Month: January 2013

Traditions of baseball, comic books, and film

I hadn’t read the Comic Buyer’s Guide regularly since 1994, but I would usually buy a copy on Free Comic Book Day each May, just to check out what was new

I lost a dollar this week. A blogger I know bet that no one would be elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame, and regrettably, he was right. Even allowing the “punishment” of those who allegedly took performance-enhancing drugs, there were plenty of qualified candidates (starting pitcher Jack Morris, the totally undervalued reliever Lee Smith, for two). This was an unfortunate outcome, and not so incidentally, will be lousy for tourism in Cooperstown this year.

Now, ironically, baseball will be expanding its drug-testing program.
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To my surprise, I was quite sad to read that Comics Buyer’s Guide is folding in March. The usual reasons were stated: “decline in advertising and free content online.”

CBG was “started by Alan Light as The Buyer’s Guide for Comic Fandom [in 1971], publishing monthly at first, then twice a month, then weekly…” By the time the newsprint magazine was acquired by Krause Publications in 1983 and changed its name, it had become the bible of the industry. It was like Variety was for entertainment or Billboard for music. Especially under Krause, the level of professionalism increased tremendously.

I started collecting comics in 1972, and when the Crystal Cave comic book store opened c. 1975 in New Paltz, I would buy the publication, scouring the ads for the best prices in back issue comics. That’s also where I first saw the classic comic renderings by my friend-to-be, Fred Hembeck.

When I started working at FantaCo in 1980, and we started publishing comic-book-related material, including material by Hembeck, we would dutifully mail our press releases to Don and Maggie Thompson. Sometimes they would use it, but often they would not. This was discouraging to some in the store, but it made me more determined to keep sending more and more info to them. Eventually, we became so “legitimate” that they would almost always report on our publication schedule. Indeed, I think that’s generally a lesson in dealing with the media: keep trying.

There was a lovely editorial written by Michael T. Gilbert shortly after Raoul Vezina, the artist who worked at FantaCo, had died in late 1983. I have that somewhere in the attic.

I hadn’t read CBG regularly since 1994 when I sold my collection, but I would usually buy a copy on Free Comic Book Day each May, if a copy could be found, just to check out what was new. It won’t be around for the next FCBD, though.

Mark Evanier has his own recollections.
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I start my quixotic attempt to see most of the films nominated for an Academy Award in the major categories. I’ve seen three of the nine nominees for best picture: Argo, Les Miserables, and Lincoln. Beasts of the Southern Wild came and went, and I don’t know if Life of Pi is still around.

Almost certainly, the next film we’ll see will be Silver Linings Playbook, which would take the count of best actor, best supporting actor, and best supporting actress nominations I will have seen from two to three each; best director from one to two; and best actress from zero to one.

Blood, football, and a funeral

he Red Cross had been bugging me to donate plasma for some time, but I hadn’t been able to carve out the time.

 

This keeps happening, so I shouldn’t be surprised, yet I often am anyway: I meet some older persons, generally at church, and get along with them well. Yet, when they die, and I read the obituaries and/or go to the funerals, I realize how little I really knew them.

Such was the case with Carolyn Garvin, a member of my church, whose funeral my wife attended this weekend. She was the nice old lady who always commented on how well the choir, of which I was a member, performed. She always was a very good conversational listener as well.

The things I DIDN’T know about her, though, were staggering. For one thing, she graduated from Binghamton Central High School, my alma mater, in 1947, though she was valedictorian. She was an elementary school teacher, which didn’t shock me, but was later the co-director of a migrant labor camp, which did. She was very active in the Civil Rights movement and was executive director of Planned Parenthood of Albany. She went back to school and eventually spent several years as the director of the Kairos Center for Care and Counseling in Albany, and had other responsible positions.

I was familiar with her gardening, love of pets, enjoyment of nature, and dedication to her church. I didn’t know that she had three adopted kids, one of whom died in a car accident.

I also wonder if some people also might have perhaps not take her seriously, or been impatient with her, in the latter days because she was suffering from what I’ve since discovered were signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

In any case, a learning, or relearning experience.
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Something else I did Saturday: I gave a blood donation by apheresis. I had donated blood via the more traditional method over 145 times. The Red Cross had been bugging me to donate plasma for some time, but I hadn’t been able to carve out the time. The process takes a couple of hours, including 74 minutes hooked to the machine. Got to sit around and watch part of some JEOPARDY! video someone gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.

The strange thing about it is that it makes one rather chilled. It wasn’t that bad at the time, but I continued to feel cold even a day later.

I ended up watching all four NFL football games over the weekend, none of them in real-time. Well, one was a blowout and I gave up on that match. I discovered that one can watch a 60-minute game, that usually takes three hours or more in real-time, in 75 minutes or so. One key for me is to stay away from social media so I don’t learn the scores; once I learn the outcome, then the enjoyment of watching is greatly diminished.

Technologically impaired

Blogspot I’ve used so long that I have actually figured out some of its idiosyncrasies.

I have a love/hate relationship with techies. In my experience, 60% of them are condescending twits who seem to relish making people feel as though they are idiots. Worse, about half of them, I’m convinced, don’t even know what they are talking about.

Then there are the good guys. One in my office helped me discover that the podcasts I had played were eating memory on my hard drive. He showed me where it was stored, and better, how to empty my recycle bin.

I don’t think of myself as particularly adept at technological stuff. The highlight of last year, from a pure techie viewpoint, when I was able to solve Ken Levine’s problem with Blogspot; see the comments.

Blogspot I’ve used so long that I have actually figured out some of its idiosyncrasies. For instance, when you get comment captcha letters and numbers that are unreadable, you can click on that circle near the box and get another set of letters and numbers. Often, letters too close together – I cannot tell the difference between mn and nm, e.g.

