mikeshearules

I was driving around earlier today delivering posters and cards for the Saltwater Weather/Eyeworks event. At some point I got in the car, turned the ignition, and the radio came on and I thought: "I know that voice." Turned out it was Zak Sally talking to Euan Kerr about the new Xaime show he just put up at MCAD. Listen here, and then book your flight if you haven't already. The show is great and it's just the earliest rumblings of this giant freight train of awesomeness that is Autoptic.

vulgarauteurism:

Universal Soldier: Regeneration (John Hyams, 2009)

Gobanchô yûgirirô
Japan, 1963
Director: Tomotaka Tasaka
Starring: Yoshiko Sakuma, Choichiro Kawarazaki, Michiyo Kogure

1980 release printed with silver inks

Brosmind


Brosmind


Brosmind

guerlax:

sometimes my heart gets filled with joy

pic by Everton Nunes

todf:

from Vampirella #32.

And by that, I mean that he fails to celebrate striking out Omar Quintanilla, a .227 hitter. Obligatory Vine below.

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joemoc:

comiques:

a comic about visiting the sloth sanctuary in costa rica

view full size: Page One, Page Two

An *awesome* comic about sloths.

Baseball Card of the Week: Steve Sharts

Sigh, if only he ever made the Majors. We could have had headlines like: 

• "Sharts sputters out after 5 innings"
• "Messy appearance leads to Sharts exiting early"
• "Sharts lets ‘er rip" 
• "Sharts squeaks out a win"
• "After move to the bullpen, Sharts let loose"
• "Listen, as headline writer for this fine newspaper, I refuse to continue making Shart jokes every time Steve Sharts pitches, okay? Let me have some diginity." 

But if you want to know what actually happened in Sharts’ career, check out The Greatest 21 Days, the source of the image. 

UPD: We have received a number of proposals that we are discussing right now. Chances are high that public The Old Reader will live after all

Since we launched first public version almost a year ago up until March 2013 we have been working on The Old Reader in “normal” mode. In March things became “nightmare”, but we kept working hard and got things done. First, we were out of evenings, then out of weekends and holidays, and then The Old Reader was the only thing left besides our jobs. Last week difficulty level was changed to “hell” in every possible aspect we could imagine, we have been sleep deprived for 10 days and this impacts us way too much. We have to look back.

The truth is, during last 5 months we have had no work life balance at all. The “life” variable was out of equation: you can limit hours, make up rules on time management, but this isn’t going to work if you’re running a project for hundreds of thousands of people. Let me tell you why: it tears us to bits if something is not working right, and we are doing everything we can to fix that. We can’t ignore an error message, a broken RAID array, or unanswered email. I personally spent my own first wedding anniversary fixing the migration last Sunday. Talk about “laid back” attitude now. And I won’t even start describing enormous sentimental attachment to The Old Reader that we have.

We would really like to switch the difficulty level back to “normal”. Not to be dreaded of a vacation. Do something else besides The Old Reader. Stop neglecting ourselves. Think of other projects. Get less distant from families and loved ones. The last part it’s the worst: when you are with your family, you can’t fall out of dialogues, nodding, smiling and responding something irrelevant while thinking of refactoring the backend, checking Graphite dashboard, glancing onto a Skype chat and replying on Twitter. You really need to be there, you need to be completely involved. We want to have this experience again.

That’s why The Old Reader has to change. We have closed user registration, and we plan to shut the public site down in two weeks. We started working on this project for ourselves and our friends, and we use The Old Reader on a daily basis, so we will launch a separate private site that will keep running. It will have faster refresh rate, more posts per feed, and properly working full-text search — we are sure that we can provide all this at a smaller scale without that much drama, just like we were doing before March.

The private site?

Accounts will be migrated to the private site automatically. We will whitelist everybody we know personally, along with all active accounts that were registered before March 13, 2013. And of course, we will migrate all our awesome supporters and people who donated to keep the project running (if you sent us bitcoins, please get in touch to get identified). Later this week your account will get a distinct indication whether it will be migrated to the private site or not. If you see that message and believe that it’s wrong, or if all your friends are getting migrated and you are left behind — please, drop us a line.

Give me my data!

