Pixel Scroll 12/28/18 Baby Is 3.14159

I’m still recovering from the flu, however, here’s a curtailed Scroll to help keep the conversation moving.

GUFF INTERVIEWS. The Get-Up-and-over Fan Fund (GUFF) ballot for the 2019 race is available online. Voters will choose an Australasian delegate to attend Dublin 2019 in Ireland (August 15-19). There is an option for the delegate to also attend the Eurocon (Titancon, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 22-25).

The candidates are Lynelle Howell, Simon Litten, and Nicole Murphy.

GUFF co-administrator Marcin Klak has posted interviews with all three candidates

NASA AFFECTED BY SHUTDOWN. Cnet points out that space mission press coverage will be handicapped if the government shutdown continues — “NASA shutdown: Agency could be dark during historic New Year’s missions”.

NASA’s live stream is currently offline, however, and the agency is redirecting people to NASA TV, which it states will show live events. The NASA public relations team is unable to publicize the events and send out press releases during the shutdown because they aren’t exempt from the furlough.

Previous government shutdowns, in January and February this year, lasted no longer than three days. But this shutdown could continue into the new year. As recently as Thursday, at least one US senator suggested there’s “no end in sight”. 

LEARN TO RUN A COMIC CON. Ithaca College will offer the “First College Course on Running a Comic Convention”.

Ithaca College, a mid-size nationally-ranked private college, will offer a course on running a comic convention in the Spring 2019 semester, the first time we’ve heard of a college course on the topic.  Students taking the course will plan and manage Ithacon, the second-longest-running comic convention in the nation.  The course, Creating and Promoting Ithacon, will be co-taught by Ed Catto, formerly of Bonfire Agency (see “Rotterdam, Catto Start Bonfire“) and Reed Exhibitions, currently a lecturer in the Department of Management; and English professor Katherine Kittredge, who’s the coordinator of Ithacon.

Students will plan, manage, and market the convention, and do post-event analysis.  Other topics of the course will include publishing, filmed entertainment, licensing, collectibles and fan communities.

BLEEDING COOL TOP 100 POWER LIST. This week Bleeding Cool has been dribbling out its “Top 100 Power List” of the comics industry’s influential figures. The list came to my attention because Vox Day is grumpy that he’s not on it — despite having (unintentionally) managed to get a Bleeding Cool editor fired this year for publishing an interview with him – which he figures represents some level of industry power….

This attempt to list the most powerful people working in the English-speaking comic book marketplace is, of course, flawed. It is judged by all manner of attributes, the ability to influence what comics exist and sell, but also the willingness to use that power in the industry to affect things, and the ability to retain said power if a job is taken away. Which is why you will see a number of people on a higher spot than their bosses.

…It does not measure talent or likeability, respect or fairness, and it does not intend to represent diversity or balance. All it does is note power, used for betterment — or detriment — in the English speaking comic book world.

96. Eddie Ibrahim

Director of Programming at San Diego Comic-Con – it may come but once a year but Eddie holds the fortunes and plans of many comic book publishers and creators in his hands. His whim can see a publisher given the chance to expose the world to what they are working on. Or denied the chance and remain in relative obscurity. Also, it may be down to him to see if the panel you have arranged will be full of your fans or people waiting to see Critical Role.

74. Ethan Van Sciver. Leaving DC Comics after prominent creators refused to work with him anymore, he used the usual mixture of Comicsgate virtue signalling, identity politics and mocking hater videos to raise over half a million dollars on Indiegogo, for his still-upcoming Cyberfrog comic revival. The highest amount raised on crowdfunding by any comic creator in the year, it helps that he can actually draw. This helped him take the position as leading Comicsgate figure as Richard Meyer stepped back, due to his legal case with Mark Waid, and not wanting to give the defence further ammunition.

53. Gail Simone. Leading comic book writer, advisor, social media presence and whose Women In Refrigerators continues to impact all over the place, Simone has also become showrunner of the Lion Forge line of superhero comic books. With a massive social media following and an uncompromising attitude, Simone always brings a lot to the party.

54. Ta-Nehisi Coates. Writer of Black Panther, as well as a literary activist, he has brought attention to this comic alongside the release of the movie, and has created a small but new fanbase for Marvel comic books.

46. Kelly Sue DeConnick. Writer of Bitch Planet and Pretty Deadly, a strong voice in the comics industry fuelled with the Captain Marvel movie based on her take on the character, she remains a font for advice, support and comradeship, and her production company with Matt Fraction, Milkfed, continued to develop new comics and adapt and represent them for other media.

[Thanks to JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter and Andrew Porter for some of these stories Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

33 thoughts on “Pixel Scroll 12/28/18 Baby Is 3.14159

  1. Hope you continue to recover.

    Thou art Godstalk (probably already used)

    The Five (thousand) books you meet on Mt Tsundoku

  2. Hope you feel better soon Mike.

    Looks like vd is having as much “success” with transforming the comics industry as he did with publishing.

  3. (3) LEARN TO RUN A COMIC CON — I think I’ve read about this before, but at that time it was learning how to whitewash a fence.

  4. Re: Ethan van Sciver, I’d just like to mention that his brother Noah is an extremely talented cartoonist and a nice guy who isn’t into right-wing bullshit, and it’s a shame that the kind of stuff Noah draws is not as well remunerated as the kind of stuff Ethan draws. Seek out his books, they’re great.

