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Ten Things for the Weekend #1
The first in a regular series. If anyone has a 'thing' to mention in future weekend posts, let me know in the Comments or on Twitter, and I'll mull it over midweek. When I'm at a convention or event, the ten things will all be about that.
8: I'm enjoying Victoria Coren's tweets about playing screamingly high-faluting poker in exotic locations. I'm terrible at the game. Whatever the opposite of a poker face is, that's what I have. (My wife is quite good at it, winning a few bob every now and then. Every member of the Anglican clergy has to have an eccentricity. She has that and fighting in chainmail.) It takes a lot to get me to follow, on Twitter, someone I haven't met: Victoria joins Kristen Bell and Caitlin Moran in quite a select group.
9: Black Widow: Deadly Origin premiere hardcover: out on 4th March. My first comics hardcover. Just saying. And congratulations to Marjorie Liu for getting the gig on Natalia's ongoing title.
10: It's surely John Picacio's year for the Best Artist Hugo. He's been close so many times before, and he's had a fantastic year. Check out this gorgeous gallery of what he did in 2009.
And that's it for the first Ten Things. Until next time, Cheerio!
1: I really should have mentioned Asterios Polyp in my survey of Hugo nominable (I've decided on that word) comics. It's David Mazzucchelli's 'great American graphic novel', concerning a Professor of Greek descent who makes a huge change in lifestyle following the destruction of his home. It's the magical realist elements which make it a matter for the Hugos, notably the fact that some of it's narrated by the protagonist's dead twin brother. It's getting a lot of traction in the 'best of 2009' lists of the comics world, and stands for the whole field of book store graphic novels, representatives of which would grace any Hugo shortlist. Find out more here.
2: On the recommendation of author and puppeteer Mary Robinette Kowal, we just saw Strings, an excellent fantasy adventure movie performed as puppetry, and set in a world of puppets, where strings stretching into the sky is a part of life. It's remarkably un-twee, and instead does the SF thing of letting our discovery of the various interesting facets of the world (for instance a city gate that's closed by raising a bar too high for puppets to step over it, thus blocking their strings from getting through) be at the heart of the narrative. It should be much better known. Do check it out.
3: My reading of Greg Egan is making me feel all noble for tackling something that features physics diagrams in the first two pages. I always return to pure SF, and rather miss it in the modern spread of genres. (Tor.com's last two seasons of special features, for instance, Steampunk and Lovecraft have both harked back to the past. I seek a greater return to attempts at grasping the future.) The biography in the back of Schild's Ladder rather underlines the point: 'Greg Egan's extraordinary hard SF novels have won him a reputation as one of the hardest... hard SF novelists.' He's that hard. Indeed, he makes Charlie Stross look like C.S.Lewis. But I'm enjoying the wholemeal.
4: At 2pm on the Thursday of the World Horror Convention in Brighton (details on the right margin) I'll be taking part in the panel 'A Genre by any Other Name: What is Horror?' Which'll be about the various different attempts to rename, redefine and pare down the genre.
5: Vworp Vworp! is a wonderful-looking new Doctor Who fanzine, specialising in Doctor Who Magazine and the comic strips contained therein. It's even got some free Eleventh Doctor and Amy transfers, drawn by Paul Grist! You're at least going to check out the link, right? And I'm sure you may well want to pre-order the fanzine, all of which you can do here.
6: I've always enjoyed Brian Cronin's Comic Book Legends Revealed, one of the few comics history sites that can be thoroughly enjoyed by those who know nothing about the field. These tales of what might have been, and the extraordinary circumstances about how some things were (for instance, how a whole issue drawn for the Tarzan comic ended up in Battlestar Galactica, in column #238) give a real insight into how extreme our medium was, and sometimes still is. The writing style can sometimes be that of someone who wants to rather too definitely pin down meaning and avoid misinterpretation, but maybe that befits a historian of the weird. You can find every column here.
