All the parts of my interview with Henry Jenkins have been posted now. You can find them here, here, and here. The latest, posted today, talks about a nod to the superhero genre that I playfully do in the book, as well as my slightly unhealthy obsession over architectural details in the making of the book! (But of course, you knew that from reading this blog regularly…!)
-cvj
So I usually do this joke when I’m in an elevator with someone who Is carrying a gift wrapped item or a bunch of flowers or similar. I do a pretend surprised expression and say “oh is that for me?!”, and receive a variety of responses from the person. Most usually get the joke. This guy, who turned out to be a delivery guy, smiled politely and said “not unless you are Dr. Clifford.” On the back foot, I paused, and then recovered with “er… actually I am!”. I got out my ID and showed it to him. We were both genuinely stunned by how this turned out. Nice little lift after a really unkind day… #hoistedbymyownpetard #theardmore
-cvj
Just after waking up today I read Henry Jenkins’ introduction to an interview that he did with me, posted on his fascinating blog (Confessions of an ACA-Fan: about culture, media, communication, and more). I was overcome with emotion for a moment there – He is very generous with his remarks about the book! What a great start to the day!
I recommend reading the interview in full. Part one is up now. It is a very in-depth Click to continue reading this post
I went a bit crazy on social media earlier today. I posted this picture and:
There’s been a first sighting!! Aaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrgh! It EXISTS! It actually exists! In a bookstore (Cellar Door Books in Riverside)!
(But believe it or not a copy has not got to me yet. Long story.) http://thedialoguesbook.com (Thanks Flip Tanedo and Linda Sherman-Nurick.)
This is also a good way of mentioning that I’ll be doing a signing of the book at Cellar Door Books in Riverside, CA. Next Friday (17th November) at 6:00pm. More details here. That’s why the books are there. And then Linda, the manager, took this snap and sent it to Flip, and then he posted it as part of a comment on a FB post of mine and then I went a bit crazy with delight and relief because all I’d been hearing about was printing delays and moved release dates…
-cvj
In another universe, this post has me holding the physical book, finally, after 18 years. In this universe however, there have been delays, and I’m holding this card showing the cover instead. But in 11 days let’s see! Pre-orders are enormously helpful. If you’ve already got a copy, thanks. But it’s gift-giving season coming up, so… Or just please share this post to others who might be interested in science and/or graphic books! Thanks. Ordering info, a trailer, and ten sample pages are here: http://thedialoguesbook.com
-cvj
Kent Devereaux @NHIAPres took this at Poptech
I’ve been a bit pulled hither and thither this last ten days or so. I was preparing and then giving a couple of talks. One was at (En)Lightning Talks LA, and the other was at PopTech (in Camden, Maine). I was therefore a bit absent from here, the blog, but very present on social media at various points (especially at PopTech) so do check out the various social media options in the sidebar.
In both cases, the talks were about my work on my familiar (to many of you) theme: Working to put science back into the general culture where it belongs. The longer talk (at PopTech in Camden Maine) was 15 minutes long or so, and I gave some introduction and motivation to this mission, and then used two examples. The first was my work on science advising for movies and TV, and I gave examples of what I consider good practice in terms of how Click to continue reading this post
This is the first in a short series of posts about some favourite podcasts I’ve been listening to over the last year and a half or so.
This episode I’ll mention Comics Alternative, Saturday Review and Desi Geek Girls.
But first, why am I doing this? The final six months of work on the book was a very intense period of effort. That’s actually an understatement. There has been no comparable period of work in my life in terms of the necessary discipline, delicious intensity, steep learning curve, and so much more that is needed to do about 200 pages of the remaining final art needed to complete the (248 page) book. (While still doing my professoring gig and being a new dad.) I absolutely loved it – such challenges are just a delight to me.
I listened to music a lot, and discovered a lot of old parts of my music listening habits, which was fun (I’d have days where I’d listen to (and sing along to) all of Kate Bush’s albums in order, then maybe same for Sting, or Lee Morgan…. or scream along to Jeff Wayne’s awesome “War of the Worlds” Rock musical.) But then I got to a certain point in my workflow where I wanted voices, and I reached for radio, and podcast.
Since I was a child, listening to spoken word radio has been a core part of Click to continue reading this post
No, not the new Black Panther trailer, not the new trailer for The Last Jedi (although those are awesome)… No, this is a trailer for the book. You get to look inside for the first time:
I may make a second trailer soon. The book appears mid-November. More at http://thedialoguesbook.com
Adding sound to a…book trailer!! To appear soon. So you’ll get to look inside the new book!
-cvj
#thedialoguesbook #sketching #drawing #sketches #graphicnovels
Over on Instagram – follow me there @asymptotia for lots of activity – I showed a couple of montages of sketches I did on the flight out to New Orleans and on the return portion. It is a bit of practice I like to do, which I have not done in a long time. It is part of the practice I did a lot when I was gearing up to do final drawing on the book:
It’s time for a visit to the kitchen. This time the result was a spontaneous coconut tart, made from childhood memories… (and a bit of pastry). Here are two composite photos and their captions (from my instagram account) to tell the story:
Today’s Nobel Prize in physics has an interesting wrinkle to it. I summarised it in the extract above from a certain forthcoming book*. Click for a larger view. Congratulations to the winners Rainer Weiss, Barry C Barish and Kip S Thorne! There are some excellent descriptions (either for layperson level or more technical level) of the physics and its history at the Nobel Prize site here.
-cvj
*(Pre-order a copy while they’re hot!)
Just for a while there it felt good and simple to be sitting at the drawing desk again, pencil on paper… but the moment passed all too quickly and I had to get back to a million things. (Was taking some photos of myself at work for a news piece…) #thedialoguesbook #sketching #drawing #comics #graphicnovel
-cvj
This is from just after I gave the opening welcome address at the first Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities ( #LAIH ) luncheon of the new season. After talking amongst ourselves we had a great talk by Jeff Manaugh @bldgblog entitled “A Burglar’s Guide to Los Angeles”. Based on his book of a similar name. Architecture meets burglary – what a great topic!
-cvj
Wow, I’ve really got something good for Throwback Thursday! A large white envelope arrived in my mailbox*, addressed to me in handwriting. My first thought was that it was yet another sheaf of papers with someone’s very earnest “Theory of Everything”, helpfully sent along for me to discover that indeed the science world has “got it totally wrong”: the universe is in fact made of (fill in the blank – let’s say parmesan cheese?) which interacts via (hungry angels tethered together by fondue strands?) and so on and so forth, and all I have to do is “work out the math for me because it is not my strong point” and it’ll all work out… “you’re welcome”.
But no, it was not. I don’t open things like this without caution, for various reasons, and often I throw them away, but there was something strangely familiar about the writing and so I took it away to (maybe) open later.
Then it struck me. It was my handwriting! Huh? How could that be? Was I Click to continue reading this post
