[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":11},["ShallowReactive",2],{"blog-post-speaking-the-truth-to-power":3},{"_type":4,"body":5,"bodyHtml":6,"excerpt":5,"featuredImage":5,"publishedAt":7,"slug":8,"tags":9,"title":10},"blogPost",null,"I finished up late last night watching a BBC documentary (\u003Ca href=\"http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0074pby/Nina_Simone_A_Tribute/\">link for UK residents\u003C/a>) about the amazing musician \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nina_Simone\">Nina Simone\u003C/a>. That woman knew how to say important things better than anyone. I did a little drawing before crashing to bed.\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/nina_simone-7e839e8aa0.gif\">\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Comics links\u003C/b>:\\r\nI had an e-mail yesterday asking me to cast a vote for the \u003Ca href=\"http://www.slowwave.com/kukoc.php\">Maisie Kukoc Award for Comics Inspiration\u003C/a>. Since I only knew one of the names (Corinne Mucha - I recently bought her Alaska comic), I trawled the internet this morning to find out about the rest:\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Corinne Mucha\u003C/b>: I love her work, have a good browse of \u003Ca href=\"http://maidenhousefly.com/\">her website\u003C/a>. \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Sarah Oleksyk\u003C/b> has generously posted \u003Ca href=\"http://saraholeksyk.com/ivy01.html\">the whole first chapter of \u003Ci>Ivy\u003C/i>\u003C/a>, letting you get a real sense of the story. Don't miss this one!\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Will Dinski\u003C/b>: A fabulous discovery for me, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.willdinski.com/comics-2/\">you can read a bunch of his comics online here\u003C/a>.\\r\n\u003C!--more Lots more links and chit-chat-->\\r\n\u003Cb>Damian Jay\u003C/b>: \u003Ca href=\"http://www.damienjay.com/comics/?b=7505\">Read an extract from \u003Ci>The Natural World\u003C/i>\u003C/a>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>Jonas Madden-Connor\u003C/b> doesn't give much away, but \u003Ca href=\"http://family-style.com/mumblingmynah/\">here's his website\u003C/a>\\r\n\\r\n\u003Cb>John Porcellino\u003C/b>: Also difficult to get a sense of his comics from \u003Ca href=\"http://www.king-cat.net/\">his website\u003C/a>, but he gives an intriguing \u003Ca href=\"http://www.king-cat.net/links.html\">list of links\u003C/a> \\r\n\\r\nI know I should never expect people to post their whole comic online, because people need us to buy them so they can afford to keep making more. But I was struck by how much more interested I was in the people who had posted whole chapters - their books are the ones I'll want to go buy. It's all about getting the balance right, not posting so much we lose money, but enough to give a really good sense of what we do. I've only seen my work ripped off a few times from the internet, but I was very surprised to find out from architect (and big-time DFC fan) \u003Ca href=\"http://www.barnabygunning.com/\">Barnaby Gunning\u003C/a> that a major Italian newspaper had printed a photo I took of his family and posted \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/235142.html\">on my blog about the last Fleece Station party\u003C/a>: \\r\n\\r\n\u003Cimg src=\"https://images.jabberworks.co.uk/lj/barnaby_italy-b5e87f5156.jpg\">\\r\n\\r\nI supposed I should be annoyed that they used my photo without permission, although I was a bit tickled to think of so many Italians with their morning coffees looking at Barnaby's daughter holding a picture of \u003Ca href=\"http://derekthesheep.blogspot.com/\">Derek the Sheep\u003C/a>. But \u003Cb>VERY NAUGHTY\u003C/b> of the newspaper, those pirates (boo!). (And now I've ripped it off Barnaby's \u003Ca href=\"http://twitpic.com/1dtfmr\">Twitpics\u003C/a>). But hooray for Barnaby, not only has he \u003Ca href=\"http://oobject.com/home/featured/oobject-interviews-barnaby-gunning-the-architect-for-top-gear-presenter-james-mays-lego-house-with-pics/26330/\">built a house entirely of LEGO\u003C/a>, but he's involved in rebuilding the Italian city of L'Aquila after its horrible earthquake, and built a \u003Ca href=\"http://www.comefacciamo.com/index.php\">website\u003C/a> using Google Earth images to help them find out what part of the city need work. \\r\n\\r\n\\r\nGetting nervous about our upcoming elections; I hope people (myself included) really \u003Ci>think\u003C/i> about who they're voting for and their MP's long-term record, and don't do any knee-jerk reactionary voting. Speaking of piracy, this whole business about the \u003Ca href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_Economy_Bill\">Digital Economy Bill\u003C/a> is particularly worrying, the way it sailed through Parliament with hardly any discussion or MP involvement (only 3.4% of them turned up to the House of Commons!). I'm against piracy, but I don't want the government to start shutting down websites willy-nilly. At one point, they were saying that they could cut off anyone's internet connection if they downloaded from an illegal website; so any internet cafe with wi-fi wouldn't last more than a day at that reckoning. I know they backtracked a bit, but the whole thing's zoomed through so fast I still need to go scrabble around the internet to find out what happened. \\r\n\\r\nHere's a website \u003Ca href=\"http://www.didmympshowupornot.com/\">where you can find out if your MP showed up\u003C/a> for the debate, and further \u003Ca href=\"http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23debill\">discussion on Twitter\u003C/a>. Remember that MP, \u003Cb>Tom Watson\u003C/b>, \u003Ca href=\"http://www.tom-watson.co.uk/2009/10/morris-the-mankiest-monster/\">that I met in Birmingham\u003C/a>? (He and his son \u003Ca href=\"http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/241021.html\">drew monsters with me\u003C/a>). He seems to be one of the more internet-clued-up MPs out there, and he's keeping us up to date better than anyone. (He's \u003Ca href=\"http://twitter.com/tom_watson\">tom_watson\u003C/a> on Twitter.) I was pleased to hear him on the radio, speaking up about it in Parliament.","2010-04-08T10:23:00.000Z","speaking-the-truth-to-power",[],"speaking the truth to power",1776628717903]