Holiday Hangover 2012!

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday, cause now we're in for 352 more days of people freaking the eff out because they don't understand Mesoamerican culture at all!

So for the first post of this new year, let's see what I got for Christmas. The short answer is, I got tons of books. Which is fine for me, since, as has been established, I am a huge nerd.



I finally have a decent collection of MC Escher engravings, and I got the companion book to Imaginative Realism and the already-read-and-excellent Hark! A Vagrant! collection. Best of all might be Animal Anatomy; I can finally stop annoying the library since I have my own copy.



More art books! I am under good authority that the Don Hahn book is amazing, but I am curious as hell about the Terryl Whitlatch book and Disney Lost and Found.



My cousins got me a lot of hilarious little gifts. That mug in front has a neat hidden secret:



(The one off to the side is meant to be a Deinonychus. Yeah...)
 
Project Feederwatch!

Week of December 25, 2011:

American Crow 1
Tufted Titmouse 1
Black-Capped Chickadee 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 1
Song Sparrow 2
Northern Cardinal 2
House Sparrow 25

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Sketch of the Day!



Sarcastic comics from me watching the New Year's Rockin' Eve Special are the first drawings of 2012!

Thanksgiving! Also, I Attempt to Live-Blog the 2010 Macy's Parade

Which probably is a logistical nightmare that will not work. We'll see.

Heck, I may not even be awake in real life yet. I did have the foresight to set the DVR and my alarm, so we shall see what happens.

I recommend reading all the parade recaps at X-Entertainment (conveniently collected in this blog post), this Onion AV Club post from a few years back (very good but why the "Foster's Home" hate?), and this recent follow-up. And this terrific Homestarrunner.com cartoon (what the heck happened to those guys anyway?) They deftly summarize why I cannot get enough of this stupid parade every year. It is deeply strange, shamelessly commercial, and at times you almost feel ashamed for everyone involved. However, it also acts as a very odd yet accurate pop-culture barometer, and that is what makes it fascinating.

With that in mind, here is a (coffee!) Drinking Game I invented last year. Excellent examples of all these instances can be seen in the above-mentioned X-E articles. Take a sip...
* - Every awkward and/or off-model character float or costume.
* - Every time the hosts mispronounce someone's name.
* - Every time the hosts misidentify someone.
* - Every weird juxtaposition between the performers on a float and the theme of the float. (On that note, this year Kanye West is the equivalent of a "free space" in Bingo.)
* - Drink deeply when you notice how much bigger and more elaborate the Barney and Barbie floats are compared to the Sesame Street float.
* - Here's the big one. Take a shot every time it is blatantly obvious that the hosts only have a small notecard explaining (or not) who the fictional character, band, or other entity now visible in the parade is. (In other words, for you Tropers, Cowboy Beebop At His Computer = You Taking A Drink. The "Snoop Doggie-Dogg" incident still wins.)

What odd things shall we see this year?

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JUST in case this is a total failure, I have for you a very strange and almost-totally-forgotten Holiday special appropriate for today: Nick's Thanksgiving Extravaganza!



If my foggy memory is correct, this was aired in 1989 and ran several times during Thanksgiving Day (making it seem like it went on for hours and hours). This special seems a little rushed in parts (especially the beginning of "Thanksgiving Dream"), but it showcases a nice variety of animation directors who made those wonderful Mtv networks bumpers. I rather like the shorts by Joe Ahlbum more than the longer stories. Kevin Altieri's "Thanksgiving Nightmare" is kinda fun, but gives me a nasty "Capitol Critters" flashback, and Joe Pearson's aforementioned "Dream" is just... strange. It feels too much like one of those "sappy" episodes of "Animaniacs", like "A Gift of Gold". Highlights are the narrator acting like it is an unimaginable horror that the story takes place in a pre-Atari world (really) and a bad guy who inadvertently made Oogie Boogie and Clayface my crack pairing. The special was uploaded by Youtube user Bbahalt, and her(?) Channel is making me gleefully rub my hands for Christmas...

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Macy's Parade Live-Blog!

9:10 - I'm awake! I didn't forget! I was in the kitchen getting breakfast and they cut the ribbon and I put too much sugar in my coffee cause I got surprised and... nobody's actually reading this live, are they?
(Ahem) Good morning and Happy Thanksgiving everyone! So there's a squirrel who is stubbornly trying to attack my (squirrel-proof) feeder, and in Parade action, we have learned that for some people "Cotton Eye Joe" will never stop being funny.

9:17 - OK, the people who made that creepy rocket-baby photo commercial have *never* paid attention to the lyrics in "Brand New Rollerskates" have they? (At least they are more subtle than, say, "Ride My Pony".)
Also, DO NOT LEAVE BABY UNATTENDED IN THING THAT CAN ROLL AWAY GOD DAMMIT!!! (I almost died when I got to watch a family take a picture of their baby -in a carriage- on the f***ing edge of a T platform *as the train was approaching*. )

9:20 - There are lots and lots of "F*** it, let's just write a musical around our favorite band's popular songs" musicals out there, so this was only a matter of time. But... Green Day has one of these musicals now. I am old.
Also, the title of the song is "Good Riddance". Take a sip.

