It’s been an awesome year. We celebrated with lunch at Dairy Queen.
ON THE CHRISTMAS LEGEND
If we focus on Joseph, as Matthew does, and make this a legend of salvation, then Joseph becomes the second Adam. He is given a second chance, as we all are, constantly, a chance to reenact a life drama that we have wretchedly botched at least once before, and to do it right this time.
—Stephen Mitchell
Happy Christmas to everyone: here’s Stephen Mitchell from his book, The Gospel According to Jesus, on the Christmas Legend, Joseph, and the true meaning of Christmas: forgiveness.
Today I hope you’ll forgive yourself, and then forgive those who have wronged you.
Peace on earth!
POSTCARDS FROM TEXAS, 1929
Before my mom came down from Ohio for Thanksgiving, she was going through some family photographs and unexpectedly came across these postcards my great-grandfather Frank Davis sent from Austin and San Antonio to his daughters, Eleanor and Matilda, in 1929. At the time he was a state liquor inspector in Ohio, and we think he traveled to Texas for some type of conference or convention.
Have not had time to see much of this town: but like it as as far as I have gone. Spent until 4:30 today on trains. You Kiddies be good while Daddy is away for tomorrow is Mother’s Day. Be especially good to Mother.
– Daddy
Eleanor this is the seat of learning for the state of Texas. They have some wonderful schools here. The most friendly people that I ever saw.
– Daddy
Sister this is a pretty country. But a lot of Nationalitys [sic].
– Daddy
TRYING OUT STANFORD’S VECTORMAGIC TOOL
This is a small, poor-quality .jpg of a drawing I did of Lynda Barry last year. When my Powerbook crashed, I lost the original artwork forever. When I heard about Stanford’s VectorMagic online vectorization tool, I thought the Barry piece might be a good way to test it out. A bit of background for folks who aren’t familiar with the whole vector art thing:
Vectorization (aka tracing) is the process of converting a raster image to a vector image. Raster images are pixel-based, whereas vector images are represented by geometric shapes such as lines, circles and curves…This site converts bitmap images to vector art – it’s an online auto-tracer. Just upload your image and we will vectorize it for you. Vector art is useful because it allows you to scale an image without making it blurry or pixelated.
With about two minutes max of fiddling, this is what the program spit out:
Pretty decent results — you can tell a bit of detail on the lettering has been lost, but it’s pretty amazing what kind of detail it will retain based on just that “cruddy” jpeg:
You’ll notice that the vectorization simplifies all the curves and shapes, which almost makes the woodcut look even more convincing — definitely slicker. With a little cleanup on the lettering in Illustrator, I think it’s as good, if not better, than the original.
ONE MORE DEATH BELL FOR NEWSPAPER COMICS
F*** this: Ernie Pook’s Comeek has been dropped from alternative papers all over the country — including the Austin Chronicle. I wondered last week where it went. Only good news is that now D + Q will post them online.
- ← Newer posts
- 1
- …
- 288
- 289
- 290
- 291
- 292
- …
- 329
- Older posts→