Jesse Bausch and Meg Gandy’s GODSEND: really strong art on this webcomic.

One catastrophic burst pipe and a partial flood of my house later…!

(All fixed now, sort of, though I would like to go back in time and kill a certain plumber sixteen years ago.)

Stuff!

Lex Machina’s Graphoscope Travelling Photo Dispensary is doing a Kickstarter thing, and there’s a book in it as well as other lovely pledge prizes from the likes of Lastwear (featured here a few times in the past):

And issue four of PAPER SCIENCE is on pre-order:

It’s coming! Paper Science 4 is on the way and you can pre-order your copy now!

Last month we revealed that Luke Pearson, John Allison, Timothy Winchester, Andrew Waugh and Adam Cadwell would all be featured in the 16 page sci-fi special, coming at the end of April.
The line-up is completed by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey, Joe List and Dan Berry, bringing aliens, geeks and ray-guns to a printer near you. Well, a printer near London anyway.

With a month to go until the newspaper is sent to press it’s time to get your pre-orders in, and we’ve got four options for you;

At which point you go to the link for the informations. You may want to think about the subscription option, as PAUL DUFFIELD will be in a future issue.

• Dreams Are Real 029: Project 40
  "When I started Project 40 yesterday I knew exactly what I wanted to do. In New Orleans they call it "Growing up tipsy." It means you're tapped in."
  (tags:magic )
• Skeletal Tattooed Editorials – Rick Genest Poses for Vogue Hommes Japan Spring/Summer 2011 (GALLERY)

  (tags:ink photography )

• 4chan Founder: Anonymity is Authenticity
  "Anonymity is authenticity," said Poole. "It allows you to share in an unvarnished, unfiltered, raw and real way. We believe in content over creator."
  (tags:net )
• The Living City | URBAGRAM
  "This is a transcript of a talk delivered at Cognitive Cities, a conference on the future of cities held in Berlin on 26th Feb 2011."
  (tags:architecture comms net )
• It’s About Time and Space « THE WEB JOURNAL OF JOHN RAY
  "This comic book is an adaptation of Timothy James Dimacali’s short story published in Philippine Speculative Fiction III way back in 2007"
  (tags:webcomic sf )
• Atlantis, Lost City Swamped By Tsunami, May Be Found
  "A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain."
  (tags:history bullshit? )

Masses and masses of stuff to catch up on today, so I’m going to forgo the usual big rambly post until later, as I clear through my inbox.

Norman Spinrad.  Yes.  His BUG JACK BARRON was a big influence on TRANSMETROPOLITAN. Fantastic writer.  His work is big, muscular, aggressively inventive and fiercely intolerant of bullshit.  I got this in email from him while I was on the road:

   QUARANTINE–an experiment in epublication

  Norman Spinrad, who has published over sixty works of short fiction, many of them widely anthologized, in everything from Playboy to New Worlds to Liberation to Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, has put his latest, QUARANTINE, directly on sale as an original “mini-ebook” on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the mini-price of $3.00.

“Too hot for any conventional magazine to handle, not that it surprises me,” the author explains, “which makes it an ideal guinea pig for this epub experiment.”

QUARANTINE is the novelette-length story of a terrorist attack on New York using a genetically engineered virus that spreads ambiently and gives the entire population of Manhattan Island, tourists and all, uncontrollable diarrhea.  Nor is this surrealism or satire, and the biotech is all too plausible.

Certain to gross out, disgust, and/or outrage a mass audience, but perhaps just the sort of thing that arouses pleasure for the very same reason in a certain niche readership.

The question this experiment seeks to answer is how many readers is that?  If this can work for something like QUARANTINE, it can work for all sorts of fiction by all sorts if writers, and if it does, the short story could teleport itself from condition terminal into an unexpected golden age.

To learn more go to NORMAN SPINRAD AT LARGE: http://normanspinradatlarge.blogspot.com/2011/03/quarantine-epub-experiment.html

QUARANTINE at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/QUARANTINE-ebook/dp/B004RHB5VU/ref=sr_1_19?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1299861471&sr=1-19

QUARANBTINE at Barnes & Noble:  At Barnes & Noble

At my internet lab today:

*  WEBCOMICS WEEK (March 13-20 2011) – you do a webcomic?  It’s the monthly call to come and tell people about it

*  CHINESE WHISPERS UCHRONAL COVER REMODEL: Fantastic Four #1 – return of the art/graphics challenges, all welcome

*  Comics on Sale This Week (mar 16)

*  Work for Dr. Sketchy’s

*  Artists: How Do You Set Out Your Stalls At Shows?

