PanelFly iPad

PanelFly now has a page about their upcoming iPad version of their comic-reader app. Looks lovely.

Short-form art

Something that's a little scary to me: it seems that an artist who wants to earn money on his art may have to learn new media and communication forms to do so.
I never thought that comics and novels and paintings might go out of vogue. And probably they will never disappear totally, but it seems that what the new generations spend money on is not that, but... well, videos, video games, and ringtones!

I've been chastised about being always surprised at the march of times and technology, and there's something to that, I guess I have a less flexible mind that I thought.
But at least I'm willing to look at the new forms and maybe even to try to work in them. Many people just shut it out, for example comics creator Dave Sim, I don't think he even owns a computer.

Actually ten years ago Dave Sim wrote about how you could never view art on the web, because it was "postage-sized" pictures. I wrote to him then that it was just a matter of time and resolution (both kinds). And it was. I'd like him to see photos and paintings displayed on my fabulous 30-inch monitors, and then compare it to his tiny black/white comic book pages.
Of course it would not change his mind, because he was not giving the actual reason for his dislike of the new technology, nobody ever does, even if they think they do. Perhaps it's just fear, who knows, but he just can't approach it, is the bottom line.

Tingling

Recently I've had a tingling/buzzing in my left arm, and that shoulder is not comfortable to sleep on, a lot of the time. Slight stiffness in the neck too.

It is probably a pinched nerve in the neck, and my physiotherapist has given me an exercise* to stretch the nerve down the arm so it's pulled out of the pinched place a little, and that helps. But it comes back, and the treatments my physio has given me in the past seem to be limited.

I want to avoid the very painful condition I got into two years ago with the other arm. Does anybody have any tips for this kind of thing? I have a high quality traction device (used gently), but there may be other things.

------

* The exercise is good: I stand with my left side towards a wall, at arm's length. Then stretch out my arm, put the hand flat on the wall, fingers pointing up. Then I turn my head towards the right, slowly. A strong feeling of stretching is felt on the inside of my left arm. Hold it for a few moments. I do this gently, several times a day.

Mini-skirts

How come mini-skirts and see-through blouses occurred when I was too young to notice, and haven't shown up again since? It's so unfair.

Endless Cycle of Life

[Thanks to Carter]

Blogger doesn't like GIFs for some reason, so you'll have to go here. I'm not sure who the artist is.
(Odd, in Safari it takes a long while for the GIF to start animating.)

The ebook market

Here's another good Stross article about the ebook market.
In the pre-internet dark age, there was a subculture of folks who would get their hands on books and pass them around and encourage people to read them for free, rather than buying their own copies. Much like today's ebook pirates, in terms of the what they did (with one or two minor differences). There was a closely-related subculture who would actually sell copies of books without paying the authors a penny in royalties, too.
We have a technical term for such people: we call them "librarians" and "second-hand bookstore owners".

He echos some of those things which I've been saying, to wit that $20 for an ebook is nuts, and it's one of the hindrances for the ebook market to take off. (Meanwhile the publishers are fighting Amazon's $10 ebooks tooth and claw.)
Only I wouldn't go so far as saying it's the main hindrance. I think sheer force of habit, and lacking technology is more important. We need something as comfortable as a book and more flexible, and easy buying.
And despite what he says, that the screen issue is clearly no problem, since we spend hours daily using screens, I think it is. Yes we do, but it's under protest. Me, I am strangely compelled to read a lot on the web, it's addictive... but when we arrive at lengths over a few screen heights, I get uncomfortable, partly the screen and partly the chair, meant for work not reading.
I guess it's a one-word argument really: "iTunes". I think they are the world's biggest music retailer now. And obviously the iBookstore part of the iPad experience is Apple's attempt at making this happen with ebooks. I think it has a shot of working, especially if Stevie can strong-arm/sweet-talk the publishers like he did with the music biz.
Doctorow gets it better, screen reading tends to be scattered. (Recommended article.)

Stross makes an error though:
[...] the typical dead-tree book has, over its life cycle, an average of four readers. Moreover, sell-through in paper is around 50-60%; that is, for every book sold to a customer, 0.8 to 1.0 other books end up being returned or pulped. So the real figure is more like ten readers per book actually printed by the publisher.