You will have two weeks to export your OPML file regardless of our decision. OPML export link is located at the bottom of the Settings page — use the top-right menu to get there. All posts that you saved for later by using Pocket integration will obviously remain in your Pocket account.

But you could…

For those who would like to start the usual “VC, funding, mentor” or “charge for the damn thing” mantras — please, spare it. We’re not in the Valley where it might be super-easy, and, after all, not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. We just love making a good RSS reader.

We really want The Old Reader to be a big and successful project, with usable free accounts. But this is not possible to achieve with what we have, so unless someone resourceful takes over the project and brings it to the next level, it is not gonna happen. We had over 2 000 new registrations after the blackout last week. This is amazing and sad at the same time.

If anyone is interested in acquiring The Old Reader and making it better, we are very open and accepting proposals at hello@theoldreader.com. We would be waiting for them for two weeks, supporting and maintaining The Old Reader as usual. Please don’t write us if you don’t have resources to maintain a site used by tens of thousands of people every day, or if you don’t know how you would improve The Old Reader. And please spare our time if you just want to buy the domain name and park a bunch of silly ads there — it’s not going to happen.

We value our community very much, and we will either pass the project to somebody who we know is going to take a good care of it, or we will switch it to private mode.

What next?

From one point of view, it’s not a big deal: “RSS is obsolete”, nobody died, we don’t owe anybody anything, you name it. Also, there are a lot of good readers around to choose from, a large part of them is smaller than The Old Reader and had not experienced growing pains of 80 000 daily active users in no time. But for us, it’s heartbreaking.

I will finally get back to work on my small studio — Bespoke Pixel — which has been run by my awesome partner all this time. Dmitry will keep being bright young software developer, making scalable and beautiful projects. Our team will stay together, and will keep working on making the private version of The Old Reader awesome.

We feel great responsibility for the project. We’d rather provide a smooth and awesome experience for 10 000 users than a crappy one for 420 000.

Sorry, each and everyone if we failed you. You are an incredible, supportive and helpful community. The best we could possibly hope for.

All the love,
Elena Bulygina and Dmitry Krasnoukhov

According to this video's introduction, Spencer Conn is six years old and hit five home runs in five consecutive at-bats, all on the first pitches he saw.

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scootermoto:

my dad made a skyrim character and named him dad

ungoliantschilde:

Bill Sienkiewicz - Blackthorne Publishing, Inc. Plates.

I have no idea what these are, except that they seem to be concerned with the “Nosferatu" film, Dracula in General, and Horror Stories. These are freaking awesome.

neat.

marigolds-sorry:

I really really needed this wow

baseballcardvandals:

looking for a BRAD but all i get is the PITTS.

I think it’s safe to say, put us in the pro butts column.

yitzus:

yellowdecorations:

I am not that into butts, but I know some people who are

👍

humungus:

Thunderball (1965), Artwork

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The only Marlins highlights worth posting are ones that involve Giancarlo Stanton or Jose Fernandez. This one involves both, and it is wonderful.

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evabru:

by Angie Wang

Dan made a ceramic spoon, vaguely shaped like the ugliest wiener ever…

intrapanel:

Walt Simonson self-portrait from 1975 and the surprising secret of his signature.

DC FIRST ISSUE SPECIAL #9

1975, DC Comics

Walter Simonson art

Check this out if you’re a comics artist.

comicsworkbook:

THE SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE

for COMIC BOOK MAKERS presents

the comicsworkbook COMPOSITION COMPETITION 2013

————————————————————————-

1st place  - $500 cash prize to the winner

2nd place - $250 credit at Copacetic Comics 

3rd place  - $100 credit at Copacetic Comics

————————————————————————-

Create a 16 page signature comic book narrative to the specifications outlined in my Correspondence Course for Comic Book Makers. (see below)

————————————————————————-

DEADLINE: SEPTEMBER 8th 2013

————————————————————————-

Say what?

