Comic writer and artist Neil Cameron is creating alphabetically themed image as suggested by fans on Facebook and Twitter.

Pictured here is “I is for… Indiana Jones Inching Away from an Inebriated Iron Man“. (Kinda reminds me of Bender…)

Highlights include “D is for… Doctor Who Defeating Doctor Doom in a Deadly Disco Dance-off” , “J is for… Just Joss” for its kitch factor (and creep factor!) and “F is for…the Fantastic Four saving the Finnish Ambassador from Fred Flintstone, who’s Flinging Flaming Fajitas at his Ford Fiesta” for its awesomely out of hand title.

The project was announced June 11th, with the first image appearing on the 14th and is still going on.

As of this writing Cameron’s on Q, which is “Q is for… Q and Q reading Q” with a nifty infinite regression thing going on.

Check it out in its entireity on Neil’s blog. It is indeed pretty awesome.

Popularity: unranked [?]

Matt Blind has written a disturbingly accurate light and humourous piece on the different types of customers who visit bookstores.

Grazers

Grazers don’t need a book, or want a book, but they love coming in to the bookstore, and love lingering leisurely over all the tables, racks, endcaps, promotional displays, and front-of-store placements. If they can do this while a bookseller is attempting to replenish or reset the display, all the better.

The only redeeming feature of a grazer is that they can only accomplish their task with a cup of coffee in their hand — pardon, with a $4 half-soy-half-decaf-latte-with-a-shot-of-pretention — and while they clog the main aisle and generally pose a hazard to navigation, they are mostly harmless. They might try to casually engage you conversation, “How’s Business?”, but they don’t really care. Their primary goal is being in a bookstore for an hour each week so they can insert an off-hand, “oh I saw that the other day at Big Box Books” in later conversations, proving to their friends that they are topical and literate.

Bonus: They buy coffee. Margins on coffee are excellent.

From “Rethinking the Box: The Seven Types of Customer“

My store didn’t sell coffee (apparently we were missing out on a huge opportunity here)  but it certainly reads familiar. Continue reading »

Popularity: 2% [?]

I’ve finished updating my books read list for May. When I first posted about the list, my sister mocked me under the absurd impression that she reads more than I do. So she began to keep track, and in April we held a contest, which I won. By a lot. In May, she tried again, and lost again. It was a silly nonsense contest, but there you have it.

Looking over the list for May, it seems I read far more graphic novels than I usually do (none of which counted for our contest. I’ve finally started on Promethea, which had been recommended to me several times. Inspired by the filming currently under way, I re-read the first Scott Pilgrim, continued with the rest of the books published thus far, then gushed about its infinite awesome. Continue reading »

Popularity: unranked [?]