Fusenews: Skimming Off the Cream

They’re right when they say there’s no equivalent out there of this.  For Better or For Worse creator Lynn Johnston will finish creating new storylines for the comic strip.  No big surprise.  She’s been doing it for 29 years and all.  No, the amazing this is that she’s going back and re-illustrating the old strips right from the start!  Now it’ll happen all over again, only with her improved art.  Huh.  I spoke to Mr. Fuse8 about it and he says that DC and Marvel comics do this periodically.  He’s right.  I remember reading two different Lori Lemaris/Superman comic books as a child, both the same storyline but one from the 60s and one from the 80s.  And I’m still reeling from the fact that Lynn divorced her husband.  Where’s that strip?

• From Cynopsis Kids:

Scholastic News introduces a range of new features to its Election 2008 website, including interactive election games where kids can campaign for president, balance the budget, design campaign posters, and choose how they’d run the country if the were President.  The website is designed to let kids, parents and teachers explore the electoral process and dovetails with the election coverage of the magazines Scholastic News (kids in grades 1-6) and Junior Scholastic (grades 6-8).  Ah, the site also includes Scholastic’s ever popular Scholastic Presidential Election Poll where kids can vote for who they want to be the next President of the United States, and an election blog featuring Scholastic Kids Press Corps’ comments and stories from the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which can also be read on Twitter.

I adore the idea of having a game where kids can balance the budget.  I imagine something along the lines of Civilization or Sim City, though I’m sure they’ll never get that complex.

• By George, he’s found it!  J.L. Bell locates the long-lost link between The Grapes of Wrath and My Father’s Dragon. Wherever there’s a dragon being held hostage against its will, he’ll be there.  Wherever there’s a lion with a messy mane or a rhino with an off-color horn, he’ll be there…

• I’m loving the CLAT Level III: Children’s Literature Application Test Monica and Roxanne put together over at The Horn Book .  Once I got the hang of it, of course.  Any test that ends by quoting the Dodo is a-okay with me.

• In Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books there is a library in the Dreaming that contains all the books never written by great authors.  It isn’t too different from the remarkable Invisible Library by Levi Stahl and Ed.  A collection of faux titles mentioned in other books, it contains such interesting titles as Girls, Grapes and Snow by Aristotle Rich and The New Age and the Iberian Ladder by Hernando Garcia Leon, amongst others.  I hope they keep updating it.  Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• At last.  It was bound to happen sometime.  Fine Lines column at Jezebel is finally tackling Flowers in the Attic under the oh-so appropriate title He Ain’t Sexy, He’s My Brother.  Quick question: I’m sure everyone knows this but me, but who is the author of these pieces?  Is it Megan Carpentier or Lizzie Skurnick or someone else entirely?  I’d like to know whom to credit, after all.

• M.E. Kerr is writing a new YA novel?  Peter at Collecting Children’s Books ponders this as well as the Caldecotts/Newberys past and present.

• Daily Image:

Said Stephany of this, "I want one.  I also want some felt sheets of paper covered with embroidered typing to go along with it."  I think that could be arranged.  Behold!  The glory and power of felt.

Thanks to Crooked House for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews