A Clean Office at Last!
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| Photo credit: Brent Frankenhoff |
After 30 years!
Now, I begin to organize plans so as to get done many of the projects that have had to wait "until I have more time." It's exciting! Read more...
Friday, January 11, 2013
After 30 years!
Now, I begin to organize plans so as to get done many of the projects that have had to wait "until I have more time." It's exciting! Read more...
Thursday, January 10, 2013
CBG Staff Released Neat Books in 2012
As I look back over the years at Comics Buyer's Guide, I'm reminded that 2012 saw Brent Frankenhoff and me coming up with three books in addition to the 12 monthly issues of the magazine.
They are Comics Buyer's Guide Presents Dangerous Curves, Comics Buyer's Guide Presents the Greatest Comic Book Covers of All Time, and A Parent's Guide to the Best Kids' Comics. Each is fun, the first two basically being romps through the wonder world of comics images and the last being A New Concept.
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Maggie's World Begins, Comics Buyer's Guide Ends with #1699
The press release concerning cancellation of Comics Buyer's Guide with #1699 appears on the magazine's website.
It's been a delight to have had the opportunity for the last three decades - plus a prior decade with the magazine's creator, Alan Light - to communicate so wonderfully with comics collectors, comics fans, and comics professionals. Over the years, we were able to reach out in a variety of ways, including coming up with the term "Done in One" (to identify stories told completely in one issue, announced in CBG for April 5, 1996). We also helped create a trade journal that was the inciting force behind the Free Comic Book Day outreach project that Diamond Comic Distributors implemented and that continues every May. Don and I were excited by Krause Publications' challenge of revamping an advertising newspaper into a full-fledged information resource. It has been an energizing challenge to adapt to the changes of the field, as it grew from a niche interest to something popular enough to command the covers of national pop-culture magazines.
John Jackson Miller has provided a look at the history of CBG on his website; check it out!
How about me? Hey, the same week that Krause Publications announced the end of CBG saw the first installment of my contribution to a new outlet for me: a monthly post on Comic-Con's "Toucan" blog. Hope you enjoy it!
Onward!
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
A Derivative Ghost Story
A few weeks ago, the folks at Wisconsin Life announced a competition in ghost writing. Wait. That's not quite what I mean. The competition was not to write under a pseudonym. It was a competition to write an entirely original ghost story in fewer than 600 words.
The resultant entries chosen for broadcast appear online - though, for reasons I do not comprehend at the moment, Wisconsin Life has opted for a format not designed to be accessed on one of today's most-used Internet-access tools (which is to say, iPads, such as the one on which I'm writing this). In any case, the challenge was to write an (it was emphasized) original story. Which made me wonder what a derivative tale might resemble. So I sent to the competition the following non-contribution, which I now share with you. Happy Halloween!
This is not an entry in the Ghost Story competition for several reasons: (1) With the exception of one substituted word, it is not original. (2) I don't think I could compete in any case, because my son works for National Public Radio. (3) I'm a friend of the judge. But the challenge itself enticed me, what with its insistence that the story be wholly original. "So," I said to myself, "what would be the opposite of that? A derivative ghost story, of course!" So I played a bit with that concept, keeping within the total word limit, and thought you might find it similarly amusing. As a NON-entry, then, it is offered in the spirit of exploration - and you're certainly free to do what you like with it, since it's public domain in any case.
Here you go:
Derivative Ghost Story
I … had not been asleep long when I was awakened by the continual repetition of a monotonous sound. [“The Spectre in the Cart” 1904 by Thomas Nelson Page, 19 words]
“She is below,” I thought, “and terrified by my entrance has evaded me in the darkness of the hall.”
With the purpose of seeing her I turned to leave the room, but took a wrong direction - the right one! My foot struck her, cowering in a corner of the room. [“The Moonlit Road” 1909 by Ambrose Bierce, 51 words]
She looked straight into my eyes. “Dear, do you not understand? Have you forgotten? I died three years ago today.” [“The Bridal Pair” 1902 by Robert W. Chambers, 20 words, replacing “his” with “my”]
On her limbs was the stiffness of death, and on her face, in the fading light of the sun, the terror of something more than death. Her lips were parted in entreaty, in dismay, in agony; and on her blanched brow and cheeks there glowed the marks of ten hideous wounds from two vengeful ghostly hands. [“The Romance of Certain Old Clothes” 1885 by Henry James, 56 words]
“This is too much!” cried I passionately, and convinced that I was the victim of a trick, though how such a trick could have been effected, I did not care to consider. [“The Underground Ghost” 1866 by John Berwick Harwood, 32 words]
As soon as I had partially recovered my comprehension I rushed madly to the door, with the dim idea of beating it in. My fingers touched a cold and solid wall. There was no door! [“The Lost Room” 1858 by Fitz-James O’Brien, 35 words]
Life is very much more exciting now than it used to be. You see I have something more to expect, to look forward to, to watch. [“The Yellow Wall Paper” 1892 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 26 words]
Read more...
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
The Shock of Nostalgic Recognition
The American Association of University Women first attracted my attention decades ago by the quality of its incredible used-book sales. While the AAUW is laudably devoted to such efforts as supporting education for women, I confess it was the lure of massive quantities of used books that drew me to the organization. This year, I'm targeting the 76th annual book sale of the Appleton, Wisconsin, branch; it's scheduled for October 25-28 in the Northland Mall, and high-energy sorting activities have been going on for many, many days. I'll be donating a considerable run of American Heritage, myself - thereby clearing some bookshelves and hoping to find a home for a publication I've loved but haven't consulted for some time.
But one of the delights of handling hundreds of discarded books is stumbling over unusual items - often, those of no interest to most prospective purchasers. Case in point: the shock I got when I picked up a tattered book titled Mr. and Mrs. Mouse. Credits on the title page are as follows: Illustrated by Ida Bohatta Morpurgo. English Version by June Head. Publishing information ran: Ars Sacra, Herbert Dubler, Inc., New York, N.Y. It was copyright 1943 by Herbert Dubler, Inc. And, yes, I'd absolutely had a copy - last seen probably 60 years ago. I hadn't been looking for it. It had never entered my thoughts later. But it evoked a double-take and an ensuing quick grab, followed by residence in my tote bag and an IOU in the cash can.
An online search has turned up little information. "Ida Bohatta" was apparently a popular German illustrator of children's books, and a Google search of images shows the book cover, where it's titled Mauschen Sorgen. So was the U.S. version in any respect outstanding? Well, after I finished reading it, I did, indeed, savor one entry - a poem accompanying this illustration - which I think became something of a family saying:
"I have the most astounding news,
The best you've heard for ages,
They're giving bits of cheese away
In pretty wire cages."
"Don't you be taken in, my dear,"
Said cautious Mrs. Grey.
"I never trust the humans when
They give their cheese away." Read more...
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