[BFG] Recent Reading: Lots of Comics, Some Novels, One Non-Fiction

Since I seem to be neglecting this blog, and the idea of keeping my geekiness separate from the rest of my life is less appealing these days, I'm thinking that I'll probably merge BFG back in with Anagram for Ink sooner or later. Especially since AforI has an awful lot of geek posts in its early years. But anyway . . . On to the books.

I've been working my way slowing through the Truro Public Library's collection of comics a few volumes every three weeks or so. A pile of them are in this update (though not every GN in this list is a library book; a few I paid money for). I've also begun reading Japanese novels in translation quite voraciously. I wrote about Vampire Hunter D and its awfulness previously--I'm happy to say the "light novels" in this post are far better.

35. The Nature of Coyotes: Voice of the Wilderness by Wayne Grady (non-fiction)
    
    We have coyotes in this area, so I thought I'd find out more about them than their osteology. I don't know what the current consensus is, but according to this book coyotes are more ancient than wolves, and wolves evolved from coyotes. Also the two sometimes hybridize. The other thing I learned is that coyote populations tend to increase when they are aggressively hunted because under normal circumstances only alpha pairs reproduce, but when they are under pressure, lower-ranked females will also have litters.
    
    
36. The Eternal Smile by Gene Luen Yang and Derek Kirk Kim (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    Three lovely short stories from this duo who also makes comics solo. The title story had a somewhat unexpected, but satisfying ending.
    
    
37. Foiled by Jane Yolen, art by Mike Cavallaro (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    Not the most original idea for a story, but Jane Yolen can take the most overdone story and make it shine, as she does here. This would make a good pick for "middle grade" readers. (Is it me, or did middle grade used to be included in the assumed audience for "young adult" fiction? Is it really helpful to divide up audiences in to smaller and smaller marketing categories?)
    
    
38. Shutterbug Follies by Jason Little (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    There really wasn't anything new or startling here, story-wise, but Little's art is so nice to look at--deceptively simple-looking--that it works anyway. Not that it's a bad story, it's perfectly serviceable, but it's the drawing that's the reason to pick this one up.
    
    
39. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon (fiction) buy from amazon
    
    I've had this book on my shelf for ages, and only just got around to reading it, and when I did, I devoured it. Sometimes it's like that with books, You just have to wait for the right moment.
    
    
40. The Horrific Sufferings of the Mind-Reading Monster Hercules Barefoot: His Wonderful Love and His Terrible Hatred by Carl-Johan Vallgren (fiction) buy from amazon
    
    This is one from my pile of things started and not finished, and now finished. I read almost half of it before getting distracted by other books, and read the rest a few chapters here and a few there. It's good, and well worth reading, it just didn't grab me by the throat. Sometimes it's like that with books. (It took me *years* to get through Foucault's Pendulum and I was so glad I finished it.)
    
    
41. Hellboy Animated: The Menagerie by various folks, based on Mike Mignola's character (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    I adore Hellboy. Love the original comics (though I must admit, I haven't read very many of them yet), and love the movies. Hellboy Animated is a lighter series, with a stylish animated look. There were two animated movies (straight to DVD, but I think still worth watching), and three comics (as far as I know). This one is the third. It's not nearly as dark or as serious as the main comics, and it's pretty darn short, but it's still a fun read. The main story features an odd mix of Asian and European folklore, and the backup story is all about Abe (I heart Abe Sapien).
    
    
42. Slow Storm by Danica Novgorodoff (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    This book is kind of hard to describe. It's about a woman firefighter in rural Kentucky and an illegal immigrant from Mexico, and it's about the great things and the awful things that people do. The loose ink and watercolour drawings are especially effective at depicting the looming feeling of the world just before a storm.
    
    
43. Persepolis 2 by Marjane Satrapi (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    It's been years since I read Persepolis the first, but it felt like just the other day as I picked this one up and got right back into the story. It's simple bio comic about a woman growing up in Iran told with simple black and white pictures, but it adds up to some incredible richness. This is the kind of book you give people who don't read comics to show them that comics *are* worth reading.
    
    
44. Lindbergh Child: America's Hero and the Crime of the Century by Rick Geary (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    I got this one from the library just because it was there, not because I thought it would be good. I expected either some dry educational book, or an overwrought dramatization. I especially had low expectations because the book has a whole list of other books in the series, all retelling crimes and murders. But this book is neither dry nor overwrought. It's a simple telling of the known facts with clean drawings and diagrams, and it somehow ends up being a thoroughly gripping tale. I don't know how Geary pulled it off, but I will definitely be looking for more of those books listed in the front.
    
