My friend Mike Peterson (journalist, editor, and proprietor of the very fine Comic Strip of the Day blog) has a saying: "Plaques are for haques." I get that, especially in his world of newspapering where regional, state and national competitions pass out more ribbons than a jam-making contest at the county fair. Although I ruefully note that, in my two years as a reporter for a daily newspaper, I never won one. Still, if I'd stuck around long enough I would have, and like the 49th person named "Employee of the Month" at a 50-person firm, it wouldn't have fooled anyone.
And yet. I've won some plaques and statuettes and doodads with little spinning globes on top, and I like them just fine thankyouverymuch. A token of respect from one's peers, or from a group that thinks you did a good job dipping into their area of expertise, is very gratifying. They look good on a shelf. Sometimes they get you noticed by people who otherwise wouldn't and maybe help sell a few books. I am happy and grateful for them.
Today is the deadline for comics professionals to cast their votes for the industry's Eisner Awards, to be presented this July at the San Diego Comic-Con. I cast my votes for both the Eisners and the complementary/competing Harvey Award nominations weeks ago, and had a few thoughts about the process.
Voting for these awards is a responsibility I take seriously, but even with the best intentions I find hard to do "right." First and foremost, there's just too much stuff out there for anyone to read it all. If I'm entirely ignorant in a category, I leave it blank. If I've seen, say, three out of five, I think it's fair to cast a vote even though one I've missed might theoretically be better. I make an effort to at least familiarize myself with all the nominees. Excerpts are often available online, and a look through a couple weeks of a webcomic's archives gives a good feel.
Honestly, the first thing I do is scan the list for work done by friends or my publisher, Abrams. I don't think that's a scandalous confession; I'd never base my entire decision on it, and I often vote for something else I sincerely feel is superior, but I think supporting the home team is a valid tie-breaker. I'll especially throw a vote to a pal if it's obvious they're going to get crushed. Everyone, including me, loves an underdog.
When deciding how seriously to take an award, you have to know how they're awarded. For example, Harvey Award nominees are chosen via an open vote of comics professionals; in contrast, Eisner Award nominations are determined by a committee of industry experts (representing a cross-section of creators, academics, retailers, etc.) who look through hundreds of works to put together a short list. In both cases, the nominees are then published and pros get several weeks to vote for their favorites, and there's the rub.
It all comes down to popularity, and why shouldn't it? That's the point. Generally, someone who's been active and beloved in the business for 30 years will beat someone nobody's ever heard of. Generally, a book that sold 500,000 copies will beat a book that sold 5,000. Many years there are one or two critically acclaimed big sellers that take every category they're in*. How could it be otherwise? And yet that outcome has little to do with the intrinsic quality of the work. That's the big grain of salt you've got to swallow along with the results.
I've been fortunate to win both an Eisner and Harvey award; I've also been nominated for other Eisner and Harvey awards and lost. I don't place any importance on the losses--don't honestly remember what they were, except for one that stung. In 2010, Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow got an Eisner nomination for Best Publication Design and I sincerely believe that, if you'd locked all the voters in a room and made them read all the nominees, we would've deservedly won that one. But that's not how the process works.
In that case, just knowing that a committee of comics experts had pored through scores of submissions and decided that mine was one of the year's six best-designed books was honor enough. No, really!
* Says the guy who lost to Fun Home and Asterios Polyp.
Wednesday, June 12, 2013
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Evenhanded
Saw an article recently about handedness--how right-handed and left-handed people differ, and what it all means. It's an old pop-sci chestnut, stories propagated every so often by some new bit of research that doesn't really prove anything, but I find them fascinating. Because when it comes to handedness, I'm a mess.
When I was a kid, I was completely ambidextrous. That lasted until the third grade, when my teacher caught me writing the left half of a page with my left hand then switching the pencil and writing the right half of the page with my right hand. Well, she declared that the laziest thing she'd ever seen! From that day to this, I only write right-handed. Although I sometimes wonder if I could retrain my left hand, just to show her.
An off-the-cuff compendium of how I do what:
High jump, which I did on the junior-high track team, deserves its own note. I approached the bar from the left while nearly everyone else approached it from the right. All those right-footers typically scooched the landing mat toward the left, either deliberately or just through the repeated momentum of their landings. Consequently, when I jumped in the other direction, about one time out of four I missed the mat entirely and landed on the ground. This was not conducive to an extended high-jumping career.
I enjoy my flexibility. It's been suggested that it accounts for my love of and work in both science and the arts, although I understand the whole "left brain/right brain" thing isn't really true anymore. Every once in a while I do find myself standing in the kitchen staring at a jar in my hands, paralyzed, trying to figure out which hand turns the lid because neither feels right. It's a small price to pay.
One of my identical twin daughters is left-handed and the other right-handed. This would seem to belie the definition of "identical," yet I understand it's common within the Split-Zygote Community (SZC™). Coincidentally, the left-handed kid's name starts with an "L" and the right-handed kid's name starts with an "R," an unintended but swell mnemonic.
In my lifetime, left-handedness has gone from being a sign of something not quite right in the brain to an unremarkable thread in humanity's rainbow tapestry. You hear old horror stories of kids having their left hand tied down so they're forced to use their right, a sinister (heh!) practice I'm glad is mostly extinct. I don't remember any trauma from my third grade teacher's training but do kind of wish she'd left me alone. Would've been interesting to see how I turned out.
When I was a kid, I was completely ambidextrous. That lasted until the third grade, when my teacher caught me writing the left half of a page with my left hand then switching the pencil and writing the right half of the page with my right hand. Well, she declared that the laziest thing she'd ever seen! From that day to this, I only write right-handed. Although I sometimes wonder if I could retrain my left hand, just to show her.
An off-the-cuff compendium of how I do what:
- Throw: left.
- Bat: right.
- Kick: left.
- Write and Pencil: right.
- Ink and Paint: mostly right but sometimes left (less fine motor control required, I think)
- Golf (I don't golf but have played mini-golf and assume the mechanics are similar): right.
