Best Day of My Life?

No question: twenty-one years ago today.

Behold the idiot grin of a young man with no clue.

Happy Birthday, Pooters.

Vaya Con Dios, WHTTWOT

Ten minutes ago, I signed off on the final revisions to the cover of Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? and put it to bed. I couldn't add, subtract, or change another jot if I wanted to. Now it passes entirely out of my hands and into those of the printer, distributors, and booksellers who'll usher it out into the world.

Weird.

My goal was to write a book that I, myself, could not put down if I saw it in a bookstore, and I know I accomplished at least that. Hope y'all like it.

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Three Invisible Things

Here's a list of three things I wish I could show you but I can't:

1. The back cover of WHTTWOT. The insides and outsides of books are printed separately, so while the inside pages are long gone to the printer, we're still refining the cover. As I mentioned way back, the book will have a hard cover wrapped in a nifty die-cut jacket. Making that all work together is mostly designer Neil's job, and I think he's doing great. Can't wait to show it to you.

2. Yesterday I completed an e-mail interview about Mom's Cancer with the Italian comics webzine De-Code.net (there is an Italian edition of the book). They asked some perceptive questions and it was an interesting experience. Although I did a fair number of interviews when Mom's Cancer first came out, it's been a while since the last one, and I found myself looking back on the book with a fresh and slightly different perspective. I figure it's fair to let De-Code print it first. Then maybe I'll translate it back from Italian to English and run it here.

3. California has a state lottery, for which it runs television commercials. One of those commercials has a very brief scene that was shot at the house in Hollywood that Mom and my sisters moved to at the end of Mom's Cancer. I thought I recognized it a few weeks ago, and Nurse Sis confirmed it for me last weekend: yep, that's the house. It's located just half a block off Sunset Blvd., and it wasn't unusual for movie, TV, or commercial scouts to knock on people's doors and ask to use their homes or yards for a few days. I guess the Lottery people came knocking soon after my sisters sold it. Anyway, I've been trying to record the commercial, so far unsuccessfully. If I do capture it, I'll share it here. It is weird to see a familiar front porch suddenly and unexpectedly show up on TV.

Creativity

My Kid Sis brought the video below to my attention, a lecture by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the bestseller Eat Pray Love, on the topic of creativity and the burden of being a creative person. It's one of the popular "TEDtalks" seminars, in which someone noted for something gets 18 minutes to talk about it. Most of the TEDtalks are at least very interesting, and a few fall into the "life changing" category. If you've got the time and curiosity, I think this talk is worth watching even though, upon reflection, I disagree with almost all of it.



Ms. Gilbert makes the point that it's difficult and risky to do creative work. In particular, producing one good, acclaimed, or popular creative work can create extraordinary pressure to do something even better, more acclaimed, or more popular next time.

Well, she got my attention . . .

She posits that the stresses of a creative life--fear of failure, need to show that earlier success wasn't an undeserved fluke, proving oneself worthy--account for the stereotypical artists who're lousy at relationships and drink or drug themselves to death. When you've captured a bit of the divine, and attained that creative high when the good stuff just seems to flow through you as if it's not even coming from you at all, it can be tough to face the next morning not knowing if you'll ever do it again.

To resolve that problem, Ms. Gilbert suggests reviving the ancient idea of the "genius," which was originally a kind of sprite that lived in your walls and provided inspiration. A muse. Ascribing creativity to a power outside yourself has many benefits. It takes off the pressure; if you didn't have any good ideas today, the muse just wasn't doing its job. It deflates ego; you can't take full credit for something a muse helped you do. Now, it was clear to me (though not to some who commented on the original video) that Ms. Gilbert wasn't suggesting people start believing in literal muses, but rather using that concept as a way to change how they think about and manage their own creative process.

It's a good, interesting, entertaining speech--with which I disagree.

First, I don't care much for the cult of artistry that says creativity is some rare, mysterious, divine gift granted only to a few. I think most people have the same thoughts and notice the same things artists do; the only thing that makes artists special is that they're better at capturing and expressing them. It's a skill that can be taught and cultivated, although I do believe that some people have more natural affinity for it than others. Nor is creativity reserved for people who write books or make pictures. Ms. Gilbert makes (what I took as) some dismissive remarks about her father's career as a chemical engineer, but in fact I've known one or two extremely creative chemists.

