§ This week’s obligatory “Did you hear? Graphic novels are cool!” piece comes from Tim Martin at the UK Telegraph. Unlike other adapters, he’s sympathetic to those who aren’t converted yet:

But comics continue to divide opinion. I have several friends who will read anything as long as it’s a comic, and several who will read anything as long as it isn’t. I started in adolescence, puzzling my way through imported copies of MAD magazine before moving to 2000AD, the seminal British science fiction comic in which luminaries of the form such as Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman and Grant Morrison cut their teeth. But I know plenty who began as adults with George Herriman’s Krazy Kat strips, beloved of Picasso and E E Cummings, or who picked up Watchmen on special and found something, well, special.


The article includes a sound top ten entry comics list that includes some warhorses but a few less recommended titles.

§ And a companion piece from Dan Brown at the London Free Press “For comic books, a turning point”. Can you guess what the turning point was?

Answer: 1986, which delivered WATCHMEN and DARK KNIGHT.

§ Comics folks frolic in Lucerne, Switzerland.

§ WE like this story because it features Roy Williams.

§ The State rounds up comic strip reactions to the economic crisis, including Brenda Starr’s shocking layoff, or “furlough”, as it’s called.

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§ We clicked on the Brenda Starr site to find a suitable image for the last item and were shocked to find that Brenda is so skint that she’s abandoning her yappy little dog. Ay-yi-yi! Hurry up and do something, Tim Geithner! BRENDA STARR CAN’T KEEP HER POOCH SO IT MUST BE SERIOUS.

[Click for a larger version.]