Comics Still Wonderful In Spite Of It All

...or at least in the UK. Forbidden Planet has a preview of October & November comics and it includes a pretty amazing line-up of...

Much has been written and lauded about this year's SPX, and I'm late to the game but I have a few thoughts I wanted to put to pixel before the memories fade. It was a great time for just about everyone, I think. I had a blast at TCAF this year and came away from it completely optimistic about The State of Comics. That mood was only deepened by SPX, and I don't expect it to fade any time soon. A few little notes:

Photo via @eee Possibly the best SPX ever—and definitely the most financially successful one. That's what everyone was saying last night. By 4:30 Fantagraphics had...

It's the third annual Read Comic in Public Day, and the third annual Women Read Comics in Public 3 tumblr. Get out there and show your stuff, world!

If you are one of the last souls who has yet to buy WANDER or DRACULA THE UNCONQUERED #2, allow me to convince you. Put away that latte money for I have something better for you to enjoy.

When a young fan with hearing impairment didn't want to wear an aid because he felt it'd make him stand out, his mother assembled with Marvel's staff to save the day

–The panelists of Mythic Fiction in Comics included Bill Willingham, Kurt Busiek, Chris Roberson, Matt Wagner, and Dark Horse editor Rachel Edidin and they all agreed that superhero comics were a dying genre. They also all thought that it would be beneficial for everyone to allow the characters to lapse into public domain.

—Quoted by Matt Funk

The industry has been asking itself some hard questions recently, and my tweets and email are full of people being depressed about things being so bad. As I always say, the comics industry can be horrid, but comics themselves are eternal. And you know what, when you get down to it the industry isn't THAT bad either. There are some good eggs out there.

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...

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:

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

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.