dominic hamon

My favourite moments of SDCC

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 13:19:30 -0700

Disclaimer: These are my personal favourite moments. There were almost certainly more interesting and exciting things going on at SDCC, and I certainly saw more and did more than is in this post, but I wanted to boil it down to the moments that meant the most to me.

Milo Manara

Mirto introduced me to Milo Manara shortly after we moved in together. He is an Italian artist and author who creates graphic novels of a provocative, even erotic, nature. I was surprised, given his usual work, to see a spotlight panel focusing on him at SDCC, and even more surprised that the man himself would be there. It turns out that he is working on a series of The X-Women and that Dark Horse are republishing his older works, and in some cases digitally recolouring them.

The Saturday spotlight panel, however, was so much more than just what he’s up to, and I am planning a whole post on that panel.

What was special was that on Sunday afternoon I had the chance to meet him, shake his hand, say “Grazie”, and have him draw on and sign the inside cover of Mirto’s favourite Manara book.

Templesmith

Ben Templesmith, artist, writer, and tentacle-lover, has been my favourite graphic novel artist since I first stumbled across Wormwood: Gentleman Corpse in my neighbourhood comic store. Being of a somewhat shy nature, I merely watched him paint from afar during the business of Saturday on the exhibition floor. I did, however, marvel at his clean shirt cuffs and tweeted as much.

Sunday morning on the exhibition floor is a welcome relief. With many of the attendees nursing hangovers, or steeling themselves for an afternoon of bargain-hunting, the floor was empty. I took this opportunity to have a nice chat (but sadly no cup of tea) with Mr Templesmith, and he remarked on having read my tweet from the previous day. I grabbed a copy of Fell and surprised him by telling him that I had read the Wormwoods but not Fell.

Just being able to have that one-on-one time with someone whose work, and dress sense, I admire without a crowd around me was a great way to start a Sunday.

Brian Froud

Around the time Labyrinth was released, a book named The Goblins of the Labyrinth was also released authored by Brian Froud and Terry Jones.

Each double-page spread has a painting in Brian Froud’s unique style, all coffee stains and watercolour, of a goblin. Or several goblins. Or some sketches of parts of goblins. On the facing page is a description of the goblin as written by Terry Jones, with all the surreal humour you would expect.

I think I was about nine years old or so at the time and it rapidly became my favourite book. It still is a book that I go back to every few months. I remember filling page after page of drawings of goblins and, while I don’t draw as much now, the combination of fantasy art and humour stuck with me and is one of the cornerstones of my taste spectrum, if there is such a thing.

I had the great fortune to speak to Brian and Wendy Froud on Sunday afternoon as they signed a Dark Crystal poster, and had the opportunity to thank him for the book and for inspiring me all those years ago.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25)

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 12:28:27 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-25):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

SDCC part 1

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 23:49:09 -0700

I arrived in San Diego!

The last couple of days at work have been agony as my twitter feed kept reminding me about all the awesome things I was missing. Finally today I got out of work and jumped on a plane. Two hours of listening to the two chaps next to me (an IT consultant and a hard-drive salesman) incessantly natter on about, well, hard-drives was irritating, but the flight could have been much worse.

I am now in my hotel room, which is enormous, a midnight and have spent the last thirty minutes trying to decide if i should hop downtown on the offchance that I can find a party to crash. I think I’m going to play the sensible card and skip tonight. I’m really sad that I missed the @geekgirls tweetup as i seems a great time was had by all, and they had a fantastic turn-out.

My plan is to get up early, figure out the light rail system, and get my convention badge. Then walk in to the convention center before being stunned and overwhelmed by it all. I will then proceed to miss all the panels I planned to see before finding somewhere to have an adult beverage in the evening.

Oh, and I will get a voodoo doll from LucasArts, dammit.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18)

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 23:04:31 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-18):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Please excuse this funk up

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 20:45:25 -0700

For a while now, I’ve been running on autopilot: Get up, see Mirto off to work, walk and feed the dogs, go to work, come home, sit with Mirto while she animates, go to bed. Rinse and repeat. Today, I’m taking back some control. “But how?” I hear you both cry. Well, since you asked so nicely, I’ll tell you.

But first, the “why”. I read this post at Hyperbole and a Half today. It rang true for me as it did for many people on my twitter feed¹ and it inspired me to get on with the things I keep reminding myself that I should do. The first things I did were simple take-control-of-your-environment things; cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the bathroom, insert boring adult responsibility here, etc. The next thing is sort out the work area of the apartment. For the third time in as many months. It’s an area of the apartment that never seems to come together until the month before we move out of an apartment. I thought that I had sorted it out once, but then we made the desk bigger so the two of us can sit together like the dorks we are.

