Top Ten (December 2009)

1. GOOGLE'S HOMAGE TO E.C. SEGAR. Someone at Google has good taste. First they get it with Sesame Street, now they mark Segar's b-day (115!) with this one. Nice job.




2. RICHARD THOMPSON'S ANECDOTE REGARDING BRANT PARKER. I really enjoyed reading this blog post from the great Richard Thompson about when he was a young, aspiring writer/cartoonist and he met cartoonist Brant Paker--creator of THE WIZARD OF ID. A very vivid memory. Just cool.




3. GRIT COOKBOOK. The Grit, in Athens, GA, is the best vegetarian restaurant that I've never been to. (Whatever that means.) I got this cookbook for xmas and it's got some cool, savory stuff to do with tofu. Some of it looks fancy-complicated, but I'm game. We kicked it off with a dang tasty tofu ruben sandwich last week.




4. JOHN BURNINGHAM. Genius, genius, genius. How have I gone this long without knowing about the children's books of John Burningham? All I can say is this guy has got GUTS.




5. GOOGLE IMAGES. Just finished drawings for a pic book, and Google Images was with me all the way (apologies for two Google endorsements in one Ten). Whenever I need an image ref, Google Images is the place to go.

6. FROM THE MOUTHS OF BABES BY OLD CALIFORNIO. A Facebook friend posted this video. I had never heard of Old Californio, but it seems that they are an up-and-coming CA band. This song--I like it.




7. MAP OF MY HEART. John Porcellino's King Cat is the king of the zine and mini-comic. When I first moved to Chicago in '99, I discovered his books at Quimby's. His drawings are so elegant, and his observations just sweet, simple, and often heartbreaking. Drawn and Quarterly has been so good as to reprint King Cat in book form. This is the second collection of such.




8. STONEWALL'S JERQUEE. Who'd a thunk it? Vegetarian "beef" jerky that actually tastes like beef jerky. I was a fool for some jerky growing up. But once I hit 18, I went vegetarian and never touched the stuff. When I turned a ripe 34, I started eating the occasional bit of bird. No beef, no pork, no fish. As weird as it sounds, this stuff is good (and frighteningly addictive).




9. WHALE TALK. Julie gave me a stack of YA novels to read recently-- one of which was this one from Chris Crutcher. My first Chris Crutcher. Very intense story about swimming, bullying, racism, and tearing stereotype to shreds. Really good. Hurts to read something like this, but it's good to hurt sometimes.




10. ROMY'S EVER-EXPANDING VOCAB. Hi, light, bottle, night-night, Mama, Dada, girl, good girl, num-num, bye-bye, more, more please, purse, wow, cat. And she's a heck of a mimicker. Babies are cool, man.