Ok, ok, here’s the deal. Now that the Xeric grant no longer exists - there aren’t many institutions that offer cash rewards for making a great comic. Hell, even if you get a publishing deal in comics you aren’t guaranteed a cash reward. So, my online school, THE SANTORO CORRESPONDENCE COURSE for COMIC BOOK MAKERS is inaugurating an annual COMPOSITION COMPETITION to promote, well, competition amongst makers. This community - the small press comicbookmakers community - is sorely in need of a quest, a challenge, something to aim for on the calendar - like the Xeric grant deadline used provide. So I’m doing it. $500 bucks to the best 16 page signature comic book. Deadline is September 8th - so that when SPX rolls around the week after - the winner can do a victory lap around the room wearing the championship belt. Or yellow jersey. I haven’t decided what the trophy will be yet. Maybe I’ll make it like the Stanley Cup - and it’s always the same trophy every year - with the new names engraved on it. Sorry. Getting carried away.

Enough people know now that for my Correspondence Course I make all students use a grid to tell their story. I feel that using the grid is an essential step in understanding TIMING in making comic books. If you wanna play like Coltrane, you gotta learn your scales first. You gotta learn the rules before you can break the rules. And even if you are a master this is still a solid way to make comic books. Ask Jaime Hernandez.

Here are the specs: 

11 x 14 inch originals with a 10 x 13 inch live area. Eight (landscape oriented) panel grids for each page. No exceptions. Each panel will be 3.25 x 5 inches. Work may be in color OR black and white - OR - a combination of both. 

International students must use the same specs. No complaining.

Thats 14 pages of story plus two covers. Meaning seven spreads and a front and back cover. A 16 page signature. 

THE STORY MUST BE COMPLETE. SERIAL INSTALLMENTS of a longer narrative ARE NOT ELIGIBLE. Consider this an exercise in short story writing. I think the 16 page signature is ideal to contain a short story.

Photograph or scan your pages and post them on your tumblr AS SPREADS. If you don’t have a tumblr - make one just for this contest. No exceptions! No complaining! Also post the front cover as the lead image and the back cover as the final image. Follow this example by former student of mine and comicsworkbook starting forward superstar Andrew White. (link)

Email me - santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom - that you have posted your entry to your tumblr - complete with your name and title of the work in the text field LIKE THIS EXAMPLE - and I will reblog it on to the comicsworkbook site. I will be posting them - reblogging them - on comicsworkbook as they come in. The good, the bad, and the ugly. I will, however, only be posting stories that stick to the RULES. If you don’t follow the rules, I will not reblog the story and you won’t be eligible for the cash prize.

comicsworkbook has over 6000 followers now - so in theory just entering will help get your work seen and your name out there.

Any questions about the CAGE MATCH - please email me.

Competition is open to all. You do not have to be a former student of mine. Former students of mine ARE eligible to compete - however you must make a NEW 16 page signature. The signature that you made (or started but did not complete) for the course will not be eligible. 

Again, If you have any questions about the rules please ask. Better to ask and be safe than to be mad when I disqualify you over some missed detail. Seriously. Remember - 8 landscape oriented panels of 3.25 x 5 inches each -arranged in a grid - on a 11 x 14 inch page with a 10 x 13 live area. 14 pages - or 7 spreads. One front cover. One back cover. Check out the photo at the top of this post - and again check out Andrew White’s example on how to format your entry.

Remember! Email me - santoroschoolATgmailDOTcom - that you have posted your entry to your tumblr - I will reblog it.

You may enter as a writer/artist duo.

DEADLINE is Sunday September 8th at 11:59 pm EST

Winners will be announced on Tuesday Sept 10th at noon EST

please reblog this announcement

GOOD LUCK!

COMMONLY ASKED QUESTIONS:

I was thinking about entering and had a couple of questions. Sorry if the answer to these is super obvious, but I just wanted to make sure! In the template you posted, there aren’t any gutters between the panels; does the comic need to be set up that exact same way, or can it have a bit of a gap in between some of the panels like in the Andrew White example? I noticed some of the panels butt up against each other and some don’t; I think this might cause the panel size vary a tiny bit, so I wanted to know if that would be cool. One last question, this is real media only, correct? No digital art?

ANSWER: You can have gutters - and you can work digitally. However I still want you to draw it at 11 x 14 - don’t draw large and shrink it down - ideally you are drawing panels that are roughly 3.25 x 5 inches on the screen…