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Time is what cinema is made of. This art form stands out among the rest because of its intrinsic nature that lies in the visual flow of recorded time. In his book Sculpting in Time (1986), Russian filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky noted how time is the main organizing force in cinema, "The dominant, all-powerful factor of the film image is rhythm, expressing the course of time within the frame." Tarkovsky was the master of long shots of true cinematic magnetism, which absorb and elevate the viewer from everyday life and carry unparalleled spiritual depth.
Freedom and restrictions in literature and cinema
We live in a time when limitations on content are fashionable. Shorter forms of content often tend to be shallow, encouraging the viewer to jump to the next item without much thought. Back in 1992, Roger Ebert wrote, "Why is it nobody seems to realize how lots of short little things are exhausting? You have to keep setting your mind back to zero. But the long, deep stuff – the long books, the long movies, and even the TV miniseries – are refreshing, because they give you the time to understand other lives and even, for a time, seem to share them."
Every media follows its rules. Twitter limits each entry to 140 characters. Focused and informative newspapers adhere to article word count of around 800. But the highest form of literature – a book – enjoys total freedom of length. It is the content that matters.
Similarly, popular apps – such as Vine and Instagram – limit videos to a few seconds. Television is constrained by a rigid schedule grid to allow time for news and advertising. Why isn't the art of film allowed the freedom from length limitations that we so freely grant to books?
Quest to find an audience
As an independent filmmaker your job is not only to conceive and give birth to your film, but to send it off to meet its audience. Even if you gave up the ambition to show your film theatrically and just want to put it online, major platforms like Netflix, iTunes and Hulu would most likely not talk to you. You could proudly put your film on your own website, but no one beyond a fraction of your Facebook and Twitter friends would even know it's there.
There is no objective evidence that 120 minutes is the best running time for the viewer's experience.
You could then try the traditional route. When submitting your film to festivals, you'll notice that films are segmented into categories not only by genre, but also by running time. The most desirable and prestigious is a feature length film defined by different organizations as films longer than 40 or 60 or 70 or 80 or 90 minutes.
While there are many competitions and venues for short films, the running time ranges between 20 and 70 minutes and anything longer than 160 minutes is less likely to get accepted.
The 120 minute trap of the existing distribution models
Even if your creation gets this far in the selection process, the next deadly challenge is to find a distributor. The unwritten rule for feature films is to make it as close to 120 minutes as possible. Even established filmmakers give in to the pressure.
Let us not be deceived – there is no objective evidence that 120 minutes is the best running time for the viewer's experience. The reason is an old theatrical marketing habit, a compromise between the audience getting their money's worth and maximizing the number of screenings per day.
The myth of the shortening attention span
For decades people have been talking about the changing appetites of viewers towards videos of cute cats and flipping channels in search of the next wacko experience. Kevin Spacey brilliantly challenged this notion in his recent speech at the Edinburgh Television Festival: "We can make no assumptions about what viewers want or how they want to experience things. We must observe, adapt, and try new things to discover appetites we didn't know were there."
Kevin Spacey 2013 MacTaggard Lecture at the Edinburgh International Television Festival.
Spacey produced and played the lead in The House of Cards series, which was made according to high film standards. It's so addictive that people often found themselves watching it for weekends on end. The same happened to Breaking Bad and a number of other recent masterfully-crafted series made available online.
The binge viewing phenomenon clearly shows that the audience has no lack of attention span and is willing to watch for hours, provided the films are good.
Experiments with running time
The history of cinema is full of successful examples of filmmakers pushing the boundaries of traditional running time.
In 1983, the radical German filmmaker, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, made a fifteen-hour-plus controversial immersive epic Berlin Alexanderplatz.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1983) spans over 15 hours.
This powerhouse film garnered a lot of criticism at the time, but to this day it remains a jewel in the renowned Criterion Collection and is a must-see for any aspiring filmmaker.
The 24-hour art installation The Clock (2010) by Christian Marclay explores the flow of time in cinema quite literally. It shows a meditative Ulysses-like montage of thousands of scenes from various films each containing a mention of the specific time that is set to match the real time during the screening. This experimental 24-hour loop itself is a clock bonding real life with the world of fiction.
In today's competitive environment, films of unconventional length simply get ignored.
The shorter the better
At the other end of the scale, short films by Mélieès, Renoir, Keaton, Chaplin, Buñuel, Truffaut, Marker, Teshigahara, Herzog and Cronenberg have had a massive influence on cinema. Some stories take only a few minutes.
The general rule of editing is to cut out as much as possible without losing the essence. Certain restrictions and time limits often help make content more pure, focused and powerful. What is critical is to make such adjustments with the sole focus on improving the film, not arbitrarily making it shorter or longer.
Festivals and distributors should revisit their policies of acceptable film duration.
Visconti's The Leopard (1963) was cut by the producers to seven different running times for various markets, from the 205 minute original, down to the 151 minute cut for Spain, essentially destroying a masterpiece.
In today's competitive environment, films of unconventional length simply get ignored.
The irrelevance of shooting format and running time
Advancements in technology give us a chance to break free from all of the unnecessary bureaucratic limitations. Digital cinema has brought democracy to the industry. We have nearly stopped distinguishing films by whether they are shot on high-end Panavision 35mm film or a cheap prosumer camera.
With internet streaming we are no longer restricted by the length of reels, tapes, DVDs or preset air time. Festivals and distributors should revisit their policies of acceptable film duration. Theater programmers may consider running original sets of selected films of various lengths – a successful practice which existed in the 1930s - 1950s.
Let us set cinema free from marketing limitations and prejudice. The audience does not discriminate based on the film length. It is not the distributor who should dictate the running time, but the very thing cinema is built on – the RHYTHM.
Andrei Severny is a filmmaker and visual artist. Check out his recent article The Theater of the Future Will be in Your Mind.


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The Skanks are a group of rebellious girls who are first seen in The Purple Piano Project, the first episode of Season Three. Quinn starts hanging out with them over the summer before her senior year; she starts dressing and behaving like them, doing things such as smoking and bullying. The Skanks usually hang around under the bleachers and often bully other students.
Season Three
The Purple Piano Project
They threaten to attack Rachel when she comes to try and persuade Quinn to return to New Directions. Quinn does not say or do anything.
I Am Unicorn
They are seen in the girls bathroom flushing a girl's head down a toilet and demanding that she gives them her lunch money. Quinn seemingly quit the Skanks in this episode and rejoins New Directions.
Former members
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And I'm Off!
by Jason Shiga | August 1, 2016, 11:25 am
It's hard to describe what I'm feeling right now. Demon was my life for a very intense 2 year period and now it's over. The comic has been taken down, the shigabooks store has been removed and I'm leaving for France in 10 days.
Closing this chapter in my comics career has been bittersweet. There's a giant hole in my heart where Demon used to be. And now that I've had a taste of what it's like to work on a webcomic, I'm a little nervous about returning to the world of traditional publishing. I don't want to say too much but the project I'll be working on in France is a secret 500 page interactive comic akin to Meanwhile. As much as I'm looking forward to starting something new, I confess that I'm going to miss the feedback, encouragement and camaraderie from YOOUUUU, my loyalest of readers.
Of course, this isn't goodbye forever. I do hope to let you folks know about the progress of my new project, as well as give updates about my new life in France and news about the Demon volumes being released by First Second this year and next. I'm even hoping to launch another webcomic here in the not too distant future. Thanks once again to everybody and I'll see you soon!0 Comments
I'm Moving to France!
by Jason Shiga | June 7, 2016, 12:15 pm
Welp, it's official. I can now announce it to the world… This summer I'll be moving to Angouleme, the comics/animation capital of France. Long story short, our family was recently accepted to the artist in residence program for one year! For those of you who don't know, the Maison des Auteurs Residency accepts cartoonists, illustrators and animators to the city, sets them up with studio space, amenities and sometimes even a place to live for anywhere from a few months to a few years.
I'm taking the one year option myself, and during that year, I'm planning to design and pencil my most ambitious project to date. "The Box" will be a 500 page interactive comic, similar to "Meanwhile…" but 7 times larger and for adults. It's hard to describe but it's half "escape room" and half maze. It's themes are memory, reality and what it means to live life. There's going to be about 1000 tabs in the book so I'm hoping someone will want to publish it, cause if I'm cutting those tabs by hand there might just be 2-3 copies of "The Box" out there in the world.
I have to admit, I'm still not exactly sure what's in it for France. They're setting me up with an apartment, a studio, a school for Kazuo. And in return I'm going to write my moonshot comic… because I can. But I guess that's France for you. I like to kid, but the more I learn about French culture, the more it sounds like the way I would organize a society and they way I would want my son Kazuo to think about the world he lives in. In France, comics are seen as more than just pop culture but as an art form that's deserving of public support. Preschool doesn't cost $1000/month like it does over here. It's thought of like a public service and is offered free to everyone. Same with medical care. After a lifetime of living in America, it's hard to wrap my mind around the concept of the most expensive parts of life just being handed to you for free. Everyone likes to make fun of the French but it's a pretty amazing system and culture they've got and it's hard for me to describe the amount of gratitude I feel at this moment. For a country and a culture like this to not only exist but to open their ams to me, and invite me to live there has been incredibly humbling.
As for you poor fools still living in America, I'll send you a post card. I'll make sure to write it in a cafe while wearing a beret and a red neckerchief. I'm still planning to update the site too, so check back regularly for more news and announcements about France, "The Box", and the First Second editions of "Demon. Speaking of Demon, one last important point of business I should get to is that I am closing the store section of shigabooks on the first of August so if you want your Demon minicomics, box sets, slipcases or PDFs, you'll have the rest of June and July to order. Then, that's it. I'm out!0 Comments
A Quick Note
by Jason Shiga | April 29, 2016, 9:29 am
Hey everyone, sorry about the ads that started popping up on the comments section of my site this week. I didn't realize that those really tacky target ads are basically the revenue model for Disqus. I know I pledged to keep this site ad free for all of you and I'm working on a way to try and either pay a fee to have them removed or replace the commenting system altogether!