- Tennis: left (when I first played in my early teens I switched the racket from hand to hand depending on where the shot was headed: no backhands! However, I learned that was bad form and I looked stupid dropping the racket during the hand-off, so settled on left).
- Archery: both (I'm left-eye dominant so my own bow is left-handed, but I shoot my daughter's right-handed bow just to keep things even).
- Bowling: left.
- Teethbrushing: both. I switch halfway.
- Scissors: right.
- Kitchen knives: left.
High jump, which I did on the junior-high track team, deserves its own note. I approached the bar from the left while nearly everyone else approached it from the right. All those right-footers typically scooched the landing mat toward the left, either deliberately or just through the repeated momentum of their landings. Consequently, when I jumped in the other direction, about one time out of four I missed the mat entirely and landed on the ground. This was not conducive to an extended high-jumping career.
I enjoy my flexibility. It's been suggested that it accounts for my love of and work in both science and the arts, although I understand the whole "left brain/right brain" thing isn't really true anymore. Every once in a while I do find myself standing in the kitchen staring at a jar in my hands, paralyzed, trying to figure out which hand turns the lid because neither feels right. It's a small price to pay.
One of my identical twin daughters is left-handed and the other right-handed. This would seem to belie the definition of "identical," yet I understand it's common within the Split-Zygote Community (SZC™). Coincidentally, the left-handed kid's name starts with an "L" and the right-handed kid's name starts with an "R," an unintended but swell mnemonic.
In my lifetime, left-handedness has gone from being a sign of something not quite right in the brain to an unremarkable thread in humanity's rainbow tapestry. You hear old horror stories of kids having their left hand tied down so they're forced to use their right, a sinister (heh!) practice I'm glad is mostly extinct. I don't remember any trauma from my third grade teacher's training but do kind of wish she'd left me alone. Would've been interesting to see how I turned out.
Monday, May 27, 2013
Antiquated
Yesterday Karen and I went to an Antiques Fair, which often puts me in an agreeably reflective mood. I like antiques, particularly antique gadgets. If I allowed myself, I could fill a room with old radios (vacuum tubes!) and telegraph equipment (electromagnets!). Fortunately, I remain strong and my home uncluttered. Relatively.
I do have a small collection of stereo cards and a stereoscope with which to view them. These early 3-D Viewmasters were all the rage in the 1890s. I can imagine Victorian parlors with cabinets full of stereo cards, families and guests gathering after supper to go through them.
Stereo cards were often published in series with common themes: world travel, religious tableau, slice of life. Some were saucy. These cards would have provided a startling "you are there" experience for people who seldom went anywhere. The Holy Land and other exotic locales were popular topics. World capitals. Natural wonders. And folks sure used to love taking 3-D photos of Niagara Falls.
I don't collect any particular themes; I just look for cards that interest me and are in good condition. It's a cheap hobby--typically $2 to $10 per card. I like photos of places I've actually been myself, as well as vistas of long-vanished life (admirals reviewing an armada of sailing ships, ranks of mounted cavalry, farmhouses on empty plains, cute little kids who all got old and died). Science is always good--one of my favorites is a 3-D image of the Moon, which really drives home the fact that it's a sphere.
What I appreciate most about antiques are their connections to other people's lives. I saw a fat loose-leaf photo album yesterday that appeared to capture about 20 years of a young couple's courtship and marriage, including the man's service in World War II. What was a treasure like that doing on a table for me to paw through and pay pennies on the decade for? Why isn't it with their family? Did they not have any? Or was it one of those keepsakes that would have been cherished by someone but instead just slipped away, sold off by a greedy great-aunt at the estate sale? Every abandoned photo album is a tragedy, I think.
I once found an old wedding certificate in an antique store. It had small inset photos of the husband and wife, with ornate scroll work and graceful calligraphy. They were married in a small town on the East Coast, and their surname was unusual enough that I thought I had a shot at finding a modern relative. I wrote down the info and went online to find a historical society in their county and, failing that, the town library. The librarian didn't know that particular couple but told me there were families sharing their unique last name all over the place, undoubtedly related. I returned to the antique store and, for sixty bucks, sent a little fragment of someone's history back home, where the librarian was thrilled to get it and hang it on the wall. It was the right thing to do.
Yesterday I saw a cross-stitch sampler done by a young New England girl in 1824. What would she have thought if she'd known that in 2013, a man in California--which was still Spanish terra incognita at the time--would admire her needlework? Would that mean anything to her at all? How could it possibly? But don't you wish there were some way to let her know?
Karen and I are getting to an age where the artifacts we see have gone from being things we remember in our grandparents' homes to things we remember in our parents' homes to things we actually have in our home. Crying out "hey, I bought that new!" at an antiques fair is an alarming rite of passage.
I paid $10 for three stereo cards and Karen picked up a couple of pieces of costume jewelry that looks just like the stuff we used to make fun of my Grandma for wearing but I guess is cool these days as long as you wear it ironically. What our descendants make of it is their problem.
I do have a small collection of stereo cards and a stereoscope with which to view them. These early 3-D Viewmasters were all the rage in the 1890s. I can imagine Victorian parlors with cabinets full of stereo cards, families and guests gathering after supper to go through them.
 |
| Like this: a Time Machine that, sadly, only goes one way. |
Stereo cards were often published in series with common themes: world travel, religious tableau, slice of life. Some were saucy. These cards would have provided a startling "you are there" experience for people who seldom went anywhere. The Holy Land and other exotic locales were popular topics. World capitals. Natural wonders. And folks sure used to love taking 3-D photos of Niagara Falls.
