THIRTEEN BOOKS I PICKED UP AT EMERALD CITY COMICON (in no particular order)

1. Wet Moon book 1: feeble wanderings by ross campbell - I finally found the first volume of this book after seeing the second volume at Zanadu forever. The art is AMAZING. I'm not much into goth, but it's seductive in this book. The story is good enough I want to read the second one now.

2. Banana Sunday by Root Nibot & Colleen Coover - Cute. Kinda pointless. I wanted to like it more than I actually did. The duo also has a porn book that I think I'd rather have picked up. Go-Go does rock though.

3. drunken MOMENTS by drunkenmoments@comcast.net - I was drawn in by a poster the artist had of the "Aflac" duck standing over a dead body asking, "Aflac?" The comic was $1. It's nothing special, but I did get a manga portrait of myself out of the deal.

4. For Your Safety: Matrimony Comfort Guide by John Aegard and Molly Friedrich - This might be the best thing I picked up at all of Emerald Con. It's a guide that teaches you the correct behavior at weddings. Any guide that includes a detailed description of the use of Optimus Prime on a wedding cake, correctly and incorrectly, has got to be good. Oh, and they had a flaming toilet on their table at the con. I initially bought it for my sister as she is getting married at the end of May, but it's so cool I want to keep it for myself.

5. Conversation #2 by Jeffrey Brown and James Kochalka - I heart Jeffrey Brown, but I am indifferent to James Kochalka. I haven't made any definite judgments as I need to check out more of Kochalka's work. This is OK - it's a discussion on art and life and the meaning of art in life...if you're a fan of either or both I'd recommend it.

6. The Elves of Iax #1: Finding Lorgo by Jeremy Kayes - What to say about this book? The author/artist grabbed my attention at the con immediately by wailing, "I don't exist!" and I bought the book off his chutzpah alone. It's a webcomic, the art could be better, but it's an interesting idea, and I would read the next book if there is one. There were some funny lines and if anyone can sell this book, this dude is it. Good luck Mr. Kayes!

7. Will You Still Love Me If I Wet the Bed by Liz Prince - The female Jeffrey Brown. Funny and sweet, small snapshots of everyday life and intimate conversations. I was very happy to find this book and will happily purchase anything else Liz Prince puts out.

8. The West Seattle Middle School Comics Class Giveaway Sampler - I picked up a sampler last year and did so again this year. I love these things. Typically there will be a few gems in each one, although each one is fascinating in its own way, and this was no exception. Each student draws a page, and styles differ dramatically. The back cover featured a manga style with a dark spot labeled "emo corner," and another student drew herself and friends as cats "because I can't draw humans to save myself" although she draws humans certainly better than I can a panel later. Greg Hatcher of Comics Should Be Good! teaches these kids, and to him I say, "THANK YOU!" I wish my brother went to school up here instead of San Diego. He would have LOVED this sort of thing.

9. Feeble Attempts by Jeffrey Brown - Frinklin asked me the other day, "Would you leave me for Jeffrey Brown? Of course not." I told him. I lied.

10. Lost Souls in Love by Steve Rolston - This was originally a 24-hour comic. A sweet little story.

11. The Cat With a Really Big Head and one other story that isn't as good by Roman Dirge - Wrong. Then wronger. But always funny. I've been eyeing this book for a few comic-cons and never bought it for some reason. But thank God I finally did. It makes me laugh every time I did. Magic lung beasts...? Haha. I think I just made a poopies.

12. Lions, Tigers, and Bears TPB #1: Fear and Pride by Mike Bullock and Jack Lawrence - A really wonderful idea executed very, very well. This is the type of comic that I enjoy reading, but could just as easily give it to someone who is 12 years old and have them enjoy it equally well. The art is fantastic, the writing is solid, and the characters are sweet and likable. Who didn't grow up believing that their stuffed animals had some life in them? Or maybe still do?

13. The Virgin Project: A Collection of True Stories by K.D. Boze and Stasia Kato - I paid $5 for this self published work, which I think is a cool idea, but I nearly fell over when a guy at the table I bought it at said, "Yeah, it's a neat piece. People are comparing it to Maus." Seriously? Maus??! A Pulitzer prize winning work about the horrors of the holocaust? I was relatively disgusted at that moment, and I'm afraid it's colored my opinion of this book. Anyway, you can participate in The Virgin Project by going to the link above.

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. A Gentleman's Domain
2. Desert Diva
3. (leave your link in comments, IÂ’ll add you here!)

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At King's Books the other day I was able to pick up my button for Tacoma Reads: The Pact. If you aren't familiar with Tacoma Reads Together, you should be.