He means "two readers", not ten, if we follow his math. They print 100 books, sell 50, and each of those has 4 readers, that's 200 readers per 100 printed books.

Also I don't see why he thinks that we need a $20 ebook reader for that market to take off. Nobody ever made a $50 PC, and last I heard, that market has been pretty profitable overall.

I do however agree with his general drift, as in:
Historically, only 25% of readers paid into the authors revenue stream. A 75% piracy rate may therefore be seen as a continuation of business as usual.
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Pigface

Unfortunately neither is my favorite version of the song, but they give an impression, I guess.

Einstuerzende Neubauten

A lot of us are thinking about monetizing models for the Net Age. A comment under that article has some interesting data. Andrew wrote:
Slightly less drastic than the ransom model, but similar, is the subscription model, as practiced by the German avant-garde band Einstuerzende Neubauten. They've been going about 30 years now, and have a hard core of followers as well as a fuzzier halo of more casual listeners.
In 2002 they ditched the record companies and switched to subscriptions. The idea was, you subscribed to the next album, and thus paid for them to make it.
In return you got a special edition of the finished CD before the normal edition hit the shops, and access to freebie content on their website, e.g. interviews, live studio webcams, bonus tracks, outtakes etc. You also got the chance to go to supporters-only gigs and other events.
Since then they've released several albums and DVDs, and toured almost every year, playing in decent-sized venues like the Forum in London as well as much larger events like the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. So it must be working for them.
Perhaps authors with existing followings can work along similar lines?
(See: Wikipedia, and neubauten.org)

Sounds clever.
If I were them, I'd send out the special content on a DVD along with the CD, instead of putting it on the site. It would not cost much more (less than a dollar per subscriber), but it would feel a lot more special to the subscribers.

Another commenter, Robert, says:
Where does the 3-500 pages format come from? It must have something to do with the limitations/advatages of the printing process.
Perhaps online a different model is needed?

Good point. My feeling is that it would be better to sell a novel in short-story chunks, perhaps ten thousand words at a time, for two bucks each perhaps. It would also encourage the writer to keep the story interesting, something a novelist sometimes forgets in the middle of a 600-page tome!

And I feel it might be wise to work on many different levels. For sure, there needs to be lots of free content, it's the best way to attract new readers/viewers. And then two more levels, where people can buy online content according to how strong fans they are. And then a level of physical content for hardcore fans who want something special, something they can place on their shelf. And a super-exclusive level of that, with the object being signed, perhaps in a special edition (extra nice binding or something).
(This is a development of what the book industry is already doing with paperbacks and hardbacks. A hardback is not much more expensive to produce, but sells for much higher price, early, to the real fan.)

Re micro-payments, I was once convinced that this was a great solution to many things. But I actually used them on a part of Domai for a while (via the bygone Bitpass system), and I found that, unexpectedly, that a 500-picture collection at $5 sold much better than separate 50-picture collections at $0.50, despite the per-picture price being the same! It seems that there is a minimum value at which buyers "can be bothered" to buy.

INSiDE short film

[Thanks Klaus]

Easy and hard

Life being what it is, one dreams of revenge.
-- Paul Gauguin

... Wow, he must have had a hard life!


Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts.
-- Jim Morrison

And he must have had an easy life!

Ukrainian belly dancer

Алла Кушнир ("Україна має талант")

Alla Cushnir. Friends know her as "Fire Hips". (Not really. Dang pretty though.)
Seems "Ukraine's Got Talent" also.
(This does not look like any amateur act to me.)

[Thanks Jim]

The Black Hole

[Thanks Klaus]

Readability

I have made a new design, new colors really, for my nudie site Domai.com. I'm pleased with it, and it seems most others are too, but a few people have mailed me and told me that the new colors, dark blue text on light grey background, is harder to read than the old color, which had a very light yellow background.

Examples: before:

After:
I don't get it, because I care a lot about readability myself, and to me, dark blue on light grey is one of the most readable combinations. (Black text is better, but not significantly.)
Does anybody know why this should be so for some people, and how many it might affect?

Update: one of my readers wrote:
Now I know that you don't set a specific font size (I should have checked the source) I increased the font size in my browser and the text became quite readable. This has highlighted a problem I never knew existed in Google Chrome. Although the default font size was set to 16pt, which should be bigger than I prefer, the font was actually rendered at 8 or 9 points, which is what made it difficult to read.