If anyone here has any good leads on good commenting software, feel free to let me know in the now ad laden comments.0 Comments
Thank You!!!!!
by Jason Shiga | April 23, 2016, 8:45 pm
That's all folks! Hard to believe it was just over 2 years ago that we started our journey together. But here we are at the end. I guess I knew going in that 720 pages would be a push but I really had no idea. Too many times, I wanted to call it quits and run away screaming. I probably would have too if it weren't for the continual encouragement from my friends, family and most of all YOOOUUUU. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I couldn't have done it without you guys. Right now I feel Demon's got the most supportive, smartest audience on the entire internet. You taught me to never underestimate my readers' intelligence and gave me the courage to reach for some of the nervyest ideas of my career.
Everyone told me it was insane to spend half a decade of my life on this project only to give it away online for free when I could just go with a traditional publisher. The analogy I always hear is that I wouldn't go volunteer to work at Wallmart for five years for free. But I guess I don't see it that way. The webcomics and blogs I've read have given me so much I feel it's the least I could do to give a little something back. Thanks to YOU, my readers building a fan base for me, tweeting, promoting the comic and even generously giving direct financial support, it's worked out for me beyond my expectations. But even more importantly, I'm hoping Demon will be seen as a worthy addition to the great heap of pop culture, to be enjoyed for generations and maybe even inspire someone else to make their own comic one day.
More on that in a sec. But first some business. If you're wondering what will happen to this website, I'm planning to leave the entirety of Demon up for a couple more months. When the collected volumes start to come out from First Second, I'm removing everything but the first chapter. So if you want to read the webcomic one last time, do it before July. After that it's gone, but only in webcomic form. If you want a permanent way to relive some highlights of Demon such as Jimmy being born or Sweetpea kidnapping a boy band and forcing them to perform at gunpoint, I have exciting news for you. You can now preorder Demon on amazon (http://www.amazon.com/Demon-1-Jason-Shiga/dp/1626724520)!!! I've been working on this book for a year and it's a gorgeous 2-color printing. We set out to try and replicate the aesthetic of old 2 tone manga from the 30's and it's succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. As for shigabooks.com, I'm planning to keep the blog section of this site going. Even though there won't be new pages of Demon, feel free to come back here for news about future projects, behind the scenes trivia about the making of Demon, cartooning advice and when I might be coming to a city near you!
Looking back on all of it now, I can say that Demon has been the most rewarding experience of my career. When I started, I knew almost nothing about webcomics or crowdfunding. As my wife can attest, my business sense was below nonexistent. It still is. But nowadays I feel like I've discovered the secret elixir to the universe. I want to shout the recipe from the rooftops and tell every creator I know that for about $5 in raw materials, some very rudimentary drawing skills and a solid idea or two, they can start to earn a living from their work too. To that end, I'm planning to write up a 2 or 3 part blog post on everything I learned about making webcomics so stick around.
Right now, I just want to thank everyone here once more. Demon has been the journey of a lifetime and I couldn't have done it without you!0 Comments
Comics Squad: Lunch
by Jason Shiga | March 7, 2016, 3:20 pm
Those of you who know me only through Demon may be surprised to learn that I also have a not-so-secret life as a popular children's author. I've drawn dozens of comics for Youth Outlook and Nickelodeon Magazine but my most successful project has been a Choose Your Own Adventure style children's comic called "Meanwhile…" Creating interactive narratives has been a passion of mine since I first started drawing comics 15 years ago and really satisfies my dual interests of mathematics and comics in a way almost nothing else does.
I thought that drawing Demon might mean an end to my days as a children's author (in retrospect, maybe recycling Jimmy's character design AND name for the cum knife wielding protagonist of Demon wasn't the smartest career move). However, I was overjoyed last year when I was contacted by the editors of Comics Squad, with an invite to contribute to their anthology. For those unfamiliar with Comics Squad, I feel it's one of the best overlooked anthologies in comics today. Just reading the list of the contributors is like going through a who's who of alt comics and children's comics MVPs: Gene Yang, Raina Telgemeier, Dav Pilky, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Matt Holm to start.
I admit it. I was a little reluctant at first. The schedule of a daily webcomic has been all consuming and adding a baby to the mix just about did me in. And of course there was the very real prospect of choking, embarrassing myself publicly next to some of my favorite cartoonists of all time. But opportunities like this just don't come along every day. They pay by the piece (not by the page) so if I was smart, I'd have just knocked out a 12 page story and called it a day. But being an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur of course I had to max it out with a 20 page interactive comic, almost a third of the length of Meanwhile. It was rough. I had to sneak back to my studio after Kazuo went to sleep almost every night for months. But in the end, the piece is something I'm really proud of.
For me the challenge was two fold. Part of it was personal. Seven years after Meanwhile, I wanted to prove to myself and the world that I still had it in me to make an interactive comic. It meant getting all the math and design right. It meant hours of sitting around and concentrating with nothing to show for it but stacks of indecipherable diagrams. It was hard pushing my brain to the edge of its abilities but in the end, I'm really proud of the design of this comic.
Secondly, in the years since starting Demon 2 years ago, I had a baby, which can turn your mind into mush. I gotta say when an artist has their target demographic right there in the house stuffing panana pancakes into their face, there's an almost irresistible impulse to pander to their basest interests. Just ask George Lucas. Having a baby has changed the way I see the world and see what good children's comic should offer. But I also want my preserve that sharp existentialist edge that I feel made Meanwhile popular (see some of the endings below).
In the end I can say that I'm really proud of my contribution, "Little Jimmy, Kid Detective". Call me sentimental but what makes me most proud of all is that it's my kid, Kazuo's favorite story (after Snoopy Lunchtime Beagle). These days, I can't help but feel like an over the hill boxer that just stepped into the ring with Nathan Hale, Jeffrey Brown and Cece Bell. But I did it. I lasted all 10 rounds! Comics Squad is an amazing anthology. You should check it out whether you've got kids, you were once a kid or are currently a kid yourself. And if you are currently a kid yourself, please don't read the Demon comic above this blog post.
You can order Comics Squad via amazon or better yet, support your local bookstore or library!0 Comments
BOB vs. Niel Degrasse Tyson
by Jason Shiga | February 23, 2016, 11:04 am
I've never been one to shy away from controversial subjects here at this blog and today's no exception. For those who haven't been paying attention there's been a raging debate on the forefront of modern science. On one side you've got BOB, rapper and amateur astronomer, who has been claiming the world is flat in a series of tweets and raps. On the other side, you've got humanity. It's hard to believe that anyone in this day and age could believe that the earth is flat. Is BOB doing this for attention (or trolling as the kids these days like to say)? After hours of exhaustive research, I've concluded that nope, BOB is in fact the real deal.
The slam dunk evidence he presents is a picture he took from high atop a mountain. "The cities in the background are approx. 16miles apart…" he tweeted, "Where is the curve ?" This was followed by his adoring fans retweeting and encouraging him to keep spreading the truth and not believe NASA's lies. As a response Niel Degrasse Tyson, recorded a rebuttal rap with his nephew. I was rooting for Niel Degrass Tyson. But sadly, the rap isn't very good. I've layed down a rap track or two myself in my youth and I gotta say that in terms of everything from production to the singing to the lyrics themselves, BOB's rap is superior in almost every regard. Luckily, scientific consensus isn't generally decided by rap battle.
I think most people reading about this on their facebook thought it was a funny story. But to me, I came away a little more sympathetic to BOB. He happens to be wrong, in my opinion, but he seems like a genuinely curious dude, not content to just sit around and read facts about the world from his armchair. On the contrary, BOB seems willing to go out into the world to climb the highest mountain or take pictures from airplane windows, looking for evidence to overturn the status quo theory. In other words science. Again, he happens to be wrong, but I don't think it's ignorant to ask questions about why people on the equator don't just fly off when the earth spins. I'd call it a good question. By contrast, Niel Degrasse Tyson in his rap never mentions anything about time zones, constellations, or how crow's nests and lighthouses work. Instead he called BOB "mentally enslaved" and then dropped a $600 mic on the floor.
It drives me up the frickin' wall when people use science as a cudgel to shame other people. Science should be about the process of people actively seeking to learn about the world that we live in rather than a collection of truths. I hate to say it but when it comes to one of the more divisive political issues of our day, teaching evolution in the schools, half the people on my "side" don't even understand the theory themselves. It's really a lot weirder than you think it is, peoples, but I guess folks are happy to just slap a picture of Darwin on their bumper and call it a day. I had a creationist friend once who said that Darwin was actually a known philanderer. To which my liberal friend rebutted that those were lies created by a right wing conspiracy determined to smear Darwin's good name. To me, the correct rebuttal is, "So what!?" He could have strangled a million kittens with his bare hands for all I care. That has no bearing on anything!!! I don't believe in evolution because Darwin said it to be so like he's some prophet walking down off a mountain top. The theory of evolution makes me proud to be a human. And unlike something difficult like the theory of gravity for example (how many of us can derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion from Newton's laws of motion) the theory of evolution is easy enough for any 9th grader to understand fully in its entirety. Not a simplified version of it with analogies but the actual thing in its whole. The idea of someone living their life from birth to death and never having been introduced to this idea is such a bummer, it makes me want to pick up my mic again and return to the stage. If evolution is taught properly, I think every kid should have that moment where they think, "But what about eyeballs!!??" (or blood clotting or sonar, etc. etc.) When I hear someone intelligent like John McWhorter saying that the existence of skunks disproves evolution, my first instinct isn't to shun him and any website he's ever appeared on, but to figure out some way to get in a room with him for 10 minutes to make sure he knows what the theory of evolution is actually saying.
