Saturday, January 24, 2004

The story of this sketch is told in my con report from the day I got it. Mike is also an Aquaman artist, although his work was one of the few highlights of an otherwise terrible run.

AQUAMAN
by Mike S Miller
16 November 2003
(permission to post given 16 November 2003 in person)
mikemiller.virtualave.net

To see all the sketches I have permission to post so far, check out my Sketchbook Page. If you have any contact information for any of the other artists I'm trying to contact, please e-mail me. Click for a random Aquaman sketch.

by Tegan at 8:04 PM Seattle time

DC: The New Frontier #1: It doesn't have the Elseworlds logo, but it's definitely an Elseworld. We start out with The Losers, and move on to Hal Jordan. I'm not sure where this is leading, but it's got some painfully powerful moments, like the Hourman segment. All-in-all, a good start. I'm looking forward to the rest.

Smallville: Whisper [3-10]: I think this is my favorite episode so far. The showdown between Chloe and Lionel was worth the price of admission alone, and they didn't force a happy solution to that problem by the end of the episode. When you add in the first appearance of Clark's glasses, you get a really strong overall story for me. Yeah, I REALLY liked it.

Birds of Prey #63: Yowza. I was sort of interested in the Shiva plot, but this one brought everything up a level. The plot with Babs got very interesting, particularly when she brought in her stable of computer geniuses. The cliffhanger also was a bit of a surprise.

Still to review: Batman Adventures, and Arrowsmith.

by Tegan at 9:14 AM Seattle time

Friday, January 23, 2004

Via Johnny B, a link to The 100 Most Annoying Things of 2003. Not bad. I agree with most of it. I won't tell you which ones I disagreed with.

From Neil Gaiman, not only does Fred the Cat get some exercise, but folks translate the l33t message he got with amusing results.

You can now send a message to Julie Schwartz through Mark Evanier. Send along your best wishes.

Peter David hears those sweet words that every father waits to hear from his baby.

Eve Tushnet blows away the comics bloggers with her analysis of Watchmen. Now, if only I could write that well.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who linked to/commented about/e-mailed me about my little rave of the original Red Tornado. I got considerably more response to that post than I was expecting. I just wanted to put back into her original context, I'm glad I struck a chord somewhere. Thanks.

The Comic Treadmill reviews Aquaman 13 and 14. In the meantime, excitement is building for the start of Will Pfeifer's new run, with in-house ads running in pretty much every DC book featuring that gorgeous Alan Freakin' Davis cover. There's also a sneak peek at DC's Aquaman mini-site so folks can see more of the interior artwork.

Dirk Deppey at Journalista! reports on Wal-Mart attempting to destroy the comics market (last item), like it's destroyed so many others. Knowing what Wal-Mart is and does, I wouldn't buy from them if they offered every trade at one cent apiece. I'll continue to support local shops, thank you much. Some cheap deals come at too high a price.

Sidewalk Chalk Artwork that fools the eyes. I saw something similar to this on-line, but with classical themes, not long ago, too. These are just cool... via Various and Sundry.

Another painful trauma post by Doc Shazam. Her life is one of seeing these patients come in, but she doesn't always get to see what happens next. She's not in a TV show, she doesn't get to wrap it up at the end of the episode. That's the hardest thing about reading her blog, but her ability with words makes it worth it. Go. Look.

by Tegan at 12:55 PM Seattle time

Outsiders #8: Ok, let's vote. Who thinks that cover looks like a 80s cover and was thrown off by it when you first saw it? I pulled it from the box and almost gave it back to the owner thinking she'd put it in there by mistake. The interior wasn't too bad, either. Not wonderful, but ok. Maybe the best so far.

Assembly #3: The story moves along a bit, with our hero becoming a surgeon in what is really "meatball" surgery. Her um... unusual... successes in saving lives get her the job she wished for. But maybe she should have been a bit more careful about what she wished for.

JSA #57: The JSA goes to shut down Black Adam. If I hadn't read the Hawkman issue that was a part of this crossover, I would have thought I'd missed something. I would have been wrong. This isn't bad. I'm interested in Black Adam's story, but I think my sympathies lie with the bad guys, so I'm not sure how this whole thing is going to turn out.

Still to review: New Frontier, Birds of Prey, Batman Adventures, and Arrowsmith.

by Tegan at 10:36 AM Seattle time

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Let's see... Dinner for Eric yesterday was carbonara, one of his favorite dishes. Unfortunately, I still don't quite have it down yet, and there was something undefinable missing from my version. Oh well, I'll try again next year.

I went to storage to pick up some games for the store today. I was supposed to have 42 copies of a particular game in storage, but I looked and looked and looked and couldn't find even one. When I got back to the store, we did some hunting to find out if maybe we'd taken them from storage and sold them, and were really surprised to find that we'd sold 142 copies of this $30 game just in November and December. And it's one I haven't even had a chance to play yet! Even crazier, I sold three copies of the game to a guy on Tuesday, because he was giving them out as presents because he and his kids loved it so much. We have exactly one copy and a demo of the game left. If I can borrow the demo to try with Eric so I can review it, I will. In the meantime, the game is called "Blockus", and apparently it's really popular with our customers.

