i remember first hearing of Scott McCloud a few years ago not long from when Neil first started his online journal while writing American Gods. at the time, i remember Mr Gaiman talking about his 24 hour comic. i'll have to google that off his site sometime. i can't remember if he successfully completed it or not.
the rules for the 24 hour comic, invented by Mr McCloud, can be found here.
but the main reason i wanted to put-up a link to his site are because of his webcomics.
like a lot of his readers, i particularly like this one, which, while not being as flashy as webcomics promise to be capable of being, makes perfect use of the loopiness available to the webcomic artist/writer.
it's also wonderfully dark in a brilliantly subtle way.
check all the others out as well. they're all pretty cool.
*
today, as my blood sugar started to drop having not yet had dinner, i found myself wandering around the mall. as a creature of habit, i went through all the bookstores, a couple record bars, ending with booksale, which, given time and patience, is a lovely place to find odd (and old) books. (the website fails to do the real thing justice as not all the books are listed on-line. and going on-line, you miss out on the fun of real-life bookhunting.)
being in that dull mood that often creeps over me during my Lone Walking Tours of Wherever, i decided to forgo actual bookhunting and allow serendipity to guide my hand.
sure enough, within a couple minutes of entering the shop, she guided me right to the Eighth Book of Amber. it was Roger Zelazny's name that first drew my attention to it. to be honest, i wasn't really all that interested in getting a copy of an Amber book. i've had the collected edition of all ten Amber books for sometime now, but it has lingered somewhere around the lower half of my Must Be Read Eventually pile.
nonetheless, i acknowledge Mr. Zelazny as one of the masters of the field, so i picked it up. i flipped the book open and came immediately upon the title page.
written in ballpoint ink, in a loopy hand, was Mr. Zelazny's name
i have no idea if this is really Mr. Zelazny's signature, or if it's someone else's, someone who just so happens to have a similar name (it looks to me suspiciously like Boyer Zelazny), or perhaps a forgery by someone wishing to up the value of his library, or just someone wishing to see Mr. Zelazny's name in his or her own handwriting.
whatever the case, and whoever's signature it may be, i can now say i was fortunate enough to find a signed copy of a first paperback print of one of Mr. Zelazny's books.
in the store, a rather largish woman was reading The Cat in the Hat out loud to herself, doing it rather well, with all the right inflections, even though she didn't do the voices. she was standing with her back to one of the paperback book shelves, so i quietly "browsed" behind her, listening to her read for a bit. it was difficult to hear her from all the noise filtering in from the rest of the mall, but it made me smile nonetheless.
i left the store with the signed copy of a first paperback print of one of Mr. Zelazny's books and a 1983 Ballantine edition of John Brunner's Stand on Zanzibar.
it was all quite surreal.
then it was off to the grocery store for next week's rations.
*
the crone was singing again. it seems she's always singing the same song after all, regardless of who passes her by.
i don't mind. there was still a faint, nicely surreal air to the world as i dropped some coins into her open palm and drifted on home.
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