 |
| A typical stereo card (though not one of mine). If you have the knack for "free fusing," you can see the 3-D effect without a viewer. It's like those "Magic Eye" graphics that were popular a few years ago; don't cross your eyes, just relax them as if looking at something far away, and the two images will merge into a center 3-D image. It's a handy skill for evaluating stereo cards in the store. |
I don't collect any particular themes; I just look for cards that interest me and are in good condition. It's a cheap hobby--typically $2 to $10 per card. I like photos of places I've actually been myself, as well as vistas of long-vanished life (admirals reviewing an armada of sailing ships, ranks of mounted cavalry, farmhouses on empty plains, cute little kids who all got old and died). Science is always good--one of my favorites is a 3-D image of the Moon, which really drives home the fact that it's a sphere.
 |
| If you've mastered free fusing, try this one and be dazzled. |
What I appreciate most about antiques are their connections to other people's lives. I saw a fat loose-leaf photo album yesterday that appeared to capture about 20 years of a young couple's courtship and marriage, including the man's service in World War II. What was a treasure like that doing on a table for me to paw through and pay pennies on the decade for? Why isn't it with their family? Did they not have any? Or was it one of those keepsakes that would have been cherished by someone but instead just slipped away, sold off by a greedy great-aunt at the estate sale? Every abandoned photo album is a tragedy, I think.
I once found an old wedding certificate in an antique store. It had small inset photos of the husband and wife, with ornate scroll work and graceful calligraphy. They were married in a small town on the East Coast, and their surname was unusual enough that I thought I had a shot at finding a modern relative. I wrote down the info and went online to find a historical society in their county and, failing that, the town library. The librarian didn't know that particular couple but told me there were families sharing their unique last name all over the place, undoubtedly related. I returned to the antique store and, for sixty bucks, sent a little fragment of someone's history back home, where the librarian was thrilled to get it and hang it on the wall. It was the right thing to do.
Yesterday I saw a cross-stitch sampler done by a young New England girl in 1824. What would she have thought if she'd known that in 2013, a man in California--which was still Spanish terra incognita at the time--would admire her needlework? Would that mean anything to her at all? How could it possibly? But don't you wish there were some way to let her know?
Karen and I are getting to an age where the artifacts we see have gone from being things we remember in our grandparents' homes to things we remember in our parents' homes to things we actually have in our home. Crying out "hey, I bought that new!" at an antiques fair is an alarming rite of passage.
I paid $10 for three stereo cards and Karen picked up a couple of pieces of costume jewelry that looks just like the stuff we used to make fun of my Grandma for wearing but I guess is cool these days as long as you wear it ironically. What our descendants make of it is their problem.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Clair de Lune
Seduced by the crescent Moon, I dusted off my little telescope and took it out for the first time in a long time last night. I don't stargaze as much as I'd like because I'm in a bad place for it: tree canopy blocks most of the sky in my backyard and there's a street light out front. But it was a warm and pretty night, I hadn't yet peeked at Jupiter this season, and I wanted to check out a yellowish star in the southeast that had no business being where it was. So I lugged the 'scope out front and parked it literally under the street light (figured I might get fewer annoying reflections that way) and began my tour.
The Moon was gorgeous, Earthshine illuminating its shaded side. Jupiter was low in the western haze, trembling in the warm air rising from my neighbor's roof, but still and always worth a look. And the yellowish star in the southwest was Saturn, always stunning.
When I was in college, and taught astronomy labs once or twice a week and ran my university observatory's public viewing sessions, I really knew the sky. Not just the names of stars and constellations, but where to find the good stuff. I could spin a telescope around and point it right at a nebula or galaxy without looking, and tell you what it was and how it got there. I liked to flatter myself that I knew my 'scope and sky like a mariner knows his ship and sea. I'm not as facile now as when I starhopped two or three nights a week thirty years ago (and had better eyesight), but it turns out I can still bumble my way around the neighborhood.
People are often stunned when they see the Moon or Saturn through a telescope for the first time. At public viewing sessions, I had more than one visitor peer into the front of the telescope to be sure I hadn't hung a little model in there. Despite millions of photos a million times brighter and sharper than any image I could show you through my 'scope, there's something uniquely thrilling about seeing it in real time with your own eye. It's authentic. If you're looking at something particularly small or obscure, there's a possibility you're the only person in the universe seeing it at that moment. Anything could happen!
Anyway, just before I closed shop for the night, I thought to run inside and grab a camera. I don't have a high-end SLR, just a little point-and-shoot digital camera, and I didn't have the time or inclination to try anything fancy. I literally held the camera up to the eyepiece to see what I could see. My results are below and, to be clear, they aren't examples of my astrophotography prowess that I'm proud of. They're bad. I shot much better pics in college on film. Still, for shoving my camera lens against the eyepiece and clicking away on the automatic setting, I was kind of pleased with the results.
Go out, take a look. Get to know your way around the neighborhood.
The Moon was gorgeous, Earthshine illuminating its shaded side. Jupiter was low in the western haze, trembling in the warm air rising from my neighbor's roof, but still and always worth a look. And the yellowish star in the southwest was Saturn, always stunning.
When I was in college, and taught astronomy labs once or twice a week and ran my university observatory's public viewing sessions, I really knew the sky. Not just the names of stars and constellations, but where to find the good stuff. I could spin a telescope around and point it right at a nebula or galaxy without looking, and tell you what it was and how it got there. I liked to flatter myself that I knew my 'scope and sky like a mariner knows his ship and sea. I'm not as facile now as when I starhopped two or three nights a week thirty years ago (and had better eyesight), but it turns out I can still bumble my way around the neighborhood.
People are often stunned when they see the Moon or Saturn through a telescope for the first time. At public viewing sessions, I had more than one visitor peer into the front of the telescope to be sure I hadn't hung a little model in there. Despite millions of photos a million times brighter and sharper than any image I could show you through my 'scope, there's something uniquely thrilling about seeing it in real time with your own eye. It's authentic. If you're looking at something particularly small or obscure, there's a possibility you're the only person in the universe seeing it at that moment. Anything could happen!
