Go Farther: The Mangaka Artist Cafe And America

Last week Bonnie noticed that there's a mangaka cafe in Japan – a cafe with the usual food, drinks, and internet, but also spaces and resources for artists to work in.  Of course, you know me – I had to speculate on if this might be a good idea in the United States/North America.

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An Interview With Artist Cheng (Lily) Li

I met Cheng (Lily) Li in one of my many rounds of conventions.  She's a
fascinating example of how people can share an combine their loves –
she's both an artist and a Life Sciences Research Assistant at
Stanford.  Not only does she do fannish work, she does detailed
scientific illustration – you can find much more at her website, http://www.lilycli.com/.

A person who combines fandom, art, and science sounds like someone
with quite a story to tell, and Lily was nice enough to let me interview
her.

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Random Thoughts on Cover Art

I was thinking about electronic distribution – indeed, not a surprise for any of our long-term readers.  However among my usual speculations, it struck me that electronic distribution is changing cover art.

Think of how used we are to cover art.  It's on our albums, it's on our books, it's on our games – and also in advertisements for those products.  It's omnipresent and at times surprisingly impressive (paging Boris Vallejo and Michael Whelan).

Only now, with electronic products, things are changing.

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