But I digress. Getting back to the flat earth rap battle, I guess I expected more from our nation's foremost science communicator. Science isn't just a bunch of facts that you can hold over someone's head like some annoying Lord of the Rings fan. It's a process, a way of posing questions about the world in an answerable way. Relatedly, can someone get BOB to draw a map of what he thinks the world looks like?
Update: Although not covered in his rap, Niel Degrasse Tyson actually did mention southern constellations in a tweet to BOB.0 Comments
Movie Review: The Hateful Eight
by Jason Shiga | January 13, 2016, 10:00 am
Like many folks my age, I had a Dad who was a bit of a western junkie. Any time I'd see a box at the video store with a cowboy hat or a horse on it, I knew we'd be watching it that night. His love extended to things like "Bridges of Madison Country" (because it had Clint Eastwood in it) and "Brokeback Mountain" (cause he was convinced there'd be a gunfight at the end). As a kid, I never really understood why he liked them so much. But as I grew up I came to appreciate them more. Just when I think I'm out, someone figures out some new twist on the genre to make them relevant to me again: making the US Cavalry the bad guys, incorporating existentialist philosophy, setting one in India (Sholay), etc. Since my Dad died, I actually love going to westerns and imagining what my Dad would think.
Honestly, I don't think my Dad would have liked this one. There weren't enough mountains. But personally, I thought it was one of the best movies I've seen this year. "The Hatefull Eight" stars Samuel L Jackson as Major Marquis Warren, a civil war vet turned bounty hunter. While transporting his bounty over some mountain pass to Redrock, he gets hit by a blizzard and has to take shelter with 8 other strangers. They're all trapped in this lodge for a few days. One guy's a competing bounty hunter transporting his own ward, one guy's a war vet too but from the other side, one guy claims to be the new Mayor of Redrock but who knows if he's lying or not, etc, etc. It's a great setup and all very suspenseful too. By the end of it, Samuel L Jackson is solving his own personal tea cozy mystery like he's Miss Marple, uncovering blood stains, doing forensics on the stew and trying to trip up suspects in their lies. I was really on the edge of my seat for most of the movie which is impressive considering the majority of it is just people talking in one room. It's a cracking yarn as they say but I thought it had a lot of philosophical meat to chew on afterwards as well.
One of the major themes of this movie was the idea of justice versus revenge. Kurt Russel is like the moral center of the movie. He has a strong sense of justice and instead of just killing his bounty, he wants to bring Daisy Domergue to Redrock to be hanged. Samuel Jackson, not so much. Our introduction to his character occurs right before the camera pans down to a pile of corpses he's sitting on. And so on down the line. All the characters represent some point on the spectrum between complete nihilistic lawlessness as embodied by Domergue, to an enlightenment era ideal of civilized society as represented by the hangman (or so we think) with his posh British accent. I guess if I were holed up in this shack with these characters, I'd be on Kurt Russel's side. I like to think I'm a modern civilized human who believes in rules and order. If we all went around killing people we didn't like, society would just collapse. For example, I was very sympathetic towards Major Marquis Warren when he shot up those hillbillies in "A Time to Kill". But I don't think he should be let off scott free despite Mathew Maconohey's powerful and unintentionally racist closing argument.
The best scene in "The Hatefull Eight" is the showdown between Samuel L Jackson and Bruce Dern. Bruce Dern plays an old racist confederate general on his way to visit his son's gravestone. Samuel Jackson wants to kill him (revenge) but can't just pick up his gun and shoot the old man in the chest. So he tells Bruce Dern this long involved story about killing his son, hoping to rile him up. It doesn't really do the trick so he keeps going piling on crazier and more insane details. Then it takes this surreal left turn and the next thing you know Samuel Jackson is laughing like a maniac about having gay fellatio with Bruce Dern's son. And it works! Bruce Dern shoots at Samuel L Jackson who returns fire and wins the gunfight. Pretty cool trick. Except now everyone's wondering if Samuel Jackson is gay. Anyway, this is kind've an old ploy I've seen before. You can't just sucker punch a guy. But if you brag about having sex with their Mom and you take one punch from him, then you and your friends have free reign to kick the crap out of him for hours. So I guess the moral of the story is sometimes you just have to let people call you a worthless shit and brag about their gay sex relations with your family all day long, unless you're one punch man. At least that's what I'm telling my kid when he gets old enough.
I've heard criticisms that this movie might be misogynist and I guess I can see their point. Every time Daisy Domergue called Samuel Jackson the N-word and got smacked in the face, the theater started roaring with laughter. I guess there's also the symbolism at the end when Walter Goggins has to "choose sides". After hearing Daisy out, he decides to ultimately reject her and climb into bed with Samuel Jackson. But to me that wasn't about rejecting women in favor of men. That was about rejecting lawlessness and nihilism. I thought it was great to see two men from opposite sides of the civil war teaming up together to honor a third man, their friend, who believed in law and order. Anyway, to me feminism means treating everyone equally. To paraphrase Mathew Macanahay, imagine how the movie would change if Daisy was a man. So instead of calling Rey (from Star Wars) a Mary Sue and Daisy Domergue a punching bag, how's about we just treat them like any other movie character and call Rey a hero and Daisy Domergue a villain.
In conclusion, I really like this movie and how it used western tropes to explore larger themes. I saw the 3 hour 70mm print, but given the lack of mountains you could probably do with seeing the regular theatrical version.0 Comments
TV Review: Fresh Off the Boat
by Jason Shiga | December 1, 2015, 3:00 pm
I remember I once met a 50 year old woman on the bus who was very proud of her red fedora and how taboo it was to be wearing something so vibrant on her head. She was so proud that she joined a red hat club where she and her old lady friends commiserated over how naughty they were being. What was she talking about!? Why did this mean so much to her? Did she just step out of a cave? I'm sorry but I just couldn't get worked up over her issue, especially since I'd just watched "Girl With a Dragon Tattoo" about a woman with bleached eyebrows and about 5 pounds of metal and rocks and feathers sticking out of her face. Welp, here I am. Now, I'm the old lady trying to explain to you why "Fresh Off the Boat" is the most awesome, edgy, revolutionary thing ever broadcast on TV.
Yeah, I know you just saw a thousand breasts on Game of Thrones. I know the kids today don't even watch sitcoms any more. And in its bones, "Fresh Off the Boat" is just another generic ABC family sitcom, the kind they've been cranking out for decades. But people, it's been 20 years since "All American Girl" premiered. That's two decades. There are UCLA graduates who until this year have no living memory of seeing an Asian face on their TV set. I can still remember watching every single episode of "All American Girl" in college, even though I hated it. You might think Asians are a minority so of course most shows will be about white people. But, I don't know man, Asians aren't that minority. There have literally been 500 sitcoms over the course of history of television. "Fresh off the Boat" (ABC, Tuesdays 7:00pm) is number 2, thus bringing the percentage from 0.2% to 0.4%. There's literally more shows about teenage vampires and teenage vampires are an even smaller minority than Asian Americans in my opinion.
Set in 1995 and modeled after Everybody Hates Chris, "Fresh Off the Boat" tells the story of a Taiwanese family who have just moved from DC to Orlando and are adjusting to culture shock and trying to fit into a mostly white suburb. Randall Park (the dude who played a dog daycare owner in that Chase commercial and Kim Jung Un) plays the Dad. Hudson Yang plays the son who grows up to become the famous chef Eddie Hwang and author of the memoir "Fresh Off the Boat" upon which the sitcom is based but then later disowns the sitcom. But the real breakout in my opinion is Constance Wu as the Mom, Jessica.
A lot of the best episodes are about Jessica trying to work her way into a white suburban housewife clique but never quite feeling like she belongs. The Dad owns a restaurant called "Cattleman's Steakhouse" and a lot of his storylines revolve around him coming up with some goofy way to promote the restaurant. These episodes aren't supposed to be as poignant but I relate to them even more since my Dad worked at a Hickory Pit BBQ when I was a kid in the 90's and I remember always being excited when he'd come home with a giant garbage bag of ribs or a peanut butter pie.
As much of a kick as I get out of that Cattleman's set, I'd say my favorite episodes are the ones where they deal with the subject of race in a fresh way. For example the best aspect of the pilot was Eddie's relationship with the one other minority at school, a black kid named Walter. At first they eat lunch together but then Eddie abandons him the second he gains acceptance from the other white kids at school. It's so cold blooded, almost like something you'd see an HBO character do. At the end of he episode, Walter calls Eddie a "chink" and they get into a fistfight. It was sad but also realistic. It was still 1995 so I guess they couldn't have seen Rush Hour or Martial Law or that Jet Li Rza movie. If they had, they'd have known that Blacks and Asians should combine their powers to defeat whitey.
Another recent episode dealt with Louis, the Dad, living in the shadow of Long Duk Dong. After going on TV to promote the Steakhouse, joking around with the newscasters and doing some funny duck voices Louis comes home and Jessica mentions Long Duk Dong. The mere mention of his name, like Voldemort, brings up so many feelings of insecurity, judgement, and fear for Louis he has to cover his ears in denial before Jessica can even spit out the second syllable. Louis spends the remainder of the episode in a berserker rage intent on proving to the world that he's a man. For those who haven't seen "16 Candles" or are unfamiliar with Long Duk Dong, I feel this one character more than anyone has haunted the Asian male psyche, causing us to overcompensate in the other direction, leading to the existence of people like David Choe and coincidentally the real life Eddie Hwang. It's hard to describe the joy I felt seeing this very specific issue dealt with on an ABC family sitcom.
Speaking of Eddie Hwang, he's very publicly criticized the show for being too gentle. In real life his Dad punched his Mom in the neck and Eddie had to hide in the closet and call the cops. But I'm not exactly sure that tone would be a good fit for the show. Unlike Eddie, I don't really want to see Randal Park slapping Constance Wu around the house. Maybe gritty isn't always better.