    
45. Spice and Wolf Volume 2 by Isuna Hasekura, art by Keito Koume (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    I got all the way through this book and still didn't know why it had a warning for explicit content on it. There's some very tame partial nudity and one small, blurry aftermath of a rape image, but nothing really graphic. At one point the two main characters are in a suggestive position in bed together, but they're fully clothed. So I don't know. It continues to be a fun read, and somehow the bits of economic theory even work and never feel boring. But I have to admit, I read it mostly for the pretty wolf goddess.
    
    
46. The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadow by Fuyumi Ono (fiction) buy from amazon
    
    This is the first of seven in a series of light novels. (I've been trying to think of the Western equivalent for the Japanese light novel and I haven't quite managed it. In many ways, it fits the same niche as young adult fiction in the West, though that's not an exact fit.) So far, Tokyopop has brought out four of them in English, and I hope they bring out the other three. I had to go through considerable effort to get this one, as it's out of print and apparently collectible and so selling for outrageous prices. I finally found a reasonably priced copy at a bookseller in the UK, purchased via the bibliophile's fried, ABE. I bought it because I like the anime based on it, but I didn't know if it was any good. Turns out it's very good indeed.
    
    
47. The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Wind by Fuyumi Ono (fiction) buy from amazon
    
    This one is book two in the series, though it takes place before the events in book one. (If you read them, do try to read book one first, though--I think the series works better narratively that way.) When I saw the stupid prices book one was going for, I jumped on Amazon.ca and grabbed two, three and four while I had the chance to get them for retail price. And happily, one that was listed as a paperback turned out the be a hardcover when it got here. Alas, Amazon's crappy packaging came unstuck and it was only luck and a flimsy rubber band that kept all three books in there. Oh, and this volume I sat down to read one evening and ended up reading straight through in one sitting.
    
    
48. Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper by Kazu Kibuishi (comics/graphic novel) buy from amazon
    
    I picked this up on a whim because I thought the art looked nice and it had a blurb from Jeff Smith on the back, guaranteeing I'd be hooked in three pages. Mr Smith was right, though it may have been less than three pages. At first I thought the characters looked too cartoony next to the lush backgrounds, but I very quickly changed my mind. The art just works, and the story is delightful. If you've read Spiderwick, the beginning (after the prologue) may feel awfully familiar, and the story is really good, like Spiderwick. But it's nothing like the same story once the kids make their discovery in the old family home they've just moved into. I'm going to get Book Two at the earliest opportunity.
    

And look at that, I'm almost to 50 books. When I hit 50, I guess I'll see if I can do 50 this year, not counting graphic novels.

Merry Foxmas

Cards! Banners! Miscellaneous other things!

First, a new card design that I'm counting as a spring 2011 design, because it's kind of spring-ish and spring 2010 is long past.

It came about when I was working on (finally) finishing my fox girl banner design for my soon-to-be-something-you-can-look-at anime project. First, the banner:

Which then became a digital illustration (which was supposed to be neatly sized to work as a card that would fit in a standard business-size envelope, but looking at it now, I think I put the dimensions in wrong):

Then I realized the bamboo would be lovely as a letterpress element. I added a fox design that started life as an illustration for a intaglio project (as yet unfinished, though the actual prints are done--maybe I'll get it done in time for the holidays), then got adapted for a jewellery project I'm planning to attempt (the bits are laid out on my worktable, but I haven't tackled them yet). Now it's a card element. I'm thinking about maybe using the fox with other background elements to make a seasonal series. Maple for fall, snowy bare branches for winter, tall golden grass for summer? Yes, I think I'll do that.

And, speaking of foxes, I finally remembered to take an in-progress shot of the snowflake-catching holiday fox. Here's a few of them on my messy table, with just the black.

In a normal printmaking situation, I'd actually print the black (or key [hence the K in CMYK]) plate last, but because the red and blue plates don't register to each other and I don't want to waste the amount of cardstock necessary to add registration marks, I need the black down first so I can see where to put the other two. (In printmaking, you generally print lightest to darkest, though that can vary depending on how you want the colours to lay on top of one another.)

Other than that, I have a print job to be paid for, one to deliver, and one coming up to order paper for (which I really ought to have done today, but forgot). Also possibly a binding job (which I was supposed to email someone about, and also forgot). Three more wood type letterpress classes, during which I hope my students will have time to do a second small project once their cards are done. (And I know that was not actually a sentence.)

And two more images: the small, acrobatic thief who raids our bird seed.

