JanerBlog

New Pinup!

Over the last couple of months, I've been doing some pinups for folks. I don't want to share them all quite yet because I want the giftees to have the right of first post. Ironically, the last one gifted is the first one to make it out on the intertubes, so I finally get to post it!

Guy Davis is hard at work on the third graphic novel of his creator-owned series The Marquis, so I made him a pinup to celebrate.

(click to embiggen)

I can hardly wait to see what fresh new horrors crawl out of his wonderfully twisted brain. If you're not familiar with Guy's personal work, you may know him from his long run on Mike Mignola's BPRD from Dark Horse. A whole bunch of other folks are doing really gorgeous Marquis pinups, and Guy's collecting them on a special blog. Go have a look!

I should have linked to this sooner, but --

-- Kudos to Pam Noles for this post, responding to an interview with Kevin O'Neill. I realize the possible hypocrisy of me criticizing Kevin O'Neill in this instance, given that my last story also contains a racist doll, but at least I don't deny that when the automaton was created it definitely had racist overtones, regardless of how many other ways it was used or how else it contributed to scientific discovery.

It also bears mentioning that in her earlier essays, Pam never said "Don't use the Golliwog." What she did say is this:

As I've said before, writing is research, empathy and effort; anything in the world is on deck as potential source material. But if you're going to take on something as culturally loaded as blackface or minstrelsy, a footnote needs to be included - you've got to have your A-Game on. Like dealing with a select few other extremely thorny topics, this is not something one should go into without awareness. If you are a current day person choosing to toy with this construct, going into it with scant knowledge of or ignoring the big picture, is so unwise. If you choose to work with this trope willfully blind and you screw it up, you deserve whatever level of invective comes your way. You must proceed with awareness.

And this is why I love Pam's big beautiful brain so much.

I know I've linked to it before, but it's worth the redundancy: go read her full series of essays on the Golliwog in the Black Dossier.

Kalamazoo Peace House

Speaking of overdue blogging, here's a report that ran back in December about Kalamazoo's Peace House, a place where I occasionally volunteer (though nowhere near enough; I have to get to work on fixing that...) and whose caregivers are friends of mine. These folks are the absolute real deal, and it's a blessing and a privilege to have them in my life.

Smile!

Raina Telgemeier has a brand-new graphic novel out this week, called Smile!

Raina and her husband Dave Roman are such wonderfully awesome people, and Paul and I owe them both for our Avatar: The Last Airbender obsession. Further proof of their awesomeness is found in this awesome trailer they made for the book:

Go! Buy! You will not be disappointed.

ConFusion

I went to ConFusion yesterday, just the one day. the highlight of the afternoon was getting the chance to speak with Peter S. Beagle for a short time while he was autographing. He had a chair set next to him, and each autograph-seeker would sit down, drinking in his soft storyteller's voice, best appreciated side-by-side rather than across a huckster's table.

He spoke touchingly of his heroes, some of whom I'd heard of (Harriet Tubman, King Christian X of Denmark and Eleanor Roosevelt), and some I hadn't (Hugh Thompson, Jr. [Beagle wrote Thompson a letter, and when an editor wanted to include it in a book about Thompson, Beagle had the opportunity to speak to Thompson on the phone]). I'd just purchased his first book, and while I was waiting in line, I'd read the first chapter, which began with a raven fetching a ring of baloney for a man named Mr. Rebeck. Seeing both together on the same page, I couldn't resist asking if Mr. Rebeck was named after the man with the sausage-machine, and Mr. Beagle said the version he'd learned was about Mr. Dunderbeck, but that he'd heard it sung both ways. He sang a verse for good measure, then told me about his dear aunt who'd taught him the song, how much he loved her as a boy, and how well and beautifully she lived her life.

I ceded the chair to another friend who had a writing question for Mr. Beagle, but I left feeling that despite its brevity, I'd had a very intimate and deep conversation with an artist with a deeply kind and loving soul -- and also that everyone else who sat in that chair would say the same thing. When I related the story to John Scalzi later that evening, he said, "Ah yes. And that's the magic of Peter Beagle."

And so it was.

On a vaguely similar note, Virus sent me this lovely story about a man searching for Kurt Vonnegut.

Help Pam Noles support the Interstitial Arts Foundation

Work's been kicking my butt lately, so I'm a day or two late on posting this, but this needs to get signal boosted:

Pam Noles (who is Black, Geek, and Fine With That), has quilted the most amazing wrap skirt and is donating it to an auction for the Interstitial Arts Foundation:

In addition to being gorgeous and twirly and a genuine hand-sewn work of art, it's also inspired by a short story, "Berry Moon," by Camilla Bruce. Those of you who know me well know how much I dearly love cross-pollination like this. Songs written for poems written for artwork based on photographs. Fabric Arts made for short stories. Dancing about architecture. You know the stuff: It's wonderful, and inspiring, and it makes the world a much better place.

As if all that weren't enough, Pam will custom-size the wrap-skirt's buttonhole for you.

So what're you waiting for? Go forth and Bid! It's for a good cause!

Signal Boost: Project POORCRAFT

Hey, everybody: my buddy C. Spike Trotman is starting up a brand-new project and needs your help! It's called Project: POORCRAFT and it's going to be a guide to living frugally in urban and suburban areas, told in comics format. But don't take my word for it; head on over to Kickstarter and hear Spike tell you about it herself.