It's a monkey year. Joy.

Weather reports claim there's a snowstorm headed our way. While part of me is saying, "Yeah, right" there's another part of me saying, "They were right about the one on January 6th." We'll have to see. Eric is supposed to be teaching on Saturday, and Saturday night, if everything goes right (please let everything go right) we will be signing our mortgage papers and finishing off the refinance. Hopefully that won't happen in the snow.

I watched Angel last night after Smallville. I'm slowly getting hooked. Help me!

by Tegan at 3:58 PM Seattle time

Wednesday, January 21, 2004

Apples to Apples: The Game of Hilarious Comparisons! From Out of the Box. Approximate price: $15. Number of players: 4-10. Ages: 6+ (players must be able to read). Time to play: 30 minutes or more. Rules Rigidity: Easily fudged, house rules possible, personalized cards can be made. Goal of Game: To earn the most Green Apple cards.

Apples to Apples has one HUGE flaw. You cannot play it without at least four people. It just needs that many to make it any good. However, if you have four or more people, preferably more, it can be one of the best ice-breaker games around.

Apples to Apples is another card game. In a set you get Green Apple cards and Red Apple cards. Red Apples are nouns, Green Apples are adjectives. In a standard game, each player is dealt a number of Red Apple cards, which they keep hidden from the other players. Then each player takes turns being "the judge". When you are a judge, you put aside your Red Apple cards and pick a Green Apple card. You then read the Green Apple card aloud to the other players and place it face-up on the table. Then the other players pick out Red Apple cards that seem appropriate for that card and place them face-down on the table. The judge takes all the Red Apple cards, mixes them up, then reads them aloud (usually to much giggling). The judge then picks "the best" card, and whoever claims it gets to keep the Green Apple card. When one player gets a pre-determined number of Green Apple cards, that player wins.

This game requires a "for instance". The judge picks out a Green Apple card with the word "Fabulous". So she reads it: "Fabulous: marvelous, wonderful, incredible" and sets it down on the table. All the other players look at their Red Apples to see if any of them are "Fabulous". Player one has "Las Vegas", "Cockroaches", "Lollipops", "A Sunset", and "Bonbons". Thinking of the judge's sweet tooth, player one sets "Bonbons" face-down on the table. Player two has "Alfred Hitchcock", "Canada", "My Bedroom", "The Milky Way", and "Infomercials". Whenever a card has "my" on it, the "my" refers to the judge. So in this case, the bedroom would be the judge's bedroom. Player two thinks he has a bad hand for "Fabulous", but sets down "The Milky Way". Player three has "Michelle Pfeiffer", "Hairballs", "The 1970s", "Mice", and "Billboards". Knowing that the judge thinks the 70's were awful, player three goes for the funny factor and sets down "The 1970s". The judge then takes the three cards, mixes them up good so she doesn't know who put each one down, and then reads each one. After some thought, the judge picks "Bonbons".

The fun comes in when you "play to the judge". You are trying to win the Green Apple, so you want to pick something that will impress the judge, or amuse the judge. Some games turn into pure laugh-a-thons early on. Some judges are sticklers who decide that "best" means "closest". Some judges will just pick whatever makes them laugh hardest. Because the judge is always right, winning the game means being able to read the judge as well as reading your cards. This one is a must for parties.

by Tegan at 10:08 PM Seattle time

I know you have to work late tonight, but I hope the dinner I've got planned will make up for some of the stress.

by Tegan at 8:13 AM Seattle time

Tuesday, January 20, 2004

Many thanks to everyone for the kind wishes today, both in comments and in various blogs. I'm particularly pleased with Johnny B's link to this great Aquaman Cake:

It hasn't been a bad day. Nothing special, but not bad. And tomorrow... tomorrow is hubby-Eric's birthday!

by Tegan at 6:32 PM Seattle time

Here's a birthday present for me:

The new solicits for DC are up at Toon Zone. And we've got another Alan Freakin' Davis cover for Aquaman! WOW!

by Tegan at 9:24 AM Seattle time

When I went to go check things out on the web this morning, I visited "My Yahoo" just to see what they had for my birthday (the link changes, so you won't see what I saw if you look after today). There were some nice bits, like the horoscope which always tries to flatter. A quote from George Burns, who was also born on January 20th. Some other people who share this birthday.

And there was this: On Jan. 20, 1981, Iran released 52 Americans it had held hostage for 444 days, minutes after the presidency had passed from Jimmy Carter to Ronald Reagan. This, my absolute worst birthday memory.