9:26 - So according to Coca-Cola, Santa Claus is... God. Also, we all live in the Tommy Westphall Universe.

9:29 - Could something like "Rent" even survive if it had debuted in this "Let's just write a musical around popular songs"/"Let's just turn a move into a musical" Broadway environment?

9:40 - "PLEASE watch 'Outsourced'! And we PROMISE that 'The Cape' is different from all those shows by Glen Larson in the 80's!"

9:45 - Yeah... "Elf: The Musical"... yeah...

9:50 - Jeez, American Girl dolls still exist? Except it looks like now, instead of having to pick from three girls from three different historical periods (later to be joined by at least two more "ethnic" dolls: an escaped slave and a pre-Columbian Native American. Yeah...), you get to create your own modern girl.

9:55 - Ooh, the Rockettes! That means the actual parade part of the Parade is about to start!
Ad thanks to a quirk of Spellcheck, I JUST got the Rockettes/Rockets pun.

10:00 - So there is a new Peanuts special coming soon? Also, horribly off-model Peanuts costumes! (Characters with heads bigger than their bodies tend not to translate well at all.)

10:02 - On the other hand, those old big-head pilgrim things have got to scare children.

10:05 - I take it Arlo isn't going to get to sing the later verses of this song (as with "Born in the USA", it was a protest song misconstrued as a fist-pumping patriotic anthem). Also, the sight of a giant turkey serving a Thanksgiving feast as on that float is... unsettling.

10:08 - I still don't know what to think of the new "Muppet" movie.

10:11 - D'aww, Sesame Street. And they didn't say anything in the spiel, but is Wimpy Kid the first literary character balloon?

10:13 - It strikes me as very odd that the whole selling point of the X-Box KINECT is, "Aren't Wii-motes soooooooo hard to figure out?"

10:16 - RE: "Hop!" I... I don't even know.
Actually, I do: they're asking us to get excited about an Easter movie on Thanksgiving. I've lately had the existentially horrific perception that time is speeding up as I grow older, and this isn't helping.

10:18 - I hope people are aware that The Roots predate Jimmy Fallon's show by a good... however long it's been since my freshman year in college.
By the way, anyone who hates on "Do They Know it's Christmas" can go right to hell. (I have seen a surprising amount of dissent for it in the past few years. Jeez, it's a charity single, who'd complain about something so well-meaning? [The recent remake of "We are the World" is up for mockery, however. I'll take Bob Dylan over Autotuning any damn day.])

10:22 - This is what the group of humans behind "Mannheim Steamroller" looks like. Huh.

10:24 - A McDonald's commercial where a mother lies to her adorable daughter about where her food comes from. THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS!!!
On a happier note, the Chickadees are loving something in the bird feeder. Can't quite tell what though. I have experimented with Safflower this year, so...

10:26 - So... you announcers never watched "Despicable Me".
Also, the minions on the Statue of Liberty float. Take a sip.

10:29 - I know they want to remind us that the Disney Dream ship is setting sail soon, but wouldn't you love to have seen an "Epic Mickey"-style balloon?

10:30 - I have nothing at all to add to the pizza-twirling team.

10:34 - Pink and lime green = timeless.

10:40 - Oh God oh God! (No, I hadn't seen the "Yogi Bear" trailer yet. Yes, the dead-eyed characters are doubly horrifying in motion.)


10:47 - Kylie Minogue on a float made of creepy giant pull-toy ducks = Take a sip.

10:50 - Munchkins with bits of sausage inside. Dunkin' Donuts, what happened to you?

10:54 - That Shrek balloon is bound to frighten children. That grimacing face!
Also, the "Imagination!" song from "Fantasmic" in the Disney parks is "a patriotic march" according to the announcers.

10:57 - You know what, Takashe Murukami woke up in the morning, put that costume on, looked in the mirror, and liked what he saw. So, preemptively, shut up.

10:58 - You know what I just said about the Shrek balloon? Yeah. That goes double for whatever the heck that blue-haired thing is on the Princess Academy float.
Ah, the five minute long Barbie retrospective commercial is back! I can use the ladie's room and get more coffee.

11:07 - OK, I hope I didn't miss anything interesting. Here is yet another band I have never heard of. And they are singing the least convincing song about being a hard-partying rock star since that excremental Nickelback song.

11:09 - Listening to the announcers tackle the pronunciation of Reshiram and Zeckrom = Sublime. Bonus: "Po-kee-mans".

11:15 - A-a-a-a-n-d begin the "Turn Off The Dark" jokes!

11:17 - And so, Kanye rides on the Big Apple float. I was secretly hoping it really would be the Barbie float.

