John & Belle Have A Blog

Fanboy Monday

I can't believe they held a Photoshop contest, and no one stole my damn Botero idea! (via boingboing)

Also, there's this (via Gary Farber). Funny.

WHEDON: But I am a little removed from all of the larger stuff, because I planned my stuff out at the beginning, and of course, the Universe is quaking at all times, so I kind of have to get through, and then when I need to walk into the world, I call somebody, usually Mike Marts, and say, “Who’s alive? Who can be in this? Who’s in the Fantastic Four? There are six of them now? And they’re sinister? Okay.” But I just try and get up to speed when I need to. It’s hard for me – this is my first time at Marvel.

Was Something Wrong With "Second Bull Run Jolie-Pitt"?

John and I plan to name our next girl "Chickamauga." She'll totally have her own Uncle Tupelo theme song, too.

Snarked Out, Snaped Out

And this is a set of visual aids for a CT post.

Virtue

This is a set of visual aids, to accompany a Valve post. Basically, the question is: when did 'virtue' retire to lady's bedrooms; when did it start being so silly?

Insane Clown Cross-Eye

Tired of that rhino picture. Zoe likes to draw clowns as well. The eyes have it.

Also, this was a very funny thing in Slate yesterday - pulpifications of classic lit. And it contains a link to this site, which I'd never seen - poulpe pulps - though I guess it's been linked all over (women and cephalopods in compromising situations, but totally work-safe). This seems like the ultimate PZ Myers/Tom Franks mash-up, in terms of preoccupations.

Rhinoknees

Man does not live by fonts alone. Certainly, 5-year old girls don't. Here is Zoë's latest and, I think, perhaps her best. A thoughtful rhino:

The knees have it. She's given it Hembeck knees! Not that drawing like Fred Hembeck is the tiptop taper on the candelabrum of artistic achievement. But what a thing for her to have reinvented for herself.

Also wonderful, of course, is the way the line representing the chest miraculously turns into a pensive look of concern. Also, the surprised - what is that on top? - ears? an extra unicorn horn? Anyway, it looks surprised and alert, like Tintin's little ... whatever that thing is his hair does.

Fonts bleg, copperplate edition

I'm in the process of learning bookmaking with InDesign because I'm gonna move into publishing, man. (I'm knocking the CT Chris Mooney book event into shape, then I'll do more ambitious things with some Valve events.) My question for you is: how do I tell whether I own a given font? Like most people I've gotten most of my fonts without noticing where or how. So probably they were acquired honestly. Once upon a time I bought this 100 font pack, but I couldn't tell you now what was in it. And bunches of free fonts downloaded. But in my wild youth I may have installed a thing or two, or - er, 100 - that don't belong to me. Example: I'm using a couple flavors of Copperplate in the CT book. How can I tell whether I own it? Does Copperplate come with Office or any Adobe product? How does one check?

You use a lot of garamond, Dylan dog.

Link.

Profound Thought of The Day

If Ngo Dinh Diem had just held those elections in 1956 or whatever in South Vietnam, he could have saved everybody a whole lot of trouble.

Jim Henley was posting the other day about the US being sore losers while Iran was a sore winner. The thing I found surprising about Vietnam the first time I went (12 years ago now!) was that the Vietnamese were not sore winners at all. Very gracious, actually. Like, yeah, we kicked your ass, now c'mon over here ya big lunk and gimme a hug! There was more general goodwill in the south, with people associating America with $$$ and cool movies. Trouncing the French Army, the US Army and the Chinese Army during one 20-year period has to make a little country feel pretty good. Sure, they knocked over Cambodia too, but that was a weekend thing.

It was also my first real encounter with Soviet "consumer" "goods". Air conditioners? Not so good. Two-stroke motorcycles with all the mighty power of a sick ladybug? Um. Seriously, we're talking about a country (the USSR) which had a fatality rate for television sets. That's just sad. And remember how those evil leftists at the CIA and State Department were always saying their army was a bunch of shit, while Doug Feith mark 1's secret group learned of their true, giant shark-borne laser technology that was about to destroy America OMG!!!!! I remember reading an article once about how the Israelis captured a bunch of Soviet tanks (when fighting Syria?) and re-kitted them. Apparently the US wanted to wargame with the originals, but they sucked so incredibly badly that we had to rip out the guts, put some decent tank engines and guns in there, and then wargame. Funny stuff.

Scruff Boy Alien

This is Scruff Boy Alien, the King of Pluto. In the Plutonian language 'boy' means man. So he's all grown up. He's the biggest bully in the Solar System, and a new but wildly popular addition to Zoë's nite-time story routine. He's turning out to be, like, the Wolverine of nite-time story characters. This could get tedious. (Mom didn't understand that his name was 'Scruff', so she spelled out the wrong word. And Zoe's rendition of 'boy' is unsteady. But it'll do.)