Another complaint I've heard is that the parent's accents are phony. I can see why folks would feel that way but I'm not even sure that it's as phony as they think. In my experience, everyone who's self taught in English learns to speak in their own jacked up way. My Dad's accent was not the same as Ken Watanabe's accent which was different from Ichiro's accent. This is all to say there is no one single Taiwanese accept in my opinion.
Yet another complaint I heard is that Randall Park is Korean but he's playing a Taiwanese immigrant. I'm always kinda weary of these types of criticisms too. This isn't the 1940's. I don't hear white people throwing a fit when Sean Connery plays some Russian submarine commander. I think what makes these types of criticisms stick is that a lot of Asians hate other types of Asians. Malaysians hate Singaporeans, Chinese hate Taiwanese, Vietnamese hate communist Vietnamese. Also everybody hates the Japanese. But whatever. It's 2015! Why squabble over these old tribal conflicts. If you notice all these complaints about the show are coming from other Asians. But I feel Asians should unite together instead of fighting among ourselves like Eddie and Walter, criticizing the show for not being perfect and getting it taken off the air, because seriously it might be 20 more years before we get another chance, folks, and I don't know about you but I'd like my son Kazuo to see an Asian face on TV sometime before he graduates college. And even if we do get our act together, the truth of it is every Asian in the country could watch the show it could still get cancelled. So I hope white people like the show too.0 Comments
Manhou Shounen Breakfast Club
by Jason Shiga | September 23, 2015, 11:32 am
So I know this is a little old but I thought I'd weigh in on the latest webcomics controversy surrounding Manhou Shounen Breakfast Club. For those who haven't heard, Manhou Shounen Breakfast Club by Katie O'Neill and Toril Orlesky was a webcomic about a group of aspiring voice actors living in Tokyo. It doesn't seem that controversial but right out of the gate, the comic was criticized for crooked kanji and fetishizing Japanese people. Due to increasing criticism from anonymous twitter people, the authors decided to end the series a mere 2 weeks after its debut.
I guess there's a few issues wrapped up in this. The first is the subject of cultural appropriation in comics. I'm pretty sympathetic to this critique in general. Who the hell doesn't root against Bobby Flay when he challenges some 80 year old abuela to a tortilla making contest? But I don't know, man, this isn't really a competition. I feel there's enough storage space on the internet for hundreds, maybe even thousands of webcomics. It's not like Hollywood where there can only be one Avatar and it goes to some white kid. If you come at the culture with respect and knowledge, and if there are already healthy opportunities for that culture to portray themselves as well, then what's the big freakin' deal?
America is a melting pot of hundreds of different cultures. If you're completely against the cultural appropriation of Asian culture, then you probably shouldn't watch Star Wars, Reservoir Dogs, The Matrix or American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt. You probably shouldn't eat pasta or ketchup or dan tats either. Can you seriously make a case that American pop culture would be richer if white people are only allowed to write about white people and Asians are only allowed to write about Asians? If Asians weren't allowed to write about white people, Frank Cho and Kazu Kibuishi wouldn't have careers.
In fact I'll go out on a limb and say it: I, Jason Shiga, speaking for all Asians everywhere hereby grant all white people permission to write comics about us. If you get twitter people criticizing you, just send them a link to this post.
Another issue that this controversy brought up is the subject of internet bullying of cartoonists. I've heard people say that criticism is just an unavoidable consequence of putting art out into the world and that Katie O'Neill and Toril Orlesky shouldn't have given up on their comic so easily. But dude, I don't know if you read some of these tumblr tweets. They weren't just criticizing the comic; they were criticizing Katie and Toril as people. Not only is that Ad Hominem. In my opinion, it veers into bullying territory. I guess it's easy to say that a webcartoonist needs to have a thicker skin but really we can't all be Paul Pope. Some of the best cartoonists I know are thin skinned, sensitive and take criticism really personally. They have beautiful and meaningful things to say which is continually at odds with their belief that they have no talent and they're a fraud. I know a cartoonist who literally had to delete her facebook account due to people making fun of her comic online. So who the hell am I to look these folks in the eye and tell them that sorry, the thin skinned need not apply. Go find work in a basement away from the public.
I'd go even further and say that not only are many cartoonists insecure. The best cartoonists I know are the most insecure. It's probably how they got good in the first place and it might even be part of the cartoonist personality. I can speak to this personally, too. I know this is hard to believe, but I was not always the confident cartoonist you've come to know and love. When I got started making comics in my teens, I was but a delicate flower. It was only through the nurturing and gentle encouragement from my readers and friends that I've become the arrogant megalomaniac I am today.
One of my commenters recently threatened to punch me in the genitals unless I change my comic to his liking. I admit it. It freaked me out a little. I shouldn't have to walk around APE this year in fear of genital punching from some random anonymous stranger. I dunno, maybe he was joking but, dude, sexualized violence is not a laughing matter (unless it's Hunter cum farting into Jimmy's face, spoiler). Anyway, I was able to delete his comment and get on with my day. But I can only imagine what it's like for some sensitive teenager just starting off in this field. It's a sad truth that the internet can be a hostile place, especially for women where threats of assault are just par for the course.
So as not to end on such a downer, I should probably add that for what it's worth, I Jason Shiga, a man of Asian descent, quite enjoyed the first 13 pages of Manhou Shounen Breakfast Club. It had a really engaging style, synthesizing the best of manga and webcomics aesthetics. I don't know what Katie O'Neill and Toril Orlesky are working on now, but I am greatly looking forward to reading what they do next (which will probably be some story about white people).0 Comments
The Big News
by Jason Shiga | August 18, 2015, 12:48 pm
Welp, after teasing it 4 months ago, I can finally reveal the big news… First Second, the publisher who brought you "American Born Chinese", "Anya's Ghost" and "Zita the Spacegirl" has decided to completely immolate any reputation it's built up over the years and publish Demon!!!
For those not familiar with Demon's fraught publishing history, this is amazing news. When I started Demon several years ago, I knew it would be a hard sell. But I had no idea how hard. At my lowest point, I was sitting on 720 penciled pages of insane depraved filth that no publisher wanted to touch with a 10 foot pole. Having just spent the previous three years on the project, I decided to double down, throw a few more years into the project and start tossing the book up on the web for free. I hadn't self published since the beginning of my career and getting back into it was tougher than I'd remembered. Keeping up with a daily webcomics schedule, mailings, and the convention circuit almost broke my will and spirit as a human. I'd always been somewhat skeptical of webcomics to boot, but the last couple years have been the most rewarding years of my career. Thanks to YOU, Demon went from an unknown webcomic with a daily readership in the double digits to one of the most successful comics in my career. Your tweets and facebook recommendations and patreon pledges turned the project around to the point where not just one but multiple publishers were interested in it again. Reading the comments, fan art, jokes and criticism have been a daily highlight for me too. And now, it's come full circle. Demon will be a published book after all.
For those curious about the details of the collection, Fist Second is planning to publish it in 4 volumes. The first one comes out in the fall of 2016 with a new volume every 4 months over the next year. I've been talking with the designer and I'm genuinely excited about the production. We're breaking with the standard graphic novel format and going for these really nice wide, softcover, volumes with 2 color printing on this wonderfully rough paper stock. Think of those old 1960's paperbacks you'd find in used bookstores.
Publishing is an old business, but First Second is one of the few publishers who are smart and courageous about the web and social media. They've been extremely sympathetic to my argument that this site not only doesn't compete with book sales but can add to and supplement them. And in an almost unprecedented move, they're allowing me to continue running the series in its entirety to the very end, with no paywalls, ads, missing last chapters, or other bullshit. Of course it's easy for me to crow about how hard I fought for this but I'm not the one risking millions of dollars on this new business model. It's an incredibly risky gamble to offer the entire content of a future release for free online, but I'm hoping it pays off for them, for me and for you!
Perhaps even more incredibly, First Second is letting me finish up the run of booklets I've been printing for my patronis. I've never heard of this happening anywhere in any business either. I've only got 20 or so left, to be honest, so once they're sold, that's it. If you want to be one of the lucky few who own a complete run of hand crafted riso printed Demon booklets, you can get them on patreon for a few more days anyway. Speaking of things that aren't long for this world, the majority of the Demon archives will be taken down a couple months after the story wraps up on my site. I'm working on a way to try and preserve the comments, since I know some of you have put a lot of time and thought into them. Stay tuned for more info on that.
Thanks once again to everyone who gave me their support, my friends, my agent who I'm sure I drove to the edge of insanity several times over the course of this project, my family but most of all YOUUUUUUUU my readers. I've said it before but this project would not be possible without you.0 Comments
Ask Shiga: Dating Advice and My Thoughts on Signing
by Jason Shiga | August 3, 2015, 2:09 pm
How can I get a girl I like and am friends with to see me as potential boyfriend material???
First you should find out if she likes you too! One way to find out is that you tell her a really bad joke that isn't funny. If she laughs, then that means she might like you and you should ask her to go and see Trainwreck with you. When you get to the ticket booth, offer to pay. If she says, "Thank you" or "I'll get you back next time." then that means you're on a date. After the movie, go get some dessert or coffee. On the walk home, make a joke about how small her hands are. If she puts hers up to yours for comparison, then make a joke about how small her lips are (I stole this move from Baz Lurhman's Romeo and Juliet). You can also make a joke about how you bet she has really small genitals.
I didn't understand it when I was younger but you can think of flirting and dating as ways of hedging. Either of you can abort mission at any time and both have plausible deniability and go back to being friends. Also if she doesn't like you, you shouldn't try to figure out a way to get her to like you. That way madness lies.
A year or so ago I was at an Ursula LeGuin reading and was horrified by the signature frenzy afterward, a crowd of people she didn't know each with a stack of books and no remorse for the physical drain on her. The impersonal greed of that event left me reluctant to request signatures — which I realize is at odds with my liking the individual touch and bit of connection which an inscription brings. I'd like to learn your thoughts on the whole inscription business
I LOVE signing books. It's very touching that anyone would think of my signature as having any sort of value. To me, the utilitarian calculus on this is pretty simple. Furthermore, any cartoonist or author who doesn't like signing their books, I hereby deem a self important wimp. By comparison, when I was at Angouleme last year, the woman next to me had brought a watercolor set and was doing full on 20 minute illustrations for anyone who bought her book.
