The Harveys &c

It escaped my notice that Harvey Awards were bestowed at the Baltimore Comic-con over the weekend. Sorry I dropped the ball. The Harveys are an autumnal counterpoint to the summer's Eisner Awards. They're also the nice people who named me "Best New Talent" two years ago, to their increasing chagrin.*

In any case, looking over the list of winners (which I had to find at Tom Spurgeon's invaluable Comics Reporter because I don't see them on the official site that doesn't look like it's been updated in weeks), I noticed how many of the winners share my publisher, Abrams. Mark Evanier's Kirby: King of Comics won two Harvey Awards, Al Jaffee's Tall Tales won two, and Kyle Baker's Nat Turner won one. In addition, Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid was nominated in several categories but sadly shut out, leaving Jeff's cash-stuffed pillowcase stained with his tears I'm sure.

That's a big impact for a smallish publisher that first dipped its toe into comics just a few years ago. Congrats to Editor Charlie (who edited Kirby, Tall Tales and Wimpy Kid, don't know about Nat Turner) and everyone at Abrams on being recognized for their good work. I feel like a kicker playing on Joe Montana's 1984 San Francisco 49ers.** It's good to be with a winning team.

*Mandatory Joke Whenever I Mention This Honor: When my wife found out about it she said, "You look like the same old talent to me." True story. She's funny.

** Ray Wersching
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I discovered a great new word today: "fissiparous" (fi-SIP-er-us), referring to something that tends to split. Next goal: work it naturally into a conversation.

I always wanted to keep a little notebook in which to jot new words as I found them. I never did, and kind of regret it. A lot of good words have gotten away from me because I didn't hook them when I had the chance. Then it occurred to me: I have a blog!

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I found two things to pass on courtesy of Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer, who's actually a very good astronomer if bad at returning e-mails. First is a really cool chart from National Geographic that graphically illustrates every space mission to date. Each colorful track represents one mission, with bodies receiving the most missions (e.g., the Moon with 73) getting the most spirals around them. Nifty!

Second is a 1:48 video that I thought was a fun little art project/social experiment/Volkswagen commercial. Well-conceived, modestly insightful, but mostly just something I would definitely go out of my way to enjoy if someone installed one around me.