About Nico


I'm a senior business analyst, writer, blogger and tarot consultant based in Toronto, Canada.


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5 Book Blogs You Should Be Reading

By Nico on Tuesday the 9th of March, 2010 at 4:14 pm

RSS IconThere are hundreds of literary blogs out there and I subscribe to several dozen of them, but recently I’ve pared down my RSS subscriptions again, and thought I’d share five of my favourites.

So I present to you, in no particular order:

1. Bookninja

George Murray posts several times a day, commenting on the latest in book news, reviews and miscellanea with snappy asides and acidic author bias. It’s lovely.

A few recent posts: “The literary Devil don’t want Toronto’s soul“, “Amazon and Apple bringing ebooks bar fight to Canada?“, “Sargent rallies the troops“.

Bonus: Free snark! (Read more…)

Bruce Springstzine No. 1

By Nico on Thursday the 13th of August, 2009 at 7:46 pm

Bruce Springstzine

Bruce Springstzine

I couldn’t even tell you how many things I’ve bought off the Internet because someone I don’t know, but think is cool, told me to. But I know that it’s not a small number.

So, when Emily Horne, the photographer behind one of my favourite online comics A Softer World, told the Internet to buy Mike Saturday Lekcy’s BruceSpringstzine, of course, I did. And I’m so glad, because it’s awesome.

Lecky is the man behind the Vancouver-based Loose Teeth Press, and Bruce Springstzine No. 1 Weekend in the Void chronicles his experience at Toronto’s 2008 Canzine festival with Joey Comeau and Ms Horne. The whole thing has a sort of Thompsonesque feel, with delightfully drunken self-depreciating prose.

I’m out on the street with vague directions to head left until I see a subway station. If I hurry I can still make the last train to the end of the line, catch the bus from there to the airport. I do the sort of half-walk-half-jog Terry Fox Shuffle of the too drunk and do little pirouettes to avoid telephone poles and buildings…

The ‘zine is tiny, unpaginated, poorly photocopied and awkwardly held together by a single staple  – in short, it’s absolutely perfect.

I may not be as cool as Ms Horne, but I heartily encourage you to purchase it. It’s 4.95$US, postage included. You can’t go wrong.

Neil Cameron’s A-Z of Awesomeness

By Nico on Tuesday the 30th of June, 2009 at 11:28 pm

I is for... Indiana Jones Inching Away from an Inebriated Iron Man, by Neil CameronComic 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.

Scott Pilgrim

By Nico on Wednesday the 20th of May, 2009 at 10:00 am

Scott Pilgrim Map Scott Pilgrim, written by Bryan Lee O’Malley, is pretty much Awesome Incarnate.

Scott Pilgrim was recently optioned by Universal, and will star Michael Cera,(1) who, upon re-reading book 1, should be damn-near perfect as Scott.

The film version of Scott Pilgrim Versus the World will hit theatres in 2010, but right now they’re shooting around my neighbourhood(2) (which is what prompted me to reread the comics).(3)

I’m very excited to see how this film will turn out. In the meantime, a breakdown of the five books published thusfar: (Read more…)

Footnotes:


  1. How does this kid not have his own website yet? [↩]
  2. They began March 30th, according to ScottPilgrim.com. [↩]
  3. It was kind of weird to see snow machines all over the place with large puffy blankets of white over at Casa Loma and elsewhere in the neighbourhood. Had they come a months earlier they could’ve had the real stuff. [↩]