Extremely Silly Photos of Serious writers!

The two I want to show here are of Ernest Hemingway kicking a beer can & Neil Gaiman with Chuthulu on his head. Click through for Colette, Proust, Mark Twain and others *grins* 

Here are pics via Flavorwire

Girl Genius! New book coming out

The most vibrantly coloured, vividly-told steampunk Webcomic out there - Girl Genius - is releasing book 2 in 10 days. 


Let the countdown begin!

I read this everyday, usually right after lunch - it is such a nice jolt to start the second half of the day with.


The store link - http://us.macmillan.com/girlgeniusomnibusvolumeone/PhilFoglio
Blurb: 
"The Industrial Revolution has become all-out war! Mad Scientists, gifted with the Spark of genius, unleash insane inventions on an unprepared Europe. For centuries, the Heterodyne family of inventors kept the peace, but the last Heterodyne disappeared twenty years ago, leaving their ally Baron Klaus Wulfenbach to maintain order with his fleet of airships and army of unstoppable, if not very bright, Jaeger Monsters. 

At Transylvania Polygnostic University, Agatha Clay dreams of being a scientist herself, but her trouble concentrating dooms her to be a lowly minion at best. When her locket, a family heirloom, is stolen, Agatha shows signs of having the Spark in a spectacular, destructive fashion and captures the attention of the Baron—and the Baron’s handsome young son, Gilgamesh."

Neil Gaiman and The Sandman novels/comics

The amazing Neil Gaiman is back with "The Annotated Sandman" - the first volume is out Jan 10th from Vertigo Comics.
If you haven't heard or read The Sandman comics yet - I would HIGHLY, highly recommend that you go find them at your nearest library right now. I would say book store or library, but they were always too expensive for my then-student's pocket.
Blurb from The Sandman: 

Meet the Endless, a family of immortals that govern all aspects of life and death throughout the universe. However, one of theirown lays captured--Dream, the Lord of Sleep. As Dream makes his escape and returns to his duties after 70 years of imprison-ment, he encounters countless characters from myth, legend and comics, from Lucifer himself to the tragic Greek hero Orpheusto the HELLBLAZER John Constantine.

Right. The blurb tells you nothing.

It doesn't say that the Sandman graphic novels are amongst the most creative works of art you will ever see, anywhere. Just wait till you get into Book 2, and begin to see the genius of the story and characters!


The Annotated Sandman will do a page-by-page discussion on each Sandman comic. The first three pages are available here at tor.com, and we get a sense of the crazy detail and historical references that the Annotation covers.
Read this only after you read Sandman, this would be a great second/third read of the Sandman comics.