Did you know MOBY-DICK was inspired by a real whaling accident? And that Sammy Harkham’s POOR SAILOR was inspired by the Maupassant story, “At Sea”?
Some dewey decimals I am haunting:
SEAFARING LIFE 910.4, 910.45
SHIPS 387.2 623.82 387.209 910.45
SHIPWRECKS 910.45 910.4 904.7
I worked so much today that my eyes burned and my hand cramped up. The adventure continues…
For being 6-6-06, yesterday was an unbelievably good day.
Just one of the happenings: I keep a notebook and pencil on my dashboard, and once in a while I get lucky at a red light, and the inspiration strikes.
<---On the way to work yesterday, a clunker van turned left in front of me, and this guy gave me a dirty look.
I scribbled his caricature as quick as I could. Then I thought he'd make for a good character in TERRIBLE CALAMITY. Engineer first mate, maybe?
Thanks apocalypse, I owe you one.
** You FULL THROTTLE fans will know what I’m talking about. [MP3]
This is the first page of a new comic called “A Terrible Calamity at Sea.” I’ve had the idea kicking around for a while now. It’s about a boy who survives a shipwreck and becomes something of a celebrity. Adventures ensue.
A few links: an Eddie Campbell interview with the Q & A in the form of drawings, and some great in-studio performances archived on WOXY.com: The National, The Greenhornes, and Neko Case.
Happy Weekend to all…if you’re in Cleveland, maybe I’ll see you at the Tapes N Tapes show Saturday.
“After all the things that happened, described and undescribed, if I told you I still loved the father would you understand it? How there was a wire of love running inside of me that I just could not find to pull? It was the side effect of being someone’s child, anyone’s child, whoever God tossed you to.”
—Lynda Barry’s CRUDDY, Chapter 24
“Birdseed” is turning into a tiny epic. As long as something makes Meg laugh, then I know I’m on the right track…
This morning she had to drive to Oberlin to consult a co-op about greening a house, so I went with her. In the bookstore, I read the first pages of Italo Calvino’s Six Memos For the New Millenium, his last lectures he wrote before he died, and Barry Hannah’s second novel, Ray. Both are authors I’ve set aside for studying. But where to begin?
I decided not to buy the bargains, and went into the coffee shop next door to read Cruddy. Then I spilt coffee all over. It might’ve been the caffeine, might’ve been the book.
On the way out of town, Meg and I talked about how we want to have a little house in a small college town, a highway trip away to a city with some culture.
One day. Happy weekend, everybody.
I don’t know a whole lot about non-fiction journalism, but the way i think about [it] in terms of what I can do is: I think of it as a service industry. Essays like this are occasions to watch somebody reasonably bright but also reasonably average pay far closer attention and think at far more length about all sorts of different stuff than most of us have a chance to in our daily lifes…—David Foster Wallace
If you haven’t read David Foster Wallace’s CONSIDER THE LOBSTER, you might want to take a look. Meg and I read it a few months ago and liked it a lot. (I’ve yet to read his fiction, myself.) I took this quote from his great interview with Michael Silverblatt (I know MS’s voice is hard to take, but he’s a smart reader and he talks to some great folks.)
* * *
The interviewer asked, “How does your wife take the way she’s depicted in your comics?” and James Kochalka replied, “She used to hate that I would draw about her at all, especially if I drew something that was dirty. But, she’s getting more used to it.”
I haven’t written a story about Meg yet, (I’ve drawn her a bunch) but it’s bound to come up.
Legend has it that Etgar Keret’s girlfriend was always bugging him to write a story about her, so he wrote the excellent story “Fatso.”
That’s what you get for asking, I guess.
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