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(Thanks to TheComicsReporter.com for posting this first!)

Tuesday's Tip for Flailing Writers

Print On Demand Authors Beware:
Easily offended politicians will find you, no matter how pathetic your print run is.
Via BoingBoing.net: CNN reports that an Australian author has been sentenced to three years in prison in Thailand for publishing a book which contained passages perceived as insults to the country's royal family -- a crime in Thailand:
"Harry Nicolaides was arrested last August over a 2005 book called Verisimilitude, which includes a paragraph about the king and crown prince that the authorities deemed a violation of the Lese Majeste law… Only 50 copies of the book were published, and only seven were sold."
I'm making jokes, but this guy's story is actually pretty effed up. To read the CNN article in its entirety, click here.

What The Wild Things Look Like

I admit it. I'm obsessed with the idea of a Spike Jonze/Dave Eggers/Jim Henson Co. film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are. That's why I make it a point to pore over every single shred of info I can find regarding it. Today's news nugget? A first look at all of the Wild Things, care of Spike Jonze' skateboard company, Girl. Go to SlashFilm.com for more pics.

(A hearty hug to Twitch for the initial link.)

Comic Book Review:Disappearance Diary by Hideo Azuma

Like Ditko & Lee's Amazing Spider-Man and Chris Claremont's Uncanny X-Men, Hideo Azuma's Disappearance Diary is escapist wish fulfillment at its finest. Only, instead of the adolescent power fantasies made by Marvel, Azuma's autobiographical comic is a flee-from-responsibilities fantasy crafted especially for adults.
Chronicling Azuma's various 'vacations' from work-a-day reality, Disappearance Diary follows the author/artist through homelessness, alcoholism, and finally, rehab. If this sounds like yet another depressing memoir, fear not. Disappearance Diary is a pity-free comedy, or as Azuma says in the comic's second square, "This manga has a positive outlook on life, and so it has been made with as much realism removed as possible." And Azuma keeps this promise. No matter how bad things get, he chooses to highlight the absurdity of the situation rather than the tragedy. Foraging for food and alcohol becomes a treasure hunt. Getting arrested is treated as a comedy of manners. Hell, even the violent crime that results in his hospitalization is only given one panel and two goofy sound effects! Of course, this casual approach to autobiography does have its drawbacks. Anything approaching introspection is given the boot, and one can't help but wonder if the comic wouldn't have benefited from a little more emotional depth. For example, the fact that Azuma repeatedly abandons his wife while he's on these misadventures is glossed over completely. Would Disappearance Diary have had more resonance if Azuma delved into the hurt he caused others and/or the guilt he felt in doing so? Probably. But asking such a question isn't reviewing the book for what it is, but for what it isn't. So then, what is Disappearing Diary? It's a delightfully drawn, hilariously scripted account of one man's repeated escapes from society's expectations and requirements. It's a playful reminder that we all have the choice to just walk away from it all. And -- last but not least -- it's an engaging bit of armchair escapism for wage-slaves everywhere.

For a quick peek at a couple of pages, click here.

Go, Look!(or: Book Links, In Lieu of News)

Literary editor Robert McCrum attacks the aged in his newest Guardian UK piece, Let's Face It, After 40 You're Past It.

My first exposure to comics was an old, hardcover collection of George Herriman's Krazy Kat. Needless to say, few comics have been able to measure up since. Feel like a five year old me: Head on over to Craig Yoe's recently launched George Herriman site.

Over on LiveJournal, a Bookish member asked, "How do you all decide when to put a book down and stop reading? 50 pages? Something annoying you more than once? And do you feel guilty afterward?" From the length of the comments section, it appears everyone on LJ had an opinion.

Talk about late to the party! 100 Bullets is reaching its penultimate issue this Wednesday, and I only got around to reading the first trade paperback last week. Longtime fans of this engrossing crime comic should visit EntertainmentWeekly.com for an exclusive preview of the 99th issue. As for me, I've got some serious catching up to do.

Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe!