  5. There’s an indie book cover designer who has posted on Twitter that she’s currently facing medical bills for her sick canine credential, and having a sale on her stock of pre-made book covers. I love her faux demo cover titles and thought Filers might enjoy them, too.

  6. @Cat Eldridge
    Happy Birthday to Nichelle Nichols, born 1932, who turned eighty five today! It is also the birthday of Stan Lee who was born in 1922.
    Yesterday was also the birthday of my son, who turned 12 and is a huge Star Wars/Lego fan. He is building a Saturn V out of Lego as we speak.

  7. Take care of yourself, Mike.

    Just bought my supporting membership for Dublin. The website (so far, at least) seems to be easy to use, and the design is lovely.

  8. A couple other birthdays of note:

    F. W. Murnau, German film director, b. 1888. Directed the seminal silent vampire film, Nosferatu.

    John von Neumann, Hungarian mathematician, b. 1903. Hugely important theoretician in computer science. Did computational models for the Manhattan Project.

    Denzel Washington, Academy Award winning American actor, b. 1958. Starred in Fallen, the underrated Déjà Vu, The Book of Eli.

    Noomi Rapace, Swedish actress, b. 1979. Star of the Swedish adaptations of Steig Larsson’s Millenium books, and other SF films Prometheus and the prolog to Alien: Covenant.

  9. Mike, stay inside if you can – the forecast is for cold and windy through Monday – with actual frost tonight.

  10. On Thursday I found a patch of ice and my elbow took the worse from it. Didn’t know how bad the impact was until I got home and got my L.L. Bean Winter jacket off and promptly started bleeding all over the floor from my now deeply lacerated elbow. Fortunately the ER is a ten walk from my apartment so off I went, checked myself in and got stitches.

    Have I mentioned that dying sixteen months ago from severe head trauma left me with no sense of time? I thought I’d been but a few minutes when I was there four hours before they saw me. It’s the only advantage I’ve found of that accident…

  11. @Cat — Sorry to hear it; hopes for a speedy recovery. I had my own ice-related incident a few years ago and I heartily do not recommend.

    I just finished watching the Netflix adaptation of Altered Carbon and I was generally pleased with it. My big concern was the same one I had with the books — they never really engaged with the idea that a person’s identity resides on the 3.5″ floppy disc inserted in their spine; everybody just kind of bought into it (well, except for the protestors, I suppose) and they told a story that happened to take place in that world.

    I’ll be very curious to see the next season (with Anthony Mackie as Takeshi’s new “sleeve”).

  12. @Mike Glyer

    Get well soon.

    @Cat Eldridge

    I hope your elbow heals well, and that it’s not too much of a nuisance in the mean time.

    There have certainly been times in A&E (ER) where I would have fervently enjoyed that particular advantage. 🙂

    (Back when I started fainting at 16 my college had a habit of calling an ambulance every single time, presumably in the hope that either I’d eventually test positive for alcohol or drugs and prove them right that it was really my fault, or I’d get tired of it and magically stop fainting and prove them right that I was faking it. I spent a lot of time hanging out in A&E departments that year. Cost a lot in cab fares home. To be fair to them, I did get very tired of it. I just didn’t manage the magically getting better bit.)

  13. @Cat —

    I thought I’d been but a few minutes when I was there four hours before they saw me. It’s the only advantage I’ve found of that accident…

    That would have been a nice advantage many years ago, back when I dislocated my kneecap and broke two bones in one foot. I was in emergency for six hours, and nobody offered me so much as a tylenol the whole time!

    (You can imagine how careful I am about wet floors inside stores these days!)

  14. Just got an email from Worldcon 76 that European privacy rules require that I opt into letting Dublin know I want to nominate for the Hugos on the basis of my San Jose membership.

    This isn’t really a major issue for me, because I’m a supporting member of Dublin anyway, but I encourage people to check their spam filters, Just In Case.

  15. Get well soon Mike

    Ouch, Cat. Hope it heals speedily.

    Did you ever get a diagnosis Meredith? I had several fainting episodes at that age, they stopped a couple of years later. Never saw a doctor about it, I was just advised to stay out of the sun-and in retrospect I do think it was associated with heat and dehydration.

  16. @bookworm1398

    Eventually, after a couple of very confusing and inconvenient years, yep — dysautonomia, probably in the form of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. Which, yeah, is exacerbated by heat and dehydration. Luckily I can just about get away with not medicating for it and I mostly just obsessively stockpile drinks and salty snacks everywhere in the building in case of emergency floor visits in random locations. I’m much better at managing it a decade and change on, although I did end up with a sore tailbone earlier today after my blood pressure and rapidly tunnelling vision very firmly informed me that I could sit down on the floor right then with no delays for softening the landing or I could be unconscious, so there’s that. 🙂 And there’s not much to be done about the misc minor cognitive issues from having not quite enough oxygen travelling around.

    I think a small amount of fainting is quite common in teens, what with the general stress and wonkiness of developing bodies, it’s only that I was keeling over on a roughly daily basis that it became (and still is) more of a thing.

  17. Mike, Cat, I wish you both speedy recoveries.

    @JJ: I love her faux demo cover titles and thought Filers might enjoy them, too.

    None of them quite fit any project I’m working on, but they are worth reading just for the snarky “Truth in Advertising” titles. My special favorites are Crow Girl and Hot Cop.

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