11:22 - The Horton balloon looks... odd to me. And what I sad about big-headed characters definitely applies to Dora. She looks like the infamously terrifying Rainbow Brite costume.

11:29 - This Dance Troupe: "Well, we have a great medly of holiday classics and a dance routine all set. Now, you want us to wear WHAT?!?"

11:30 - The Build-A-Bear float unleashes a hurricane of bear puns from the announcers. Oh, God, I feel like I'm stuck in a Xanth novel!
Also, ADD is a fun thing to sing about.

11:45 - I know the Macy's floats and balloons are going to go down to Universal Studios Florida but... why?

11:48 - Aww, it's good to see the Smurfs back in the parade.

11:51 - Ooh, the Snow Queen float is pwetty.

11:57 - SANTAAAA!!!
By the way, why the heck aren't they just singing "I Still Believe in Santa Claus"?
And is it me or did they slip something funny in Santa's coffee?

12:00 - Welp, this was fun, and probably would have been even more fun if I wasn't such a terrible typist. I'm off to enjoy delicious orange goo and T. rex-sized drumsticks. Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving and I'll post again on Tuesday!

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Oh, hey, guess what?

Feederwatch Thursday!

Rock Pigeon 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Black-capped Chickadee 2
Northern Cardinal 2
House Sparrow 25

Speaking of birds, here's a nifty Dinosaur Tracking post about things to pause and think about before you fight over who gets to crack apart the wishbone.

Feederwatch Season Begins!

Once again, it is time to set up our bird feeders and fill them with delicious treats for our favorite winged theropods. It's time to switch our weather alerts to Celsius. It's time to participate in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's Project Feederwatch.

Data on the migratory and feeding patterns of backyard birds is very valuable, and Feederwatch is probably the easiest of Cornell's citizen science projects to participate in. It couldn't be simpler:

1) Choose two consecutive days per week. Weekends are fine.

2) Keep an eye on your backyard during these days. It doesn't matter if it's all day or a few minutes.

3) Keep a log of (a) the weather and (b) how many birds of each species you see at a time.

This last part is often confusing for some people. If you look out the window on Saturday and see twenty House Sparrows (as an aside, it's okay to estimate if the birds arrive in big flocks), write that down. If you look out on Sunday and see fifty sparrows, scratch out your "twenty" count and write that down. This is because of part 4:

4) At the end of your second day, go to the Cornell Data Entry website and record the LARGEST number for each species you have seen over your two days.

And that's basically it. Really, all the information you need is at the Cornell website.

There are a few readers last year who were curious as to what birdseed I use. As you can see in the picture above, I use a blend. If you're making your own blend, start with sunflower seeds. Note that Black-Oil Sunflower seeds are easiest for birds to consume. I remember years ago being able to purchase bulk bags of Striped Sunflower seeds, but it seems as though those seeds are being relegated to being human food. You can experiment with Striped if you can find some that haven't been roasted, flavored, salted, or what-have-you.

Add some unsalted, unflavored, un-messed-around-with peanuts. You can experiment with other nuts (especially tree nuts), and small dried fruits like raisins and "craisins" are usually a big hit too, especially in winter. Avoid trail mixes as these often contain chocolate (as bad for birds as it is for dogs, poor things), yogurt, and other weird foods. The very patient among us can start collecting fruit seeds, like I have with the pumpkins (argh but not with the record number of Gala apples I consumed this autumn.)

Speaking of fruit, overripe fruit can go over well with wild animals. But, and I cannot emphasize this enough, DO NOT BE CHEAP AND TOSS STALE BREAD OUT THERE BREAD IS BASICALLY THE WORST THING YOU COULD FEED A BIRD!!!!! Read this Tetrapod Zoology post for more - much more; more than you could ever possibly want to know - about this. Aside from fruit, there are also... let's call them more exotic options. (For the record, this is a line I will not cross.)

So I usually get one big bag of sunflower seeds and a little bag of mixed seeds (this covers the "little stuff"), a jar of shelled peanuts, and a big box of raisins. And I can usually get all of this for a decent price at Ocean State Job Lot. (I have a future post in me arguing against expensive bird seed -- but keep in mind that the primary consumers of my seeds are house sparrows. Your mileage may vary.) I mix everything together in --this is very important-- a big plastic tub with a lid that closes very tightly. I even go further and keep my tub well off the ground and weigh the lid down. You want the critters to stay in the yard, not venture into the basement.

And speaking of critters...



Tolerance of mammals at your bird feeder is another "mileage may vary" issue. Some people are totally cool with the occasional squirrel. I am too -- as long as they are scarfing up whatever has fallen out of the feeder and aren't raiding the feeder itself.

To that end, I can't recommend a squirrel-proof feeder highly enough. The one I use is a hopper feeder that has a counterweight design; there's a little door above the opening that snaps shut if something that weighs a lot more than a bird sits on the perch. (It's not this model, but it looks very similar.) It has the added advantage of making sure huge crowds of house sparrows can't empty the feeder in one sitting (which, unfortunately, they absolutely will).

