We're getting to the tail end of summer...
So it looks like I'm on the 'confirmed authors' list for this year's International Festival of Authors, happening at the tail end of October, which I gotta admit, is pretty darned cool. I've done a few workshops for Harbourfront Centre's summer camps these past few months, and it was a bit of a surprise when they turned around and invited me out for IFOA. Even though I've managed to hone my little multimedia presentation for kids, when their previous guests have included the likes of Junot Diaz and Sarah Vowell (who we had seen talk last year), I still feel like I really got to step up my game and wow the audience a little more now. Pressure!
I'm also scheduled to be part of Word on the Street in September. I'll be splitting my time between the kid's tent and the graphic novels tent, so that should be fun, switching gears like that.
Here is a photo from Comic-Con that basically summed up that experience for me.
Hmmm, what else. I LOVED LOVED LOVED Ponyo. It was like watching a picture book being brought to life right in front of me. The rough-hewn watercolour backgrounds, how Ponyo and Sosuke would turn into wobbly kid's scribbles whenever the camera was shooting through water, Ponyo's reversion to her simpler fish design whenever she used her magic... I really loved all those little touches. Which is to say that the last act didn't suffer from the usual abrupt ending (aside from Totoro, is there really any Miyazaki film that you could say doesn't suffer from that?), but Ponyo made me happy in a way a Miyazaki film hasn't done in a very long time.
Oh yeah, and Fat Princess... man, I love that game. It's adorably cute, ridiculously bloody, and has a great sense of humour about it (I mean, come on. Any game that licenses this song specifically for the end credits? It's pretty great). I basically play the game in a support role as a worker/priest, and as a, uh, Chubby Chaser.
I'm also scheduled to be part of Word on the Street in September. I'll be splitting my time between the kid's tent and the graphic novels tent, so that should be fun, switching gears like that.
Here is a photo from Comic-Con that basically summed up that experience for me.
Hmmm, what else. I LOVED LOVED LOVED Ponyo. It was like watching a picture book being brought to life right in front of me. The rough-hewn watercolour backgrounds, how Ponyo and Sosuke would turn into wobbly kid's scribbles whenever the camera was shooting through water, Ponyo's reversion to her simpler fish design whenever she used her magic... I really loved all those little touches. Which is to say that the last act didn't suffer from the usual abrupt ending (aside from Totoro, is there really any Miyazaki film that you could say doesn't suffer from that?), but Ponyo made me happy in a way a Miyazaki film hasn't done in a very long time.
Oh yeah, and Fat Princess... man, I love that game. It's adorably cute, ridiculously bloody, and has a great sense of humour about it (I mean, come on. Any game that licenses this song specifically for the end credits? It's pretty great). I basically play the game in a support role as a worker/priest, and as a, uh, Chubby Chaser.