of a dead communist society is hamstrung by the lack of story or character . . . ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:06:01 +0100 866288 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/28/penguin-great-ideas-simon-winder A publishing phenomenon – with Hazlitt and Ruskin selling tens of thousands – but also a phallocentric disgrace? Simon Winder talks about the end of Great Ideas - and invites readers to submit their suggestions of the egregious absencesGlazed, shaky, politically and philosophically confused, I have just finished editing the 100th and last Penguin Great Ideas title. Why we should stop the series at this specific, wholly arbitrary number is the sort of issue that would have delighted some of the more annoying authors in the series but, setting that aside, we have now published five sets of 20 and it is time to stop and do something different. Nobody is saying that these are the 100 Great Ideas – just a 100, with plenty of shameful omissions, insulting inclusions and unthinking biases trailing in a vast cloud behind them.Like all successful publishing concepts, Great Ideas was a straight steal from another publisher. I was standing on a haggard, rural Umbrian station platform in 2003 and was alarmed to see that the kiosk selling lollies, puzzle magazines and plastic guns also had a little rack of works by Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, which seemed a bit visionary by British standards. These were titles in Adelphi's famous and long-running Piccola Biblioteca series and I immediately thought that Penguin could do something similar. Again, as with all successful publishing concepts, my own ignorance and failure to focus properly accidentally transformed the Piccola Biblioteca. On the basis of the little kiosk rack (perhaps put there in a spirit of the most acrid satire by the kiosk's owner), I thought that the Adelphi series was entirely filled with short works of philosophy and politics – it was only later I found out that it also included many distinguished novels, and indeed that some of the books were not even all that piccolo. ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:38 +0100 866290 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/28/posy-simmonds-tamara-drewe-interview 'A graphic novel is like a film. There are close-ups and long-shots. You choose the location and the props. You do the make-up and the lighting and you get the characters to act.'A couple of months ago Posy Simmonds found herself ensconced in a French hotel suite for 48 hours being interviewed, almost continuously, by TV and radio stations. She was talking about the film version of her graphic novel Tamara Drewe, which was then about to premiere at Cannes and is now about to open in London. Her French is very good, but she still brushed up on her vocabulary to anticipate a few likely questions. "I thought they'd ask what was my favourite scene and so I prepared two answers: the attempt to get the goats to mate – 'couplement des chèvres' – which in fact didn't make the final cut, and the 'lulling the spouse' scene – 'endormir l'épouse' – which did.""Lulling the spouse" was a tactic devised by the detective novelist and inveterate philanderer Nicholas Hardiman, who, along with his long suffering wife Beth, runs the rural writers' colony at the heart of Tamara Drewe. "Behind it is the idea that to avoid suspicion, you must first arouse it," Simmonds laughs. "So you tell the spouse, rather unconvincingly, that, unexpectedly, you're going to be very late this evening and you'll be at mutual friend X's house. And then you actually are at X's house when the anxious spouse rings up, which rather puts them off checking up on you again for a while."No wonder Simmonds's astute facility in anatomising the foibles of her characters has led Tamara Drewe to be described as The Archers on Viagra. It's a neat line, but in fact her story's literary antecedent is grander than Ambridge. And as her career has progressed her work has become progressively richer and more serious, if no less entertaining, than even the most convincingly sophisticated soap opera. ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:36 +0100 866291 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/28/brooklyn-colm-toibin-review-bookclub Week two: dialogueIn the small Irish town where Eilis lives with her elder sister and widowed mother, talk is guarded. "Say nothing until we are a mile away from that house," Eilis's friend Nancy tells her as they go out for a walk together. The novel's dialogue is full of commands not to speak or not to listen. Eilis's brother Jack has even taken the habit to England with him. "I'm telling you nothing more," he says, when she asks him about a certain "nice" English girl he knows. Eilis wonders how their mother will feel about her "favourite son" going out with an English girl. "Don't say a word to her."Eilis and her mother do not exactly talk about what most worries them. When Eilis is about to leave for America, a stray snatch of dialogue with an unnamed neighbour catches all that her mother does not say to her.The neighbour, almost casually, as a way of conversation, said: "You'll miss her when she's gone, I'd say.""Oh, it'll kill me when she goes," her mother said. It is a shock: dialogue is for implying but not stating fears and feelings.Yet it is because Tóibín's characters do not really exchange their thoughts that dialogue can also be comic. The novel has an acute ear for speech that brooks no response. The baleful Miss Kelly, who runs the most superior of the town's grocery shops, is peculiarly unanswerable. "Now there are people who come in here on a Sunday, if you don't mind, looking for things they should get during the week. What can you do?" Not question her meaning, certainly. Eilis watches as Mary, Miss Kelly's bullied assistant, puts up fly paper. "'No one likes flies,' Miss Kelly said, 'especially on a Sunday.'"The novel's first part ends with Eilis enduring a grim third-class passage across the Atlantic. ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:26 +0100 866299 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/28/lights-out-wonderland-dbc-pierre Alan Warner is impressed by DBC Pierre's fast and furious satire on contemporary decadenceIn a perfect inversion of plain truth, the Royal Bank of Scotland recently assured from billboards that it is "Here For You". In reality the exact contrary is true: We Are Here For It. Capitalism without pesky democracy is our future. If any novelist can collate the killing irony of what is happening around us it is DBC Pierre, who has boiled it down to a culinary emulsion of Hunter S Thompson and Ludwig Bemelmans.Gabriel Brockwell is an anti-globalisation activist whose daddy never loved him, a booze- and cocaine-partial sybarite in his 20s. His sanctimonious rehab guru, "Spread, creased, and folded by culture into a clever likeness of a man", insists: "Gabriel . . . I don't know whether to treat you or publish you!"Like Herman Hesse's Harry Haller, from Steppenwolf, Gabriel is liberated from the contradictions raging within by a pledge to commit suicide after one final blowout. Torching his rehab establishment, he flees England with a stash of cocaine and the embezzled funds from an anti-capitalist action group. He heads for Tokyo, where his childhood comrade – Nelson Smuts – works. An implosive neophyte chef – "the epicurian underworld pulled him into its rarest bowel" – Smuts is bound for the blessing of a Michelin star. Smuts's promise has been sponsored by a sinister party organiser and international playboy, Didier Laxalt, "the godfather of high-octane catering".And it is wine lore that sets up this brilliant satire: Marius is a vine so precious it grows with the assistance of virgins' pheromones and transports the imbiber with visions of its Cote d'Azur slope; the grape is "an ovary inseminated with dreams". It is accompanied by highly toxic blowfish, cut "so thin you could watch porn through it". Gabriel enters a night of gangsters, a teenage girl, a vast fish tank and an octopus. ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:20 +0100 866305 http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/28/alexei-sayle-family-values The comedian and writer talks about his familyMy family always knew we were different. It was something we revelled in, and it was accepted. We were communists, we were part of this bigger thing. Generally, we were happy with that difference. It made us feel good about ourselves.In many ways, we were ordinary, working-class people, but communism was always there – for instance, in the choices we made about what was seen on television, which was anything by the Unity Theatre, or anything from the Soviet Union. I was allowed to buy British comics, but not American ones. But it wasn't like being Amish.Molly, my mother, is 95 this year. We are friends. It's a complicated relationship, but we're very close. She's difficult, particularly with me – she gets too wound up and invests an awful lot in me. But I love her – she's my mother. She's adored by people – the ones that adore her really think she's wonderful.Was she a good mother? In some ways, yes. She was very good about nutrition, putting money aside for me and making sure I got an education. And I was adored, always told I was special. But there was also the shouting and screaming; it could be unsettling. And sometimes, the fact that she wasn't like anyone made you want to swap her for someone else. When I was a teenager, it used to really shock people when they'd see Molly and me in the pub, telling each other to fuck off.Joe, my father, was very genial, and people loved him. He started to get ill when I was young, and in a way, he's a mystery to me. His life before Molly is mysterious because he was quite old when he met her. Later, it was either Alzheimer's disease or a series of strokes, and it was spread over a long time. Seeing him disintegrate was never discussed, but it was very traumatic, and I do very much regret that I didn't know him. I was very confused – from about 14, I was never in the house because it was too painful. He died in 1983. He used to come to see me in shows. ... Fri, 27 Aug 2010 23:05:19 +0100 866306 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/4i3ebi_Y-JQ/ Video and computer games share a bit of an odd similarity to books and e-books. Like books, they can be an example of intellectual property encapsulated in an object, which can be bought and sold new or used—but like e-books, they can also be delivered purely digitally, and equipped with restrictive DRM. And as with both, there’s some controversy surrounding the idea of used sales. While many print book publishers look at the sale of used books and gnash their teeth, they are largely powerless to do anything about them. The First Sale Doctrine states that it’s perfectly legal for people to resell the media they buy, after all. Some publishers might make noises about forcing used book dealers to pay royalties on titles they resell, but it would take an act of Congress to mandate something like that, and it doesn’t look like it’s in the cards. On the other hand, just as e-book publishers are able to connive their way around the Fair Use doctrine by putting DRM on their titles and making it illegal to break the DRM, video and computer game developers actually can make buying used titles less attractive—at least, titles that have an on-line play component, interoperability with other games, or some other function that the publishers can block. All they have to do is include a single-use code with each new version of a game that won’t work for someone who buys it used, and in one fell swoop they remove a lot of the value inherent in the price savings on the used game. (Of course, this also blocks pirated versions of the game, but piracy would have happened anyway—it’s the used resale market that they’re squarely aiming at.) Used Computer Games: Cheat or Helper? The controversy over used video games has sprung up anew as game developer THQ’s creative director for wrestling games said in an interview that used games “cheat” developers (by way of explaining why THQ’s latest wrestling game includes such a single-use code). ... Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:15:00 +0100 865830 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/aug/26/scott-pilgrim-vs-the-world-review Michael Cera is the star of the graphic novel series in Edgar Wright's witty and stylish big-screen transfer. By Peter BradshawEdgar Wright takes the ache out of "achingly cool" with his entertaining, hyperactive gamer-geek comedy Scott Pilgrim Vs the World, set in freezing cold Toronto and based on the graphic novel series by Bryan Lee O'Malley. Despite riffing on some apparently emotional themes – male romantic status-anxiety is brought interestingly into parallel with Canada's cultural cringe to the United States – Wright insists on nothing more than comedy and the spectacle of pastiche, an entertainment of Seinfeldian inconsequence. The movie has been attacked in some quarters for lack of heart, and for an alleged lack of box office nous in pitching to a demographic that favours illegal downloads over ticket-buying. I can only say that where some see shallowness, I saw a witty interplay of surfaces and style.Our hero is Scott Pilgrim, bassist in the crashingly loud local band Sex Bob-omb and keen player of video games, activities that encompass the sum total of his cultural life. An interest in literature surfaces briefly when he realises that the love of his life has a job making special deliveries for Amazon, and so orders a book – the title of which is irrelevant and unmentioned. Scott is played by Michael Cera, perhaps the most sexually unthreatening male in the history of cinema, with a gentle, moonish face that makes him look like an early-60s Beatle. Scott and his band are not slackers, exactly: Wright shows them industriously rehearsing and worrying about their romantic and musical careers, but they are so utterly unworried about earning a living that they could as well be in college or even high school.Scott has a love life that, though notionally filled with angst, is actually beyond the wildest dreams of most real-life saddos and geeks. ... Thu, 26 Aug 2010 10:52:31 +0100 865462 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/audio/2010/aug/26/girl-played-fire-daniel-alfredson This week Jason meets Swedish director Daniel Alfredson, the man who took on the task of transferring Stieg Larsson's hugely successful Millennium crime trilogy to the big screen. Ahead of Friday's release of The Girl Who Played With Fire, Alfredson discusses the dark side of Swedish culture that feeds both the novels and his films and tells us what his brother Tomas is up to after directing vampire smash Let The Right One In.We also have an extract from Jason's In The Director's Chair interview with the director of Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, Edgar Wright, in which he discusses his Xbox aesthetics and love of arthouse.Xan Brooks pops in to review some of this week's releases including Adam Sandler and Chris Rock in Grown Ups, and edgy crime drama Dog Pound.All this, plus the chance to win one of five Lisbeth Salander-style T-shirts.Jason SolomonsJason PhippsXan Brooks (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Thu, 26 Aug 2010 09:23:00 +0100 865464 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/aug/25/edgar-wright-scott-pilgrim Jason Solomons talks to the director of comic book adaptation Scott Pilgrim Vs The World about his journey from UK TV to US success and 'selling out' with cop comedy Hot FuzzJason SolomonsHenry BarnesElliot Smith (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:53:46 +0100 865473 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2010/08/cfp-sequential-art-graphic-novels-and.html