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This website is all about the books and book-related projects I am working on.

The Lonely Little Fridge

Now released! The children’s book, The Lonely Little Fridge, is now available as an ebook, paperback, or hardcover through many retailers.

More!

Nineteen Tales of COVID-19

In previous news, the compilation I’d been working on was released in early 2021. The compilation, Nineteen Tales of COVID-19, was organized and edited by Akosua Brown of Jackie Brown Books. The contributors have all lived in or otherwise been associated with Durham Region, east of Toronto. Many have been members of the Writers’ Community of Durham Region.

It is available through Amazon as an ebook and as a printed book:
Amazon Canada: http://bit.ly/nineteentalesofcovid19
Amazon US: http://bit.ly/Nineteentalesofcovid19
Amazon UK: http://bit.ly/nineteentalesofcovid
Amazon India: http://bit.ly/Nineteentalesofcovid

It is also available through Kobo as an ebook:
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/nineteen-tales-of-covid-19

I submitted a story to it, The Rabbit Hole, but I also designed the cover and laid out the interior!

Influences: The Deathworlders by Phillip R Johnson

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“The Deathworlders” is a shared fiction based on the premise that Earth is an unusually dangerous place, and anything that can survive there is also unusually dangerous.

I first heard of the idea through Reddit and Tumblr comment threads posted via the aggregator site MediaChomp. But I was able to track it down to its original archive.

The Deathworlders is now a major story with at least 90 chapters. I am currently somewhere near Chapter 67. Here’s the beginning, which was originally posted as a stand-alone story:
The Kevin Jenkins Experience.

More info:
https://www.facebook.com/HamboneHFY
https://deathworlders.com/books/deathworlders/

A segment from The Rabbit Hole!

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Linda of Funny Face Fiction has featured a segment from The Rabbit Hole on her blog!

The story is about a family who escapes a totalitarian nightmare — and what happens when one of them wants to go back.

This segment provides a view of the Great Revolt, where enslaved humans desperately try to escape captivity. It is draft text that may or may not make it into the final book.

The Rabbit Trap

Funny Face Fiction is the publisher of Hollow Edge by Frankie Cameron.

Two charming children’s books: “Kindness Pie” and “C is for Camp”

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My former co-worker Rebecca Thompson has illustrated two charming children’s books. Both books were written by Kirstin Dias.

C is for Camp

The first book, published in 2021, is called “C is for Camp”. It’s an alphabet book that describes the journey of a family of bears to their cottage, or “camp”, in the woods. It is utterly charming and makes me intensely miss going to the cottage. Running off the end of the dock into the lake… the way the waves sorted the beautiful multicoloured sand of the beach… the smell of the woods… I miss it intensely.

But I was thinking… we always called it ‘the cottage’, not ‘camp’. To me, a ‘camp’ is an organized thing for public-school students. However, my sister lives in Sault Ste. Marie and calls it ‘camp’. Imagine my joy when I saw that Kirsten Dias, the author of “C is for Camp”, is from Sault Ste. Marie!

Continue reading →

More on the Toki Pona ebook/font issue

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Wow. More adventuring.

I sent a message to a friend asking for their address so I could send them a copy of the Toki Pona translation of TLLF. And we ended up having a long discussion.

I sent along copies of the PDF and the epub of the book, and… the epub did not open properly in the Sumatra PDF/epub reader on Windows!

A screenshot revealed that Sumatra was attempting to display the ebook as if it were a reflowable ebook (thanks to Anne-Marie Concepción’s epub course on LinkedIn Learning, I know what that looks like). Plus, it wasn’t displaying the sitelen pona font at all.

So during the discussion, I fired up my Windows 10 virtual machine for the first time in quite a while (I run an Intel Mac), installed Sumatra PDF, and opened the epub. And the same error happened.

Afterwards, more experimentation. So far I have established:

Sumatra PDF/epub viewer (Windows only) does not seem to have any idea that fixed-format ebooks exist. There is no mention of them in the program’s documentation or settings. It tries to display the epub as a reflowable-format epub.

Adobe Digital Editions displays the epub properly on MacOS 10.15 but not on Windows 10. On Windows, it positions most of the text properly, but the sitelen pona font is not shown at all, and the text that would have that font applied is shown overlapping the latin-letter text.

Calibre displays the fixed-format epub and the sitelen pona font properly on both Mac and Windows.

Apple Books displays the epub properly on the Mac.

I am now thinking that it may be time to completely rethink my epubs and implement them as reflowables with the pictures inline. This will require issuing new ISBNs for those ebooks that I have issued as fixed-pormat epubs,

A Workaround for a Toki Pona Font-Display Issue

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I think I’ve found a workaround to my font issues in the ebook version of the Toki Pona translation of The Lonely Little Fridge! I’ll be able to put out an ebook after all!

