you built up your heaven on the back of hell

Studio Foglio will now have all twelve of their Girl Genius volumes reprinted! On June 2nd, their Kickstarter will be fully funded, which means for the next eight days, it's just play time and stretch goals. Considering some of their stretch goals involved pancakes on various Foglio family members, I'm dying to know what they're going to do next.

Couple weeks back, Disney announced the "official" arrival of Merida as the next Disney princess. Which is all well and good--the coronation announcement was both splendid and a great deal of fun, on May 11th--but it's not the announcement itself that seems to be irritating people. It's the sparkly, slimmer redesign for the two-dimensional version that seems to be getting under peoples' skin.

Merida's creator criticized Disney for this move, there was a petition that garnered a great deal of signatures, and Disney quietly caved--for once--and put the original Merida up on the princess page.

But I think my favorite fan reaction, all things considered, was John Kovalic's. That's very nearly perfect.

Sent from a friend, from a profile she wandered across:

"Breaking News: The Pity Train has just derailed at the intersection of Suck it Up & Move On, and crashed into We All Got Problems, before coming to a complete stop at Get the Hell Over It. Any complaints about how we operate can be forwarded to 1-800-WAA-WAAA. This is Dr. Sniffle reporting LIVE from Quitchur Bitchin'. If you like this great, if you don't, suck it up cupcake! Life doesn't revolve around you."

I like that.

The White House has awarded Sally Ride a posthumous Medal of Freedom for her efforts in both scientific endeavors and in expanding the reach of the space program. Her partner, Tam O'Shaughnessy, accepted the award on her behalf, and NASA has announced a new internment program to allow up to ten deserving students each semester to study alongside NASA research scientists and engineers, in partnership with Sally Ride Science, the grant set up in Ride's name. While she was the third woman in space, her achievements--especially in the field of educational inspiration, long after her death--have been significant, so this is wonderful news.

This, also, may be the single most beautiful ad for a funeral home ever. Not only that, but we need more ads involving mortality leading to new life. Most of the funeral home advertising--in the US, at least--tends towards far skyborne vistas, stately aged trees, sunlight on water...that whole 'eternity' vibe, when what they should be reinforcing is that we all die, and that's okay, because the flowers still grow and the children still play.