Teaching and Foxes and Other Things

So one of the things that's been occupying my time lately is teaching. I'm teaching a wood type letterpress class at the Dawson Printshop for NSCAD Extended Studies. We've had two out of the six weekly classes so far and I'm having fun. I hope my students are also having fun. I haven't had the presence of mind so far to remember my camera or even snap some photos with my phone, but one of my students and fellow Bookbinding Etsy Street Team member (and also fellow Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild member, I believe) Rhonda Miller has some posts about the class on her blog here and here.

If all goes well, I should be teaching an intro letterpress class (metal type, I think, though I don't know for sure yet) in the winter/spring semester). I'm hoping this is the start of a regular schedule of classes and workshops at the Dawson.

And speaking of the Dawson Printshop (and CBBAG), we'll have a table at Word on the Street in Halifax this Sunday, so if you're in the Spring Garden Road area, drop by and see us (and hope it doesn't rain). I think there will be a small tabletop press going with some of the cuts from the collection available to pint your own keepsake.

I've also made a little progress on my fox girl illustration (which I had hoped to have finished ages ago). I'm still getting used to colouring in Photoshop, as you can no doubt tell. The background is a placeholder again, until I figure out what I actually want to do with it (probably something fairly plain, as it's going to be on a long top-of-the-page banner on a website). The background image is a photograph by Brian Jefferey Beggerly of the Fushimi Inari Shrine (used under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license), processed in Photoshop (yes, using a filter--how tacky).

And in other news, I finally got a rejection letter from Cricket magazine for a story I submitted a million years ago.

Niko Does Anime (and a Fox Girl)

I had intended my next post to be either a new in-progress image of the steampunk satyrs or something letterpress. Alas, I haven't started printing my letterpress projects yet as I somehow got almost no sleep last night and decided an hour+ drive to and from Halifax was probably not the best idea. So I'll start on that tomorrow. And the satyrs illustration got pre-empted by a banner image for another project I started working on, which I'll explain more later, when I have more to show.

In the meantime, the image I'm working on for the banner . . . It's for an anime-related project, so I wanted anime/manga style art (which is not my forte). To my surprise, I ended up with a sketch I really liked. So I inked it, scanned it, cleaned it up a bit, and got this:

Now I'm in the process of colouring it in Photoshop. I have the flats done, and am about to start adding shading and highlights.

I'm going to keep the image quite flat, so it will (I hope) resemble an animation still, rather than going for the fully-painted look. The background colour is just a place-holder. I'm either going to add some stylized foliage or maybe process a stock image of an Inari shrine somehow. I haven't decided yet. Also, it will be rather more banner-shaped. I'll post again when the image is done and the project is something you can actually see.

Fox Holiday Card 2010 Digital Proof

Keep in mind that the colours aren't set (especially the sky), and that a digital proof really only gives a general idea of what the card will look like letterpress printed and in person (because so much of the appeal of the card is in its tactility and debossing) . . .

I call it "Catching Snowflakes." I hope to get it printed next week, but that will depend on how quickly I can get finished the actual paying print jobs I have. There are two--one very small, and one small in number of pieces, but large in number of press runs. Once those are done, I can work on this card.

Holiday Card 2010 Sketch (Fox!)

I'm planning to drive into Halifax several days next in the next couple of weeks to print at the Dawson Printshop, as I may (or may not) have a small print job. To make it worth the trip, and to get myself to stop being so lazy, I need to get my own work ready to go and print at the same time. Which means I need to get my files for polymer plates sent to film by the end of the week.

I have two holiday card ideas: the fox below and one with a squid and a pulp magazine theme, which I may or may not be able to pull off.

Now I have to figure out the exact proportions and boundaries of the card, and decide on colours. I'm thinking black, red and something very transparent and almost colourless (possibly a blue). The tongue should really be pink, but I'm not sure I want to do a whole separate press run for that. I usually try to keep multi-colour cards to three colours for the sake of economy. Two is even better.

I'm also starting to plan my 2011 letterpress calendar. It would be nice to have it finished in time for the Halifax Crafters sale this year (assuming I go). Last year I had a couple of pages done and took pre-orders and emails, but I think I could have sold a lot more if I'd had them done and on the table. It'll be similar to last year's, and I may even re-use the same wood type and number plates, but I'll use different colours and images, and maybe even a different proportion for the pages.

So what I'm thinking is cephalopods (that is, octopus, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus) OR rayguns. They'll be my own drawings this time, instead of vintage images. Anyone out there have any preference? Or a better idea? Someone on Facebook suggested cephalopods with rayguns, which I like, but it might be a bit over the top.

Word Counting

Testing out a little word count widget, to see if it'll help motivate me to write. . .

White Foxes, Full Moon

The Fabulous Forays of Aeryn Daring: A Serial Novel

Something to put in the sidebar, perhaps. . .