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May 07 2011
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australia, comics, travel

hostels and comics that are free and otherwise

I’ve secured a lease on an apartment for Madame Holly and myself. And because of that I think I’m going to be able to start enjoying Sydney again. I’m not the kind of person who can relax and have fun with a big unresolved issue looming. On Monday though, I’ll move in and that’ll be a lot of worrying off of me.

In preparation for moving in, and because I’m going to be spending more time hanging out at Prosentient (but not working), I switched hostels today. The place I’d been at was out in Potts Point, near the King’s Cross subway stop, which was a longer trip into Ultimo than I would have liked.

I stayed at the Blue Parrot on John’s recommendation and I have to follow up with him about why he thought it was so great. Not that it was bad. It just didn’t generate any great allegiance in me. Most likely that’s because I didn’t really participate in the hostel-bonding experiences of drinking at whatever local bar dressed up as a national stereotype or dressed as a lady for free drinks or whatever.

The Blue Parrot staff were more friendly there than at the Sydney Central YHA where I am now, which is a much more professionalized hotel-like hostel (that charges for WiFi – boofuckingurns). But they also had terrible radio stations blaring in the kitchen all day long.

Enough about hostels.

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day and I went to a couple of places to see what was happening. Kings Comics had a 20% off sale (50% off back issues) plus the aforementioned free comic books. I picked up the paperback edition of Jimmy Corrigan the Smartest Kid on Earth and managed to refrain from buying anything else. This was kind of a big deal for me. I learned I’m actually two trades behind on DMZ and it took so much not to complete that collection. But something like that would have to come back to Canada with me to be fully useful. Jimmy Corrigan I can read here and possibly get Holly to read because it’s awesome, and if we don’t have room to bring it back to Vancouver it would make an excellent gift.

I also went to a Kinokuniya Bookstore. I know I’ve read that name before but didn’t know what kind of bookstore to expect. It was quite large and had a bunch of artists there for Free Comic Book Day, including a couple of indie zine-type self publishers. I bought a really cool black ink on black paper thing about Leviathan and Moby Dick and other fish. Once I get a few more zines and things the plan is to send them over to Caitlin at the Schulz.

Tonight I went for a walk around Darling Harbour, which reminded me of the Kowloon boardwalk where you look at Hong Kong Island (I think I’ve got those geographical references correct, but since I’m not paying for WiFi they are being written without fact-checking and I might forget to check this before posting it). The climate and general appearance of Sydney reminds me more of Los Angeles if LA was a walkable size. Despite the city’s expense, I think I like it.

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May 01 2011
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australia, comics, games, library, travel

lazy sunday

Today I woke up to the snores of an Irishman. From across the room in the hostel, but still. Very loud. The Americans who woke up to the noise were vocal about their displeasure. I merely lay there waiting and figuring out how to spend my day.

See this is the thing about being in a country that isn’t cheap when you have no real money, you can’t just head off into the void and do whatever, confident in your ability to make it out financially unscathed. Relatively I mean. If you go ahead and crash a scooter even in a country where they’re as cheap as Armenians well yes you do have to pay a bit even then. You need to plan out your day so it’ll work.

Having not a tonne of money in Sydney means I’m spending a lot of time in parks and libraries. It seems a waste to just hang out here at the hostel reading, but too expensive to justify going to have afternoon beers by myself. It’s nice out, 20 degrees during the day, so it’s no great hardship to go sit in the sun. Today I found the local branch of the city public library (as opposed to the state library I was in yesterday) and read some comics.

Also, I got a SIM card and now have a phone number. Not that I use the phone part of my phone very often, especially when I don’t know anyone in this city, but it’s probably good for my future employer (assuming the visa comes through eventually) to have some way of contacting me.

Yesterday I found a really swank comic shop and a decent game store. I’m going to wait until I have an apartment before I start buying books/comics/games, but gamers are the only community I feel any confidence in dropping into. My first forays in Vancouver were to game stores too.

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is that I’m really looking forward to when Holly arrives in a couple of months.

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Apr 14 2011
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comics, library

near-sighted monkey sighting

One of the perks of being in White River Junction when I am is that Lynda Barry was here for a couple of days doing a workshop with the students. Last night there was a bit of an afterparty with Ms. Barry at the bar which Caitlin and I could go to (we weren’t invited to the workshop, being librarians as opposed to cartoonists).

Lynda’s a very good talker and it’s kind of neat to listen to a person who’s famous talking about her friends and acquaintances who are people who’ve always just been names in books (like Charles Burns, Ira Glass and Matt Groening). People were interested in the gossip, sure, but there was also talk about the notion of language and culture being a part of biological evolution, synchronicity and all sorts of good stuff. She sketched a sleeping dog while she was talking.