So, once that is sorted out, I’m putting myself on a schedule to cover all the things I want to be doing but never quite get around to. I call it my “all the things I want to be doing but never quite get around to” schedule, or the ATTIWTBDBNQGAT schedule. My theory is that by putting it here, I’ll feel some sort of responsibility to see it through instead of just watching the reminders pop up before closing them without thinking. So without further ado, and I know you’re dying to see it, here it is:

Monday: Night off / Adult responsibility stuff
Tuesday: Coding / Development blog writing
Wednesday: Sorting stuff out / Personal blog writing
Thursday: Night off / D&D night
Friday: D&D blog writing

I reckon I can do this for at least a couple of weeks, right? Right?!

¹ Not a representative sample of the population, I know, but it’s the best I have.

Old Jersey

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 11:36:59 -0700

Old Jersey:

This is where I was born and grew up. It’s also why there’s a New Jersey. Thank you to @mental_floss for ensuring I have somewhere to point to when asked to explain.

Pulsate

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:34:40 -0700

Pulsate:

This little toy speaks to all the things I love - vision, dynamics and sound working together in a simple way. I can think of a few ways to enhance it, but I also respect its purity and simplicity.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-4)

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 03:30:23 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-7-4):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-20)

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 09:26:34 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-20):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

San Francisco crime rates mapped as elevations

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 16:52:36 -0700

San Francisco crime rates mapped as elevations:

I’m a sucker for fun ways to present data at the best of times, but this is presented particularly beautifully: Doug McCune has taken Crime rates in San Francisco and used them as elevations on a map of the city (via laughingsquid).

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-6)

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 12:58:37 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-6-6):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

Adidas, meet Star Wars

Fri, 04 Jun 2010 09:12:28 -0700

Adidas, meet Star Wars:

A really nicely made clip putting David Beckham, Snoop Dogg, Daft Punk and others into the Star Wars cantina.

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-30)

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 21:20:32 -0700

My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2010-5-30):

Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz

A neat video from MIT Tech TV on the often misunderstood...

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 13:13:26 -0700

A neat video from MIT Tech TV on the often misunderstood Coriolis effect (via @mirtos)

Thank you, Douglas Adams

Tue, 25 May 2010 20:31:00 -0700

It’s Towel Day so I feel compelled to write about the effect Douglas Adams had on my world view and my life. I’m certainly not alone in recognising his impact on the world and it delights me to be one of many who felt touched by his writing.

I received my first copy of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To The Galaxy (a trilogy in four parts) in 1984 when I was the ripe age of 7. I think I bought it during one of many regular trips to the book store that my parents would take me on.

I don’t think I have ever officially thanked them for that so I will take the opportunity now: I always looked forward to the times I could spend wandering the aisles and browsing through books, and I don’t remember a time when I didn’t leave the store with a purchase; frequently a Choose Your Own Adventure novel, and in later years Pratchett books. But back to Mr Adams.

The edition I have has a wonderful cover that is truly of its time: A heavily pixelated star field with the title and author’s name in computer generated extruded type.

I fell in love with the writing immediately. Nothing had so perfectly blended the absurdist humour that I’d inherited from watching Monty Python and listening to The Goons courtesy of my Dad with real characters that I could invest in. It set my imagination on fire in ways that even The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings had failed to do. Not that I love Tolkein’s work any less, but there’s something grounded in reality in Adams’ stories and characters that make them easier to get lost in.

The book rarely left my side and I devoured it in short order, and I have continued to revisit it every year since. Thanks to a recent purchase of a nook, I now have a copy on me at all times (next to my towel, of course).

It was another three years before I found another Adams book to love, which was Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. This was the book that introduced me to the notion that a book didn’t have to be high fantasy or science fiction to be compelling. By this time I had already started programming computers (I had just received an Acorn Archimedes 310) and felt a connection to Richard MacDuff and his Anthem software that converts corporate accounts into music is the basis for my continuing fascination with data visualisation.

Similarly, The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul released the following year introduced me to Norse mythology and Mostly Harmless a few years later encouraged me to pursue the beauty inherent in the perfect cheese sandwich.

I can trace so many influences directly back to Douglas Adams’ work that I must offer my heartfelt thanks, not only for all the fish, but to opening my young mind to a world of wonder, imagination, and absurdity.

To quote Dirk Gently himself, “I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.”