by Les Becker | May 23, 2008 | Blog-Family, Book Mentions, Cartooning, Contests, Little Bits of Stupid, The Big "Extra Copy" Caption Contest
“What – Me? Procrastinate?!”
Now.
I posted it on February 11th. Ahem…*
I don’t like breaking promises. I didn’t break this one, thankfully, so much as delayed it. By a loooooong time.
Cardiogirl, my shetbag of a partner in crime and caption-contest-hosting, is blaming herself for this delay. I’m trying to convince her that she didn’t “drop the ball”, as she insists on putting it. We were in this together from the get-go.
And besides… we didn’t drop the ball. It’s more like we just lobbed it back and forth until it went over the fence and got lost in the tall weeds.
Good news, though – we found it! As per the original “rules” of the contest, we have chosen our three favourite captions and we’re expecting our readers to do the actual work and vote for the winner of an AUTOGRAPHED copy of Natalie d’Arbeloff’s fabulous book of cartoons, “The God Interviews”.
Actually, truth be told, we couldn’t pare it down to fewer than four captions, so CG put them in a toy bathtub belonging to her daughter and had said daughter draw the top three. That’s right, the three best captions were pulled randomly out of the tub by a child, folks, so you know this is legit.
Here’s what we ended up with, along with the pic from the contest.
“Of course I caught you, that’s the deal. You were expecting the Flying Wallendas?”
“Carpet deum.”
“You’re not Morgan Freeman!”
If you click here, you’ll find CG’s post with the voting poll. The poll will stay up until Tuesday, as Monday is a holiday in the U.S. and all the U.S.ers will be beaching or BBQing instead of surfing the net and voting for captions like they ought to be doing, and all the Canuckians will be stuck at work complaining that the Americans got a holiday and we didn’t.
Cuz that’s what we do in Canuckia.
After Tuesday, we will announce the winning caption and attempt to extract a shipping address from the lucky new owner of “The God Interviews”. Then… we will actually (gasp!) ship the book to the winner!
Honest. I swear we will do this.
This time.
* * *
P.S. Carolyn B., over at Drops of Blood wrote a fairy-tale meme and Where the Walls are Soft – Yes! This freaky-deaky blog of mine! – got included! How cool is that?!
Random Song for the Day: “Mr. Brightside” – The Killers
by Les Becker | Jan 13, 2008 | Artsy Fartsy, Book Mentions, Cartooning
I’m VERY late with this post. It is in part, a “thank you” post, and also an answer to a request.
Just after Christmas, I received from the UK, an autographed copy of Natalie d’Arbeloff’s incredible book of cartoons called “The God Interviews”. Along with it, Natalie sent a personal note on a post card she’d designed herself.
I wish I could call Natalie a “friend”. In truth, I am still too much awed by her to say such a thing. She is the epitome of “Artiste”, in my eyes. She’s doing many of the things I’m doing… except that I don’t throw my stuff out there with quite her panache. Sad to say, I’m not throwing much out “there” at all, yet. That’s soon about to change, as my comfort level of my so-called privacy expands – which it is doing, in leaps and bounds, and much more quickly than I ever believed possible.
Natalie is a writer, a cartoonist, a poet, a painter, a movie-maker, a Woman of Maturity with the Mind of a Child (that’s probably the part of her that I’m most in tune with). Most of all, to me, in everything she “puts out there”, she is A Story-Teller. And that’s how I would like to be remembered as – ummm… once I’m gone… in, oh, say, another hundred years or so. No, better make that two hundred – I have a lot left to say and do. I want to be remembered as a great Story-Teller. 😉
We have had a few email exchanges about her work and how much I admire it. Natalie is one of those “great” Artistes that seems to have an instant rapport with her fans, of which I am one, and every time she replies to a comment I’ve made on her blog, or visits mine, or sends me an email, I get just a little more star-struck. She’s a wonderful spirit, and I hope very much to meet her one day.
Now, about the request….
When my book came, I was, of course thrilled to finally hold it in my hands. I’d seen the cartoons before – she published the book from her web-published cartoon panels, after all, but to actually get to read it by flipping pages instead of clicking a mouse, well… I guess that just makes the experience more tactile. Is that an odd thing to think, Natalie? Somehow I think you would laugh out loud and say “Ex-ACT-ly!!” in that warm, rich voice you have.
I immediately emailed her to tell her I’d got it, read it… (twice already, and once to the cat) and that I was going to carry it around with me in my kitbag until I’d got it out of my system. She emailed back, pleased that I’d received it, and touched that it meant enough to me to carry it around. And she asked that I blog about it.
So, of course, I immediately set about taking pictures of the book sticking out of my kitbag. And Hilary Federwhore (the whore that she can be) just refused to cooperate, and she wouldn’t do justice to the cover at all.
So, now, late – argh, I’m blogging about it and suggesting very strongly that you all visit Natalie’s blog and take advantage of the deal she is offering for an autographed copy of “The God Interviews” which will be available until February 1st. Clicking on the photo caption of the cover, or the link in that first paragraph above will take you to Amazon if you’d like to purchase an unautographed copy.
Spend some time on her blog and click a few links to Natalie’s other work. I guarantee you a fascinating experience.
So, again, Natalie – thank you, thank you, thank you! I still love, love, love, the book (as does the cat), and I’m looking forward to purchasing more of your work in future. I still hope to see a print of your “Apples” become available – it was a great thing, watching that take shape as you created it.
Random Song for the Day: “Out of Space” – The Prodigy
