While an increasing number of kids’ comics have been featuring ethnically diverse characters in stories set in the recent past, we note on this year’s list of forthcoming, recent, and backlist titles in celebration of African American History Month (February) several significant academic works that ground black comics in history and culture.

In some ways this is the same story I’ve been telling through every medium that’s at my disposal. This is a story I was telling, in one way or another, in 1999 with “The Merchants of Cool”, trying to show kids MTV is this feedback loop where there are marketers watching them for what to put on the screen, that then kids watch and then imitate and then get watched again by marketers so that there’s this cultural feedback loop where there’s no conscious execution of art or strategy. It’s just a machine. It has an almost centrifugal force that pushes kids out to the extremes of behaviour — this mid-riff Britney Spears person, the male, mindless mook of the MTV Spring Break. I started telling it way back then and through all this other books.

It’s true! In November 1989’s Avengers West Coast Annual #4, writer Mark Gruenwald and artist Amanda Connor produced a short story titled “Rate the Hunks!” In this tale, Avengers heroines The Wasp and She-Hulk unsparingly ranked their male colleagues according to comeliness.

It doesn’t matter if you’ve never read any of Warren Ellis’ innovative comics or graphic novels. The prolific writer’s first extensive interview forms the core of this bare-bones documentary, and Ellis (born in Essex, England) comes across as a guy you could happily spend hours with in a pub. If nicotine fuels his fervent imagination, it is, for him, a small price to pay. Booze and cigarettes will surely kill him, eventually, but his work makes him immortal.

Which become much later the crystal clear crux of the thing: that it’s never the place, it’s the people. Some cold sliver in me always maintained the opposite: this city’s wonderful, it’s the people I don’t like. Steeping too long in Brooklyn for the better part of eleven years, embittered by so many things that now seem… luxury to me: self-awareness, pretention, irony. But those were the things I loved when I’d first arrived myself: that every New Yorker had a mission, an agenda, their eye on some ball maybe known only to them. Everyone I’ve spoken to in São Paulo says the same thing: it’s an ugly and dangerous city, but you live here because this is where you can make the most money. Similarities to New York, sure… but New York City isn’t just the one thing. And therein should’ve been the first clue, first red alert: my tribe of art-conquerors, cunning-linguists, future-makers and reality-hackers, wherefore wert thou?

The 26-year-old artist said censorship only increased people’s desire to read the book, entitled “The murderer with a pus-filled head”, which aims to reflect the street patois of Vietnam’s youth.

Phong said his book sold 5,000 copies in two weeks but was then discontinued, stoking under-the-counter demand that pushed prices to as much as 100,000 dong ($5) — more than double its official cost.

DE: ‘Between the casualness of the work, and the fact that it’s funny – these are art-world no-nos.’

DS: ‘I know a lot of people still don’t see my work as serious, because it’s funny. But then again, I’ve come to realise that the opposite of seriousness is not humour. The opposite of seriousness is incompetence. It’s somebody who isn’t really engaged with what they’re doing. And the opposite of humour is maybe sadness.’

Gary Wilson, of the Nightstalker Press, said it was his first time to attend a Comic Con.

“From what I’ve heard, it’s going to be a great adventure,” Wilson said.

Anyway, I’ve been immersed in the super world of superheroes for a few weeks now and something has really struck me: there are not enough female superheroes. As I read about Aquaman and Iron Man and Batman and so on I keep thinking “Girls can be super too! And you know what? I bet they can be super and wear pants at the same time. Yeah, I’m lookin’ at you Wonder Woman.”

Well, for one I already have a some comics work coming up, which will be announced soon, as well as securing other work in and out of the industry. I’m also available for work as well. I’ll be taking private commissions and developing some projects and pitching some of the creator owned concepts I’ve been working on over the last few years.

Good news for comic book fans: graphic novels are not only making a major mainstream comeback, they’re also taking on exciting new forms. With the successful relaunch of all 52 comics in DC’s Superhero Universe last September and the highly anticipated new

§ Say, with Sandy Bilus now more or less MIA, is there no one out there who will compile all of these lists into a master “Best Of” list? We seem to recall that the last person who did this — Dick Hyacinth — also boarded a plane to Antarctica with a pilot named Danforth. So maybe this is a cursed task.

