More and More

It's Saturday and I'm being lazy. Again. I haven't slept well all week so I have this nagging too-tired headache and huge bags under my eyes. Aaaah! Zombie girl! Oh, wait, that's just me in the mirror.

Yeah, yeah. Whine. Oh poor me. Actually things are good. I wasn't completely lazy today. I did quick Photoshop work on some comic pages and uploaded them. So now Faerie or Bust is going to update daily until March 20. It seemed a little silly to only update weekly when it's several years old and was a 24-hour comic in the first place.

What else? Aeryn Daring updates tomorrow, assuming I get around to uploading the pages today. That's next on the list. I made a Facebook group for Aeryn Daring, but didn't invite anyone to join as a sort of experiment. It's here. Eventually I'll make one for Fey, too. Assuming this one goes well.

Umm . . . Posted the first three Fey covers on my DeviantArt page. Decided I need to teach myself how to make art using nothing but Photoshop after reading The Phoenix Requiem, a very lovely webcomic. Been reading a lot of webcomics in the last while. Trying to get ideas for promoting my own stuff. Also, there is some really, really fantastic storytelling out there for free. A lot of it I would happily pay for in print form.

Anyway, I think I am now just procrastinating and should get the next Aeryn Daring page ready to go before the boy gets home and distracts me. I'm not so hard to distract, after all. (Not that he does it intentionally. He's very good about leaving me alone when I'm busy.)

Oh yeah, we went to see Under the Sea in IMAX 3D. It was fantastic! (Even with Jim Carrey narrating--you hardly noticed it was him.) If you like ocean things, you must must must see this movie.

More Updates

If anyone is still reading this thing, there are new comics pages this weekend.

Fey updated yesterday, Faerie or Bust (a Fey-related 24-hour comic) updated today, and Aeryn Daring updates tomorrow (another 2-page spread!),

Things I Made

I just put a few images of things I've made in the last couple years on my deviantArt page.

I'll be adding more as I get around to photographing and organizing stuff. That should happen pretty quickly now, as I'm gearing up to list things for sale on Etsy. There will be books (blank journals and small-edition artist's books--I'm not quite ready to part with the one-of-a-kinds yet), prints (lithographic, intaglio and relief), photographs (a few actual darkroom-printed, but mostly digital prints from scanned negs, and a few all-digital), and some odds and ends of stuff.

Also, there's a new page of Aeryn Daring up today.

Oh yeah, and I'll be sending out belated holiday present art to a select few folks soon. As soon as I figure out to whom to send what and how to package it for shipping.

Update

New page today . . .

Some Kind of Milestone

I checked my comics' stats on Webcomics Nation a moment ago, and Fleeing Arcadia (an 8-page Fey short) has hit 500 views. Not only that, but The Fabulous Forays of Aeryn Daring--which only went up on Monday--is at 100 views. Woo hoo!

So yeah, the seven-page Prologue of Aeryn Daring is up now (since Monday). A new page will appear next Monday (which means I had better scan it). Read it! (please . . .)



Also, the main Fey series, which I started posting a few weeks ago, is over 100 views now, while Faerie or Bust, a Fey-related 24-hour comic, hasn't reached 40 yet (but it's only been up a short time).

Oh yeah, and if you want to be notified when any of my comics update, you can sign up for the email notification list.

Comic Book Madness

Well, so far I've managed to spend most of the weekend fiddling around with comics, doing a bit of scanning, some organizing of my Webcomics Nation site, and lots of button, banner and logo making.


Also, as you may have guessed from the "a bit of scanning" comment above, I now have a working scanner. Futureshop had that scanner I've been wanting marked down--about $100 less than the original price, which makes it almost $200 less than the new price. And I had a FS gift card (thanks, Dad!). So I splurged. And now I can get to work on some photo projects as well as comics (and explain that weird grocery list I posted way back when). It's very exciting. I haven't actually scanned any photos yet, but I'll start soon. I need to have an application for the grad show in by mid-February, so I need to get at least that one image finished by then (that is to say, scanned and cleaned up and looking fabulous).

What I have been doing with the scanner is making some images for my new comic series, which will debut on Webcomics Nation tomorrow!! My aim is to do weekly updates, but I don't have a big store of completed pages like I do for Fey, so I don't know how long I can keep that up. The drawings are smaller than Fey drawings, though, and I seem to be able to do a two-page spread in about the same time as it would take me to do a single page of Fey, so there may be hope for the weekly schedule.