I disagree with the idea of waiting helplessly for the fleeting ephemera of inspiration to strike. My definition of professionalism is sitting down and getting the job done whether you feel like it or not. Sometimes it comes gracefully but, if not, pound it out. Charles Schulz said, "Writer's block is for amateurs," and though I think that's a little uncharitable, it's closer to my way of thinking than Ms. Gilbert's musings. There's nothing mystical about it. Just start. Start badly, clumsily, tritely, sloppily, start doing something you know is bad and no one will ever see but you. In my experience, it always leads to something worthwhile.

I also wonder if Ms. Gilbert overstresses the pathology of being an artist. Maybe we just don't hear about all the accountants, office managers, and chemical engineers who cheat on their spouses and drink too much. I'm wary of the school of thought that you can't be an artist unless you had a lousy childhood, for example. I think a lousy childhood can drive a person toward art, so that maybe a survey of artists actually would turn up more lousy childhoods than average, but I very much doubt it's a necessary condition. At least I hope not, because my childhood was pretty good.

I disagree with Ms. Gilbert's notion of creativity being an unusually heavy burden. I'll be honest: there were times I felt the shadow of Mom's Cancer fall across my shoulders while I worked on Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow. Almost literally--my Eisner Award sits on a bookshelf behind me, and the thought occurred to me that, after WHTTWOT comes out, a man in a dark suit will knock at my door and say, "I'm from the Eisners. We obviously made a terrible mistake and want the trophy back."

But those thoughts quickly pass because I'm a grown-up who's had actual responsibilities and challenges in my life. Here's the way I look at it: what's the worst that could happen if WHTTWOT turns out to be a terrible book that nobody buys? Well, whatever tiny reputation I have would be damaged. My publisher would lose money. I might never put out another book. In other words, except for some expense to my publisher--which is a business gamble they knowingly took--the only one hurt if my book fails is me.

(I once said something similar in the presence of Editor Charlie, who replied, "Gee, thanks a lot!")

In contrast, I think about my Nurse Sis. She doesn't do direct patient care anymore, but back when she did, if she had a bad day at work somebody could actually die. One of my oldest college buddies analyzes terrorist activity for the CIA; if he has a bad day at work, hundreds of thousands could die.

Cops, doctors, firefighters, soldiers, lawyers, politicians, construction workers, social workers, and even chemical engineers do work that involves real risk and directly affects people's lives. They know pressure. They carry burdens. Me, sitting on my butt, drawing my little pictures, risking nothing except my ego? Not so much.

In my opinion, too many artists just get too full of themselves. Guess what? You're not that special. Cut the drama.

Yeah, I want my book to be good. I want people to read it, like it, get something interesting and worthwhile from it. I want to sell a lot of copies, earn back my publisher's investment and maybe make a few bucks myself. I want critical praise and awards. I want this to be the beginning of a career, not the end.

But if not? I could live with it. Good or bad, I'll take the responsibility. Not my muse.

EDITED TO ADD: Feel free to disagree. I might be wrong.
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ComicArts Spring Catalog

Editor Charlie tells me that the Abrams ComicArts spring catalog is now available online here, and so it is. This is the brochure I mentioned but didn't want to reveal too much of back in January, with a great spread about WHTTWOT. I guess we're just putting it all out there for the world to see now. I neglected to say that the whole catalog, plus the new Abrams ComicArts logo, was designed by Chip Kidd.

This particular page below also has a pretend interview in which I spill my guts about why, how, just who the heck I think I am, and where I get off. I really gave myself a piece of my mind.

This screencap shows the slick navigational interface. WHTTWOT is about halfway through; to find it, select the center button at the bottom of the screen and then click on the thumbnails that look like I drew 'em. (Hint: Page 22. Note: I did not draw the fifties fetish art before my listing, nor the superior art of Jaime Hernandez afterward.)

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I've occasionally said how lucky I was to hook up with a house like Abrams. Honestly, I wouldn't necessarily want every book in this catalog on my bookshelf, but I think they all express a strong, distinctive, interesting point of view that deserves to be read. Abrams takes on books that I don't imagine a lot of other publishers tackling, and then it does them better than anybody. It's a classy joint.

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Ah, and don't miss Page 50. I did that, too.
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Mr. Martin

Continuing to work my way through my recently purchased Stack O' Books, yesterday I finished reading Steve Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up.

I'm not happy with that sentence. "Work my way through" makes it sound like a chore, but I couldn't think of an analogous construction describing an extended activity that's interesting, satisfying and fun.