Tacoma Reads is a program created after September 11th, 2001. From the Tacoma Public Library website:

In the aftermath of the tragic event of September 11, 2001, Tacoma educator Patrick Erwin sought a way to bring the Tacoma community together to talk about the issues which appeared to keep the community apart. Remembering What if all Seattle read the same book?, a project begun by Seattle’s Nancy Pearl, Erwin met with Mayor Brian Ebersole and others to suggest that perhaps Tacomans should be encouraged to come together to read, reflect upon, and then respond to the ideas and issues raised by one good book – one book which the entire community would be encouraged to read and discuss. In short order, Tacoma Reads Together was born.

The rest of the Tacoma Reads Together history can be found here.

The 2007 Tacoma Reads selection is The Pact by Drs. Sampson Davis, George Jenkins and Rameck Hunt. This is the inspiring true story of three young black men from the projects in Newark, New Jersey. All three were chosen to attend University High School, a magnet school in the city. As they bonded together as friends, the three made a pact to graduate, and go on to become doctors. All three succeeded.

I was lucky enough to meet all three doctors at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students (ABRCMS) in 2003. They were the keynote speakers and I was running the books sales for the event. I sold 600 books in less than 2 hours. The line wrapped around the room. Their story wasn't just amazing, they were great speakers, and they stayed afterwards to meet with every single person (1000 people attended the session) who wanted to shake their hands.

There is also a version of The Pact written for younger readers called We Beat the Street.

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1 Altoona's April book is "To Kill A Mockingbird."

Posted by: Eden at April 05, 2007 02:41 PM (BDCWt)

2 I have never read "Mockingbird". I really should. I'm reading "Emma" right now. Considering I work in a bookstore, there are a number of classics I have shamefully ignored.

Posted by: ensie at April 05, 2007 03:20 PM (6We+3)

3 Just skip the unnecessary background that starts on page 2 or 3 or so. It's dry and doesn't have an impact on the story. Then it'll hook ya.

Posted by: Eden at April 06, 2007 06:05 AM (BDCWt)

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I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I had joined Book Crossing, a very cool web-based community that allows you to register your books, tag them, and "release" them into the wild for others to find. I've released two books so far, one at the black water and the other at St. Helens Cafe.

Today I was rewarded - someone "caught" the book I released at the black water! Hopefully they will keep the trend going and once finished with Then We Came to the End will set it free in another public location.

You can check out other books that I have released, or are soon to be realeased by clicking the icon here:

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I'm supposed to be working right now, but I'm waiting for the doggie dental specialist, Dr. DeBowes, to call me back about Pharaoh. I dropped him off this morning for radio graphs and surgery on a couple of teeth that are still bothering him following his initial dental work.

With his being so old (nine? ten? older?) it's always a gamble to put him under, and I hate waiting for that call to let me know he's awake and doing OK. I felt much better about his being at the Met with Dr. Warren, even though Dr. DeBowes work out the the Emergency Animal Hospital here in Tacoma. Couldn't really be in safer hands. And Dr. DeBowes is an incredibly talented specialist.

Still...fingernails are chewed down to the nubs.

UPDATE: Pharaoh is out of surgery and awake. Pickup is scheduled at 4:30!

UPDATE: Pharaoh is home, asleep, sans two teeth. We are now sans the equivelent of one mortgage payment.

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Frinklin is starting a new blog all about the Tacoma Rainiers. No Rhubarb! is under construction right now, but should be fully up and running later this week.

I have a sneaking suspicion this is just to get us to more baseball games this year, but whatever.

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Frinklin and I stopped by King's Books on our way home from the Emerald City ComiCon to visit the Small Press Wayzgoose, which was quite fun.

There was paper-making going on outside and Kings was packed with people admiring the works of numerous talented Washington paper-smiths.

I purchased an incidental relation, a very cool handmade book about an almost unseen piece of furniture. I told the book-maker, Jenny Craig of Notta Pixie Press that it reminded me of Edward Gorey's book The Curious Sofa, in which various people perform "pornographic" acts around a stationary chiase. She informed me that she based it purposefully on that style, which you can see a sample of here.

I also had the opportunity to make my very own Beautiful Angle poster, and meet Lance and Tom in person. The guys said they were up late last night creating a new "Parking in Paradise" poster that is very cool. Hopefully it will be up at their website for purchase shortly.

A few shots from the afternoon, taken on the camera phone.

Handmade paper drying

Notta Pixie Press Table

Jenny Craig of Notta Pixie Press

My very own Beautiful Angle poster

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Perdi made her first trip to the dog park this week. Aside from being overly excited for the first half hour we were there and yanking my arm off, oh, and yapping until my ears bled, she did great. She leaped into the toxic swamp of a pond and require a bath, but avoided it like the plague after her one soaking. I think she didn't realize that it was actually deep enough to swim in.

