I’ve been linking like mad the last week on Twitter and Facebook, so it seemed high time to do another rundown.
• Why are there still intelligent people out there laughing at brilliant webcomics creators’ self-publishing and distribution models? Over at The Beat, one my regular quadro-daily blog stops, there was a comment thread flowing full force today about Randall Munroe’s decision to self-publish his new volume of xkcd strips. Four years ago, I could at least understand industry-savvy folks with nothing but the dot-com crash as a reference point guffawing out criticisms like, “Year, but how do they make money?” Now, though, they just aren’t paying attention to any number of amazing creators out there from Jon Rosenberg to Dave Kellett, Ryan North and R. Stevens, who have been making these models work as viable livelihoods. It’s the future of indie publishing right now for a variety of comics formats, and the truth is, sometimes it just makes more sense from a dollar perspective to go it alone now.
• Can Alan Moore please be called to the stand for this case? Because there is a sky high amount of money I would pay to hear his testimony.
• Are we alone in the universe? Not according to Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell.
• How lucky are Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong that they didn’t have to be eulogized on national TV by Richard Nixon? Nixon was prepared to do it.
• Was Gordon Lightfoot singing about a zombie infestation? Possibly.