Books, Ribs, Infants, Attitude
No theme today. Sorry.
- Reminder: Anya’s Ghost, Astronaut Academy, and Level Up all release today. Reiteration: Anya’s Ghost remains the best comics I’ve read all year.
- Scott Kurtz continues to mend (and occasionally trip all the balls) from his busted rib, leading to a searing pain in his drawing arm and an impromptu guest week-or-two. It’s pretty cool, actually, because today’s guest strip pointed me back to a webcomic I discovered earlier this year, then promptly lost the link for — Frankenstein Superstar, by John Hazard. It’s still a bit too new to do a comprehensive review on, but I was upset with myself for not being able to follow its progress, and now I can. So I guess that’s a win for everybody except Scott’s ribs? Feel better soon, Scott.
- Jon Rosenberg is getting back on the webcomicking horse, combined with the caring for infant twin sons horse, and is probably pretty darned glad to have taken the visiting the infant twin sons in the PICU horse out to pasture and let it run free, never to return¹. To celebrate, he’s got a new print and t-shirt sale goin’ on (not to mention a considerable number of expenses, cf: infant twin sons).
- Words of Wisdom² from John Allison’s blog today, on the topic of how you present yourself; this one is important enough to quote at length:
On more occasions than I care to count, someone has come up to me at a comic show, pressed their little photocopied effort into my hand, and said “it’s not very good”. And 49 times out of 50, I manage to stop myself saying “then why on earth should I read it”.
Your work may not be of a professional standard, it may be loose, “sophomoric”, poorly lettered, imperfect — it may be flat out rotten — but you finished something, and if you finished one thing, you can finish another, and you will improve.
Self-criticism is a valid exercise and a vital component of improvement. But it is not an attractive attribute to strangers.
Out and about, on the scene, I want to see you beaming with pride that you made it out of that room with all your teeth and most of your sensibilities intact. [emphasis original]
Very little to add. If you’re the sort to judge your cartooning skills as inferior to John Allison’s, it’s not a leap to judge your social skills as being the same; you’d leap at the opportunity to follow his cartooning advice, so give his personal interaction advice a damn good listen.
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¹ Or possibly shooting that particular horse with high-yield atomic weaponry, you can never be sure, and it was a bastard of a horse anyway.
² The capital-w is warranted, as these words are very wise.
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