§ A new genre of writing: the New 52 Exit interview, in which a creator expresses wistful enthusiasm for all the ideas they dreamed up for a given character before it was decided a new direction was needed, as he or she wishes the new team good luck with a wan smile. This time out, Sterling Gates explaining how he left HAWK & DOVE in the hands of Rob Liefeld:

We laid a lot of foundation in those first few issues, things that can be delved into indefinitely: creating new characters, reintroducing old ones, or looking deeper into the origins of the avatars that power Hank and Dawn.

Rachel Gluckstern, my editor at DC, phoned me up a couple months ago and said they were interested in taking the book in a different direction. As a result, my script to issue six was spiked, and the back half of issue five was rewritten in order to completely clear the decks for Rob’s run. Rob came in and co-wrote issue #5’s climactic battle with Condor and Swan to help make the transition as smooth as possible.

I can’t wait to see where Rob takes Hawk and Dove next, either. He’s got a vision for those characters, and hopefully I’ve managed to get enough pieces on the board for him to really dig into their mythology.

The creator then boards a cruise ship with a hearty wave, hoping it does not hit an iceberg.

§ In case you missed this week’s episode of Stalked: Someone’s Watching which featured artist Colleen Doran and a troublesome stalker, here’s her write-up of it:

The episode of Stalked: Someone’s Watching featuring interviews with me, my friend Dawn, and my family will rebroadcast tonight on Discovery: ID at 7:30 PM Eastern Time. I believe the episode is also available for pay view. A synopsis is HERE.

The producer wrote to let me know the ratings were very high. Very surprised there was so much interest in it.

Naturally, some facts were changed to protect private information, and to condense roughly 25 years of material into a half hour. Here’s what I wrote on my FB page.

§ Tina Anderson, who runs a small a BL manga company, Gynocrat Ink, explains some of her dealings with Amazon and B&N over the last year or so that may prove interesting.

I didn’t attend any conventions, write any new scripts, and did not resurrect my fandom blog Guns, Guys, and Yaoi—much to the chagrin of my blogger friends that were pushing me in that direction. Yet despite no new releases and little to no exposure, Gynocrat Ink actually ran in the black, for the first time since eliminating my debt as a ‘business,’ last year. While the profit margin was nothing compared to a traditional small-publisher, it was enough to give me hope that all the work I did (and yes, writing is WORK!), and all the criticism and drama I endured, was not for nothing. Thanks to digital sales of existing titles on Amazon.com, and that organizations subsequent reach into foreign markets, sales were consistent and royalties continued to accrue.

This has been out for a while but a few lines from Mark Evanier’s obit for Joe Simon bear repeating:

I have two pieces to write here — one about Joe’s enormous contribution to the world of comics, with and without Jack Kirby. Joe and Jack were really the first superstar creator(s) of comic books. Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster were important because they were the creators of Superman. Simon and Kirby were important because they were Simon and Kirby. They were the guys who were ahead of everyone else in making comic books different from comic strips. They were the guys everyone in the industry looked to for the next trend, the next innovation, the next hit. It wasn’t just that they gave the world Captain America. They also showed everyone how to make comics more exciting.

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§ Must read: Paul Gravett sits down with the great Shaun Tan, who though of comics isn’t really in comics.

I think you’re building a mature relationship with comics without too many preconceived ideas. I think if you’d been immersed in them since childhood, perhaps you’d have had a system in place that would have been difficult to escape from?

Yeah I would have taken them for granted. But as it is, comics seemed quite a strange way of telling a story which is what intrigues me. My attraction to picture books was word-picture relationships and how pared down they can be and still make sense and also have these big gaps in between. The best comics maximise this relationship between language and image that’s not explanatory. They’re both doing different functions. It’s quite a natural extension, but that said I don’t feel like a comics artist.

Despite his feeling, THE ARRIVAL is definitely one of the finest visual stories of the century thus far — it doesn’t really get singled out too much in comics talk, maybe because so much of its impact relies on the fact that Tan just draws like a melon farmer, (above and below) but it also uses visual metaphors very, very cleverly.

