Tuesday Photo: leaves of grass

Dinosaurs, Underpants, Ends Of The World

Dinosaurs

Recently, Dinosaur Comics had Guest Week. Of the five that appeared, I liked very much David Malki !’s one. [via Dinosaur Comics] The hat was a great touch.

The other one I really enjoyed was John Campbell’s. [via Dinosaur Comics] If you don’t know already, he does pictures for sad children, which I enjoy very much, and his rendition of the dinosaurs was absolutely adorable.

There are Rilakkuma products of every sort…

I saw condoms in Japan.

And here is Rilakkuma underpants. [via poupéegirl]

Aww, No

David Tennant will be leaving after four more Doctor Who specials. [via io9] I’m only midway through his second season, but he’s been one of the best Doctors so far, and it really makes me sad to see him go. But in any case, job well done, Mr. Tennant, and I look forward to whatever project you’re moving on to next.

The End Of The World

The Elegant Variation wants you to know that the apocalypse is coming. [via The Elegant Variation]

Blotchmen

Blotchmen is a short comic by Kevin Cannon featuring Roscharch of Watchmen fame, Harold from Harold and the Purple Crayon, and the kid from Where The Wild Things Are. [via Freshman For Life] I thought it was pretty excellent work.

Ubuntu

Intrepid Ibex (8.10) has been released. [via Ubuntu]

Gaming Academia

Danc of Lost Garden has posted up slides to a talk he did on building an application that rescues princesses. [via Lost Garden] Worth a look, as with practically all the stuff in Lost Garden.

What?!

People here appear to have no idea who Arsène Lupin is, so here is a wiki link. [via Wikipedia]

This reminds me that detective fiction is conspicuously absent from my library. Actually, I was first reminded of this because of some other incident. In any case, I should be hoping to start it off soon, no doubt with some Chandler and Chesterton.

Fun

Sackboy needs your support! [via Proposition Pluto]

On the other hand, LittleBigPlanet is pretty hilarious and ridiculous fun. I’m extremely amused by it. Good, good stuff.

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Happy Birthday, Hello Kitty

Yes, it’s 1st November, which is Hello Kitty’s birthday. She is 34 this year.

Don’t ask me why I put this up.

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Business As Usual

On Singapura

Singapura is quite a different undertaking from The River. With The River, I had an ending in mind, right from the beginning. The whole story was developed from that ending sequence. The things that had to happen, the themes, the characters… Everything took root from the ending. Over time, I had a discernible plan and satisfied with most of the details, I just dove in and let it rip.

Singapura feels quite removed from that type of developmental process. For one thing, it certainly involves a greater depth of ideas, most of which I don’t yet have. It has a significantly greater degree of complexity, in the sense that it’s not so straightforward and not so one-track-mind-ish. I kind of know what I want to do in the ending sequence (again, yes, development began with an ending), but it’s far from clear how I’m going to go about it. The ending, I mean; I’m not even worrying about the lead-up yet.

I’m going to allow a longer gestation period. I have a few months to spare, I think. I’ll try writing here and there, but I expect quite a few false starts. All part and parcel, I suppose. I think the best I can expect at this time is just a bunch of useable fragments. I’ll worry about the actual writing later.

In the meantime, I’ll be hoping to settle on a firm plan. A solid outline of the story, for one. Requirements in form, for another. Concepts and themes, and all that stuff will come along the way. For now, I just have a bunch of characters, and I’m still wondering how they’ll interact. We’ll see.

On The River

I’ll be going back to work on The River soon, with the intention of producing a third draft. After staying away for these weeks, I get the feeling that I’ll be extending it a bit. The big idea is basically to provide it with more body. There are parts that are perhaps far more direct and bare than I had originally intended them to be, whatever the reason, so I’ll be looking to fix that. There are a couple of thematic items that I would also like to reinforce, and I’ll see how things work out as I go along.

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