Perhaps . . .

Continuing to gaily traipse my way through my recently purchased Stack O' Books, yesterday I finished reading Steve Martin's autobiography, Born Standing Up.

I was a teenager when Martin's stand-up act exploded into popular culture through early Saturday Night Live, bestselling record albums, and concert appearances. Just the right age to lay claim to a phenomenon that, like Monty Python from a similar time and sensibility, Old Folks Didn't Get™. In Born Standing Up, Martin calls his act a parody of a comedy act, and quotes someone else who called it "anti-comedy." I'd call it metacomedy: not just a performance, but a performance about a performance. At the end of the book, Martin wonders if his material would still hold up, or whether it was such a product of its culture that it'd just befuddle a modern audience. So do I. I'm tempted to try it on my kids. All I can say is that, at the time, I found Steve Martin's unfunniness profoundly funny.

Martin is a good, honest, stylish writer. What I got out of Born Standing Up is the best self-examination of an artist's creative process I've read since Stephen King's On Writing, which I'd recommend to any writer hoping to get better at it. Martin cites his influences and describes how his act developed, from the cowboy rope stunts and magic tricks he learned at Disneyland through conventional comedy routines consisting mostly of borrowed jokes and, finally, the realization that if he wanted to accomplish anything in the business, he needed to be original--a leader instead of a follower. He dissects his theories of comedy, and describes how his attempts to apply them succeeded, failed, and evolved into a polished performance that eventually embodied what Martin's idol e.e. cummings called "that precision which creates movement."

It didn't escape my notice that "precision which creates movement" also perfectly describes cartooning, which involves choosing exactly the right words and images that seem to move both space and time to take the reader on a journey. I also noticed that Martin's notion of doing comedy about comedy sounded similar to one of my goals for Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, which is partly a comic book about being a comic book.

I'm not making any comparisons, just saying that I maybe got something a little different out of Born Standing Up than some other readers might've. If any of that resonates with you, in whatever field you're in, Born Standing Up might have something special to offer you as well. It's going on my bookshelf (once I get around to building enough bookshelves to get my stacks of books off the floor) next to On Writing.

Dr. Franklin

People who don't know what to get me for a birthday or Christmas gift often give me a bookstore gift card, which is just about the perfect thing to give me--so maybe they do know. I recently took a fistful of accumulated cards to a big chain bookstore (rhymes with "Forders"; don't be like me, support your heroic local independent bookseller!) and traded them for a nice stack of books I've had my eye on for a while, one of which was Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson.

[Later edit: Even worse, I just remembered that I bought it at Costco. What a shameful hypocrite I am. You may think that a writer whose book shows up on a forklift at a warehouse store has hit the jackpot, and there's a lot to be said for pushing volume, but the wholesale discounts Costco gets are so generous that the author earns only pennies per copy. Sorry, Mr. Isaacson.]

Good book. As a measure of its goodness, consider that after I finished reading the 493 pages of text, I went on to read the 69 pages of notes and footnotes in the back. It was not, however, good enough to compel me to read the Index.

Franklin has always had a lot of appeal to me. He was a Renaissance Man and, in some sense, the Prototypical American--the model for an educated, practical, middle-class democrat that hadn't been invented yet. Isaacson casts Franklin as a key transitional figure who married a Puritan work ethic stripped of religious dogma (though not unreligious, Franklin was unusually tolerant of all denominations) to the reason of the Enlightenment. He was one of the few Founding Fathers with working-class roots, which gave him unique faith in the ability of the "middling" people to govern themselves. He was the first rock star, already world famous for his writing, political acumen, and scientific experiments by the time of the Revolution, when he was a 70-year-old man idolized by star-struck young punks like Jefferson. Moreover, as Isaacson makes clear, Franklin worked very hard to create and maintain his image, with an entirely modern self awareness. The Ben Franklin we remember is partly a character that the man fashioned himself. Madonna has nothing on ol' Ben.

In fact, Isaacson makes the point that, of all the Founding Fathers, Franklin was the one who speaks most directly to us. He was plain-spoken and witty. Franklin's the guy you'd want to have a beer with. He'd buy. Isaacson quotes journalist David Brooks, who wrote, "He'd probably join the chorus of all those techno-enthusiasts who claim that the Internet and biotech breakthroughs are going to transform life on Earth wonderfully; he shared that passion for progress. At the same time, he'd be completely at home with the irony and gentle cynicism that is the prevailing conventional tone in those buildings . . . One can easily imagine him traipsing through a shopping mall enchanted by the cheerful abundance and the clever marketing."