§ While “Best of” lists are starting to come out fast and furious from the various subjects, The Comics Reporter’s last “Five for Friday” provides some readers lists and a good cheat sheet for those compiling their own.

§ Coontinuing to shatter the Geek/Jock schism, this labor-intensive piece finds a Batman character for every NFL team.

§ As part of the promo for the new issue of COMIC BOOK COMICS, Fred Van Lente did a chat on CBR that also included Steve Lieber and Ryan Dunlavey. There’s much to read, but it is a little hard to follow. Specifically, they talk about the much vaunted detente between Steve Lieber and pirates at 4chan which turned into a significant sales spike of 300 sopies out of the 900 sold of the underground trade. Johanna actually has the relevant portions here.

Fred Van Lente: You summed up your overall experience nicely in 3 steps in a Tweet to me & Parker. Do you remember it?
Steve Lieber: 1. No Money
Steve Lieber: 2. Lots of Money
Steve Lieber: 3. Sandwich Money
Steve Lieber: WE ROCK!
Fred Van Lente: Ha! So the spike basically was a one-time only thing.
Steve Lieber: Oh yeah, We did nothing to maintain it.

Marketing is definitely an ongoing and not one-time thing, for sure. The fact that an excellent book by Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber sold only 900 copies is just sad, however.

§ Gabby Gamboa offers a snapshot of the huge SF comics scene that includes updates on retailing, stores, and so on.

It seems like a million things have happened recently, there is so much to report. Fall started with SF Zine Fest, which was once again held at the County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. It was an inspiring, energetic show that reminded me a lot of APE when APE first started. APE itself was a bit too large and unfocused for my taste this year. There seemed to be a larger emphasis on selling crafts and prints, much less on books and comics. Most people I spoke to said that sales were way down (curse this economy!) and everyone seemed to have a different opinion on what was wrong with the show and how to fix it. It will be interesting to see what direction the show will take in the future, especially now that Wondercon has moved to Anaheim.

§ Jill Thompson talks about designing ring gear for Bryan Danielson and other grapplers.

I’m happy designing Bryan’s gear for as long as he wants me to. It’s a good mix. I don’t  have ideas for random guys on the roster. It just happened that comics and wrestling mixed together in the right way for us. I work well off of a mutual admiration type of relationship. He knew my work and was a fan of it and was a fan right back.  He had an established gimmick that he was going to keep. He knew what he liked and gave me some direction. It’s important that the character be there for me to create something. And I’m really lucky that he’s liked most everything I’ve designed for him. Its really thrilling to see my drawings come to life. This latest set of gear has really gotten some nice compliments.

BTW speedy recovery to Thompson who required four-stitches in her non-drawing hand after a vegetable cutting accident. Here’s the post-op version and the gross one.

§ Brandon Graham is interviewed at Bookslut and is his normal loquacious self:

You write in King City about a how a danger for an artist is to believe your ideas are so good they don’t need refining. Is that more so when you’re young, before you have the arrogance beaten out of you?

I worry it’s more of a danger when you get older. I always think about how unhealthy the life of a comic book artist is, especially when you reach any level of success. You basically spend all day in a room, having fun drawing pictures, and then a lot of your social interaction comes when you go to a convention and people stand in line to tell you you’re a genius. I can’t think of a better way to turn someone into an asshole. I fight to avoid that. I have a really good community of friends who do comics. My wife, Marian Churchland, has her own book called Beast. James Stokoke who does Orc Stain is right down the street. We all sit around and draw together and try to not turn into crazy old people.

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§ This week’s scene report at TCJ is Providence, RI by Jacob Berendes. That’s right, what’s going on in the original home of Fort Thunder?

§ Jim Shooter recalls a visit with Diamond owner Steve Geppi, who although now near bankruptcy, in 2008 still owned a lot of cool shit:

Steve showed us many fantastic things. Among his proudest possession were several books collecting original art birthday cards for William Randolph Hearst created by the cartoonists syndicated by his King Features. Each one was clever, brilliantly conceived and, of course, had amazing art.

Contributors included Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), George Herriman (Krazy Kat) and Billy DeBeck (Barney Google and Snuffy Smith). Many more. All the great King Features creators of that era were represented.