Indeed GC makes very tiny text.
And most text can be enlarged in the browser, which has enormous influence on readability.
(And again I'll mention "Readable app" for easier reading on the web.)

(Update: I have just made the background graphic a shade lighter. I actually like this better.)

Why We Make Home Videos

Why We Make Home Videos, thought-provoking article by DP.
"I'm telling you, these tapes are INCREDIBLE. My wife and children wander up to my attic office, spot whatever movie is currently importing, and they're just goggle-eyed. We'd completely forgotten what we used to look like, how we used to talk. Our lives are so full, we barely recognize some of the places we've been and the experiences we've had."
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Ads and so on

An ad on NYT broke through my ad-blocker, this one for student loans.
And it strikes me how effective advertising can be, because few people could be further than me from the target audience, and yet immediately I saw it, I noticed myself feeling (not thinking) something like "ah that's nice, maybe I should get one", before I'd even really noticed what it was about. Surely the tasteful and simple design, along with the very attractive models and photography was a factor.

In the excellent SF novel The Diamond Age, Neil Stephenson offhandedly presents the idea (just a casual sentence, really) that fifty years from now, advertising may be illegal.
Apart from the fact that this would surely increase dramatically the extend of underhanded advertising such as product placement, I must say I think the idea has some appeal. I think 90% of advertising has some aspect of dishonesty. Most things are not sold on their own merits, but rather on the message from the advertiser that shelling out the bucks for this product will make you cool and popular and sexy.

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Update: an article about ads and the magazine/paper revenue model, and how can a writer earn money in the Net age.

How not to dock a ship

[Thanks Tommy]

Wise Blood, film

Wise Blood, film.
(UK link.)

"No man with a good car needs to be justified!"

An outrageous story.
I suspect it made a bit more sense as a novel... because a novel does not need the same kind of story arch as a film. I think. In the film I find it a little bit jarring that a character which barely featured in 95% of the film suddenly is a major character in the last five minutes.

Also, while I have not read the novel, at least not yet, I feel that it's not quite as important in a novel that things "make sense". In the film I find myself wanting explanations as to "why is he behaving like this? What's his problem? Why is he talking about cars all the time...?" In a novel I think it can just "come with the flow", as it were.

Don't get me wrong, it's a very strong movie, with a weird and dark sense of humor, and very strong actors.


I bought the movie because of the several strong samplings from the main character's odd, but compelling little speeches were used in Ministry's Jesus Built My Hotrod, the long version (not the version at the link).

Pocket Blu

I've just bought Funny People on blu-ray (I couldn't rent it, some flub with the distributor). And on the disc is an application included called "Pocket Blu". It's to play the bountiful extra features... on your iPhone. I find this quite humorous, given that the sole raison d'etre of blu-ray is high resolution, which you obviously can't enjoy on an iPhone.

Rooms for the tablet

[Thanks to TidBITS]

Interesting article about possible uses in the future around the home, for an iPad.

Here's an interesting item: wireless audio link from iPod to a music system.

And here's an article about the "future shock" effect of the iPad.
"People talk about Steve Jobs' reality distortion field, and I don't disagree that the man has a quasi-hypnotic ability to convince. There's another reality distortion field at work, though, and everyone that makes a living from the tech industry is within its tractor-beam. That RDF tells us that computers are awesome, they work great and only those too stupid to live can't work them."

And Seth Godin has a comment on "saving" the publishing industry.
"We need to get past this idea of saving, because the status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. Not just in print of course, but in your industry too."

Here's a long-view article about reading changes: Zombie Authors.
"Classic works from the great authors throughout history have long been available in print, but on paper they weren't notably cheaper than current works. In ebook form, however, works from zombie authors have a steep price advantage."

Article on bookstore death.
"The big chains will be next. Did you know Borders, with more than 500 stores nationwide, is now a penny stock at risk of being delisted from the New York Stock Exchange?"
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Cookie Blues

[Thanks to Carter]

Olympus PEN E-PL1

Olympus has released a new Micro Four Thirds camera, it's slightly smaller and cheaper than the E-P1.
It could be interesting with the Panasonic supercompact lens 20mm F:1.7, adding the missing image stabilization to the latter, and being more compact yet than the Panasonic GF1, though maybe not a lot in practice.
Here's a practical round-up page for the camera.