One of the ABC Wednesday team has noted difficulties going to some sites. I’ve noticed that I have much better luck visiting Blogspot blogs using Firefox or Google Plus, rather than Internet Explorer.

Facebook continues to confound me. One day, I got one of those notices of places I’ve supposedly been to recently. Two of them were in places in Illinois, in 2010 (that’s “recent”?) that I’ve never been; the last time I’ve been in Illinois in 2008.

I complained, on Facebook, about Facebook asking me how I was “feeling,” as though it really cared. Someone responded how wonderful FB was to keep in touch with others. That wasn’t what I was addressing; I was talking about that faux concern for my well-being.
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A few tips for the clearly incompetent non-profits using social media.

There is a clash in WordPress 3.5, where the page-tag will affect the scheduled post results. So that YouTube video or similar item you’ll need to publish in real-time, rather than a schedule.

There was a story about a female child pornography suspect. The story didn’t make me laugh, but a comment string did.
Commenter: This seems a bit… not BoingBoing.
BoingBoing: I’ll let you know when we decide to take editorial direction from random guys on the internet.

Another online encounter that tickled me, also based on tragedy. Film critic Roger Ebert wrote about the death of a photographer killed in a vehicular accident while trying to stalk singer Justin Bieber. Ebert, surprisingly, referred to the young man as a paparazzi; I was the first of a few people who noted that paparazzi is actually the plural of paparazzo. Another commenter wrote: “Mr. Green, Poparazzi is gourmet popcorn popular in Texas. Would it then be grammatically correct to call a single kernel of their popped corn a poparazzo?”

Z is for Zipper

Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine received a patent in 1851 for an ‘Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure.’

Some inventions have been around so long that one tends to forget that, once upon a time, somebody actually created it, and there was a time when the item did not exist. So it is with the zipper. From Wikipedia: “A zipper, zip, or zip fastener, is a commonly used device for binding the edges of an opening of fabric or other flexible material, as on a garment or a bag… It was invented by Gideon Sundbäck circa 1917 based on prior less effective fasteners, but many others have made improvements and different versions of the device.”

However, as About.com notes: “Elias Howe, who invented the sewing machine received a patent in 1851 for an ‘Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure.’ Perhaps it was the success of the sewing machine, which caused Elias not to pursue marketing his clothing closure. As a result, Howe missed his chance to become the recognized ‘Father of the Zip.'”

Others developed alternates, but none were viable, commercially and mechanically, until the Sundback model.

Here’s an Amazon citation to Zipper: An Exploration in Novelty by Robert D. Friedel.

I remember watching the June 20, 2010 episode of CBS Sunday Morning, which had a piece about the zipper.

My wife, if I should have my pants zipper, not all the way closed, will say to me, “XYZ,” which means eXamine Your Zipper.

The word zipper does have alternative references, to meanings in transportation, entertainment, and other uses. My personal favorite is Zipper Harris, the nephew of Zonker, in the Doonesbury cartoon newspaper strip.
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Apropos of not much: this is is my 3000th blogpost to Ramblin’ with Roger. I’m much more into chronological thresholds than numerical ones. But there it is.

ABC Wednesday – Round 11

BOOK REVIEW: Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning

Regarding the graphic novel: I remember when the title was first being bandied about in the 1980s, I hated them, because they seemed like large, squarebound comic books.

I’m someone who used to sell graphic novels in a comic book store, not a teacher. My wife IS a teacher, though, and was excited to see that I had received a review copy of Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning.

Even Meryl Jaffe, a co-author of this book, with Katie Monnin, mentioned in her blog that the title of this book is a bit of a mouthful. Basically, this should be called “Teaching with Graphic Novels.” Regardless of the name, this volume makes a convincing argument for using graphic novels in teaching math, language arts, social students, and science. More importantly, very early on, it makes the case, in the strongest terms, that the graphic novel is a legitimate teaching tool that broadens the educational palette for an increasingly diverse population.

Not that Meryl was always a believer. She used to be a “stay away from those comics and graphic novels” type until her children turned her on to Joe Kelly’s I Kill Giants. Now she attends comic book conventions from New York to San Diego.

In each of the four subject areas, the authors take a single book and show how students, labeled as Memory Megan, Attention Andy, Cognitive Coby, Language Larry and Sequencing Sue, can improve in the named areas. Just as important, they list many other graphic novels that might be used, identified by grade level, and the skills that will be gleaned.

Basically, if you are an educator that has considered using graphic novels, this book both gives practical steps for teaching and provides cover when dealing with school administrators about using such a “radical” tool.
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The above is what I wrote in as an Amazon review; I do that so rarely.

I first discovered Meryl Jaffe when she began contributing to the ABC Wednesday meme with which I’ve been involved. Her posts are always entertaining AND informational.

Regarding the graphic novel: I remember when the title was first being bandied about in the 1980s, I hated them because they seemed like large, squarebound comic books. Indeed, I have this vague memory of a couple of X-Men items touted as graphic novels. One was $4.95 and the other $5.95 when a comic book was going for 60 or 75 cents, and even a longer issue would go for under $1.50. It just seemed a greedy attempt to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; well, maybe not quite that bad, but totally unnecessary.

The graphic novel has grown tremendously over the past couple of decades. I’ve marveled that “funny books” are getting legitimate notice in Entertainment Weekly and other mainstream media, without that “BAM POW” condescension that some newspapers are always eager to use.

You may be interested in Rise of the Graphic Novel: everything you need to know about the comics field in 70 pages. Meryl has put together a list of 2012’s Best Non-Fiction or Historical Fiction Graphic Novels.

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