I’m trying to navigate the mind of a censor, but unfortunately, I’m getting a little lost in there.

I stopped by the Handley Regional Library in Winchester, Virginia this weekend, where I picked up about a dozen graphic novels so I could play catch-up on comics I’d missed. One of them was Wonder Woman: Bitter Rivals, a collection from four years ago (which shows exactly how much catch-up I desperately need to do).

While reading through the book, I discovered dabs of Wite-Out wherever a character might have said “hell” or “damn” or “christ.” I can’t tell for sure what was deleted in any of the panels, because the Wite-Out has been laid on so thick that I can’t make out the original lettering even when I hold the page up to the light. I guess I’d have to track down an unbowdlerized copy of the book to tell exactly what was being censored.

In any case, check out the first word balloon here for an example of what some library visitor did after he or she was offended:

(more…)

I just discovered this advertisement in the January 1893 issue of The Cosmopolitan, and since an entry of mine from last week caused Patrick Nielsen Hayden to comment on the difference between mimeography and spirit duplication, I thought I’d share it here.

If Wikipedia can be trusted, “Edison did not coin the word ‘mimeograph,’ which was first used by Albert Blake Dick when he licensed Edison’s patents in 1887.” And according to Wired, “The A.B. Dick Co. released the Model 0 Flatbed Duplicator in 1887. It sold for $12 ($270 in today’s money).”

Which means that this ad was published fairly close to the dawn of the technology, only six years after that license was first obtained and the mimeograph was offered commercially to the public.

I can’t tell if the product pictured is the Model 0 Flatbed Duplicator, but regardless of whether it’s the original or a later model, it still led to the launch of science-fiction fandom.

Let a thousand fanzines bloom!

Here’s how 2008 turned out for me … or rather, how it turned out for my words.

I completed three new short stories, but I won’t be telling you their titles or giving out any other details about them until they’re either sold or published. What can I say? I’m superstitious that way.

But here’s what I can tell you—

I published two stories:

“Petrified” in Desolate Souls, the World Horror Convention souvenir program book

“A Very Private Tour of a Very Public Museum” in Postscripts #15

And I sold five:

“Glitch” to The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction: Volume Three

“The Human Race” to Space and Time

“The Hunger of Empty Vessels” to Bad Moon Books, where it will be published as a stand-alone novella

“The Only Wish Ever to Come True” to Talebones

“The World Breaks” to Postscripts

All five of those stories are slated to appear in 2009. Watch for them!

So there I am in a dream this morning on a packed bus in Egypt, heading with a group of other tourists to visit the ruins. (In the real world, Irene and I visited Egypt in 2006, but I’m not sure whether my dream self was aware of that.) Only we never make it to the sites, instead ending up in a disappointing museum filled with broken audio-animatronics, cheap plastic replicas of artifacts, and tacky tabletop displays purporting to explain the history of the region which contain flickering lights that don’t always work and have been constructed with all the polish of a grade-school science fair.

No one else even bothers to look at these exhibits, instead scurrying straight through to the cafeteria at the far end of the building, but I pause at every one, reading plaques and pushing buttons, all the while wondering why we didn’t head to Abu Simbel or Luxor … or anywhere else but here.

By the time I finish my dutiful examination and catch up with the rest of the group, they’re seated in the cafeteria, having finished eating, and surrounded by the detritus of their meals. Most of them have pulled their chairs in a ring around Cory Doctorow, who I hadn’t even realized was traveling with us.

When I look at what’s available to eat, all I can see are candy bars, but these aren’t the standard U.S. ones I’m used to. They’re all foreign brands, such as those I’ve marveled at in London, like Mint Aeros and Cadbury Flakes. Finding these unfamiliar treats fills me with a strange sort of joy. I scoop up handfuls of the sweets, and as I dance back to show off my spoils to Cory, I wake.

Heritage Auction Galleries yesterday alerting me to its upcoming auction on January 18 of a Triceratops horridus skull, and I’ve been lusting after the thing ever since.

The skull, found on a private ranch in Montana, is 7½ feet from beak to frill, with the frill stretching out more than 5 feet wide. Amazingly, this fossil is 93% complete!

And how cool is this? Supposedly—

Though the left brow horn was missing it is believed that it was sheared off in battle as the bone indicates it was broken off while the animal was still alive evidenced by signs of healing.

I want it! (more…)

As you can see from this advertisement, now that I’ve tired of taking care of your corpse during my stint as a funeral director, I’ve decided to take care of your health instead.

As this ad from The Cosmopolitan urges, “In the list of good resolutions for ’93″—and that’s 1893—”why not include health betterment?”

