A publisher for "Cornered!"

(Click image for a really close view.)

Big news! In December, Nodin Press of Minneapolis is going to publish my anthology of In This Corner comics. I self-published the book this summer and sent it around to a couple real publishers. And Norton Stillman at Nodin decided to go ahead with a new edition!

Having a new print run was an opportunity to critique my original design and make it better.

There are just a few tweaks inside -- I've added some new comics, an additional introduction page and a few more entries in the index. But the biggest change is the cover.

I felt that, while I liked the original design, it didn't address the origins of the comics. The comics were first published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper. On newsprint the pristine computer-drawn lines make a nice contrast with the textured paper. And and a nice contrast with the visible halftone dots. When the cover drawing is perfectly printed on glossy paper using very tiny halftone dots, the final result looks a little too perfect. So I decided to try to bring some of the newspaper roughness back.

I scanned some blank areas of the Pioneer Press -- hooray for white space! -- and used those as a basis for the front and the back covers. I took the color tint areas of the original drawing out of Illustrator and plopped them into Photoshop. I applied the Pixelate > Color halftone filter. (The document is 250 dpi and the dots are 15 pixels in diameter) I put the dots on top of the newsprint scan and set the layer to Multiply -- so the newsprint texture would soak through.

Then I brought that picture back into Illustrator to be used as the background for the black line drawings and the type.

Linda Koutsky also consulted on the design. Linda, among many other things, designs books for a living at Coffeehouse Press. She had a few suggestions. She said the book needed a subtitle. So I did one. She also said that it needed an author photo and short bio for the back of the book.

I did what she suggested and, doggone it, now it looks like a real book. (Pioneer Press co-worker Ben Garvin took the author photo.)

Look for "Cornered!" soon at your local bookstore!

I go Ross Thomas

It's election time and one of the striking lawn signs is for Pat Igo.

Igo's name makes me think of one of my favorite authors, the late Ross Thomas. One of Thomas's books, "The Seersucker Whipsaw," is about political campaigns. Specifically about an American advertising/public relations firm running a political campaign in a small African nation. The cynicism of the characters -- and of Ross Thomas -- is breathtaking. Anyway, a slogan for one of the candidates, Sunday Akomolo, is "I GO AKO." The cover of my copy of the book highlights the phrase.

Which brings me back to Pat Igo's lawn sign and Igo's Web site address: igo4education.org. Whatever disagreements I may have with Pat Igo's positions on education, his signs and Web site address always bring a smile to my face.

Those awful, spendthrift educators!

A sign attached to the fence of a pretty nice house on Summit Avenue in St. Paul.

I don't understand the animosity toward public education. Training future adults the ins and outs of useful employment and citizenship seems to me to be a good thing. Worth paying for.

I like the drawing of the pig, though.

Teasing ad

There's a teaser ad out now for a new Android-operating-system-based-phone. The new phone is the Verizon Droid. The ad's slogan "Droid does" features a mix of upper- and lowercase letters that is difficult to parse. The lowercase "r" in particular doesn't make sense in this context. But the lowercase "r" is the star letter, so that has to stay.



So, I fixed the "d" letters. Left the "e."



But that's maybe a little too much, so I just fixed one "d" and left the rest. I think this is a huge legibility improvement. And the cute little eyes or fangs or whatever under the "r" are left intact.

Stuart M. Kaminsky

Stuart M. Kaminsky, an author I admire, died last week. Age 75.

Although I'm sad there will not be any new books by him, he wrote a heck of a lot of books. His obituaries mention "more than 70" books. And I haven't read them all yet. So I have to thank him for his astonishing productivity.

He wrote mysteries. Four different series, basically.

Toby Peters mysteries set in 1930s-40s Hollywood. The detective does work for movie stars. For a fan of old movies these are wonderful. Kaminsky was an expert on movies -- he taught university classes about film in Chicago and Miami -- and his love of movies is obvious in the Peters books.

Abe Leiberman mysteries set in Chicago. An old cop. I don't remember much about these books, but they are enjoyable.

Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov mysteries set in Russia. These are my favorites. So foreign and yet still recognizable murder mysteries. Full of insights into repression and bureaucracy.

Lew Fonesca mysteries set in Sarasota, Florida. A process-server who sleepwalks through his life. He's depressed. But it's not depressing to read because through his ability to solve problems he keeps acquiring friends.

One thing I have to mention here is how funny Kaminsky's books are. Even the ones set in depressing Russia and the ones about the old cop and the ones about the depressed guy in Florida. Funny!

For me, picking up one of Kaminsky's books is the start of a visit with cherished friends.

Thank you, Stuart M. Kaminsky.

Missreading

I was trying to come up with an insult for the new logo for the Sci-Fi Channel. Couldn't think of anything.


Then, out of the corner of my eye, I started misreading it -- as if there's a kerning error and the "r" is just too close to the "F." Here, I've "corrected" the kerning with a bad Photoshop job.

"Bicyclists Stop On [arrow, bike] For Green"

What does this mean? I'm assuming it means "Bicyclists should stop here on red," but that's not what it says. The pictures aren't helping. Spotted at a stop light on Hewitt where it crosses Snelling.

I think it works better at night

This guy is great

This guy -- Lunchbreath -- does the kind of stuff I try to do. But he does it really well. He posts his stuff not on a blog, not on a Web site but on Flickr.com. That's a cool way to go. People can comment. It's low maintenance. It makes for easy browsing. Good for images, not yack. Where was I? Oh yeah, go see this guy's stuff. Thanks to the always-inspirational Daughter Number Three for the link.

Adobe Illustrator error

Not that this is necessarily an Illustrator error, but it's the kind of thing I've done plenty of times while using Illustrator and FreeHand. You grab what you think are all the pieces of something and move them. And then you realize you didn't grab all the pieces. Sometimes you don't notice until the piece is printed. That is a bad feeling.

This error -- on the side of a beverage cup -- was made in 2001, according to the copyright notice. I've been to every Fair between then and now and this is the first time I've noticed it.



Unrelated note: The Minnesota State Fair has been trying out a new logo in the last couple years. More of a retro logo. I like it.

Bar code variation

This was on a green pepper. Note the double bar code! A regular sized one and in the middle one of those digital things -- but really tiny. The sticker is a half inch tall or so (around 12mm). Kinda relates to this earlier post about data matrix codes. Click on the image for a much larger view.

Pretty picture

Got a flat tire on my bike. Took the bike home on a bus that is not my usual bus. As I was walking my bike home from the bus stop, over a bridge, I saw this scene. Ooh! Had my camera so I took the picture. Would not have been on the bridge at all if my tire hadn't flattened.