I saw a bat leaning up against the wall in a corner. “What’s that?”

A bat Babe Ruth used in 1927, the year he hit 60 home runs, said Steve. Ruth used only eight bats that year. This was one that survived.

I asked Steve if I could touch it. Sure, said he. I picked it up. Took a few gentle cuts with it.

At the very opposite end of the comics universe, Matt Seneca is interviewing Blaise Larmee, who is the Hattori Hanzo of comics’ cutting edge of formalism:

M: It’s probably still a relevant one, just because it’s reflective of how comics has incorporated iconoclasts before. When people like Crumb and Ware come along with idiosyncratic styles there’s less of a reactionary backlash than a picking-over of their methods for useful takeaways. Maybe that’s why comics hasn’t really gone through modernism — it hasn’t needed to. Do you agree with that? And do you think it’s a useful way for an art form to progress?

B: You’re talking about how comics is accepting of creators?

M: Of creators who bring stylistic or formal innovations to the table, specifically. Underground comics were a big response to the sort of trite content that was necessary to pass censors in the ‘50s and ‘60s, but then it became “cool” and got sort of taken up by everyone pretty quickly…

B: Honestly I think my problem with comics is that they are not cool…

C-cut…I thought they’re were not for kids any more?

§ In a moment of shocking revelation, David Brothers realizes why Twilight fans are a dangerous force that can never be stopped:

I like a lot of things. I like books, movies, music, girls with certain haircuts, Anna Karina, girls with freckles, and even a few video games. But if you asked me to camp out for four days so that I could get a brief taste of any of those… honestly, I’d laugh at you. That’s a silly idea to me.

I think that’s because I don’t like anything as much as those people like Twilight.

§ Alex Zalben argues that Digital Download Codes are super-important for the future of the comics industry:

With November’s release of Avenging Spider-Man #1, Marvel Comics instituted an interesting program: with every print copy of the book, readers also got a digital code allowing them to download an electronic copy, “free.” And I was ready to write this off as a quirky experiment, until I started reading Game of Thrones… And now I believe it’s not just a good idea to include them in every comic and graphic novel, it’s necessary for the survival of the industry.

§ Brigid Alverson lists her Best Manga Series of 2011. It was a good year despite the manga implosion.

§ Famous and vanished (probably long dead) hijacker/robber D.B. Cooper’s connection to an old French comic book is explored.

A potential Canadian connection to one of the FBI’s most famous cold cases was first raised in 2009, when the U.S. agency revealed that Cooper appeared to have fashioned his identity and modus operandi from a 1960s-era, French-language comic book about a Royal Canadian Air Force test pilot and space traveller named Dan Cooper. The hijacker — while popularly known as D.B. Cooper because of a news reporter’s error after the crime took place — actually identified himself as “Dan Cooper” when he first boarded a passenger plane on Nov. 24, 1971 at the airport in Portland, Oregon.

§ These photos from the recent “An Evening with Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer” tour are totally 2011.

§ Chris Mautner’s “Comics College” feature gets to Grant Morrison and he actually gets through it:

Morrison is not always an easy writer to read. He’ll frequently break the fourth wall, indulge in non-linear storytelling or throw out obscure references. He expects his readers to meet him halfway and often a bit of work is required to suss out exactly how everyone moved from plot point A to B. Usually this type of effort is rewarded, however, as at his best his writing blends surreal, dense and sometimes elliptical storytelling with a fondness for humanity and a yen for crafting likable, fully rounded characters.

Recommended starting points ALL-STAR SUPERMAN and DOOM PATROL are sound picks, but we’d throw in WE3, too.

§ In 1939, a 12 year old boy named Donn Fendler become lost while climbing Mount Katahdin, the highest peak in Maine. Lacking GPS or Formspring, it took rescuers days to find him in the hostile terrain, and after his dramatic story of survival, he was considered such a celebrity that President Roosevelt gave him a medal. Now his story — already turned into a local classic book — is a graphic novel! Because today’s comics are are tackling personal stories in addition to superheroes. The art is by Ben Bishop, creator of NATHAN THE CAVEMAN.

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§ The 2011 Most Kick Ass DC Woman contest is down to its final two contestants: Cassandra Cain and Wonder Woman? Who will win? Go and vote.