Anyway, just before I closed shop for the night, I thought to run inside and grab a camera. I don't have a high-end SLR, just a little point-and-shoot digital camera, and I didn't have the time or inclination to try anything fancy. I literally held the camera up to the eyepiece to see what I could see. My results are below and, to be clear, they aren't examples of my astrophotography prowess that I'm proud of. They're bad. I shot much better pics in college on film. Still, for shoving my camera lens against the eyepiece and clicking away on the automatic setting, I was kind of pleased with the results.
Go out, take a look. Get to know your way around the neighborhood.
 |
| The haze in this photo is real. The fog had started to come in. |
 |
| Saturn. The image is fuzzy because I couldn't hold the camera steady for the 1/8-second exposure. It looked very crisp to the eye. |
Monday, May 13, 2013
And Her Favorite Film is "2001: A Space Odyssey"
Karen and our girls were exploring the features of their iPhones this weekend and started playing with Siri, the upbeat on-board A.I. They discovered they could dictate a text to Siri, who'd then send that text to whomever she was told. Then the text recipient could ask Siri to read the text aloud. You could do it all by voice! No typing necessary! A 21st Century marvel!
I interrupted from the next room.
"Isn't that the same as a telephone?"
Wednesday, May 8, 2013
While You Wait....
...for me to get less busy, here's a video of a cute puppy to pass the time.
See? The world's not such a bad place after all, is it? You're welcome.
See? The world's not such a bad place after all, is it? You're welcome.
Tuesday, May 7, 2013
Too Busy
I'm in Cave Mode. It's gonna be slow around the ol' Fies Files for a bit.
One of my daily blog stops, writer Mark Evanier's News From ME, has a tradition of posting a photo of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup to alert his readers to down time. Of course, Mark's so prolific that "down time" for him means seven or eight hours. My down time runs longer and MY tradition is posting this:
Busy writing
Back soon!
XO
B.
One of my daily blog stops, writer Mark Evanier's News From ME, has a tradition of posting a photo of Campbell's Cream of Mushroom Soup to alert his readers to down time. Of course, Mark's so prolific that "down time" for him means seven or eight hours. My down time runs longer and MY tradition is posting this:
Busy writing
Back soon!
XO
B.
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
More Riverside
Just a few more photos I like from our weekend in Riverside:
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| A selfie with Karen at the entrance to the Mission Inn |
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| Mission Inn inner courtyard |
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| The Mission Inn pool, with downtown Riverside in the background. The weather was sunny and warm, perfect for a margarita by the pool (so I hear) |
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| An open-air rotunda on the Mission Inn grounds. |
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| The nearby Culver Center of the Arts, where the conference was held. |
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| With Ian Williams just before I went on. I like this because it's a casual candid shot. Just hangin'. |
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| Juliet McMullin introducing me. |
|  |
| Signing books. Arthur Frank is standing; to his right is Ian, to Ian's right is me. |
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| A good angle on the art exhibition on one side of the hall, with the lecture/seating area behind. None of the artwork was original, they were all foamcore posters printed for the occasion. This was a solution we hit on for the Graphic Medicine conferences as well--as much as you'd like to display original art, the care, security, insurance, and other practical details involved in doing so aren't worth it. If one of these easels falls over (and a couple did), nobody panics. |
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| With the fam. |
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| Karen and I at dinner with my sisters on Friday night. |
Tuesday, April 30, 2013
Down by the Riverside
Got home from last weekend's "Medical Examinations" conference at UC Riverside and spent Monday catching up on missed work. Good conference! Especially for the first of its kind. In contrast to the Graphic Medicine conferences I've been involved with, this one dealt with storytelling in a broader sense, with a sort of anthropological academic perspective. Art, theater, history, literature, Native American prayer, comics: it's all good.
As with all conferences, the most interesting and valuable stuff happened between the presentations and panels. I got to spend more time with my friend Dr. Ian Williams, who cartoons under the pen name Thom Ferrier, and I was especially happy to get to know Arthur Frank, a sociologist at the University of Calgary who wrote The Wounded Storyteller, one of the seminal examinations of medical narratives. I confess I didn't know his work beforehand but quickly got up to speed after two or three different people e-mailed me to say, "You're going to be at a conference with Arthur Frank?! Wow!" His talk on the theme "When Bodies Need Stories" was my favorite of the conference, and he's a friendly, witty, brilliant gentleman--a highlight of the weekend for sure.
Many of the attendees were grad students and undergrads hopelessly devoted to Juliet McMullin, the UC Riverside professor who organized the conference. Some had contributed to the artwork exhibited along the sides the room, and a lot of them had read Mom's Cancer, which was gratifying.
Best of all, my sisters Brenda and Elisabeth drove over to see me do my thing, which I think was a first for both of them, and share a late birthday dinner with Karen and me. So I had the pleasure of introducing Nurse Sis and Kid Sis to some people who didn't quite seem to believe they were real. That was fun.
I think my own talk went well. I had three basic goals: make the case that comics are a medium with unique abilities to tell stories in ways no other medium can; talk about the idea of "community" (communities of family, friends, caregivers, humanity) within Mom's Cancer; and introduce the idea of Graphic Medicine as a body of comics work with its own history and value. That's a lot.
As I prepared the talk, I rehearsed bits of it but never really put it all together and practiced it as a whole. I was aiming for about 45 minutes and figured if anything I'd go long. So I was surprised as I neared the end of my talk to check a clock and see I'd only spoken for 30 minutes. Gosh, I must've been motor-mouthing like a madman! I finished a few minutes later, took some questions, left the stage, and went to apologize to Juliet for coming up 10 minutes short. Karen stopped me:
"But you talked for an hour."
"No, I checked the clock. It was like 35 minutes."
"It was more than an hour."
"No way!"
I appealed to Juliet.
"Everybody seemed to be enjoying it so I didn't want to stop you."
I don't know what happened to the time. I don't know how I misread the clock. When Juliet left a comment in my previous post about loving my 240-minute talk, she was only exaggerating a little. All I know is I that started, WHOOSH, and then I stopped. Luckily I was the last speaker of the day so I didn't intrude into someone else's time. I hate those guys.
