Humor

The DC Comics Guide to Digitally Drawing Comics

Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don't Float: Classic Lit Signs on to Facebook

In the bestselling tradition of Stuff White People Like and I Can Has Cheezburger?, the next online humor sensation makes the leap to book form

When humorist Sarah Schmelling transformed Hamlet into a Facebook news feed, it launched the next big humor trend-Facebook lit. This hilarious book is the first to bring more than fifty authors and stories from classic literature back to life and online. Schmelling uses the conventions of social networking-profile pages, status updates, news feeds, and applications-to retell everything from The Odyssey to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to Lolita.

Every day 150 million active users of Facebook log on to reconnect with old classmates, add pictures, share quizzes, and post news stories, notes, and videos. In Schmelling-s network, Satan and Beelzebub connect using the fiend finder, Don Quixote vows vengeance against Superpoke, Jane Eyre listens to Jay-Z-s -Hard-Knock Life- on repeat, Ernest Hemingway completes the -Are you a real man?- quiz, and Oedipus works on his family tree.

A loving spoof of the most-trafficked social networking website in the world and a playful game of literary who-s who, Ophelia Joined the Group Maidens Who Don-t Float will have book lovers and Facebook addicts alike twittering with joy.

Manga Studio For Dummies

Love Manga? The newest features of Manga Studio help you bring your ideas to life! The tools available in the latest version of this powerful program make it easy to turn your computer into your drawing board, and Manga Studio For Dummies makes it easy to get started.

Discover how to use Manga Studio to begin creating comics in manga or Western styles, add color to your creations, and share them with your adoring public. It’s a breeze once you know your way around the program. Manga may have begun in Japan, but Manga Studio For Dummies is written in plain English, and shows you how to:

• Build and use page templates
• Rough in your comic with penciling techniques
• Work 100% digital, or use a combination of digital and traditional tools if you prefer
• Work with layers, rulers, and panels
• Add speech bubbles and sound effects text
• Ink your work and add tones
• Prepare your creations for print or distribution on the Web

Written by a working digital artist, Manga Studio For Dummies covers both Manga Studio Debut and EX versions. As an added bonus, it even gives you a peek into the world of manga and comics in general. With the help of Manga Studio For Dummies, you just might find yourself among the comic artists whose work populates the Web and gathers thousands of fans!

Managing Humans: Biting and Humorous Tales of a Software Engineering Manager

Managing Humans is a selection of the best essays from Michael Lopps web site, Rands In Repose. Drawing on Lopp's management experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland, this book is full of stories based on companies in the Silicon Valley where people have been known to yell at each other. It is a place full of dysfunctional bright people who are in an incredible hurry to find the next big thing so they can strike it rich and then do it all over again. Among these people are managers, a strange breed of people who through a mystical organizational ritual have been given power over your future and your bank account. Whether you're an aspiring manager, a current manager, or just wondering what the heck a manager does all day, there is a story in this book that will speak to you. You will learn:

• What to do when people start yelling at each other

• How to perform a diving save when the best engineer insists on resigning

• How to say "No" to the person who signs your paycheck

Among fans of Michael Lopp is the incomparable Joel Spolsky, cofounder and CEO of Fog Creek Software:

"What you're holding in your hands in by far the most brilliant book about managing software teams you're ever going to find".

This book is designed for managers and would-be managers staring at the role of a manager wondering why they would ever leave the safe world of bits and bites for the messy world of managing humans. The book covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build a lasting and useful engineering culture.

The Geeks' Guide to World Domination: Be Afraid, Beautiful People

TUNE IN. TURN ON. GEEK OUT.
Sorry, beautiful people. These days, from government to business to technology to Hollywood, geeks rule the world.

Finally, here’s the book no self-respecting geek can live without–a guide jam-packed with 314.1516 short entries both useful and fun. Science, pop-culture trivia, paper airplanes, and pure geekish nostalgia coexist as happily in these pages as they do in their natural habitat of the geek brain.

