“I can be awkward.” “So can most of us.”

I woke up pretty late this morning, ran some errands — post office, haircut, bank — and then spent the rest of the day not doing a whole lot of anything. I mean, I filled the bird feeders in the yard — it’s quite chilly outside, but they don’t all fly south for the winter — and I watched a little television. (Fringe and a British show called Misfits.) I did a little writing — the story I’m working on proved surprisingly easy to get back into, after too long a hiatus — and did a little reading. And then this evening I watched Ondine, which was really quite lovely. Every now and then a movie like that — or In Bruges — comes along and reminds me that that Colin Farrell fellow can certainly act.

Wednesday various

Monday various

Monday various

  • J. Michael Straczynski quits writing monthly comics, declares future is in original graphic novels. Warren Ellis discusses some of the figures, the actual dollar amounts that might be driving Straczynski’s decision. Financially, it may be a smart decision. But Ellis also adds, not unkindly, the following question:

    What I’m wondering is what happens the first time Joe writes an OGN that isn’t a new iteration of the biggest heritage brand in comics [Superman] with the concomitant press coverage and bookstore push.

    It’s an interesting move on Straczynski’s part, and it will bear watching — both in reader reception of his future projects, and whether or not other monthly comics writers join him. But I think it’s too soon to call this a harbinger of things to come, no matter how troubled the monthly comic book might be as a format.

  • A Canadian Jersey Shore? Can I nominate Red Green to play the role of Snooki?
  • Attention, writers: whatever you do, do not sign a contract with this man. No, not John Scalzi, but that “prevaricating hustler” and “master of bullshit” James Frey, who Scalzi talks about further here. Seriously, there are some pretty terrible publishing contracts out there, vanity presses dressed up like real publishers or outright scams from which no book emerges, but this is still pretty egregious — and exactly the sort of thing MFA programs should be teaching their students how to avoid, not facilitating by offering those students up as Frey’s misguided recruits. [via]
  • A typographic anatomy lesson [via]
  • And finally, a haunting tour of the abandoned — and soon to be demolished — Six Flags New Orleans [via]