Amused in Review

Live From CES: The Sony Reader - Gizmodo

And look, it's demoing a page of Trigun!

The good news is that I finally found the tripod attachment that's been missing for the past couple of months, and my first photo-comic since early November is uploaded ready for tomorrow. The bad news is just as I was transferring the photos for my second comic, the battery on the camera ran out. I'm recharging it now, but that means I probably won't be able to work on any more until tomorrow or Saturday. So it's back to the old drawing board for me. Literally.

Well, I just voted in the Comic Bloggers' Poll 2005. It wasn't entirely satisfying, since there was no seperate category for manga; instead, every translated comic was categorized as a reprint collection. Since that's practically all I read, I had some empty categories. What's more, the voting form makes you fill them in, so I had to write in "None" for Best Original Graphic Novel, for instance. I hope that nobody published anything under that title in 2005.

The voting was by a point system, with 10 points to divide in each category. There didn't seem to me to be much reason to spread the points out, particularly since nothing I voted for is likely to win anything thanks to the categorization. I figured if I dumped all my points into one or two things, it might at least help the position in the list, assuming the number of votes is published.

I ended up with the following:
Best Writer:
Yumi Hotta (Hikaru no Go) 5
Natsuki Takaga (Fruits Basket) 5

Best Artist:
Takeshi Obata (Hikaru no Go) 10

Best Ongoing Series:
Knights of the Dinner Table 10

Best Collection of Previously Printed Material:
Fruits Basket 5
Hikaru no Go 5

Best Original Graphic Novel:
None

Best Mini-series or One-Shot:
None

I've posted a list of web-comics that I read regularly over on the left, organized by when they update: daily (usually M-F but some have Sat and Sun updates, Monday-Wednesday-Friday, and once a week.

1. Krazy Kat
2. Peanuts
3. Thimble Theatre/Popeye
4. Terry and the Pirates
5. Footrot Flats

and for sufficiently large values of 5:

5. Pogo
5. Calvin and Hobbes
5. The Far Side
5. The Spirit
5. Li'l Abner
5. Dilbert
5. Mutts

Comic Bloggers' Poll 2005: Winners

And, as I expected, in all the categories I voted in mine were the only votes for my choices.

Wall Streets cheers the news of a possible Disney-Pixar deal - Jan. 24, 2006

According to several reports, Walt Disney is expected to soon announce a deal to by Pixar, the animated studio led by Apple founder Steve Jobs. Upon completion of a deal, Jobs would become the biggest individual shareholder of Disney and could even snag a board seat at the House of Mouse.

I suppose you could ask will Pixar save Disney, but my experience is that it isn't the company being acquired that wins the inevitable political infighting. Even if Jobs was the single largest individual share-holder, that doesn't make him the boss, and even if he were the boss, he wouldn't be attending every meeting where the old guard would be trying to crush the upstarts. My bet is that the Disney way of doing things would crush the innovation and artistry right out of Pixar.

The Eagle_Fire Garfield Randomizer

Sad when it's better than the actual strip. I understand that Garfield isn't for me, but where I have trouble is picturing who it is for. The best I can come up with is people who don't actually have a sense of humor, but don't realize it and so want to read comics anyway.

THE ENGINE

Rachel gets a mention by Warren Ellis:

Lisa Jonte must be going nuts, with all this talk about there not being enough female voices in comics while she's running GIRLAMATIC, publishing the likes of Rachel Hartman, Spike and Erika Moen.