Book News, In Brief

Harry Potter fans rejoice! Your cloak of invisibility is one step closer to reality.

CSI: Berkley: Businessweek Online conducts an autopsy on a dead indie bookstore.

Fed up with a publishing industry filled with phony memoirs and crappy self-help books, The Huffington Post dares to speak out 'In Praise of Fiction.'

Call me a hypocrite, but as much as I shake my head at Rob Liefeld and Joe Quesada's attempts to cash in on Obama-mania, I've gotta admit, a Kyle Baker-penned Obama comic has me excited. If you've read Baker's Why I Hate Saturn, you know why.

Blog-Jacking: 101 Reasons To Stop Writing

Breaking News: Publishers, Agents Report Sharp Increase in “Unpublishable” Submissions
By Stephen Jayson Harris
New York — At the end of a week filled with news of layoffs at some of America’s biggest publishing houses, editors and literary agents are reporting a dramatic increase in the volume of unsolicited manuscripts and query submissions — many of which are considered “unpublishable, even unreadable”. Editors and agents interviewed for this story claim that their slushpiles have more than doubled since the 1st of December, a pattern that has been repeating and escalating for the last ten years, and no-one is sure what is causing the increase.
“I don’t know where all this is coming from,” said one editor who wished to remain anonymous and employed. “By Wednesday, my email Inbox looked like I’d somehow subscribed to a live submission feed from BookSurge or Lulu. By Friday, the mail was stacked up floor to ceiling in the hallway outside the company offices. With the financial crisis, we can’t even afford to feed our interns, so I’m stuck going through the slush. And all of it seems so … unpolished, like a first draft, like they’d just finished writing it the day before. Who’s writing all this stuff, and why are they sending it to me, and why now? Why does the end of November always mean a deluge of crap?”
To finish this damning indictment of the wannabe writers among us, click here.

Democrat Book News, In Brief(cuz there's just as much stupid book news coming from the left)

It doesn't matter how you voted, pushing propaganda like this on your kids is just...creepy.

According to IO9.com, Obama is on his way to becoming this year's most popular comic book character. And the reason why is so very, very Washington DC: money.

Go, Tell Michelle is a new book compiling the opinions and advice of a bunch of Michelle Obama fans with waaay too much time on their hands. It's being billed as "messages of hope and advice for the new First Lady," although "quick ca$h-in" seems equally apt.

Recommended Viewing:Sarah Vowell on The National Post

Although I've never forgiven Vowell for letting her Incredibles character become a boring preppy at the end of the movie, I still begrudgingly love her books. Today's 'Recommended Viewing' features Ms. Vowell talking about her new tome, The Wordy Shipmates, as well as a li'l about her next book, a history of Hawaii from the European settlement on. (Plus, today's posts are turning out to be uber-liberal, and what's more liberal than an NPR personality?)

Republican Book News, In Brief

Political puppeteer Dick Cheney is writing a book. When I first heard the news, this book cover immediately popped into my mind.

Okay, so this second news bit isn't actually Republican. But let's face it, Frank Miller's world view is a helluva lot closer to Bush's than it is Obama's. Anyway, click here for Alan Moore's Frank Miller Parody. (Thanks to Journalista for the link!)

The Guardian UK has taken Kaylene Johnson's biography of Sarah Palin and condensed it to one easy-to-read page. The key line: Sarah's potential was realised when she came seventh in the Wasilla Miss Congeniality competition in 1979. Ouch.

Comic Book News, In Brief

Back in the 1960's, possible politician Caroline Kennedy had a series of gag comics made about her. A few of them were...well...oddly prescient. Star-struck voters can click here to read.


I don't know who the girls and gays crave more these days, Dash Shaw or Craig Thompson. (Sorry, Paul Pope; you got too old for lusting after.) But if you're on Team Thompson, click here for a glimpse at his newly completed, not yet published, Habibi.


2009 promises not only the newest volume of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, but also all of the thoroughly engrossing Alan Moore interviews that go along with it. And if you act fast, you can contribute a question to the chit-chat Moore will be having with The Forbidden Planet...here.