CFP: Sequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in EducationSequential Art, Graphic Novels, and Comics in EducationEdited by Robert G. Weiner and Carrye Syma, Texas Tech University Library (Publisher: McFarland)In recent years the use of graphic novels, comics, and sequential art in education has exploded. This is due not only to the boom in superhero movies that are based on comic book characters, but also to the wide literary range that graphic novels now have. There are now literally hundreds of college and university courses all over the world that are using graphic novels in their curriculum. The days when comics were just seen as children’s trash, with no redeeming literary or educational value, are hopefully behind us.Contrary to the idea that comics “dumb” down material, it takes both sides of the brain to read and interpret sequential art stories: the right side to interpret the pictures and the left side to understand the narrative text. Our goal with this collection is to provide the educator and scholar with a collection of essays that show how graphic novels and comics are being used in the classroom today, as well as some historical pieces that detail how the educational fields often have and have had a “rocky” relationship with the use of comics in educational settings. We want both theoretical and practical essays showing how sequential art can be and is being used to teach and illustrate concepts and ideas. We are especially keen on pieces related to higher education, military and government uses of comics to educate, but all aspects of comics and education are under consideration. In addition, we would like to have educators from a wide spectrum of the educational fields from K-12, to undergraduate and graduate educational levels. Those using sequential art in adult education and pre-school are encouraged. Some possible questions/ideas that could be addressed include:The Military’s use of comics to teach. ... Wed, 25 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 866347 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoblinCartoons/~3/v1dhb5sYQVA/ Walking into the theater to see Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, there were many reasons why I could be disappointed. I love the graphic novels the movie is adapted from, and most movie adaptations fall short (to put it nicely) of the source material. I loved Michael Cera in Arrested Development and I’ve liked him in the movies I’ve seen him in since, but he was starting to look like a one-note actor, playing the same character over and over. And I’d heard some many rave comments about Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, could it really live up to all the hype? It really lived up to all the hype. Every actor was perfect in his or her role, including Michael Cera, who didn’t play his usual stuttering, mumbling character, he played Scott Pilgrim–insecure, sarcastic, sweet, self-involved and more than a little clueless at times. The plot, which left out some scenes and plot lines that are in the much longer graphic novel series, flowed nicely. The dialogue was great, the special effects were brilliant, the music was perfect and there were several really wonderful touches that made the movie unique. It’s fun, it’s funny, it’s exciting and it’s moving. I had a huge smile on face throughout the film. Walking out of the theater, I was not disappointed at all. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is absolutely fantastic! I love it! LOVE! IT! Scott Pilgrim vs. the World gets the high score. (Source: the goblin in the library) Tue, 24 Aug 2010 23:39:59 +0100 864892 http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/journal-of-graphic-novels-and-comics.html New from Routledge is the biannual Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics - "covering all apspects of the graphic novel, comic strip and comic book, with an emphasis on comics in their cultural, institutional and creative contexts." The first issue is available free online. (Source: NewPages Blog) Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 866559 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/08/19/yummy/ Yummy: the Last Days of a Southside Shorty by G. Neri, illustrated by Randy DuBurke This graphic novel tells the true story of Robert “Yummy” Sandifer.  In 1994, Yummy, called that because of his sweet tooth, fired a gun into a crowd of rival gang members.  He ended up killing a bystander, a teen girl.  Yummy was just 11 years old when this happened.   The story is told from the point of view of Roger, another boy who knew Yummy from school and the neighborhood.  Roger tries to make sense of Yummy and how he became a gang member and killer.  This is made even more tangible to Roger because his own brother is in the same gang as Yummy.  Throughout this book, deep questions are asked and explored. Neri’s text creates a great platform to understand the gang wars of the 1990s and the dynamic of southside Chicago.  Though the bulk of the book is from Roger’s point of view, the reader also gets to see what Yummy is going through as he hides from police and is eventually killed by his own gang.  There is a real restraint in the writing that allows the drama of the tale itself to take center stage.  DuBurke’s illustrations done in black and white are a study in light and dark.  Faces change as the light changes on them, becoming sinister and strange.  The images are dynamic and underline the youth of Yummy and the transition from bully to killer.  A beautifully crafted graphic novel dealing in brutal subjects, this book is an important exploration of gang warfare.  It is also an even more important look at childhood.  Appropriate for ages 12-14. Reviewed from copy received from Lee & Low Books. Also reviewed by: TheHappyNappyBookseller Linus’s Blanket A Patchwork of Books Reading in Color (Source: Kids Lit) Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 868353 http://santafelibrary.blogspot.com/2010/08/anime-at-main-library.html Are you interested in Anime and want to hang out with other fans? Check out the Main Library Anime Club! It meets the 1st & 2nd Thursday of each month, from 4:15-5:15 pm. Each month features a different film and tasty snacks. The next film, Tenchi Muyo GXP, will be shown on September 3rd and 10th.Anime is a style of Japanese animation. It's similar to the popular manga comics. Whether you've been an Anime fan for years or just getting started, you're welcome to just drop by, watch some anime, and help choose the movie for the following months!Anime Club is free, open to teens ages 13-18, and no registration is required.The Main Library is located at 145 Washington Avenue.For more information, call 955-6783. (Source: ICARUS... the Santa Fe Public Library Blog) Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864780 http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/new/index.php/2010/08/18/study-says-comics-are-key-to-promoting-literacy-in-boys/ A new study says that comics and graphic novels may hold the secret to promoting literacy in young boys.  The Canadian Council on Learning (CCL) finds that girls are generally more inclined to read than boys, because boys’ literary interests are not well represented at school. According to the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Development and Co-Operation (OECD), comics are the second most popular reading choice for boys after newspapers and magazines.  Comics help develop many of the same literacy skills as books, such as how to follow a sequence of events; connect narratives to the reader’s own experiences, predict what will happen next, and interpret symbols. Embracing comics and graphic novels as teaching and learning tools helps to promote improved literacy among young males.  The Madison Public Library has lots of great comics available to check out with a library card, including well-loved titles like Amazing Spider-Man, Archie and Looney Tunes. The complete article is available from School Library Journal. (Source: What's New) Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:08:56 +0100 865607 http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/08/lynd-ward-six-novels-in-woodcuts-boxed.html The Library of America will release a 2 volume boxed set featuring the six woodcut novels of Lynd Ward. These are among the first novels without words. Ward is considered by many as one of the founders of the American graphic novel.Via Book Patrol. (Source: The Centered Librarian) Tue, 17 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 866636 http://poesygalore.blogspot.com/2010/08/mockingjay-instantly.html I asked for and received a Nook for my birthday, in large part because the library system I work for started offering ebooks for dedicated devices last month and I'm increasingly feeling the need (and desire) to have a hands-on familiarity with the formats we offer and the devices they work with so I can explain the ins and outs to patrons (Whew). I hadn't yet felt the need for a dedicated ereader for purely personal use--I have an iPod Touch and find reading ebooks on it comfortable enough.When I mention the Nook the others, the first question I get is, "Why not a Kindle?" Two main reasons: one, the library's ebooks--most libraries' ebooks--all libraries' ebooks?--aren't compatible with the Kindle. Amazon has chosen to make a device incompatible with ePub, the most popular--and closest thing to an early "universal"--ebook format. This is tough at work, when eager new Kindle owners come up to the information desk asking how to check out library ebooks to read on their Kindles. We post a list of compatible devices, but most folks don't check that before purchasing an ereader (and many have received Kindles as gifts). Amazon has made the Kindle a pretty inconvenient and unfortunate device for most libraries (though some libraries actually purchase Kindles to loan out), at least for the time being. It doesn't endear me to the Kindle--though I have no problems with the device itself. More importantly, I still haven't been able to get over Amazon's handling of last summer's Orwell fiasco. I have no idea if Barnes & Noble would've handled it better; I just know how Amazon handled it. Terribly.I'm not sure how long the dedicated ereader will last (as opposed to a device like the iPad). The Nook takes a while to start up (a minute or so), and a second or so to load a new page at every page turn. ... Sat, 14 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 866258 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogs/distlib/~3/ltYNyBfXEzU/mark-leggott-vs-the-world.html The title is an homage to the soon-to-be-released movie based on the Canadian Scott Pilgrim comic book series, which you should read. So Mark Leggott, University Librarian at the University of Prince Edward Island, is making some waves in  the mainstream press.  In the Toronto Star: Canadian librarian leads worldwide digital revolt for free knowledge. On the CBC: University to bypass expensive database. Earlier in the Chronicle of Higher Education: Hot Type: Canadian University Hopes to Lead Fight Against High Subscription Prices. An important clarification on that article from the Canadian Research Knowledge Network: Open Letter to the Chronicle of Higher Education (PDF) and in his own words: UPEI, Web of Science and Knowledge for All. It's really nice to see so many of the commenters on these posts seeming to at least partially understand the issues and agree with the approach. In a nutshell, Mark is fed up with constant price increases for research databases, and has dropped one of the biggies, Web of Science, from the list of databases to which his university subscribes.  Instead, he and Amanda Stevens (I don't know her) have proposed the Knowledge for all Project, which audaciously proposes "to engage the international academic library community to collectively create a universal citation index to all of the world's past and current scholarly journal literature.  The tool will be accessible to all via the web and will be called Knowledge for All." Mark's actually got a positive track record with big shifts like this.  In 2008 he dropped the commercial Sirsi Unicorn Integrated Library Service (ILS) like a hot potato in favour of open source alternative Evergreen. It'll be interesting to see how it progresses.  Off to quiz our licensing librarian on the issue... (Source: The Distant Librarian) Wed, 11 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864908 http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-librarians-who-may-or-not-read-and.html This post is sort of a response to the post by Liz B. from A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Cozy entitled "Readers' Advisory?"  The post made me think again of a few things I have been pondering lately about RA and librarians who may or not read.  * * * *When it comes to reading and readers' advisory work, there are two things that can make me cringe.One is the tendency of a lot of librarians in academia to not read or denigrate those who do. I have been in enough job interviews, on both sides of the table, to see this consistent reaction. It usually goes something like this: a candidate expresses that a reason she went into librarianship is because she likes to read. Those interviewing see the answer as less than substantial. I will grant that, unlike public librarians, academics tend to seek more specific traits in academic librarian candidates (collegiality, specific subject area knowledge for liaison work, teaching ability, ability and/or desire to publish, especially applicable to tenure lines), but somehow, to me at least, looking down on someone because they like to read is not right. The response I usually hear is that anyone saying they like to read is like someone saying they like puppies. I mean, you can't be against puppies, so same idea. The enjoyment of reading is either seen as a simplistic answer or as a stock answer, i.e. the answer you give when you don't have anything more original or substantial to say. I have found that you get a more positive experience if you get a candidate talking about some of the things they like to read, even if you do it during a lunch break or other more informal moment during the interview process (a note for any non-academic readers: interview process for an academic librarian, much like for faculty, can be an all day affair. Having a meal at some point is very common and  often used as an informal way to measure a candidate and viceversa). ... Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:21:00 +0100 866513 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TravelinLibrarian/~3/EUTEEiHsKhk/ By poesygalore | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon (Source: Travelin' Librarian) Mon, 09 Aug 2010 13:49:27 +0100 867769 http://www.librarymonk.com/2010/08/from-dan-on-twitter-this-week-68/ I can finally write The Great American Novel http://anthologize.org/ # Christopher Nolan got the idea for Inception from a Scrooge McDuck comic http://bit.ly/awiUGV # Waving goodbye to Google Wave http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/update-on-google-wave.html # Powered by Twitter Tools (Source: Library Monk - the blog of Dan Greene) Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:16:00 +0100 867996 http://www.libology.com/blog/2010/08/06/chickens-in-the-library.html So, what would you do if live chickens were released in your library?  