Then she just curled up and looked as cute as possible.

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THIRTEEN THINGS I SHOULD BE DOING INSTEAD OF BLOGGING

1. Answering e-mails
2. Getting coffee like I promised my husband I would 30 minutes ago
3. Weeding the yard
4. Vacuuming
5. Returning work voice mails
6. Straightening my desk
7. Installing the USB peripheral switch so my laptop and desktop can share a printer
8. Checking my bank balance
9. Paying the comic book store the money I owe since I forgot my check book yesterday!
10. Picking up dog crap in the back yard
11. Checking credit scores before refinancing our home loan
12. Searching in vain for packing tape to send out several packages that should have gone out far earlier in the week
13. Enjoying the current actual sunshine instead of rain in the Pacific Northwest

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

1. Desert Diva
2. (leave your link in comments, IÂ’ll add you here!)

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This is a fun little thing:

Found at so anyway...

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Click the picture for a larger image.

Eh. Rather vague. I'm withholding judgment.

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Got a hold of the publicist for How Sassy Changed My Life today. There is a copy now winging its way to my doorstep as I type.

Mission accomplished.

It's really impressive the impact this magazine had on me as a teen, as well as on other women as they grew up.

January 1991 was the first issue I remember purchasing. I accidentally left the magazine at my grandmother's house. She called me the next day and offered to buy me a subscription, telling me, "I'd like to buy you a subscription of the magazine you left here. I looked through it and I liked it. I think it's a very good magazine for teenage girls." God, I miss my grandmother.

You can still purchase old issues of Sassy on eBay for pretty reasonable prices. I still have my originally purchased issue, other copies that were sent via subscription, and a few back issue copies I swiped from the trashcan of my friend's older sister while at a slumber party. I am sorely tempted to bid on the late 80s copies I don't have. Especially the premier issue.

When Jane Pratt, creator of Sassy, introduced Jane magazine in 1997, I was a charter-subscriber and bought gift-subscriptions for my sister and best friend, thinking it would be similar to Sassy. Was I wrong. Jane was exactly like every other bad teen/young adult woman's mag on the rack. I didn't renew any of the three subscriptions after the first year. What an incredible disappointment.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, however. I've found BUST. If you were a Sassy reader as a teen, and are looking for something to fill that void, BUST works nicely, er...not so nicely. Including regular sections as "Why Jane Sucks". BUST isn't afraid to be mean, more snarky, more, dare I say - sassy?

A perfect example of how Jane differs from BUST is here.

You can also check out Bitch magazine, if you haven't already. Bitch's tagline is "A Feminist response to pop culture." Bitch tends to be a little more rant-y and angry than BUST, but when that's what you're in the mood for, it's perfect.

Look for a review of How Sassy Changed My Life here soon!

UPDATE: Apparently, the owner of the "bad Sassy" died this past weekend. Check out the obit on How Sassy Changed My Life's website.

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The Making of Star Wars: The Definitive Story Behind the Original Film looks exceptionally cool. From Library Journal:

The film's history unfurls through interviews with Lucas, cast, and crew members offering both positive and negative remembrances, plus script remnants revealing the story's multiple incarnations. And that's just the appetizer! Half the feast-with heaps of dessert-are the never-before-seen production pix and concept art offering serious behind-the-scenes peeks fanboys live for (keep 'em coming!) Portions of this info have appeared previously, but never in such fine detail.

Only $75 - Available April 24th!

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One of the excellent perks of working for Bob's Hogs (holy Christ I almost typed the words "book biz" - shoot me now) is staying abreast of all the cool books that are coming out. Right now that means that I am beating on the door of the the publisher of this:

I've been trying to get an advance reader copy, without much success.

In 1995, I was lucky enough to be familiar with Ellen Forney's work from a collection of lesbian cartoonists, Dyke Strippers. I admired her art and thought she was very talented and funny. A few years later, Forney's collection of her "Seven in '75" comic was published in the form of a book, Monkey Food, and she toured in support. Toured right on down to the Bob's Hogs I happened to be working at in San Diego at the time.

I immediately spazzed. I was so excited. Until fate stepped in and demanded that something - I don't recall now what - force me to be elsewhere that evening. I do remember that I impressed strongly on my co-workers that they were to tell Ellen that I was very sorry I could not attend, as I was crushed (she was also very attractive and I believe we were both single at the time!).

Upon my return to work the following day I picked up my signed copy of Monkey Food and was very pleased to discover something special with her signature.