Author du Jour: Jen Hadfield

Biography:
(lifted en masse from uk.poetryinternationalweb.org)
Hadfield was born in Cheshire in 1978. She won an Eric Gregory Award in 2003 and was given a Scottish Arts Council Writer's Bursary in 2002 to help her complete her first collection Almanacs which was published by Bloodaxe in 2005. She used her Eric Gregory Award to fund a year's residence in Canada, where she has family, giving readings from Halifax to Vancouver. She continues to indulge her passion for getting words onto objects, and uses linocut, photography, woodwork, bookbinding and fly-tying in her artist books, which she calls “Rogue Seeds”.

Although an English writer, study, residence and travel in Scotland and Canada have been central to Hadfield's poetry thus far. Almanacs is a reassuringly different debut, hard to pin down, and with no signs of stepping in the prints of the previous generation. Kathleen Jamie has called her “a zestful poet of the road, a beat poet of the upper latitudes”, while Tom Leonard described “a quick mind abroad . . . a coquettish dance of nature’s primal forces . . . a whole and committed poet”.

Hadfield is certainly a nature poet, but a dazzling, contemporary one and her work never suffers from the shallow philosophizing or haughty self-reflection which undermines much poetry centred on landscape and travel. Even when set in remote places, her work is infused with colloquial speech, cars, popular music, modern myth. How fabulous to discover such a responsive poet, excited by her surroundings, who so clearly delights in matching experience and language.

Jen Hadfield is an excellent performer of her poems and refreshingly hard-to-place on the contemporary British poetry map. In spirit, perhaps, she is closest to Edwin Morgan, the senior Scottish poet who has ranged across the whole of such a map with equal parts seriousness and levity. For a poet still in her mid-twenties, she offers not just promise, but a direction for other young writers to follow.

But Wait! There's More:
(a biographical update, care of The Guardian UK)
A relative newcomer to poetry who has been widely praised for her passion and awareness of the natural world has tonight won one of the genre's grandest awards – the TS Eliot prize for poetry.

Four Poems by Hadfield:
Unfledging
In The Same Way
No Snow Fell On Eden
Melodeon On The Road Home

Related Links:
Hadfield's blog, rogueseeds
Hadfield selects her Top Five Musical Moments

Book Review: The Woman Warriorby Maxine Hong Kingston

I don’t know much about mytho-biography, but I get the sense that Maxine Hong Kingston wrote the flagship of the genre. The Woman Warrior has all the mystery, wonder, and torment of an ancient myth, while being rooted in her own life. She successfully conveys a sense of what it must be like to be a first generation American of any background, finding themselves in between two cultures, having allegiances to both though struggling with reconciling the conflicts that arise. Growing up in San Francisco, going to both American public and Chinese cultural schools, and working in the family laundry, the author draws heavily on the influence of her mother’s “talk-stories” (tall tales), which gives the book its mythological feel. This book is a fascinating look into the convergence of two major cultures happening in one person.
Review by Wendell 'Scutopus' Edwards

WTF?!

Okay, so when I first saw the SFist article insinuating that this Alexander Co. Bookstore window display was intentionally racist, I assumed that SFist was simply courting controversy. I mean two Obama books and a book on primates? It could've been an unintentional pairing, right? But then I looked down to the next row...and they've got a copy of Stuff White People Like sitting there.
Egad.
What were they thinking?

Book News, In Brief

My oh my, how times have changed. This first link will lead you to The NYTimes' review of The Uncrowned King, "a biography of the young William Randolph Hearst (and a) story about the rising power of the press in the late 19th century." This second link'll lead you to an article about the current Hearst Corp. and their 'You wanna buy a newspaper?' woes.

Senseless tragedies like the one pictured here can be avoided...but not if we can help it! Via Publisher's Weekly: A new government regulation that requires testing of all products aimed at children 12 and under is causing headaches for publishers, booksellers and manufacturers. Books, audiobooks and sidelines fall under the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which is set to go into effect Feb. 10; industry organizations are attempting to get books excluded from the Act.

