Here are some goals for Parka Blogs and me in 2009.

Do more art book reviews

Let me start with a short history on how the blog suddenly took the art-book-reviews route.

You guys might have noticed that I've accumulated quite a number of art book reviews so far. In fact, I've only started doing art book reviews more seriously in August 2008. As far as I can remember, my first review is actually The Complete Calvin and Hobbes in 2007.

In August 2008, I came across halcyon realms, a blog by Vong yonghow — Singaporean too! I was searching for some Inoue Takehiko stuff or something. Then I saw a review of The Art of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea. I thought that was pretty helpful and exceptionally cool. That's when I took out my art books and started reviewing them.

Since I work in a newspaper art department, I'm lucky enough to be surrounded by other artists, among them are two other art book collectors, Kelvin Chan and Jonrob. Jonrob collects comics, design and art books. Kelvin collects toys and art books. Here's a hilarious quote from Kelvin I found on his 10 Dec 08 Deviantart journal entry:

I'm nuts over 'em to a point of needing medical attention.
I think the word is ADDICTED.

So some of the books you see on the blogs are provided by them. Those are the ones with a thanks and link back to their blogs at the end of the reviews.

And then there are those that I borrow from the library. The library is great for finding interesting older out-of-print books.

In 2009, I hope to review more art books. That's dependent on my wallet actually. I'm not particularly rich so I buy mainly CG movie art books — think Pixar and the likes.

Highlight more art blogs

I'll try to post more links to blogs of artists in the art books reviews.

Additionally, I'll also highlight more cool art blogs. I've seen plenty of great ones from my blog followers' blog list. I always check out my follower's blogs and their links.

San Diego Comic Con 2009

I might be heading down to Comic Con 2009 at San Diego in July. It's mainly to take a holiday and if possible, cover the event at the same time. If this actually materializes, it's going to be fantastic.

The air tickets are still insanely expensive. Aren't they suppose to fall with the oil prices?

Draw more

I've been slacking off from drawing last year. I shall draw more cartoons and stuff this year. Can't put those instructional books I bought to waste!

Get more readers

Hopefully, this should play by itself with more content coming up.

Currently there are 300 visitors per day on my blog with 41 Blogger followers. That's really amazing compared to negligible last year, which I won't even bother to check the stats.

It will be great if you guys and gals post a link back to the art book list on your blogs. It should be helpful for your readers too.