Study Group 12 goes digital

Share this link on Facebook!Tweet The acclaimed Portland-based Study Group 12 anthology is starting up a web comic portal for several of their contributors, with regular series & one-shots included, in addition to regular blog posts like this one on Craig Thompson’s Habibi process.) From their blog: We’ll be uploading new comics every weekday at noon EST, with [...]

Must read: Best American Comics 2011 Notable list now online

Best American Comics series editors Matt Madden and Jessica Abel have just posted the Notable Comics of 2011 list, those comics that did not make the contents of this year's Alison Bechdel-edited book, but are still worthy of notice. The listing includes covers, links and more information:

Thought for the day

Whether you had a great week or a crappy week, this should tide you over the weekend.

Heavenly Bodies in Comics, Redux

Amid all the concern and conversation regarding the “nude 52”, we here at the Beat would like to remind our readers of a previous attempt to develop new comics readers by offering comics featuring strong, attractive, empowered female characters engaged in romantic pursuits with male protagonists.

Well Said: George R. R. Martin

Clearly, then, you can’t rely on schools to teach these prospective writers to read. You'll have to do it yourself. Fortunately, there's an easy way. Comic books.

Must Read: Thoughts on the comics life

Unless you have been living under a rock, you've seen Tom Spurgeon's essay on facing a life threatening illness, an illness which led to his unexpected blogging absence earlier this summer, and which still affects him, although he's recovering. Since looking death in the face usually prompts some inventory of life, Spurgeon does just that in an astonishing essay that covers his life and his life in comics, if there is a difference. That a man fighting for his life should spend that time thinking about the Green Lantern movie is both ridiculous and awesome -- Tom's thoughts on why we chose the comics life and why we stay there speak for me about 80% of the time. It's not that we have on choice, but rather why would we WANT to leave a field that is full of such honest, unpretentious work and creative, life-loving people?

Flipping Point: The Coin Is Scarred Side Up

While there will be plenty of PR spinning about DC's big news as a great jumping on point for new readers and all that other doublespeak, let's look at the other side of the coin.

When Memorial Day Becomes Remembrance Day

On Friday, May 25, 1984, in a small town of 1200 people, in a small grocery store on the highway not too far from cornfields, at the golden age of 14, I became a comic book collector. What set me on this path that has led me >choke< 27 years later to be a comics missionary, spreading the four-color gospel far and wide? Well, I blame Morgan Freeman and Jim Shooter.

Flashback: Saving comics one year at a time

From the comments of our "Saving Comics" post, Tim Stoltzfus went back to this Milennium Eve 1999 post by Warren Ellis that had the same message, and a call to arms on other matters:

Digital Comics: the future of commerce and the future of art?

Where are comics going anyway? Has anybody asked that lately? David Brothers and Matt Seneca have their own takes on the matter.

Essex County’s near-win points up anti-GN prejudice

Webcomic Creators and Nerd Rapper UNITE

In as unstable job market as we have today, three men have decided to give their art their full time attention, their all. Writer and artist of Let's Be Friends Again!, Curt Franklin and Chris Haley respectively started their witty webcomic on the print comic world and what it means to really be friends in 2008. Eugene Ahn aka nerd rapper Adam WarRock quit his career as an attorney in 2010 in order to follow his heart and let his mouth fly. Today they announced the joining of their two ventures into LBFA!, Inc.

Grassroots creators support campaign begins

No wonder that creators are getting a little more vocal about the importance of creator-owned material. Eric Powell's controversial video got things going, but itself was a response to a week-long tweet storm by writer Steve Niles who blogged recently What’s all this Creator-Owned Talk?

Modern children at the modern newsstand

If there's one thing comics bloggers love, it's those old B&W photos from Life Magazine showing kids reading comics--proof of a simpler time when children read things, bananas were a vegetable, and your real father dropped off a bottle of milk at your mom's house every day. Well, recently on the LA Times Southern California Moments feature of reader-submitted photos we came across what looks to be a contemporary example of the genre:

Spotted From The Watchtower

Share this link on Facebook!TweetAs The Beatrix, on vacation up country, deals with the new server and its delusion that it’s an electronic bulletin board from 1982, I am performing caretaker duties here at Stately Beat Manor. So, some links… Over at The Comics Journal, Tom Crippen posts two reprints of Gahan Wilson’s Nuts comic strip, which [...]