The book is put together with Toki Pona text, with both latin letters and a Toki Pona script called sitelen pona (“good drawing”), in parallel. The sitelen pona text is actually regular latin text with a special font applied, which changes its appearance drastically.

The sitelen pona text was not appearing properly in the ebook version. And only in the ebook version. Text in PDFs for print appeared properly, even though both ebook and PDF were exported from the same InDesign file!

The text with the problem. The letter o is still visible in the sitelen pona text (top line) in this screenshot taken from the ebook version.
The text without the problem, in this screenshot taken from the PDF version.

Figuring what was actually going on is a tale of exploration into strange new places…

Continue reading →

Toki Pona translation off to be checked!

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A page from the Toki Pona translation.

I just sent the interior of the Toki Pona translation, complete with text and pictures, off to the translator to be checked!

Once that it okayed, I will assemble the book files, create the ebook, and make them ready for uploading to IngramSpark! Then we only await the printer’s e-proof.

I Love Filth & Grammar!!!

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Today, it came. Well, the first part, anyways.

Let me back up a bit. Last July (2021), I backed a Kickstarter by Shelly Bond called Filth & Grammar: The Comic Book Editor’s Secret Handbook.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sxbond/filth-and-grammar

Today I got an update. The books have been printed, but have not been shipped yet. In the meantime, the promised digital copy was made available (early!) to backers.

I was flipping through it on my phone at lunch at work. And even in those few minutes, I found three things that help with my children’s book projects, as well as with characters I am developing for other projects!

Now I am going through it and realizing there is so much more to learn… and my next projects will benefit enormously from the organization of the production process that this book teaches.

This book will have pride of place on my comics-creation shelf next to works like Kevin Tinsley’s “Digital Prepress for Comic Books”, Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics” series, the Etherington brothers’ “How to Think When You Draw” series, and Duc’s “L’Art de la BD”… not to mention all the books about actual drawing and writing.

I am so excited by this!

Filth & Grammar is by Shelly Bond
with Imogen Mangle, Laura Hole & Sofie Dodgson
edited by William Potter & Heather Goldberg
proofread by Arlene Lo
cover by Philip Bond

Off Register Press, Los Angeles, 2022

ISBN 979-8-9855622-0-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 979-8-9855622-1-7 (softcover)

Storyboarding a Dream (Sequence)

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A couple of nights ago, I had a short dream in the drawing style of Camila Nogueira. After I woke up, I quickly drew a rough sketch storyboard in the Tiny Sketchbook I take everywhere with me, enough for me to remember it.

I think I’m going to do a proper storyboard and then do my first rough-draft animation, or “animatic“. It’s only a very short sequence, 15 seconds or so. I am thinking that it will be a kind of “Hello World” work as I step into the world of the animatic.

In the world of computer programming, a “Hello World” program is traditionally the first simple program you write when you are learning a new programming language, environment, or toolset. All it does is print or display the words “Hello World”. Sounds simple, yes? Perhaps. But it is a critical step for the programmer, because it shows that they have figured out how to operate the tools required to create the program, which may be a completely new set of equipment or commands… or familiar ones used in new ways.

So this is my Hello World animatic. I haven’t actually made one before, and I have to figure out how to do it. Scan in externally-drawn images? Draw them on the computer? And how do I put them together with the right timing, and add sounds? Photoshop? AfterEffects? Clip Studio Paint? Audacity? Something else? And where do I get the sounds?

I’ve been wanting to do this since I was in animation school all those years ago…

And Now: Sequels to The Lonely Little Fridge!

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Yes, today a passing remark from a co-worker crystallized a lot of stuff in my head, and now I have titles and ideas for the first two sequels to The Lonely Little Fridge!

I give you…

The Lonely Little Fridge: Spin Cycle

Little Fridge is settling into his new home, in the apartment with the guys. He starts to connect to the community of appliances and other devices in the apartment. But one day he is covered in damp clothes! The apartment is crowded with hanging damp clothes placed everywhere! It seems the apartment clothes washer and dryer has broken down.

Little Fridge sees the repair tech arrive. He’s afraid. Will the washer/dryer be thrown away like he was? And then the tech opens up the washer/dryer! What is this frightening event?

But then suddenly the washer/dryer is put back together, and starts operating normally. The guys rejoice and start gathering up the clothes to re-wash and finally dry them. Little Fridge can feel the joy of the washer/dryer, knowing it has been cared for and saved.

The Lonely Little Fridge: Spin Cycle will be followed by The Lonely Little Fridge: Rest Easy.

This story will be about the guys rescuing an abandoned chair. It’s inspired by the picture nearby, which was forwarded to me by another co-worker with the words, “This reminded me of you.”