I especially love signing books for children. At signings for Meanwhile, I always told kids that if they hold onto my signature for 15 years, they can sell it on ebay for $1,000,000. At one event, a kid came up and asked if he could have 2 signatures.
PS: The big announcement is coming soon…0 Comments
Ask Shiga: The Big Announcement, Flastical Physics and Angels
by Jason Shiga | June 18, 2015, 1:00 pm
Q: Have you made your announcement yet?
A: Sorry Burt. I know you've been waiting patiently for months for the big announcement I hinted at earlier. Unfortunately, it's still under wraps. I should be able to tell you something within a month or so. Until then, keep enjoying the story and I'll let you folks know as soon as I can.
Q: Can the flastical simply move extraordinarily fast such that it seems instantaneous? …why wouldn't light reflecting off a demon's flastical affect a photograph taken of a demon?
A: It's funny that you ask! I've actually given a lot of thought to these two issues. Chapter 11 was originally going to be a lot longer but thought readers would get bored with 12 pages of the professor explaining flastical. In any case, I would think that like anything, a flastical's speed would be limited by the speed of light. But since a flastical is actually outside the plane of our universe and all it's luminiferous ether, there's no reason it couldn't travel faster. The fact that flasticals are in another dimension also would affect how photons interact with it. In fact above the plane of the universe, it could be some completely different particle or wave altogether with its own set of physics. Since photographic plates or CCD detectors are really only built to interact with photons coming at it within the plane of our universe, they shouldn't be able to pick up any flasticals in other dimensions.
A: I love it! But if there are angels, what if Jimmy isn't even a Demon? Maybe he's just a normal human and everyone else on earth is an angel.0 Comments
Comics Review: The Sculptor – by Scott McCloud
by Jason Shiga | April 28, 2015, 11:10 pm
The Sculptor is the latest work from Scott McCloud (Destroy, New Adventures of Abraham Lincoln). And I'm not gonna lie. As square as this makes me sound, I thought the book was a fuckin' ride. I loved it; I can't remember the last time I read a 500 page graphic novel that was actually fun and enjoyable. I feel most graphic novels that size can be a bit of a slog due to the burden of proving the literary potential of the medium. Sometimes I just want a engine that'll pull me through 500 pages, maybe slip in a big idea or two and get out.
The big idea in the case of The Sculptor is something I think a lot of cartoonists can relate to. It's a question I ponder every year, walking around APE and thinking about all these people following their stupid dreams. Namely, why are we doing this!!!??? Why are we all throwing away our lives, our youth and vitality all for some pile of shitty comics!!??? This is crazy!!!
The story begins when a sculptor decides to make a bargain with death. He will die in 200 days in exchange for the ability to sculpt anything. Did I mention this book has a really simple premise? Anyway, he goes around trying to get noticed in the art world. When that doesn't work out, he takes it to the street, and eventually works his way to transforming a skyscraper into giant statue of his dead girlfriend. I was moved but I dunno. I woulda taken a day or two to repair the nation's crumbling infrastructure. I guess I'm a sucker for well executed action in comics, but for me, the scenes of the character molding giant blocks of granite like it was silly putty was a highlight of the book. It reminded me of 90's comics when cartoonists were just figuring out that the medium could be about anything but still hadn't quite figured out how to shed their work of all the superhero influences yet. I've heard criticism that the sculptures were banal. But seriously, dude? If you walked out your front door and saw a giant 50 story tall sculpture of a woman holding a baby, you wouldn't be impressed!? Well I hope you're happy, 'cause they're probably gonna get the city to label it seismically unsafe, knock it down and build some condos for some billionaires.
As much as I enjoyed all the sculpting, the best parts of the book in my opinion were the ones where the main character dealt with his girlfriend's depression. I guess I've heard readers complaining that she should have taken her meds. But as she explains, her medication dulls her experience of the world. Maybe it causes constipation or something too. I've known mentally ill people in my life and it's so frustrating; I feel like I'm being sucked into a vortex. All I want to do is end the relationship and move on with my life and breathe fresh air again. The book really captured that relationship in a way I've never seen before. It rang so true and honest, it was almost embarrassing to read. I also found it really moving how the main character sticks it out with her. I can say I really wanted this couple to make it. This, despite the main character being something of an douchebag.
I said it. I won't beat around the bush any longer. The main character is petulant, bratty and follows all these stupid rules he's set out for himself. I guess I can see why he'd be a turn off to some folks, but being an artist myself and knowing other artists, I can also see how completely unflinchingly realistic this guy is. I knew an artist once who had a rule that he would be a virgin forever. It was funny when he was a teenager. But when he was in his 20's and he'd be bragging about this fact to women on first dates, it just got weird. I too once filled my life with stupid rules. I used to have a rule that I would never eat fast food. Then I got stranded in Wyoming with no money and a stranger bought me a apple pie from McDonald's and I told him I couldn't accept it and he basically had to toss it into my lap and then I started crying while eating it.
So I'll defend this character to the bitter end. And the fact that despite his flaws, I was still rooting for him was a pretty neat trick. If I did have one criticism of the book, it's that I don't understand why anyone would make that deal with death in the first place. Even at my youngest and stupidest, I probably would have given 30 years of my life for some awesome power to create art. But what kind of maniac would agree to die in 200 days!? I'm not a sculptor but if I apply it to comics, that power would basically translate to the power to create comics at infinite speed or maybe having a studio of assistants who could all draw like me. I calculated recently that over the rest of my life I'll spend about 7 years sitting at my drawing desk so I guess 7 years seems like a good lower bound to trade for being Jim Davis. But yeah, all but 200 days is way too much.0 Comments
Big News Coming Soon
by Jason Shiga | April 16, 2015, 12:52 pm
Hey folks! Just wanted to let you know real quick that I've got some very exciting news concerning Demon. I can't say too much more right now other than it's big. Do stick around though and I'll let you all know what it is as soon as I can. Sorry to be so cryptic but I promise when you hear what's in the works, it will blow your mind!!!0 Comments
Ask Shiga: Original Art and A Naming Coincidence
by Jason Shiga | April 2, 2015, 10:01 am
Q: My son introduced me to Demon last month and we've both been following it obsessively ever since. He likes it even more than Meanwhile which was his introduction to your work. He turns 13 next week and is an aspiring cartoonist, and I think he'd love a page from Demon as a gift. Do you sell original pages and if so, for how much?
A: Ah, what every 13 year old dreams of… A drawing of Jimmy and a camel hanging on his bedroom wall. But seriously, thank you so much for the kind words! I'm glad to hear you and your son are both enjoying Demon.
I've been selling original art directly from my website for $300, but just this week I decided to set up a patreon level that includes original art as one of its rewards! I set the price at $20/mo and I've bundled it with a complete Demon subscription so it's way more affordable than buying individual issues and art separately. Pages 007, 031, 98, 149, 153, 154, 244, 245 and 313 have already been sold, but incredibly, winking Hitler, extradited Thai midget, train explosion and Sweetpea reveal pages are still available!!! But there's
Q: how did jimmy decided to call himsel "a demon" and the rest of the oss also thought about calling the whole ordeal "demonism"? he knew nothin' about the proyect… OR DID HE?
A: There's a ton of examples of bodily possession from mythology and pop culture. So you're right that it's a bit coincidental that they would both independently settle on the idea of Demons to frame the phenomenon. But in my opinion it might be preferable to a scene of Jimmy at the police station yelling "I'm Scott Bakula from Quantum Leap!"0 Comments
Ask Shiga: Light Yagami vs. Jimmy Yee
by Jason Shiga | March 28, 2015, 9:22 pm
Q: Can you kill a Demon's host body with a Death Note?
A: This one is tricky. Deathnote assumes the existence of the supernatural whereas Demon is very materialist in its world view. So I'm not even sure how these two characters could even exist in the same universe. I suppose it comes down to whom the deathnote is actually killing, Jimmy or his current host's body. Personally, I would feel that the deathnote acts upon one's body, not their flastical or "soul". For example, if the cause of death is not specified, the deathnote gives its victim a heart-attack. But as Jimmy's heart already stopped beating 10 issues ago, I'm not sure writing the name "Jimmy Yee" would actually do anything. Writing "Lee Marsh" while Jimmy is possessing him might work to stop Lee Marsh's heart but then Jimmy would just transfer on to his next host. All this is to say if Light Yagami and Jimmy Yee got into a fight, I think Jimmy would win.0 Comments
Ask Shiga: Deleted Scenes, Dualism and Demon's Final Page Count
by Jason Shiga | March 17, 2015, 12:04 pm
Q: Are there any interesting 'cutting room floor' ideas you can share with us about Demon? Characters who would have been in the comic already, but didn't make the cut?
A: Chapter 11 was originally about 25% longer. Most of it featured Hunter and his lab tech demonstrating the one way to kill a demon. Of course this entailed about 8 extra pages of rats being smushed and running around mazes. Real exciting stuff, right? Personally, my favorite part of any hard sci-fi story is when they take a break from the narrative and explain how some engine works for 15 pages. But for Demon, I realize chapter 11 had too much exposition as it was and readers probably want to get to get on with the story already.
Q: Do you have any thoughts on dualism and monism? I think that's an interesting subtext to Demon, especially in light of recent pages – applying an analytic approach to dualism's psuedo-supernatural 'soul,' and I've been really fascinated with how pervasive the idea of an external ethereal self is to even non-religious pop culture writing (the so-called 'hard problem of consciousness,' which generally strikes me as the last vestige of spirituality in this age of reason, but is used to great results in Demon).
