CSotD: Richard Thompson: Artist, writer, psychic
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I don't know the nature of the treatments Richard Thompson was recently undergoing, but one of the side effects evidently was the ability to see into the near future, or possibly the far distant past or perhaps to eavesdrop on editorial meetings at Nature Magazine.
Whatever the case, he is back at the helm of Cul de Sac, with a storyline about the pink, fuzzy Alice Saurus that started in papers just before the announcement that paleontologists had discovered a carnivorous saurian in China that was apparently covered with fine, fuzz-like feathers.
My favorite paragraph in the coverage came from the Register.uk:
Xing Xu of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing is quoted in the New York Times as saying it’s “possible that feathers were much more widespread, at least among meat-eating dinosaurs, than most scientists would have guessed even a few years ago.”
Well, they were sure as hell much more widespread than the rest of us would have guessed, even a few days ago.
However, further searching reveals that perhaps Richard is just more connected than the rest of us. Or that his time away from the drawing board forced him to boldly explore corners of the Internet where no man has gone before.
I have any number of online friends who can cite obscure astronomical data on their blogs, but I didn't know anyone blogging obscure paleontological data like this fellow, whose blog I found while poking around looking for the earliest citation of the feathered whatchamacallit, and who casually remarks, "Now it is of course already known that tyrannosaurs were feathered, with the basal Dilong being preserved with feathers. The question is of course, did the bigger ones like T. rex have them?"
I'm in awe over his casual use of "of course" in each of those sentences. Yes, of course we already knew that.
Until about five minutes ago, I thought the only people who already of course knew that were Alice Otterloop, her classmates and a couple of paleontologists on a dig in China. One of whom apparently shows up in the comments section of this fellow's blog. And repeatedly uses the word "fuzzy" to describe their discovery.
Which suggests that Richard is not psychic, but, rather, knows a lot of things.
A lesson his fans discover over and over and over.
When talking to young reporters (as my job entails), I often have to tell them to cut their stories down to size, and reassure them that, while they won't have space to tell readers everything they know about a subject, their stories will be richer for the background that underlies it.
QED, not just in Cul de Sac, but in the other feature illustrations Richard often posts on his blog.
And in other news of friends-of-the-blog who are or who have been on medical leave:
Anne Hambrock is a harp player and instructor more known in these quarters as the colorist for and chattier half of "The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee."
She also maintains the "Spot the Cartoonist" site which tracks personal appearances, gallery shows and suchlike within the industry, and has a personal blog called "Overbooked and Underpaid: Notes from a Yes-aholic."
Now, the term "guilty pleasure" usually refers to delicious but fattening foods, or crap television you enjoy watching, but, in this case, the "guilty pleasure" is in laughing uproariously at a blog entry which details a truly awful episode that continues to keep her pretty much laid up as we speak.
It is hard to express your sympathy over her plight while stifling giggles, which is her own damn fault for a blog entry that starts:
Wednesday began much like any other day with one exception; my husband was out of town.
In a universe that loves to screw with people, that was all it would take to set in motion a chain of comedic (and painful events).
Another key to effective writing — besides not spewing out everything you know about the topic — is describing events that aren't at all funny in ways that are, starting with that entry and including a couple of updates written with an upper lip so stiff you'd think that was the part that the doctors had encased in massive amounts of plaster.
Mortals plan, the gods laugh.
And so should you, despite the fact that nothing she describes is in the least humorous.
*snrk*
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