Lavishly Illustrated

Over yonder, I've been writing about artists from the golden age of illustration.

Last Monday, Howard Pyle. Today, Arthur Rackham. With galleries!

Also, does anyone besides me remember Star Hawks?

A Little Nonsense Next Door

A tonic for a rainy, freezing Tuesday: some silliness I've been doing for a couple of weeks at that comics blog of mine.

I'm guessing the readers of the Wyrdsmiths blog might have some fun with it, y'know, cuz you're, like, writers 'n' stuff.

At very least you can grin at the pulpy goodness.

My Interview with Alan Dean Foster

Over yonder, my interview with the inimitable and always entertaining Alan Dean Foster, who says, "Writing a lot is no different from painting a lot, or doing plumbing a lot, or anything else. You apply yourself. No easy excuses (which writers are notoriously adept at concocting). Sit with your instrument of choice and make words happen."

My Interview with Chris Claremont

In a universe next door: my interview with the legendary comic book writer Chris Claremont at the MOC-BLOG.

Long Live the King!

Need to Cleanse Now?

If you've read the previous post, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. Here's a little something to take your mind off of . . . [shudders mutely].



Playing in my other universe is so much fun.

Also: Alan Dean Foster!

Happy Dance (Elsewhere . . . )

Over in my MOC-verse, we just popped the cork on a big guest announcement that has me bubbling over with happiness.

(Lyda, for one, will understand just how amazingly cool this is.)

Wyrd Universe 7.31.08

I had fun with this last week, so here's some more:

• While you’re waiting for the film, read the (comic) book. At last week’s SDCC, Marvel Comics unveiled a first look at their adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic Ender’s Game (1985).

• Serious about genre: Michael Chabon talks Sturgeon’s law, PKD, Philip Pullman, and the maps of childhood in an interview with the LA Times.

• Over all this presides, like a bewildered king, his huge, handsome head lifted in frowning attention, a man whose massive black eyebrows have patches of grey, whose hair has become a helmet of white. It’s a Celtic head. It could belong to Robert Graves’s brother: An exclusive excerpt from Michael Moorcock’s memoir (a work in progress) about the legendary Mervyn Peake, at Enter the Octopus.

• Start cleaning out the garage hangar deck for your very own Viper. Sci Fi Wire announces that more than 3,000 props, costumes, and other pieces of memorabilia will be auctioned off after BSG's season 4 draws to a close.

• The sci-fi mixtape of doom. Just skip right down to the comments. They're so much more fun than the article.

More items like this semiregularly at TM3B.

Wyrd Universe 7.23.08

With the nationwide exodus for San Diego under way, this week is a slow one in my other universe, so for your entertainment and edification, here's some sfnal overflow from the semiregular news feature at my comics blog:

• The end of humanity . . . has a beginning. The very first Caprica trailer is up at SF Wire! (If you want to give the commercials a miss, I’ve also got a lower-res YouTube version up, for as long as the link lasts, at TM3B.)

• "If I were sitting in a Tube train and all the people opposite me were reading 'Mein Kampf' with obvious enjoyment and approval it probably wouldn’t disturb me much more than if they were reading Heinlein, Tolkien or Richard Adams." Michael Moorcock’s late-1970s essay "Starship Stormtroopers" is quoted in Dave Itzkoff’s NYTBR article on Elric: The Stealer of Souls.

• "One of the reasons girls are jumping on this trend is you put on a corset and bustle and you can be 10 lbs. overweight or thin as a rail, and you will look good in it." SFGate takes the steampunk phenomenon mainstream. But is it really all about the clothes?

• It's not exactly breaking news, but the discovery back in April of what appears to be the world’s only full-length cut of Fritz Lang’s silent classic Metropolis (1927) languishing untouched in the archives of the Museo del Cine in Buenos Aires is too cool for me to leave out.

• Not to be confused with Wyrd: Paul Di Filippo and his co-conspirators' Weird Universe "explores every aspect of a human and natural cosmos that is not only 'stranger than we imagine, but stranger than we can imagine.'" As you might expect, they’re dishing up some, yes, weird stuff over there, for instance: how many megabytes is your brain?

More items like this at TM3B. Really, you don't want to miss out on the world's only caffeinated lip balm.

Tobias Buckell Is Coming to My Party!

For those of you who know Tobias Buckell (and those of you who should know him), I'm very pleased to relay the news that he's going to be a guest at Mid-Ohio-Con 2008 in October. More at my comics blog.

Who Do You Trust?

Over yonder at that comic book blog of mine, Lyda's at it again.

Call for Contributors

Hey all,

I've posted a call for contributors over at my little side project, the Mighty Mighty MOC-BLOG.

Check it out, spread the word. Thanks!

Bill

DAYS WITHOUT INCIDENT: ZERO

In a pocket universe next door, Lyda is guest-blogging about The Incredible Hulk movie.

And if you don't done got enough Hulk after that, I'm especially fond of AdamACN's Hulk versus Abomination, Part 2.

I'm also amazed, just flat-out amazed, that a jingle writer thought to rhyme the line "pelted by gamma rays" with "ain't he unglamorous." It's my favorite thing, actually.

Thanks, Lyda! Wanna come back next week and rant about Secret Invasion?

The Transatlantic Telectroscope!

One of the news items this morning over in my other universe reminded me of something out of Sean's post with the steampunk link awhile back.

Behold the amazing Transatlantic Telectroscope:


[From csmonitor.com]

Bill's porch project (with apologies to KDM)

I've been building a porch, too, not as sturdy and fine-looking as Kelly's, I'm afraid, but I have high hopes that in the fullness of time it will flourish into a genuine geek paradise.

Take a look at my brand-new baby, TM3B, which is kind of a front porch for the MOC main site.

Sometime soon I'll be putting out a call for contributors, so if you or anyone you know has an interest in writing about comics 'n' stuff . . .

Gormuu wants to eat your brain!