Aujourd’hui, de nombreux sites qui traitent de l’école ont fermé, en soutien du mouvement de grève. J’ai réalisé un dessin pour l’occasion libre de droit et que vous pouvez voir par exemple là , là , là , là , là ou encore sur les sites de cette liste . (Mais bizarrement pas sur ce site ).

Et parce qu’elle est toujours d’actualité, je rediffuse cette planche de l’album “Le journal d’un remplaçant ” que vous avez probablement tous déjà lu (sinon ça vous fait une bonne idée de cadeau de Noël ) et que j’avais dessiné à l’occasion de la grève du 18 janvier 2005 :

À lire sur leMonde.fr : Grève dans l’éducation : les revendications

20 ans après la sortie du premier tome, la saga des Chroniques de la Lune Noire s’achève aux éditions Dargaud. Pour marquer le coup, l’éditeur sort 3 couvertures différentes, représentant un triptyque signé Olivier Ledroit, alors que François Froideval planche déjà sur de nouveaux cycles !

Dans une interview au magazine Casemate, l’auteur annonce un tome 0 sur la jeunesse de Wismerhill, dessiné par Fabrice Angleraud, qui s’est déjà occupé du deuxième tome des Arcanes de la Lune Noire. En plus de cet album qui clôturerait bel et bien la série, le scénariste prévoit d’étendre son univers avec de nouveaux cycles courts – fini, les 20 années de saga –, situés 3000 ans après la fin des Chroniques. Si aucun dessinateur n’est encore annoncé pour ces nouvelles aventures, Olivier Ledroit se chargerait toujours de La Succube, présumé tome 3 des Arcanes de la Lune Noire.

De son côté, Cyril Pontet, dessinateur des aventures de Wis depuis le tome 6, nous a expliqué passer à autre chose, même s’il n’exclut pas, un jour, réaliser un des albums consacrés aux personnages secondaires de la série. «Â L’heroic fantasy dépeinte dans les Chroniques n’est plus celle qui a ma préférence. Trop de dragons, trop de magie qui tue la magie, trop d’objets miraculeux, trop de troupes ! Avec les années, je me suis tourné vers la low fantasy, la sword & sorcery ou les histoires historiques que j’aime teintées de mystères et de léger fantastique telles Murena ou la Complainte des Landes Perdues, préférant les intrigues à l’échelle humaine à celles à l’échelle d’un empire. Je suis également revenu à mes premières amours, les comics américains qui me firent découvrir la BD, la notion d’héroïsme et les rebondissements improbables, tous ces éléments qui me poussèrent vers le métier de dessinateur. J’ai d’ailleurs pour objectif de tenter une aventure, qu’importe la durée, dans le comics, peut-être chez DC ou Marvel, afin de réaliser un vrai rêve de gosse ! Qui sait ? »


Chroniques de la Lune Noire © Dargaud, Froideval, Pontet, Ledroit.

Âgé de 74 ans, Guy Peellaert est décédé le 17 novembre 2008. Avant d’être mondialement connu pour son travail d’affichiste au cinéma ou dans la musique, l’homme avait signé deux albums de bande dessinée dans la mouvance pop culture à la fin des années 60 chez l’éditeur Éric Losfeld, Les Aventures de Jodelle et Pravda la surviveuse, ce dernier titre étant cosigné avec le réalisateur Pascal Thomas. Peellaert est l’auteur, entre autres, des pochettes Diamond Dogs de David Bowie et de Pour nos vies martiennes d’Étienne Daho. Son livre le plus connu reste Rock Dreams réalisé avec le critique Nick Cohn dépeignant les rock stars des années 70, entre fantasme et réalité. “Bye bye” monsieur, comme le disait le sous-titre de son ouvrage et son site.