Is this covered in your organization’s disaster plan? If you need to examine another library’s response, review this Shelf Check comic for the following procedure: Alert the employee at the desk. Desk employee:  ask follow up questions to determine the nature of the emergency. Examine the available evidence to properly classify the problem. Keep your sense of humor about you at all times. Explore external sources of assistance. Go with the flow, because we all have “other duties as assigned”. (and be sure to read the information provided beneath the comic…) (Source: LibrarySupportStaff.Org) Fri, 06 Aug 2010 18:31:43 +0100 867182 http://engagedpatrons.org/Blogs.cfm?SiteID=4725&BlogID=61&BlogPostID=7336 This graphic novel is a sequel to Rapunzel's Revenge. Jack, from the familiar "Jack and the Beanstalk" fairytale, stars in this story starting with the tiny bean that begins all his misfortunes. Set in a much more current time and place, Jack's intentions are always to help his mother and to make her proud. Unfortunately, Jack is laden with bad luck, and being somewhat of a rebel-rouser, must escape from a band of angry giants to the American west where he meets up and becomes quickly enamored with Rapunzel (Rapunzel's Revenge happens at this point). It seems her braids come in very handy in what turns into an action-packed adventure where Jack attempts to redeem himself and save his mother back in his home city of Shyport. The large format with expressive, vibrant artwork will appeal to fans of the format in grades 4-8. Fractured fairy tale lovers will also appreciate the humor and witty dialogue. (Source: Children's Books from Wright Memorial Public Library) Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:20:02 +0100 864606 http://engagedpatrons.org/Blogs.cfm?SiteID=4725&BlogID=41&BlogPostID=7363 Set in Nova Scotia, this graphic novel tells two stories. One is set in 1859, the other in 2009, but both concern the same small town, and both focus on teen girls who are distant relatives. In 1859, Josey meets the mysterious Asa Curry, a handsome stranger who says he has found gold on their land and arranges a business deal with her father.  Josey is attracted to Asa, but her parents discourage the relationship, which makes it even more enticing for Josey. In 2009, Tara is living with her cousin and returning to high school after two years of homeschooling. Her home has recently burned down, and her mother is working far away. In the first days of school, she is mistaken for one of the boys at school, Ben. Through track, Tara and Ben become acquainted, and eventually begin to date. The two stories are linked through a mysterious necklace, as well as through their complimentary themes of identity and first romance. Toward the end, the novel transitions from the real world into a fantasy one. The illustrations are clear, making it easy to distinguish the characters and the two time periods. I highly recommend this Eisner Award winner for readers age 13 through adult. (Source: Teen Scene from Wright Memorial Public Library) Thu, 05 Aug 2010 00:00:02 +0100 864602 http://wheelockcollegelibrary.blogspot.com/2010/08/waste-time-intelligently-with-sporcle.html Got some time to kill? Check out Sporcle!What is Sporcle, besides a word that your spellchecker will always underline in red? Glad you asked!Sporcle is a website that is pure trivia. It challenges your knowledge of various subjects, both common and abstract, with questions and subjects ranging from "Can you name these 90's TV Show theme songs?" to "Can you name the top 100 Comic Book Villains of All Time?" to "Can you name the United States Presidents?" to "Can you name the characters of Family Guy?" Sporcle is guaranteed fun for people of all ages and is a sure way to turn that "wasted" time to something a little more productive!-Sherard RobbinsLibrary Assistant (Source: Wheelock College Library) Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864605 /2010-8-4/SDCC_2010 by Gene ( link (Source: Unshelved) Wed, 04 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864511 http://www.tangognat.com/2010/08/03/books-read-july-2010/ I usually read more books than this! I kept picking up books and putting them down without finishing them after I finished the third book in the Millennium Trilogy. Books Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest Manga and Graphic Novels Stolen Hearts 2 Butterflies, Flowers 3 Night Head Genesis #1 Goong: The Royal Palace 1-4 [...] (Source: TangognaT) Tue, 03 Aug 2010 16:11:55 +0100 864308 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/aug/03/comedy-crime-capers The exhortation to 'write what you know' stops us finding the mirth in misdemeanours. Write what you like instead, urges Richard AsplinHere's a bizarre turn-up, as my tailor likes to say. Not seven weeks after crime novelist and macabre chuckle-vendor Colin Bateman went on record to say on this very site, how "the Crime Writers' Association Dagger awards shortlist is not noticeably troubled by anything likely to put a smile on your face" then, slap my deerstalker and call me Marple, my comic-crime-confidence-caper Conman gets a nomination. There it sits, squirming and giggling and fidgeting like an adolescent among the grown-up company of James Lee Burke and George Pelecanos. And yes, perhaps Conman may see itself told off for farting and flicking bogies come the final. But there it is, beaming like a gate-crashing twit with a whoopee cushion.But why should it feel like such a literary gatecrasher? From Chaucer to Wodehouse to Waugh, the English sense of humour has always proudly been held dear and adored. As a nation we love to laugh and take great pleasure in wordplay, waggery and wit.Well perhaps this is part of the problem.I was chatting this evening to a caper-phobe in the pub and we agreed that frankly, as genres go, the hilarious heist is like religion, tailfins and questionable foreign policy – the Americans do it best. Hiaasen, Evanovich, Block and the wonderful Kinky Friedman are all across the pond in the USA, mixing larceny and laughs to huge success. And this was this fellow's problem. The Americans do it, he said, the Brits by and large, don't. So any comic-crime novel he picks up is likely to have an American sense of humour, rather than that oh-so-beloved English one he craves.Not true of other genres of course. Fantasy, sci-fi, history, travelogues – all have fine English writers taking potshots at cliché and convention. ... Tue, 03 Aug 2010 10:36:35 +0100 864176 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Valis/~3/qX3tLEUvxXE/ Jeff Tweedy (Wilco): The Union Chapel, Islington: 30 June 2010 One day, all concerts will be like this. A beautiful, intimate venue; a respectful, enthusiastic and knowledgeable crowd; and a singer who is only metres from the crowd, and engages in plenty of banter and discussion. It might be too much to ask that every gig is also preceded by the singer’s spouse and young children walking through the crowd, writing down requests – but let’s ask for that anyway. If Jeff can do it, I’m sure other artists can as well. Now I’m a big Wilco fan, have seen them nine times in four or five different countries. But anyone who follows their shows will know that they’ve tended to become a bit samey (though the recent 38 or 39 song shows they’ve played in the US have been more interesting – but not something duplicated outside of the US unfortunately). And they tend to lean heavily on the newer material – with only 5 or 6 songs from Summerteeth or earlier appearing in the set. That’s understandable, especially as most of the band joined during Yankee or afterwards. But still, I’d much rather hear some of the earlier stuff that I’ve never heard before than another run through of I Am Trying to Break Your Heart or Handshake Drugs. So I was looking forward to seeing Tweedy solo, mainly because he was more likely to dig up the older Wilco stuff. And I wasn’t disappointed: he started with Someone Else’s Song (last heard on my birthday at the Forum, performed without amplification), and it was great. Of course. Jeff dug out some other early classics (Remember the Mountain Bed, Someday Some Morning Sometime and California Stars among them, as well as a few Uncle Tupelo songs). ... Tue, 03 Aug 2010 08:08:52 +0100 867374 http://www.madisonpubliclibrary.org/madreads/index.php/2010/08/02/hot-graphic-novels/ Librarian Kathy recently commented on MADreads about the second annual Hottest Graphic Novels of Summer list from GraphicNovelReporter.com.  I appreciate a nice list like this and am always looking for graphic novel guidance and recommendations, so I am slowly making my way through it. Some background about my graphic novel tastes: I prefer them ridiculously girly and colorful.  The now defunct DC Comics imprint Minx was the best.  The Babymouse series?  I adore the cleverly cute pinkiness.  For stories with a message, I lean towards the strong, arty girls with a fight to fight, like those written by Hope Larson or Marjane Satrapi. I am discovering that while I love some of the books on this list of Hot Graphic Novels, others are really not my cup o’ tea.  And some I never would have read if they weren’t on a list and I’m glad I did. Here’s the twitterized version of what I have to say about: Artichoke Tales by Megan Kelso - story of civil unrest in the land of forks and ladles where people have artichoke leaves instead of hair.  Mature themes. Billy Hazelnuts and the Crazy Bird by Tony Millionaire -  silly story of a gingerbread hero trying to get an owlet back to its mother.  Some slapstick violence à la Tom and Jerry.  OK for kid readers. Ghostopolis by Doug TenNapel - boy ghost wrangler with special powers.  Very exciting visually and action-wise.  I don’t normally choose boy books, but I liked this.  Great for kid readers. How I Made It to Eighteen:  A Mostly True Story by Tracy White - this is just my thing.  Tortured seventeen-year-old artist girl recounts her stay in a mental hospital and how she found happiness.  Mature themes, OK for young adults. Neil Young’s Greendale by Josh Dysart - based on Neil Young’s 2003 concept album.  Set in California.  A family of witchy women fight for the environment while the world wars over oil.  Pleasantly surprised by this one. ... Mon, 02 Aug 2010 18:58:24 +0100 864125 http://www.newrambler.net/lisdom/409 The invaluable Swiss Army Librarian posted some Notes on Reading Resumes a few weeks back. At my library, I am also on a committee that is evaluating 40+ applications for a single position. Some of them are very good. Some of them are very bad. Many of them need. . . help. And so in the interests of providing some of that, I thought I’d make a few notes of my own. File format does matter. Like Brian, I think PDF is the best choice you can make at present, as it will be sure to preserve your typography and spacing and such, and it’s fairly standard. If you have Microsoft Word 2007, you can save any document as a PDF. If you don’t have Word, and don’t have money, Open Office is free and will let you do the same thing. We got one letter that came as a text file, without about two words per line. It was so unreadable that I’m not sure anyone on the committee took it seriously. I am biased toward people with some kind of web presence. No, I don’t think it’s a requirement, but it is an excellent way to demonstrate your fluency with technology and to show off any nifty work you’ve done — tutorials, pamphlets, reading lists, videos, whatever — that doesn’t necessarily fit well into a standard letter/resume. Again, it’s not necessary to have money to do this — I’ve seen some excellent portfolios that used Google Pages, Weebly, or wordpress.com, among others. Appearances matter. Be consistent in your formatting, and use standard (or at least semi-standard — as Brian notes, doing a little bit of spiffy design work is a good way to show off your computer aptitude) professional typefaces. Comic Sans on a resume just does not inspire me to take you very seriously. When applicable, say something in your letter about why you want to move to the place where the job is as well as why you want the job itself. ... Mon, 02 Aug 2010 16:11:58 +0100 865994 http://cmrlslibrarynews.blogspot.com/2010/08/get-smartest-card.html Does the student in your life have a Library card? Start their school year off right with the best school supply you can get, the smartest card - a CMRLS Library Card. It's FREE, and it gives your student access to over 360,000 items in 20 Libraries, all with computers and Internet access. The staff at each Library will help your student find just what they need for their projects and assignments. We want to help you and your student have a successful school year!It's not all about homework, either; there are video games, DVDs, book MP3s and music CDs, graphic novels, programs...and so much more at CMRLS Libraries! If your student doesn't have a Library card, get them one now! Start the school year off with the SMARTEST CARD, a CMRLS Library Card! Let the Libraries help make this a successful school year, for you and your student! (Source: CMRLS News) Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 868261 /2010-8-2/RH_Graphic_Novels by Bill ( link (Source: Unshelved) Mon, 02 Aug 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864077 http://www.librarymonk.com/2010/08/from-dan-on-twitter-this-week-67/ Apple now makes everything http://www.apple.com/battery-charger/ # so very wrong… http://www.boingboing.net/2010/07/27/sniper-jesus.html wait what's this little red dot? *thunkkkkkkkkkk # groan… http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/tennessee-official-says-islam-may-be-a-cult/?hp # Sad but true comic now has a place of honor on my office wall. http://xkcd.com/773/ # Powered by Twitter Tools (Source: Library Monk - the blog of Dan Greene) Sun, 01 Aug 2010 16:16:00 +0100 867998 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/4ersk8SaHDM/ The Kindle 3 was released to much Amazon fanfare late last week; in the sea of iPad and general tablet news at the moment I wonder how many people have even noticed. My girlfriend didn’t know what a Kindle was until tonight, and I really don’t know how this has happened. I can only assume that I’ve been right every time I thought she wasn’t really listening to me. She’s been mocking my iPad cravings for a little while now (I maintain it’s not iPad-lust (iLust?), but borderline-usable-tablet-lust, it’s just I happen to think that that’s a very narrow category right now), but she’s the kind of person that Amazon must hate, because she’d probably rather like a Kindle if she knew what it was and what it could do. See, she’s a neuropsychologist and reads almost everything as a sea of .pdf articles, but hates being tied to reading at her desk. She also reads a lot of popular, modern classic, and classic novels. This seems like a person for whom a Kindle would seem a natural fit: native pdf support with highlighting and annotating, easy on the eye, portable, a store full of books she’d probably enjoy; there’s a lot to love for the scientist in your life. And yet, and yet…nothing. She’s probably an unfair test subject, I thought, because, well, we’re students. At £150 I couldn’t buy her a Kindle if I wanted to eat; she wouldn’t buy herself a Kindle (she’s funded which makes it a choice, at least, if still an obvious one); and very few of our friends are in a position to indulge themselves either. If we don’t listen to the advertising then the device ceases to exist, as became apparent during our conversation. ... Sun, 01 Aug 2010 12:20:21 +0100 863892 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/01/how-escaped-certain-fate-stewart-lee One of Britain's most trenchant comics offers a fascinating insight into creating comedyStewart Lee is the most enigmatic of comedians: a thoughtful, softly spoken man who somehow managed to become a hate figure for the 65,000 people who complained to the BBC about his musical, Jerry Springer: The Opera. And they didn't just complain, they complained in advance, anticipating their inevitable fury and disapproval, and making it known before the show was broadcast, presumably fearful of being so appalled by the musical that they would subsequently lose the ability to type. It's that very fear that has always held me back from watching Mamma Mia.But although Lee is notorious for this debacle, he is also renowned for being one of the best comedians alive. His slow, measured voice, his sulky, hectoring manner, and his relentlessly logical fury make him a compelling stand-up. In an industry where blandness is often rewarded above all else, Stewart Lee is an oasis of intellect and originality. He is unlikely to appear at the Royal Variety Performance any time soon (unless the Queen expresses an interest in material about the professional ethics of Joe Pasquale), and nor should he. It may be bad for his bank balance, but Lee's audience see him as the king of counter-culture. If he sold out, became smiley and easygoing, their sad hearts would surely break.How I Escaped My Certain Fate: The Life and Deaths of a Stand-up Comedian will be required reading for comedy fans. Among other things, the book contains the transcripts of three of his critically acclaimed shows, heavily annotated as Lee explains how he chose a particular joke, or how this section was improvised differently each night, or why this line needs to be in this spot to prepare the audience for the next section. He is analytical, critical and perfectly willing to say when he finds himself proud of something he wrote, or occasionally ashamed. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:14:52 +0100 863666 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/aug/01/stewart-lee-collecting-comics-stand-up What happens to a man who compulsively collects comics, books, records and CDs? He becomes very good at building shelves… Comedian Stewart Lee on the challenges and hazards of extreme storageWhat are days for?" asks the curmudgeonly poet Philip Larkin in his poem Days, questioning the very point of living. He is unable to offer any real comfort, concluding: "Ah, solving that question/brings the priest and the doctor/in their long coats/running over the fields." For Larkin the idea of days, and what to do with them, represents the problem of existence boiled down to its barest essentials. I have a similar relationship with shelves.I love shelves, and if only I could work out exactly which of the many books, comics, records and compact discs that I own I should fill them with, and how many shelves I require to do this, I have always imagined my life would be complete. At the age of 43, I am finally in a solid-looking house, with my solid-looking family, where I imagine, uncharacteristically, I will stay for some time. I am well on the way, through my own efforts and those of contracted shelving professionals, to having the shelving system I have dreamed of since childhood, most of it concealed in nooks, cellars and the designated shelf room, so as not to destroy the internal integrity of our long-dreamed-of living space. But even as the shelves approach their final configuration, it seems the same doubts and fears about life and its purpose linger on, as if the answer to everything did not lie in the construction of shelving systems after all. I wonder where this profound faith in shelving began.When I was about five years old, I bought a copy of an American comic book called Captain Marvel off the lower rung of a revolving rack of True Detective, soft porn and pulpy thriller magazines, in a newsagent on the A34 just outside Birmingham. I was snagged. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:07:52 +0100 863668 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/lydia-davis-interview-reaction-proust Lydia Davis is famous for writing short pieces that are sometimes only a sentence long. Here she explains why that doesn't stop them being storiesLydia Davis is an American short story writer whose work redefines the meaning of brevity. While a few of her stories are of a conventional length, most range from one to three pages, and many are shorter still, occupying as little as a paragraph or a sentence. Here, for example, is one of Davis's better-known but least voluminous works, "A Double Negative":At a certain point in her life, she realizes it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.And here, from her 2007 collection, Varieties of Disturbance, is "Idea for a Short Documentary Film":Representatives of different food product manufacturers try to open their own packaging. As these examples suggest, Davis's stories often appear to be little more than snapshots of thought, records of fleeting amusement, bafflement or illumination. Lacking, as they do, much of what we expect from a story – a setting, sustained narrative, characters with names – it's tempting to doubt whether "story" is even the right word for them. Wouldn't some other term, such as philosophical reflection or prose poem, be more suitable?When I ask Davis this – she is speaking from her home in upstate New York – she explains that while she can see why her work attracts a variety of labels, she is happy to stick with "story". "When I first began writing seriously, I wrote short stories, and that was where I thought I was headed. Then the stories evolved and changed, but it would have become a bother to say every time, 'I guess what I have just written is a prose poem, or a meditation', and I would have felt very constrained by trying to label each individual work, so it was simply easier to call everything stories. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:06:06 +0100 863670 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/emily-gould-meghan-daum-confessional Candace Bushnell's Sex and the City columns inspired some dire chick lit, but also a generation of more serious young writersEmily Gould still finds it irritating when she gets stuck behind a group of women walking four abreast along a New York pavement, intent on imitating the infamous Sex and the City line-up. "Really, two of you should walk behind and allow other people to walk past," Gould says with a groan. "It's one of many things that upsets me about Candace Bushnell."But for all that she might get annoyed by those high-heeled women on the sidewalk, without Sex and the City, there would arguably have been no Emily Gould. The 28-year-old has just published her first confessional memoir, And The Heart Says Whatever. In 11 pithily written essays, Gould, a former co-editor of the Gawker gossip website, charts her experiences as a young adult in New York, working in jobs she loathes, facing up to failed relationships and going to parties attended by people she dislikes. Her debut has already attracted praise from the likes of Jonathan Franzen, while Curtis Sittenfeld, the author of American Wife, has hailed it as a modern-day version of The Bell Jar. Gould is one of a new generation of female confessional writers who, according to Sittenfeld, "speak, in our often phoney and cheesy culture, to the truths of women's lives".Before Candace Bushnell, books like Gould's that sought to capture the dilemmas and dichotomies of modern womanhood with a wry, humorous honesty, were almost unheard of. For decades, the experiences of ordinary women had been largely overlooked by the literary world: either it was recounted in fictional terms (as in Mary McCarthy's The Group) or it was relayed anonymously by feminist polemicists and social historians (Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique). Bushnell changed all that. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:06:04 +0100 863671 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/experimental-fiction-bs-johnson-skidelsky William Skidelsky looks at the resurgence of literary experimentation, and the writers on radical form● Tom McCarthy talks about his writing ● Lydia Davis interviewA couple of years ago, Zadie Smith wrote an essay in the New York Review of Books comparing Tom McCarthy's Remainder (see below) with Joseph O'Neill's acclaimed novel about cricket in post-9/11 New York, Netherland. As the essay's title – "Two Paths for the Novel" – suggested, Smith saw the two books as exemplifying competing strands within western literature: Netherland was a "lyrical realist" novel in the mould of Balzac and Flaubert, while Remainder was heir to the works of 20th-century experimentalists ranging from Joyce and Kafka to Donald Barthelme and William Gaddis.In healthy times, Smith said, these two traditions – the realist and the avant garde – would comfortably co-exist. But "these aren't particularly healthy times", and one reason for this is that the experimentalist tradition has been "relegated to a safe corner of literary history", dismissed as a "fascinating failure". As Smith put it: "A breed of lyrical realism has had the freedom of the highway for some time now, with most other exits blocked." In order for our literary culture to rebalance itself, she suggested, more writers need to follow McCarthy in attempting novels that set out to challenge the dominant realist mode.Whether or not one agrees with her assessment of Netherland and Remainder, it's hard to quibble with Smith's contention that avant-garde fiction, at least in Britain and America, isn't flourishing. For many, the death of David Foster Wallace in 2008 represented the end point of a project that had become synonymous with obscurantism, pretentiousness and boredom. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:06:00 +0100 863672 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/nicholson-baker-the-anthologist-review Nicholson Baker's novel about a failed poet is a delightAs literary enticements go, spending the duration of a novel in the company of a washed-up poet with writer's block and girlfriend issues is not exactly a high-ranker. Two pages into Nicholson Baker's The Anthologist, the narrator tells us: "My life is a lie. My career is a joke. I'm a study in failure." He's been trying to write an introduction to his anthology of rhyming poetry for so long, his partner has left him in exasperation. The high-point of his career so far has been a series of well-received "flying spoon" poems. But now, as he settles into his 50s, his inspiration is drying up, as are his finances. The only thing not drying up is his daily intake of Newcastle Brown Ale.So why is The Anthologist such a delight? It's down to Baker's easygoing and effortlessly comic prose, and the affable charm his narrator emanates from the very first line: "Hello, this is Paul Chowder, and I'm going to try to tell you everything I know."This narrative, it turns out, is an elaborate strategy to avoid sitting down and writing the 40-page introduction and sending it off to his anxious publisher. Instead, Chowder takes us on a ramble around the poetic form, and into the neurotic mind of the professional poet. Along the way, he'll attempt to convince us that the adoption of the iambic pentameter into English-language verse was a big mistake, and that it's a crying shame so few poems have dared to rhyme since modernism crashed the party. He'll get all shivery over lines by Swinburne and Louise Bogan. He'll warn us about the perils of ultra-extreme enjambment.Chowder's personal history of poetry is of course a shambles. He keeps dropping his Sharpie whiteboard pen, and cutting his finger, and breaking off to update us on his ex-girlfriend Roz or his dog Smacko or the goings-on in his mellow New England neighbourhood. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:05:52 +0100 863678 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/aug/01/sex-british-novel-chatterley Fifty years after the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial gave novelists total freedom to explore love and lust, many are finding their sexual imaginations flaggingAndrew Motion, the former poet laureate, had the unenviable task of reading through 138 novels to help determine the longlist for this year's Booker prize, announced last week. Among his conclusions about the state of the British (and Commonwealth) novel was that no one was writing much about sex any more.He had a theory to explain this. "It's as if they were paranoid about being nominated for the Bad Sex Award," he said, referring to the Literary Review's annual giggle at the most purple description of carnality in the year's fiction. Motion, caricatured during his time in the laureateship as "Pelvic Motion" by the Daily Mail, noted with dismay that "there were a lot of people writing about taking drugs, as if that was a substitute for sex".Motion's remarks come almost exactly 50 years after the Lady Chatterley obscenity trial, covered for this newspaper by Kenneth Tynan, who characterised the celebrated battle for the authorial right to take up residence in the bedroom without the interference of the state as a battle between "life and death". Life was DH Lawrence's thrusting prose, death was the Macmillan government's case that such "filth" was not something "you would wish your wife, or servants to read".From the courtroom Tynan established the "crucial incident" of the trial in the following terms: "It occurred on the third morning during the testimony of Richard Hoggart," he observed, "who had called Lawrence's novel 'puritanical'. Mr Hoggart is a short, dark, young Midlands teacher of immense scholarship and fierce integrity. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:05:07 +0100 863679 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/30/booksforchildrenandteenagers Julia Eccleshare suggests fiction for all agesCave Baby, by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Emily Gravett (Macmillan, £10.99). Age: 2+An exuberant, rhyming text matched by equally lively illustrations makes this a romp of a bedtime story. Having wrecked the walls of his own cave by scribbling on them, the cheeky Cave Baby is threatened by his father with being fed to the big brown bear by the hairy mammoth, so when the hairy mammoth appears, Cave Baby fears the worst. Luckily, the hairy mammoth has other ideas about how to tame the wild baby via a happy moonlit interlude.Harry & Hopper, by Margaret Wild, illustrated by Freya Blackwood (Scholastic, £6.99). Age: 4+How a boy deals with grief when his dog dies is delicately and touchingly handled in this poignant picture book, which won a Kate Greenaway award for the illustrator. Harry's love for Hopper is absolute; when Hopper dies, Harry takes time to let him go. Freya Blackwood's energetic illustrations capture the vigour of their partnership and the pathos of the imaginary play that helps him gradually accept the dog's disappearance.Marvin Redpost: Super Fast, Out of Control! by Louis Sachar, illustrated by Amy Wummer (Bloomsbury, £4.99). Age: 7+Riding down Suicide Hill is the ultimate test of bravery, and once he's got his new bike, Marvin Redpost knows he is going to have to do it to prove he's a hero. How Marvin psychs himself up, and how his parents try both to support him in taking on the challenge, while discouraging him from feeling the need to do it in the first place, is delicately captured in this gripping and tightly written story.Iggy & Me on Holiday, by Jenny Valentine, illustrated by Joe Berger (HarperCollins, £4.99). Age 6+Amid so many books about children doing sometimes outrageous and often disgusting things, these fondly observed stories of the everyday and homely antics of Iggy, a much-loved younger sister, are a delight. Iggy is dreading the summer holidays. ... Sat, 31 Jul 2010 08:35:35 +0100 863599 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/31/shades-greene-jeremy-lewis-review Graham is famous, but what about the other Greenes? Ian Thomson investigatesGraham Greene's darkest entertainment, The Third Man, ends with a shoot-out in the sewers of Vienna and the death of the penicillin racketeer Harry Lime. A convert to Catholicism, Greene had found a suitable image for man's fallen state in the city's reeking underworld. And Lime, with his opportunist loyalties, is a familiar Greene character, whose surname suggests the quicklime in which murderers were said to be buried. One could see him as a fictional counterpart of the British double-agent Kim Philby, who had betrayed fellow spies to the Soviet Union. Philby had earlier helped communists to escape through the Vienna sewers in 1934; newspapers later dubbed him "the Third Man" (a soubriquet that has lost none of its resonance in the era of Peter Mandelson).Written in 1948 as a film treatment, The Third Man made much of east-west border tensions and, as such, reflected a personal anxiety of Greene's. Frontiers have a dynamism of their own in his fiction, and typically set off a reflex of unease. The novelist's father, Charles Greene, had been the pious Anglican headmaster of a public school in Berkhamsted near London, and each day Greene experienced divided loyalties as he left the family quarters to go to class. His literary gift, later, was to locate the moment of crisis when a character transgresses a border of some sort, whether geographical, religious or political, and life is exposed in all its drab wonder.Greene came from a family that guarded its secrets. His five brothers and sisters were all, in their different ways, involved in acts of subterfuge. The eldest brother Herbert was, in the words of Jeremy Lewis, a "shabby fantasist" who consorted with remittance men and confidence-tricksters. ... