August 13th, 2007 | brainjuice, comics talk, people I know
According to this, my friend Mike Wieringo died on Sunday of a heart attack.
We were set to do a book together this year, something we’ve been intending to do for a few years. Things had finally come together, and…
The first thing I said upon seeing this was “No.”
I’m going to miss you, Mike. And so will everyone else.
WARREN ELLIS
Kieron Gillen - 09 Feb 10
The whole run of Plan B magazine has been released as a single 670Mb PDF. That’s 46 issues of some of the finest music writing of the decade. And a lot of posturing pretentiousness too. It’s like two of my favourite things for the price of one. Or none, as it’s a free PDF.
If you’ve any interest in music in the 00s, or music full stop, this is a great thing to just have on file. You’ll discover a new band every time you browse it.
Hell, it’s even worth getting if you’re one of the games journalist sorts. For the first 10-20 issues or so, I was doing games stuff for it. And Quinns and Mathew Kumar too, who I bullied into contributing. Very much written for the non-gamer about games which get pretty much no coverage, we had fun trying to decode the concept of Outsider Games.
Whole thing here. Go gets!
Coilhouse - 08 Feb 10
Back around the time of Issue 03, we launched the Small Business Advertising Program to create affordable ad space for indie companies in the print version of Coilhouse. By the time Issue 04 rolled around, the number of advertisers had grown significantly – by this time, we had record labels, jewelry and clothing designers, sculptors, other magazines, web hosts, toy makers and graphic designers advertising in our pages. Click here to see them all. With editorial duties taking up more and more of our time as the weeks go by, the moment has come for us to seek help with the advertising side of running the magazine. We’re looking to hire an Ad Manager for our Small Business Advertising Program, starting with Coilhouse Magazine #05… and possibly subsequent issues.
Full details after the jump!
Read the rest of Coilhouse is Hiring! Apply Here.
Post tags: Coilhouse
jwz - 08 Feb 10
Check the appropriate box. Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof?
[ ] YES [ ] NOIf yes, please outline the fundamental beliefs. If applicable, attach a copy of the bylaws or minutes of meetings from the last year.
Open The Future - 08 Feb 10
For those folks who are interested, here's the Slideshare version of the presentation I gave last week at the Earthquake Engineering Research Institute annual meeting. I was asked to talk about foresight thinking, as the event theme was "The Big One of 2056: What Went Right?" a look at a fictional 7.8 quake in the SF region that was handled as well as they could imagine possible.
My goal was to offer a bit of reassurance to the audience that there is some real utility to thinking about the future, and to spell out (in a cursory way) the kinds of big picture issues they should keep in mind while looking ahead forty-six years.
By and large, it was a successful talk. The post-talk questions were engaged, with little push-back, and I'm told that the overall response from the audience was quite positive.
The talk was video recorded, and I'm told will eventually be available to the public. I'll link when that happens.
John Robb - 08 Feb 10
A gifting economy is different from a barter or market economy in that valuable items are given away to those that need them, without any quid pro quo, exchange, or payment. Gifting economics (lots of great papers on this topic) were/are the economic heartbeat of hunter-gatherer tribal cultures, the social organization where we spent 99% of our time as homo sapiens sapiens. Barter was, in contrast, a mechanism for economic interactions between tribes.
This gifting economic system wasn't based on pure altruism. It did have an enforcement mechanism to ensure compliance with the system over the longer term. On the positive side, there was an intangible increase in the social status (using personal or societal metrics) of a tribal member that gifted an item. On the negative, a failure to offer hospitality or gifts to those in need was considered a mortal slight that could incite violence or expulsion from the tribe.
There were also a considerable number of drivers for gifting at the tribal level. Here are some:
Scalability
It's pretty clear that the societal drivers of tribal gifting economics and the mechanisms of enforcement didn't survive the transition to a global social system composed of billions of members. Simply, the connections between any two individuals (outside of immediate familial relationships) are too abstract for these drivers and enforcement mechanisms to be relevant. As a result, market based mechanisms for economic interaction have gained dominance.
However, the ongoing shift of the global market-based economy from a trade in rival goods (tangible items that invoke zero sum economics) to digital non-rival goods (items that can be copied at no expense or diminishment, endlessly) provides a window of opportunity. It may be possible to revive gifting economics for non-rival goods to amazing beneficial effect. Some ideas on how this could scale:
Jean Snow - 08 Feb 10
So what’s the latest on SNOW? I guess two new developments art that I added a dedicated Twitter feed, and also created a Facebook fan page. The Twitter feed is mostly just automated with new articles from the site — because some people actually prefer that over RSS feeds these days — but I do keep an eye on it, and will reply to questions and comments. The Facebook page is just another way of putting the site out there, and should be a good way of informing members of SNOW-related events as they happen.
Regular content updates have also continued over the past week, with a few new guest columns and my regular news items. Here’s a list of what you may have missed over the past few days.
Man, what the HELL? I never knew him but loved his work. This is fifty years too soon for a guy who did such excellent comics.
Horrible news. Condolences, Warren and Mr Weiringo’s family and friends.
Wow… I’m stunned. What a tragedy.
His run on Flash with Mark Waid was pure comics joy; I’d always hoped they’d get back together for another session.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends.
Oh my god.
I loved his artwork (I loved the revamped Buck Rogers sketch he did on The Engine a while back), and everything I’d read of the man indicated he was a wonderful human being.
My deepest condolences to his family and friends.
When I was in high school, my mother did a feature news story for public television on Artamus Studios in Hillsborough, NC (just down the road apiece from where I lived at the time), which Mike was a part of. I begged to get taken along, and was most looking forward to meeting him, as I was a big fan of what he’d done with The Flash. He was incredibly kind and patient, and critiqued a few drawings I’d brought along.
Several years later, he was a guest at a local skiffy convention, and remembered who I was. We talked about comics and writing (I’d long since decided I wasn’t cut out for a career in art, and had thrown myself into writing instead, a choice I’ll never regret), and once again he took the time to listen and offer advice (I think he was working on Tellos at that point).
This news completely sucks. I didn’t know him very well at all, but it still makes me sad. My condolences, Warren.
[...] Artist Mike Wieringo According to a link found on Warren Ellis’s blog, artist Mike Wieringo died this weekend of a heart attack, just 44 years [...]
Warren, I’m so sorry for your loss. I didn’t know Mike personally, but hes art had a sense of wonder and whimsy in every piece he drew. You have my sincere condolences.
Mike Weiringo was one of those artists who’s work I HAD to pick up, whatever he was doing. You could see the kind of person he was, imprinted on every page. Even fourteen years after he got into the industry, there isn’t enough of his work out there. I’ll always treasure the shining examples that i have.
I remember a small sketch card set I bought of Mike’s work for Marvel. There was so much fun in his style… he will be missed.
goddamnit!, thats fucked up right there
That sucks!!! I can’t wholy believe it. It’s really sad to learn that kind of news. Wieringo, although not one of my prefered artists, was (is?) one of the most respected, and as a penciller mysels, I regret to learn the news of his recent departure. Specially of someone o young, with so much that could have gived yet!!! May he rest in a better place (than this flawed world).
[...] Kesel remembers Ringo. Warren Ellis takes a moment to reflect. Jeff Parker pays tribute to his friend. Peter David seems to be feeling the same loss for [...]