Près de deux ans se seront écoulés depuis la fin d’Inri, deuxième volet du Triangle secret, avec la publication en mars prochain du premier tome des Gardiens du sang, troisième cycle – ou saison, c’est la mode – de la saga ésotérique conduite par Didier Convard. Denis Falque sera chargé de la plupart des dessins sur un tome qui se passera essentiellement de nos jours, avec l’assassinat d’une huile du Vatican par un mystérieux tueur au service de la foi.

Double ration aujourd’hui, avec ce petit dessin qui était initialement prévu pour un magazine.

Sans même entrer dans le vif du sujet, Bottomless Belly Button, roman graphique de Dash Shaw, en impose par ses mensurations : 720 pages, un dos de 5,5 cm sur lequel on trouve une foultitude d’infos, bref, une sacrée bête. Acclamé meilleure bande dessinée indépendante de l’année aux USA, le pavé édité par Fantagraphics arrive aux éditions Çà et là pour 30 €, un an après la sortie du tout aussi imposant Château l’Attente.

Mais rien à voir ici avec de la fantasy médiévale, Bottomless Belly Button flirte du côté de la chronique sociale iconoclaste à travers les aventures de la famille Loony, qu’on croirait presque sortie d’un film de Wes Anderson, genre Famille Tenenbaum. Il faut dire qu’après 40 ans de mariage, les parents Loony annoncent leur divorce, et réunissent tout le monde dans la maison familiale. Fantaisie parmi d’autres, Peter, le cadet de la famille, apparaît la quasi-totalité du bouquin sous les traits d’une grenouille – même s’il nous a fallu un quart du livre pour comprendre que ses narines n’étaient pas ses yeux ! –, en écho à sa position de loser que ce soit sur le plan professionnel ou sentimental. Lui, comme les autres, va vivre un séjour riche en rebondissements tapant au cÅ“ur de ses complexes. À la fin, tous les personnages auront évolué de façon perceptible.

Varié et hétéroclite, tant sur les thèmes que sur le plan visuel, avec des mises en pages éclatées pour rythmer les différentes parties et de nombreux jeux graphiques avec des onomatopées d’ambiances “musique à fond” et de mouvements “emmêle”, les 720 pages se lisent d’une traite. Pourtant, Bottomless Belly Button aura du mal à séduire ceux pour qui les histoires qui mènent en voyage dans la psyché des personnages ne font ni chaud ni froid. Reste qu’en la matière, grâce à ses trouvailles graphiques et à sa façon de traiter de façon simple les choses complexes, le roman graphique de Dash Shaw est ce qui s’est fait de mieux cette année !

Les images sont © Dash Shaw.

À la façon de l’Étrangleur de Tardi chez Casterman, Carabas s’essaye au format tabloïd en proposant une histoire courte de Low Moon, le nouveau Jason, déjà dispo chez l’éditeur dans un petit format de 180 pages vendu 20 euros. Cette version allégée, proposée 3 euros au format journal, nous fait profiter en très grand format des situations cocasses imaginées par Jason, soit un western où le jeu d’échec semble avoir remplacé les bons vieux colts poussiéreux. À cela s’ajoutent les habituels running gags et les innombrables comiques de situation. Forcément Jasonesque.
En deux mots : Western et mat
De Jason, aux éditions Carabas - 20 pages - 3 € (visuel récupéré sur placedeslibraires.fr)

Pownce, the microblogging service often compared to Twitter, has been acquired by Six Apart. According to the company blog, the service will be shutdown on December 15th, while the main Pownce team – Leah Culver and Mike Malone – will join Six Apart. Users will have the option to “import [their] posts to other blogging services such as Vox, TypePad, or WordPress.”

The brainchild of Culver and Digg founder Kevin Rose, Pownce launched with much fanfare in 2007. But despite the early buzz and in many ways a superior feature-set, the service hasn’t been able to gain nearly the type of traction as the darling of short-form messaging – that of course being Twitter.