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:06:06 +0100 863511 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/31/venice-india-america-travel-audiobooks Sue Arnold's audiobook choiceVenice, by Jan Morris, read by Sebastian Comberti (13hrs unabridged, Naxos, £35)"I was in my 20s when I wrote this," says Morris in the introduction to her best known travel book, "and I like to think that its faults are the heady faults of youth." What faults? Fifty years on, it is still the best all-round guide to a city that, despite the ever-present hordes of tourists, remains the most magical destination on earth. Listening to this equally magical audio made me long to go back and check out all those less touristy bits that so enthralled young Morris – the alley too narrow for Browning to open his umbrella, the crypt allegedly containing Mary Magdalen's finger, the fish market "laden with sleek wriggling eels, still pugnaciously alive, beautiful little red fish packed in boxes like shampoos, heads upwards . . . soft bulbous octopus furiously injecting ink . . . a multitude of sea matter . . . sliding, sinuous, shimmering, flabby, spongy, crisp, all lying aghast upon their fresh green biers dead, doomed or panting like a grove of brilliant foliage among the tundra of Venetian stone." Yes, the descriptions do go on a bit, but that's part of the charm. It was written, says Morris, "in a rush of enthusiasm like the splurge of a love affair". The enthusiasm is infectious. Venetian history, culture, religion, food – she relishes them all, from the glory years between the 12th and 15th centuries when La Serenissima controlled the trade routes between east and west, to the nuns at one of the more fashionable convents claiming their right to supply a mistress for the new papal nuncio, to the notice on the Grand Canal: "It is forbidden to spit on the swimmers." Don't go to Venice without it.The Story of India, by Michael Wood, read by Sam Dastor (10hrs unabridged, BBC, £26. ... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:06:04 +0100 863514 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/31/bookslams-literary-events-books In pubs and arts venues up and down the country traditional book readings are being replaced by a combination of cabaret, comedy and club nights. The results, Alex Clark discovers, are great fun'This is my Fight Club," says Todd Zuniga, the editor of American creative writing magazine Opium and the inventor of Literary Death Match, who is already confusing me with his appearance: strikingly fresh-faced, he tells me he is 35; exuding hipness, he is nonetheless wearing a slightly grotesque white jacket with Miami Vice-style rolled-up sleeves. It transpires that his outfit is in keeping with the evening's 80s theme, chosen to honour Bret Easton Ellis's new novel Imperial Bedrooms. With Ellis in town – he has earlier in the week appeared at the Festival Hall before a sell-out audience – all the whispers in the room are of whether he'll grace tonight's event with his presence.If, at around 10pm, Ellis did slip quietly into the basement of Concrete, a former industrial space reclaimed for the pleasure of the hedonistic twenty- and thirtysomethings who throng to London's Shoreditch on a nightly basis, he might not have immediately recognised the spectacle before him as a bookish sort of gathering. Literary Death Match was reaching its climax. In the couple of hours before, four writers – Milly McMahon, Clare Pollard, Lee Rourke and Nikesh Shukla – had read their work in strictly timed seven-minute segments, and found themselves the subject of an instant critique from a panel of judges. Among the highlights had been a somewhat painful account of a virginity long in the losing and, from Shukla's forthcoming novel Coconut Unlimited, which tells the story of a group of teenage Asian wannabe rappers in Harrow, the author's crowd-delighting version of Public Enemy's "Don't Believe the Hype". ... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 23:05:00 +0100 863524 http://www.tangognat.com/2010/07/30/amethyst-on-project-rooftop/ Head over to Project Rooftop to look at a great revamp of Amethyst Princess of Gemworld as an all-ages title! (Source: TangognaT) Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:42:00 +0100 863434 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2010/07/30/weeklings-apocalypse-amazon-luxury-books-and-grawlixes/ In “Before the Flood,” Margaret Atwood describes what made her go back to the dysopian future in “The Year of the Flood” (by Guy Dixon, The Globe and Mail): One of the things people are working on now, and were working on in 2001 when I was actually halfway through Oryx and Crake, is the ability to create diseases. We can do that now. You can create a disease to which nobody has any immunity. The only reason people have not let them loose yet is that nobody has any immunity. Makes you wonder how she sleeps at night. And, speaking of apocalypse: publishing. In “The Trouble with Amazon,” Colin Robinson notes, correctly, that “Amazon has not grown to where it is today by being touchy-feely.” But aside, from anecdotes about Amazon’s “bullying,” he also touches on a fascinating point that counters those exuberant adherents of long-tail theology: Many would argue that the efflorescence of new publishing that Amazon has encouraged can only be a good thing, that it enriches cultural diversity and expands choice. But that picture is not so clear: a number of studies have shown that when people are offered a narrower range of options, their selections are likely to be more diverse than if they are presented with a number of choices so vast as to be overwhelming. In this situation people often respond by retreating into the security of what they already know. I don’t know about the studies he cites, but this makes sense intuitively. Much as I love the idea of niche people being able to find their niches, I do think general readers get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choice we have these days. But Ruth Franklin was ready with a counterpoint. ... Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:15:24 +0100 864720 http://lorelibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/07/30/interesting-things-of-the-week-80/ Exploring Graphic User Interface Styles – from Minimal to Futuristic Ruth’s UX Nightmares – Gordon Ramsay as UX consultant 50 Useful Tools and Resources For Web Designers – from Smashing Magazine, found via iLibrarian Why QR Codes Are Poised to Hit the Mainstream Actually, You Might Be Your User University Website – xkcd comic Best Use of Wolfram Alpha Tagged: links (Source: Lore Librarian) Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:33:14 +0100 864373 /2010-7-30/Random_House_Graphic_Novels by Bill ( link (Source: Unshelved) Fri, 30 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 863359 http://library.pnca.edu/justadded/308/underground-and-independent-comics-comix-and-graphic-novels-a-new-database Underground and Independent Comics, Comix, and Graphic Novels is the first ever scholarly, primary source database focusing on adult comic books and graphic novels. Beginning with the first underground comix from the 1960’s to the works of modern sequential artists, this collection will contain more than 75,000 pages of comics and graphic novels, along with 25,000 pages of interviews, criticism, and journal articles that document the continual growth and evolution of this artform. We now subscribe to this amazing resource; access it now! On-campus only. (Source: PNCA Library) Thu, 29 Jul 2010 19:11:03 +0100 864586 http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2010/07/29/downtown-halifax-here-i-come/ What are the geekiest, friendliest, most community involved businesses in the downtown?   That’s what I’m going to find out.    Or rather, I’m going to find out just how geeky the downtown can get. There was incentive for me to do this.    The Downtown Halifax Business Commission offered me and a bunch of other bloggers a $100 shopping spree downtown as part of their Big Day Downtown promotion.    You can follow the action on Twitter.    The really nice thing about this is that they also made it pretty clear that I can say whatever I want about the businesses I visit.     I don’t think they have anything to be worried about, really – I love the downtown.   The only caveat is if I encounter some bad service or something.    That wouldn’t be the commission’s fault though. The more pressing problem is that this is a blog about librarians and libraries.    How can I swing a story about a local shopping spree to a potentially huge market of 150,000 librarians in the U.S. and another 10,000 in Canada?    What is it that librarians like that could still engage a local audience? I have three answers.   1.   Geek porn   2.  Community-focus  3.  Stuff kids would like in a way that stretches their imaginations a bit. Not my child, but it'd be nice if I could find these glasses downtown. What do I mean by geeky?  Well, as this Venn Diagram demonstrates, geeky means that I am looking for things that smart people could be obsessed about.   Think comics books and graphic novels (I considered inviting comic / graphic novel writer Faith Erin Hicks to come along, but we aren’t really friends or anything and I didn’t want to be creepy).   Or crazy rubber duckies in astronaut uniforms. Community Focus is another bit. ... Thu, 29 Jul 2010 15:04:44 +0100 864168 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/filmblog/2010/jul/29/kenneth-branagh-thor He was once nominated for a best director Oscar, but while Branagh brings gravitas to Thor, Marvel's latest superhero project, initial impressions from the new footage suggest an over-reliance on CGI• Watch the footage here"I just thought it sounded like a weird idea because Kenneth Branagh's directing it, so I was just like: 'Kenneth Branagh doing Thor is super-weird, I've gotta do it'."That's Natalie Portman's take on Thor, the next instalment in Marvel's ongoing bid to bring its vast catalogue to the big screen (or at least, those characters who weren't auctioned off to other studios before the company worked out that it could do a better job itself). She's right, isn't she? Branagh's involvement is pretty much the main thing the film has going for it: it may have been 21 years since he was nominated for a best director Oscar for Henry V while still in his 20s, but his involvement still gives the project a certain gravitas.Inevitably, Branagh has the denizens of Asgard speaking the Queen's English, while the earthlings whom the Norse deity encounters after being thrown out of heaven are resolutely American. Sir Anthony Hopkins is Odin, Thor himself is Chris Hemsworth, while the villainous Loki is Branagh's old mucker Tom Hiddleston, an alumni of the stage version of Ivanov, for which Ken won a best actor critics' circle award in 2008. Amusingly, The Wire's Idris Elba plays Heimdall, the all-seeing, all-hearing Asgardian sentry, a casting choice that has stirred much debate. Portman plays Jane Foster, a scientist and Thor's human love interest.Six minutes of footage was screened at last week's Comic-Con in San Diego, which has now appeared online via ComicBookMovie.com. Check it out in the clip above.The first thing that strikes me is that Marvel has pursued the CGI route for Asgard. I suppose this was inevitable, given that other films from the studio have followed the same path, with mixed results. ... Thu, 29 Jul 2010 12:13:16 +0100 863075 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/29/book-depository-map A website that aims to rival Amazon has produced a feature that is mesmerising for those who, like me, obsess about what other people are readingI think it was Sarah Crown who first set me off. "Is it just me?" she asked (while accepting the cliche of that opening phrase), "is it just me, or are the contents of other people's bookshelves/bedside tables/desks/whatever ALWAYS more interesting than your own?"Well, is it just me, or … look, does anyone else have an unhealthy obsession not just with what people have on their bookshelves but what they're actually reading right there and then? Does anyone else stare unashamedly at the paperback that is tucked under someone's arm while they sort through their purse for change in the queue at Boots? Does anyone else have a better memory for the novel poking out of a new acquaintance's pocket than that person's face or name?And is anyone else facing up to the prospect of summer with a slight feeling of nameless dread, because they know they'll be walking through a park or by a pool or along a beach with their head at an angle, craning to see the spine or cover of whatever the nearest person is reading?Ah well, perhaps it just is me, then. But if there are others like me, they'll understand why summer can be problematic. Have you ever tried to explain to someone in a pair of Speedos or a tiny bikini that, no, actually, you were looking at the book they had balanced on their tummy? Me neither. But that day will surely come.I don't limit my book voyeurism to places where I'm likely to get punched. I'm an inveterate snoop in bookshops and libraries – I've sometimes caught myself following someone to the till in Waterstone's because I couldn't see what they were buying. Chain bookstores are particularly nightmarish territory, with tables piled high with three-for-two offers. ... Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:57:41 +0100 863077 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/07/29/lunch-lady-and-the-summer-camp-shakedown/ Lunch Lady and the Summer Camp Shakedown by Jarrett J. Krosoczka A fourth book in the spectacularly funny Lunch Lady series, this book returns with the same formula of humor and action.  In this book, Lunch Lady is working at a summer camp that the Breakfast Bunch kids just happen to be attending.  This is not going to be the relaxing summer they all expected!  A swamp monster is on the loose at camp, coming out only at night.  Now Lunch Lady and the kids have to once again join forces to find out who is behind the attacks. The puns here are just as funny as in all of the previous books.  They are guaranteed to have readers groaning and then sharing them aloud with friends.  The art is just as simple and fun too, sticking to the limited color palette that marks this clearly as a Lunch Lady book.  A winning addition to a very popular series, every library should have this series for young graphic novel fans.  