7: We went house hunting this afternoon (as Al Robertson mentioned on Twitter, it's easier in the snow, they leave big tracks), and saw a few promising places, but driving through Oxfordshire villages on frosty roads, having to get momentum going for hills, was kind of trying. Here's the view down the valley near my house at the moment:
Those of you in places that regularly have harsh winters may well be sighing and shaking their heads right now.
8: I'm enjoying Victoria Coren's tweets about playing screamingly high-faluting poker in exotic locations. I'm terrible at the game. Whatever the opposite of a poker face is, that's what I have. (My wife is quite good at it, winning a few bob every now and then. Every member of the Anglican clergy has to have an eccentricity. She has that and fighting in chainmail.) It takes a lot to get me to follow, on Twitter, someone I haven't met: Victoria joins Kristen Bell and Caitlin Moran in quite a select group.
10: It's surely John Picacio's year for the Best Artist Hugo. He's been close so many times before, and he's had a fantastic year. Check out this gorgeous gallery of what he did in 2009.
And that's it for the first Ten Things. Until next time, Cheerio!
Labels:
Asterios Polyp,
Black Widow,
Comic Book Legends Revealed,
Doctor Who,
DWM,
Greg Egan,
John Picacio,
Strings,
Ten Things,
Victoria Coren,
Vworp Vworp,
World Horror Convention
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Great news about the Black Widow hardcover. I'll definitely pick up a copy. I'm still hoping to see a complete collection hardcover of all 15 issues +annual of Captain Britain and MI-13 at some point too.
Congratulations on the Black Widow Hardcover. I've been reading that title and think the story is great. Can't wait to see what else you will be writing for Marvel in the future.
Thanks, you two. I'd like that too, Hoot, but I don't know of it happening.
Brian Cronin's column is one of my favourites, too. I sent him a query some months back about the announcement in the lettercolumn of a mid-70s MASTER OF KUNG FU that Moench & Gulacy would shortly be working on an Elric comic, and he found out everything about that project-that-never-was I could've wished for. I also mentioned an issue of CAPTAIN MARVEL being turned into a Hulk v Rick Jones battle in MIGHTY WORLD OF MARVEL but, not unnaturally, he doesn't want to proceed with that one until he has actual proof of its existence. I've searched for it at a couple of comic marts but so far no luck.
"The writing style can sometimes be that of someone who wants to rather too definitely pin down meaning and avoid misinterpretation, but maybe that befits a historian of the weird."
I think that's the way it has to be. Only yesterday, I was in London taking photos for a friend of the flat where Arthur C.Clarke lived as a fan in the early 1940s and I felt like kicking myself. Wny? Well, when I wrote my history of early fandom in the UK some 20 years ago I claimed the flat had been destroyed in a bombing raid in 1941. I misread the bombing records and so presented something false as fact. I really hate doing that.
- Rob Hansen
Hi Paul,
Just a quick thank you for the Vworp Vworp! plug. Much appreciated!
Best wishes,
Colin Brockhurst
Two words for winter: good snow tires.
All season tires are only good if you live in California. And you have yet to experience the joy of stepping out of your front door and seeing a wall of ice and snow in your driveway that goes up to your chin.
You're going to need snow tires, because of all those experts who say that Global Warming is a 100% certainty. Because according to Furious D's Law of Expert Prophecies, whenever the experts are 100% certain that one thing will happen, the exact opposite will definitely happen.
Rob: that's an experience that anyone who writes factual stuff can identify with. It's really hard to nail down the part of one's brain that assumes things. Cheers, Colin: it looks great. Mr. Furious: I feel we're going to need snow chains *because* of global warming. This is what climate change is going to do to Britain: make us more Scandanavian.
can't wait to get my hands on the Black Widow hardcover, though I myself count XTNCT as your first hardcover (though it's not exactly like the sleeve covered fancy Marvel ones i guess)
Thanks. And you're right, I'm just looking forward to my Marvel goodness.