In short, dear geek, here you’ll find everything you need to achieve nirvana. And here, for you pathetic nongeeks, is the last chance to save yourselves: Love this book, live this book, and you too can join us in the experience of total world domination.

• become a sudoku god
• brew your own beer
• build a laser beam
• classify all living things
• clone your pet
• exorcise demons
• find the world’s best corn mazes
• grasp the theory of relativity
• have sex on Second Life
• injure a fish
• join the Knights Templar
• kick ass with sweet martial-arts moves
• learn ludicrous emoticons
• master the Ocarina of Time
• pimp your cubicle
• program a remote control
• quote He-Man and Che Guevara
• solve fiendish logic puzzles
• touch Carl Sagan
• unmask Linus Torvalds
• visit Beaver Lick, Kentucky
• win bar bets
• write your name in Elvish

Join us or die, you will.
Begun, the Geek Wars have

Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch

Jim Norton is a pervert

in the truest sense of the word. The physical equivalent of a tall slug, he pays top dollar for massages with happy endings and is fascinated by shitty sitcoms and fat girls. He is also, at times, racially offensive and morally repugnant. He spares no one in his comedy -- least of all himself.

Now, in this outrageous, blisteringly funny collection of essays, Norton tackles the topics that are near and dear to his heart: from public events like the legendary Voyeur Bus incident on the Opie and Anthony Show, which culminated in all involved being taken to jail, or seeking a hug from his childhood idol Gene Simmons, to deeply private moments, including a teenage Jim's embarrassing poetry-writing attempts while in rehab, and his inexpensive sexual experience with an unwashed MILF (a Monolith I'd Like to Forget). His stories are raw, searingly honest in their attention to detail, and most of all, hilarious.

Filled with personal photos and nearly fifty candid and uncompromising essays, Happy Endings is one of a kind...and probably best read on an empty stomach.

Foundation Flash Cartoon Animation

Whether you are an experienced Flash designer or developer looking for a guide to doing animation in Flash, or a novice to Flash who is looking for an effective way to create and distribute animations, this book will prove invaluable to you. Covering every aspect of Flash animation, the book is a fast-paced yet thorough review of the Flash animation process. Written by the Emmy-Award winning team at ANIMAX, this book not only reveals the step-by-step process followed by one of today's leading Flash animation studios, it gives you valuable tips and tricks to take your Flash animation to the next level. Divided into three phases of production (pre-production, animation, post-production) this book breaks the Flash animation process into smaller, more manageable steps. And because the authors approach the animation process from various perspectives (such as producer, animator, and editor) the book balances many of the real-world issues facing today's Flash animators, from artistic to technical to financial. The book starts off by looking at planning and designing an animation project, including working out your goals, and putting together character libraries and storyboards. Next up we look at the production phase, which includes using plug-ins to make your work more efficient, implementing your animation, and adding special effects. Finally, we look at post-production work, including how After Effects can be used effectively alongside Flash for tasks such as camera mechanics, how to make Flash not look like Flash, and tips and tricks from the experts. Whatever the reason, like millions of others around the world you've become interested in Flash animation. And you've come to the right place to learn more. This book is compatible with pretty much any fairly recent version of Flash.

• Covers the full process of Flash animation, through preproduction, production, and post production
• Covers many practical techniques, including creating character libraries, using plugins, and camera mechanics with After Effects.
• Written by the Emmy award winning ANIMAX studios team

What you'll learn

• How to effectively plan an animation project
• How to put together storyboards
• How to create elegant character libraries
• How to set up your .fla file, ready for animation to commence
• How to make more efficient use of your time with plugins, where to find good plugins, and how to create your own
• How to animate, frame by frame, or using tweens
• Why After Effects can be better than Flash for some tasks.
• Effective After Effects Techniques, such as camera mechanics
• How to make Flash not look like Flash

