The TfC Ramble is a weekly digest of content from the intersection of technology and comics.
San Diego Comic-Con 2023: How to Watch ← If you are at home like me! 🍿
Digital Comics
DC Debuts New Digital Manga Reader
NFTs
NOTABLE UPCOMING DROPS
If you are planning a comic-related digital collectible drop, please reach out in the comments.
SUNDAY July 16 VEVE.me
WEDNESDAY July 19 StarAtlas.com
Star Atlas CORE is Returning with Act 2. Catch up on Act 1 episodes for free
Technical
The big news this week is that Google Play store is officially opening up to apps that connect to blockchain assets. TL;DR A comic reader for comic NFTs could be distributed via the Google Play store.
Other
Futurama Revival Focuses On NFTs And Bitcoin With An Episode “… we have an NFT episode which, of course, no one understands, which is sort of the joke.” ~ Claudia Katz, the executive producer of Futurama. There shall be lampooning.
AI
Writer Accountability
Lump Dog is in a holding pattern as I wait for the latest peer reviews and a RFQ for production to land. Realistically, I am not expecting anything until after San Diego Comic Con.
I am taking this brief time away from TLSS to work on a couple of other short projects outside my normal wheelhouse. One is the script for a short horror comic I hope to land in an anthology one day. The other is a pitch for a five issue Batman run. DC hasn’t approached me to pitch
yet, but I’d love to have something ready if that ever happens. At the very least, it’s great practice.Does anyone else procrastiClean? It’s been a long time since my den has been quite so organized.
Fire Update
Thanks to everyone who has expressed concern about my sister-in-law’s apartment fire. It’s been over a month, and we are close to having her back on her feet. This week's big win was retrieving an heirloom cookbook from her suite that she forgot the first time they let her back into her suite. The last major step is getting her into her own rental apartment, which is proving to be a challenge. Anyone who has tried to find affordable housing in our neck of the woods will know how hard it is.
Just for Fun
Those who know me know I’m an unapologetic birder who is into wildlife photography. (You can see some of my shots online at https://www.instagram.com/resort.birder/). I am also one of those twisted humans that really loves crows. We have a couple of feeders in our small backyard with food for the corvids. I rationalize it by saying I am doing research for a future comic series, but in reality, it is just a lot more pleasant to be on the ally side of the crows in your neighbourhood than it is to be their enemy. Ha!
This week I learned something I’ve always wondered about. Specifically, how do crows learn to fly? The short answer is awkwardly, but also in a way that made so much sense to me as an educator. I got to witness “Baby Plinko” learning to fly in the tree out front. One of the parents would get close enough to the hungry little velociraptor baby to be just out of reach. Plinko would squawk and complain but eventually have to jump a few inches to get to the same branch as the parent. The parent would feed Plinko and then move to a branch that was a jump and just a bit more away. Plinko instinctively tried to boost his jump with a few flaps of his wings. Sometimes it would work. Sometimes… well, let’s just say there is a reason I’ve named him Plinko. If Plinko missed, the parent would get close enough to prompt another attempt at flying and the process continued until Plinko was fed and the parent had to go find more food.
If you ever see a fledgeling crow thrashing around on the ground (like in the example video below), there is a very good chance they aren’t actually injured. They are just learning to fly. I found a lot to love about this education metaphor-in-action.
And another video just for fun…