So yeah, look for it tomorrow.



(Typefaces in both logos are from the fabulous Scriptorium. (Except the text that says "Fey"--that's all me.) Yes, I even paid for them.)

I Always Thought I Was a Geek

Fey!

I'm finally getting around to posting comics online again, but I need a new scanner. My old one works just fine, but in an attempt to get the plug-in working with CS4, I discovered that I'm not sure it was ever working on this machine at all, and the drivers won't install. Not even the newest ones downloaded direct from Canon. Sigh.

So in the meantime, I'm moving Fey over to Webcomicsnation. You'll find all my stuff at http://www.webcomicsnation.com/feynico/ eventually. If you were hoping for new pages, sorry. For now I'm going to be reposting old pages once a week. When I get to the end of them, I'll hopefully have lots of new pages and a new scanner. I will finish this series eventually. I'm also working on a completely new series called The Fabulous Forays of Aeryn Daring. I'm very excited about it. But again, nothing until a new scanner.

The scanner I have my eye on in the Epson Perfection v700 Photo (or the v750-M Pro, except it costs significantly more). Yes, it's very pricey (and I just noticed the price is $100 more than it was when I looked a few weeks ago--I thought the prices on tech were supposed to go down, not up), and it can't even scan anything bigger than 8 1/2 x 11, but it *can* scan negatives all the way up to 8 x 10. I have a crapload of medium format and 4 x 5 negs I want to scan and work with digitally, at least to put them on deviantArt and create a digital portfolio. So. I'll be looking for ways of making a bit of extra cash so I can buy this thing, starting with finally getting some stuff up for sale on Etsy. You'll find me at http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6315023, but there's nothing there yet. First, I have to organize and photograph and acquire a postal scale to figure out how much it will cost to mail things.

Anyway, more soon.

Read This

So I have absolutely no time for anything other than Finishing Final Projects and Work, but I had to post this link:

Why defend freedom of icky speech?

In it, Neil Gaiman says, "Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost."

Please, if you care about freedom of speech at all, read this. (And at the top of my list to do as soon as I have five minutes not earmarked for school or work or basic survival is now: find out exactly what Canada's freedom of speech laws look like. I already know we don't have the same rights to parody as they do in the US, but that's really about all I do know.)

Weirdest Grocery Order Ever

Before anyone asks, yes, I am still alive, just monumentally busy with final projects. It's my last semester, so everything comes down to this. In a few weeks, I'll be done and back to regular blogging, emailing, and posting of comics (ooh, and I have a new comic I'll be unveiling).

In the meantime, here's what I just brought home from the grocery store:

• President's Choice "Green" toilet paper
• pickled sweet onions
• tangy dill mini pickles
• canned bean sprouts
• canned giant escargot
• spicy pepper and herb olive oil (with a big giant pepper in the bottle)
• sundried tomatoes in olive oil
• canned sour cherries
• canned asparagus tips
• canned peach halves
• small decorative glass jar
• frozen mussels in shell
• frozen raw shrimp (unpeeled)
• frozen chicken giblets and hearts
• frozen smoked kippers
• frozen whole squid
• fresh mackerel fillets
• fresh beef kidney

This is definitely the weirdest assortment of things I've brought home, and anyone who knows me much at all knows I have a habit of bringing home weird things. But it's all in the name of science. Or art. Or something.

I promise I'll post again and explain it all. Except the toilet paper. I think you can figure that one out yourselves.

What I've Been Working On

It's an edition of 25, hand-set wood type from the Dawson collection, hand-cut lino, printed on a Vandercook Universal I proof press. Get yours from the Dawson Printshop (and, yes, we will mail it). Oh, and it's 15 x 22 inches, on mould-made St Armand paper with 2 deckle edges.

Big Apple

The Apple Store in New York City.

One More

Yesterday I polished off Introduction to Bookbinding and decided that while it's a reasonable book in its descriptions of how bookbinding is done, it's not really one I could recommend to someone wanting to actually try bookbinding for the first time. Not nearly enough diagrams, for one thing. You kind of already have to know what the guy is talking about in order for it to make sense. Anyway, some interesting differences between what he says and what I learned.

In addition to books, I tend to accumulate unread magazines, which I've also been working to catch up on lately. I'm totally up to date on Fine Books & Collections and the CBBAG newsletter, though I still haven't read the CBBAG journal (first issue!) yet. I'm working on the latest Wired (which I subscribed to a couple of months ago), but haven't cracked the latest Mac World yet (boy got a free short subscription when he bought his iMac). At least I'm not behind on it yet. I have an issue or two of Skeptic, which is a thick tome and tends to get left till last. And then there's a year's worth of Scientific American from when I had a subscription (2006, maybe?). I just got a couple of back issues of Biblio on eBay that I'll start soon, though I'm trying to decide if I should grab a couple full years worth from another seller, even though it means I'll end up with doubles of about six issues (it would also mean having all 3 years worth of the magazine). I have to decide on that soon, as the auction ends late tonight. And finally (maybe--there may also be unread magazines lurking about in here that I'll find as I organize) I have two and and half issues of Book Collector to get through. It's only quarterly, but it's a thick, text-heavy journal that takes me a while to plough through. Even though I could never afford to actually collect most of the books they cover, there is all sorts of useful information for bookbinders and scholars-or-books in there. They used to have actual bookbinding articles, but I don't think they do that much anymore. It makes it worthwhile to look for back issues on ABE, though.

So anyway, aside from reading, I've basically been taking it easy this summer. Probably drinking a bit too much cider, but at least I've been getting lots of sun and bicycle exercise. Today has gone and got a bit overcast, and last week I had to take the bus once due to rain--I'm hoping the sun comes back so I can avoid the bus to work and ride my bike for the rest of the summer.

Work is good. I'm working on a series of "wanted" posters for famous figures in book and print history. Of course I started with William Morris. I did some proofing on Thursday and stuck one of the early proofs up on the shop wall. Apparently, two people asked about buying it, and one was serious enough that she left her card and wants us to post her one when they're done. I hope she's not disappointed that the final poster isn't the same brown ink on off-white laid paper as the proof. Instead it'll be red text and black image on a sort of soft grey almost-handmade St Armand paper. I'll get started on the final printing on Wednesday.

In other news, the boy and I are contemplating a road-trip to the States near the end of the summer. I really need to get to BC to visit everyone there and sort out my stuff that's in storage, but as it turns out, Bill hasn't been to visit his people in longer than it's been since I've visted mine. Plus his best friend will be visiting his family in the same area around the same time and he lives in Japan, so this could be the only time in a long while that Bill would be able to see him. My only hesitation is the cost. Though we will have people to stay with.

The idea is to rent a car here and drive down through New York State, hang out in Brooklyn for a few days (the boy has grandparents and other relatives there), then proceed to Pennsylvania for a bit, where we'd meet up with Scott-the-friend-from-Japan and his wife and kids, and also with boy's dad and littlest sister. Then we'd load up the car with a nice rug and some old type (boy's dad deals in antiques) and head back in time for school. The fall break or the winter holidays, then, would be visiting BC time.

First, though, I have a digital camera to finish paying off.

Nap Time

Oh Yeah

Forgot to mention: If you don't have Facebook but still want to see the pics from Sunday's cycling, there's a slightly different selection of them on my Flickr stream (link to the right, under "Visit Me").

Today is a day to Not Do Very Much

It's one of those days where I either should have just gone to work (I had a choice between today and tomorrow and didn't sleep much last night so decided to work tomorrow when I might be better rested) or stayed in bed. I managed to pour my after-lunch cup of tea on the table, my feet, and six pages of comics artwork. Fortunately, the art isn't completely ruined, just a tad wrinkled and tea-stained on the edges. Still, it was just one more thing on a day when I was already feeling a bit down.

So I've decided I just won't do very much today. Fuck trying to get something done. I tried that, and ended up with soggy art. So I added some photos to Facebook, and I'll write some in this blog. Maybe later I'll do some work blogging and start organizing the content for a "video games based on movies" article. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll fire up the PS3 and lay some ghosts to rest, or shoot some bugs, or kill a few infidels, or tear up a racetrack. And maybe I'll go to the post office, which is sort of like getting something done, only it's to mail some BookMooch books, so not really. Or maybe I'll go buy a video game I can review for work, which is also sort of like getting something done, but also not really.

