Lagrange points

The shoulders of a giant: Harvey Pekar, 1939-2010

2010-07-14T22:50:07Z

I met Harvey a few times, spoke with him on the phone a few more times, did him a couple of favors, interviewed him, and had dinner with him once. In other words I was a bit player in his life, at most. But as a writer who decided that not being able to draw comics to professional standards wasn't going to get in my way...well, he wouldn't spell out for you what that meant, so I won't either.

I'm sad that he's gone. But there's some hope mixed in with the sadness, since he's one guy for whom I think the whole "rest in peace" thing will work out. He earned all the rest and peace and acclaim you can imagine, and then some. Thank you, Harvey.

Nina Paley explains the LHC

2010-06-22T00:58:18Z

Image by tsmall via Flickr

Nina Paley does great work, and has for years. Nina's Adventures, Fluff, and most recently Sita Sings the Blues are all terrific. I link directly to Sita because you really want to see this movie, and learn its history. Really really.

But science? Who knew? You do, now! Go look.

Art on the moon?

2010-06-14T00:50:25Z

If you've read any of my previous posts on space, you know that Alan Bean is the only artist who has been to another planet. But, did he unknowingly carry some art with him on his trip? Watch some PBS...

Jim Ottaviani at Kids Read Comics!, June 12-13 in Dearborn

2010-06-09T12:07:28Z

A local show! Focused on kids! Roger Langridge! Raina Telgemeier! Dave Roman! Katie Cook! Jef Mallett! Matt Feazell! Tara Tallan! Michelangelo Cicerone! And that's just the guests I can list off the top of my head...there are more, and they're all great.

And your cost? Nothing at all -- attending Kids Read Comics! is free.

You should come.

Are you taking requests?

2010-06-06T20:57:37Z

Bands playing along the road during races are great. Music gets you out of your own head for a while, and if you're like me, you don't want to be in my head for a half-marathon's worth of running.

But. If I hear "Eye of the Tiger" one more time at a race, I'm going to run off the course and pull all the power cords out of all the amplifiers and then where will you and your power chords be?

Yeah, I won't do that. At about mile 10 I have enough energy to groan and run, and at mile 12 I have enough to grimace and trot and nowhere near enough for a gratuitous and impolite detour. And I know they mean well. But, there have to be other songs that bands who are willing to stand by the side of the road can play for sweaty, grimacing, and tired people. Anything by the Clash would do, and to prove I'm not entirely stuck in the past, OK Go's "This Too Shall Pass" ought to work as well. But that one song from that one Rocky movie (I refuse to look this up, and don't bother telling me)...I heard my quota the first time I heard it.

It was still a lovely day for a long, timed run with a few thousand like-minded folks, and I am grateful to anybody willing to stand by the side of the road and clap or play or yell, and I am grateful to have finished without major injury. Sure wish I'd remembered the Body Glide, though...

Moon Zoo

2010-06-03T02:50:11Z

Image via Wikipedia

Do you need to take some time off from real work? Would you feel less guilty about procrastinating on your current graphic novel (ahem) if you were helping real lunar science get done? Can you point and click on craters, boulders, and spacecraft?

If you answered yes to any of the above, you should be helping map the lunar surface via Moon Zoo. What you'll be doing is looking at images from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), including features as small as 50 cm (about one and a half feet) across, and helping to provide detailed crater counts for as much of the Moon's surface as possible.

Have you started not-really-wasting-time yet? You're welcome.

Skepticality!

2010-05-27T02:29:01Z

Trust me, that's a real word. In fact, it's the official name of the official podcast of Skeptic Magazine. I mention it because I was just a guest on show #131. Swoopy, the host, asked me excellent questions and I talked on and on and on.

If you'd like to hear that, head on over to Skepticality now and download and/or stream to your heart's content. If you're not reading this in late May, 2010 and I'm no longer front page news, you can click on the "past episodes" link and you'll find it in the archive.

While you're at it you may notice that I also joined Derek and Swoopy in #036, back in October, 2006. But listen to the episodes featuring James Randi, Phil Plait, and folks from Mythbusters instead. They're all better than mine. Trust me.

Back to "The Imitation Game"

2010-05-05T21:09:08Z

I've let the Turing script mellow to its full flavor consistency for a month, and am now heading into the rewrite stage. Meaning, I'm sure the flavor is not quite right yet.