I stayed out of it mostly, after a couple of Canada references at the beginning. I mean, the students are the ones who’re there to learn from her, to soak up her methods and whatever. I’m just the librarian intern. Not “just.” It’s actually really fun to have such a specific role in town here. Caitlin introduces me as “her intern from Canada” and yeah. Since I’m here a short time, being pigeon-holed is exactly what I want. It makes interaction easier. I have an in to just sit there and listen to people talk about linework and getting their pages done and I really enjoy it. It’s all so much more interesting than geeking out on tagging or social media or whatever crap I animatedly talk about after school with a couple of beers in me. (Do I talk about library stuff when that happens? Maybe I don’t.)

It was also pretty funny because last night was also 50¢ wings night at the bar, so it was packed (evidently they used to be 25¢ wings and they needed to thin out the crowds a bit by doubling the price) with regular townsfolk, who for the most part are distinguishable from the cartoonists. One of the students was talking about coming out the door and a bunch of guys were driving by yelling “Woo! We’re gonna go fuck some chicks! Fuck’em! Woo!” Those guys were not cartoonists.

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Mar 13 2011
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australia, comics, library, school, whining, writing

brain-weight

I am always completely amazed at how much better I feel when I have written. Today I finished off the first draft of a cataloguing paper (about the challenges of cataloguing webcomics) and while it’s nothing crazy impressive, I learned some shit and have some stuff written about what I learned. And my mood? So much better than it was yesterday, or all last week when I hadn’t written anything on this and was just dreading it.

A while back I was trying to figure out why I was so much less motivated this term with a month left than last term. And the answer was completely to do with the whole leaving for China the day after classes were over. I needed to get everything out of the way so I did. This term there’s cool stuff happening after classes are done (going to Vermont and then to Australia), but nothing I need to push myself right now for. And no Holly waiting for me right on the other side. (She’ll be coming to Oz in July.)

But today I feel good. I wrote a post for Closed Stacks (another library blog I’m contributing to) and a book review. I’ve got business cards in the mail. Tonight I’m going to do some real writing. Oh, and Reyn’s a dad (I saw it on his sister’s Facebook), so congratulations.

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Jan 24 2011
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comics, library, school

library niches / distractions / poem

I finally got the work I wanted to get done this weekend done today. Which is fine. Monday is still part of my weekend in this term’s schedule. But I can’t help thinking that all of this schoolwork is distraction from doing the stuff I should be working on. I don’t know. I feel like things are going along, like they’re working, but that in the end I’m working towards something I am not sure if I want.

I mean, yeah, I want to be a comics librarian, but what is that going to look like? It’s not the same thing as wanting to work at a university, or even be a YA librarian. There can’t be that many jobs that would be for me (which is part of why I’m so excited to do my practicum at the Schulz Library, it being pretty much my dream job). But if those jobs are even fewer and further between than regular library jobs then maybe I’ve got to be making that job myself.

One way I could see doing that would be to turn Librarianaut into something like Fleen. But while Fleen is journalism about webcomics, I could make a library for digital comics. Not just a directory but a research tool. Last week there were a pile of interesting reference pictures flying around Twitter from comics people. What happens when we collect those tools somewhere and make them useful for people who didn’t see them on twitter? That’s what a librarian is supposed to do. Improve society by giving people informational tools. I could do that for my niche (if indie digital comics can be considered my niche). I think I could.

This is what I’m thinking about tonight. I want to use these skills to make something. The way Holly makes poetry.

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Jan 05 2011
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comics, writing

what makes an artist

In the current Webcomics Weekly podcast Scott Kurtz talks about what makes a cartoonist being a unique worldview, not using cartooning to make money by adding static to the internet (plus bearsnatch). It’s a really interesting discussion of shifting big-tent definitions of art. “I worked really hard on this,” Kurtz says, which makes him mad that the Oatmeal guy calls himself a cartoonist. And that the business model is the only part of PvP that his non-fans care about, when he cares so much about the craft of cartooning.

There was stuff about how you learn about the history of what you love, and getting really passionate about the history of your craft. There’re bits about how he felt embarrassed to have to ask who Jack Kirby was and why he was important, and how he has to explain stuff about why Peanuts was so revolutionary.

Man, it was a good discussion. If you care about the intersection of art and business, or working really hard on your skills vs leapfrogging to success, or like to hear a guy say curmudgeonly stuff you might find it interesting.

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Nov 20 2010
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comics, games, school, vancouver, whining, writing, 中国

i guess it’s saturday today?

I think I left the house yesterday. Yes I did. I bought some groceries. And the day before, I’d been to school and off visiting libraries for homework purposes and then to Kerry’s for board- and party- gaming. We played Settlers and the endgame got bogged down as it sometimes does. I skipped out on Dominion because I was recuperating from Settlers, where I’d made the classic mistake of jumping to a lead too soon and not being able to close it out before getting ganged upon. Selah. I’d been pretty lucky in my early resources.