However, Issacson's book is no hagiography. He also illuminates Franklin's faults: his hypocrisy in preaching frugal homespun values while living the high life in French chateaus; his arrogance and vanity, softened only by Franklin's sly acknowledgement that he already knew that about himself; and his generally shabby treatment of his wife and family, whom he abandoned for decades at a time and treated quite coldly while lavishing affection on surrogate families of landladies and lackeys he accumulated overseas.

The book accomplished something I look for in a good historical piece, which is to lift the weight of inevitability. It is very difficult to relive the past uncolored by the knowledge of how it's all going to turn out. Isaacson captures the uncertainty and risk of starting a revolution against the greatest imperial power on Earth not knowing that it would succeed. His descriptions of the diplomatic intrigue, power plays, personality clashes, and spycraft going on in London, Paris, and America are riveting and, again, thoroughly modern. He brings poignant life to players like British General William Howe, a Franklin acquaintance who was sympathetic to the Colonies' cause and spent the years before the war maneuvering to maintain peace, only to command ground troops against the colonists when he failed.

I want to mention two bits that struck me in particular. Isaacson describes how Franklin edited Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration of Independence, striking out "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable," and substituting "We hold these truths to be self-evident." What seems a simple matter of word choice becomes, in Isaacson's analysis, an insight into how two philosophies collided in the late 1700s. "By using the word 'sacred,' Jefferson had asserted, intentionally or not, that the principle in question--the equality of men and their endowment by their creator with inalienable rights--was an assertion of religion. Franklin's edit turned it instead into an assertion of rationality." Unique among his contemporaries, Franklin argued that equality and freedom should be as obvious and incontestable as the Pythagorean Theorem. That's powerful.

Another bit that struck me is that Isaacson finally explained Franklin's kite-in-a-thunderstorm experiment to my satisfaction. I suppose I could've looked it up before, but the physics major in me has always been bothered by not understanding exactly what Franklin did, why he did it, what tying a key to the kite string was supposed to accomplish or prove, and, frankly, how he survived. An explanation would take too long (and spoil the fun!); suffice it to say that for the first time since I heard the tale as a child, I got it. And learned that Franklin was even cleverer (and luckier) than I gave him credit for.

I had some quibbles with Isaacson's book. The cast of characters grows quite large, and occasional reminders of people's relationships would've been helpful ("wait, is Lord Rumplepot a friend, foe, foe who became a friend, or friend who became a foe?"). Though the book is a straightforward chronology, I thought Isaacson's choice to cover some facets of Franklin's life in lumps--this section is about Franklin the printer, this section is about Franklin the scientist--broke the flow of the narrative and left me without the context of how/where/when those pieces fit into the big picture. But overall, I appreciated Benjamin Franklin: An American Life very much and recommend it to anyone curious about the man and his times.

Mr. Ebert

There are a few writers whose work I read even when I have no interest in their subjects, just because I know they'll have interesting things to say about them.

For example, it would be very difficult for someone to care less about sports than I do and still produce testosterone, but there are a couple of sports columnists whose work always draws me in and makes me care about jai alai, curling, or something or someone I never knew existed five minutes before. When I see their pieces I read them, and they rarely let me down.

I'm a fan of the newspaper columnist Miss Manners, Judith Martin, not because I have a passion for fish forks, but because I think she's just a good writer, with a wry, dry, understated wit that I envy. Miss Manners is one sharp cookie; you can tell she'd think and write humiliating rings around you, if only she weren't too polite to do so.

The Pulitzer-winning film critic Roger Ebert falls into that category for me as well. Of course, I read his reviews when they're about movies I might want to see, but I also read them when they're not. Sometimes those are the best ones. Mr. Ebert says he judges a film not by what it's about, but how it's about it. In his view, there can be good kiddie flicks and bad kiddie flicks, good slasher films and bad slasher films (and, I suppose, good pornos and bad pornos). In all cases, he's looking for talent, craft, originality, ambition, style . . . and, I infer, some sense of a creative mind at work, solving problems and having fun. Personality.

Happily enough, that's how I approach him and other writers, too. It's almost irrelevant to me what they're writing about. If they do it well and right, they'll make me care and bring me along for the ride. Nobody reads Hemingway to pick up fishing tips.