It doesn’t sound like Six Apart has aspirations to revamp Pownce and take on Twitter either. They echo the sentiment that this deal is more about acquiring talent from Pownce, writing, “we are very sorry the site will be closing ... We’re planning on doing great things with the help and expertise of the Pownce team, and can’t wait to see all the results of their hard work.”

Kevin Rose and Daniel Burka will also be joining Six Apart as advisers as part of the deal.

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

Pownce Invites Increased: Please Invite Others
Pownce Adds RSS, Support For More Video/Photo Sites
Pownce To Launch Public API
Pownce Releases Public API
Pownce Invites on eBay
Pownce Gets New Features
Put Pownce on Facebook

The Mucky Wheel electronic instrument turns out the blips, bleeps, and bloops with a satisfyingly sea-going motif. Design and construction photos available here. [via Synthtopia]

Pownce, the media-rich Twitter competitor that was co-founded by Digg’s Kevin Rose along with Leah Culver and Daniel Burka, has been acquired by Six Apart and will be closing its doors on December 15. Users will be able to export their accounts to other services, allowing them to retain their messages and media, but it looks like Pownce users will have to turn to Twitter for their micro-blogging needs (if they haven’t already). Culver and Mike Malone (Pownce’s two engineers) will be integrated into the Six Apart team.

The news doesn’t come as much of a surprise - Pownce has long struggled in the shadow of Twitter in the microblogging space, despite the fact that the Pownce crew objects to being called a Twitter competitor. There were some major differences: Pownce allowed users to share photos, music, videos, events and offered niceties like an official AIR application, but its core functionality was still very similar.

We first heard about the site back in summer 2007, when it made it headlines as Rose’s secret new startup. Excitement built up to the point that invites were being sold on eBay, but by the end of the year, it became clear that Pownce wasn’t catching on nearly as quickly as Twitter, and it seemed like it might be headed to the deadpool before it even launched to the public in January. Even Robert Scoble, who usually embraces social web services, hasn’t updated his account since July.

Co-founder Leah Culver has written a semi-sweet farewell to the Pownce community on the site’s blog.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

During a breaking news event, we typically sit glued to a Twitter search. And yet that method of tracking news in real time is fairly embryonic: it’s the first step towards all the world’s data becoming real time, and available via constantly updated news feeds.

That’s the basis of StanzIQ, a real time search and information app being developed to track everything from emerging terrorist situations to seeing the feedback on a live concert - on your phone, while you’re in the crowd.

On paper at least, it’s a good bet, with backing from a top VC firm and an experienced team. StanzIQ will soon announce a $1.5 million funding round from True Ventures, and the group consists of Jack Moffitt, Patrick Mahoney and Brian Zisk, who, along with Jon Callaghan of True Ventures, were partners in Green Witch Internet Radio (an early open source streaming service acquired by CMGI in January 2000). Moffitt was one of the lead developers of XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol), a set of open XML technologies for real-time communication. And it’s XMPP that forms the basis of StanzIQ.

The other consumer app you might remember this team for: Chesspark. As the company explained to Mashable:

The StanzIQ team originally built a phenomenal XMPP-based infrastructure for acquiring, sorting, and distributing data in real time in order to build the Internet chess community Chesspark. The aim was to build a real time game and community on top of the XMPP suite of protocols which is perfect for managing real time data. We have spun off the chess site and turned our attention and our toolset to a much bigger challenge.

The StanzIQ team has lead the drive on building numerous Open Source Applications and Protocols which are now used by companies ranging from giants like Microsoft to indie developers like Rogue Amoeba, not to mention their work on XMPP which is used by companies including Google, Cisco, Neuros and Yamner. StanzIQ has a number of Open Source tools which it has built, some of which are also licensed commercially including Speeqe, Strophe (in 3 languages), Punjab, and Palaver.

All of which sounds great in theory, but the proof will be in the real time results. We’ve yet to see any. And until we get our hands on this thing, we’re reserving judgment.