§ The scene report continues with Tom K’s exhaustive look at Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN, a vibrant scene that keeps spitting out new cartoonists thanks to the presence of MCAD:

The Twin Cities (Minneapolis & St. Paul) have a long and storied relationship to comics. We’re best known for the St. Paul born Charles Schulz who created Peanuts as an instructor of the Minneapolis based Art Instruction School. But there is a lot more to our scene. I left the Twin Cities at the turn of the century, when I came back a almost a decade later I found the city transformed. Since I left whole neighborhoods gentrified, a nice new light rail system sprouted, and a bike shop graced every corner. The comics scene had grown significantly during my absence. There seem to be a lot more cartoonists around and generally the scene feels vibrant and growing… this was not how things seemed in the 90’s.

Frank Santoro suggests keeping scene reports to 400 words but we say let ‘em ride.

§ In the piece we learned something we did not know: Dreamhaven Books & Comics is closing next year. A longtime mainstay of the imaginative fiction scene, particularly noted for its relationship with Neil Gaiman, they’ll be concentrating on mail order in the future. Sign o’ the times.

§ If you are looking for some webcomics to read, Comics Riffs has a ‘BEST’ WEBCOMICS OF 2011: An Open Call for Your Nominations with nearly 300 posts.

§ Laura Sneddon chats up Alan Moore:

Moore had proved with Halo that good comics were capable of drawing a new female audience without losing their core readership; the large comics publishers are still struggling to realise this today. But something else he wanted to create was a beautiful “whole extended work that was about nothing other than sex and sexuality; to do an erotic piece that was as thought-through and considered as any other work. It always struck me as peculiar,” he rumbles in his Northampton twang, “that you could have endless American comics every month that were all based around acts of violence, and yet to be about something as universal and common and normal and socially productive as sex was completely forbidden.”

§ J. Caleb Mozzocco  explains the terrible importance of this panel and more more in his weekly link roundup.

§ One of which was Greg Pak’s touching tribute to Bill Mantlo:

Bill Mantlo has had a huge influence on me as a writer and reader. His “Micronauts” stories blew my mind as a kid and his “Incredible Hulk” run laid the groundwork for the themes I explored my five-and-a-half year run with the character. In the afterward to “Incredible Hulk” #635, I dedicated my run to Mantlo, and a couple of months ago devoted my Newsarama column to singing his praises and letting folks know how to donate to his ongoing care.

§ A Comics Reporter interview with Rich Tommaso that mostly covers his coloring work on the new Carl Barks Library, a fairly thankless task, given that the original coloring was weak but all the alternatives are too:

TOMMASO: When I started doing it, I forget what the story was I started on, but I started on an Uncle Scrooge story. And a lot of things seemed like really odd choices [laughs] for coloring. Trees that are green, and things like that. These are really odd. I would never choose colors for some of the stuff in the background. Disney was also talking to Kim [Thompson] and Gary about it. They said we didn’t have to be so religious about it. They wanted to make sure the color for the ducks, the reds and blues and the yellows, that those were pretty much bang-on. But they agreed that there was a little bit of leeway. If something looked like a bad color choice, you could find something in the ballpark range of that color. So that’s what I would do. “What’s something that’s a little more aesthetically pleasing than the color I’m looking at for this building, this road or this tree?” So I don’t follow them too religiously if the colors are kind of odd. Because sometimes they are strange color choices. Colors that don’t really complement. Some completely clash. I would find something in the ballpark range that looked a little better.

§ Finally a trio of gift guides: Hero Complex Holiday Gift Guide for 2011

The NY Times’ Graphic Novels Worthy of Being Gifts

and SF Gate’s Holiday gift guide: Comics/graphic novels

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§ Retailer Brian Hibbs updates several ongoing matters in his new column, including New 52 sales:

And, given that “Action” #1’s first week sales, compared to “Action” (v1) #904, were something like 650%, I’m absolutely enthusiastic here — books that had “old DCU” equivalents are, for the most part, multiples of what they were previously.

