Linka-a-dink-a-doo!

James Lileks has been digging up hideous old comic book covers and making fun of them in public – it’s good to know that time-honored pastime is still alive and well. One of the more nightmarish things he unearthed is our illustration of the day.

Comics Reporter has a San Diego report from Darwyn Cooke.

Among the books I never, in a million years, expected to see a review of, would be Essential Marvel Two-in-One Presents the Thing, Vol. 2. Well, Bookgasm is toying with me today, because that’s just what they did. What next? Their ten favorite issues of Ghost Rider from the ‘70s?

SciFi Wire gets two posts out of what I suspect was one interview with Neil Gaiman: one about Henry Selick, who is directing the animated adaptation of Gaiman’s book for young readers Coraline; and one about the complicated path Gaiman’s novel Stardust took on its way to the screen.

SF Signal must be bored, since they’ve dug out the old party game of replacing random words in a title with “pants.” They have 21 books and 13 stories with humorously altered titles, for those who dare to click.

Locus magazine’s August issue includes a special celebration of the centennial of Robert A. Heinlein’s birth (which was in early July, but it’s hard to report on an event which hasn’t hapened yet).

The Times (the one out of London) reports that Philip Pullman is working on a sequel to his reportedly very good “His Dark Materials” trilogy (the first of which, The Golden Compass, is also being turned into a big-budget Hollywood fantasy effects extravaganza for this Christmas). Pullman is quoted as saying that the new book “will explain his atheist beliefs more clearly.” And we know that an author who tries to explain his beliefs in fictional form (cough! Ayn Rand! cough cough! Dave Sim!) always brings forth a masterpiece of cogent thought, rational understanding, and a thorough understanding of the real world…so I guess I’d better read “His Dark Materials” before Pullman completely mucks them up.

Earlier this week, news was swirling around the literary world that an (unnamed) wife was leaving an (unnamed) Pulitzer Prize-winning male author husband for the affections of a (yes, also unnamed) billionaire, because said author sent a mass e-mail to his colleagues explaining the situation in ridiculous detail. Well, Gawker has published the e-mail, and everyone now knows the people in question are: 1) Elizabeth Dewberry, 2) Robert Olen Butler, and 3) Ted Turner. It’s still juicy, but having to say “who?” twice diminishes the impact somewhat. (Though I do have to quote this bit: “She will not be Ted’s only girlfriend. Ted is permanently and avowedly non-monogamous. But though he has several girlfriends, it is a very small number, and he does not take them up lightly….” I guess when you’re as rich as Ted Turner, you can say that to women and get away with it.)

Alibi recently used the same short list of questions to question eight local New Mexico science fiction/fantasy writers, including Steve Sterling, George R.R. Martin, and Walter Jon Williams.

Charles Stross is happy that he managed to get the English e-book edition of his novel The Atrocity Archives (which kicks serious ass, by the way) priced at £3, to see if that will get more people to buy it.

John C. Wright is evidently in a cheerful mood: he’s expecting that Fantasy will outlive science fiction, and then postulating what might kill SF.

Two of the grumpiest men in science fiction, Jonathan McCalmont and myself, have tried to guess what will win the Hugo Awards this year. This is your chance to take notes so that you can point at us and laugh gleefully later this year, when we’re proven completely wrong.

The USA has a new poet laureate: Charles Simic! (And it’s OK if you’ve never heard of him; he’s a poet!)