Summary of Contents

• Chapter 1 - The Project Plan
• Chapter 2 - Character Libraries
• Chapter 3 - Storyboards and Animatics
• Chapter 4 - Setting Up Your FLA
• Chapter 5 - Plug-ins and Extensions
• Chapter 6 - Frame by Frame Animation
• Chapter 7 - Animating With Tweens
• Chapter 8 - Animation Special Effects
• Chapter 9 - Why Use After Effects?
• Chapter 10 - After Effects and Camera Mechanics
• Chapter 11 - Making Flash Not Look Like Flash
• Chapter 12 - Tips and Tricks

The Internet is a Playground

David Thorne has quickly established himself as the world’s leading internet troublemaker. Since his emailed efforts to settle an overdue bill with a drawing of a spider achieved massive worldwide online exposure in 2008, millions of people have followed Thorne’s hilarious exchanges with unwitting victims reported via the mainstream media, online and email inboxes globally. Thorne’s razor-sharp writings, compiled in his first book “The Internet is a Playground” say something about everyday life we can all relate to. “If the internet had a heart, David Thorne would be it’s mitral valve.” Mil Millington, Author, ‘Things My Girlfriend and I Have Argued About’ “There is usually a fine line between genius and insanity but in this case it has become very blurred. Some of the funniest and most clever writing I have read in years.” Terrance Fielding, WIRED Magazine “I laughed so hard and uncontrollably I could hardly breath. Reading this on public transport is not a good idea!” Kate Huchinson, editor, Penthouse magazine “David Thorne’s wit is as sharp, and often as cutting, as a scalpel. Hilarious and brilliant.” Dave Masters, editor, The Sun Newspaper “..one the most entertaining and interesting writers in years.” Matthew Moore, editor, Telegraph.co.uk

The World According to Twitter

The wit and wisdom of the Twittersphere captured in a hilarious, occasionally poignant, and often useful collection of hand-picked tweets.

New York Times technology columnist David Pogue has tapped into the brilliance of his half-million followers on Twitter by posting a different, thought-provoking question every night. The questions ranged from the earnest (“What’s your greatest regret?”) to the creative (“Make up a concept for a doomed TV show”) to the curious (“What’s your great idea to improve the cell phone?”). Out of 25,000 tweets, Pogue has gathered the very best 2,524 into this irresistible, clever, laugh-out-loud funny book. The World According to Twitter is truly a grand social networking experiment, in which thousands of voices have come together to produce a unique and wonderful record of shared human experience.

Some samples:

To my former sexual partners, as required by law (@markowitz)

RE: What seems to have been your car (@pumpkinshirt)

From: Your Publisher. Subject: Ha, good one! Could you send the real chapter now, please? (@ Lookshelves)

Mr. Smith MapQuests Washington (michaelbuckman)

Snakes in the Terminal (@justinchambers)

We’re Running Low on Mohicans (@rllewis)

There Goes Private Ryan...I Hope He’ll Be OK (@slightly99)

My stepfather was “The agony of defeat” guy on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, before the ski jumper (he was the car spinning out at Daytona 500). (@BigDaddy978)

I juggled for Clinton’s inauguration. 20 minutes of FBI pat-downs, and then I wound up throwing knives around the president anyway. (@McEuen)

I’m on a Girl Scout cookie box (have been for 9 years, so it’s longer than 15 minutes)! (@libbyfish)

Yo Yo Mad: Angry violinist (@eboychik)

Gringo Starr: Best drummer north of the border (@eboychik)

Tronto: Sidekick of the Canadian Lone Ranger (@pumpkinshirt)

Thomas Hobbies: Life is just a bunch of nasty, brutish and short weekend projects (@louielu12)

Penny Arcade Volume 5: The Case Of The Mummy's Gold (v. 5)

Join us, intrepid explorers, as we journey once again into the depths of the Penny Arcade archives, facing eldritch curses and monstrous perils aplenty in our quest to unearth the ancient treasures of the year 2004 A.D.! Marvel at the mysteries laid bare within - at these tales of epic gaming, appliances gone bad, square-dancing blood feuds, and so much more! Face, if you dare, the ominous foreboding of The Last Christmas, the challenging depths of Twisp and Catsby, and the poignant tragedy of The Wandering Age!