I know that you’ve all resolved to have healthier new years, so start using Scott’s Emulsion today!

After all, “its effect in Consumption, Scrofula, and other diseases causing rapid loss of healthy tissue has given Scott’s Emulsion of Cod-Liver Oil with Hypophosphites of Lime and Soda, marked pre-eminence over all other forms of nourishment employed in medical practice.”

Why, it’s “almost as palatable as milk.”

“In many thousands of homes the old year will be tuned out and the new one tuned in over the radio,” according to this ad from the January 1927 issue of Scribner’s.

“They can share in the dance music, the cathedral chimes, and the festivities from far and near; listen to the voices of gifted singers and entertainers and to messages of good cheer and inspiration.”

Perhaps it’s time for you to jump on board this new technology since it’s about to turn 1928 and “the experimental days of radio are now largely over.”

Happy New Year!

So in this morning’s dream, I’m in the back seat of a car with an unidentified group of friends as we drive through small-town America. (They’re unidentified not because they’re necessarily strangers, but because their identities are unimportant to the dream at this point, I guess, so I’m as yet unaware of who they are and whether or not I know them in real life.) As we pass one home, sort of a refurbished farmhouse, I note that next to it is an exact replica of the massive perisphere from the 1939 World’s Fair.

It’s so odd to me to come across this unexpectedly in the middle of nowhere that I want us to stop and take a look, to learn how and why the thing is there, but the faceless driver keeps speeding on, turning this way and that through the small-town streets no matter how much I protest. But I so want to investigate the perisphere that I open the car door and tumble out as it continues speeding on without me.

After I stop rolling and bouncing, I start walking back, but long before I find any perisphere, I discover the town’s small museum. Inside, I chat with the caretaker, an older woman, and for some reason she tells me that I might have heard of the town because the name of their sheriff is Wesley Snipes. In the dream, that strikes a chord, and I remember having heard about that aspect of the town in a mocking television news report. (In real life, of course, I know of no such coincidental occurrence.)

As I wander the small building, it turns out to be more gift shop than museum. Mixed in with perisphere-themed objects such as crystal paperweights, drawings, and paper sculptures, are things that have nothing to do with the perisphere, such as ornate editions of Lord of the Rings. As I move through the aisles, puzzling over why these random items should be for sale, one of my companions is suddenly beside me, having convinced my fellow travelers to double back and rescue me.

It’s Julie Watt-Evans, with whom I once took a Chinese language course in real life. Her husband, Lawrence Watt-Evans, is not with her, and I have no idea if he had even been with us in the car in the first place.

I wake up as Julie and I eye the same crystal paperweight and try to decide which of us should end up with it, since we both seem to want it. I never become aware of the identities of the rest of my friends, and I never do make it back to the perisphere.

As Irene was preparing an ancient address book for recycling, she pulled out the pages and ripped the book in half, at which time she discovered that the padded covers had been lined with rectangles of newspaper to give them some heft. There were about a dozen or so slips bound within each side. While we have no idea of the dates of the newspapers from which these were sliced, we think that the address book itself had to have been about forty years old.

Three of the pages contained commercial artwork. Neither one of us can read the text, so we have no idea what’s being illustrated, but still, this was an intriguing, serendipitous discovery.

It makes me wonder what else lies hidden away within book covers, perhaps never to be found!

How would you like to buy a copy of Spider-Man #51 for only 20 cents? Or get a 12-issue subscription to The Fantastic Four for only $1.75? No problem! Just make sure that you have your time machine set to take you back to 1968.

Here are two mimeographed fliers sent out by Marvel Comics and received by me forty years ago, one selling back issues and the other hawking subscriptions. The ink is fairly faded, but if you click on the image several times, you’ll be able to view readable copies.

I got these in the mail on April 26, 1968, presumably because I was a member of the Merry Marvel Marching Society. I know the exact date because I scribbled that information on the back of one of the sheets in the clumsy handwriting of a 13-year-old. I guess that seemed important at the time.

Note that on the subscription flier, someone—maybe even Fabulous Flo Steinberg, perhaps?—had manually crossed out the offer for Ghost Rider subs, since the final issue of that character’s run had been cover-dated November 1967. (That would have been for the western hero, as opposed to the not-yet-invented motorcycle-riding one.)

I remember how, in response to this solicitation, I taped nickels, dimes, and quarters to index cards, mailed the whole sticky mess to 625 Madison Avenue, and waited anxiously for the issues I’d somehow missed. I wish I could do that again!

Don’t you?