Naturally, books that are workmanlike, or poorly received/reviewed, are selling what they were (or, in one case, at least, already worse), but that was always going to be the case. But the books that actually have a distinct POV or a passion that can be communicated? On those I’m seeing considerably shallower drops between #2 & #3 — several with only 3-5% drops (which can translate into a single copy on some).

§ A whole genre of Japanese comics no one has heard of:

In the late 1940s and ’50s, there was a mixed genre of picture narrative in Japanese youth magazines that, as far as I know, does not have its own name. It usually appeared under the rubric of “emonogatari” (pronounced “eh-mono-gatari”), the equal parts image and text “picture stories” that had been popular since Yamakawa Sōji’s work for Shōnen Club during the war, and particularly after his hit Shōnen King (Shōnen Ōja) in 1947. Like that title, many early emonogatari were conceived as print versions of kamishibai, in which rectangular image and expository text were coupled like the picture cards and oral narration of that theatrical art form.

Are there “emonogatari” fanboys and zines and nostalgia conventions?

§ Everyone has been linking to this great interview with Annie Koyama of Koyama Press, which reveals her inspiring backstory.

I wanted to leave advertising and had planned to take a year off to travel but fell ill and wasn’t able to travel or work for a long time. Later I was terminally diagnosed with brain aneurysms but opted for a risky surgery that was successful. I still have another aneurysm but choose to mostly ignore it.

During my non-working years, I built up a nest egg by playing the stock market. After I survived the surgery I wanted to do something other than film so I started funding projects with local emerging artists and that led quite accidentally to the making of the first book.

I did a few more projects that involved zines and little comics and enjoyed that, so I devoted all my time and resources to starting a company that publishes and helps emerging artists.

She also notes some books debuting at BCGF in a couple of weeks:

Next up is Maurice Vellekoop’s “The World of Gloria Badcock”, Matthew Forsythe’s “Comics Class” and Jeremy Kai’s photography book of his underground explorations. All will debut in the U.S. at the Brooklyn Comics & Graphics Festival.

§ Here’s an interview with On the Media’s Brooke Gladstone on her “understanding media” GN:

Nrama: What do you feel is the real great advantage of the medium of comics – what are some things you can do there that you can’t do anywhere else?

Gladstone: Well, first of all, it forces an economy upon you. When you do it, it makes you boil down. You can’t temporize, you can’t thumb-suck for a few chapters, you can’t shilly-shally. You have to know what it is you want to say, and you have to say it precisely. It forced a preciseness onto my writing, a part of which has definitely transferred back to comics from the radio. Many people have said that my writing is so much more direct, and so much more evocative, because there’s so much more precision in it now from the writing of this book.

§ iFanboy’s Conor Kilpatrick totally speculates on what Marvel books may be below the Mendoza line for cancellation:

• Thunderbolts – 23,712
• X-Factor – 23,569
• Avengers Academy – 23,412
• S.H.I.E.L.D., Vol. 2 – 21,060
• Daken: Dark Wolverine – 19,472
• Generation Hope – 18,424
• Deadpool MAX – 15,865
I’m not saying any of these specific books will be canceled, or that any more Marvel books will be canceled at all. But if any more books are canceled in the days ahead, the above are probably the most likely candidates. It’s important to keep in mind that there are all kinds of reasons to cancel a comic book series, but sales is usually the primary reason.

§ Not long ago critic Nadim Damluji delivered a pretty convincing smackdown on the Orientalist tropes in Craig Thompson’sHABIBI. Now he’s back with an interview with Thompson who proves refreshingly blunt in addressing any and all criticisms, even if some of his responses are a bit glib:

CT: I wanted to sexualize Dodola, because I wanted the reader to experience her through the lustful gaze of all men, and primarily the gaze of Zam. Hopefully the lust of Zam is transmitted in those drawings, and maybe at times the reader identifies with it or other times feels disgusted by it or ashamed by it, which mirrors the experience Zam was having. Throughout the book even the Orientalism is a commentary on exoticization. Which isn’t just about any specific culture or ethnicity, but a stereotype of what men do in general or what a lot of people do in romantic relationships. I’m examining American guilt and I’m examining male guilt. In male guilt there is so much of this energy of objectification and idolatry and eroticization. When I think of those French paintings I don’t see the “White Man’s Burden” of the French needing to save the beautiful Arabic women from their oppressors, I see the opposite: French men swarming in a perverted sort of way and trying to make fantasy reproductions of what those ladies look like under their hijab. I don’t think it paints the colonists in a positive manner, it makes them seem like these creepy little voyeurs.