Prévue à l’origine pour être en ligne le 23 octobre, la nouvelle mouture du site Glénat s’est quelque peu fait attendre. Enfin disponible, cette évolution sent encore la peinture fraîche pour une version bien plus moderne. Previews, interviews d’auteurs, blog, tout est présent ici. Ne reste plus qu’à animer tout ce petit monde. En attendant, la meilleure partie du site reste l’espace dédié au livre de Zep et Tébo, Comment dessiner, où l’internaute peut s’essayer à dessiner un beau coucher de soleil et le voir se transformer en une paire de fesses poilues.

Les vampires vous connaissez ? Si tout le monde a en tête les caractéristiques propres à ces êtres de la nuit, la dessinatrice Yuna Kagesaki s’amuse à en prendre le contre-pied dans son shojo Chibi Vampire Karin, du nom de sa frêle héroïne. Ici, la demoiselle ne suce pas le sang des autres mais se vide du sien. Mieux, ses morsures inversent le caractère des victimes, un paresseux devenant ainsi un bosseur patenté. Ubuesque, et doté d’une famille vampire haute en couleur, la lecture est à recommander pour tous amateurs d’esprit franchement décalé.
En deux mots : Petit mais costaud
De Kagesaki, aux éditions Pika  - 160 pages - 7,95 €

I’ve spent the past few days pretty immersed in the SC 08 conference here in Austin, Texas, but I’m still embarrassed that I missed the formation of a new lobbying organization think tank called The Future of Privacy that’s being funded by AT&T. The group hopes to help policy makers and business leaders figure out how to manage online privacy.

A big source of irony from the group, other than its purported focus on online privacy to benefit consumers and the industry alike, is that Co-chair Christopher Wolf also headed up one of my favorite astroturfing efforts, Hands Off The Internet, the phone company think tank dedicated to Net Neutrality. Somehow, that connection isn’t mentioned in his FOP bio. Wolf is a litigation partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Proskauer Rose LLP, a firm that does work for AT&T. The other co-founder of FOP, Jules Polonetsky (here’s a great interview on his views on Internet privacy), was the former chief privacy officer at AOL. Prior to that he worked at DoubleClick, which was bought by Google.

The creation of the FOP is both a good thing and bad thing. It’s a sign that consumers worried about how their private information is collected and used on the Internet have been taken seriously. On the other hand, the backer and members of this particular organization are highly likely to influence legislators in a direction that will keep consumers’ data in their hands.

I hope that some of the more privacy focused representatives can cut through the corporate double-speak that I have seen firsthand from the telecommunications companies on other issues. Perhaps Google, which is not represented on the board, can start its own privacy think tank and we can watch the fight unfurl between caching private data for later use, and profiting from data as it travels through the ISPs’ pipes.

This issue of Internet privacy has gained more momentum in the last few months after ISPs contracted with a startup called NebuAd to monitor where a consumer surfs the web and serve ads against those visits. Other companies are trying this as well. Since then, Congress has held two hearings on online privacy, with one related to data collection and the other related to deep-packet inspection as employed by NebuAD and its ISP customers.

As the online experience becomes more interactive, the rules around of who’s watching us as we’re watching the web need to be defined. But in addition to worries about corporate spying, legislators and lobbying organizations should also take a close look at what governments can now access and use. For those of you following this space, the advisory board includes:

• Dorothy Attwood, Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Chief Privacy Officer, AT&T, who went before Congress to decry NebuAd’s tactics but noted that perhaps in exchange for lower rates a consumer might be willing to share more data with the ISP
• Chris Kelly, Chief Privacy Officer and Head of Global Public Policy, Facebook, the company that brought you the privacy nightmare known as Beacon
• Simon Davies, Director, Privacy International
• Peter Swire, a law professor at Ohio State University and Senior Fellow, Center for American Progress, who is advising President-elect Barack Obama on technology

Mufin, the music recommendation engine that suggests songs based on their sound characteristics, is now open to everyone in public beta. With the launch, Mufin is also introducing two new applications: Mufin for iTunes and Mufin for Facebook.

As you might expect, Mufin’s iTunes add-on analyzes the songs in your iTunes library to suggest new music. While you’re playing a song, or an entire playlist, Mufin recommends new tracks simultaneously in the sidebar. You can then play 30-second previews of the new recommendations, and purchase them in iTunes if you enjoy them.