A: This is a tough one for me. The thought of some array of matter arranged in such a way as to produce consciousness, free will or much less the memory of how my Kindergarten class smelled seems really silly. But it's hard to imagine any alternate explanation being satisfying either. I've seen folks trying to tie it together using quantum mechanics or Godel's theorem but that seems kinda silly too. If you talked to an actual neurologist it's not like quantum electro dynamics plays an integral part in how neurons function. It doesn't seem like humanity has made any progress on this one in the past couple thousand years so it's tempting to just throw up my hands and say, one of life's mysteries. But that strikes me as anti-intellectual and rubs me the wrong way too.
All that said, I thought the idea of a "flastical" would be a funny way to combine both viewpoints although I wouldn't take it too seriously as a philosophical proposition.
Q: By the percentage bar on the comic, do you already have a layout/storyboard of how many pages is it going to be or how is that determined?
A: At this point, I've penciled out the entire story and am inking, coloring and printing as I go along. My aim was originally 673 pages so that it would be one page longer than Habibi. But every time I ink a chapter I keep thinking of ways to add more pages. At the current rate I'm slipping in content, the story will end up totaling about 750 pages by the end!0 Comments
Anyone Still Here?
by Jason Shiga | March 12, 2015, 11:14 am
So it's been a while since I last posted something up here. What can I say? Demon's new daily schedule has turned out to be a little more time (and life) consuming than I thought it would be. As much as I enjoy sharing my opinions about the world, sitting down and taking the time to write a thoughtful piece about the latest movie I saw or ranting about the New Yorker cartoons turned out to be be the first thing I had to cut from my schedule. Once I've rebuilt my buffer, I'm hoping to write some longer blog posts about such pressing topics as the new ABC sitcom "Fresh Off The Boat" or those Caucasian webcartoonists who were bullied into dropping their comic due to crooked kanji. But for now, I'm basically in survival mode. Until this passes, I'm going to experiment with something new here…
Instead of longer posts, I'm going to try and use this space here to answer reader questions. And that's where YOU come in, my loyal readers! If you've got any burning questions, please please please send them to me at email@example.com or just leave them in the comments section below. I'll try and answer them all, but who knows. Depending on how many I get, this could end up taking even more time. I won't give away any Demon spoilers but aside from that I'm more or less game for anything. Is Jimmy Yee the same character from Meanwhile? How do I find an agent? What do I use to draw with? Dating advice? Pretty much anything is on the table.
Anyway, thanks as always, fans of Demon, for your continued support both financial and psychic. I've said it before but YOU are the reason Demon exists. Looking forward to hearing from and interacting with you!0 Comments
Je Suis Charlie
by Jason Shiga | January 13, 2015, 11:01 am
It seems like every other week, we're reading about another terrorist bombing. But I've gotta say this most recent one really hit home for me. For those who don't know, last Tuesday, the offices of the humor publication Charlie Hebdo were attacked by three gunmen. They killed 12 people, including several cartoonists, and wounded 11 more, in retaliation for blasphemous comics that were being printed there. I know a lot of my readers here are cartoonists or publishers themselves or have close friends in the industry. I've never visited the Charlie Hebdo offices myself but a lot of us have walked into newspaper or comic book offices to drop off work, meet with editors or just have lunch with a friend. This is the world we live in. This most recent news story is just as bad as a lot of the terrorist massacres we read about but this one just seems so much more personal.
I was going to tweet "Je suis Charlie" the other day as a show of solidarity. But everything I've read about this magazine really puts into sharp relief the ways in which I am not Charlie. I like to do a lot of bragging in this blog about how depraved Demon is, and how brave I am for sticking to my guns and self publishing rather than change one panel. But the truth is, the folks at Charlie Hebdo were a completely different breed of cartoonist. It wasn't just fringe radicals that were trying to shut them down. At one point the French government actually stepped in and told them that they needed to obey the terrorists and stop printing their comics. And they weren't just dealing with threats either. They dealt with actual attacks. In 2011, their offices were bombed due to a blasphemous cartoon they had printed. Instead of fleeing for their lives like normal people, the next week, they doubled doubled down and printed up a special issue with a cartoon on the cover featuring Charlie Hebdo making out with Mohammad and a caption that read "Make Love, Not War".
Not exactly a knee slapper in my opinion. Maybe something was lost in the translation. But what the hell!? These guys are on another level. I'm not Charlie. I wouldn't ever draw a cartoon of Mohammad and it's not because I have a deep respect for all the religions of the world. I'm not Charlie because I'm freakin' scaredy cat. I don't know if there was some dude in Paris who heard the gunshots, peed in his pants and started running for his life? If so, je suis that guy.
Another guy I'm not is Ahmed Merabet. I was reading that when this dude heard the gunfire, he actually ran towards the massacre to help. Ahmed Merabet was one of the two policemen who was shot and killed, a french Muslim man who literally died defending cartoonists right to satirize his religion. This dude has been conspicuously absent from a lot of the media coverage, I'm guessing because he doesn't fit cleanly into the standard West vs. Islam narrative that people are making this to be about. For me, it's hard for me to think of a human who so embodies Voltaire's famous quote, "I disagree with what you say but I will defend to the death your right to say it." Although often quoted, few actually put this into practice, not even Voltaire himself who probably died from syphilis or something.
It's an inspiring standard of free speech so freakin' high in the stratosphere, it's almost incomprehensible to me. But in the end, I do believe that freedom of speech means freedom of all speech, not just the speech I like. We don't get to pick and choose our first amendment test cases so of course it's going to be end up being something weird like Larry Flynt and not something mainstream like Prairie Home Companion. But I'm happy to live in a world where they can both exist side by side in the marketplace of ideas even though one's a nauseating stain on humanity and the other is Hustler. So when I hear criticisms that Charlie Hebdo's cartoons were tasteless and not funny, it just seems like a bit of a non sequitur. Also if you're that much against stupid tasteless cartoons that aren't funny, where were you when Family Guy got renewed for a 20th season!? Spray tans offend my aesthetic sensibility, but if the entire cast of Jersey shore was killed by a tragic bridge collapse I'd have to be kind've a douche bag to shout, "That's really sad folks but it's also wrong to get spray tanned."
Ultimately though, I can't even get too worked up over this issue. I'd want the freedom to criticize Charlie Hebdo defended as well. My overwhelming emotion this week has been sadness. It's hard enough trying to make it in this world as a cartoonist without the fear that what we draw could get us killed. But seeing the reaction, the marches and the support from cartoonists and non-cartoonists alike has also made me hopeful. I like to imagine a day in the future when my son, Kazuo tells his granddaughter about this attack and she just looks at him incredulously and, after asking what a comic is, just sits dumbfounded, imagining how completely the world has transformed within her grandfather's lifetime.0 Comments
$1,700 Patreon Goal Reached (for a few hours)!
by Jason Shiga | January 5, 2015, 4:48 pm
Welp, it happened. Yesterday at 5:24p, a patron (and cartoonist) by the name of Drew Weing upped his pledge from $1.00 to $1.30 to bring my total monthly patronage to $1,700.03!!! For followers of my patreon campaign, this is the level where I quit my day job, tell my boss to go to hell, do a little jig on my desk before skipping out of the office. Sadly, 7 hours later as I was buying my dancing shoes, a different patron lowered his pledge level bringing me back down to $1,640. This kicked off a chain of patrons lowering their pledge levels. As of now I'm back down to $1,593.
Let's just say it was a very brief victory. But the good news for YOU, my loyal Demon readers, is I'm chalking this one up as a win. That means, starting today, I'll be updating Demon seven days a week!
Although it was the most fleeting of triumphs, I want to truly thank everyone from the bottom of my heart for their generosity and support. All my patrons who put up with my overly complicated pledge levels, all my commenters who came and left the most thoughtful and gracious posts, my readers who've been spreading the word tweeting demon links to their tumblr mashups or whatever it is you do. A million thank yous from me. I like to tell folks that I have the best commenters, patrons and readers on the internet and Demon isn't just a better comic because of you. It exists because of you. You've allowed me to turn this passion project into something resembling a career. A short career that has spanned 7 hours. But hey, it's a start.0 Comments
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Physicians at Baptist may use minimally invasive surgical techniques to treat a number of urological conditions, including:
In many cases, minimally invasive urological surgeries are performed laparoscopically. For this technique, physicians use a device called a laparoscope, a slender illuminated optical or fiber-optic instrument that is inserted through an incision in the abdominal wall. It is used to visually examine the interior of the peritoneal cavity. Laparoscopic surgery eliminates the need for a long incision in the abdominal muscles, making post-operative care and recovery much easier. Many patients are able to go home the day of surgery.
For certain urological surgeries, physicians may choose to use the daVinci Surgical System,™ technology that enhances the surgeon's ability to perform a number of minimally invasive procedures.
During a procedure, the surgeon operates while seated comfortably at a console in the operating room where he views a 3-D image of the surgical field, while grasping master controls that convey his hand, wrist and finger movements into precise, real-time movements performed by the robotic surgical instruments inside the patient. The instruments are designed with seven degrees of motion that mimic the dexterity of the human hand and wrist. The surgeon sees the surgical field on a monitor that provides 10x magnification and 3D imagery. This system allows physicians to perform technically demanding procedures with great precision.
Learn more about Urology Services at Baptist.
What can we help you find?


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When Sarah K. first solicited your assistance back in April, it was in an effort to win $10,000 from some freakish marketing contest in New Zealand. Something called Hitachi, or something.
Anyway, she vowed to return with an encore video if she topped 50,000 hits and makes good on that promise today. Well, she made good on it last week actually, but her email sat in an inbox just waiting, pleading to get eye-fondled. Granted, her "encore" is just another contest submission — "I wrote this jingle named 'I love my Blu' as an entry to the Blu Cigs Viral Video Competition" — but it's late in the evening, and ukulele music soothes.
