Bloggasm

Matthew Cheney: The Mumpsimus began in August of 2003 when I started reading science fiction and fantasy again after having not read any since the early years of college. I discovered that the field had changed in ways that interested me, because many newer writers both inside and outside the genre were interested in mixing material often seen as wholly part of either SF or wholly part of what for lack of a better phrase I’ll call the literary mainstream. I wanted a place to record some of my thoughts about what I was reading, and so I started the blog. Soon I discovered that many of my thoughts were contradictory, superficial, amorphous, absurd, and confused, but that, too, has been helpful to see.

I didn’t have any sense of audience other than myself for a while, and then it seemed suddenly that lots of people were paying attention, because my interests were similar enough to a few other people’s that they were interested in what I was up to. I think some people pegged me as a science fiction blogger early on and ended up being quite disappointed, but I’ve never been very good at living up to taxonomic expectations.

I don’t tend to think of the blog as a genre blog, because only a part of my reading life is spent reading genre fiction (not that I like the term “genre fiction”, but people seem to know what I mean when I use it, so I continue to do so). When possible, I try to keep The Mumpsimus unpredictable and eclectic. And because life sometimes gets busy, there are definitely fallow weeks and even months, such as right now.

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Content publishing is huge. Blog Herald (popular blog news site) put the number of existing blogs in millions, and that was in early 2005. Personally, throwing out the spammers, I still think that we have more than enough blogs out there to keep us busy reading for several lifetimes.

So how do you pick the best blogs to read? And from Bloggasm’s perspective, how do we pick out the most interesting blogs to profile, rant and rave (and occasionally criticize) about?

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Hello everyone.

My name is Ahmed Bilal, and I’m working with Simon on Bloggasm.

I’ll be contributing to Bloggasm as well, and since I probably won’t be doing many interviews, so watch out for opinion pieces, blog reviews, latest blog news and the random controversy.

I’ll be posting a bit more on what we plan to do with Bloggasm later on in the day, so keep reading. And of course, if you want to request an interview, mail Simon through the link on the right.

Jerry Beck is a well known animation historian, animation exec (Nickelodeon, Disney, etc.) and a cartoon producer. He was research associate on Leonard Maltin’s OF MICE AND MAGIC: A HISTORY OF AMERICAN ANIMATED CARTOONS and has gone on to write ten books including LOONEY TUNES THE ULTIMATE VISUAL GUIDE, THE 50 GREATEST CARTOONS, OUTLAW ANIMATION and THE ANIMATED MOVIE GUIDE. He’s written for ANIMATION MAGAZINE, VARIETY, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, VIDEO BUSINESS, THE WHOLE TOON CATALOG, ANIMATION BLAST, and ANIMATION WORLD MAGAZINE. He has produced dozens of animated video compilations and is a consultant on the LOONEY TUNES GOLDEN COLLECTION series. Beck co-founded STREAMLINE PICTURES, the first company devoted to importing Japanese animation and distributing anime to North American theatres, television and home video. Among Streamline’s many titles were AKIRA, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR, and ROBOTECH. Beck is currently producing a cartoon pilot for Frederator Studios and Nickelodeon - and maintains a website www.cartoonresearch.com and a co-writes a blog www.cartoonbrew.com

Simon Owens: With the newer trends towards computer animation, do you think animated movies are improving?

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Dave Campbell stalks the misty forests of the Pacific Northwest, where he works for a nameless Huge Corporation by day and writes like a man possessed by night. His blog, Dave’s Long Box, chronicles one man’s increasingly pathetic attempts to cling to the halcyon days of youth by reviewing all the old comic books in his collection. Dave can sing “Stairway to Heaven” in pig latin and is a master at the “I’ve got your nose” sleight-of-hand game. Beware his power.

Simon Owens: You say on your blog that you want to write for comic books. How does one go about being a comic book writer? Is it a hard field to break into?

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Sundries Shack: By way of a bio, I’d simply say that I’m nothing particularly special, which may make me a very good representative of the blogosphere. I’m in my late 30s and live outside Washington, DC. I work a full-time job that has nothing to do with politics or current events or technology and I’m also studying for my music degree with the goal of becoming a music teacher and choral director. I’m not a professor, lawyer, paid political pundit, media maven, or wanna-be political consultant. I’m just an American with a smidgen of writing talent, a plethora of opinions, and a desire to wield my own chainsaw in the Thunderdome of ideas. I’ve been blogging for not quite two years, have a modest readership, and would like to reach a bigger audience (but what blogger doesn’t?). I prefer to think that I write approachably, with some humor, some snark, and some seriousness, in a mixture that makes for entertaining fare on a daily basis.

Simon Owens: As a conservative blogger, is there any conservative pundits that you try to distance yourself from because you don’t think he represents your party very well?

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Okay, many of you probably remember that a few weeks ago this site crashed, erasing all the previous interviews. I’ve been manually reposting all the old interviews, and it took a hell of a lot longer than I thought, and as a result we lost a big chunk of our readership. I’d like to thank all the bloggers who took the time to update their permalinks to us and the ones who have added us to their blogrolls, it has really helped us out.

Now all the old interviews are reposted and we’re moving full speed ahead and we’ll be posting some non-interview content as well. Enjoy, and please keep coming back.