Moving comics? (updated)

Here's more speculation about a subject which was discussed here recently: if you start adding motion and such to comics, for Net publication purposes, are they still comics? And, will they be strong comics, or just weak animations?
(The couple samples I've checked out so far of the new "motion comics" looks to me more like typical low-budget animation features than comics with added motion. Not great, but no worse than much of what's on TV.)

Personally I'm considering making comics, not with any motion, but with the text replaced by speech. Or maybe picture books like that. (I think pictures are stronger without any text on them.) It seems that it should work, although it may be difficult to do really well.

I'm considering something a little different too: an illustrated audiobook. Just a regular audiobook, except every minute, a new illustration for it appears on the screen.

Me, I immediately want to be pretty experimental with the drawings, since that's my nature. And since the story is fully told by the text/audio.

But I must admit I suspect there's only a small audience for that really.

Coolpix P100

Everything is falling. Now you can get a super-zoom camera for $340.
The Nikon Coolpix P100 seems quite advanced. What I like best is the tiltable screen. As my regular readers know, I always found that highly useful.

On the other hand... 26x zoom!? I guess it comes down to a magic number, twelve. For me, twelve is the sweet spot for megapixels, even for professional applications, you almost never need more. And I think 12x zoom is about the right amount for a super-zoom, above that and the compromises just stack up too high, in image quality, aperture, hand-holding ability.
Also, I never drink more than twelve drinks in one night, or have more than twelve girlfriends in one week.
Still, this looks like a fun camera, and it shoots ten pictures per second! Great for the kid's soccer game, like the long zoom is. And it seems quite capable video-wise too.


But you will do well to remember that even though this sort of looks like a DSLR camera (like the D60 or D3000), you will not get the same image quality as these slightly bigger cameras (with exchangeable lenses). The reason is the sensor in this type of camera is much, much smaller, to allow for the long zoom. The quality difference is especially noticeable in low light.

PanelFly

Remember I said I hoped major comics would come to the iPad. Well, it seems they will sooner than I'd imagined. I just found a comics-reader app, PanelFly, for the iPhone (and soon for iPad, one imagines, though their site is vague here*), which include Marvel comics. And the app is very well received, based on iTunes user reviews. Promising.
(It may be just the novelty though, a reader on Scott McCloud's blog calls it buggy.)
Here's a preview video. It looks like a full-featured app which should be excellent on the iPad, if it's not buggy.

... I'm trying the app right now on my iPod Touch, so far not bad at all. I've bought the first issue of some title named "New X-Men" for two bucks I think it was, and the download seems pretty speedy, half a minute or so.

... Even with a comic book reconstituted from paper pages, and on the small screen, it's actually a decent reading experience, though you have to fiddle with the screen a lot to zoom in and scroll around. This should be pretty much eliminated once it's on an iPad, given the latter's more than 5x resolution.

The automatic panel selection feature (by clicking on the right of the screen) is very neat. I gues they must have to program that in carefully for each page of every comic, well done. They even select well-choses sections of a page in sequence, when there are no clear panels to go by, or when panels are too large.

(My own photos.)

I find that the graphics look really good, and that $2 per comic book issue is a quite fair price. So far so good!

Prices vary though. Some are just one dollar. And one I've seen so far, is $5, and unfortunately this one, "Pinocchio Vampire Slayer" is the most dillettantish piece of guano I've seen in a long time. No color, no drawing skills, no story. But then that may be promishing for other creators, if that guy could find a publisher.


I just hope that Panelfly and iTunes will open up to self-publisher, this would be a great marketplace. Panelfly does actually have a page on their site aimed at creators, but it's not open yet.

Well, if they don't, if I make a comic and it's decent, I should have a chance at getting my foot in at one of the many independent publishers they already have in their roost. Years ago I was in talk with one about doing adaptions of Hans Christian Anderson, but then they went belly-up before it happened. And I'm sure I could do a much better job these days.

Unlike paper publishing, publishing digitally is virtually risk-less, you don't have the big overhead of the printer's cost, which for a color comics is a huge outlay. So it should be easier to get in.
And of course if you make the product for digital media from the beginning, you can design it for them, page sizes/formats etc.

