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§ The New Republic has launched an online book review section. A nice vote of confidence for the paper world. And so far, not a graphic novel in sight. Outlier!

§ Michigan English Teacher Allen Porter explains his graphic novels as literature course. It’s kind of the basic Comics 101 — Understanding Comics, Maus, Persepolis and V for Vendetta, but it’s a solid foundation.

§ Chris Butcher’s Manga Milestones continues with yaoi/shonen-ai/BL via Antique Bakery.

You may notice a bit of a chip on my shoulder about the definitions of yaoi, BL, shonen-ai, and what is or isn’t a representative of these genres, and that’s because the fans of these works tend to be the most intense and zealous out of any subgroup of fandom that I’ve ever personally run across. Yaoi is explicitly a fan-created culture, coming up out of the amateur-comics networks and meetings in the 1980s and in a very male-dominated society, and producers and proponents of this genre had to fight very hard to get taken seriously and treated fairly. I respect that, it’s hard not to, but considering its 2010 and the battles of yaoi and BL have been fought and won, here’s hoping that all involved can let their hair down a little.


§ Tim O’Shea chats with Dan Vado about the upcoming San Jose Comics Festival:

O’Shea: As the person who originally developed APE, what kind of aspects of the original APE do you hope to recapture with the new San Jose Comics Festival?

Vado: Well, definitely we want to capture the spirit we had at APE, with people who were doing their own comics as a focal point. Given the way these things tend to get started the people who are first in on a thing like this are usually self-published people or people being published by companies like ours.

But, I don’t want this to be JUST about Indy Comics, or JUST about any one genre. I want to see this become as big a tent as possible while keeping our focus on individual creators. I don’t want someone who draws or writes a super-hero comic to feel like they should nt be coming to one of our events.

§ Hollywood quickie: Robert Downey Jr. is out of the COWBOYS & ALIENS movie, apparently due to a scheduling conflict

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