Anyway, that happened, and then we all signed books. Arthur was dismayed because Ian and I were drawing little sketches in ours. Made him look like a chump.
Day Two was relaxing because I'd fulfilled my responsibilities and could sit back and heckle. Ian gave a great talk that dovetailed well with mine, and I think between us we created a few converts to Graphic Medicine.
What I saw of the city of Riverside was swell, and the Mission Inn where we were lodged is pretty fantastic, in all senses of the word. One look at its website convinced Karen she wanted to come along. It's sort of a Spanish-Moorish citadel that covers a city block and reminded both Karen and me of the Winchester Mystery House, if you're familiar with it, in both its rambling randomness and clear signs of having been assembled by a crazy multi-millionaire. Highly recommended.
Good weekend, good event, great people. Thanks to Juliet, Chikako Takeshita, Laura Lozon, Sharon Rushing, Kara Miller, and lots of others for inviting me, organizing everything, and making us feel welcome. Just in terms of logistics, this was one of the best-run conference I've ever been to. I'm especially grateful to all the attendees and students who stopped to talk so we could get to know each other a bit. That's the best part.
As with all conferences, the most interesting and valuable stuff happened between the presentations and panels. I got to spend more time with my friend Dr. Ian Williams, who cartoons under the pen name Thom Ferrier, and I was especially happy to get to know Arthur Frank, a sociologist at the University of Calgary who wrote The Wounded Storyteller, one of the seminal examinations of medical narratives. I confess I didn't know his work beforehand but quickly got up to speed after two or three different people e-mailed me to say, "You're going to be at a conference with Arthur Frank?! Wow!" His talk on the theme "When Bodies Need Stories" was my favorite of the conference, and he's a friendly, witty, brilliant gentleman--a highlight of the weekend for sure.
 |
| Registration table for the conference at UC Riverside's Culver Center for the Arts. All the talks were given in the large room behind the table (you can just see a slide projected on the far wall behind the bald gent), while artwork was exhibited on easels in the left and right galleries defined by the columns. It was a nice space. |
Many of the attendees were grad students and undergrads hopelessly devoted to Juliet McMullin, the UC Riverside professor who organized the conference. Some had contributed to the artwork exhibited along the sides the room, and a lot of them had read Mom's Cancer, which was gratifying.
Best of all, my sisters Brenda and Elisabeth drove over to see me do my thing, which I think was a first for both of them, and share a late birthday dinner with Karen and me. So I had the pleasure of introducing Nurse Sis and Kid Sis to some people who didn't quite seem to believe they were real. That was fun.
 |
| With Juliet McMullin. She's the best. |
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| Kid Sis, Nurse Sis and me flanking a page from Mom's Cancer featuring Kid Sis, Nurse Sis and Me. It's like a recursive Escher etching or something. Spooky. |
I think my own talk went well. I had three basic goals: make the case that comics are a medium with unique abilities to tell stories in ways no other medium can; talk about the idea of "community" (communities of family, friends, caregivers, humanity) within Mom's Cancer; and introduce the idea of Graphic Medicine as a body of comics work with its own history and value. That's a lot.
As I prepared the talk, I rehearsed bits of it but never really put it all together and practiced it as a whole. I was aiming for about 45 minutes and figured if anything I'd go long. So I was surprised as I neared the end of my talk to check a clock and see I'd only spoken for 30 minutes. Gosh, I must've been motor-mouthing like a madman! I finished a few minutes later, took some questions, left the stage, and went to apologize to Juliet for coming up 10 minutes short. Karen stopped me:
"But you talked for an hour."
"No, I checked the clock. It was like 35 minutes."
"It was more than an hour."
"No way!"
I appealed to Juliet.
"Everybody seemed to be enjoying it so I didn't want to stop you."
I don't know what happened to the time. I don't know how I misread the clock. When Juliet left a comment in my previous post about loving my 240-minute talk, she was only exaggerating a little. All I know is I that started, WHOOSH, and then I stopped. Luckily I was the last speaker of the day so I didn't intrude into someone else's time. I hate those guys.
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| The very beginning of my talk, approximately the moment I entered a fugue state. |
 |
| Signing books with Ian Williams and Arthur Frank. Mom's Cancer sold out and I think Ian did well, too. My vision's perfect out to about arm's length so I often take off my glasses for close-up work. That's a fat new Pentel brush-pen I'm trying out; I liked it! |
Day Two was relaxing because I'd fulfilled my responsibilities and could sit back and heckle. Ian gave a great talk that dovetailed well with mine, and I think between us we created a few converts to Graphic Medicine.
What I saw of the city of Riverside was swell, and the Mission Inn where we were lodged is pretty fantastic, in all senses of the word. One look at its website convinced Karen she wanted to come along. It's sort of a Spanish-Moorish citadel that covers a city block and reminded both Karen and me of the Winchester Mystery House, if you're familiar with it, in both its rambling randomness and clear signs of having been assembled by a crazy multi-millionaire. Highly recommended.
 |
| How Karen spent some of her day. |
Good weekend, good event, great people. Thanks to Juliet, Chikako Takeshita, Laura Lozon, Sharon Rushing, Kara Miller, and lots of others for inviting me, organizing everything, and making us feel welcome. Just in terms of logistics, this was one of the best-run conference I've ever been to. I'm especially grateful to all the attendees and students who stopped to talk so we could get to know each other a bit. That's the best part.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Medical Examinations: Art, Story & Theory
I'm dedicating quite a bit of time getting ready for a talk I'm giving this Friday at the Medical Examinations: Art, Story & Theory conference hosted by the University of California, Riverside. This looks neat!
As I understand it, the broad theme is how people tell stories of illness and care through a variety of media. I'll be talking about comics, as will my UK friend Dr. Ian Williams, but others will touch on storytelling, literature, fine art, theater. It hits my sweet spot of integrating science and art while being very different from the Graphic Medicine (i.e., comics) conferences I've attended and helped organize in the past. Also unlike the GM conferences, there won't be separate academic panels or tracks for people to attend, just us speakers.