There are other designs, including the spectacular Yankee Flipper (here's a video of this thing in action, with a perfect soundtrack, and I get the sense that Droll Yankee invented it just for the LOLs.) If you don't have access to these feeders, a "baffle" works pretty well, and you could always try greasing your feeder pole. Best thing to do, really, is resign yourself to the fact that, if a squirrel could smell birdseed on Mars, he'd find some way to get at it.

I set my feeder in an area that's relatively hidden from the street, not too close to the hedges where the sparrows hang out and where predators could lurk, and in kind of an open spot among the lilacs (not to close to the trees that squirrels could jump from them to the feeder, but close enough for the birds to feel they could dive in them for safety if the neighbors' cat comes to investigate.) And, of course, it's in full view of my biggest window, without being anywhere near the window. Having birds flying around near a big window is just inevitably going to end in tragedy. On a similar note, keep your cats and dogs inside during the mid-morning and afternoon, as those tend to be the peak feeding times.



While we are on the subject of Carnivore Confusion, I tolerate hawks. The very few I have seen always go after the house sparrows. If you do not enjoy the sight of a Sharpie PWNING a sparrow in your own backyard, then what kind of birdwatcher ARE you?

I'll write more about bird feeding once I actually get my feeder up, as there are a lot of issues yet to cover. For those of you starting your counts early, good luck! Here's to a great season!

A gardening post in January?

Yeah, why not?
Some of you are probably wondering what to do with all those lovely Christmas greens you've accumulated over this jolly time of year. Specifically, what do you do with that tree?

Ah, the Christmas Tree. We got our lovely Silver Blue Balsam the weekend after Thanksgiving (unusually early) and she was still looking okay... Until the week of Christmas when almost a month of heavy ornaments, moisture-sapping lights, and "hey, did you remember to water the tree" caught up with her and she started shedding needles like a fiend.
So, naturally, the weekend after Christmas we stripped her of ornaments and lights, cut off all her branches, and used those branches as "free" mulch:

You may have heard this suggestion before in gardening literature. I'm posting about it now because this is only the second time I thought to do this and it's the first time it actually worked.  Our city has a tree-mulching program but why let some random person keep our Christmas Tree forever? Plus, we needed the mulch sooner than I thought. We were in for a hell of a snowstorm.

Which is good, at least on an aesthetic level. Hopefully, those branches will protect the new bulbs. Remember them from October?
 
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FEEDERWATCH FRIDAY!!!
Red-Tailed Hawk - 1 (OMG!!!)
Rock Pigeon - 4
Mourning Dove - 1
Blue Jay - 2
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
White-breasted Nuthatch - 2
House Sparrow - 15
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Sketch of the Day! This one has a reoccurring character in it!

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Next week is Movie Week, where I'll be posting long reviews of the three most memorable movies I saw over the holidays. On that note, I might have to suck it up and invest in a Blu-Ray player. Because...

Let us not forget the true meaning of Thanksgiving.

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It's funny how food-centric this holiday season really is.  I stopped at CVS on the way home and was delighted to find that Archway Gingerbread Men are back! For some reason, I remember these little gingermans were a favorite Christmastime snack and I hadn't seen them in a long time. I also seem to recall that they used to have about as much icing on them as that paragon of mass-marketed cookie, the Iced Animal Cracker. Oh well. Something finally something occurred to me while I was eating one of these cookies. Maybe you've wondered this too. They're always Gingerbread *Men*. You hardly ever see gingerbread cookies baked in any other shapes. So who in the world decided to anthropomorphise gingerbread?
Well, anyway, it's just nice to have them to accompany a mug of cocoa with a wonderful Christmas Tree Peep floating within (I am to understand that the Christmas Peeps that are flavored as stuff are the real finds but these are good too [note: this is before I knew about Cocoa Cats]) and the customary airing of Charlie Brown.----
As a fun Black Friday bonus, here's a "Q-Bert" Thanksgiving special. The 1980's was a magical time when you could make a cartoon about anything, but I had no idea that there was a "Q-Bert" Thanksgiving special. Here is an abridged version, care of The Retroist:

And speaking of YouTube joy, I can't believe I failed to link to this earlier:

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Feederwatch Friday!
I am thankful for having a lot of biodiversity in my backyard.
Rock Pigeon - 9
Downy Woodpecker - 2
Blue Jay - 1
American Crow - 4
Black-capped Chickadee - 3
White-breasted Nuthatch - 1
House Finch - 3 (Haven't seen these guys in a while.)
House Sparrow - 25

In addition, I had a flock of about thirty Starlings descend upon my lawn for about as long as it took to count them, a pair of Blue Jays, and a male Cardinal who quickly established himself as King of the backyard. All on non-count-days.
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Project Feederwatch -and- A Very Richard Williams Christmas Carol

Project Feederwatch begins this weekend!!! Oh frabjous day! Instructions here! Please join this year; they need your data!.