It was already turning out to be not good, as the excitement of Ronald Reagan being sworn in was all over the place. January 20th being inauguration day has meant a few odd memories here and there, but this one was bigger than all the rest. I had a classmate who was absolutely convinced that we would all die in a nuclear war started by Reagan. In the excitement, everyone seemed to forget it was my birthday, even though another classmate had celebrated her birthday a few days before, and we'd even had cake! I was young, and selfish, and when you got right down to it, I didn't understand at all what was happening.

But the president was sworn in, and the teacher turned and looked at me and was about to say something when another teacher came into the room and said something very excitedly, out of our hearing, to my teacher. My teacher's face lit up, and she went back to the TV upon which we had just watched the inauguration and turned it back on. Whatever she had been about to say, whether it had anything to do with me or not, was completely forgotten. The news was on, and the announcer was saying something about the hostages. About them being free. The class erupted into cheers. We all knew about the hostages, we'd tied yellow ribbons in front of the school for them. The rest of the day was spent watching the news... not once the entire school day did anyone remember it was my birthday, and I was too shy and polite to bring it up.

We never celebrated my birthday that school year. Some of my classmates teased me about it later in the week. They would tease about anything, but having everyone forget your birthday was humiliating. At that point in my life, birthdays were so important that having everyone forget was like having everyone intentionally ignore you. I felt snubbed. I felt miserable. I didn't understand the hostage situation, or why they'd been released. I didn't grasp the politics at all. I remember telling someone outside of school that I wished Iran had waited a day to release them, and being chastised for my insensitivity. That added guilt into the whirlpool of emotion.

I don't clearly remember when or how we celebrated at home. I remember most clearly the conflict of emotions. The intense joy of the hostages being released mixed with the personal shame of everyone forgetting me in the chaos. I was young, I'd never felt emotions that powerful that were in such conflict. I supposed I've felt such things later, but that was the first and the worst. And it also left me with a strong desire to make sure people never forget my birthday again... one that has no doubt annoyed some of my family and friends along the way.

So that's my worst birthday memory. I don't have any really pleasant ones. They don't stick out in my mind like that one does. I must have had good birthdays somewhere along the line, but I don't remember any. So... off to face the world. What will I remember about this birthday?

by Tegan at 9:02 AM Seattle time

Monday, January 19, 2004

My head hurts too much to do a proper posting today, but I linked to an eBay auction earlier. I think the act of making an auction that eBay doesn't pull, but is still for something completely useless, is a new form of art. I wouldn't call it high art, but it's something.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to react to that. I guess I'm happy I made it another year. I don't feel any particular need to celebrate getting older, but to celebrate surviving, yeah, I can do that.

by Tegan at 7:54 PM Seattle time

Check it out.

by Tegan at 2:56 PM Seattle time

Sunday, January 18, 2004

The Egg And I by Betty MacDonald: When I was in eighth grade and on the staff for the school newspaper, the librarian handed me a book called Anybody Can Do Anything by a local author named Betty MacDonald (1908-1958). She wanted me to review it for the paper, but as I recall we never even got an issue out that year. I did, however, read the book and love it. And for many years after I had an itching to read the other books by Betty MacDonald about living in the Northwest in the early part of the twentieth century. I've finally come back to it, and this book, The Egg And I, is her first.

Betty MacDonald is better known for a series of children's books starring "Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle". But four of her books are completely autobiographical. The Egg and I tells us of her childhood following her mining engineer father around North America, and ending up in Seattle where she married a 31-year-old man when she was eighteen. While her new husband was in the insurance business, he really wanted to be in the business of raising chickens, so right after the marriage he took her to live on the shoulders of the Olympic mountains in the most far out piece of nowhere land in Washington, maybe in the United States, and raise chickens on a dilapidated ranch.

This book is hilarious. While the author has some out-dated and non-PC comments on the local Indians, she writes so down-to-earth and matter-of-factly that you feel yourself in her place, groaning about the lack of windows, giggling about the antics of the neighbors, or feeling the weight of the mountains looking down on you. As a native the the area she is writing about, I also feel her distress at the weather, and wonder how she survived.

For your pleasure, here's an excerpt: It rained and rained and rained and rained. It drizzled-- misted-- drooled-- spat-- poured-- and just plain rained. Some mornings were black and wild, with a storm raging in and out and around the mountains. Rain was driven under the doors and down the chimney, and Bob went to the chicken house swathed in oilskins like a Newfoundland fisherman and I huddled by the stove and brooded about inside toilets. Other days were just gray and low hanging with a continual pit-pat-pit-pat-pitta-patta-pitta-patta which became as vexing as listening to baby talk. Alone about November I began to forget when it hadn't been raining and became as one with all the characters in all of the novels about rainy seasons, who rush around banging their heads against the walls, drinking water glasses of straight whiskey and moaning. "The rain! The rain! My God, the rain!

Even though it was first published in 1945 and covers events that happened in the 1920s, this is still a book worth reading and I can recommend it highly to anyone who wants a peek at life in the middle of nowhere.

by Tegan at 10:36 AM Seattle time