A few years ago, Mr. Ebert took ill with thyroid cancer, which eventually caused the removal of his salivary glands and pieces of his jawbone. He nearly died and was disfigured by the surgery. As he describes his situation, his cancer is in check but he can no longer speak or eat. However, he can still write. In fact, in addition to continuing his film reviews, he's become a very prolific blogging essayist, and, though your tastes may not match mine, I have really enjoyed his pieces.

Some are as simple as an ode to a rice steamer. Again, the secret is not what it's about but how it's about it. On one level, it's a man sharing his favorite recipes. On another, it's a man writing about the experience of savoring food in a way he never will again. The reader doesn't have to know that going in, either; Mr. Ebert is a considerate enough writer that he provides everything you need. "To be sure, health problems now prevent me from eating," he writes. "That has not discouraged my cooking. Now cooking is an exercise more pure, freed of biological compulsion."

Some of Mr. Ebert's essays are about movies or travel, and they're good. Others are the melancholy reflections of a man who knows his days are numbered (as are everyone's, but his perhaps a smaller number than others'), has suffered and knows he will suffer more, and is determined to face it as squarely and unsentimentally as possible. They're very good.

In his latest post he remembers his late colleague Gene Siskel, but also suggests, I think, how he'd like to be remembered himself. In another post about his health problems, he writes, "I am so much a movie lover that I can imagine a certain (very small) pleasure in looking like the Phantom [of the Opera]. It is better than looking like the Elephant Man. I would describe my condition as falling about 17% of the way along a graph line between the handsome devil I was at the tender age of 27, and the thing that jumps out of that guy's intestines in 'Alien.'" Another looks hundreds of billions of years into the future, into a universe that's forgotten Shakespeare and language itself--not to mention the scribblings of a newspaperman named Ebert--and mulls over the idea of immortality, wondering what will happen to all the words. Yet another is one of the best meditations on the joys of being a reader that I can recall.

Tastes vary, and I know some people who don't hold much regard for Mr. Ebert as a critic or a writer, but I think this is just fantastic stuff. I look forward to every new essay. Even when they're just about rice steamers, they often move me. Not every piece at http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/ will sing for you, but I'll bet enough will to make a visit worth your time.

Proofs!

The title page of WHTTWOT, with the tools of the trade

Proofs for Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow? arrived yesterday, and I can't tell you how much I enjoy this part of the process. I think an apt analogy would be putting on a play: you write the script, build the sets, cast the characters, sew the costumes, block the movements, and now . . . it's the dress rehearsal. It's not opening night--that'll be when the actual book comes out--but it is your first chance to see all the pieces come together and really get a sense of whether the whole production is going to work.

I'll explain about proofs. After Designer Neil finished laying out the pages, he sent those files to the printer. They did their wizardry to create the films (or plates or hot lead or stone tablets or whatever, I don't really know these days) that get attached to big rotating drums in a press to imprint cyan, magenta, yellow, and black inks onto sheets of paper to make a book. Proofs are their trial run of that process. For the first time, we get to see what the pages of the book will actually look like, printed on the actual paper we're going to use. The printer sent those proofs back to the publisher, who sent a duplicate set to me, for our inspection and approval. When we say "OK," they start printing.

As I review the proofs, I'm looking for several things:

1. Errors in content. I read the whole thing through very carefully. This is our very last chance to fix mistakes. Since repairs now cost time and money, you think hard about whether a mistake really needs to be fixed or is so minor you can let it go.

2. Print quality. I'm looking to be sure the colors came out like I expected--as I mentioned in my post on blacks, there can be a big difference between the appearance of something on a computer monitor and in print. I want to see fine lines reproduced accurately and without pixelization. I want to make sure the registration--that is, how the four colors of ink line up--is accurate. I'm also noting any little blips, flecks, blops, or spots I find. Some of those are inevitable imperfections of the printing process, but others are physical bits of crud on the films (like dust on a photo negative) that the printer can fix.

3. Paper quality. Different papers absorb inks differently. For example, imagine dripping a drop of ink onto a paper towel: it spreads all over the place. You would not want to print a book on paper-towel paper. In printing, a more absorbent paper can make grays darker and colors muddier than they'd appear on a less absorbent paper. Now, it's too late for us to change our paper order (I guess), but we could still revise the art to better work with the paper if necessary.

