Patterns
August 31st, 2009
Just a footnote really, but it reminded me how much the Web has enabled us to find patterns in the world that surely would have gone unnoticed just a few years ago…
Some of you might remember this post where I compare and contrast comics by Lisa Hanawalt and Laurie Sandell. I just found out a parallel between the two authors that I couldn’t have known at the time: both authors have parents from Argentina.
How do I know? ‘Cause Lisa’s Mom just emailed me.
And this after going for a walk yesterday and being told via Twitter that someone else’s Mom has been talking to author Bill McKibben about going to Sunday school with me almost 40 years ago.
How many years, I wonder, before the Great Internet Coincidence Database hits critical mass?
Posted in Thoughts
March 3, 2021
A post that has nothing to do with your post about these two good authors here, Scott.
I read Will Eisner’s graphic novel Life in Pictures recently and your introduction to it was one of the best intros I’ve ever read. It inspired me to start on comics again, with a fresh mind and attitude.
Eisner is an extremely inspiring artist, it gives me hope even if I am 20 now, I can still be the best I can be if I am at the same age as Eisner when he started on this book. Plus his art is something to die for. As usual for Eisner when it comes to the younger generation of artists, I’ve taken some influence from his oeurve which is a high privilege… every artist with the exceptions of Herriman, Toriyama, Caniff, Moore and Kirby as well Crumb doesn’t come close to his skill and innovation in comics. 🙂
Whew, got that off my chest!
Hey
For some reason my LHS English teachers were uniformly dreadful, but I did get exposed to Amy Lowell’s “Patterns,” and that likely had the greatest influence of anything that happened to me in school.
http://classiclit.about.com/library/bl-etexts/alowell/bl-alowell-patterns.htm
Have you ever explored the “poetry” category on our site? My latest effort there (after the book review) is a free format / free verse about algorithmic trading and co-location (rather limited audience appeal that).
Anyway, the reason I dropped by today in particular is I just saw that a comics industry piece is presently Google News Business’ top story:
“Mickey Mouse to buy Spider-Man: Disney offers $4 billion for Marvel”
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/spider-man-in-mickey-mouses-web-2009-08-31
I thought MarketWatch’s earlier headline (saved by Google) was better 😉
“Spider-Man in Mickey Mouse’s web”
I saw that too, and it makes me very nervous.
The good: Disney will do a better job at creating comics more appropriate for younger readers.
The bad: There are so few media companies out there. This might be paranoid, but every time a Viacom or a Newscorp eats up another company I feel like more and more information is being controlled by less and less people. That, and I hate Disney.
That is a better headline
I’ve not seen that poem before. Interesting.
I had slightly better luck with LHS teachers, but then 10 more years of brainy invaders to Lexington probably helped.
Well I can’t claim to have have gone to school with you but my mother did teach a natural childbirth class that your mother attended before you were born & I always thought that counted for something!
I just had an image of a Baby Scott McCloud avatar. Sorry everybody.
[…] in today’s news, I was surprised to find a second post about me on Scott McCloud’s website. Scott McCloud is the author of Understanding Comics and Making Comics, two books that are Bibles […]
Ha!
Been doing taxes today and decided to check back on this thread only to find even more patterns (many of them family-related) showing up and mutating before my eyes.
Very cool. ^__^
It’s like you’re the Kevin Bacon of comics
After Scott’s tour, I doubt there’s a comic book artist in North America more than two degrees away.
Scott, did you know that Alice’s Erdős number was 3? Not bad for a kid with an English degree.