Literacy

New Yorkers who are are still in withdrawal from the amazing SPX just concluded, rejoice—this weekend's Brooklyn Book Festival features a full line-up of comics programming, and some comics-focused programs during the week that will keep you in comics nirvana. The festival takes place all day Sunday, September 23rd, but there are satellite events listed below.

On the 14th of September, in a satellite event leading up to the Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland, comics creator Dean Haspiel took the podium in the James Madison building of the Library of Congress to make a little history on the basis of a subject small in size but impressive in cultural impact: mini comics. Haspiel had previously announced his personal 600 item donation of the comics, self-published and often diminutive in size, to the LoC via Warren Bernard, Executive Director of the Small Press Expo, who helped to arrange and conduct the donation. Haspiel’s donation will be part of a sub-grouping within the newly established Small Press Expo collection at the LoC. The collection will contain, among other worthy selections, past and future Ignatz Award nominated works. Haspiel was particularly appropriate to take the stage and explain the role of indie comics to his audience because his work has appeared in both mainstream comics like Marvel and DC as well as creator-owned and small press publications. As such, his works are actually filed under more than one category at the LoC: mainstream comics and mini comics.

In New York City, an active community of professionals working in comics and image-text combinations hopes to share their knowledge and benefit from the experience of others in the field. The New York Comics and Picture-story Symposium is a collective for trading stories, tips, critiques, and encouragement in a fresh setting by combining the social with the educational.

It's the particle that created mass! It also invented brunch.

In case reading the list wasn't enough, you can now listen to The Hottest Graphic Novels of 2012 panel from BEA.

The winners of a swell comics library grant were announced at ALA.

This weekend the ALA (American Library Association) meeting takes place in Anaheim, and there's a big graphic novel presence. Graphic Novel Reporter has the complete rundown of four days of activity on the Graphic Novel Stage, the GN/Gaming pavilion, and even an artist's alley with creators such as Faith Erin Hicks, Tom Kaczynski & Gabrielle Bell, and the ubiquitous Dave Roman/Raina Telgemeier duo.

We all know (or should know!) how important Will Eisner was to the comics artform. Something an increasing number of people know is how important libraries are to getting more and more people to read comics and graphic novels. So it makes sense that a Graphic Novel Prize for Libraries would be named for Eisner.

Classics Illustrated, the comics Cliff Notes series that has been around in various iterations for over 60 years, making the line a classic in and of itself—they've just gone digital with ebook publisher Trajectory. Over 120 titles will be launched from both iTunes and the iBook store, selling for $4.99 each. These look to be the '50s original Classics Illustrated, celebrated in rhyme and song.

On Monday, digital distributor iVerse announced a new initiative that would allow libraries to download books from their digital library on a cost per checkout basis.

When you get a flyer for a $395 scholarly compendium on comics, you think it must be some kind of scam. Then you see it was edited by Bart H. Beaty and Stephen Weiner and you decide you want it badly.

If you were around comics in New York in 2008, you know that that was the Year of the Symposium, with Post Bang, SPLAT, and probably something else that wasn't named after a sound effect. Since that epic year, when comics were discussed and analyzed by panels of every type, there have been a few scattered symposia, but nothing that big. Until the announcement of Comic New York: A Symposium, to be held Saturday and Sunday March 24-25 at Columbia University.