The Australian's Roy Williams has penned a lengthy screed regarding the popularity of How-To books. Oddly, the best part of his thesis isn't his diagnosis as to why they're popular ("the hectic pace of day-to-day urban living, and the drive for efficiency and profitability in all spheres."), but his brief review of Mark Crick's Sartre's Sink at the very end. Who knew there was a How-To book out there featuring chapters like 'Painting a Paneled Door with Anais Nin' ("She felt every stroke of the brush as though its pure bristle were moving on the surface of her skin") and 'Putting Up a Garden Fence with Hunter S. Thompson'?

Tuesday's Friday's Tip for Flailing Writers

Boing Boing's Cory Doctorow has posted a great article on Locus Online titled, Writing in the Age of Distraction. In it, Doctorow lists six simple techniques to help writers write more effectively while still embracing the internet's many digital distractions. Dude knows what he's talking about, too -- he averages about a novel a year!

Recommended Viewing:Kids In The Hall's The Dr. Suess Bible

(A tip of the tall, stripey hat to Journalista for the link.)

Book News, In Brief

A new book, Toy Monster: The Big, Bad World of Mattel, reveals Barbie's creator to be a gay boob fetishist who once dismantled Zsa Zsa Gabor's Rolls Royce in a fit of anger. Needless to say, Skipper's creator was decidedly less interesting.

Last year's phony holocaust love story may find new life -- as this year's hot fiction release! Via The NYTimes: Days after Berkley Books announced that it was canceling the publication of the memoir Angel at the Fence, after its author, Herman Rosenblat, acknowledged that he had falsified parts of his story, an independent publisher said it was negotiating to release the book as a work of fiction.

Coming soon: Dave Eggers' Where The Wild Things Are. It's a book based on a movie based on a book. Did I lose you? Then allow The Guardian UK to explain: A new book from Eggers is always an event, and here he attempts a novelization of Maurice Sendak's children's classic Where the Wild Things Are, in a collaboration with the film-maker Spike Jonze. I hope this means that novelizations are back in vogue. When I was in the sixth grade, The Goonies by James Kahn was one of my favorite books.

Go, Read: Afrodisiac

Jim Rugg is one of the funnest cartoonists to emerge in the past ten years. Lucky us, he's posted a complete Afrodisiac mini-comic on his LJ. Click here to read.

Book News, In Brief(The Extra Depressing Bookselling Edition)

I turned on my computer yesterday to see this AP headline: After Sales, Will Shoppers Pay Full Price Again? According to the accompanying article, once you go Black Friday, you never go back.

Hell, even the once invincible porn magazine industry is on its knees, begging for a handout. The AFP reports: Porn Industry, Citing Limp Economy, Seeks its Own US Bailout. (Okay, so the italics were mine, but you can't tell me they weren't giggling when they wrote that.)

But wait. There's hope! Via NewsWise.com: A new study suggests that if they just touch an item for more than a few seconds, they may also end up buying it. Researchers from Ohio State University and Illinois State University tested how touching an item before buying affects how much they are willing to pay for an item. A simple experiment with an inexpensive coffee mug revealed that in many cases, simply touching the coffee mug for a few seconds created an attachment that led people to pay more for the item. So if what the scientists are saying is true, all we as booksellers need to do is physically/forcefully place the books in people's hands, and viola -- browsers become buyers. Buyers willing to pay cover price, no less! Even if this turns out to be b.s., it's just the sort of false hope that makes our war against Amazon.com seem a li'l less hopeless. Thank you, science. I forgive you for creating cosmetic Botox injections.

All Work And No Play...

Artist and self-described "big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King," Phil Buehler, has self-published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining.

From The Guardian UK: "The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

To read the Guardian UK's article in its entirety, click here.

Book News, In Brief

Sherry Jones, author of last year's controversial novel, The Jewel of Medina, has found a unique excuse for why her book bombed: She picked the wrong person to pen her blurb.

