Culture

Although The Beat is a loyal New Yorker subscriber (it's the only thing that holds our attention whilst on the elliptical) just beause you're a subscriber does't mean you get the Cartoons of the Year special edition. However if our email is to be believed, this issue includes several new pieces that may necessitate a trip to the newsstand.

Via Leonard Pederson's Facebook page here's a photo of me interviewing Frank Miller and Bill Sienkiewicz about Elektra Assassin at the Golden Apple in...

Going about your business clad in the underwear of a superhero is a god given right, and it's not just for cosplay any more: Hot Topic is now offering DC underoos in adult sizes including Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Batgirl, Harley Quinn, and Captain America. Please note, these are actually branded Underoos, after a a long ago brand of child sized superheroic undies, as our pal Paul at Idle Hands revealed:

Speaking of that gifting time of the year, we've just partnered with TeePublic to offer the first ever Comics Beat TeePublic Store. TeePublic is a site that offers shirts designed by independent artists—there are hundreds of designs available, smashing up all your favorite pop culture icons and slogan, but The Beat staff has specially curated a store just for our readers. It is hard to choose! AND there's a $14 sales on all shirts until tomorrow—shirts are normally $20 so it's a good deal! And we'll soon have a special Beat t-shirt up in our store as well.

This photo was posted on Marvel.com in a piece commemorating Veteran's Day. Obviously there is no one in comics more suitable for this kind of salute than Kirby who would tell his war stories to all. And

JACK KIRBY ON MARVEL.COM

OH YEAH.

2014 is swiftly drawing to a close. In the midst of making sure my shelves will weather the upcoming Christmas season, I’ll be placing...

By David Nieves Even though Los Angeles is the entertainment capital of the world, ten years ago, you’d be remiss to find comic conventions, toy...

Lion Forge, the mostly digital but going to print comics company, picked up some nice 80s licenses like Punky Brewster and Miami Vice. In the modern era of licensing, it isn't about likenesses and wooden stories, but about reimagining things. So Lion Forge hired Joe Casey and artist Jim Mahfood to do Miami Vice. Bringing Crockett and TUbbs to the modern day. Since both Casey and Mahfood are certifiably bonkers*** this is awesome.

On Monday, James Sturm, cartoonist and director of the Center for Cartoon Studies, posted a cartoon at The Nib called "The Sponsor". I'm sure if you are a cartoonist you've already read it, since it was the talk of the town for a few days. Basically it concerns cartoonists, jealousy, the low bar for success, anxiety over one's abilities, tumblr hits, Kickstarter and more. All in 24 panels. I'd call that a good job. The basic conceit is that as in various 12-step programs, cartoonists have sponsors they can call in moments of stress. A young cartoonist named Casey calls his sponsor, Alan, in the middle of the night to fret about another cartoonist named Tessa who has a six figure Kickstarter, a line out the door at a Rocketship signing, and a book deal with D&Q. Tessa's success sends Casey into such a tizzy that he has to work things out and consider grad school, despite Alan's insistence that Crumb never thought about hits. And despite his "stay strong" rhetoric to Casey, Alan soon picks up the phone to call his OWN sponsor.

Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, talks about how the Amazons origins are tied up with the history of suffrage and birth control and nicely sums up the history of women in comics in a couple of paragraphs:

Independent Sources is a local to NYC show that spotlights ethnic and local news. Hosted by Zyphus Lebrun, it's put together by CUNY (City University of New York ) and runs on their cable station. Last week's episode, covers various aspects of diversity in comics, with thoughtful interviews with Marvel's Sana Amanat, Image's David Brothers, Morgan Dubin from Abrams Comic Arts, Jonathan Gray, Assistant Professor of English, John Jay College, artist Dexter Vines and yours truly. Aside from my having to terrifyingly reënect walking into a comic shop, it's a sprightly look at the basic issues of diversity and the widening audience for comics. There's also a nice segment on a cosplayer who designed a Rita Repulsa costume and others for curvier women.

I totally stole this from artist/producer Denys Cowan's FB page, but it's an interesting little sidenote, Back in the 90s people still read magazines, and liquor companies would purchase full page advertisements in these magazines. Man, history is SO WEIRD, right? Anyway, Dewars scotch ran a series of profiles of debonair achievers attempting to convince you that if you drank their scotch you would also be a debonair achiever. Cowan, then well known for his Batman and Question comics and about to co-found Milestone Media, was a fitting choice but it did seem like a win for comics at the time. This predated the Rob Liefeld Levis commercial, but both are a reminder that cartoonists as media figures is far from a recent phenomenon.