§ A grim day at Stately Beat Manor: There is ANOTHER Heidi MacDonaldand she can DRAW.

§ Toon Books has its own take on comics in the classroom, which is an emerging trend:

The Canadian Council of Learning has gathered definitive research showing that readers who love comics also tend to read more text-based material and report enjoying reading more than their peers who don’t pick up comic books.

§ Colleen Doran Double feature! First, A Distant Soil is coming back, and Doran talks about the distant days of the emerging indie comics press:

Ironically, the small press experience gave me a greater appreciation for the mainstream comics business. I have almost always been treated far better in the mainstream than I was in the small press. No one likes a work-for-hire deal, but it’s clear cut, you get your pay, and you go. I rarely ran into these bizarre contract problems, completely inappropriate behaviors, and personality clash issues I continually experienced in the small press. Other peoples’ mileage may vary, but this is true for me with only a couple of exceptions. Anyway, after getting battered around by the small press for awhile, I just didn’t see why I should sign a contract with another one of these companies. They had no more qualifications than I did, so why should I bother to work with them? I doubted I could screw things up half as much. I spent some time asking around about how to self publish, and Dave Sim was particularly helpful with that. I took the plunge one day, ironically with funds from a legal settlement from one of the small publishers which ripped me off. Self publishing was a great learning experience. I made very good money for awhile, too. When the distributor system collapsed in the mid-1990s, I took a serious hit, but then I went to Image, thanks to Erik Larsen. I’m really glad I self published: I learned so much about the business end that I use to this day. I understand discount structures, the importance of getting books done far in advance, trade publishing, a great deal. Real nuts and bolts stuff. I actually learned to appreciate some of my publishing clients more, because I came to understand some of the rules they imposed: they didn’t seem so arbitrary.


And in a blog post, she reports a very touching story of paying back a good deed.

roger krone

§ Comics polymath Van Jensen profiled Boeing president Roger Krone for the Georgia Tech alumni magazine in comics form, with Brett Weidele on the art.

§ One of Stan Lee’s many pacts is heading for the big screen!

§ I thought this piece on Five “Obscure” Things to Do at Conventions was funny but covered things that weren’t very obscure — getting drunk in the bar and looking for free schwag, but whaddya know in the comments someone wrote:

I had no idea these things were going on at conventions. The meet ups and social media games look to be the most fun. I have to remember these whenever I go to a con. Come to think of it, the swag quest is a good one too.


Remember: IT IS ALWAYS SOMEONE’S FIRST TIME.

§ Finally, good news! Comic Books Are No Laughing Matter.

Yes it’s true. No matter how many times I find this story in my news feed, I never getting tired of making a joke about it.