- Matt Mullenweg on Apple, WordPress & tech release strategy. 1.0 Is the Loneliest Number
- Robert J. Sawyer on the relationship between science fiction and science fact: The job of sci-fi isn’t to predict “THE future,” but “to suggest a smorgasbord of possible futures, so that society may choose the one it wants.”
- Mystery California missile turns out to be a contrail lit by sunset, seen almost end-on so that it looked vertical. The photo actually reminds me of a contrail I once saw.
Sunday Afternoon
An incredible photo recreation of Georges Seurat’s painting, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jette. The photo was staged back in 2006, but I hadn’t seen it until it popped up on Reddit a few days ago. I find it amusing that people have been posting lyric fragments from Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park With George in notes on the photo!
There’s also a side-by-side comparison of the painting and the recreation.
Update: the photo is by Mark’s Postcards from Beloit, who has posted an album of more shots from the photoshoot featuring Friends of Riverfront in Beloit, Wisconsin. Used here under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 (attribution, no commercial use or derivatives) licence.
Long Beach Comic Con 2010 — Saturday Con Report
On the last weekend of October, I made it out to the second annual Long Beach Comic Con. It’s shaping up to be a very artist–, writer– and dealer-focused convention.
A couple of years ago, Wizard World Los Angeles seemed to be all about people looking for deals on comics and collectibles (in which case, why not just go to Frank and Son or the Shrine?). When the show resurfaced in Anaheim this year, it seemed to be all about the celebrity autographs.
If you just want to see the photos, check out the photo set on Flickr. Otherwise, read on!
Layout
The first thing everyone noticed was the row of themed cars out in front of the convention center: A Camaro painted up as Bumblebee, a replica of KITT from Knight Rider, cars from less geeky shows like Starsky and Hutch and (IIRC) Magnum, P.I.…and a car that had been modified to look like a Rebel Alliance small fighter, complete with an R2 unit!
The main floor at Long Beach was bigger this year than last, though nowhere near as big as Anaheim. Unlike Anaheim, they used most of their space.
All the publishers were clustered near the entrance, with Aspen and BOOM! the most prominent, followed by Top Cow, Image and Avatar in the next row with other small press, along with the celebrity autograph area off to one side.
The rest of the floor was structured with a huge Artist’s Alley at its core, surrounded by retailers on either side. Actually, it would be more accurate to say that it was two Artist’s Alley areas with dealers wrapped around them in a sort of F shape.
If you went to Anaheim Comic-Con this year, remember how big the celebrity signing area was, and how small the artists’ area was? Flip it. My gut instinct says that there were more artists with tables here than there were in San Diego, but then it could just be that they’re a bigger percentage of the smaller space.
NyQuil Regret
NyQuil Regret (n): the moment during a sleepless night when you realize you should’ve taken the damn blue green pill.
Home Libraries
Two comic strips about book collections:
Wondermark #442: In Which Beth Keeps Her Books
I stumbled on the Wondermark strip at Long Beach Comic-Con and it really hit home, between the fact that I grew up loving books for exactly this reason, and the impending arrival of the next generation.
As for Girl Genius, I think Castle Heterodyne’s library could give the Beast’s a run for its money.
Language!
Gotta love the MPAA’s priorities. A brief scene of therapeutic swearing earns the same rating as an entire film full of graphic, gruesome torture: The King’s Speech vs. Saw 3D.
SDCC Ticket Meltdown
Comic-Con 2011 ticket sales crashed under heavy load shortly after going online.
I think we’re seeing another shift in the process of getting to Comic-Con.
It used to be that, as long as you were aware of the onsale dates and could both plan your trip and pay for your tickets far enough ahead of time, getting those tickets wasn’t a problem. Sure, the show might sell out months ahead of time, but it would take weeks or months to get to that point.
Now, people are looking at preview night already being sold out, and looking back at their last experience with hotel reservations, and freaking out: We can’t just buy our tickets this week – we have to buy them NOW, as soon as they go on sale, or we won’t be able to get in!
Get enough people reacting that way, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Fear of a rush ends up creating a rush, just like fear of a run on a bank often triggers one. Add in the live progress bars as a feedback mechanism, and it snowballs even faster.
Until it crashes the server, anyway…
(Originally posted as a comment at The Beat.)