Disney Digital Books Webcast Now Online

A recording of yesterday’s 18-minute webcast discussing Disney Digital Books is now available for viewing via links on this page.

It requires Windows Media Player or RealPlayer for viewing.

Previously here:

Disney + Pixar + Marvel + Apple + iTablet

Respect The Artist!

I’d forgotten all about this until @alexmilway reminded me on Twitter.

John Kricfalusi, creator of the incredible Ren & Stimpy, has a blog.

Start with Hipster ‘Toon ‘Tude Retreat and be sure to also read Character Design as a job VS Character Design for Animated Cartoon Stories as well as More Of My Flat Period Crap and then Does Everybody Want To Be A Character Designer?.

Why does it matter that basically six corporations control just about all of the mass media? Why does it matter that capital formation in this country is tilted towards an elite? Why does it matter that everything seems to be given a reverse Midas Touch — turning gold into shit?

It’s all right there.

Kricfalusi’s blog is not a blog.

It’s the chronicle of an ongoing crime.

Previously here:

Pay The Artist!
TV’s Bonanza: With Charles Dickens
He Did Not Back Down

Pay The Artist!

why i am not afraid to take your money, by amanda fucking palmer

i am shameless, and fearless, when it comes to money and art.

i can’t help it: i come from a street performance background.
i stood almost motionless on a box in harvard square, painted white, relinquishing my fate and income to the goodwill and honor of the passers-by.

i spent years gradually building up a tolerance to the inbuilt shame that society puts on laying your hat/tipjar on the ground and asking the public to support your art.

i was harassed, jeered at, mocked, ignored, insulted, spit at, hated.
i was also applauded, appreciated, protected, loved….all by strangers passing me in the street.
people threw shit at me.
people also came up to me and told me that i’d changed their lives, brightened their day, made them cry.

some people used to yell “GET A FUCKING JOB” from their cars when they drove by me.
i, of course, could not yell back. i was a fucking statue, statues do not yell.

Go read this. Every single word. Bookmark it. Pass it on.

And now, again, Harlan Ellison:

Previously here:

TV’s Bonanza: With Charles Dickens
He Did Not Back Down

The 24hrBook Project

24hrBook Project

In collaboration with if:book, The Society of Young Publishers and CompletelyNovel.com, Spread the Word has commissioned The 24 Hour Book, a groundbreaking project to challenge a group of writers to write a new story about London in just 24 hours.

The project doesn’t excite me, but its web page does, hence this post.

Scroll down to see the FriendFeed widget, the Twitter widget, and the map.

I’ll have more to say about that in another post at another time.

eBook Notes For Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Originally I was going to drop the term “eBook” from the title, but I think people who see links to this at other sites would get all confused.

Hon Hai makes 80% of world’s e-books

Daniel Johnston iPhone App

Speaking to New York Times, Daniel Johnston said: “If they make it into a real video game, it might work out, I guess. I don’t even know what an iPhone is.”

iPhone App Store a “pile of rubbish” – Braben

“There’s a little bit of a ‘gate keeper’ thing with Nintendo which raises the bar very slightly because you’ve got to have dev kits, but that’s a good thing,” he said. “Look at iPhone; there are so many games that aren’t up to scratch, without being too negative about it. It’s very hard to find the good stuff amongst the rubbish.”

Singer-actor Tyrese invents comic book superhero

The third issue of “Mayhem,” which is downloadable from iTunes, is the first to go digital. It features an interactive version of a comic book with sound effects, page turns and even voiceover.

And tellingly:

There’s this digital revolution that’s out there but the comic book world has not embraced this digital revolution on a level that it should be embraced on. And so I reached out to my contacts and I set up a meeting … and this is my baby.

Boldface emphasis added by me.

And this classic:

CNN: Artist Jim Lee is very big in the comic book world. How did he get involved in this project?

Gibson: I found Jim Lee on Twitter … and we just kind of took it from there.

Manga version of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ a hit in Japan

The manga book describes both Hitler’s autobiography and his infamous Nazi manifesto in the unlikely form of easy-to-read comic pictures and captions.

Since it was published in Japan last November, its popularity has soared, with sales of more than 45,000.

More Metadata Problems in Google Books: Word Clouds
— I’ve been overdue in writing another metadata post, but this item is so important, I wanted it published now.