I think I'm up for the challenge.
I take my responsibility to "put on a good show" very seriously, particularly when someone else is picking up the tab (and UC Riverside and organizer Juliet McMullin are treating me with atypical hospitality). Whether you're satisfied or not--and you can't be a tougher critic than I am on myself--I try to give my best. At least ever since one engagement I bumbled and hmmmed my way through because I'd gotten cocky and thought I didn't need to prepare because I'd already given the same speech a few times and had it down. Turned out I was wrong. I honestly don't know if my hosts or audience noticed--they seemed happy--but I felt like a goat. Won't happen again.
In any event, this will be an entirely new, never-before-seen talk that right now looks like it'll run somewhere between 8.5 and 240 minutes. I expect to hone in on about 40 to 45 in the next couple of days.
Astonishingly, the conference is Free! However, the organizers are asking people to register so they can get a head count, and I understand spaces are available. Here's the registration site and here's the agenda. I'm speaking Friday at 4:30 p.m. I may have something extra-special planned; I may not. You'll have to come and see.
.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
And You Run and You Run to Catch Up with the Sun
I was going to let my birthday today pass unmentioned, but my family has already outed me on Facebook. I never told Facebook my birth date mostly to avoid friends and "friends" wishing me a happy one because their computers prodded them to, but it turns out there's no avoiding family.
Thanks.
I'm not a birthday grump. I used to be, when I was a younger man with frustrated ambitions. That's when I adopted Pink Floyd's "Time" as my unofficial birthday anthem and established the ritual of morosely listening to it on my day. So I was startled a while ago to realize I'd grown up to be pretty happy and content, having accomplished much of what I'd hoped. (I think I also realized that some of my ambitions were stupid.) It took longer than I might've liked but I got there. The idea of contentment took some getting used to and still doesn't quite sit right with me. That's fine. Some ambition and angst are good for the soul.
I still keep my "Time" ritual; in fact, I just played it. The difference: now it makes me smile.
Still, I think there's something silly about making a big deal of someone's birthday after the age of 20 or so. Everybody's got one. I don't need gifts, I'm a grown-up; if there's something I really want, I can go buy it myself.
Maybe I am still a bit of a birthday grump. It's hard to separate from my natural ground state of general grumpiness.
My daughters surprised me with an early-birthday visit home last weekend. In addition to the gift of their presence (all I needed of course), they gave me a home-sewn reversible cooking apron with a black-and-white starship Enterprise print on one side and a colorful Marvel comics print on the other. Wonderful!
They also got me one of these:
I could name at least four of my readers who need no further explanation. For the rest, here's a hint:
The 21st Century version of the Enterprise Comm Panel doesn't do quite as many neat things as its 23rd Century counterpart but it's still pretty cool. When you push the white button it emits the "hail" whistle. It also has a motion sensor that can be set to sound off either a "red alert" klaxon or Star Trek's sliding door "swoosh!" when someone walks past. I've mounted it near my office door and it always makes me smile, although sometimes when I forget it's there it scares the chitlins out of me, too.
My kids get me. Who wouldn't be content with that?
Tonight Karen and I will have a nice dinner and slice into half a birthday cake (we ate the other half with the girls on Sunday), and I'll open a few gifts from her and my extended family. I do appreciate the gestures. Today I turn fifty-three. It beats the only alternative.
Thanks.
I'm not a birthday grump. I used to be, when I was a younger man with frustrated ambitions. That's when I adopted Pink Floyd's "Time" as my unofficial birthday anthem and established the ritual of morosely listening to it on my day. So I was startled a while ago to realize I'd grown up to be pretty happy and content, having accomplished much of what I'd hoped. (I think I also realized that some of my ambitions were stupid.) It took longer than I might've liked but I got there. The idea of contentment took some getting used to and still doesn't quite sit right with me. That's fine. Some ambition and angst are good for the soul.
I still keep my "Time" ritual; in fact, I just played it. The difference: now it makes me smile.
.
In case you're unfamiliar with my birthday song. I just noticed that "Floyd" is one of those words that, if you stare at it a few minutes, starts to look very weird.
Still, I think there's something silly about making a big deal of someone's birthday after the age of 20 or so. Everybody's got one. I don't need gifts, I'm a grown-up; if there's something I really want, I can go buy it myself.
Maybe I am still a bit of a birthday grump. It's hard to separate from my natural ground state of general grumpiness.
My daughters surprised me with an early-birthday visit home last weekend. In addition to the gift of their presence (all I needed of course), they gave me a home-sewn reversible cooking apron with a black-and-white starship Enterprise print on one side and a colorful Marvel comics print on the other. Wonderful!
They also got me one of these:
I could name at least four of my readers who need no further explanation. For the rest, here's a hint:
My kids get me. Who wouldn't be content with that?
Tonight Karen and I will have a nice dinner and slice into half a birthday cake (we ate the other half with the girls on Sunday), and I'll open a few gifts from her and my extended family. I do appreciate the gestures. Today I turn fifty-three. It beats the only alternative.
Friday, April 12, 2013
I Drew This, Plus Scouting
I Drew This #2: An old man putting on pants.
This is about as exciting as "Mystery Project X" gets. I smell a bestseller.
* * *
I had a very nice time at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center last Sunday playing author for a special Girl Scout event. The theme of the day was "Storytelling" and Scouts of all ages came to do activities and earn badges built around it. About 140 girls spent several hours on the grounds, split into two groups so that half were ice skating at the nearby arena while the other half toured the museum.
