Jim Butcher, New York Times-bestselling author of The Dresden Files, as well as the Codex Alera series, sat down with me for an interview in a cozy nook of the convention center—OK, it was a storage area.

I have to say, Butcher met a series of technical gaffes on my end with a degree of patience that would have filled his most famous creation, Chicago wizard detective Harry Dresden, with pride.

I asked Butcher about the origins of the Dresden Files: "I was in a writing class taught by Deborah Chester," he explained. "I had a degree in English literature, so I felt like I had to prove all her born-in-the-trenches theories of novel-writing wrong."

Butcher, who began the class set on writing a novel of sword-and-sorcery, struggled mightily until deciding (out of frustration) to reverse course and follow Chester's rigorous writing techniques to the letter, doing all the plot outlining and character background sheets and so on that the English literature folks often scoff at as the workmanlike tools of genre hacks. But in trying to prove Chester wrong, he ended up vindicating her theories.

"She looked at the first chapter and said, 'You did it. You're going to sell this.' " And Chester was right—Butcher had, out of sheer passive aggressiveness, given birth to the character that would make his name: Harry Dresden, a curmudgeonly professional wizard operating out of modern-day Chicago and listed in the Yellow Pages.

It took 5 years to go from that draft in the writing class to a finished book, but since then things have accelerated: the most recent novel in the series, Small Favor, debuted at #2 on the New York Times hardcover bestseller list, Butcher's highest spot yet.

"When a young writer comes up to me with an ambitious idea for a 20-book series," Butcher said, "I usually tell him to maybe try something smaller to start off with. But being ambitious worked for me because I didn't know how hard it is to get something like this published. That's why I celebrate ignorance—it's gotten me far."

(Read more below the fold.)

Rocco Versaci talked a little bit today about his new book, This Book Contains Graphic Language: Comics as Literature, and particularly honed in on Harvey Kurtzman and E.C. comics’ depictions of war during the Postwar and Cold War era.

According to Versaci, comics employ a unique graphic language, which leverages the complex interplay between word and image to portray a singular vision. An innately self-conscious medium, comics always let the reader know that the author is there through word balloons, a vivid color palette, or an artists’ iconic style. This keeps the reader aware of the fact that what they’re reading is an interpretation, and offers a lot more leeway in terms of putting forth an unorthodox point of view than, say, film or the written word (where the medium gets out of the way of the reader, and makes it easier for the reader to take the material in as a ‘true story’. Versaci used the case of James Frey’s fabricated memoirs as a perfect example of this phenomenon in effect).

Additionally, Versaci stated, comics’ powerful marginality--the low regard in which they're held by mainstream culture--gave creators ample room to voice their more controversial opinions without the heavy hand of censorship quashing their message, particularly during the days of Harvey Kurtzman and E.C. Comics, before the Comics Code Authority was established. Since comics weren't taken seriously, creators were freer to be more daring. Versaci used the example of Simple Jay Malarkey, a scathing caricature of Senator Joe McCarthy that appeared in Walt Kelly’s Pogo a full year before Edward R. Murrow began his journalistic crusade which culminated in the censure of McCarthy. Syndicated by the Hearst publishing empire, Pogo went into millions of American homes, and Kelly’s sharp critique went along with it, under the radar of the mainstream censors of the time.

Versaci then went on to compare the war comics that Kurtzman produced during the early 1950s to some of the war-themed films which were released during the same time. Two Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, both by Kurtzman for E.C., were extremely effective in subverting the cold war mentality, and they portrayed war in a much more complicated fashion than most films of the time. Part of the reason for that, Versaci argues, is that since film is essentially a collaborative medium which relies on large sums of production money and specialized technology, it’s much harder for a singular vision to emerge in the final product, particularly if it’s a controversial one. Comics, on the other hand, remained the more free and idiosyncratic media, shaped by editors and artists, with little time in their breakneck production schedules for heavy editorial interference. Additionally, Two Fisted Tales and Frontline, particularly, were the brainchild of Harvey Kurtzman,who wrote, edited, researched, and broke down the layouts for every story himself. His painstaking research is legendary.

In all, a fascinating lecture on a topic which, as comics become more and more mainstream, deserves much more scrutiny. The medium has a long and storied history that ties in very closely to the social forces which have shaped modern Western society, and although it’s been well documented by many scholars, it’s important to maintain this rich pedigree at the forefront, so that those new to the medium can enjoy and appreciate the efforts of those that have gone before, and benefit from the lessons of the past.

