This is currently the worst-drawn panel in Set to Sea, even after I went after it (yet again) with white out and touchups. But I think I've just got to let it go.
It's been raining for about 48 hours straight around here.
I had a very James Joyce-themed birthday. My friends Joey and Michele even gave me an eyepatch, glasses, and a bowler hat. I guess I've been yammering too much about Ulysses! It's just the most amazing book I've read, is all.
Eleanor and I are both going to SPX this year! I posted up a little map with our table location on the Little House blog just now. And Elo will have copies of The Secret Science Alliance! I don't know if you could call it the book's "debut," but it kinda feels like it.
Here's a cute quote from Nabokov's "Lectures on Literature":
"We should always remember that the work of art is invariably the creation of a new world... The writer is the first man to map it and to name the natural objects it contains. Those berries there are edible.: That speckled creature that bolted across my path might be tamed. That lake between those trees will be called Lake Opal or, more artistically, Dishwater Lake. That mist is a mountain - and that mountain must be conquered. Up a trackless slope climbs the master artist, and at the top, on a windy ridge, whom do you think he meets? The panting and happy reader, and there they spontaneously embrace and are linked forever if the book lasts forever."
I'm selling some books! We've been paring down our bookshelves (always threatening to overflow,) and I'd love to see these in better hands. Just email me at: drew at drewweing dot com and let me know what you want. I'll cut you a deal if you want a bunch. These prices don't include shipping, but I'll send 'em media mail and just charge whatever the actual cost is. Here's the first batch: - A Complete Lowlife by Ed Brubaker - This one seems to be out of print and the cheapest one on Amazon is $25, so let's say $12, which is still cheaper than cover price. - Adrian Tomine: New York Sketches 2004 by Adrian Tomine - $6 - Edison Steelhead's Lost Portfolio: Exploratory Studies of Girls and Rabbits by Renee French - $3 - Grasshopper and the Ant by Harvey Kurtzman by Harvey Kurtzman - $5 - Shutterbug Follies by Jason Little - $4 - Super Spy by Matt Kindt - $4 - Wormdye by Eamon Espey - $4 - White Rapids by Pascal Blanchet - $4 - The Professor's Daughter by Joann Sfar and Emmanuel Guibert - $4 - Tiny Tyrant: Volume One: The Ethelbertosaurus by Lewis Trondheim and Fabrice Parme - $4 - The Black Diamond Detective Agency by Eddie Campbell - $4 - Freddie & Me: A Coming-of-Age (Bohemian) Rhapsody by Mike Dawson - $4 - Trains are... Mint by Oliver East - $4 - Midnight Sun by Ben Towle - $3 - The Lost Colony, Book One: The Snodgrass Conspiracy by Grady Klein - $3 - The Lost Colony, Book Two: The Red Menace by Grady Klein - $3 - Life and Times of R. Crumb by Monte Beauchamp - $5 - Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison and Dave McKean (the 1990 paperback) - $4 - As the World Burns: 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Stay in Denial by Derrick Jensen and Stephanie McMillan - $4 - Louis - The Clown's Last Words (v. 3) by Metaphrog - $3 - Perspective! For Comic Book Artists by David Chelsea - $5 - Lisa's Story: The Other Shoe by Tom Batiuk - $5 - Moby Dick (Classics Illustrated) by Herman Melville and Bill Sienkiewicz - $2 - National Lampoon's Favorite Cartoons of the 21st Century - $2 - The Naked Cartoonist by Robert Mankoff - $2 - The New Yorker Book of True Love Cartoons by New Yorker - $2
Checker Crossgen books: - Sigil Volume 5: Death Match by Chuck Dixon and Scott Eaton - $3 - Sigil Volume 6: Planetary Union by Chuck Dixon and Scott Eaton - $3 - Sojourn Volume 5: A Sorcerer's Tale by Ian Edgington and Greg Land - $3 - Sojourn Volume 6: Berserker's Tale by Chuck Dixon, Ian Edgington, Greg Land - $3 - Scion Volume 6: Royal Wedding by Ron Marz and Jimmy Cheung - $3 - Negation Volume 3: Hounded (Negation) by Tony Bedard and Paul Pelletier - $3 - Way Of The Rat Volume 3: Haunted Zhumar by Chuck Dixon and Jeff Johnson - $3 or get all 7 for $15!
I've gotten behind on posting up Set to Sea, but I have a good excuse:
Yep, the book that we spent the good part of the last couple years working on, is finally hitting store shelves! I got to watch from its earliest versions as Eleanor refined it from a fun, but straightforward, YA mystery/adventure book, to a tour de force of comics storytelling techniques. And then I got to ink it! If you like:
a.) Kids DIYing it without proper parental supervision b.) Secret underground hideouts crammed with mysterious equipment c.) Elaborately thought-out practical jokes d.) Turn-of-the-century inventors (Edison, Tesla, Marconi)
then you will like this book. It's really something special. Anyway, check out the website at www.secretsciencealliance.com. There are lots of preview pages, so you can see exactly why it took so long to finish.
(p.s. I'm going to cross-post this to the Little House Comics news, so apologies if you get it twice - it should be the only time. If you're interested in SSA updates, reviews and interviews, Little House will be the the place to go (it's Eleanor's and my joint site, and you can even add us on Facebook, Livejournal, or RSS.)