*"Theres some iPad news breaking today - so keep watch," mailed to me by Stephen Lynch, Chief Technology Officer

I'm quite pleased with PanelFly. And the store works as well as iTunes, surprisingly.
(Only tiny sour note so far was that I just bought a three-issue story arch of The Fantastic Four, and the third issue is taking aaaages to download for some reason.)

Color Theory For Designers, Part 2

Color Theory For Designers, Part 2, long article. Part one was great.

Fuji 3D printer

Fujifilm is introducing a new 3D printer, at least in the UK.
"Excellent ‘photographic’ results are produced using dye-sublimation technology to print directly on to the base of a lenticular sheet."
(I'm not sure why Fuji puts "photographic" in quotes, one must assume printed photos look like photos, even in 3D!)
There's no pricing yet, but I get the feeling this is aimed at shops rather than individuals.
(Here's a picture of their 3D camera, also pretty new.)

Joel Meyerowitz interview

Thanks to tOP, here's a video interview with Joel Meyerowitz. It turns out (around 17.30) that he was the guy I remembered seeing Cartier-Bresson and recognizing it must be C-B without know how he looked, just from how he moved.

What I'm sorta wondering is, why would C-B be jumping around and pirouetting like a ballet dancer when he photographed? Except for the rare occasion when you'd quickly need to get in place for a "decisive moment", I don't see how it helps him.

Glenn S

Glenn S has posted some nice landscapes taken with the Panasonic GF1.

Internet celebrities

[Thanks to Jan]

Who the heck is the Tron Guy, and why is he interesting?

Thirty years ago I talked about how it would be fun to make a fan club for a totally ordinary guy. In the Internet age, this seems to be happening all over the place.

"Everybody should have a T-shirt ready to sell, even if the shirts are homemade", as the Gem Sweater Lady said. Oddly I have not found the original "Goatse" picture, which apparently is an old infamous picture of a guy stretching his nethermost orifice to the limit with both hands.

Feeeeeeed me, Semour!

Kind reader Esri has created a "feed" for this blog. Thanks!

Apart from the word being slung around a lot, I have no idea what it is, to my shame. I'm hoping we can all learn together.

Update: Philocalist says:
There is an RSS link on the main page,in the right side white column, titled 'Sites by the same author' ... 3rd one up from bottom.

Ah, so a feed is RSS. OK then.

Innocence on TBBT

Something was pointed out about one of my new favorite TV shows, The Big Bang Theory:
Pretty much all the characters are good folk, they are innocents. They are not nasty and scheeming and underhanded characters, like it feels like all adults film/TV characters usually are. It very refreshing, and very pleasant. And it proves that comedy does not have to come from nastiness. I just really enjoy this show.

Cameron Chapman

Cameron Chapman is a writer who wrote this excellent article about color in design.
She also wrote this one about the iPad. I don't think she really gets the iPad (she claims that it mostly will attract geeks), but she mentions some interesting competitors coming up, some I hope will work well.

Tee-shirt short, mine

I'm establishing a shop with my own tee-shirt designs.
It's very much in beta yet, I'm not even sure if ordering works.
(The site, for merchants, is not all that user-friendly, so it's slow work to build it. For example it takes them a week to convert a graphic to the format they need to print in "flex print", the high-quality print I want.)

If you order one, tell me how it goes. If you're not satisfied, I have a full money-back guarantee, including shipping price.

The first design is of course based on my popular Running Man painting. I may make a couple more varieties of it.

Bloodhound Gang- Fire Water Burn

Recently upon studying the lyrics of this very funny old hit, I realized that "roof fire" in question is red hair!

Dancin' The Boogie - Silvan Zingg (piano), Will & Maéva ♫ ♪ ♫

Dancin' The Boogie - Silvan Zingg (piano), Will & Maéva ♫ ♪ ♫

Awesome!
I wonder why boogie is not a more popular genre of jazz, it's so engaging. Too hard to play?



The male dancer, William, is one of my correspondents, he alerted me to this.

Tune title "Dancin' The Boogie" (composer and performer Silvan Zingg)
Download on itunes.
Pianist Silvan Zingg plays his composition "Dancin' The Boogie". Dancing by worldchampion Boogie Woogie dancers William and Maéva.