In an earlier post, Tor.com’s Pablo Defendini covered a Q&A with Steven Moffat from San Diego Comic Con. [And more of that interview will be posted shortly.] Starting with series five, Moffat, who wrote several of the most memorable episodes of the BBC's Doctor Who revival, including “The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances” and "The Girl in the Fireplace" (both of which won Hugo Awards) and the very scary “Blink,” will take over as showrunner. The fourth season recently ended.

When I was a little kid I’d watch Tom Baker’s Fourth Doctor Who on PBS with my Dad. For decades I carried around in my head images of the Doctor’s wild curly hair and long scarf, K-9 and the TARDIS. None of the plots stuck with me although I remember being scared of Daleks and I always had a distinct memory of Sarah Jane being very put out because the Doctor returned her to earth in the wrong place.  

After many years, and more Doctors that I didn’t watch, Russell T. Davies -- whose name I either curse or speak with reverence -- revived the franchise with Chris Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor. I resisted. At that point I still referred to the TARDIS as a “phone booth” and had a lot of other stuff to watch. I resisted.

When I finally watched, it took eight minutes into the first episode and I was gone, completely hooked.

[more below the cut...]

That's because your common roundworm can do calculus and I can't:

Like humans with a nose for the best restaurants, roundworms also use their senses of taste and smell to navigate. And now, researchers may have found how a worm's brain does this: It performs calculus.

Worms calculate how much the strength of different tastes is changing — equivalent to the process of taking a derivative in calculus — to figure out if they are on their way toward food or should change direction and look elsewhere, says University of Oregon biologist Shawn Lockery...

I will sometimes also use my math skillz to acquire food, but in my case, it's usually limited to "do I have to dip into the 'take a penny' dish to buy this Snickers bar?" Which is not the same thing, I suppose. Stupid nematodes.

You ask, but John, you are both a science fiction writer and a science blogger -- aren't you required to know calculus? By law? Well, apparently not. And in fact, I was the only person in my graduating high school class not to have taken calculus, a fact that drove my school's entire mathematics department insane. Occasionally, one of the math teachers would corner me and try to coerce me into it:

Math Teacher: Come on, John. All the other seniors are taking calculus. You won't be cool if you don't.

Me:But I don't have to, do I. The school doesn't require me to, does it.

Math Teacher: Well, technically not...

Me: We're done here. 

I went back for my 20th year reunion last year and apparently the math department still holds it against me. Please don't tell them that even worms can do calculus. I'll never hear the end of it.

At a panel on Doc Savage, the pulp hero who inspired/was ripped off by the creators of Superman and Batman, among other creators of your favorite Golden Age comic book superheroes, long-time superhero movie producer Michael Uslan (who is also producing the upcoming Captain Marvel film) let slip that a new Doc Savage film adaptation is in the works.

Nice.

I recently read panelist Anthony Tollin's reprints of some Man of Bronze adventures—for those who don't know, the moniker refers to Savage's awesome tan—and while I wasn't blown away by it as pop literature, I did see some obvious seeds of Superman, including the snow-bound Fortress of Solitude.

So here's hoping the new Doc Savage movie is an improvement on the first one, Doc Savage: Man of Bronze (1975), and the second one, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984).

(Joke. Kind of.)

So I'm sitting here quietly at my desk when I get an email from someone in Production.  That someone is working on the jacket for Kit Reed's new novel, Enclave, which is coming out early next year in hardcover.

As so often happens to voracious readers, Enclave has set off a memory bell in the production person's head, recalling a piece of short fiction he read long ago.  But he can't remember the name of the story, and though, from his description, I know I've read it, neither can I. 

Can someone help us?

Here's the text of the email: 

"People are living in a very large department store.  They hide during shopping hours and come out only at night.  A nice young man joins them.  Then a nice young woman does.  The two fall in love and decide to return to the outside world.  But the residents of the department store are afraid that the young couple will reveal their secret, so they kill the young people, embalm them, and set them up in one of the display windows as mannequins."

We know this, right?  I know someone's going to post, it's Story X by Author Y, and I'm going to feel like a total dolt for not remembering it. 