Previously: Let's Help Sarah Win $10K [Deadspin]


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|Birth Date:
|May 1, 1989
|Peru, Ill.
|High School:
|La Salle Peru Township
|Special Education
In 2010 (Junior): Callie was very dependable for the Golden Eagles in 2010 as she started 57 games which was tied for most starts by any player...was the primary cleanup hitter and her numbers proved their worth...she led the team in RBIs with 43 and was second in home runs with 9...ranked second on the squad in hits with 50...had 14 multi-hit games, 13 multi-RBI games, and ended the season on a 4-game hitting streak...went a perfect 4-for-4 with a home run against Miami (Ohio) (2/26)...was recognized for her performance on the 2010 OVC All-Tournament team...hit the only walk-off home run for the Golden Eagles against Kennesaw State (4/7)...selected as the Ohio Valley Conference Player of the Week...earned the distinction of being Tech's Most Improved Player.
In 2009 (Sophomore): Callie started 56 games at catcher for the Golden Eagles in her sophomore year...ended the season second on the team with six home runs and 24 RBIs...had the big game against Southeast Missouri (3/28), hitting a grand slam and a double to drive in six of her 24 RBIs on the season...went 2-for-3 with a home run in Tech's final game of the season against UT Martin (5/9)...had eight multi-hit games, including a 2-for-2 game against Kennesaw State (2/14) when she drove in two RBIs and scored two runs...named to the Athletic Director's Honor Roll.
Before Tech: Played her freshman season at Heartland Junior College in Normal, Ill., where she was named second team all-conference and made the all-tournament team at nationals.
High School: Callie lettered in three sports: softball, basketball and volleyball...in softball, Callie was the starting catcher for three years under coach Carrie Swanson...her senior year, she helped carry her team to a record of 29-4, the best in the program's history...in her junior season, she batted .487 with 18 doubles and two home runs.
Personal: Callie Brooke Schmidt is the daughter of Russ and Christie Schmidt of Spring Valley, Ill...birthday is May 1, 1989...majoring in exercise science.


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The Secret to Willpower: Having to Pee and Clenching Your Fists
Thanks to psychology, the greatest science of the 20th century, we now know just what it takes for you to have a will of steel: an intense urge to go to the bathroom and making a fist.
Two new studies have proved this. The first had subjects drink varying amounts of water and then gave them various tests. The results prove that the more a person had to pee the more willpower they had and more accurate their decisions were.
Another study had subjects clench a pen in their hands and then put them in various situations to test if they would cave in or stay strong. Those with flexed muscles made better choices and showed more restraint than their relaxed counterparts.
So the next time you see someone with white knuckles doing the pee-pee dance, they're not crazy, they're just trying to be more disciplined. Thanks, science.


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procedure(redirected from Burch procedure)
Also found in: Dictionary, Thesaurus, Medical, Encyclopedia.
The methods by which legal rights are enforced; the specific machinery for carrying on a lawsuit, including process, the pleadings, rules of evidence, and rules of Civil Procedure or Criminal Procedure.
The form, manner, and order of steps taken in conducting a lawsuit are all regulated by procedural law, which regulates how the law will be administered. Substantive Law creates and defines rights that exist under the law.
n. the methods and mechanics of the legal process. These include filing complaints, answers and demurrers, serving documents on the opposition, setting hearings, depositions, motions, petitions, interrogatories, preparing orders, giving notice to the other parties, conduct of trials, and all the rules and laws governing that process. Every state has a set of procedural statutes (often called the Codes of Civil Procedure and Criminal Procedure), courts have so-called "local rules," which govern times for filing documents, conduct of the courts and other technicalities. Law practice before the federal courts operates under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure). Procedural law is distinguished from "substantive" law, which involves the statutes and legal precedents upon which cases are tried and judgments made.
procedurenoun act, action, adjective law, behavior, common practice, conduct, course, course of action, established method, habit, line of action, manner of proceeding, manner of working, matter of course, measure, method, methodology, mode, mode of operation, mode of use, modus operandi, motion, order, particular course of action, plan, plan of action, policy, practice, proceeding, process, program, proscribed form, routine, rule, scheme, set form, set format, step, strategy, system, tactics, usage, way, way of operation
Associated concepts: civil procedure, criminal procedure, judicial procedure, pretrial procedure, rule of procedure
Foreign phrases: Cursus curiae est lex curiae.The practice of the court is the law of the court.
See also: agenda, arrangement, avenue, behavior, campaign, conduct, constant, course, custom, direction, expedient, form, guide, maneuver, manner, matter of course, method, mode, modus operandi, operation, policy, polity, practice, proceeding, process, rule, scheme, step, strategy, system


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Samsung NX
As a Samsung Malaysia authorized dealer, we offer only Samsung camera that are imported by Samsung Malaysia. This also means warranty is covered only for pieces bought from Samsung Malaysia. Therefore, it is especially important for you to purchase the higher priced units like the Samsung camera and other Samsung mobile from an authorized dealer. This is because the repair cost of the Samsung camera can be significantly higher than the other digital camera.
Samsung NX2000 20-50mm (Black) with 16GB, Free Samsung GALAXY TAB3 7" (T2100)
Normal Price: RM2,299.00
Before delivery and GST charges
Samsung NX30, 18-55mm, 20mp, Tiltable Touch LCD 3.0", WIFI, Free 16GB, Samsung Case & 1+1 Extra Battery
Normal Price: RM3,299.00
Before delivery and GST charges


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Editorial: Energy Efficiency Pioneers
A version of this article appears in the November/December 2007 issue of Home Energy Magazine.
November 03, 2007
OK, there's a new energy-saving product on the market. It might even be the fruit of government-funded research. But it's expensive and available from only a few, small manufacturers (or perhaps just one manufacturer). The price would surely fall if economies of scale kick in. But investors don't understand the energy efficiency market and are reluctant to supply the needed capital. Nothing happens. The country—indeed the world—needs dozens of these innovations if it is going to meet the ambitious energy-savings targets announced by presidents, governors, and speakers of inconvenient truths. The Business Schools talk of the "valley of death" between the prototype and widespread commercialization, where thousands of great ideas have foundered. This is (or could be) the story for the heat pump water heater, advanced glazing technologies, and ultra-high efficiency lighting technologies.
To read complete online articles, you need to sign up for an Online Subscription.
Once an order has been placed there is an automatic $10 processing fee that will be deducted with any cancellation.
The Home Energy Online articles are for personal use only and may not be printed for distribution. For permission to reprint, please send an e-mail to firstname.lastname@example.com.


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local seo
Continuum Software Solutions is one of the best digital and online marketing agencies in Toronto, Canada. We are leaders in providing business solutions using various technologies. Our designers and developers are experts in custom website design, web application & mobile application development. We are also a team of expert SEO, SEM, PPC, SMM services provider.


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This weekend a group of hikers decided to camp illegally on the trail near Acra Point. They then build a fire for the evening. The next morning they hiked off while the camp fire continued to burn. The fire then spread to roots under the fire, and then to some trees nearby. Thankfully, another group of hikers discovered the fire and called 911. With more luck, Ranger Breigle was about a 1/2 mile away. Between the Ranger and the group, they were able to put the fire out. If it was discovered, it would have caused a raging forest fire that probably would have burned Acra Point, Windham High Peak, Blackhead, Burnt Knob and more.
The rules are that camping must be 150' away from a trail, road, or water source. You cannot camp above 3500' in the Spring, Summer, and Fall. People should try to use Lean-to's and designated camping areas. Also use good judgment when conditions are dry and/or windy.


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By Douglas Burns
The tragedy of waiting for Superman
There should be a test.
What, you have a problem with that?
As President George W. Bush said, "You don't like tests? Too bad."
Here's the test: All educators and lawmakers, and parents for that matter, should watch the devastatingly good documentary "Waiting For Superman." If you don't cry or slam your fist on the coffee table in the final minutes, as you watch gradeschoolers endure a lottery system to determine whether they'll attend college-prep charter schools or neighborhood dropout factories, you don't get to vote on education issues — or raise kids.
This isn't some obscure art house film. One even can rent it now from a Redbox.
With a sharp-shooter's eye for detail, filmmaker Davis Guggenheim's "Superman" gives us the view of American education from 20,000 feet, and then personalizes it with the stories of families — white, black and Hispanic for those keeping score on such things. The personal account that tugged at me was watching California gradeschooler Daisy, who aspires to be a doctor or veterinarian, riding in the backseat of her dad's car, tears forming in her eyes, after the bouncing lottery balls don't go her way.
Guggenheim, who won an Academy Award for directing the Al Gore star vehicle "An Inconvenient Truth," isn't giving us slapdash liberalism with "Waiting For Superman."
In fact, the thesis of the movie is that you need to keep the following competing thoughts in your mind at the same time: 1) Teachers are a national treasure. 2) Teachers' unions are the blockade to meaningful change in American education.
The film is fuel for what is already happening in Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Nevada and New Jersey where Republican governors and their allies are seeking to deep-six teacher tenure — a system originally started in the turn-of-the-century New Jersey and expanded since to give K-12 educators a virtually impenetrable shield from dismissal. In March, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's education department will put forward a plan that doesn't reach for full elimination of tenure but ties teacher pay to other measures, such as test scores, observation, student and peer review.
Guggenheim's film notes that only one in 2,500 teachers is ever fired. Earlier in my career, I spent years covering the Ames public school system, as well as the one in my hometown of Carroll. I can only recall one teacher being fired (without financial or legal backlash), and that was for sexual abuse of a child. Said teacher is still in the state's prison system.
Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad has expressed his admiration of Christie and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (the latter whom I would expect Branstad to endorse should he seek the presidency).
Will he follow Indiana and New Jersey on teacher tenure?
No serious discussion so far, says State Sen. Steve Kettering, R-Lake View, whom I asked about the matter. Kettering sees the need, though, for a shift from the automatic increases and protections of tenure to more performance-scaled salaries.
"I think we need to get some sort of merit-based pay into that," Kettering said.