I sat upstairs with Lauri Day and later Vicki Scott, both of whom I enjoyed getting to know a little (I'd met Vicki before but we'd never really talked). To help keep the younger Scouts on task, they were sent on a two-page scavenger hunt for information they had to find somewhere in the museum, including from Actual Storytellers. They had four questions for us. At first I responded with detailed replies as if I were actually being interviewed. I immediately realized that wouldn't work because a.) they weren't really interested, and b.) some of them could barely print. Our interactions quickly distilled down to the fewest, simplest words possible:
Q. What is your name? A. Brian Fies. You can copy it off my little sign here.
Q. Where do you get your ideas? A. I think about things that are important to me.
Q. How long does it take to write a story? A. A long time. About two years for my first book and three years for my second.
Q. What do you do when you don't have any ideas? A. I have too many ideas, not enough time. Alternative answer: I think harder.
Most of the Scouts were a blur of vests and braids, but some stood out. A few seemed genuinely interested in looking at my originals and learning about the cartooning process. One 8-year-old planted herself in front of my table and started reading Mom's Cancer. When her Mom said it was time to move on, she didn't budge. Finally the girl said, "I want to buy this book" (which I hadn't really brought any copies of to sell). Mom looked at the title, looked at me: "Is it age-appropriate?" Tough question; I answered honestly, "Maybe not." They moved on. But for a couple of minutes, I had her riveted.
Of course the museum was open to regular visitors while the Scouts toured. Among them was a group of nuns, which made an interesting contrast with the Scouts. Old and young women in different uniforms. Two boys, maybe 11 or 12, thought all of us cartoonist-types were just amazing. They kept circling around with such open, sincere enthusiasm I initially wondered if they were putting us on. And they caught me in a snare I'll be more careful to avoid next time.
As the afternoon went on and the Scouts thinned out, the boys asked Lauri and me if we'd race to see which of us could draw them faster. "OK, now you do him and you do me." That was a couple minutes of fun . . . which ominously did not go unnoticed. Another visitor saw what we were up to and wanted her kid's caricature. And in the time it took to do that one, someone else came up. So I spent the last half hour drawing caricatures over my strong and heartfelt protests that I'm not very good at it ("Oh, please, just one more of the little baby, we'll put it on her bedroom wall"). It was horrifying. Everyone seemed happy with their sketches but I'm not falling for that one again. At least no one asked me to draw Snoopy; Vicki does it for a living, but that beagle is harder to get right than he looks.
With that important lesson learned, it was a nice afternoon. The girls, visitors, and museum staff were great. Girl Scouts was a big part of our family's life for a long time (says the 2001 Father of the Year for Girl Scouts Service Unit #18), and in fact Karen's still involved seven years after our daughters earned their Gold Awards and moved on, so it was fun to reconnect. I can't think of any way to not make this sound super creepy, but I just love little girls. They always remind me of young fatherhood, a good time in my life, and the two former-little-girls I love most in the world.
This is about as exciting as "Mystery Project X" gets. I smell a bestseller.
* * *
I had a very nice time at the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center last Sunday playing author for a special Girl Scout event. The theme of the day was "Storytelling" and Scouts of all ages came to do activities and earn badges built around it. About 140 girls spent several hours on the grounds, split into two groups so that half were ice skating at the nearby arena while the other half toured the museum.
I sat upstairs with Lauri Day and later Vicki Scott, both of whom I enjoyed getting to know a little (I'd met Vicki before but we'd never really talked). To help keep the younger Scouts on task, they were sent on a two-page scavenger hunt for information they had to find somewhere in the museum, including from Actual Storytellers. They had four questions for us. At first I responded with detailed replies as if I were actually being interviewed. I immediately realized that wouldn't work because a.) they weren't really interested, and b.) some of them could barely print. Our interactions quickly distilled down to the fewest, simplest words possible:
Q. What is your name? A. Brian Fies. You can copy it off my little sign here.
Q. Where do you get your ideas? A. I think about things that are important to me.
Q. How long does it take to write a story? A. A long time. About two years for my first book and three years for my second.
Q. What do you do when you don't have any ideas? A. I have too many ideas, not enough time. Alternative answer: I think harder.
Most of the Scouts were a blur of vests and braids, but some stood out. A few seemed genuinely interested in looking at my originals and learning about the cartooning process. One 8-year-old planted herself in front of my table and started reading Mom's Cancer. When her Mom said it was time to move on, she didn't budge. Finally the girl said, "I want to buy this book" (which I hadn't really brought any copies of to sell). Mom looked at the title, looked at me: "Is it age-appropriate?" Tough question; I answered honestly, "Maybe not." They moved on. But for a couple of minutes, I had her riveted.
Of course the museum was open to regular visitors while the Scouts toured. Among them was a group of nuns, which made an interesting contrast with the Scouts. Old and young women in different uniforms. Two boys, maybe 11 or 12, thought all of us cartoonist-types were just amazing. They kept circling around with such open, sincere enthusiasm I initially wondered if they were putting us on. And they caught me in a snare I'll be more careful to avoid next time.
As the afternoon went on and the Scouts thinned out, the boys asked Lauri and me if we'd race to see which of us could draw them faster. "OK, now you do him and you do me." That was a couple minutes of fun . . . which ominously did not go unnoticed. Another visitor saw what we were up to and wanted her kid's caricature. And in the time it took to do that one, someone else came up. So I spent the last half hour drawing caricatures over my strong and heartfelt protests that I'm not very good at it ("Oh, please, just one more of the little baby, we'll put it on her bedroom wall"). It was horrifying. Everyone seemed happy with their sketches but I'm not falling for that one again. At least no one asked me to draw Snoopy; Vicki does it for a living, but that beagle is harder to get right than he looks.
With that important lesson learned, it was a nice afternoon. The girls, visitors, and museum staff were great. Girl Scouts was a big part of our family's life for a long time (says the 2001 Father of the Year for Girl Scouts Service Unit #18), and in fact Karen's still involved seven years after our daughters earned their Gold Awards and moved on, so it was fun to reconnect. I can't think of any way to not make this sound super creepy, but I just love little girls. They always remind me of young fatherhood, a good time in my life, and the two former-little-girls I love most in the world.
