More Moto Hagio!

The news that Fantagraphics & Matt Thorne are teaming up for a new line of translated manga makes me happy. What makes me giddy is that their first release will be A Drunken Dream and Other Stories, a collection of some of Hagio's most important short stories. I've loved Hagio's work ever since reading A A' and They Were 11 way back in the day (when we bought our translated manga flipped, in floppies, and we liked it!) The fact that Hagio's oevre has been basically unavailable in English for years in nigh criminal, and I'm glad to see that Fantagraphics is taking steps to rectify this.

Be a Doll

Bizarro is brought to you today by Ventriloquism.

We finally have what passes for warm weather in New York City at this time of year and it has buoyed my spirits considerably. It's been in the low fifties for the past couple of days and it feels like Mexico. I rode my bike around Prospect Park yesterday dressed in something lighter than an Eskimo suit. It was glorious. Today I may go riding again, perhaps to the local dollar store to see if they have rubber sheets*, or across the Brooklyn Bridge to see how many tourists are mindlessly walking in the bike lane. Every year they repaint the signs and walkway markers and still somebody gets creamed.

For anyone who is not familiar enough with the mystical techniques of ventriloquism to understand this joke, just try to say a "B" without moving your lips. Ah, now you've discovered the magic of ventriloquism. Somehow, doll-wielding entertainment icons like Beverly Massegee can make the sound of a "B" inside their mouth and not with their lips! If you try it, it will sound like a "G." That's why all over the globe people flock to pay big bucks to see this rare art form.

*For use in making it easier to clean up after some of our foster animals.