These three books were how I got into the world of amateur ornithology (I am not a Birdwatcher; I don't gotta catch 'em all). Truthfully, the battered copy of How to Know the Birds (you can't even believe how out of print this one is) was the real gateway drug. I found it in a pile of very old, hilariously outdated science books that were just going to be thrown away from a school library. I found it, read it, stuffed it in my purse and carried it around with me (most of my field guides shared that fate; I was twelve), colored the pictures in, wrote notes in the margin, and basically loved the book to death - though it's still holding together and still readable.
As far as other amusing bird feeding things I saw over the past year...

I spotted this on the back of an older bag of bird seed. Let's face it, a lot of people think bird feeding is the most square hobby ever (in other news, normal people think that placating flight-capable mutated Velociraptors is square.) This isn't helping.

I saw this in a Big Box store and I *almost* saw myself buying it. Then I remembered that I had long ago dedicated myself to standing up for unpopular animals (I had helped launch this trope for crying out loud) and above all else did not want to give people who advocate only feeding the pretty birds my ten dollars. Even for the sake of an experiment. (How would this even work anyway? Blackbirds eat anything!)

After doing some research and comparing prices online, I came to realize that you can't beat Ocean State Job Lot. I stocked up last week and scored 100 pounds in total for about fifty dollars. (The aforementioned eight pound "I Only Want to Feed the Pretty Birds" mix retails for $14.00.) I keep my seed in two big storage tubs.
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"Fantastic Mr. Fox" opens soon and it'll be interesting to see how this does against "A Christmas Carol". Speaking of, I've a special treat for those of you who dislike the idea of a 3D film based upon a Charles Dickens book.*
This 1971 animated short film adaptation was produced by Chuck Jones and directed by Richard Williams. It is the only film version of the story thus far to ever win an Oscar, and deservedly so as it is not only accurate to the letter of Dickens' book but also perfectly captures the eerie mood. (Tellingly, this is the one version of A Christmas Carol that is barely ever shown on television.) Hit the Fullscreen option to get the most out of this:

* - And aside from the linked CHUD review, I also like FARK poster Steve Zodiac's comment:
"I don't think I want Zemeckis anywhere near anything animated, especially Roger Rabbit. Hollywood has decided that:
1) Only 3D (I think he means CGI here) is worthwhile.
2) Capture Motion or whatever they are calling roto-scoping these days is good because it's cheaper.
3) We don't consider animated movies to be real movies anyway.
4) Only well-known actors should be used as voices. Has-beens are ok.
5) Is RIGHT OUT. (It took me a minute to get this one too; think Monty Python)
6) People who have never directed a successful animation feature are not only ok for the project, they are almost required.
7) Plot? Continuity? A good reason to make the Film beyond the fact that even a crummy sequel makes money? This is Hollywood! We don't have those things for real movies either!"
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Have I got any readers in the Pittsburgh, PA area? If so, the oddly-named IlluXCon is starting today and a large number of awesome artists are attending.

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And I hope it isn't too late to share my "Sesame Street" tribute. Click for large.

Time has not been kind to "Ranger Rick". Also, book reviews and other stuff!

If you read the last two posts about Comicon, you may have noticed a copy of Ranger Rick mixed in with that big pile of graphic novels I've just reviewed. It's the October 2009 issue, better known as "The One With James Gurney Paintings In It". I have had the damndest time trying to find this issue in stores and started to doubt that the magazine is available at the magazine rack at all. Fortunately, I was able to check it out of the library, and now I'm curious to see if they have an archive of Rick back-issues. I was lucky enough to find this August 1997 issue in my closet (left):



Now, the Gurney illustrations are, of course, fantastic. He's an artist to treasure and I hope the children reading this issue have had their minds blown by his six glorious pages of paintings. But the thing is, these paintings are all available on his blog. And as it turns out, they're the highlight of the magazine when it comes to art.

Because on the very next page is this issue's "The Adventures of Ranger Rick".

Let me show you what I expected to see here, based on my childhood memories. Which, thanks to the old issue I found, can be conveniently backed up so you know I'm not just running on my nostalgia filter here:



I was very upset to learn that a Google search yields almost no information at all about long-time Ranger Rick illustrator Alton Langford (there are several broken links to an out-of-print book about whales and this brief PDF with a few more samples of his work. Very Important Edit: See the addendums below). This saddens me, as I owe the man part of my childhood - and a heavy influence on my style of drawing animal characters, as you can see.

I want to find more old issues so I can study his style more carefully than I did when I was seven. Deep Green Wood looks inviting in the above early morning scene, and I love the textures and the contrast of the warm foreground and the cool background.