• 2010: A Space Odyssey – NOWNESS
  "Set in the deserted grounds of Paypal founder Elon Musk’s Space X jet lab in Hawthorne, California, the film was inspired by the pioneering spirit of the space race, which, according to Rodarte’s Kate and Laura Mulleavy, “has defined generations of artists in their desire to use new mediums and question the established rules they were taught to follow.” This cinematic collision between rocket science and visual daring is an apt match for Rodarte’s spring 2010 collection—a symphony of flesh-colored crochet knits, fluorescent fibres, leather bandages and distressed plaid. Costumed in a series of these exquisite creations, Van Seenus blurrily emerges from a shimmering seascape before running through the starkly alluring spaces of the Space X facility… Van Seenus’ hallucinatory journey, punctuated by glimpses of mysterious experiments and sudden rocket blasts, is chillingly soundtracked by LA noise-merchants No Age."
  (tags:video fashion design space )

Experimental 1/2 Hour – Episode XI: Grouper on Vimeo on Vimeo

via Experimental 1/2 Hour – Episode XI: Grouper on Vimeo.

• insane asylum plans
  blueprints for nuthouse designs: fascinating
  (tags:architecture )
• BLDGBLOG: The Factors of Futuring
  poster, designed by Brian Roettinger, for MADE UP: Design's Fictions
  (tags:desgn )

• CR Newsmaker Interview: Dan Nadel, Tim Hodler Of TCJ
  comics journalism
  (tags:none)
• Jay Babcock: Arthur Set To Close For Good On March 15
  magazine
  (tags:none)

• Building biological computers
  "New research shows that genetically modified cells can be made to communicate with each other as if they were electronic circuits."
  (tags:comp bio )
• The Social Printshop Introduces An Instagram Trio: Prinstagram, Instagrid, and Instawar
  "It’s only been a few weeks since social photo-sharing app Instagram released its API, but developers are trying their hand at it and coming out with new photo-linked services. Today, the Social Printshop is releasing not one, but three Instagram apps: Prinstagram, Instagrid, and Instawar."
  (tags:web )
• SAS and MI6 officers released by Libya’s rebel commanders | World news | The Guardian
  "Libya's rebel commanders have freed two MI6 officers and six SAS soldiers captured by farm guards on Thursday morning, after the British government vouched for their identities."
  (tags:pol war embarrassing incompetent )

On my message board right now:

* Mixcloud Mixes

*  Warren In Ireland, March 10

*  BRIGHTON UK AREA: The Outer Church March 10

*  The Self-Portrait Imagethread (Mar 11)

*  Artists: How Do You Set Out Your Stalls At Shows?

*  grinding.be

*  Dr Sketchy’s House

It is Monday. That cannot be helped.

I have been interviewed by The Setup about the hardware and software I use. Previous interviewees include Stephen Wolfram. Odd company to be keeping. You can find me ranting at this link here.

On Wednesday I am off to London to be interviewed again for that bloody DVD. I am still getting over this cold, so if there are sections of the DVD where I sound like I’m gargling with maggots from beyond death… those bits were shot this Wednesday.

On Thursday I am off to Ireland, where I am appearing that evening at the University Of Galway, to be interviewed onstage about comics and things, and apparently to receive the University Literary & Debating Society’s President’s Medal. Previous recipients include — I swear I am not making this up, even though I still suspect the whole thing to be a gag — Noam Chomsky and Desmond Tutu. Which is also odd company to be keeping.

I will be flying out of Galway at the crack of sparrowshit on Friday morning.

Oh, and the chicken died. Not in any discomfort, mind you. Beating the respiratory infection just took too much out of her, and we couldn’t put energy back into her quickly enough. As an ex-battery hen, she didn’t have much stamina to begin with. Died in her sleep early on Sunday morning. But the other two are still going strong. And Gertie, who died, still had six months more than she would have done if we hadn’t rescued her — after 18 months, battery hens are usually turned into dogfood.

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