Author Archives: ghw

comic art at mizzou

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Well, this is news to me:

Since the late 1980s, the [Special Collections division of the University of Missouri-Columbia Libraries] has been involved in building a collection of cartoon and comic art that’s used by scholars, students and comic enthusiasts of all ages. The Comic Art Collection, which includes original comic strip art, animation cells, printed comic strips and books about cartooning and graphic novels, originated from a number of MU alumni, faculty and library staff members.

V. T. Hamlin, creator of Alley Oop and Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey and Hi and Lois, are MU alums. Art Stack, an underground cartoonist perhaps most famous recently for his work on Harvey Pekar’s Our Cancer Year, was on faculty in the MU art department.

independent booksellers online

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I’ve always been just a bit uneasy about linking to Amazon.com when mentioning a book on my blog. I often use the site when making my own purchases, but I also like to support independent booksellers and should make use of them more often. I mean, my own mother owns an independent bookstore, for Pete’s sake. Amazon is just so darned convenient, though!

Then I noticed that Beatrice linked to a site called Booksense, which describes itself as “a family of independent-bookseller websites.” It looks like once you become an affiliate of Booksense, you can provide links to their site that allow users to locate a local independent bookseller stocking the book you’ve mentioned. I’ll try to start using this site instead of Amazon.

By the way, if you’re ever in Newnan, Georgia and you need some metaphysical supplies, stop by my mom’s bookstore.

tuition and taxes

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Chuck reports that Georgia universities are seeking a 10% tuition increase. The four University of Missouri campuses have recently seen a 7.5% tuition increase approved . If this trend continues, eventually the amount of money contibuted by students will far outweigh the amount of money contributed by the state, which raises two important questions. First, won’t this situation undermine the goal of public education? Second, has anyone thought about how much worse the The student is the customer, and the customer is always right problem will become?

novel as software

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Via Slashdot:

LukePieStalker writes “Former English professor Eric Brown has published the first work in what he claims is a new literary category called the ‘digital epistolary novel’, or DEN. ‘Intimacies’, based on an 18th century novel, requires the DEN 1.2 software. The program’s interface has windows for mock e-mail, instant messaging, Web browser and pager, through which the narrative unfolds. For those wishing to create their own works in this genre, Mr. Brown is marketing composition software called DEN WriterWare.”

Also mentioned over at scribblingwoman.

webster house

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I’m going to a university event at the Webster House this afternoon, and since there’s a fancy-pants website, I thought I’d link to it.