Since Mufin’s recommendations are based on properties like tempo and rhythm, the suggestions are a bit different than what you’d get with iTunes’ own Genius Sidebar, which performs a similar function.

Meanwhile, Mufin for Facebook is essentially the same application that the company launched on MySpace during their private beta. You can search Mufin for specific artists and tracks, and then have the service recommend new music, all within the Facebook interface. When you “discover” a new piece of music, that action is broadcast to your mini-feed. You can also send a song to your Facebook friends.

So is Mufin worth the download? I’m not blown away by the recommendations so far, but they are distinctly different than what you’d expect to see with a “people who liked this also liked” type list, or what you might see in browsing social discovery engines such as iLike or Imeem.

From a business perspective, Mufin now has all of the pieces in place for success – a destination site, applications on the social networks, and an iTunes add-on. But, if it’s going to stand out from the pack, it will need to continue to tweak its recommendation engine to offer something significantly better than the alternatives.

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Related Articles at Mashable | All That's New on the Web:

Discover New Music through Sound Analysis With Mufin (20 Invites)
My iTunes: Apple Launches iTunes Widgets
iTunes’ DRM-free Music Now Available
Widgetbox Showcase Offers iTunes Widget and Playlist
iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store Now Live
ScobblePod Lists iTunes and iPod to Last.fm Simultaneously
Soundcrank: iTunes, Meet MySpace

It’s like we jumped in the wayback machine and landed smack dab in November 2007. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said yesterday that big media companies weren’t honoring the contract that ended last year’s 100-day writer’s strike by failing to pay residuals for work used in new media. The WGA West has filed for arbitration against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) for payment of those residuals.

The WGA appears to have two main beefs with the AMPTP over electronic sell-through of content and streaming of television shows. The WGA says that its agreement with the AMPTP covers feature films produced after July 1, 1971 and TV shows produced after 1977. According to the WGA, the studios are reneging and saying only programs created after Feb. 13, 2008 are covered.

If that wasn’t enough, the WGA says that TV shows are being streamed online for longer than the 17-day residual-free grace period specified in the contract, but writers have received no payments.

Ugh. Don’t forget that the Screen Actors Guild is still working without a contract, and the economy is, shall we say, quite sucky right now — and last year’s strike cost the Los Angeles economy $2 billion. A second strike in as many years may not engender the same level of sympathy as it did last time around and could be even more devastating to the local economy.

Filed under: Digital Cameras, Displays, Wireless

T-Mobile Cameo frame now available for $99.99 originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Will the music subscription business ever grow beyond its current niche? It looks increasingly doubtful. Today, eMusic announced that since it launched its current music subscription service in 2003, customers have downloaded 250 million songs. Apple’s iTunes, by comparison, has sold more than 5 billion songs since it opened the iTunes Store in April, 2003. That makes eMusic one twentieth the size of iTunes.

The way eMusic works is you pay a subscription of between $12 and $20 a month and then you can download 30 to 75 songs a month and keep them. You can also purchase songs above those limits, starting at $0.25 a track. eMusic has a catalog of 4.5 million songs, and is particularly strong in independent music. It currently has 400,000 subscribers, and the company expects to make $70 million in revenues this year.

That implies the vast majority of subscribers opt in for the basic $12 a month plan, which would net $57.6 million a year if that is what everyone paid. The difference can be accounted for by those people who opt for the more expensive land and additional downloads. And the best part of the business is that eMusic only pays the labels for the songs its customers download. So if someone doesn’t use up their allotment and only downloads 5 songs during a given month, eMusic pockets the money that would have gone to the labels for the other 25 songs they could have downloaded.

It’s a nice business because eMusic gets rewarded for customer laziness. And iTunes certainly needs competition, so I hope it keeps chugging along. But these numbers don’t bode well for the subscription music business ever rising up to challenge iTunes in any meaningful way.

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