Jump to the here and now - Ellen Forney lives in Seattle and has a new book out, I Love Led Zeppelin, which is fantastic. She will also be at the Emerald City Comic Con next weekend, giving me a chance to finally say hi and embarrass myself in person.

Check out Ellen's blog and hey - still hot.*

*(A big thanks to my husband for being the understanding sort).

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1 I still have some of my Sassys. I find this post most impressive.

Posted by: Eden at March 23, 2007 07:33 PM (n1Ahm)

2 Thanks for the compliment. I have a box of all of my Sassy magazines - most from a subscription that my grandmother supplied when I was 13, a few others that were swiped from a friend's older sister. She had thrown them out and I stuck them in my backpack while spending them night. I still look through and enjoy them...

Posted by: ensie at March 25, 2007 04:44 PM (6We+3)

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Bed Races? Inspired by Frida Kahlo?!

Oh, I'm so there.

April 27th - Mark your calendars.

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If you haven't yet, make sure you visit the new Tacoma-centric site FeedTacoma.

Organized by several Tacoma bloggers (and especially Kevin Freitas), it's self described as "A community resource by people who live and love Tacoma." And it really is.

Check out the main page, the discussion board, photos, and the events about town.

Lastly, the "About" page includes links to several Tacoma bloggers - bothhands to be added soon!

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As I sat down at the computer this evening, I planned to check my e-mail briefly and then blog about the various adventures in animal husbandry in our household. But you can blame Violet for keeping me from posting an amusing story here tonight. She happened to send me a link to Good Reads, a website where you can list the books you are currently reading, have read, and would like to read. You can review them, comment on other's opinions, and the like. Suddenly it was two hours later and I rose, stiff after sitting immobile for so long.

I wish I could say that I listed nothing but tomes of immense volume and weight, immediately showing the level of sophisticated reading that I like to do. But the only thing that would come to mind was comic books. Tons and tons of comic books. If you look at my profile, it appears that all I read are comic books peppered here and there with a few animal stories. While I have been doing a significant amount of comic book reading as of late, and I admit that I've been on a Herriot-kick over the last couple of weeks, I do read other things. I swear. Now all I've got to do is waste a few more hours listing them all.

Anyone want to help me figure out how to make the sidebar on my blog large enough, or the parameters on this things small enough, to be compatible?

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Today we stopped at the open house for a gorgeous, 3-story Victorian house a couple of blocks away from our own house. The enormously high ceilings, flowing rooms, and seemingly endless amount of space were slightly depressing, but inspired a bout of cleaning that was greatly needed.

If you've got an extra $500K to spend, it certainly looks worth it (Most disturbing was the bathroom - almost as large as our master bedroom)!

I spent several hours cleaning up the book explosion from January that had overtaken the office after the ALA Convention. Instead of being smart and putting all of my catalogs (oh, so many catalogs) and hundreds of books in boxes immediately, I had left them in the flimsy, free bags that the vendors supply everyone with, and they had started to overflow and give way at the bottom, causing gradual lava flows of books and magazine-like products over the entire space. I would have taken pictures, but the state the room was in was just too embarrassing. Weirdly enough, our next-door neighbors have a perfectly elevated view from their kitchen through our office closet (?!) window. I'm sure they think we're huge slobs.

Now the books are boxed, and the majority have moved upstairs with the rest of our books that don't fit on our minimal bookshelf space. Our next house has got to have a library in it. In addition, the books from the Bob's Hogs Conference have also been sorted through, and I have four boxes of books to donate to charity.

What I'm really excited about is that I finally got registered on BookCrossing today. With the number of free books that I get from publishers and the number of books I have that I no longer need, I have more than enough to unleash upon the unsuspecting Tacoma public. I had no idea that you could even order Release Kits to put on your books to tag them as BookCrossing titles to make sure that people notice them and pick them up. Cool!

My first book release will be an advanced reader copy of Then We Came to the End by Joshua Ferris. It looks like the book release supplies should be coming from Sand Point, ID, so hopefully I'll get to set it free this week.

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It's getting to the point where I need one of these to drink coffee:

So convenient! Just strap it to your back and drink your 100 oz. of your preferred liquid.

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I feel like I'm so behind when it comes to learning about the city I live in. I've been seeing these posters here and there around Tacoma, but it took me weeks to finally figure out where I could get one.

Apparently I missed the holiday show in December, but will be on the lookout for future events.

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I have become addicted to the blackwater cafe.

I'm not exactly why it took me so long to go there, but now that I've walked through the front door, it's going to take a crowbar to get me out.

The coffee is delicious, it's not served scaldingly hot like some places, and there are books aplenty to read on the shelves in the back.

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