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As some of you may be aware, I know a thing or two about collectible comic books. Because of that knowledge, last month I was asked to write a large piece about collectible comics for a magazine from the UK called Rare Book Review. Well, apparently it's out now and to my surprise my little article is the cover story:

I'll have the article itself up on my comics site soon and I'll be sure to link to it when it goes live.

For those of you that don't use the site, they have this "People you may know" feature on LinkedIn, which basically suggests people who you might know and, presumably, want to connect with. It's occasionally spot on and I've connected with a couple of people by scanning their list of suggestions. Thing is, there's this one guy that keeps showing up on the list that I absolutely hate (one of the two people I've ever worked with in the field that I actually hate) and none of the "no, I don't want to connect with this guy" options are strong enough for my liking. I'm tempted to use firebug to edit the HTML add my own and see what happens:

Names blocked out to protect the innocent

So sayeth the IEblog:

IEBlog : IE Automatic Component Activation Now Available

The IE Automatic Component Activation (IE ACA) update is now available as part of the April 2008 Internet Explorer Cumulative Update. The "click to activate" behavior, formerly required for ActiveX controls embedded in some webpages, is now permanently removed from Internet Explorer. For detailed information on IE ACA, see our blog post from last November announcing this update.

This update replaces the IE ACA previews released in December 2007 and February 2008.

Which means I can stop using SWFObject and just dump Flash into the page like I used to way back when. SWFObject is really a nice piece of code, but I'm a lot happier when I'm not relying on JavaScript for something as basic as getting Flash embedded into a page. It's just an added layer of complexity and an extra download* that I don't need in my life and I'm damn glad to be rid of it.

Want an example of the complexity I'm talking about? check out this post I wrote a few months ago:

Belt and Suspenders- Flash Embed With SWFObject and Conditional Comments

While it works, it's WAY too complicated for anyone's good.

*although I do wrap all JS into a single file now, just appending SWFObject to the bottom of the file. Even doing that it adds a few KB to the download, so even in a single file situation it's overhead I'd rather be rid of…

Any dramatic chipmunk tattoos out there? Internet, please say yes.

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things Another fine book from one half of the Nielsen Norman Group, this dimension's usability overlords. As with The Design of Everyday Things, Norman presents complicated, thought provoking, research based findings in an easily digestible, pleasant manner. There's a lot to be learned from Norman and with his easy writing style he makes it all so accessible. Bravo stuff.

My one complaint is that Norman goes off for about sixty pages about robots. I love robots as much as the next guy (who grew up on Star Wars, sci-fi novels and a Scientific American subscription) and even I got a little tired of reading about robots after a while. My girlfriend, who's ahead of me on our design/user experience reading list says she put The Design of Future Things down because it was all robots, all the time. I'm probably going so sneak it down to the bottom of the pile, at the very minimum.

Okay, ignoring my day job and an ongoing freelance project, the following things are happening to me this month:

• I've got an article coming out about collectible comics in a magazine called Rare Book Review. Something like 2000 words, which is the longest piece I've had published in a long, long time (this place doesn't count )
• I'm going to be interviewed this Thursday by Big RED & Shiny: An Art Journal. It's a graffiti thing. I'm not sure of the details at this point. More info as I get it.
• I'm going to be a panelist April 15 @ Social Apps and Widgets: Building a Social Application for a Top Platform
• I'll be showing paintings at the Future Arts 2008 Art Exhibition April 19th
• The very next week, on the 26th, I'll be showing paintings at the Legends of Style, Boston event. For those of you keeping track I'll have three new mythology paintings done in a large (for me) scale.

Busy month!

The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

This is a fun, fascinating documentary about the quest for the world Donkey Kong record. Well crafted, creative and thoroughly enjoying, King of Kong is a perfect example of why documentary format can so rewarding. It's a well worn phrase, but it really is true that you can't make stuff like this up. Simplifying the real life race for the record (and some associated milestones) down to a two man battle between good (Steve Wiebe, a math and science teacher from Washington) and evil (Billy Mitchell, douche) the film presents a compelling ninety minute view into the disparate lives of the two contenders and the world of competitive, classic gaming.

My site was born ready for CSS Naked Day.

Check the hot, naked screen captures

I'll let YouTube tell the story:

Another Entry in the Shamless Self Promotion Category:

Future Arts 2008 Art Exhibition

FUTURE ARTS 2008 @ The Boston Center For The Arts
539 Tremont Street Boston, MA
Saturday, April 19, 2008 // 8PM - 1AM

Future Classic, UFO HEFEWEIZEN & PABST BLUE RIBBON Present:

FUTURE ARTS 2008

Future Classic is proud to announce the official launch party for its latest art brand, FUTURE ARTS on Saturday, April 19, 2008! Come witness the future of urban artwork in America as over 25 artists from North America converge onto The Boston Center For The Arts for one night only on SATURDAY, APRIL 19.

Featuring the following artists:
Alphabet Soup, Alone1, Andy Regan, BIGFOOT, Brian Butler, Canneen Canning, Chas Reed, Damion Silver, Dana Woulfe, Darryl Blood, Dave Tree, Ed Thomas, Enamel Kingdom, Fish McGill, Ivan Cofield, Jessica Hess, Kenji Nakayama, Kim Harris, Kyle Bryant, Lichiban, Lisa Gilman, Lizmatic, Mike Howard, Mitchell Mano, Patrick Pollard, Peter Moscaritolo, Rebecca greene, Rob Larsen, Sara Theophall, Shayna Shenanigans, Sho Murase, Steph Love, Yuko Adachi

DJ’s FRANK WHITE and MS.THANG!

Show begins @ 8PM and ends @ 1AM. Must be 21 or older to attend this event.

- 7PM - 8PM VIP reception sponsored by UFO HEFEWEIZEN (valid for the first 200 advance ticket purchasers only)

TICKETS ARE ONLY $10 IN ADVANCE!! (plus $2.00 ticketing fee) $20 @ THE DOOR. Tickets are non-refundable.

I'm doing some new individual letters for this show- hopefully ten or more small canvases.