Shoujo Manga and Me

Penguin recently posted a cover and details about my next book with manga-ka Tomoko Taniguchi: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Manga: Shoujo, Illustrated. This should be in stores on June 3. Before I started work on the book, I hadn’t dealt with a whole lot of shoujo manga (Japanese girls’ comics), mostly because as an American male narrowing in on …

Jones on Gygax

Jeremy Jones, who sometimes posts comments around these parts, recently had an article on Gary Gygax’s influence published in the Spartanburg Herald-Journal. It’s a nice bit of writing, and it features quotes from several industry folks, including Lisa Smedman, Doug Niles, Jared Sorenson, Harley Stroh, and myself.

Blood Bowl on the Game Screen–and Issue #2

The folks at Cyanide have a site up for the upcoming Blood Bowl computer game. There’s a slew of screen shots there, plus if you dig a little you can find a document that explains how the game works in more depth. I’m especially geeked by the fact you can play the game in two very different ways: A real-time …

Local (National) Politics, Set to Music

A group of locals here in Beloit got together and made a music video for the Barack Obama campaign called “It’s Our Time Now.” Rob Tomaro–music director of the Beloit-Janesville Symphony Orchestra–wrote the song, and Nicole Waters of the cover band the Orphans performs it. The song was originally created for a documentary, but when Obama spoke here at Beloit …

Scribe Nominees Announced

This year, I was one of the judges for the young adult (YA) categories for the Scribe Awards. from the IAMTW. The organization has just announced the nominees (and a couple winners), as you can see in the press release below. Congratulations to all the nominees and winners, especially to my pals Steve Sullivan, Tim Waggoner, and Paul Crilley.

Stackpole Rocks–No Joke

Last week, my pal Mike Stackpole revealed that he’s had an asteroid named after him. It’s known as 165612 Stackpole (2001 FP86). How very cool is that? Here’s hoping it orbits forever.