4. As I also mentioned before, we're trying a few "special effects" in WHTTWOT, including the use of more than one kind of paper. I'll give it one pass just to make sure that all turned out as expected.

Inspecting proofs takes some patience and care. As you can see above, I use a magnifying glass as well as a loupe, the little plastic lens on the right. One trick I learned is to do a pass with the pages turned upside down, so you don't get distracted by their content but can just look at them as physical objects. I'm marking anything I find with little orange tabs--just a few so far--and will compile a list for Editor Charlie and Designer Neil. They'll fix what needs fixin', and the presses will start rolling.

So how do I think my little dress rehearsal looks?

I cannot imagine being happier with what I've seen.

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Constellation & Ares

Time for one of my periodic posts on space exploration that prove this blog exists to entertain no one but me . . .

That swell picture above shows an engineer inspecting the heat shield of an Orion space capsule, and unless you're really up on that stuff your reaction is probably "the who the what?!"

After just a few more flights, NASA will retire the Space Shuttle fleet. In fact, I read a recent article that said the space agency is looking for museums willing to take them off their hands (unfortunately, I think they're removing the engines first). I have no great love for the shuttle, which cost more than projected, flew less frequently than promised, and stranded humanity in low-Earth orbit for 40 years. And, incidentally, killed 14 people, although any means of getting humans into space involves enormous energy and advanced technology that carries big risk, so I don't really hold that against it. Still, putting the shuttles out to pasture distresses me because I remember when they were shiny and new, and that makes me feel tarnished and old. Plus, any spaceship is by definition cool.

The replacement program is called Constellation, which'll draw upon lessons learned from the shuttles, Apollo, etc. to produce spaceships with a decidedly retro look. For example, after Challenger and Columbia, NASA figured it's probably best to keep astronauts on top of the rocket so that anything that blows up or falls off during flight won't hit them. In fact, the new Orion capsule looks like nothing less than an oversized Apollo capsule. It'll launch atop a new Ares multi-stage rocket, and unfurl parachutes to land in the ocean just like Apollo did. And it'll need a big ol' heat shield to survive the inferno of re-entry, which is what's upside-down in that picture above.

What I didn't realize until I found this nice photo essay on Boston.com is how far along NASA is. They're testing engines, gathering and assembling components, building launch towers, and looking like they really mean it. They're talking about making an unmanned test flight as early as this July. In addition to the Orion crew module and Ares rocket, NASA is designing a lunar lander called Altair. These crazy kids just might pull it off!

I find this very interesting and exciting stuff. I don't have quite the dewey-eyed idealism I did when I was a kid, and I'm not really sure that people need to be in space at all. Almost everything humans can do in space, machines can do better--except actually live there, and while colonization for its own sake is good enough reason for me, I don't know how it'd sell to all the other taxpayers. Still, NASA's funding is such a tiny slice of the Federal budget that, on balance and in terms of bang for our buck, I think manned spaceflight is worth it.

The cost of the entire Apollo Program, adjusted for inflation, was about $150 billion. For the nearly $800 billion Congress and the president just poured down a rat hole (sorry, committed to stimulating our economy), we could've had five of 'em. I know where I'd rather put my money.

The Ares I (left) and Ares V launch vehicles,
coming soon to a planet near you

'Trivial' is Too Strong a Word for this Post

Today, I doubled my liquid empire. It's raining now, and I expect the second barrel (on the left) to be full by morning (it's connected to the first barrel by the green hose visible at the top rear, so that when the first is full the overflow pours over to the second). Tomorrow, I may break out the shovels and begin digging my own 20,000-gallon cistern. This notion of hoarding a valuable resource gathered from thin air (literally!) is seductive. And it's a lot less work than panning for gold.

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Karen and I saw "Slumdog Millionaire" today and enjoyed it. I won't bore you with a review, just wanted to mention that I was struck by how audience members might experience the film's climax differently depending on whether or not they know a particular bit of literary trivia. Or, like a gentleman in our audience, think they know it but don't. Boy, was that guy surprised! I can't remember another movie that leaves different parts of the audience in different emotional states based on the knowledge they walked in with, even if only for a minute. Anyway, "Slumdog Millionaire" earns my humble recommendation, for what it's worth.