Anyway. On the Finishing Half-Read Books Project, I got to the end of Lost Discoveries a couple of days ago, and have been making good progress on Women and the Book. No more new finds of half-read things, though I think I might be partway through a book on Zen that's around somewhere.

And just so you don't think crappy days are the norm around here, Sunday was a very fine day. The boy and I cycled around Halifax, stopping at the Public Gardens, the waterfront, and Point Pleasant Park before retiring to the humble abode for giant hamburgers. I got a horrific sunburn which is just becoming bearable today, but it was a great day anyway. I put some photos up on Facebook, and here's one of me on the beach (after I put on a long-sleeved shirt even though it was too late for my shoulders):



Photo by the boy, of course (who I have decided should be called "Billy Z" (the "Z" being pronounced "Zee") (I haven't informed him of this yet). And speaking of the boy, here he is:



(I call it "Blue Boy.")

Icons!

Self-Portrait in Bill's Glasses

My favourite photograph so far this summer.

More and More

More finished, more half-finished.

I finished Tom Sawyer, which turned out to be much better in big chunks than in small doses, so two reading sessions later, it was over. I'm still not sure why I had trouble getting into it, but now I'm ready to tackle some more Twain. Well, once I've polished off some more of the half-read books on the list.

And speaking of half-read books, yes I found a couple more. One is The Great Airship by Lt. Col. Brereton, a truly abysmal boy's adventure novel from sometime between the wars (I suspect--there's no date on it). It cost me all of a dollar in a tiny "bookshop" located in a garden shed in New Brunswick. I actually have quite a fascination for boy's (and girl's) adventure novels from around the turn of the century and just after. I have a small collection of them that feature airships and am always looking for more--but I think I'll make this a post all on its own. The book has a certain appeal, despite the terrible writing.

The other book is one I picked up on sale at the book fair when the Congress of Learned Societies was in St John's in . . . 1997, I think. It's called Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence, edited by Jane H.M. Taylor and Lesley Smith. It's a proceedings from a 1993 conference, published with additional essays in 1996. Very scholarly, which explains why I didn't get very far before setting it aside--I was researching and writing my Master's thesis at the time. I picked it up again last night and decided to start over at the beginning since I didn't remember the two essays I had already read very well. Really interesting stuff, and so far quite readable.

It reminds me, for some reason, of an ex-boyfriend. I had seen a book on Celtic archaeology at the bookstore where he worked one day a week--it didn't have a price, so I asked him to check next time he worked. As I recall, my birthday was coming up, and I hinted that it might make a nice gift, if it wasn't too expensive (though I also suggested that it probably was too expensive). I have a small collection of Celtic archaeology books, and this one was a thick anthology of essays by different scholars. So he reports back a while later and it was pricey, as I had suspected. "You wouldn't want it anyway," he said. "It was really technical and full of charts and diagrams."

Erm. First clue this was not the man of my dreams? (Actually first clue was probably that he was a Christian Scientist, but I did try to be open-minded.) I guess he never noticed that I actually sometimes read scholarly books for fun. And maybe he forgot that my BA is in archaeology. One lesson I learned: it's a bad idea to go out with a man who feels threatened by your intelligence (assuming he finally figures out that you have it).

And Another

Yep, I'm on a roll. I finished Gothic Illuminated Manuscripts yesterday, but then found yet another half-read book on the shelves. This time it's Black Water 2, a short story anthology edited by Alberto Manguel. Really, really great stories, but the book is massively huge. I tend to read short stories in cycles: sometimes I'll burn through masses of them, and other times I don't read any. I've been on a non-short-story-reading phase for quite a while now, so this book has sat on the shelf, page marked about halfway through its 1000+ pages.

In non-book news, today I've rented a U-Haul cargo van so we can help move a corner-cutting machine from my boss/teacher Joe's basement to the Dawson Printshop and collect a couple of free chests of drawers and a massive worktable/corner desk. I'll have to post a few pictures--this apartment is starting to look like an actual home. You can see photos of what it looked like when the boy moved in on my Facebook page (they're in the album called"Cellphone Photoshoot 3 - Moving Day(s)"). Mind you, the furniture is still all second-hand--and a lot of it was free--but well-placed pieces of fabric can do a lot for crappy furniture.