Also, Thompson — rather shockingly — falls back on the “It’s just comics, folks” line:

I do feel reverent and respectful to elements of Islamic faith, but through the whole book there is a sense of play and self-awareness around the fact it’s still just a comic book.

Still, props to both Damluji and Thompson for engaging with actual criticism.

§ Only the other day we were lauding the great art talent on Marvel’s DAREDEVIL; now here’s an interview with the writer, Mark Waid, conducted by Tucker Stone.

From my point of view, this seems like the first time in 15 years that somebody has given me the keys to the car and said “do what you wanna do”, and I have, and it’s succeeded. Generally, I do what I think is best to reinvent a franchise and write for the non-hardcore audience, and the nerd rage is off the charts. I wrote a Legion of Super-Heroes book that you didn’t have to have a degree in Legion-ology to read and understand…and? Mistake! Superman Birthright, a Superman take that’s not like John Byrne’s? Cue the rage. My short-lived return to Flash, breaking with what’s been done before? Bear trap. So I’m pleasantly surprised to report that for the first time in a long long time that…I’m zigging when I should be zagging and people are keeping up with me rather than just being mad.

§ This one is just Inside Baseball for San Diego Kremlinologists, but the struggling SD Union Tribune newspaper has just been purchased by Doug Manchester, the Trump-esque owner of the Manchester Grand Hyatt. This is significant in a few ways. The locally controversial Manchester is a Prop 8 supporter whose hotel was boycotted by gay rights supporters for a few years. He’s also not a big fan of Comic-Con, reportedly, so it might be interesting to see if the paper — which has been very supportive of the show in recent years — changes its coverage at all. It also is part of the whole Byzantine politics of the San Diego waterfront:

In San Diego, Manchester is known as a developer of waterfront hotel properties that have complex financial underpinnings and controversial design features.

Last week, for example, the California Coastal Commission rejected Manchester’s proposal to build hotels along the San Diego waterfront as part of a plan by the Navy to develop its property.

Among other criticisms was the concern that the hotel project would block waterfront views and turn it into a private asset rather than a public one. The same criticism was heard from the commission when Manchester proposed a hotel in Oceanside, a project later scuttled.

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§ For many years, Bill Mantlo has been a sad figure just out of view in the shadows of the comics industry. The prolific ’70s comic writer quit to get a law degree and was pursuing a career as a public defender when he was struck by a car and suffered irreversible brain damage, leaving him in a coma for years. Although he regained consciousness, it wasn’t until reading this story that we learned just how sad his story really is. The actual story is unavailable as we write this, but Robot 6 has a heart-rending synopsis.

§ Andy Ihnatko has a very detailed review of the Kindle Fire and finds that while it isn’t quite an iPad, it is quite handy for reading. He singles out comiXology’s app for praise:

Though ComiXology has come through for the Fire in a way that Conde Nast and other magazine publishers haven’t. The ComiXology app can display comics in either fullpage mode (which makes one nostalgic for those pulp Archie Comics digests at the supermarket checkout aisle) or in a “guided view” mode that moves a virtual “camera” around the page, following the story panel by panel. The system was originally created for phone screens, which completely failed to engage my excitement for digital comics, but on the Fire the system works well.

I can only hope that magazine publishers will follow ComiXology’s example, and provide the reader with an alternative to tedious manual zooming and scrolling.

§ The AP writes up this weekend’s epic MAD Magazine summit at SCAD:

“I have kids come to me at conventions saying, ‘My grandfather grew up with your work,”’ said Aragones, 74, whose recent features include ”A MAD Look at Lady Gaga.” “Older people think the older MADs were funnier. But not really. You grew up. Your sense of humour has changed.”

One also learns that given enough time, Jack Davis will be scandalized:

“I’m an old stodgy man and pretty conservative,” Davis said. “I like all the guys up there a lot, but I felt like it kind of got a little raunchy.”