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Gweek!

4. May 2011

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Meet Gweek, a new podcast from one of my favourite regular reads online, BoingBoing, covering computer gaming, science fiction books and comics; go listen!

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Picture Book This – Ideas Everywhere

30. April 2011

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Polly Dunbar published her first book at 16. She’s still sickeningly young. Fortunately she’s also sickeningly talented and makes some wonderful picture books for children. Perhaps her most successful and well known is the gorgeous, funny and beautifully told “Penguin“. Ideas Everywhere is an online picture book, dealing with making a story. Perfectly pitched for [...]

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Lauren Beukes wins the Arthur C Clarke Award

28. April 2011

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Lauren Beukes scooped the most prestigious science fiction literary award in the UK last night, winning this year’s Arthur C Clarke award for Zoo City, published by Angry Robot. I’ve not read it yet, but you have to love a book described as “Jeff Noon crossed with Raymond Chandler”, so one to add to the [...]

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Zombie guide to the library

26. April 2011

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I love this – BoingBoing reports that McPherson College Library has created a tutorial in comics form (with zombies!) as a guide to how to use the library. Brilliant! I could have used this back in my college days, I worked part time in the college library and was constantly amazed how some undergrads could [...]

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But I don’t want to go among mad people…

26. April 2011

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There’s still a few days left to enjoy the free exhibition of Alice in Wonderland books at the National Library of Scotland on George IV Bridge, Edinburgh (the bridge parallel to Southbridge where the Edinburgh FP can be found). I visited recently (conveniently it is open till 8pm most evenings, so you can even visit [...]

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Picture Book This – Book Trust Best New Illustrators

23. April 2011

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I try to do a few pieces fairly regularly about children’s picture books here on the blog. Partly because it’s interesting to look specifically at some of those picture books that blur the line between picture books and comics, partly because I’m intrigued to see children interacting with them as part of my job at [...]

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The Moth presents Neil Gaiman

19. April 2011

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The Moth presents a good video with Neil Gaiman, recorded live at 27 Arts in New York in 2007 as part of PEN’s World Voices Festival (link via Wim):

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Gollancz is 50

13. April 2011

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the UK’s most famous major science fiction publishers, Victor Gollancz, which has published some truly brilliant work by some fantastic writers as diverse as Richard Morgan, Alastair Reynolds, Pierre Pevel, Ian McDonald, Ben Aaronovitch, John Bruner, Sheri S Tepper, Joe Abercrombie, Michael Moorcock, Robert Holdstock, Joe [...]

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Big sneak peek at Game of Thrones

5. April 2011

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There’s a sneak preview up of the upcoming and eagerly anticipated television adaptation of George R R Martin’s hugely bestselling Game of Thrones fantasy and for a change it’s no 1 minute wonder of a trailer, it’s pretty a pretty darned substantial look at what we can expect (link via SFX and Mia Cookson):

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Jannie Ho talks comics and illustration

31. March 2011

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Jerzy Drozd offers us up another video of an event from the regular Ann Arbor Comics Artists Forum at the Ann Arbor District Library; this time round it is almost half an hour featuring artist Jannie Ho discussing life as an illustrator and storyteller: Jannie Ho Comics/Illustration Presentation from Jerzy Drozd on Vimeo.

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Graphic novels as vintage paperback novels

30. March 2011

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I’m not sure if I may have seen some of these before, some do ring a very vague bell, but even if I have it’s well worth posting up a link again because these are simply brilliant – classic comics re-imagined as vintage paperbacks. They’re really well done, I’m sure I have some old 60s [...]

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Diana Wynne Jones passes away

28. March 2011

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(Diana with adorable kitty, pic borrowed from and (c) her author-approved fan site) I missed hearing about this at the weekend until a friend in my SF book group mentioned it to me – very sad to report that the wonderful fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones has finally succumbed to her long fight against cancer. [...]

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Drinking with Miss Dutchie

21. March 2011

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Top cartoonist Mike Lynch is rather pleased – he’s just done his first ever book cover, for Drinking with Miss Dutchie, a memoir by Ed Breslin about overcoming drink dependency with the help of his labrador. On his blog (which is one you should have bookmarked as he often posts some great cartooning items up) [...]

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Joe Hill talks to Matt Staggs

21. March 2011

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That fine chap Matt Staggs talks to the excellent Joe Hill on Suvudu about his novels while he was on the road to promote his second book, Horns (much recommended, I have to say, as is his first full length prose novel, Heart Shaped Box, which is a superbly creepy ghost story), and his acclaimed [...]

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Picture Book This – The Kiss That Missed

19. March 2011

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The Kiss That Missed By David Melling Hodder Children’s Books There’s a blurry borderline between some picture books and comics. And it’s one that’s blurring more and more as both genres find new ways to tell stories and as more and more publishers in the book field embrace comics as a way of delivering a [...]

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