On a conference call with other media last week, I asked U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, simply if he thought it was too difficult to fire poor teachers. He said that's hard to answer.
Instead, Harkin, a schools leader in the Senate who met with President Obama just days ago on education, said he is highly engaged with an elementary and secondary education bill in which he wants to provide for a pipeline or support system for getting good principals in more schools.
"After all these years, I've become convinced that one of the key elements in getting schools turned around and making them better is who the principal is and how well trained the principal is," Harkin said.
Harkin wants to take examples of what accomplished principals did and hold them up as what lower-achieving schools should adopt through incentives for training principals.
That's in line with "Waiting for Superman," which shows us the remarkable success of schools with strong principals.
But at the end of the day, it does come down to teachers. And it's just too hard to scrub the bad ones from the system.
Republicans have an opening on this. And they have a super movie with which to sell the stripping of K-12 teacher tenure. CV
Douglas Burns is a fourth-generation Iowa newspaperman who writes for The Carroll Daily Times Herald and offers columns for Cityview.


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- 1
View Our Range Of Used Citroen Petrol Cars For Sale In Barnsley - Available From Perrys.
Perrys is a franchised Citroen dealer and is one of the largest independent vehicle retailers in the UK.
Citroen offers a great range of sporty, family, stylish, safe and reliable vehicles. Within its range of cars and vans there is something to suit everyone.
We believe that we offer the best deals you can get on Citroens range of cars, and we have a large stock of used Citroens available too.
Our stock of used and new Citroens is constantly being renewed. To keep in touch with what is currently available sign up to receive email notification on stock updates, before deals appear in the press. See the Keep Me Informed panel on the left of the page.
Perrys also provides a full after-sales and parts service.
- 1
Disclaimer: Vehicle features and specifications are provided by third party sources. Whilst
Perrys makes checks for accuracy, we unfortunately can't be held responsible for any inaccuracies. If any
specific details are important to you, it's best to check them directly with the dealership, who'll be happy to help.
Representative Example Conditional Sale. Payable by 48 payments of £91.80. Payments are based on an agreement duration of 48 months, a Cash Price of £4,000.00 with a deposit of £400.00, leaving an amount of credit of £3,600.00. The agreement is calculated using a fixed rate of interest of 5.60% per year, resulting in 10.9% Representative APR and a total amount payable of £4,816.40. Included in the final payment is an option to purchase fee of £10.00.


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The emphasis of the Pratt Education Center is to discover the wildlife of Kansas. Numerous displays, dioramas, and exhibits provide close encounters with the native birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles of Kansas.
Our "winter" diorama provides a glimpse of how wildlife deals with the snow and cold of Kansas winters.
Goose at Pratt Education Center
The grassland display depicts the three grasslands (short, mixed and tall) of Kansas and wildlife common to each region; including a rare black-footed ferret. Our raptor exhibit features owls, hawks, falcons, and kites; all with hooked beaks and sharp talons. The wetland wall display includes Cheyenne Bottoms, one of the five most important wetlands in North America.
The Aquarium Room contains twelve, 400-600 gallon aquariums; each displaying fish species native to Kansas or that have been successfully introduced into Kansas. On the east wall are two wall panels. One featuring the early history of the Pratt Hatchery. The other features the catfish rearing program along with a working model of Seth Way's ingenious incubating trough. Over one hundred and twenty-eight species of birds and their eggs
Aquarium at Pratt Education Center
are displayed in the Bird Room. Across from this room you can enjoy duplicating the tracks of Kansas animals using the vinyl Replica tracks. Also, numerous interactive exhibits will test your knowledge of Kansas wildlife.


text:
Labels clarify the purpose of form elements. Although the purpose of each element may be obvious for sighted users, this is often not the case for users who rely on screen readers.
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Below the audit, Lighthouse displays something like
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Calendar |
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Reviews Elsewhere
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Travel News Elsewhere (fresh daily
from the Web)
'Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure'
Send a link to a friend
21, 2012]
"Invincible Microbe:
Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure," by Jim Murphy and Alison
Blank, Clarion Books, 2012, 149 pages, ages 9 and up
Review by
Louella Moreland
It is quite possible that tuberculosis, or TB and consumption as it is
commonly known, is not a disease that most people in the United States worry
about much anymore. Although as recent as the 1950s this disease was one
that was taken quite seriously, it is thought by most people to have been
conquered in our country. According to authors Jim Murphy and Alison Blank
in their new release of "Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure," that would be a very large mistake to make.
Starting with the history of tuberculosis, Murphy and Alison take a close
look at how this disease has mystified doctors and resisted treatments. The
book includes information about work that continues on new strains in the
world today. The authors also explain how TB patients were treated, both
medically and socially, throughout the ages. They describe how doctors used
many treatments that killed patients almost as often as helping them.
The book documents that in the 1850s, Hermann Brehmer -- without any
medical testing to back his theories -- built the first TB sanitariums,
where thousands of sufferers throughout the world were housed until the
1960s. By establishing the sanitariums, the infected population was somewhat
isolated from those not showing symptoms, while receiving food, medical
treatment and living in sanitary living conditions.
A man named Robert Koch started searching for the cause of this killing
disease in 1881. He was the first to "see" the microscopic rod-shaped
bacteria in animal samples. Through careful research and observation that
lasted over a year, he was able to understand that tuberculosis was caused
by a germ and transmitted by particles expectorated by infected individuals.
That was the reason it spread so quickly where people lived in close
conditions. Unfortunately, Koch later rushed to find a cure and ended up
giving the disease to himself.
[to top of second column]
Various vaccines were produced in the early 1900s, but it was not
until 1943, when biochemist Selman Waksman received several sick
chickens from a local farmer, that the real breakthrough came with
the discovery of the ground mold found in the throat of the
chickens. From this the new antibiotic streptomycin was developed,
which was the breakthrough for tuberculosis treatment.
Unfortunately, even this and other drugs that were ultimately
developed have only been able to slow the number of deaths and the
spread of the disease.
Tuberculosis has wiped out millions and millions of lives,
attacking people from children to the elderly of all classes. Murphy
and Blank leave us with the admonishment that the entire world needs
to be vigilant concerning tuberculosis, as current strains have
become resistant to treatment and travel has become common to and
from countries where the disease is still prevalent.
Visit us at the Lincoln Public Library, 725 Pekin St., to check
out this book and others by these authors, or fictional accounts of
people who lived with this killing disease.
[Text copied from file received from
Louella Moreland,
Lincoln Public Library District]
Ms. Lou's blog:
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text:
The lavish chrome and Buck Rogers styling of dashboards from the late-'50s and early '60s are funky enough in stock form for many custom fans. Others, however, like to push the styling envelope even further by blending those kitschy, retro, rocket-age elements with truly modern ingredients like digital instrumentation.
The crew at Bow Tie Connection in San Pedro, California, recently had a customer from the latter camp. He wanted digital instruments in his '59 Impala, and Sal at Bow Tie Connection knew just where to turn: Dakota Digital. The company offers many styles of stand-alone digital dials, as well as specific-fit kits for a wide variety of applications, including '59 and '60 Chevys.
Like most modern instruments, those from Dakota Digital are electronic in operation, meaning, they use sensors that send electric pulses to the instruments. In this case, the pulses are sent to a control box--an electronic brain if you will--which interprets them and sends vital information to the appropriate gauge. This means that the instruments themselves actually take up very little space behind the gauge cluster, and the compact control box can be mounted out of the way in any number of locations.
As you'll see in the accompanying photos, installing the Dakota Digital setup is a pretty straightforward affair. Check out how Sal did it and see what you think.


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July 2 (Bloomberg) -- An Iowa facility has been cleared to slaughter horses for human consumption, the second such operation approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in a week.
The agency said it was forced to act under the law when the company, Responsible Transportation of Sigourney, Iowa, met all the requirements to be inspected. A facility near Roswell, New Mexico, was granted approval on June 28, clearing the way for the first slaughtering of horses for meat in the U.S. since 2007.
Separately, a group of animal-welfare advocates has sued the USDA seeking to keep the plants from opening.
Unless Congress renews a ban that expired in 2011, the USDA is required to issue a grant of inspection and provide inspectors that would enable the facilities to operate, agency spokeswoman Michelle Saghafi said in an e-mail.
The Obama administration "has requested Congress to reinstate the ban on horse slaughter," she said. "Until Congress acts, the Department must continue to comply with current law."
Horse slaughter is an emotional issue among animal-welfare advocates in the U.S., where eating of horse meat is rare and surveys show most Americans oppose the practice. Many farmers and ranchers say humane slaughter is necessary to dispose of unwanted animals.
Last Plant
The last U.S. horse-meat plant closed six years ago after Congress banned funding for inspections for such facilities. That ban lapsed in 2011 and measures to renew it are before lawmakers.
Along with the New Mexico and Iowa plants, a third application, from a company in Gallatin, Missouri, is pending.
Responsible Transportation didn't reply to an e-mail seeking comment. On its website, the company says its mission "is to improve the quality of life of the unwanted horse population," by following professionally supervised, government-regulated euthanasia processes and allowing horses not to be transported outside the U.S. for slaughter.
"We believe it is our responsibility to restore the value of the horse industry. In doing so, the quality of life for the entire population of horses within the United States will improve," the company said.
Lawsuit Filed
The animal-welfare groups, which include the Humane Society of the United States, filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California.
"Horse slaughter plants pollute local water bodies with blood and offal, permeate the air with a foul stench, diminish property values and put horses through misery," Jonathan Lovvorn, chief counsel for aminal protection litigation at the Washington-based Humane Society, said in a statement.
The case is Front Range Equine Rescue v. Vilsack, 13- cv-3034, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
--Editors: Jon Morgan, Michael Shepard
To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Bjerga in Washington at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at [email protected]
USDA: Warmer Weather Expected for Nation's Midsection Late-week
Reduce the Risk of Fallow Syndrome With a Cover Crop