I was VERY upset to learn that this is what "The Adventures of Ranger Rick" looks like now:



I wish I could tell you that this is just a bad scan and the actual image isn't this muddy. I wish I could tell you that the characters don't fade right into the background, that the character designs aren't this bland or creepy looking (oh God, that owl...), and that you can actually see what's going on in the original image. But I can't. The credited illustrator is identified as "The Character Shop" (as in, not a person, but a shop), which I think tells you all you need to know.

Remember in the "Happy Feet" review, where I was surprised to be hit with the Uncanny Valley stick by a cartoon penguin? Yeah, same thing here.

ADDENDUM: I love how this is one of the most commented-upon articles I've ever written. That means a lot of people out there have fond memories of this magazine and it's illustrations. Reader Michael has brought my attention to the wonderful Classic Ranger Rick website, which has a small but really cool archive of the Adventures of Ranger Rick characters through the years. Additionally, Albertonychus has scanned a *bunch* of pages; the links are in his comment below.

This also means that I am headed to the library to see if there is an archive of Ranger Rick there...

Further Addendum-ing: Wah...

Further Further Addendum-ing: This is the kind of thing I write this blog for. Just recently, Susan Fidler, wife of Alton Langford, left a comment stating that -yes!- Langford now has his own website. The art for Ranger Rick can be found here, and in the section "Originals for Sale". Head on over and prep yourself for a nostalgia buzz!

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Incredibly brief reviews of the eight graphic novels I read this week!

Matrix Comics (various writers and illustrators) - Interesting set of short stories set in the "Matrix" universe. If you enjoy the trilogy (and I mean the whole trilogy) like I do, you'll enjoy this.

Saga of the Swamp Thing (Alan Moore, Steve Bissette, and John Totleben) - "The Anatomy Lesson" is the story I read this collection for, and it's the story you'll want to read it for as well. THIS is how you retcon a character. That said, the other stories are very good as well; refined nightmare fuel of the best kind.

Batman: Year One (Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli) - Frank Miller would be sad to hear me say this, but a lot of this material is presented in a more interesting way in "Batman Begins". That said, this is a decent recounting of Batman's early days and the characterization of Commissioner Gordon is excellent.

We3 (Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly) - I was expecting to be a wreck at the end of this novel, fearing it would be an emotional gut-punch on the level of Richard Adams' The Plague Dogs. We3 is very emotional and thought-provoking, but it's also a great deal shorter than I'd expected. The artwork is amazing, however, as is the characterization of the three animals.

Plastic Man on the Lam (Kyle Baker) - I figured I'd need something light after We3, though this was a touch darker than I'd expected. Nevertheless, Baker's art looks like Bob Clampett or John Krickfalusi at their most deranged and gives this classic character a much-deserved adrenaline shot.

Fables (first three collections, Bill Willingham and various illustrators) - This could have turned out SO bad (the idea is that dark, adult versions of beloved storybook characters enter our world and try to adapt). The series has been fascinating so far and I'm glad to see that my library has future volumes as well.

Addendum - The Big Sit

I just learned about this event, taking place this Sunday, called The Big Sit. Think of it as the hardcore version of Project Feederwatch. Clear your calendar for Sunday (it should be pretty clear anyway it being Sunday and all), register with the Birder's World website, and check your backyard (or any other small area you like) throughout the day, keeping a running tally of the birds you see.
The name naturally comes from the idea that some people will get a deck chair and sit in their backyards to participate. Not a bad idea, as long as it's sunny.
If I had known about this event in advance, I definitely would have participated. Now that it's eleven at night, the night before the night before, I'm not sure...
(Oh hell, I will join in. Maybe even do another Great Backyard Birdcount-style live-blog. Cause I'm crazy like that.
Besides, how can you NOT join in something called The Big Sit?)

UPDATE

My circle was wowed by the Loons and the Ravens and Osprey. Here's hoping the Golden Bird is in that list, though I'm expecting that to be something a bit more rare than anything we saw.
I didn't mention this yesterday, but the instructional Big Sit video is worth a watch:



Note the drunken birdwatching! I am not saying that I condone such behavior, but I am wondering, if you're going to go ahead and birdwatch while intoxicated, why stop at alcohol?

"OMG, I see an Alicanto! Ooh! There's a Rahonavis! Wow! And there's a Zapdos!!! I gotta get a sketch of this!"

Further Thoughts on "The Nac Mac Feegles of the Bird World"

Yes, because it is nearly Feederwatch Season again. No time like the present to start talking about flight-capable theropod overlords friends.

