tuesday

I'm happy to announce that The Boys will be released tomorrow, Tuesday, February 23. I have no idea where you'll be able to buy it in the real world, but you can always try the internet.

The Boys received an excellent, thorough review from Betsy Bird, over at A Fuse #8 Production, and a starred review in the latest issue of Kirkus Reviews. Unfortunately, I don't have a subscription to Kirkus, so I can't link to the full review. This is what it says:

It’s a new town for a baseball-loving protagonist. Newman wastes not a moment, setting the stage with the title page: A lone moving truck chugs along a house-lined street, skyscrapers looming above. A white spread possessing only one word, ‘Tuesday,’ greets readers, with single brush strokes and blocks of color denoting a glove, a ball, a bat and a solitary boy lacing up his shoes. But the anticipated game is not to be, as the shy hero watches the sport longingly from afar. Crest fallen, he sits by a set of elderly men, and baseball dreams are traded for books, then costumes, as the child determinedly tries to stay on the bench of retirees until the old-timer’s ball game reawakens the boy’s confidence. Effective visual storytelling realizes the aching love players can feel for the game, and in one lovely, lonely beat, the boy’s self-imposed rejection turns to resolve, as the tyke asks to join in a kids game. Through confident brushwork, done in a stylized 50s modern aesthetic, the artist’s images reveal sports’ deep truths about acceptance, a willingness to try and the intergenerational connections they bring.

I also participated in an interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. Thanks, Jules, for having me as a guest.

On a personal note (which every post on this blog is, I guess) I want to say to my family and friends, and especially to my wife, Jodi, who, although she probably wouldn't describe herself this way, is the most patient person I've ever met, that I couldn't have finished The Boys without your encouragement.

I promise the next one won't take so long.

werewolf

soldier

pipe

wildebeest

gary chocolate-bear may have/might have eaten bread

Gary Chocolate-Bear, by a strange confluence of non-events, namely non-events of the never-eating-bread kind, had never eaten bread. At some point between when he first never ate bread, and when he, at the time of this story, which isn’t so much a story as it is not a story, had never eaten bread, Gary developed an irrational fear that America’s favorite sandwich bookends would, upon ingestion, turn him rabid. And when Mrs. Chocolate-Bear confronted her husband over breakfast about his peculiar belief by reciting Eleanor Roosevelt’s maxim that a person should do one thing that they fear to do every day of their lives, Gary simply responded that he was “sure she didn’t mean ‘eat bread’, though.”

Coincidentally, Gar (I call him Gar) was right. Eleanor Roosevelt, as Mrs. Choclolate-Bear was well aware, being an amateur Rooseveltologist, indeed meant everything but ‘eat bread’. Furthermore, she (Mrs. Chocolate-Bear, not Mrs. Roosevelt) knew that Eleanor Roosevelt meant everything but ‘eat bread’ because she herself (Mrs. Roosevelt, not Mrs. Chocolate-Bear) inexplicably contracted Rabies after eating what was evidently Rabies-inducing bread at her husband’s inaugural banquet. Mrs. Chocolate-Bear (not Mrs. Roosevelt), wisely, in my opinion, mentioned none of this to her husband, neither at that particular breakfast, nor at his inaugural banquent. Did I say banquent? I meant banquet.

Point is, Gary Chocolate-Bear never ate bread. Unless you consider a scone, bread.

Then, never mind.

The End.

litter

jekyll

hyde

legs

trap

live from the bottom shelf

It's up. Thanks, Minh!

wichita lineman

A few months ago, in the dead zone of Newmanpicturesblog, Minh Le, or rather, Roscoe P. Hargrove, over at Bottom Shelf Books posted a hilarious and weirdly insightful critical analysis of Hippo! No, Rhino that is one of the coolest souvenirs I've collected (insofar as one can collect a piece of the Internet) from my short children's book career. I emailed Minh to let him know how much I liked it, and that led to an interview that we just finished up last week, in which we talk about all sorts of things, including the song I want played at my funeral. It might be Wichita Lineman. And then again, it might not. I'll post a link once it's up.

box

i love your (my) blog

Since my writing skills have admittedly worsened in the last four months, I find it difficult to put into words my thanks to Matt Cordell for tagging me with this "I love your blog" award. And I mean it. I really can't remember which words to use, or how to string them together, grammatically. If anyone can help me construct a note of appreciation, you'll be rewarded with a letter from me, written by you, expressing my heartfelt gratitude.

Now, I don't know where this award originated, but it's an award, and that's good enough to satiate my ego demons until the next full moon. As I understand it, I now have to pass this award along to seven other blogs, or I will die.

Here are the blogs (asterisk = not safe for kids):

1) *The Adventures of Blanco Niño
2) *Things My Boyfriend Says (tragically cut short, presumably because the author stopped dating her boyfriend)
3) *Greenspeak
4) *Ralph Snart
5) The {Prefix}iest Thing I Saw Today
6) E is for Eric
7) John K Stuff

Of course, my love does cost a thing, so functioning blogs that I mentioned, listen up. According to the official rules crafted by the faceless and probably sinister entity that also created this award, rules which have been passed down through potentially thousands of anonymous hands, calling into question their very authenticity and value, you must:

1) Add the logo of the award to your blog
2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you
3) Nominate at least seven other blogs
4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs

Failure to comply will result in you not publicly admitting that you love other blogs. Not death. I lied about that to get you to do it.

neck

"the blasted treeline"

day two

God, this is hard.

But at least something happened to me yesterday, so I can write about that. If I can remember what is was. I mean, I know something happened. I made a mental note to the effect of "blog about this tomorrow", but I guess the note should have been about what it was, rather than its noteworthiness. Or maybe the note should have been half about the nature of the event, and half about its importance, because if I just remembered the event, instead of remembering to write about it, I'd be in the same boat I'm in now. Then again, if it was an event of note, I probably wouldn't need to remind myself to write about it. I'd just write about it.

What was I talking about?

writing season

You know how, when you stop doing something, like writing, for instance, or you only intermittently do that thing, like occasionally writing a dumb story about a family that goes to the moon, you start to forget how to do that thing. You know, like writing, for instance? Yeah, well, I didn't forget how to write. I just wanted to know if that's ever happened to you. That's all.

See, I can totally write. I just haven't. I just didn't want to for the past four months, because it was, like, summer and everything. And that's the only time I can do squat thrusts on the beach and bench and stuff. It ain't easy to write with your hands wrapped around sixty pounds of cold steel. That's sixty pounds in EACH HAND, btw. Go ahead, try it. I'll wait.

What'd I tell you, bro? I don't lie.

But now that it's fall, I might give this writing thing another go. If I don't find something better to do.

gun