The rest of the weekend’s been homework. I’m almost done the actual Subject Headings part of the last assignment for one of my classes (leaving the essay about the experience still to go). I’m giving a selection of my comics collection subject headings to describe what they’re about. I’m not breaking down the series like DMZ or Transmetropolitan into specific volumes and giving them each their own headings. It still got kind of out of hand (I have a lot of fun making lead-in terms). So far I’ve done it all in a text document without any layout type stuff so I don’t have a clue how big it would be on paper and that’s probably for the best.

I woke up to snow, which made it a good day to stay inside and work. It’s fine when the snow is on the mountains and I can see it up there when the clouds are high enough, but I’m not a big fan of it being here in my part of town. I came to Vancouver for rain and being able to bike to school all winter without ice spikes on my tires. Three days before I bike again.

One of the things I’m looking forward to about China (beyond just being with Holly and eating baked goods and watching movies Holly needs to see and not having assignments that need doing and being a somewhat useful dishwasher for the woman I love) is getting some writing work done. I’ve been terrible about it this semester. I know that so much of it has to be just sitting down and making the time to do it. Holly’ll be working when I’m there, so I’ll be filling my time with working too. I did this when I went to visit Nanjing in 2008, all spending my mornings writing while Holly was working. I got a lot done. Hopefully I can repeat myself, at least effort-wise.

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Sep 15 2010
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comics, school, vancouver

and it was raining

On my bike-ride home from school today I saw: an old VW campervan next to an old VW bug at a stoplight and they were both the same shade of orange, a portly middle-manager looking fellow in khakis and a blue button-down shirt skateboarding up a hill, a couple of people riding tall custom-built leisure bicycles, and a woman wearing high heeled boots for biking. They were kind of awesome and I told her so. She said “They do the trick.”

Yesterday in class I had a great interaction. We’ve been introducing ourselves a lot this past week, and in the 8am class we did it again. “State your name and something about you.” At 8am I said “I’m Justin and I think Joss Whedon’s best work was on Astonishing X-Men.” Nerd talk, but fine. Going around the room we got to Corey, who is a big guy from Houston, who served in Afghanistan (I don’t know which branch of the military) and then got an MA and now is getting this degree. He says his bit, but tacks onto the end, “And Justin, Joss Whedon is overrated.” I’m mock outraged and we all laugh and life is good.

In the afternoon class, we’re doing basically the same thing, going around the room saying our names and what our undergrad was in and whatever. This time I’m near the end. Corey has already introduced himself before it gets to me. I say “I’m Justin and I have an anthropology degree and then I was inspired to go get a journalism degree by Transmetropolitan, the graphic novel by Warren Ellis. And if Corey,” I say, theatrically gesturing to his side of the room, “has a problem with Warren Ellis, we may have to step outside.” Everybody laughs. Someone asks, mock incredulously “Are we going to see a fight?” Everyone immediately puts their money on the big black man who’s been trained to kill people, and I’m mock-outraged and life is good.

In the class break I find Corey to talk comics (we agree that Neil Gaiman is a genius and that the way Whedon brought back Colossus might not have made complete sense) and another classmate tells me/us how freaked out our prof had looked as that exchange had happened, like he was going to have to break up a fight. So that was even more fun to know after the fact.

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Aug 27 2010
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books, comics, travel

lefty

I’m in Vancouver. After meeting Jackie and Terry on the plane (they were heading west for a wedding), the SkyTrain tried to separate me from one of my bags, but through phonecalls back to Winnipeg, all worked out. And then I cursed my two checked bags a hell of a lot as I took the bus the rest of the way to my new home. But I got here and the room is not as small as people had said it would be. Everyone did a very good job adjusting my expectations. Thanks.

I went out walking for a couple of hours, familiarizing myself with the area, as I am wont to do. I found comic shops and used book stores and the train station. I’ll head to UBC on Monday to get my bus pass. And then I had dinner with my new roommates, Brenda and Marlis. Which was fun and welcoming. They’ve been really great and it’s going to be a pretty good time here, I think. Except for the times when I realize how far away I am from the woman I love. Those times kind of suck.

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Jun 04 2010
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comics, whining, writing

workshoppery

Today was part two of this comics making workshop I attended at the library. It was one of those things that made me wish I could draw and don’t have to rely on finding a collaborator to turn my comics ideas into something. That’s why I’ve been shifting away from my comics I suppose. Writing without pictures doesn’t require me to find a person to help me. I can hack away all by myself without bothering anyone. But these two sessions were pretty good. I think I got more out of last week’s than this week’s but whatever. It does feel good to have been in a room with people who care about the same sorts of things I do. I didn’t take full advantage of it because I didn’t want to get in the way of the younger people who the session was really for.</excuse>

Unrelated, I have a place to live in Vancouver! Thank you, Mennonite connections.

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