Pink Gets Wet for Grammy Performance

[Thanks to Joe]

See, it's still possible to catch attention in showbusiness, even in these jaded times. But I say with something this daring in several ways (no safety line!), Pink deserves all the attention she gets.
And if that's not playback, that's good concentration too!

Update: I don't know Pink other than just another pop singress. But upon repeated viewings I'm getting past "woa, sexy", through "woa, acrobatic" to "woa, good song and really good performance".

(Esri found this higher-quality version)

The Depressing News About Antidepressants

The Depressing News About Antidepressants, article.
"By and large," says Kirsch, "the unpublished studies were those that had failed to show a significant benefit from taking the actual drug."
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Charlie Rose - Henri Cartier-Bresson

Charlie Rose - Henri Cartier-Bresson, interview, video.

I prefer André Kertész, but C-B was certainly good, and most of all effective. My once-teacher Ben Lifson said that to me, at least that was my impression, and I think I agree. But the world need kings in all fields, and C-B fell into that position. No harm, no foul.

John5

Miserere said...
Why it works:

• *Gradient tones in the background.
• *Eyes are nice and sharp.
• *Reflection in the glasses (John's left eye) does not cover the eye and gives some idea of what John is looking at (something bright and brilliant...maybe the Big E. himself?)
• *Very nice B&W conversion.

Like I said in my e-mail, we'll make a portrait photographer of you yet! :-D

Eolake said...
Thanks, nice to get nice comments, especially from a sharp critic like your good self.

BTW, I refrained from correcting levels all the way, I think it works best being a bit on the dark side. (I even pushed down the shadows in curves.)

I had him take the glasses off for later pictures out of fear of reflections, but I actually like the one in this picture. Puts a symbolic mental dimension on the eye.
And I'm afraid the window is the Bright thing rather than my humble self. :-)

Focusing Follies

Focusing Follies, article by Ctein. Like usual from Ctein, a well written technical article, this time about the seldom-talked-about weaknesses of all traditional camera focusing methods, and what might be done about it.

Anna said...
What's that whole story about making focus in tune? I didn't really get it. Just notice that many of my pictures are out of focus with that automatic focus system. Is there a way to improve that?

Eolake said...
Funny enough I've never myself noticed all those accuracies that Ctein talks about.
That's why I noticed and published one more John image, I was checking focus in them, they were taken with a super-critical fast lens. All sharp.

I recommend that you only use the middle focus point, point that where you want to focus, and then re-compose the picture. This is more accurate than letting the camera select the focus point.

Self-publishing for ebook readers (updated)

Thanks to TTL for pointing to this article about the EPUB format, used by many ebook readers including Sony Reader, the Nook, and iPad.
They point to a very promising free multi-platform tool for making/editing ebooks, Sigil. God love the hard working geeks and open software.
Sigil appears at first glance to be very user-friendly and simple, I always appreciate that.

Update: hmmm, I can't see how to wrap text around images, though, and I can't find any manual/guide, can anybody find one?
(Meanwhile I'll mess around a bit with InDesign CS4, a rather more humbling tool! (But I'm not likely to run into anything it can't do...)) (Gawd, humbling is the word. I can feel that the last time I did any serious desktop publishing was with PageMaker 6!) (Hmm, despite what the article claims, I don't see any export option for EPUB format.)
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Update: t it turns out that InDesign has a separate export command for "digital editions". Why?? Why isn't it simply under Export, it's the logical place to collect Export options. (In any case, "digital editions" is Adobe's proprietary EPUB readers, heavily readied for Digital Rights Management, of course. Some would almost say draconically so, though that's probably up to the individual publishers.)
Thanks to anon for linking to this.

Update:
It seems it's not Sigil's fault it can't wrap text around images, this article says:
"the EPUB file you create won’t look the same as the printed version of your book unless your original design is quite simple. For example, if your book contains sidebar notes and images with captions, the position of those elements will be discarded in the EPUB file and all the content will be displayed in one continuous flow—with the sidebar notes, images, and captions inline with the main body text."

Well, that certainly keeps things real simple!
Of course, when I think about it, an EPUB file will also have to be display on 3-inch screens, and you can't really have text side-by-side with images on such a tiny screen and still have things readable!
So basically for IPUB books one should not count on any formatting at all pretty much except bold and italics. (And I'd keep italics to a minimum, hard to read on tiny screens I'm sure.)