I’m back from Seattle and Emerald City Comicon (ECCC). It was my first big mainstream comics convention and it was pretty fun. I saw Wil Wheaton do readings, indie gamers do their thing, met a bunch of webcomic people I’ve followed for years, bought some books, watched an amazing reading of the Star Wars radio play by a pile of voice actors, saw Marian Call sing and a pretty great night of improv. Good times.
The Dubious Monk
chinese curses since twenty aught two
Tag Archives: webcomics
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.
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.
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.
the machine of death has arrived
So a few years ago I wrote a story for an awesome sounding SF anthology edited by webcomic people I really like (Ryan North, David Malki !, and Matthew Bennardo who I’m not really aware of outside of this context) called The Machine of Death. It’s available now on Amazon, but if you’re interested in buying it, it’d be great if you could do it on October 26 (from Amazon.com). If you want more information about the history behind the anthology and why we’d like you to buy it that day (hint: it has to do with being an indie publisher trying to make a splash), this post should explain things a bit.
But, you might be saying, what is this anthology about? Well, the concept is that they’re stories from a world where the Machine of Death exists. The Machine tells you how you will die. It is infallible, but can be cryptic. So the stories are funny or poignant or generally awesome. My story, Firing Squad, is about a traveller in a rebellious mountain country whose benevolence has consequences. The book has 30 or so stories, and each of them is also illustrated by cool people from webcomics. It’s kind of awesome.
So it would be great if you considered buying it (or telling someone else to buy it for you) on Amazon.com on October 26, 2010. It is Creative Commons licensed and will be available electronically for free, but actual sales are good things to encourage this kind of effort in the future. Thanks.