Addendum:  All Hail the power of the Web.  Kudos to Mary Robinette Kowal, who pegged this as John Collier's "Evening Primrose" in less than fifteen minutes.

Good morning, Tor.com!

I'm David Moldawer, associate editor at St. Martin's Press and longtime SF podcaster at the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas podcast. I'll be part of the Tor.com team here in San Diego covering this astounding orgy of geek-hood.

My geek-gasms started early: My flight was due to depart Newark Airport at 6pm last night. As I wandered the airport corridors, I spotted a much-more-petite-in-person Jennifer Connelly, along with that tall blond English guy from A Knight's Tale—I guess that's her husband (if I used emoticons, this is where I'd put a frowny face).

[More below the fold...]

Now, really, why do we all come to Comic Con? COSTUMES, people, costumes.

Considering some of us have problems coordinating normal-people outfits in the morning, this is no small feat.

Bought, altered, stitched, dumpster-dived, put-together-on-the-fly—these crafty Con-goers have brought their creativity and cosplay to San Diego.

What's been your favorite Con costume? Which characters are you hoping to see? Anyone see a Death Note character, alert me pronto.

Sailor Mercury and Steampunk:



Note: Steampunk...it's the new pink.

Alucard (from Hellsing) and self-made creation:

Japanese "fruits" fashion:



Ren already posted the X-Men family photo with the baby Wolverine. Let's say it together...aww.

And this guy is not in costume—but he was the only one rolling around on a Segway and dodging the Preview Night crowd—so we had to capture his brilliance.



Three things one should never say to someone wearing a costume:

1. "Excuse me, what character are you supposed to be? Huh. Wait—can you spell that for me?"

2. "Hey, your costume is falling off.  I am worried."

3. "You are not wearing a costume.  I thought...hm."

 
The Slightly Less Stormy Calm Before the Storm
 
This is the pandemonium that has become the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con preview night.  Massive hordes of zombified professionals, exhibitors, badge holders and press just trying to find the right line.  The Wednesday night pre-Con, usually just a bonus for 4-day badge holders and VIPs to roam the floor in quiet, unfettered bliss, was something new and unrecognizable.  They created a monster.
 
The line for press credentials took over an hour--which I'm sure that anyone who's had to wait in the badge holders line is crying us a river--but it was more a result of bad planning than sheer numbers, supposedly cut down from years before.  The wait, the combination of anticipation, frustration and the desire to decapitate the next person who bumps into me brought me back to the good old days, when I was a badge holder, too.  And that's how I'll cover the Con, on the beat, as one of the horde.

[More below the fold...]

Tor.com, along with other select media outlets, got a chance to sit down for a pre-Comic Con roundtable Q&A session with none other than Steven Moffat, Doctor Who writer extraordinaire and next in line as executive producer of the revived classic, once its current head honcho, Russell T. Davies, leaves the show next year. Here are some highlights from the video, which we’ll post shortly:

On expanding viewership in the States:

“I do think the key to that is getting your kids to realize that this is the most fun your television will do to you...It’s explosions, spaceships, babes, time travel--come on, monsters... what’s the rest of television doing?”

When asked if the show would ever depict the Doctor’s past, particularly the events of the Time War that occurred in the time between the previous iteration of the Doctor and the new series, Moffat busts out with a little Star Wars:

“When you first saw Star Wars, and that really exciting moment where they were--when Obi Wan Kenobi said “Aaaaah, the Clone Wars...” and your little child brain went “Whoa, that must be fantastic, there’s millions of clones, all identical, they were grown in vats... there’s new clones, old clones, clones falling from trees--brilliant!” Then they showed us, and it was a bunch of meetings... You can’t ever live up to something like that, can you? Some things are best being myths, and [the time war] has become a new part of the myth”.

On spoilers:

“If you want to know what happens to the Doctor, you watch Doctor Who. This is a show that motors on surprise, so we don’t give away major plot developments.”

When asked whether he’d continue Davies’ work breaking boundaries in regard to gender and sexual orientation, he states:

“I think there is a great, fantastic philosophy behind Doctor Who because it’s mostly an adventure show, but it’s a show that’s got a very open hearted, open minded view. You know that the Doctor is the ultimate liberal--by which I mean that he tells everyone what to do and he blows up the planet if we disobey! So yes, I think those values are essential, and we would agree with them all anyway, but it’s not like it’s a major strand... sometimes you read articles about ‘the sexualizing of the Doctor’ and I keep thinking: I must have missed all the good episodes!”

