[comics] Unused Original Art for the Cover to Daredevil #200 … compare and contrast with the John Byrne cover Marvel actually used. [from scans_Daily]

[movies] Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001 Diary … the diary entries concern the time he spent working with Stanley Kubrick on 2001 …‘July 9. Spent much of afternoon teaching Stanley how to use the slide rule — he’s fascinated.’

[politics] Boris Johnson Facts … ‘Boris Johnson owns a cellar excavation company in Austria.’

[comics] Comic Genius … interesting profile of comic artist John Cassady … ‘Given that an elite illustrator can command up to $1,000 a page for a 22-page comic book and that most popular titles are monthlies, a top talent like Cassaday can comfortably clear six figures annually.’ [thanks Kabir]

[comics] The Making of Glamourpuss … YouTube video of Dave Sim explaining the way he creates his new comic …‘The eyes really are the toughest part.’

[comics] The Top 100 Comic Book Runs … interesting list of the best runs in on-going comics series. [via this discussion on Metafilter]

[london] Time-lapse Vid of Dissolving an Oyster Card in Acetone (aka Nail Varnish) … which seems to leave behind a usable RFID Tag and it’s antenna … ‘So tomorrow morning I’ll attempt to use this naked oyster card to journey to work. If I’m successful (and not arrested for terrorism) I’ll have to decide what my new oyster card will be. So far I’m thinking either stitching it into my watch, or wrapping it around a magic wand…’

[comics] Milk and Cheese in The Fur Suit of Crappiness …

[oyster] Oyster Meltdown … another video of the uses of an oystercard dissolved in Acetone … ‘I melted the Oystercard in acetone and explored different antenna layouts. (very small, as a stick, foldable, etc.)’

[007] The name’s Ronson, Jon Ronson … Ronson follows one of the journeys of James Bond …

I phone Zoe Watkins at the Ian Fleming Centre, the literary estate. She’s known within Bond circles for having an encyclopedic knowledge of the books.

“I want to recreate a great Bond journey,” I say. “I want to take a passage from one of the novels and assiduously match Bond car for car, road for road, meal for meal, drink for drink, hotel for hotel.”

“What a wonderful idea,” she says. “But which journey do you want to recreate?”

“I dunno,” I shrug. “One in Moonraker?”

“Moonraker is basically a drive from London to Margate,” Zoe says. “Fleming’s fans were disappointed by the absence of exotic locations.”

[comics] The Comic Book Script Archive … interesting list of scripts from Alan Moore, Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Brian K. Vaughan and many others… From Alan Moore’s intro to the Killing Joke script: ‘I want you to feel as comfortable and unrestricted as possible during the several months of your bitterly brief mortal lifespan that you’ll spend working on this job, so just lay back and mellow out. Take your shoes and socks off. Fiddle around inbetween your toes. Nobody cares.’

[comics] Commentary Track: “Invincible Iron Man” #1 … Matt Fraction discusses his latest comic … ‘Well, here’s another essential key to Tony, for me– the cad, the ladies’ man. The thing about Bond I always loved is his confidence in social situations — he always knows what to wear and how to wear it, what to order, what to drink, how to play Baccarat… the superspy stuff is a blast, but the character appeal to me — the real aspect of escapism and wish fulfillment to me — is in that social assurance. So I want to play that up in Tony.’

[news] The Day There Was No News … ‘Nobody Died.’

[tv] Headmistress to the Nation … Anna Pickard on Margaret Mountford from The Apprentice … ‘As contestant Michael Sophocles celebrated his team’s Singles’ Day greetings cards having won the task – by dint of being the “least worst” product on offer – with whoops, shouts and air-punching, Mountford could not have looked more disgusted had he marched an army of water buffalo into the boardroom and asked them all to fart on cue.’

[tech] Data Recovered From Melted Columbia Disk Drives … Is is more crazy that you can drop a melted hard drive from orbit and still recover data from it or that they still use DOS on the Space Shuttle? ‘…at the core of the drive, the spinning metal platters that actually store data were not warped. They had been gouged and pitted, but the 340-megabyte drive was only half full, and the damage happened where data had not yet been written. Edwards attributes that to a lucky twist: The computer was running an ancient operating system, DOS, which does not scatter data all over drives as other approaches do.’

[comics] Mike Sterling’s Progressive Ruin: Brainiac 5 inadvertently offends all of England.

[politics] Boris Watchers … a blog taking a close look at new London Mayor Boris Johnson … ‘Boris Watchers has been set up to scrutinise the new Mayoralty of Boris Johnson. The blog aims to become a Wiki-style tool for constantly scrutinising the new administration in City Hall. We sure can’t trust the Evening Standard to keep an eye on him!’

Also worth checking out: Lolboris …

[comics] 5 Superhero Movie Scenes They’ll Never Let You See … things from those crazy Comic books you’ll never see in the Movies. On Monsieur Mallah and the Brain: ‘If 51 percent of American moviegoers aren’t ready for gay marriage, then they’re sure as shit not ready for a love affair that combines homosexuality, bestiality, robophilia as well as a little amputee fetishism for good measure.’ [via Feeling Listless]

[comics] Interviews with Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard – plus a preview of The Walking Dead #50 (the best serial comic being published at the moment?) …

Since “The Walking Dead” debuted, zombies have become something of a cultural meme and have seen resurgence in virtually all forms of entertainment media, and Kirkman thinks they’re here to stay. “I think zombies have risen to the level of vampires and werewolves and will always be a staple of popular fiction — with highs and lows like vampires and werewolves experience — but I think they’ll always be around in some form or another and I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.”

[blogs] Sashinka: ‘It’s today.’

[comics] US superheroes with Scottish accents… BBC News on Scottish Comics Creators … ‘Along with [Grant] Morrison, the work of some of Scotland’s other great comic book writers and artists has been showcased at an exhibition at the National Library of Scotland. Names such as John Wagner, Alan Grant and Cam Kennedy have dominated the genre in Scotland for decades and have been at the forefront of what Mr Schreck calls “the European invasion” since the late 1970s.’