For years, folks caught with a copy of Playboy under their mattress have used the excuse, "I only read it for the articles." Still, it's surprising to hear Hugh Hefner claim he only published it for the cartoons.

Pop Quiz! What part of a book's publication causes the most conflict? (Go on, take a guess.) If you said, 'the editing,' you're WRONG! But if you said, 'designing the book jacket,' pat yourself on the back, then head on over to AlanRinzler.com for an insider's look at the contentious world of cover art creation.

First there was The Buena Vista Social Club, then Guantanamo Bay. Now there's a third reason to visit sunny, commie Cuba: Thousands of digitized documents, photographs and books that belonged to writer Ernest Hemingway have been made available to scholars and snoops alike. Oh, and unlike Florida's Hemingway archives, this one doesn't smell like cat pee!

The Best Comic Book Covers of 2008

We already linked to The Best Book Covers of 2008, so it only seemed fair that we link to Super Punch's The Best Comic Book Covers of 2008...and Robot 6's alternate list.

Tuesday's Tip for Flailing Writers:Words of Wisdom from Dennis Lehane

Boston-based crime author Dennis Lehane offers a couple of self-help bon mots for all of you perspiring pencil chewers out there.
(Clip courtesy of AuthorMagazine.org)

This Next Set Of News Bits Is Like A Fox News Ménage à Trois

Ann Coulter's new book reveals that she is not a Michelle Obama fan. Now there's a shocker.

Laura Bush signed with Scribner for her White House memoirs. George's book still has no buyers.

Sarah Palin has a pin-up calendar (and it's a top seller on Amazon).

Wendell Edwards' 30 Second Book Review:Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

I just finished reading this book for the second time in six years, and I’ve found it even more rewarding. It could be called a coming-of-age love story, with its themes of emotional maturity explored through the protagonist’s relationships with the women in the book. It is set in Japan in the late 1960s, with the music of the time playing a key role, and some commentary on the unrest of the time added. Like Murakami’s other earlier works, the protagonist considers himself (his early protagonists were always male) an average sort of guy, though through chance occurrences he meets up with unique characters who can see his uniqueness and special qualities when he still can’t recognize them. Unlike Murakami’s other earlier works, Norwegian Wood aims to be a human story, focusing on the human dramas instead of the usual supernatural, magical-realist themes. For the author, it was a challenge, and it turned out to be an incredibly successful venture, exploding his readership in his home country of Japan to such a degree that he felt the need to leave the country for a few years. Norwegian Wood is very much for adults, with dark themes running through it. Like his other books, there aren’t many resolutions, but it has a sense of momentum and even a glimmer of hope at the end, which, for the characters you’ve grown to care for, is all one could wish.

Book News, In Brief

The 'death of books' may have been proclaimed prematurely, but it's never too early to proclaim the collapse of the Kindle. Via Lifehacker: If recession budgeting meant choosing an iPhone/iPod touch over a Kindle when the dust cleared this holiday season, you're in luck: Stanza is a free and fantastic ebook reader for your iPhone.

In the old days (i.e: last week), if an author's life wasn't memorable enough to inspire a memoir, they simply embellished (i.e.: made sh*t up). Unfortunately, in the past few years (i.e.: post-James Frey), taking such liberties has become passe (i.e.: litigious and costly). That's why authors like Norah Vincent are a publisher's dream. From The Guardian UK: To expose the insanity of mental health institutions, Norah Vincent had herself committed. Twice.

Calling all cat burglars, crystal collectors and New Age nitwits! The Pilgrim's Way Bookstore in Carmel, CA is currently exhibiting the largest of the 13 legendary crystal skulls. The Monterey County Herald reports: The (book)store...will host today's 7p.m. lecture by the skull's owner, JoAnn Parks of Houston. The 18-pound, 2-ounce skull named Max is at least 10,000 years old by some estimates and purportedly was used by Mayan priests for healing and prayer...The skull spent its first 10 years in an old cosmetics case until, JoAnn said, it began speaking to her in her dreams... "And that's when he said to me, loudly and clearly in my head, 'By the way, my name is not Skull. It's Max.'"