| http://www.overcompensating.com/posts/20080516.html 
The Love Shaq
I guess I have some pretty weird anxieties because this one is pretty much a daily fear of mine, almost enough to get me to stop drinking the two or three weekly Vitamin Waters I enjoy. "What a strange idea for a contest," I thought when I first saw Shaq glaring at me from behind the Vitamin Water label. I can imagine a fair number of people harboring at least a passing desire to spend an afternoon with Shaq but it seems like a lot more are either ambivalent or have heard him rap? To have it be the center of a large-scale promotion angers and confuses me!
Big ups to my new BFF Rebecca Watson, one of the stars of one of my favorite podcasts The Skeptics Guide to the Universe! Between her and PZ Myers I think I am officially definitely going to hell now for all eternity. | |
|
|  It's my new swear. Try it out yourself. ********************************** Reminder: Today is the LAST DAY to pre-order the new Kawaii Not t-shirts. I promise they have one head hole and two arm holes, just in case you were concerned about their "t-shirtness." **Note: I can also accept money orders and super-well-concealed cash for t-shirts orders. E-mail me today at meghan at kawaiinot.com for more info.**
 | |
|
| http://www.chemsetcomics.com/2008/05/16/the-gloom-week-26/ And so, a little later due to a Press launch I was at last night - The Gloom’s latest issues arrive for your viewing pleasure!
In other news, it looks like The Gloom will be getting a trade in ‘08, possibly even a hardback! Watch this space!
And remember to go vote for fellow Chem Setter Neil Kleid in his competition on www.zudacomics.com! Action, Ohio for the win! 
| |
|
|  What do you think? Do you need other people to get the same satisfaction from your art? Top Shelf 2.0 will feature all my favorite web comics. - Location:jersey city, nj
- Mood:hungry
 - Music:Morning Edition with Soterios Johnson on WNYC
| |
|
| http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/nemunemu/~3/291483556/anpan_nemu_guest_appearances.php  Hey all!
Not sure how many of you are familiar with the prolific comic artist, Ryan Estrada - (if you are on LiveJournal, he does a comic for Frank the Goat!) but Nemu and Anpan showed up in one of his latest comics for Life's A Bluff! Be sure to check it out!
And as promised, I have a whole bunch of new 100x100px icons and avatars!
 
  
  
We have a few non-text versions up at our photobucket gallery! Go and grab 'em!
Woo! Can you believe that next week is Fanime already?! :D
I hope everyone has a great weekend!
| |
|
| http://www.chemsetcomics.com/2008/05/15/goodbye-will-elder/ This isn’t Chemistry Set related, but we would be remiss if we didn’t mark the passing of one of the true legends of the comic book industry and truly, a revolutionary in the art of making comics. Will Elder was one of the artists who flourished in the ’50’s under Harvey Kurtzman at EC Comics. If at this point in your life, you haven’t read an EC Comic reprint, you really are missing out on innovation…innovations we take for granted now. I never met him, but we will all miss him. I’ll post any further details here as they come in. But for now, we’ll miss you, Will.
| |
|
| http://alienlovespredator.com/?id=247  Thursday, May 15, 2008, 4:00pm ET
I've seen a lot of descriptions and demonstrations of the "enhanced interrogation" technique of Waterboarding, and from what I can tell, you don't so much experience pain as much as you mostly "just" fear for your life for the few seconds you can stand it until you "break". I'll definitely allow for the possibility that there IS actually pain involved, and that you can suffer severe lasting psychological effects, but it seems to me that, at least with the way our government's reportedly practiced it, it's specifically designed to be as effective and efficient as possible while causing the MINIMUM amount of pain. No matter how you feel about it, it's not like the CIA are sadists.
This isn't a defense of waterboarding, but rather an excuse for me to link to the Medieval Torture Museum in San Gimignano, Italy, which was one of the most haunting experiences of my life. THIS was how to inflict intentional pain. Elaine and I visited for our 2nd anniversary (we did other less macabre things in Tuscany too), and we both paid for admission, but Elaine had barely entered the first room when she said, "Uh, I'll wait for you outside". I'm glad she did. This illustrated online tour does a good job describing the nasty devices they used in the Medieval times... it's nothing compared to standing face to face with an Iron Maiden like I had the "pleasure" of doing, but if you have any sort of imagination, that link will freak you the hell out.
How many of you knew that the Iron Maiden was an old torture device and not just a metal band? Ok now how many of you knew that Uday Hussein used to put underperforming Iraqi athletes in one as recently as like 10 years ago? (more...) | |
|
| http://www.overcompensating.com/posts/20080515.html 
I Get to Believe
You probably heard how the Vatican's head astronomer recently ruined believing in aliens by saying it is actually not necessarily contrary to Scripture. I believed in aliens before it was cool, back when you had to worry about making God cry for doing it. While I have not ruled out this being part of a vast conspiracy against me by the Pope, I remain weirded out. Oh well, time to find something new to believe in that has absolutely no possibility of ever being embraced by organized religion, like... wow. That's pretty much all there was left wasn't there?
Anyway this is why I don't do history comics because I'm so crazy I actually think "Well it's possible for Star Wars to have existed sometime in the distant past so I'm gonna just make that Real Universe Canon." That's probably why I didn't do good in history either. Anyway pretty much everybody has got at least some 411 on Galileo and Copernicus but not a lot of people know the skinny on Giordano Bruno, the man that got the rawest deal in the history of trying to school some rubes on some science. | |
|
|
hey friends: so this is the thing i'm doing. there's no reason outside of wanting to see friends for me to leave before ryan leaves at the end of may. i figure two more weeks weren't nothin' and if i am going to try this comics thing i am going to try the shit out of it. i was feelin' pretty namby pamby about it, but i am committed to it now. you know why? nice e-mails from you guys, money from you guys, basically you guys. i am not gonna be upset if i give it a try and fail, because that is how things go and i am down with that. but it is not gonna be on account of me not tryin' hard enough. if i get enough pfsc done before i leave (i am hoping to finish this dang storyline that is taking forever, i hope it ain't chasin' anybody away from my comic) i may do some more custom comics, if that's the case i'll announce it here. if i were tryin' to make real adult money for a house and a pregnant wife and such, i would not dream of doin' this, but basically this is also an excuse for me to live As Simply As Possible which i have been wanting to do for some time, and i am lookin' forward to it. kayo dot - clelia walking | |
|
| http://www.chemsetcomics.com/2008/05/15/how-to-get-your-indie-or-small-press-book-into-comics-shops/ No, it’s not a given. Over at Newsarama, I talk to four retailers about how to improve your chances. Rory Root of Comic Relief (Berkeley, CA), Alex Cox of Rocketship, Andrew Neal of Chapel Hill Comics (Chapel Hill, NC), and Ben Trujillo of Star Clipper (St. Louis, MO) gave some great pointers.
Remember, the customer is always right! (Note: That would be retailers. :) )
Anyhoo, there’s some great advice there if you’re a creator or self-publisher. Check it out.
| |
|
|  man, again, if you're not listening to Radio Lab you need to be, it's the most fascinating way to spend an hour ever. Now, I have one of those Twitter things. Another thing to check. - Location:jersey city, nj
- Mood:calm
 - Music:Morning Edition with Soterios Johnson on WNYC
| |
|
| |
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
s2smoothsailing![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/syndicated.gif){kind=small}
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
del.icio.us
del.fm