My Uncle Arthur's Scrabble Solitaire

"This verbiage's a zealous attempt in reeling play, but I would be considered a quirky fox for having one weak card to join me."

A self-reflexive metacommentary using every tile on the Scrabble board. Arthur gets bored when he has no Scrabble sparring partner.

You're A Myspace Virgin? Oh, Myspace/Virgin!

MySpace and Virgin have teamed up to destroy the profession of comics scriptwriting.

Okay, not quite. Coalition Comix promises to let the readers vote on every plot twist, creating a story plotted by its readers... and hopefully redeemed by the writers' concepts, characters and dialogue, because MySpacers and comic book fans are not exactly known for their literary skills.



Putting in Mike Carey as writer... er, "story master"... is a good start. But I'm skeptical. Interactivity seems to work best when the interaction is limited to the truly arbitrary decisions (should we kick out Sanjaya this week?) instead of every plot twist, or when the stories are simple (Choose Your Own Adventure, Interplanetary Spy). Virgin doesn't do "simple," and neither does Carey. These stories seem like they can't help but be watered down: the setup forces the writer to give the audience what it wants right that second, not what is best for it. Remember how awkward and forced the writing was in the reader-determined battles in DC vs. Marvel? Even moreso than in the average superhero crossover, I mean?

But let's check back in a couple months and see how they've done once the hype cycle is over. That's a good rule for Zuda, too. Good rule for life.

The Pleasures Of Google Docs

Using Google Documents to collaborate more openly on projects like "Sketch" and the Cool Cat Studio finale. I miss page breaks and word count from MS Word, but I love what it does for the writing process to get back-and-forth from people I trust. I'll be using this one more in the future.