CRAIG CONLEY (Prof. Oddfellow) is recognized by Encarta as “America’s most creative and diligent scholar of letters, words and punctuation.” He has been called a “language fanatic” by Page Six gossip columnist Cindy Adams, a “cult hero” by Publisher’s Weekly, a “monk for the modern age” by George Parker, and “a true Renaissance man of the modern era, diving headfirst into comprehensive, open-minded study of realms obscured or merely obscure” by Clint Marsh. An eccentric scholar, Conley’s ideas are often decades ahead of their time. He invented the concept of the “virtual pet” in 1980, fifteen years before the debut of the popular “Tamagotchi” in Japan. His virtual pet, actually a rare flower, still thrives and has reached an incomprehensible size. Conley’s website is OneLetterWords.com.
Here's a perfume bottom with insect legs that is ready to go to supper. From Johnnykin and the Goblins, written and illustrated by Charles Leland, 1877.
This is the first bar graph we've enountered that depicts small counts as fetuses in jars and mummified preemies. (Shivers!) From Christianiæ by Olaf Andreas Colbjörnsen Abildgaard, 1898.