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Not a lot new on the World of Tomorrow front. The files are all with the printer and I expect to see proofs in the next week or two. That'll be the first real test of whether some ideas that sounded very nifty in theory actually work in reality. We're trying some unusual things in this book; I expect adjustments to be made. Meanwhile, Designer Neil and I are working on the book's back cover, while Editor Charlie comes up with copy for the flaps and back. I think it's all coming together great!

Like a Kidd at Comic-Con

I didn't attend this year's New York Comic-Con (NYCC), held last weekend at Manhattan's Javits Center, but writer, editor, and book designer Chip Kidd did, and recorded the report below. If you've never attended a big comics convention and are curious about the experience, I think Chip's short piece captures it well. You can find all the freaks and basement dwellers you want, who'll readily reinforce all your "comic book guy" stereotypes, but you'll also find smart and talented (and completely sane) people passionate about a legitimate art form. Just depends on what you're looking for.



The NYCC holds a special place in my heart because it's where we debuted Mom's Cancer three years ago. Abrams hosted a launch party for my book and a few others coming out at the same time, and my wife Karen and I flew out for a very action-packed and heady couple of days. The party was held at the Society of Illustrators building, a three-story clubhouse crammed with original art by the best commercial artists of the past century. My sisters, always ready to travel and party, also flew out and had the fun but odd experience of meeting people who only knew them as characters in a book. On top of all that, it was Karen's first trip to New York City, so we had a great time playing tourists.

That 2006 NYCC was also where Editor Charlie discovered Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which has since produced three books that fight each other to claim the top of the bestseller lists, with something like 11 million sold to date. That's huuuuge. I don't think I met Jeff that day, but I remember Charlie excitedly shoving Jeff's thick packet of photocopied pages into my hands. He knew he'd found something really good, while I honestly didn't quite get it, a fact that Charlie never lets me forget. Despite my grave misjudgment, I can still proudly claim to have witnessed the moment of Wimpy Kid's publishing Genesis.

Chip Kidd holds a special place in my heart as well, because he was responsible for one of the coolest evenings of my life. In 2006, Mom's Cancer was nominated for a Quill Award as best graphic novel. The Quills were an attempt to create a high-profile, glamorous, star-studded, televised EVENT for the world of books, with winners determined by votes from the reading public. I think they were aiming for something like the People's Choice Awards. They missed. The Quills lasted three years before lack of funds, interest, or respect did them in. But for one night in October 2006, I flew to New York, put on a tuxedo, and walked with Editor Charlie up the red carpet and past the television cameras into the American Museum of Natural History, and it was thrilling.

Mom's Cancer lost (to Naruto; stupid popular vote...). However, any disappointment I might've felt was completely ameliorated by Chip, a friend of Charlie's who was at the Quills to present an award, and who invited us over to his Upper East Side apartment afterward. We were met by Charlie's girlfriend Rachel and Chip's partner Sandy, and sat on Chip's balcony sipping rum (Charlie and I still in our tuxes, Chip stripped down to t-shirt and boxers) and bitching cattily about the Quills, comics, publishing, opera, and everything else. Every once in a while I'd look out at Manhattan's lights blazing around me and remind myself to remember what this was like--which got harder as the rum bottle got emptier. It was much more than fair compensation for not receiving a lucite trophy that night.

The Rough Guide

I just received a copy of The Rough Guide to Graphic Novels by Danny Fingeroth, a book that lists and reviews what it calls "The Canon: The Sixty Best Graphic Novels." It turns out (ahem) that one of them is mine.

I mentioned this book a while ago and knew Mom's Cancer would be included--I even got an early look at the review--but didn't realize until I just cracked the cover that it was a "Sixty Best" list. Of course that's just one person's opinion, but when that person is Danny Fingeroth, a writer and editor with a couple decades of experience in the comics business, I'll take it. As a bonus, through the caprice of alphabetization, Mom's Cancer falls immediately after Art Spiegelman's Maus. Nice neighborhood.

The write-up on Mom's Cancer covers a little more than two pages, including a one-page excerpt from the book. Here are the last two lines: Not a loud, in-your-face melodrama, Mom's Cancer is a tale of subtleties, one full of small joys and sorrows, victories and defeats. It's one of those stories that stays with you long after you've read the last page.

The Rough Guide also has chapters on the history of graphic novels, iconic creators, manga, adaptations of graphic novels in other media, other informational resources, and even an original graphic novel by Fingeroth and Roger Langridge. It's nicely done, and much appreciated. Thanks to Mr. Fingeroth, editor Ruth Tidball, and all involved. Very cool.