Tell it, Joey

Joey Manley, ladies and gentlemen.

I don't even consider myself a webcomicker. I'm a graphic novelist who publishes her betaware on the web.

Or used to. And hopes to do so again soon.

Mental war for superiority

I met Haddayr Copley-Woods at WisCon this year. She and I hit it off like nobody's business.

Her blogpost today reminded me why, all over again. 100% pure awesomeness.

SPX 09 Con Report

Home from SPX and soooo tired... but if I don't do the con report tonight, I'll never get to it, so here goes:

Had an absolutely fantastic time, as always. SPX has always been my hands-down favorite show, and this year was no exception. I got the chance to hang out with old friends and new, sell a metric butt-ton of steampunk jewelry (and even a few books, too!) and talk shop with a bunch of creators. I'm ashamed to say that I didn't vote in this year's Ignatz awards because I hadn't read enough of the participants (bad artist!), so I'm hoping to do better next year. This was also one of the best shows I can remember for sheer quality of available books -- I was blown away by the offerings, of both traditionally-published graphic novels and gorgeous, innovative, risk-taking minicomics, and I bought more stuff this year than I can ever remember buying before.

There was one other fun thing that happened -- Paul and I marked our 5th anniversary on Saturday. What better way to celebrate than by selling comics and surrounding ourselves with fans and friends alike? Thanks to everyone who stopped by to wish us well.

I didn't take a lot of photos, but here're a baker's dozen to look through. The captions will have to suffice for the remainder of my con report, as I am mighty tired.

Shoutout for Steve Leiber and Sara Ryan

Steve Leiber has some incredibly good news lately... he and Jeff Parker's long-awaited spelunking comic (yep, a comic about cave exploration and rescue) is here:

It's soliciting in Diamond's July PREVIEWS to ship in September, so head on down to your LCS and pre-order yours today!

His other good news involves a movie based on a graphic novel he illustrated a while back called Whiteout. After several delays, it looks like it may be nearing theatrical release. The book is wonderful -- can't speak for the movie yet because the movie execs yanked the trailer before I could watch it. But you're going to need to read the book before you see the movie, right? right?

See, there's a reason why I'm telling you to buy Steve's books. It's because in addition to his really good news, he also had some stupendous bad news today:

My wife and I were just burgled. They stole our laptops, so we have no computers at home anymore, and we've got several days ahead of us of running around dealing with police, insurance, checking to make sure backups work, etc. This means that all the time at home I'd planned to spend doing promotion is gone, as are the machines I'd planned to it with.

Lots of folks have asked "what can I do to help?" The answer, if you have a comics audience, is blog or tweet something about the book. Send them to the site, or this specific post, or just tell them that Parker and I have a new Image book coming out. Your RTs and message board notes can make a big difference.

This sucks extra bad because Steve and his wife Sara Ryan are two of the nicest, kindest people you could ask to know. Sara's also a writer and has some really wonderful books out. So you should go and buy her books, too.

Hope your luck turns back to all-good soon, Steve and Sara!

Comicsqueeeeeee!

It's new comic book day! Or rather, it's new comic book day, a day late, for Paul and I because we were both sick as dogs yesterday and have spent all but about ten hours out of the last seventy-two sound asleep, getting over the con-crud.

But! Today brings two squee-worthy events!

First, the pinup I did for Dave Petersen a few years back is featured in this month's issue of Mouse Guard! I'm doubly excited, because this is actually the second time the pinup's been featured in the comic, though you may not have seen it the first time, because it was being all stealthy and stuff. Thanks so much, Dave! I'm really flattered.

Second, Jeremy Bastian's long-overdue Cursed Pirate Girl is finally here! This is another one of those comics about which I just cannot shut up (oh, those poor souls who remember my Long Tail Kitty fixation), but with good reason -- it's brilliant, and gorgeous, and weird, and wonderful. After having finally read the first issue, it turns out that my blatherings are understated, if anything. Seriously, guys. Go get this book right now. Jeremy's illustrations are so tight and bizarre and fun and old-school. Judging by the first issue, the story looks like it's going to stand up to the art, too.

So yes! Much squee from me.

Nice moment from Wednesday's session

We had a visiting musician drop by the O'Duffy's session this week, a young man from Spain who plays whistle like nobody's business. He visited twice before, last winter, and impressed the heck out of us because he knew pretty much every tune we threw at him, and played a bunch of new exciting stuff as well.

This time, Manuel brought his practice set of uilleann pipes (minus the drones) and though he said he hadn't been at it long, he played amazingly well and brought a new level of lift and draíocht to the session, one that can't really be described unless you've seen it happen.

Toward the end, he set out on a blistering set of whistle reels, unaccompanied except for Aaron's bodhrán, and all the other musicians were just listening, and we all started to pat our feet in perfect time, and it was all so good and right and enjoyable that I don't know how else to describe it.

I don't know why that moment struck me so; it must be because when you listen to a group of people respond to live music, they rarely do so in sync and sympathy with the music. It's about the audience, and the audience's feelings, not the musician's. This was a different kind of moment, one where the other musicians, as listeners, were one with the music even though they weren't playing. Participating, and yet not, propelling the player forward without transposing their own egos.

I wonder if that's not a lot closer to the way music used to be experienced, back when there was no television and radio, when the presence of a wandering minstrel was cause for celebration, cause for stopping your everyday life just to listen.