Some quickies for your Friday morning:

Three from NPR:

• "Graphic Novel Tells Story of Baghdad Lions," where Brian K. Vaughn (Y: The Last Man) talks to Neal Conan at Talk of the Nation about his new graphic novel The Pride of Baghdad.
• "Earliest New World Writing Discovered," wherein "a heap of debris taken from a quarry in Veracruz, Mexico has yielded a stone block inscribed with what appears to be the oldest writing ever found in the Americas."
• "Young Tuba Player Gets Nod from Phila. Orchestra," wherein Carol Jantsch, at age 21, is the Philadelphia Orchestra's youngest member and the first woman to hold a principal tuba chair in one of the nation's top orchestras. (The story also talks about the tuba being an instrument that more and more women are picking up, and I think this is a wonderful thing.)

From Unclaimed Territory, "Sen. Reid: The Specter bill will NOT be enacted. Period.," wherein the bill sponsored by Arlen Spector to make the NSA's warrantless evesdropping retroactively legal is discussed with Sen. Harry Reid.

Writer, puppeteer and voice actor Mary Robinette Kowal has posted a wonderful ongoing series on reading aloud: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Useful notes on voices, Lesson 4, Lesson 5, and Lesson 6 (via Maggie).

A whole slew of books has just been uploaded to Second Chance Book Adoption (with pictures coming later today). Go check out the selection.

Three links:

"Meaty Arguments," an extract from The Bloodless Revolution, Tristram Stuart's remarkable history of vegetarianism.

Copper, a beautifully drawn and written webcomic by Kazu Kibuishi. Some of these stories have almost brought me to tears. (via Chrononautic Log)

And Teresa Nielsen Hayden details "how to throw a large room party at a science fiction convention." Everything you'd ever want to know. Really.

John Aegard (aka johnaegard), author of "The Golden Age of Fire Escapes" (one of my favorite stories from Rabid Transit: Petting Zoo) has posted issue #0 of Greeter, an online comic illustrated by Kat Ayer. It concerns a near-future society where the only retailer in town is Tera-Mart, like Wal-Mart to the nth degree:

On Earth, the retail wars ended long ago. Tera-Mart now reigns supreme over billions of customers.

But beyond Earth, the struggle continues. The emergence of a sufficiently advanced retailer on our planet has drawn the attention of competitors. Today, Tera-Mart is all that stands between us and the ravening galactic hyperconglomerates.

Tera-Mart's secret weapon in this battle is Lacey--the prophesied Super-Greeter, the genetically perfect Customer Service Saint. She will be Tera-Mart's ambassador to the galaxy, the friendly face of Earthly expansionism on thousands of different star systems.

Unfortunately, Lacey's fanatical devotion to her customers makes her a far greater threat to Tera-Mart orthodoxy than any alien retailer. The conditions Lacey finds at her first post shock her to the core. Bands of horribly disfigured ex-customers wander the store's uncharted regions, surviving only on the cherry-flavored Slushite they can siphon from the pipelines. Armored security guards commit atrocities with flamethrowers, while the ghosts of treasured former associates drift, exiled, through unused back rooms. Management is smug and unsympathetic.

Clearly, Lacey judges, Tera-Mart has lost its way.

It's an interesting idea, and I look forward to seeing what's done with the subject. In issue #0, we're given the back-story, the prologue, where it all begins. The story is intriguing so far, and I like Ayer's clean artistic style.



(Link courtesy of David Moles)