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Sir Edmond and Sally
I was peeking in on an astronomy blog discussion recently when a comment brought me to a skidding stop. If my brain could make that sound of a needle scritching across a record, it would have.
Someone lamented that Comet Pan-STARRS had turned out to be kind of a dud. Someone else replied that there was still hope Comet ISON could be pretty spectacular later this year, but early observation suggested it might be less showy than expected, too. And then someone said:
"At least I'll be around for the next appearance of Halley's Comet."
And that's what brought me up short. Because barring extraordinary luck or some breakthrough in human longevity ...
I won't.
Damn punk kids.
Halley's last passed through the inner solar system in 1986. Its period is about 75 years, putting its next pass in 2061. I'll be 101. Although the comet wasn't very impressive in '86, owing to the geometry of our respective orbits at the time, I understand it's expected to put on a good show next time.
Comets had been inexplicable one-off apparitions until Sir Edmond Halley calculated his namesake's orbit and realized "Hey, this sucker's been here before!" Halley's fame was made, and his iceball became THE quintessential comet, when he correctly predicted it would return in 1758, 16 years after his death. Of course, once you realize you're dealing with a regular guest, you can dig through history and find records of its visits in worldwide media as diverse as the Bayeux Tapestry (appearance of AD 1066) and a Babylonian clay tablet (164 BC).
Comet Halley also strikes a cultural chord because its period is just about the length of a human life. Mark Twain was famously born when Halley's appeared in 1835 and died when it returned in 1910. For most, it's literally a once-in-a-lifetime event.
In 1986 I'd graduated from college but still lived nearby and had the keys to the campus observatory, which I'd helped run while a student (just between us I still have the keys, though I figure by now they must have changed the locks). My university's observatory was poorly located atop a five-story building in the center of campus--next to which they then constructed a six-story building, blocking the view of a good chunk of sky--but it was a neat little facility at which real research could be done.
The comet was due to be especially well positioned on one particular night. So on that night I took my keys, circumventing the university's process for reserving the observatory, and set off for the roof. I assumed I'd be alone but arrived to find a small group already there. Quiet. Almost reverent. There in the little round cinderblock building were my old professor mentor and half a dozen people, all of whom I knew from my college days. Hadn't seen some of them in three or four years. As far as I know, nothing had been planned. Everyone just showed up, gravitationally drawn to meet in that place on that night. No one seemed the least surprised to see me unlock the door with my unauthorized keys and join the party.
That was special.
Many of my blog posts get written because two or more notions collide in my brain to spark something interesting. As documented in past posts, I've spent the last couple of weeks refurbishing my office/studio, and as part of that process cleaned up my bulletin board. At the top of my old board I kept pinned for nearly 30 years what could be my favorite "Peanuts" comic ever, from October 18, 1985. It nearly disintegrated in my hands, but remained intact enough for me to scan it:
Man, that's a dark comic. Bleak! That punk kid on the astronomy blog is Sally Brown and I am Sally Brown's teacher. Anyone born in the early Eighties has a decent chance of catching Halley's Comet twice. I had one shot at it, and am glad I made the most of it.
Someone lamented that Comet Pan-STARRS had turned out to be kind of a dud. Someone else replied that there was still hope Comet ISON could be pretty spectacular later this year, but early observation suggested it might be less showy than expected, too. And then someone said:
"At least I'll be around for the next appearance of Halley's Comet."
And that's what brought me up short. Because barring extraordinary luck or some breakthrough in human longevity ...
I won't.
Damn punk kids.
Halley's last passed through the inner solar system in 1986. Its period is about 75 years, putting its next pass in 2061. I'll be 101. Although the comet wasn't very impressive in '86, owing to the geometry of our respective orbits at the time, I understand it's expected to put on a good show next time.
Comets had been inexplicable one-off apparitions until Sir Edmond Halley calculated his namesake's orbit and realized "Hey, this sucker's been here before!" Halley's fame was made, and his iceball became THE quintessential comet, when he correctly predicted it would return in 1758, 16 years after his death. Of course, once you realize you're dealing with a regular guest, you can dig through history and find records of its visits in worldwide media as diverse as the Bayeux Tapestry (appearance of AD 1066) and a Babylonian clay tablet (164 BC).
 |
| "Oh, it's you again." |
Comet Halley also strikes a cultural chord because its period is just about the length of a human life. Mark Twain was famously born when Halley's appeared in 1835 and died when it returned in 1910. For most, it's literally a once-in-a-lifetime event.
In 1986 I'd graduated from college but still lived nearby and had the keys to the campus observatory, which I'd helped run while a student (just between us I still have the keys, though I figure by now they must have changed the locks). My university's observatory was poorly located atop a five-story building in the center of campus--next to which they then constructed a six-story building, blocking the view of a good chunk of sky--but it was a neat little facility at which real research could be done.
The comet was due to be especially well positioned on one particular night. So on that night I took my keys, circumventing the university's process for reserving the observatory, and set off for the roof. I assumed I'd be alone but arrived to find a small group already there. Quiet. Almost reverent. There in the little round cinderblock building were my old professor mentor and half a dozen people, all of whom I knew from my college days. Hadn't seen some of them in three or four years. As far as I know, nothing had been planned. Everyone just showed up, gravitationally drawn to meet in that place on that night. No one seemed the least surprised to see me unlock the door with my unauthorized keys and join the party.
That was special.
Many of my blog posts get written because two or more notions collide in my brain to spark something interesting. As documented in past posts, I've spent the last couple of weeks refurbishing my office/studio, and as part of that process cleaned up my bulletin board. At the top of my old board I kept pinned for nearly 30 years what could be my favorite "Peanuts" comic ever, from October 18, 1985. It nearly disintegrated in my hands, but remained intact enough for me to scan it:
Man, that's a dark comic. Bleak! That punk kid on the astronomy blog is Sally Brown and I am Sally Brown's teacher. Anyone born in the early Eighties has a decent chance of catching Halley's Comet twice. I had one shot at it, and am glad I made the most of it.
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