On the possibility of a Doctor Who movie:

“It could happen, there’s always going to be a commercial pressure to do such a thing... someone just recently referred to it as the natural next step--it’s not the natural next step. The important thing about Doctor Who is the series, and there might be other things that we offshoot from it, some of those things might be hugely important, and successful, and wonderful, but the important thing’s the series--always will be, because that’s what it is: it’s a television series, and nothing will ever be allowed to take precedence over that."

Yeah, it’s creepy and weird to volunteer for a procedure where big needles are stuck into your pelvic bones and 5% (or less) of your bone marrow is sucked out.

But bone marrow is one of the relatively few things people can donate while they are still alive. Why wait until you’re dead to save a life? 

You’re probably wondering why this is on tor.com.  Other than it being a worthy cause, of course.  Okay, this is why, and it’s nakedly personal (no, it’s not me). 

I don’t even remember when I met Bob Greenberger for the first time.  But I can tell you that in the more than twenty years that I have known him, Bob has never been anything less than a gentleman—a mensch.  He’s done a powerful amount of work in our field, as an editor and writer (at DC Comics, at the late, lamented Weekly World News, now at Famous Monsters of Filmland, as the author of Hellboy II: The Golden Army, The Essential Batman Encyclopedia [boy do I want that!], and many other books).  He’s devoted to his community—this community—and to the town he lives in (he’s involved in local politics—a man who likes to live dangerously!).  He’s a good friend and he’s always there when people need him (when I feared for a while that my comics collection was going to be homeless, Bob, hearing about this through another friend, called me out of the blue and offered to store it in his garage.  Considering that I own something on the order of 40,000 comics, that was a very generous offer.  Totally unexpected and totally Bob). 

But most of all, Bob Greenberger is a loving and devoted husband and father. 

And now, one of his children is in trouble.

[More below the fold...]

Try as I might, I couldn’t get a good rumble going between Tor.com and Io9. Sorry to say, it turns out that the Io9 peeps are totally cool, fun, warm, and welcoming, Honestly, I think I'd do OK in a full on fist fight.  Oh well, I’ll just have to wait for some other scifi internet venture to get scrappy with.

I didn't expect my first post on the website to be about Comic Con, but I didn't get a chance to post sooner, and Comic Con in San Diego is something I can't not write about.

I've been going to science fiction and fantasy conventions--as well as other cons--for, I shudder to admit it--forty years. Of course, I was a small child (okay, I was in college) when I attended my first Lunacon in New York, in 1968. I've been to bigger events  than Comic Con, notably the Frankfurt (Germany) International Book Fair, which attracts more than 350,000 people.

But Comic Con is different. I'd been warned; I'd heard talk; I'd seen figures, pictures, the faces of Comic Con veterans. Huge, packed, the evidence all said; unlike anything else. And yesterday I discovered that it's all true. In Frankfurt, the 350,000 people are spread over ten buildings, big buildings. If you go to the German building (or "Halle"), where the German attendees of the  book fair, the "Buch Messe" can see new German popular fiction and non-fiction, it's crowded, and that's probably as close as I've ever seen to what I experienced last night at Comic Con in San Diego's convention center. But in Frankfurt, the German Hall (actually, one of two huge buildings with German publishers' booths; the other is occupied by booths of German scientific publishers, a whole other universe) is open to the teeming throngs for only three of the five main days of the Fair. The other days, only professionals are allowed in the hall. At Comic Con, there are hours when the public doesn't come in, but from what I saw last night, just three hours, from 6 PM to 9 PM, Comic Con is much more intense than Frankfurt.

[More below the fold...]

What Would Hugo Gernsback Do?

There's been a lot of discussion on things we can do to improve the existing paradigm of publishing stories in print magazines and selling copies to make untold riches.

Let's, just for a moment, forget about what we've done, what we're doing, and think about what we could do--and perhaps should do--money and internet space notwithstanding.

In other words, if Hugo Gernsback* were around today, brain bustling with ideas that he felt needed to be shared with the public, what would he do to get those ideas out to the people?

There's a lot of smart folks reading this site and commenting on my posts. What are your thoughts? Here's a few mundane ideas to kick start your grey matter.