You can't discuss animals who are way more badass than you'd expect without a mention of Hummingbirds. (The title of this post is inspired by a recent discussion on this very topic at Fark.com. If you get the reference, you are awesome.)
Now, to normal people like your mom and my mom, the Ruby-Throated Hummingbird is a beautiful jewel in flight. A sparkling Fairylike apparition of the garden. A bird that thinks it's a bug. How cunnin'.
To you and I, however, this shiny little Beebalm-enjoying pixie is better summed up thusly: a dart that can aim itself.
Really, this should be obvious. We're talking about a hand-held dinosaur who lives on a diet of straight-up sugar-water. They are a tad bit high-strung. Hummingbirds ain't nothin' to eff with. I remember being seven years old-ish and opening the latest issue of Ranger Rick only to be confronted by "Teenie Meanies", a kid-friendly article about the territorial ferocity of our friend, Archilochus colubris. In first-person, our Trochillid narrator basically asked, in so many questions, "Let's shrink a human to three grams and see how well they do!" (Ah, Ranger Rick. I shall have to tribute you someday if I can dig up an old issue or two.)
The above watercolor sketch depicts a scene that lasted about a half second. I had a rather unusual number of hummingbirds visiting my feeders this summer; three regulars and maybe five altogether. There were many fights. The toughest one was a big (for a hummingbird) female. Later on, she met her match when a smaller but bolder male arrived.
I was, all told, anxious while refilling the feeders.
Depending on where you live, there may still be hummingbirds flying through the area, so keep those feeders full. I did a experiment this summer, and it turns out that homebrew sugar water (bring three and a half cups of water to a boil, dissolve one cup of pure cane sugar in it, cool, refrigerate) is a hell of a lot more popular than the garish red commercial mixes.
----
Unrelated, but I laughed harder than I should have at this:


Meanwhile, California is getting the really awesome convention. Is there anything like this on the East Coast and, oh, NOT on the weekend before a major travel holiday?
A-a-a-a-n-d since everyone else is talking about it, have you visited "Covered" yet?

Now, we are 31.

That so? Well, I refuse to stop drawing stuff like this:

Wee.

Onion Horrorscope: You're a natural born skeptic, always questioning the world in your search for empirical truth, rejecting along the way pseudoscience, psychobabble, and any other nonsense—like all Pisces.

Wee?

Normal Boringscope (care of Astrology.com, whom you can trust because they think it's last October): Try to help a friend in need today -- even if you don't really know what they need. Your intuitions are probably just as good as their explicit requests and it's really the gesture that counts.

Emphasis mine. And to it I say, wha?

Feederwatch Thursday!Incidentally, it turns out that Project Feederwatch ends the first weekend in April. I stocked up on more feed this week and tried to get a disproportionately high ratio of sunflower seed in there. So far the House Sparrows have not reacted well -- but everyone else has. Also, the Cardinals, Chickadees, Mourning Doves, and Nuthatches are starting to pair off. Awww. I think there's a Goldfinch pair as well; I saw them doing something I thought was kind of unusual, picking the buds off high in the canopy of the elm. It's a little hard to tell this kind of year.

Unexpected Opportunities.

This helps to illustrate the advantage of being able to schedule when your posts are to be published. While Monday's post was going live, I was waking up sick as a dog, and while Wednesday's post was appearing here, I was getting an x-ray of my torso.
Here's your title significance: Me being the kind of person I am, I naturally asked for a copy of the images. To draw from. Of course.
Now of course I don't want anyone out there to have to get an x-ray; I'm just saying that if you happen to be an artist who's about to get intense about anatomical studies, and if such an opportunity pops up for you, don't be afraid to ask. (Worst case scenario, the radiologists will probably assume it's only the lack of eating talking.) They were nice enough to give me a CD and I have already done a really cool quick sketch based on one of the images of my lower torso.
I'm debating whether to upload it to Flickr. I think it's awesome, and it isn't graphic or anything; not everyone might agree. I can also see where it might be a little too personal (after all, it'd literally be my guts up onscreen for all to see.) I probably will end up not posting it anywhere, but until I decide for sure, have some pretty Unicorns (click for big):

Did anyone else catch "Secrets of the Furious Five" last night? I did, thanks to... channel surfing and finding out that it was on. I can now say that there is a direct-to-DVD animated sequel that I actually like better than the original film. (I'm not too proud to say that Tigress' story made my eyes rain.)
Feederwatch Friday
Eh... not much that I was able to notice, I'm afraid. The storm this weekend might bring more customers.

Haven't you had enough Feederwatching for one week?

Of course you haven't!  The thistle sock is off to the right in the Dogwood tree. So far, nobody's gone for it, though it's not for lack of trying on the part of the House Sparrows. And putting the feeder out in the middle of the yard, well away from the hedge, has not discouraged the sparrows one bit. Oh well. I at least got to list a nuthatch.
And then this squirrel showed up.

As soon as I saw him limping around, I knew something was up. It's hard to see in the photo, but it looks like something took a bite out of his shoulder. Otherwise he's fine.
It's Oscar weekend! Yay!

A Reasonable (you'd hope) Proposal.

"Fun in the Backyard!" - Episode 30
Originally uploaded by Babbletrish

Drew this shortly after the Golden Globes (as usual, click the picture to see it big). Damn you, Animation Age Ghetto! Damn You!!! (Shakes her little fist.)
Really, why not have Brad Bird do the introduction? Or one of the Cartoon Brew bloggers? Now you can't tell me THAT wouldn't be entertaining as heck.