In the interim, besides doing the normal things that make up normal life -- day job, paying taxes, seeing family, etc. -- I read 13 novels and story collections, 2 non-fiction books, and 4.25 (I'm a quarter of the way through Urasawa's Pluto) graphic novels. And some magazines. I think I can consider my mental palate cleansed.

Of the fiction, the best were a collection of stories by Peter S. Beagle called The Line Between and Feed, by M.T. Anderson. In non-fiction I found The Voice of the Crystal by H.P. Friedrichs inspirational and fascinating, and though it didn't count towards the tally above because I haven't finished it yet -- not even close -- Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin is great so far. On the graphic novel side of things, I liked Raina Telgemeir's Smile and Hope Larson's Mercury.

I also watched the fifth and last season of "The Wire". Like many, I was a little disappointed with it since, unlike the previous four seasons, which were brilliant, this was merely excellent. I'll probably watch the whole thing again, from the beginning.

But first, a return to Alan Turing's life, discoveries, inventions, and secrets.

Jim Ottaviani at TCAF, May 8-9 in Toronto

2010-05-03T16:57:23Z

I've been invited back to the Toronto Comics Art Festival, and as I told the National Post, I couldn't be happier because (a) any excuse to visit Toronto is a good one, (b) a Festival of Comics is a better excuse than most, and (c) a Festival of Comics held in a Toronto Library is almost heaven.

I'll be there selling books, giving away posters and Quantum Zombies business cards, and I'm also scheduled for a panel on research in comics. I hope to see you there...I can't wait.

Jim Ottaviani at C2E2, April 16-18 in Chicago

2010-04-12T01:26:15Z

C2E2 is a new show, so I don't know exactly what to expect, but I look forward to it! I'll be set up at booth 625, which is Haven's "Indy Island."

The guest list is terrific, and Chicago is a great comics town. So, I hope you'll drop by.

Turing machines and scripts

2010-03-29T01:18:39Z

Yesterday I finished the first version (version 1.5 is probably more accurate, since I did extensive rewrites and polishes along the way...) of the script for "The Imitation Game", and the following video showed up on the Make blog:

It's that kind of world sometimes; meaning, wonderful. You can learn more about this amazing project at Mike Davey's site. Now I'll spend roughly a month trying not to think about Turing or his work. (I'll fail.) Then, round two.

Making things

2010-03-23T03:57:34Z

As I hammer away at a keyboard, my youngest brother hammers away at other things. (He's the one in the middle. Also, his sweatshirt is not on fire, though he said it might as well have been.) I'd be proud to know, and I'd want to know, all my siblings, even if I wasn't related to them. They've made families, careers, and have made my life -- and the lives of many others as well -- better in too many ways to count.

OK, Go!

2010-03-05T22:20:50Z

So many reasons to like this:

but I think I like it most for the closure. Scott McCloud would be proud!

The remedy for speech I don't like...

2010-02-19T17:18:56Z

...is more speech, or more money?

Both, apparently.

Sometimes being a member of the ACLU puts me in an uncomfortable position. Its enthusiastic support of the Supreme Court's ruling on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is one of those times.

Ira Glasser, former executive director, offers an explanation of why we should like this. Intellectually, I get it. But I still don't like it. The Onion does its usual excellent job of highlighting why.

Robert B. Parker, 1932-2010

2010-02-13T21:35:42Z

Author Robert B. Parker died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and it makes me sad. I've enjoyed his books for over 20 years, and particularly recommend the first dozen of his novels about Spenser -- the private detective, not the poet. His discipline (write 5 pages a day, no more and no less) and his craft (even after multiple readings of, say Valediction, I'm still amazed at how he could move from introspection to violent action and back) and his ability with dialogue are inspiring. Hard to match, though; I know he would have found a better way to write that last sentence, and could have done it without the parentheticals.

I don't know why I never wrote him a fan letter, but I didn't. Probably because I still can't think of anything to say but thank you, and now all I can do is say it in public. So, thank you. And thanks to wanting to learn more about him, I ran across Wired for Books, where I will now spend more time than I ought to spare listening to author interviews. I counted more than 85 that I want to hear right now.

But I'll try to emulate Parker's disciplined approach to making books and be sure I get my pages written before I start listening. When I do, I'll start with him.