In Japan, they've had SMS based novels. Meaning, novels published through text messages to phones. Is there more to this than just an experiment? What ways could you make this work? Is short fiction particularly suited to this type of delivery method?

Not stepping very far from SMS, could you post a story/novel via a service like Twitter? The great thing about Twitter is that it would get content to people who interact with Twitter through its webservice, or their phones, or through a host of third-party applications. You could potentially hit a broader audience through Twitter than through SMS alone (because you'd be hitting more than one interface). I suspect, though, there are more people who have SMS capabilities than those who are signed up for Twitter.

Over at Clarkesworld they already have RSS feeds for when they post stories. They also offer a limited edition of each issue as well as an annual anthology collecting the online fiction. Neil has stated that he's not sure if this method will work in the long run but that it's working nicely for now. I've wondered about this myself. Could I transition to online with a print anthology collecting what was online as well as some new stuff that hadn't been online? Might be a good idea.

Could you create your stories as a series of 'plays' to be watched in Second Life? You would have new content that people could watch and potentially interact with. What if your stories were a series of YouTube videos? Or a combination of YouTube videos, Flickr images, and Twitter tweets? Would people's heads explode trying to follow everything?

Here's an idea: you could create a Google Group, or a Facebook study group, or a wiki, and post stories as discussion items, allowing readers to comment on them, and even to continue the story. You/they could upload files, images, etc. converse in real time via IM software... You could lock pages to prevent further edits once they achieved a state people liked, you could even export the text to Lulu to create a print product if people wanted it. You would in essence have a living, breathing novel.

Mark Teppo and Farrago Press did something like this with Mark's mosiac novel The Oneiromantic Mosaic of Harry Potemkin. Farrago will be publishing the Harry Potemkin novel as Psychobabel next year. It was only Mark working on the book, but it was a living, breathing document that changed as you went through it week by week.

OK, that's enough from me. What do you all think?

---

*Gernsback is credited with starting the science fiction genre by publishing the first magazine dedicated to it: Amazing Stories. He is also often credited with coining the phrase "science fiction." Prior to publishing science fiction magazines, Gernsback published a number of magazines devoted to electronics. The Hugo Awards are named after him.

[Image licensed under Creative Commons license by Flickr user Laughing Squid]

Your intrepid superhero-comics blogger has not made the journey to SDCC, an event which, from what I can tell, is probably sour anyway. Plus, those of us who stayed home get food and sleep. Plus, we need not lack for comics-related stimulation thanks to literary blog The Valve's virtual symposium on Douglas Wolk's new book, Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean. The book is not remotely as annoying as the subtitle, which was probably chosen by committee. I enjoyed it a great deal, and recommend it unreservedly. I'm also part of the symposium, thanks to Valve ringmaster John Holbo. I'll be writing about the book here over the next few days as part of the event, but tonight I wanted to point you to the existing symposium contributions.

• Tim Burke, "If the Juggernaut Ran Into Thor's Hammer . . . " 
• Kip Manley, "Always Already"
• Lawrence LaRiviere White, "What I Don't Know About Comics"
• Katherine Farmar, "Inside Outside In: a second look at Reading Comics"
• John Holbo, "Belgian Style Waffles?"
• Adam Roberts, "Exaggeration"
• Peter Paik, "Talent and the Passionate Tradition"
• Martyn Pedler, "Straw Man and Other Superheroes"

Of the batch, Burke, Manley and Pedler take off from and to different extents argue with Wolk's take on superhero comics; LaRiviere and Roberts try to use Wolk to justify their lack of interest in multipage sequential art as a medium; Farmar argues that the national traditions of comics art are more distinct than Wolk gives them credit for; Holbo plays off of Farmar's essay; and Paik discusses - lots of things: to be frank, I've only skimmed it.

Nevertheless, I agree with part of Paik's entry that did jump out at me:

He does a marvelous job of sparking interest in the creators he clearly admires, such as Carla Speed McNeil, the Hernandez brothers, Chester Brown, and Grant Morrison - in the chapters dedicated to them, Wolk demonstrates his skill at zeroing in on the essential details of a work without giving away too much in the way of plot.

I enjoy this aspect of Reading Comics a lot. I find Wolk to be delightful at expressing delight, and I find a lot of delight in the book. To that extent, I disagree with Burke, who sees way more frown on Wolk's face than I do.

