Random Thoughts

It's Juneteenth. Reflect for a moment that slavery is no longer considered acceptable, then go out and celebrate. That's what Juneteenth is about.

If you want an alternate view of history, Today in Alternate History also covers Juneteenth.

Comic World News claims that CrossGen has filed for bankruptcy. If so, it could finally mean the end of the slow lingering death of one of the most promising comic book companies to have come along in ages. Somehow, I suspect this will continue to be drawn out, though. Thanks to Kevin Melrose for the tip.

Lucy the Cat reads and reviews comic books, and wants you to send her your work. Blame ADD for this one.

The recently posted Girl Genius Secret Blueprints moved from the spot I indicated, but are still available. The best way to get to them is to go to the Free Stuff page from Studio Foglio. At the moment there are six pages of the Secret Blueprints up, and more coming as Kaja has time and energy to post them.

Speaking of free stuff, the WildGuard On-Line Strips are continuing at the WildGuard forum.

Round Three of Comic Book Idol promises to be quite cool! This week's assignment: three sequential pages from the plot script of Green Lantern #178 written by (yes, you guessed it) the one and only Ron Marz. The artists get to see the whole script, but only draw three pages. This one will be fascinating to compare to the published work, which will be out in two weeks. I think my favorite of the artists is probably Carlos Rodriguez, but there are several really good ones, so it's hard to pick.

Boing Boing has news of Monday's First Civilian Spaceflight. The Mojave Airport has been officially designated by the FAA as America's first inland spaceport, and SpaceShip One is due to launch from the spaceport on Monday, June 21st 2004. There will apparently be live coverage on CNN as well as from bloggers who intend to watch.

I wasn't imagining it! Thursday night and very early Friday morning I was awakened by thunder and lightning storms, which seemed pretty odd considering that the sky was completely clear when I went to bed. When the first rolls of thunder sounded just before midnight, I assumed it was a truck or something. Then at the stroke of midnight, there was a long, loud peal of rolling thunder that went on for at least ten seconds. It woke me up fully, and I saw flashes of light out the window for the next half hour or so, punctuated by thunder. I could tell that the storm wasn't close, but part of me was convinced I was dreaming. But the front page of the the Times has photographic proof.