Random Thinks & Selected Links – March 28th, 2009

The blogger ‘Glycon’, who is amazingly an even bigger Alan Moore fan than me, has managed to pick up a ridiculously rare Alan Moore work, called Big Numbers. Big Numbers, was s comic book series from the early 1990s written by Alan Moore, and illustrated by Bill Sinkiewicz, about the impact that the construction of a huge mall has on Northampton, England. Only two issues of Big Numbers were ever published, but Glycon managed to pick up a photocopied version of the unpublished third issue. Alan Moore himself doesn’t even own a copy of this, so I would say that is quite the collector’s item. Head over to his blog to see the material, which he has very kindly scanned in for us all to see.

This weekend I plan to start writing a short story. The seed of the idea came to me a few weeks ago, so I thought I would try writing it and see where it goes. The story shall be titled Infinite Monkey Theory. Stay tuned for more

I’ve had quite a few entries into my Mindscape of Alan Moore contest. So far I have about 20 correct answers, with a slew of incorrect and partial answers. Remember, you still have until midnight on Sunday to get your entry in!

I have been re-reading The Dune series recently. I have not read the series since I was a teenager, and I haven’t yet read the last two books in the series, which were written by Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson. I’ve really wanted to read these since they were released, but didn’t feel like just jumping straight back into it, so I’ve begun re-reading the series from the start. I just finished Children of Dune, and upon re-reading I have found an even greater appreciation for this series. It is mind-bogglingly amazing, far better than I even remembered. One strange thing is that ever since I began re-reading Dune, I have been imagining it in my mind’s eye as though it were illustrated in the artwork of Ben Templesmith. This is most likely because of all the covers that he as done for Antony Johnston’s Wasteland comic, which is also based in a mostly barren, desert environment. Could you imagine how amazing it would be to see Ben illustrate Dune? The vast deserts, the prescient visions, the giant sand worms, the sietch orgies… Fuck! That would be amazing!

I shaved off my beard today, here are some disturbing pics:

Back in the realm of comics… I went to get my haircut today (that’s not the news) and noticed that one of the used book stores in town has now expanded their premises. I thought I would pop in and have a look. I’m really glad I did, because they now have a used & new “graphic novel” section. I found tons of stuff in there that I wanted, including:

A Large American Splendor Anthology
Batman: Murder at Wayne Manor by Duane Swierczynski and David Lapham
Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped – The GN adaptation by Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy
The Amazing Adventures of the Escapist – by Micheal Chabon
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – Illustrated by the great Frazer Irving. I didn’t even know of the existence of this one, so I was overjoyed to find it there.

They were all new except the American Splendor collection, and cost just $5 each! What a great day!

Okay, I’m off to relax and catch up on my reading. I should be uploading another installment in my A-Z list of Canadian comic book creators tomorrow. Make sure to check back for that.