Cover image courtesy Da Capo Books.

Donato Giancola is a multiply award-winning American artist specializing in science fiction and fantasy illustration. We at Tor.com have the pleasure of giving away this lovely Asus EEE 4G mini-laptop custom painted by him. You can take a peek at the prize in the YouTube video above. A larger, extended video of Donato's painting process is also available here. For a chance to win, fill out the form here. Official rules below the fold.*

Comic Con hadn't even started (T minus 5, 4, 3...hours to Preview Night), and already, people behind the scenes were feeling the heat.

This goes out to all the people, young and old, who stuff those gift bags, maintain crowd control, and take those Starbucks orders for mocha venti frappucinos with whipped cream and sprinkles.

Exhibit A--The young man behind the Exhibitor registration counter at 12 pm:

"Wait, what company are you from?" he said and swayed.

We gave him the information and noticed him staring into space at some faraway point above his laptop computer.

"Wait, what was your name again?" he said and tilted. We watch with horror as his eyes flickered and start to roll towards the back of his head.

"Are you okay??" we asked him.

"Oh, y-yeah," he said, righting himself back up. "I just...I just haven't...had l-lunch today yet," he finished faintly.

Exhibit B - The guy regulating a line outside the convention center at 2 pm:

"Hey! What's this line for?" I asked him.

"Oh, this line is for the pro registrants," he said. "And this line is for the...ex...exhib...exhibitionists."

I smile at him.

"Wait, no," he shakes his head. "I've been saying this so much all day, sorry about that."

"Exhibitors?" I say.

"Yes, that's it," he says.

"Did you have lunch?' I ask.

"Uh, you know, now that you mention it..." he says.

A few days ago, I discovered via friends’ links that the George Eastman House had uploaded a large number of very old photographs to Flickr. Since then, I’ve been browsing through them, looking up the people who are named, and puzzling over the anonymous, sometimes moving, sometimes creepy, images. There are stories here. And some surprising old friends: There’s an actual photograph of Princess Marie of Romania!

This is a photograph of Louis Jean Lumière. Lumière was a cinema pioneer – he invented one of the earliest motion picture cameras, and produced and directed the very first movies ever shown to the public. But he also invented the still photography process known as Autochrome, an emulsion technique that produced color photography. The George Eastman House photos include 68 early autochromes, and they fascinate me even more than the 19th century black and whites.

There’s something about this one….called only “Woman in a Floral Silk Robe”. It was made in 1915, by a photographer named Charles Spaeth. Beyond that, we know nothing of who this young woman was, where she lived, what she was thinking to create this sly, mischievous pose. Most of the other photos in the set are formal sittings, or still lives. This is an intimate portrait.

Take a look at the collection. It’s a remarkable resource, made available on the internet without restrictions, for our enjoyment. You’ll find some stories there.

All photographs from the George Eastman House collection are made available under a creative commons license. Details here.

After a day of travel, Tor.com is reconstituting itself in San Diego, much like transformer-style robots that reassemble into Irene Gallo, Liz Gorinsky, Pablo Defendini, David Moldawer, Faith Cheltenham, Carey Tse, Jim Frenkel, Eric Raab, Brian Vaughan, Dot Lin, Patty Garcia, and me.  Okay, not actually much like that.  This morning we're setting up the booth we share with Tor-Books-the-publisher and manga publisher (and Tor distribution client) Seven Seas. Over the next several days we'll be extensively blogging the vast "geek prom," but before we got started, I couldn't resist taking a few shots of the event under construction.

Below, the view directly across from us.  Uh oh.

Soon, we may well all live on peripatetic pond-fodder, lazily riding the currents from sea to sea to sea. Vincent Callebut is a Belgian architect with a penchant for grandiose post-apocalyptical thinking. His ‘Lilypad Floating Ecopolis’ (pictured here) is a self sustaining, amphibious structure which houses approximately 50,000 people. Its design was inspired by the prospect of having to house coastal refugees after the polar ice-caps have all melted away. Take a look at his website, which, along with the Lilypad, serves as showcase for two other concept projects, both equally SFnal: The ‘Anti-Smog’ of Paris and the ‘Perfumed Jungle’ of Hong Kong. If nothing else, the beautiful renderings will hold your imagination hostage for quite a while. (Via CNN.)