Oh, hey it's Feederwatch Friday, isn't it? My little Carolina Wren buddy finally showed up, as I'd hoped. There was another random flock of robins; they as well as pigeons, gulls, and a couple of hawks were flying all over the neighborhood all week. And I caught a brief look at a House Finch. I used to see lots of them about five years ago but it seems their population in the northeast is dropping a bit. Best of all, all of this biodiversity happened on a Count Day!

I do not understand this kind of Birdwatcher.

So apparently an unassuming Flycatcher that is usually associated with Central America wandered north, into Texas. That's interesting. Far more fascinating, however, is the fact that there are people traveling to Texas to see this bird.

This is one of those cases where I'd be interested to know what the animals involved in a certain situation are thinking.

These folks are traveling to Texas to fill what is called a "Life List". There are different versions of this... phenomenon, but basically it is a checklist of all the birds you have ever seen in your life. When you see a new species of bird, you get to check it off the list. There are people who travel all over North America strictly to check birds off their List. I'm not sure, but it's fair to assume that whoever dies having looked at the most bird species wins. Wins at Life Listing, I guess.

Sing it with me: "Gotta catch 'em all! Gotta catch 'em all!"

This is why, if anyone asks, I'm not a birdwatcher. I'm a freelance ornithologist. Consider the big, big difference between "looking at" and "watching" as you read the news article. And the comments. God, the comments. "Opinions are like... those things that everyone has" (I know, but I'm attempting to stay PG at worst) has always been true, but one of the bad things about the Internet is that it is w-a-y too easy to share said opinions.

Then I found this and fell right back in love with the Internet. It is so stupid, it's awesome. I will now post it, without explanation:



(Seriously [and ignoring the Screamo] I like how this doubles as a crash course in the way paleoartists had such a hard time trying to work out what these animals *were* -never mind what they looked like- throughout the years.)

So... Feederwatch Friday!

There wasn't much going on this week. My count days were almost embarrassingly dull (twenty House Sparrows. Big whoop.) I did have about twenty Robins fly through on Saturday, which was kind of odd seeing as there's a foot of snow on the ground. Either they were headed into the forest or they were here to disappoint any watching kindergartners.

Feederwatch Fridays!

After a few years of missing out on it, this season I finally joined Project Feederwatch. This is a program run by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and it's actually quite ingenious on their part: get people to pay to do research on Avian behavior and feeding habits for you.

All joking aside, it is a fun project (and, all told, it doesn't cost that much to join). The instruction kit alone is worth ordering as it is a veritable smorgasbord of unintentional hilarity. Really though, all you need to do is:

1) Pick two consecutive days on which you will count birds each week.
2) Look out the window on said chosen days.
3) Count the number of winged theropods of each species you see and write this down.
4) Head to the website and enter the highest number of each bird you saw at one given time.

This last bit is by far the most confusing, though it makes sense if you think about it. Say a female Cardinal visits your yard. Later on a male Cardinal visits. Obviously, there are two Cardinals in the neighborhood - but since you haven't seen them visiting as a couple (yet), you must state that you've only seen one Cardinal. And if you're still confused, replace "Cardinal" with "Chickadee". (For all we know, the Black-Capped Chickadee is sexually dimorphic - too bad human eyes can't see it.)



The real fun starts when you see one hundred (at a conservative estimate) House Sparrows and the data entry site's computer says you're lying. Or you have an incredibly diverse crowd of animals visiting your feeders... on a non-Count Day. All sarcasm aside, this is a fun project and I'm happy to be a part of it.

So here's what I saw this week, starting Sunday, January 4 (I am also inviting armchair ornithologist readers to join me in doing this):

Sunday, 1.4.09:
House Sparrows - at least 50
Song Sparrow - One
American Robin - One
Cardinal - The pair (male and female)
Sharp-Shinned Hawk? - One; at least a small Accipiter swooped overhead spooking the Sparrows.

Monday, 1.5.09:
House Sparrows - Flocks of about 20-25
Cardinals - The pair
Downy Woodpecker - One (male)
Also a cat and a squirrel.

Tuesday, 1.6.09 (Count Day!):
House Sparrows: 20
White-Breasted Nuthatch: One
Squirrels - 3!

Wednesday, 1.7.09 (Count Day!):
House Sparrows: One Hundred, at least.
Starlings - Two
Cardinals: The pair
Downy Woodpecker: One
Blue Jay - One
Squirrel - One

Thursday, 1.8.09:
House Sparrows - About 25.
Starlings - Three
Chickadees - Two

Friday, 1/9/09:
House Sparrows - About 25, as usual.
Starlings - About 25, as unusual (thankfully).
Chickadees - One
W. B. Nuthatch - One
Song Sparrow - One

On second thought, maybe I'll just post what happens on the most interesting days.