Appropriate for ages 7-10. Reviewed from copy received from Knopf. Also reviewed by: Booking Mama Comics Worth Reading Kids Reads Through the Looking Glass Welcome to My Tweendom (Source: Kids Lit) Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 863631 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/jul/28/daily-mail-emmerdale-jam-rags The Mail's objection to Emmerdale's use of 'jam rags' reflects culture's longstanding weirdness about women's private partsThe inhabitants of Beckindale, setting for ITV's Emmerdale, are no strangers to calamity, having variously endured shootings, conflagrations and sundry apocalypses bestowed by the great god of ratings. Last week, however, a new and unlooked for catastrophe befell the good folk of Beckindale when the phrase "jam rags" appeared on a blackboard shopping list. Jam rags, for the uninitiated, is a not an especially delicate means of referring to sanitary towels. Can no one protect us from this outrage?Step forward Mediawatch, aka the late Mary Whitehouse's acolytes, whose finger-wagger-in-chief expressed consternation in the Daily Mail. Mail readers, however, remained – forgive me – sanguine. Their collective online reaction might be summarised: "OMG, hysterical. Made my day. LOL."Inelegant as this evidently not-so-offending phrase is, the frisson it generated reflects culture's longstanding weirdness about women's private parts. Where the male member is perceived as somehow clownish, comic, amiable, the vagina remains polite society's great abyss. Accordingly, "dick", "prick" and "knob" are mere playground banter, while "cunt" remains a source of abject hysteria. One is reminded of Pompeii where excavators have unearthed depictions of penises everywhere from oil lamps to doorbells, but female equivalents are missing in action.If nature abhors a vacuum, then slang still more so. Terms for the female genitalia outstrip all rival inspirations bar drinking and intercourse, leaving the one-eyed trouser snake pitifully castrated. Chaucer flirted with the "belle-chose" and "nether eye". ... Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:03:30 +0100 862817 /2010-7-28/Simon_and_Schuster_Graphic_Novels by Bill ( link (Source: Unshelved) Wed, 28 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 862823 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/n0ZUFdSFVLw/ Under normal circumstances, it would take something pretty special for me to recommend more than one app in a particular category for the iPad. Does anyone really need more than one CBR reader when Comic Zeal does the job so well, for instance? Or more than one Twitter app, or RSS reader, etc.? (E-book readers are, of course, a special case, given that so many of them only read their own DRM-laden formats.) So when it comes to PDF readers, why would someone want anything other than the inexpensive, powerful, and fairly easy-to-use GoodReader? Actually, there is a pretty good reason, that ties into a major reason someone would want to read PDFs on the iPad in the first place: gaming. See, if you’re going to run a pencil-and-paper RPG session off of your iPad, storing your rulebooks on the device so you no longer have to carry all that weight around, you’ve got the problem that you’re still either going to have to carry a heavy dice bag, or else drop out of the PDF reader app (no iPad multitasking yet, remember?) to launch a die-roller such as Mach Dice. And while players can probably get by with not having access to both book and dice at the same time, it could make game-mastering rather awkward. And that’s where DiceBook comes in. DiceBook is a simple PDF reader, perhaps not quite as powerful as GoodReader—but with the notable bonus feature of incorporating a die roller into the program. It’s such a simple idea, it’s surprising nobody has thought of it yet—and DiceBook pulls it off pretty well. The $1.99 iPad-only app has been approved by Apple but is not live yet at the time of this posting. I got a promo code for a free review copy from its author, David Dunham, and have been looking it over. And to be honest, I think I agree with my friend Bruce Baugh that for ordinary day-to-day PDF viewing, it may be the best iPad reader yet. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 22:29:00 +0100 862714 http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jul/27/dickens-robert-seymour-pickwick-grave London museum unveils gravestone of Robert Seymour, the artist who killed himself after 'being dropped' by Charles DickensThe scene on 20 April 1836 was horrific: the artist lay in a welter of gore on the floor of the summerhouse at his London home, his coat and waistcoat burning from the ferocity of the shotgun blast which had killed him.Now, a century after Robert Seymour's memorial disappeared, the stone commemorating him is to be unveiled at a ceremony in the back garden of 48 Doughty Street, the museum in Charles Dickens' only surviving London home.Seymour had taken his own life within 24 hours of a last meeting with the author Dickens, after completing the final illustration – named Death of a Clown – for the writer's first novel, the Pickwick Papers. Almost certainly Dickens had told Seymour he was being dropped as the artist for the serial, which when bound together would become his first runaway best seller and launch his career.The gravestone, which had been missing for more than a century, was tracked down by Stephen Jarvis, a scholar, and rescued from the damp crypt of a London church. Its re-dedication will be some reparation for a grave injustice which some blame on Dickens.A number of admirers of Seymour certainly believe that morally Dickens was responsible for his death. The wretched artist is thought to have believed his genius had been stolen and that the book would make another man rich and famous.Seymour died literally heartbroken: the inquest found that the blast from the fowling weapon, an early type of sporting gun, which he turned on himself, disintegrated his heart.David Parker, a former curator of the Dickens House Museum, in north London, and an expert on the Pickwick Papers, said: "I don't think Dickens can be blamed for Seymour's suicide. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 15:44:13 +0100 862643 http://www.resourceshelf.com/2010/07/27/web-resources-more-great-web-sites-for-kids/ From the ALSC Blog by Teresa Walls: Last month, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), added recommended Web sites to Great Web Sites for Kids (www.ala.org/greatsites), its online resource containing hundreds of links to outstanding Web sites for children. Great Web Sites for Kids (GWS) features links to websites of interest to children 14 years of age and younger, organized into diverse subject headings, from astronomy and space to zoos and aquariums, from games and entertainment to geography and maps. There is also a special section with sites of interest to parents, caregivers and teachers. Members of the ALSC Great Web Sites for Kids Committee review and evaluate potential sites for inclusion and vote on the sites to be included. They also regularly check the entire site to ensure currency and re-evaluate sites when necessary. The added sites are: * Aaron Shepard’s Folktales – www.aaronshep.com/stories/folk.html * Academic Skill Builders – www.arcademicskillbuilders.com/ * BAM! Body and Mind – www.bam.gov/ * Book Worm for Kids – www.bookworm4kids.com/ * Census in Schools – www.census.gov/schools/census_for_kids/ * Chicos – www.chicos.net/ * Cool Science for Kids – http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/forkids/ * Dogo News – www.dogonews.com/ * Enchanted Learning – www.littleexplorers.com/languages/spanish/Aisfor.shtml * Exploratorium Science of Gardening – www.exploratorium.edu/gardening/feed/index.html * Games for Change – www.gamesforchange.org * Genna’s World – www.gennasworld.com * If I Was King of the World – www.ifiwasthekingoftheworld.com/ * Jefferson Lab – http://education.jlab.org/ * Lab TV – www.ndep.us/LabTV.aspx * MakeBeliefsComix – www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/ * Math Apprentice – www.mathapprentice.com/ * Mr. PicassoHead – www.mrpicassohead. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 13:41:08 +0100 862565 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/jul/27/nick-cave-remake-crow Australian singer reportedly revising script for new version of the 1994 cult horror filmHe was named one of Variety's 10 most promising screenwriters in 2006, but since then it has all gone rather quiet on the film front for Nick Cave. This could change after a report by The Wrap that the Australian musician is penning a forthcoming remake of The Crow, the cult comic-book adaptation from 1994.The new version is being directed by Blade's Stephen Norrington, who appears to be back on the Hollywood rollercoaster after declaring a few years ago that he would never direct again. That statement was said to be a result of his experience working on the poorly received The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen with a difficult Sean Connery.Norrington wrote the screenplay for the remake of The Crow, but Cave is apparently revising it. The new version is said to be closer in spirit to James O'Barr's comic books than the original film, which is famous for the death of its star Brandon Lee following an on-set accident. "Whereas Alex Proyas's original was gloriously gothic and stylised, the new movie will be realistic, hard-edged and mysterious, almost documentary-style," Norrington said two years ago.Although Cave has only had one screenplay turned into a film – 2005's The Proposition – he has worked on several others over the past few years. At the request of Russell Crowe, he wrote a script for a proposed sequel to Gladiator, which was rejected by the studio, and has also completed the script for a new film, The Death of a Ladies Man. Named after the Leonard Cohen song, the movie is about a philandering salesman who takes his young son on the road after his wife commits suicide.Finally, Cave has reportedly written the screenplay to The Promised Land, an adaptation of Matt Bondurant's bootlegging novel The Wettest County in the World, which is set to be directed by The Proposition's John Hillcoat.HorrorNick CaveComicsBen Childguardian.co. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 11:02:24 +0100 862649 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2010/jul/27/comic-con-jonathan-ross The TV star and comic aficionado attended the San Diego festival last week with camera in hand. Here are some of the images he sent back (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:21:12 +0100 862500 http://librarywriting.blogspot.com/2010/07/cfp-popular-culture-and-classroom.html CFP: Popular Culture and the ClassroomSouthwest/Texas Popular Culture Association & PCA/ACA Joint ConferenceApril 20-23, 2011San Antonio, TXProposal Deadline: December 15, 2010Conference Hotel: Marriott Rivercenter San Antonio101 Bowie StreetSan Antonio, TX 78205Phone 1-210-223-1000Papers (panelists) needed to examine role of popular culture in today’s classrooms (which includes secondary classrooms or college classrooms) at the Southwest and Texas Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association Annual Conference (meeting with the PCA/ACA) April 20-23, 2011 in San Antonio, TX.Here’s a quick test for today’s educators:“Glee,” Facebook, “American Idol.” “Lady Gaga, “Mad Men,” “Lost.” Ipods. Celebrity Weddings and Break-ups. “Twilight,” Twitter, Instant Messaging, Reality Television. Superhero Films. Comic Books and Graphic Novels. X-Box. “LOL and IM Speak” Cell phones. Text messaging. Advertising and Stereotypes.The list may cause some teachers and professors to scratch their heads, but to our students, these entries would be part of the daily vocabulary of being a student today.From instant messages discussing homework to the Ipod Revolution, high school and college students are often the experts when it comes to technological advances and cultural awareness. As educators, it’s increasingly important we embrace popular culture whenever possible to create meaningful lessons that help students link the curriculum we teach with the world they live in and understand.Whether a single lesson idea, a scholarly paper, or a theme for a course, the “Popular Culture and the Classroom” section of this conference seeks teachers with new ideas of how to use popular culture effectively in the classroom. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 864048 http://centeredlibrarian.blogspot.com/2010/07/85-reasons-to-be-thankful-for.html 1. Librarians take care of libraries, which are still invaluable today.2. Not all information is on the internet.3. Older books still hold great cultural significance.4. Libraries are still repositories for some of the most valuable works of literature in the world.5. Even with the internet, the library is still the best place to do research.6. Girls with glasses can still rock the “sexy librarian” look.7. “Sexy Librarian” is still a popular costume at Halloween.8. You can’t exactly find periodicals like The New England Journal of Medicine in Barnes and Noble.9. For that matter, looking at turn-of-the-century National Geographics is still pretty entertaining.10. Colleges need something to remodel every so often.11. The library is still the best meeting spot for college students working on group projects.12. Libraries are where most colleges store some of their history (choir CDs, videos of athletic matches, etc.).13. A library is one of the few places people can have free internet access.14. This means some libraries even hold LAN parties during later hours.15. Somebody has to help lazy people find what they want.16. Even online collections of books usually connect directly to a library.17. “Librarian” is still a better career choice for spinsters over “School Lunch Lady.”18. Studies have shown libraries and librarians improve student test scores.19. They also have been shown to improve students’ individual learning skills.20. With their training in instructional design, librarians can help teachers find resources for their curriculum.21. Librarians also help teachers to use a variety of media in the classroom.22. Many libraries today offer enough DVDs to serve as a poor man’s Netflix or Blockbuster.23. Librarians often put together special programs to get children to read early on.24. While teaching children to use the library, librarians end up teaching them valuable problem solving skills.25. ... Tue, 27 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 863953 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/booksblog/2010/jul/26/comic-con-2010-final-day The final day had its low-key moments, but overall it's been a rollercoaster. I'm almost sick of fantasy costumes. But not quiteOn its last day, Comic-Con didn't so much shift down a gear or two as pull into a layby, apply the handbrake and kill the engine.Sunday was kids' day, which translated into a bias toward SpongeBob SquarePants and Phineas and Ferb. By a staggering coincidence, many day passes remained unsold, and ticket touts were spotted for the first time hawking their wares outside the convention centre. In the absence of any of the big movie presentations which, though maligned by fundamentalist comic-book devotees, have widened Comic-Con's appeal and audience, the spotlight shifted to panels for two television series: Smallville and Glee. (I like to think someone devilish in the programming department slapped Glee on the schedule purely to wind up all the comic-book purists. Here's hoping someone has the perversity to book the Jonas Brothers for next year.)These panels served up so many spoilers that there seems little point now in the programmes being screened: we know every twist and kink that's coming. I won't compound the error by repeating the surprises here, but all this could present a viable way forward in these frugal times: forget about lavishing millions of dollars on making the shows, and simply do the panels instead.I dropped in on a different panel, Women of Marvel, where I think I started to annoy some of the panellists by pressing them on a question that kept being left unanswered. The very existence of a Women of Marvel panel indicated either that the experience of women working in comics was radically distinct from that of their male counterparts, or that the tenor of their writing and drawing was somehow different. On the question of the former, the colourist Laura Martin (whose bright-as-a-button colouring lights up Brian Michael Bendis's New Avengers stories) put me straight. ... Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:23:09 +0100 862352 http://lisnews.org/comiccon If you weren't able to make it to Comic-Con in San Diego, here's a slide-show of what you might have seen. (Source: LISNews.org) Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:36:37 +0100 862295 http://kidslit.menashalibrary.org/2010/07/26/doodlebug/ Doodlebug by Karen Romano Young Dodo has been expelled from her last school because she tried to sell her Ritalin to other students in her class.  Now her family is moving from LA to San Francisco.  Her parents are hoping for a fresh start for their careers and for Dodo.  Her younger sister Momo is angry about the move, and Dodo is unsure that it will make any difference at all.  On the trip, Dodo discovers that she loves to draw, that doodling makes her calmer and better able to deal with the drive and the move.  Dodo starts a new school, changing her nickname to Doodlebug.  Her doodling is accepted in some classes and forbidden in others.  Momo is desperate to join the school’s choir, so she tries several stunts, like singing into the PA system of the school.  Both girls may have pushed it a bit too far in their new school.  Will Dodo be expelled again? A fabulous combination of journal, graphic novel and story, this book allows readers to really understand what it is to be a visual learner and to have ADD.  Dodo is a great character, fully developed and complex.  Just as wonderfully drawn are her family members, even the new cat, Sven.  They are all complicated and interesting, portraying a real, multicultural family dealing with change and opportunity.  Young’s creativity is fully on display here with pages filled with a variety of lettering, lots of drawings and plenty of forward momentum.  Several touches will resonate with young artists who will find the names of the pens used to make the black and white illustrations.  They will get plenty of inspiration to create their own journals, capture their own lives and adventures.  Highly recommended, this book will be enjoyed by readers who enjoyed the Joey Pigza series, Amelia’s Notebook, and Diary of a Wimpy Kid.  Appropriate for ages 9-13. ... Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 863637 /2010-7-26/Random_House_Graphic_Novels by Bill ( link (Source: Unshelved) Mon, 26 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 862223 http://www.librarystuff.net/2010/07/25/comic-con-2010-a-boom-in-digital-comics-portends-big-changes-for-readers/  Los Angeles Times- ‘Los Angeles Times writers Alex Pham and John Horn take a look at how a new wave of digital comic books designed for mobile phones, tablet computers and other devices stands to impact the publishing industry and independent retailers — not to mention devoted fans — in a page-one story in Friday’s paper.’ (Source: Library Stuff) Mon, 26 Jul 2010 02:09:37 +0100 862244 http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/audio/2010/jul/26/science-weekly-podcast-invisible-gorilla Before listening to this podcast, for best results we recommend you watch this short YouTube video. Daniel Simons joins us from a studio in Illinois to discuss his new book The Invisible Gorilla. We look at how our intuition deceives us and the problems this causes for the judicial system. Daniel also reveals why criminals and chess players are more alike than they'd like to believe. More than 40 years on, film footage of Nasa mission control during the Apollo 11 moon landing has only just been synchronised with the audio. We listen in to that. Cian O'Luanaigh attends the first ever academic conference on the subject Comics and Medicine: Medical Narrative in Graphic Novels at the University of London. He reports on why doctors and nurses are turning to a different medium to get their message across. Follow the podcast on our Science Weekly Twitter feed and receive updates on all breaking science news stories from Guardian Science. Email scienceweeklypodcast@gmail.com. Join our Facebook group. Listen back through our archive.Subscribe free via iTunes to ensure every episode gets delivered. (Here is the non-iTunes URL feed). (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Sun, 25 Jul 2010 23:01:00 +0100 862218 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/5vlQNGG91vw/ Over the last few days, a new iPad media app called Flipboard has been getting a lot of attention. The app isn’t quite an RSS reader or social networking app, but seems to combine elements of both. The app, though popular, has gotten off to a rocky and slightly controversial start. The rockiness comes in that it seems that Flipboard’s developers were not prepared for just how popular their app was going to be—it seems that everyone was trying to sign up for the service at once, entirely overwhelming their servers. They responded by configuring the servers to queue signups, asking new users to sign up for e-mail notification and wait their turn. (I downloaded Flipboard a couple of days ago and still have not yet been able to sign up to try it out.) The idea behind Flipboard is that it turns its users’ social network posts into an iPad magazine—aggregating the links friends post to their Twitter and Facebook accounts into pages in a digital magazine. It doesn’t use RSS feeds, though “friending” blogs with Twitter or Facebook postings produces a similar effect. And that is also where the controversy comes in, as Gizmodo wonders whether Flipboard is actually legal. Site Scooping vs. RSS Flipboard acts as a site scooper for the sites linked in Twitter postings. Much like Instapaper or Safari 5’s new Reader feature, it scans the site linked in the URL, then aggregates the content from the page into its magazine-style interface. The problem is that where RSS feeds allow a site to specify just how much content it wants shared outside of the interface of its own site (be it a headline, a few lines of text, or the entire article), Flipboard simply takes everything, like Instapaper, then decides how much of it to show. (Flipboard’s representatives explain that Flipboard does not offer an entire-article view, and it tries to hew close to the restrictions of the RSS feeds for sites that have them, but there are exceptions. ... Sun, 25 Jul 2010 17:55:13 +0100 862175 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/booksblog/2010/jul/25/comic-con-san-diego Assault by ballpoint as zombies stalk Hall H and Brian Michael Bendis rises to a new screen challengeIn pictures: Comic-Con comes to CaliforniaThose of us who yearned for more action and excitement at Comic-Con after a drab Friday may have ended yesterday thinking that we should be careful what we wish for. Real violence, real blood, came to Hall H at the San Diego Convention Centre on Saturday afternoon when a fan was rumoured to have been stabbed in the eye with a pen during the presentation for Resident Evil: Afterlife. (Some hours later, the assault-by-ballpoint transpired to have resulted in a mere scratched eyelid.)Such events are an anomaly. Nerds are by nature a gentle people. They wouldn't jostle a jawa. That said, the decaying, blood-spattered zombie look is by far the most highly favoured costume. I should say that some of those zombies are promoting The Walking Dead, a new US television series from Frank Darabont (The Shawshank Redemption, The Mist). The show's star, and the latest Brit to be staking his Equity membership on following Hugh Laurie and Tim Roth to primetime fame, is Andrew Lincoln, whose fortunes since BBC2's This Life have represented a kind of extended Night of the Living Dead; no matter how much crap he appears in, his career simply won't lie down and die.The undead hordes responded heartily to a panel hailing Brian Michael Bendis, the no-shit Marvel writer whose every throwaway, tough-guy line was greeted with audible glee. The bullet-headed Bendis was described in the introduction as "the go-to guy for blowing things up and starting all over again" and "probably the most popular writer working in comics today." He can pass for Michael Chiklis from The Shield, which is to say that he looks like he could break your leg just by wanting to, and that he has ample space in his bathroom cabinet where the rest of us keep our hair products. ... Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:25:40 +0100 862147 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/jul/25/auntie-mame-patrick-dennis American comedy hit back in print in Britain after European successA "lost classic" turned down by 19 publishers before becoming one of the bestselling American books of the 20th century is to be published in Britain for the first time in more than half a century.In 1955, a US editor finally saw the potential of Patrick Dennis's Auntie Mame, a comic Depression-era novel about a 10-year-old orphan and his irreverent, madcap Manhattan aunt.Readers were captivated by the impossibly glamorous, "intoxicatingly perfumed" socialite for whom 9am was "the middle of the night". Such was the novel's success that it sold more than 2m copies, remained on the New York Times bestseller list for more than two years and inspired hit Broadway stagings and movies starring variously Rosalind Russell, Angela Lansbury and Lucille Ball as the "razzle-dazzle butterfly". But by the 1970s it had fallen out of fashion and out of print and was largely forgotten, along with its author, a flamboyant eccentric and bisexual, who gave up writing.Now the novel is to return to British bookshops. Its publication by Penguin Modern Classics next month follows a revival in Italy and America, where it has attracted feverish sales. Its author is being resurrected as America's answer to Noël Coward, a social satirist and wit – an example of one of line being: "I always start writing with a clean paper and a dirty mind."While the Oscar-winning British actress Tilda Swinton is being tipped for the title role in a new film of the novel, the author himself may also be immortalised on the big screen.His own story is stranger than fiction. Dennis (1921-76), whose real name was Edward Everett Tanner III, pursued a double life as a bisexual "adventurer" and a devoted husband and father. Eventually, he left his family for a male costume designer, a relationship that failed after three years. ... Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:06:25 +0100 862015 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2010/jul/24/science-fiction-comic-con The latest images from one of the largest pop-culture conventions in the world (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Sat, 24 Jul 2010 15:58:53 +0100 862031 http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2010/jul/24/comic-con-super-superhero-films Super and the Crimson Bolt, nuggets of facts from Guillermo del Torres, and comic treats from Will Ferrell, Mark Wahlberg and Eva Mendes, all at the second day of Comic-ConIn pictures: the sights of Comic-ConThe concept, look and tone of Super, a new superhero movie which had its presentation at Comic-Con, reminded me of something but I can't think what. See if it rings any bells for you. It's about an ordinary shlub (Rainn Wilson, aka Dwight from the US version of The Office) who decides to become a superhero called Crimson Bolt, complete with crummy homemade costume. He fights back against the neighbourhood crooks, drug dealers and miscreants; he has no powers, but he does have some ordinary household tools and a cute but humorously foul-mouthed teenage sidekick (Juno's Ellen Page).Sounds like a kick-ass idea, right? Judging from the excerpt screened here, in which Crimson Bolt expresses his antipathy towards a queue-jumper by smashing him and his wife in the face with a monkey wrench, the film is going to kick so much ass that all our asses will feel well and truly kicked. I know mine's aching already. Ouch. If only I could think what Super reminds me of. No clues from the panel, which included Wilson, Page, Liv Tyler and the writer-director James Gunn, who seemed keen to point out that he came up with this idea eight years ago. It was probably a good thing that the event was so under-attended; it left lots of space for the elephants in the room; I ducked out 10 minutes before the end.I wondered at first if the air of fatigue settling over the second day of Comic-Con was restricted to Hall H, where a presentation can quickly wilt and die in that cavernous space as hundreds of unimpressed geeks stampede for the exit. ... Sat, 24 Jul 2010 12:19:24 +0100 861918 http://liszen.com/trends/story.php?title=Marshall_Missouri_ndash_Wikipedia_the_free_encyclope__03watchs177 [edit] Censorship debateIn October 2006, a resident of Marshall attempted to have the graphic novels Fun Home by Alison Bechdel and Blankets by Craig (Source: pligg - all) Sat, 24 Jul 2010 07:00:28 +0100 861838 http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2010/jul/24/david-baddiel-from-standup-to-saul-bellow He's traded the one-liners for novels and screenplays, but while he can't stop telling jokes – about being a Jew or a bloke – writing has helped him find peaceSay what you like about David Baddiel but you can't say he's lacking in ambition. Take the novel to which he's currently putting the finishing touches. "It was sort of inspired, a bit, by the death of Saul Bellow. And the character is a kind of slightly deliberately absurd, um …" – a pause, a testing of the water to see if he can get away with such a long word and not sound too pretentious – "concatenation of Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, John Updike, Norman Mailer, Arthur Koestler."The Death of Eli Gold is "about the idea of the Great Man, and how I think that is dying. That notion of men who could live their lives in the most brutal way possible, especially towards women – also children, to some extent – because their greatness excused everything. A way of living life, in which, essentially, greatness allows your dick to do what it likes"; a way of living in which being able to have sex with whoever you want becomes, he says, paraphrasing a line from a review of Updike by David Foster Wallace, the cure for existential despair. "Men now can't live like that, which I think is a good thing, but the cost of it is that I think unalloyed greatness is gone in our culture. So the book is about those blokes, and that type of masculinity."This kind of masculinity is an abiding preoccupation of those literary greats he sees as enacting it, and for Baddiel: throughout his career he has poked and prodded and laughed at or with the idea of a grubby, defiant sort of post-feminist masculinity. ... Sat, 24 Jul 2010 06:00:44 +0100 861920 http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/jul/24/alan-moore-gorillaz-unearthing He may no longer be writing an opera with Gorillaz, but for his next trick, the magician, psychedelic adventurer and occasional comics creator has a different musical project up his sleeveIt's not exactly on a par with his previous triumphs, but Astounding Weird Penises is as close to a new Alan Moore comic as you're likely to get these days. It's drawn by Moore himself and you've got to admit that's a snappy title; but from the shaggy-maned magus who redefined the medium with influential masterworks such as Watchmen (1), V For Vendetta (2), and From Hell, you kind of expect a little more than eight pages of puerile pornographic sci-fi involving a phallus in a space helmet (3). Oh, and you'll only get hold of it by buying issue two of Dodgem Logic, his new underground magazine, in which it's a free insert. There's no point wondering if Moore has lost his mind; here is a man who scrambles minds for a living. But has Moore lost his love of comics?"That has continued," he says in his unmistakable Northampton twang. He's still writing his Victorian pulp fiction mash-up The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen (4) and a few other bits and pieces, but that's about it. "There's so many other things that seem to be springing up like mushrooms everywhere. Effectively retiring, at least from mainstream comics, has just given me more time to do things I'd always wanted to do before."Dodgem Logic (5) is one of those things: a proper underground mag in the tradition of 1960s counterculture titles Oz (6) and The International Times. It's a trove of esoteric instruction: anarchy, activism, feminism, urban guerrilla gardening, 1970s-style comic strips and all things alt. Recently, though, the mag attracted wider attention, not because of what was in it but what wasn't. Last year, Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett of Gorillaz asked Moore to write the libretto for a new opera they were working on, along the lines of their Monkey: Journey To The West. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:03:42 +0100 861778 http://www.teleread.com/2010/07/23/why-i-returned-my-pandigital-novel/ Last weekend, I posted that I’d bought a new Pandigital Novel for $130 ($170 – coupon – mail-in-rebate), then hacked it to run Kindle for Android. Although I was excited by the prospect of a cheap full color Kindle tablet, I complained about the somewhat glitchy software and performance. And now I don’t own it anymore because I took it back. In that earlier post, I cursed Pandigital for not making a better product. It’s naive of me to lay any blame at Pandigital’s feet, though. The fact is, they’re delivering a lot of features and hardware for the price point: a decently sized color LCD screen, a touchscreen interface, a robust and open operating system, access to a major bookseller right out of the box, Wi-Fi access, a decent battery, and a durable shell, all for significantly less than $200. On paper, that is a pretty awesome kit. The reality, however, is that to reach that low price point, you have to cut corners. The technology just isn’t there yet to put top-of-the-line tech into such a cheap device. So the default ereader isn’t very polished or visually appealing, the touchscreen is the old-fashioned resistive kind, the processor stutters during bigger transitions or animations, ebook files take a long time to open, apps freeze and require a reboot. And the thing is heavy. This is partly a psychological effect, a consequence of what you expect something that size to weigh. I’ve held both the iPad and the Novel, and although the Novel is significantly lighter than the iPad, oddly the iPad feels “less heavy” in the hand (not lighter–it’s a perception thing), because its larger size primes your brain to anticipate some heft. You can see from the video demo below that I managed to get the Novel customized to my satisfaction. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:34:29 +0100 861868 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/GFlfVAw4Cas/ Last weekend, I posted that I’d bought a new Pandigital Novel for $130 ($170 – coupon – mail-in-rebate), then hacked it to run Kindle for Android. Although I was excited by the prospect of a cheap full color Kindle tablet, I complained about the somewhat glitchy software and performance. And now I don’t own it anymore because I took it back. In that earlier post, I cursed Pandigital for not making a better product. It’s naive of me to lay any blame at Pandigital’s feet, though. The fact is, they’re delivering a lot of features and hardware for the price point: a decently sized color LCD screen, a touchscreen interface, a robust and open operating system, access to a major bookseller right out of the box, Wi-Fi access, a decent battery, and a durable shell, all for significantly less than $200. On paper, that is a pretty awesome kit. The reality, however, is that to reach that low price point, you have to cut corners. The technology just isn’t there yet to put top-of-the-line tech into such a cheap device. So the default ereader isn’t very polished or visually appealing, the touchscreen is the old-fashioned resistive kind, the processor stutters during bigger transitions or animations, ebook files take a long time to open, apps freeze and require a reboot. And the thing is heavy. This is partly a psychological effect, a consequence of what you expect something that size to weigh. I’ve held both the iPad and the Novel, and although the Novel is significantly lighter than the iPad, oddly the iPad feels “less heavy” in the hand (not lighter–it’s a perception thing), because its larger size primes your brain to anticipate some heft. You can see from the video demo below that I managed to get the Novel customized to my satisfaction. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:34:29 +0100 861816 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TravelinLibrarian/~3/g7Bny3gxOC8/ By poesygalore | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon By poesygalore | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon (Source: Travelin' Librarian) Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:30:30 +0100 862936 http://www.teleread.com/2010/07/23/from-ireland-to-e-or-not-to-e-a-beginners-guide-to-ipad-ereading-apps/ This week Amazon announced that, for the first time ever on Amazon.com, ebooks had outsold hardbacks, proving that whilst some of us are reluctant to part with our beloved bound volumes, there is an ever increasing number embracing the concept of electronic reading. And with Apple‘s much heralded iPad finally launching on these shores, we decided to take a look at some of the various apps available for reading books on your iPads, iPods and iPhones, and determine which, if any, are worth their salt. All reviewed Apps are available for free on the iTunes App Store. Our thanks to O2 Ireland for lending us an iPad for testing. We downloaded our books & apps using their 3G simcard. App: Kindle | Developer: Amazon | Rating: 2.5/5 A version of Amazon’s popular Kindle reader, this app’s great strength is undoubtedly its selection of titles. Using Safari it links directly to your Amazon account, offering a choice of over 400,000 books, and allows you to download sample chapters before you buy. Kindle has one of the most appealing interfaces- they’ve recognised that swiping seems to be the most intuitive way of turning a page, a feature which some developers have criminally failed to include. As far as features go, it sticks to the basics, with the ability to bookmark pages, search text, and change the font size and colour. As a basic eReader, Kindle does the trick nicely without many frills attached.     App: iFlow | Developer: BeamItDown | Rating: 2/5 Produced by one of the lesser known developers in the field, iFlow apps come as individual books or collections. So rather than having your library stored together under one neat icon, each title takes up its own space on your browser. Furthermore, the iFlow range is rather limited, covering primarily classics, and educational texts (philosophy, psychology, etc.). What the iFlow reader does have in its corner, however, is its unique interface. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:06:31 +0100 861871 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/teleread/ezFR/~3/TU_wuozGblg/ This week Amazon announced that, for the first time ever on Amazon.com, ebooks had outsold hardbacks, proving that whilst some of us are reluctant to part with our beloved bound volumes, there is an ever increasing number embracing the concept of electronic reading. And with Apple‘s much heralded iPad finally launching on these shores, we decided to take a look at some of the various apps available for reading books on your iPads, iPods and iPhones, and determine which, if any, are worth their salt. All reviewed Apps are available for free on the iTunes App Store. Our thanks to O2 Ireland for lending us an iPad for testing. We downloaded our books & apps using their 3G simcard. App: Kindle | Developer: Amazon | Rating: 2.5/5 A version of Amazon’s popular Kindle reader, this app’s great strength is undoubtedly its selection of titles. Using Safari it links directly to your Amazon account, offering a choice of over 400,000 books, and allows you to download sample chapters before you buy. Kindle has one of the most appealing interfaces- they’ve recognised that swiping seems to be the most intuitive way of turning a page, a feature which some developers have criminally failed to include. As far as features go, it sticks to the basics, with the ability to bookmark pages, search text, and change the font size and colour. As a basic eReader, Kindle does the trick nicely without many frills attached.     App: iFlow | Developer: BeamItDown | Rating: 2/5 Produced by one of the lesser known developers in the field, iFlow apps come as individual books or collections. So rather than having your library stored together under one neat icon, each title takes up its own space on your browser. Furthermore, the iFlow range is rather limited, covering primarily classics, and educational texts (philosophy, psychology, etc.). What the iFlow reader does have in its corner, however, is its unique interface. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:06:31 +0100 861671 http://blog.booklistonline.com/2010/07/23/weeklings-tess-gerritsen-orlando-figes-patrick-bateman-shirley-jackson-and-nancy-pearl/ On Murderati, Tess Gerritsen asks, “Why the hell won’t they review my book?!!!” and pretty much answers her own question. My visit to the Inquirer was a sobering look at how tough newspapers have it these days, trying to keep up with all they have to cover.  Every author wants attention, but one look at the piles of discarded galleys reminded me of just how hard it is to be noticed when you’re fighting for attention along with two hundred other books.  Every single week. Then the Book Publicity Blog took this idea and ran with it. Also in book-reviewing news, British historian Orlando Figes (The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia, 2007), who once threatened to sue those who accused him of writing fake Amazon reviews, will now pay damages and court costs to his accusers (”Historian Orlando Figes agrees to pay damages for fake reviews,” Guardian). He may be a good historian, but he’s no criminal genius: his pseudonym for the reviews, which attacked his rivals’ work, was “orlando-birkbeck.” Figes blamed “intense pressure” for his actions. Also in reputation-rehabilitation news, Sam Jordison calls Patrick Bateman, the hero, er, protagonist of Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho (1991), “one of the funniest comic creations since Bertie Wooster.” (Guardian Books Blog) Not bad for a book-club discussion starter! Another character, er, writer, not getting the respect she is due: Shirley Jackson (”Is Shirley Jackson a great American writer?” by Laura Miller, Salon). ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:00:42 +0100 861835 http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/booksblog/2010/jul/23/comic-con-tron-angelina-jolie The first dizzy glimpses of Tron are unveiled, authors relate the values of peanut butter confectionery to writing, and Angelina sticks to her script. It's a successful first day at Comic-ConIn pictures: the sights of Comic-Con 2010So there we all were, on our first full day at Comic-Con, packed into the black-curtained, dimly-lit, 6,500-capacity Hall H, which is like outer space only bigger and, less generous observers might say, further from sentient life. We had queued. Oh, how we had queued. And that was just to cross the road (I'm not exaggerating). It was the promise of exclusive footage from Tron: Legacy that had drawn us to Hall H. Never mind easing fans in gently, this was like kicking off a meal with a knickerbocker toffee fudge longboat. Surely everything that followed would resemble braised cabbage by comparison?Well, yes and no. The Tron event was entertaining, thanks largely to the panel's moderator, the US comic Patton Oswalt. "Is there really something called the Comic-Con Fulfilment Room?" he winced. "I do not wanna go near the carpeting in there." The cast and crew trooped out, including a tanned and silver-maned Jeff Bridges (who is reprising his role from the first Tron, and getting to play opposite his younger self in the sequel), as well as Michael "Tony Blair/Brian Clough/Kenneth Williams etc" Sheen.I'd already experienced a particular American attitude toward Britishness when, on my first day here, a security guard who was supposed to be giving me directions had indicated instead a group of women I should talk to: "Go on, man, you got that accent, they love that!" Oswalt made a more eloquent fuss over Sheen, telling the audience: "He's British, he's adorable, he flew here in a magic teapot, he's sleeping under a giant dandelion leaf in the city." Sheen did nothing to dispel this impression of one nation united in whimsy. ... Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:02:40 +0100 861622 http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/video/2010/jul/22/tamara-drewe Small-town England is exposed as a hotbed of rivalrous adultery and murderous intrigue in Tamara Drewe, adapted by Stephen Frears from the acclaimed graphic novel by Posy Simmonds. Watch the first trailer here (Source: Guardian Unlimited Books) Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:52:56 +0100 861624 http://newpagesblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/alex-noriega-stuff-no-one-told-me.html Check our more comic art by Noriega on his blog.[thanks Gerry] (Source: NewPages Blog) Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:00:00 +0100 862477 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/GoblinCartoons/~3/GW-oXyVq54I/ I do not hide the fact that I am a Jane Wiedlin fanboy. She’s cute, she’s funny, she’s geeky, she’s friendly. And when I was younger, so much younger than today, I thought the Go-Go’s were incredibly cool. (Well, I still think that.) She’s been heavily promoting her new comic, Lady Robotika, for months now. (And not quite so heavily promoting it for the past couple of years.) The first issue finally came out last week (co-written by Jane and Bill Morrison, with art by Bill, Tone Rodriguez and Dan Davis), and I bought it mostly to support this awesome lady, but also because it sounded like a pretty cool comic. I’ll admit, though, that I was a little nervous that the comic would turn out to be…well, kind of lame. I mean, I thought Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park would be cool, and boy, was it not! I’m happy to say I had nothing to worry about. Lady Robotika is many things, but lame isn’t one of them. Is it corny? Yup. Is it goofy? A little bit, yeah. It’s also well-paced, lighthearted fun, with lots of snappy dialogue and amusing pop culture references. As far as science fiction goes, it’s no Blade Runner, but it is kind of The Last Starfighter meets Barbarella, which is very OK with me! I read too many serious comics these days. Having something as cheerfully fun as Lady Robotika helps balance things out. My only concern now is: how many people out there are fans of SF & superhero comics featuring lighthearted, angst-free adventure stories? I hope there are a good number, because I’d like Lady Robotika to continue with healthy sales. And can we have some more comics that are this much fun? Please? (Source: the goblin in the library) Fri, 23 Jul 2010 00:13:59 +0100 861569