The final countdown

New Animals in Midlife Crises strip up at The Rumpus. It is about lionesses and likely one of the final strips we do, at least for a while. So... check it out!

Summer Bummer Specials

Menu at a local taco joint. My friend's menu said Summer Special so this wasn't intentional.

So Google+, in a massive design flaw, has deleted every single photo I've ever uploaded to this blog. If you were curious about the many empty white squares now filling up this blog, there you go.

Will add some back slowly...

Boring personal reading habits 2k11 (halfway point edition)

A list of all the books that I've completed so far in 2k11. I've already read more books in the first half of 2011 than I read in all of 2010 (which was a real down year for me in this regard). However, I have to admit that much of my total comes from speeding through a lot of graphic novels and comic books during a two or three week period in June. This was research for a comic series John Woods and I will be working on soon.

These are only the books that I've finished. There are many others that I've started (2666, The Hundred Brothers, NOON 2011, etc.) that I will hopefully complete before the year is out. I've only re-read one book so far this year (the Carver). Favorites so far:

Taking Care by Joy Williams, Wilson by Daniel Clowes and Hunger by Knut Hamsun.

Full list:

1. Wilson – Daniel Clowes
2. The Death of Doctor Island – Gene Wolfe
3. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – Raymond Carver*
4. The Mezzanine – Nicholson Baker
5. Great Expectations – Kathy Acker
6. The Clouds Above – Jordan Crane
7. Hunger – Knut Hamsun
8. Werewolves of Montpellier – Jason
9. The Shadow over Innsmouth – H. P. Lovecraft
10. Illustrated Three-Line Novels – Joanna Neborsky
11. Baby Leg – Brian Evenson
12. The Late American Novel – Jeff Martin and C. Max McGee
13. The Baltimore Atrocities – John Dermot Woods (manuscript draft)
14. Stories V! – Scott McClanahan
15. Visitation – Jenny Erpenbeck
16. Us – Michael Kimball
17. The Sisters Brothers – Patrick deWitt
18. Antwerp – Roberto Bolano
19. 1963 – Alan Moore
20. Supreme: The Story of the Year – Alan Moore
21. Supreme: The Return – Alan Moore
22. The Killing Joke – Alan Moore
23. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 1 
24. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 2 
25. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 3 
26. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 4
27. Ultimate Fantastic Four HC Vol. 5
28. Love and Rockets New Stories No. 3 – The Hernandez Brothers
29. Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud
30. World War Hulk
31. Ultimate Iron Man – Orson Scott Card
32. Silver Surfer: Parable – Moebius and Stan Lee
33. Bottomless Belly Button – Dash Shaw
34. Taking Care – Joy Williams

Take a dip

I'm happy to say that I have a new dialogue story up at Hobart this month, Little Girls by the Side of the Pool by Lincoln Michel. Here is how it starts:

“Did you see what Suzy did when her father tossed her into the air?”

“No, I was looking at Jimmy.”

“She screamed. She screamed like a little piglet right until she hit the water.”

“My father is really good at tossing me into the water.”

“Yes, my father can toss me so high that I get afraid I'll never come down.”

“My father once threw me like ten feet out of the water and I did two cartwheels in the air before splashing.”

“My father once tossed me so high into the air that I was at eye level with the top of a tall tree and in that tree was a bird and that bird unfurled its wings and looked at me in a loving way, like a sister.”