Culture

I was asked not too long ago what was something I was proud of writing on The Beat, and it's actually something I didn't write. This post by political communications specialist Brett Schenker entitled Market Research Says 46.67% of Comic Fans are Female from February, was pretty groundbreaking. Why am I mentioning a six month old post? Well, people continue to quote it when they look for demographic information on comics readership, and it represents a solid benchmark in an area where there is shockingly little research. Schenker's research via Facebook, which he's graciously presented here, has been quoted in numerous articles and yesterday it was referenced in this Time.Com piece on the new female Thor. I tweeted it again and it got a whole new set of reactions on twitter from people who hadn't seen it the first time.

If you are like The Beat, you've noticed that the informed writing styling of Steve Morris have been greatly lessened on this site of...

This will almost certainly be the ultimate Con Disaster story for our times, as least for a year or so. DashCon held over the weekend in Schaumberg, IL, was a first year show aimed at Tumblr culture, planned as a meet-up for Tumblr users and such favorites as Welcome to Night Vale, a transmedia podcast that is sort of a Lake Woebegone for Tumblr-ites, Baker Street Babes, cartoonists such as Noelle Stevenson and…Doug Jones? You know the guy who was in Hellboy and Pan's Labyrinth.

On International Workers' Day, the 1st of May, Jonathan Cape published Sally Heathcote, Suffragette, the second graphic novel written by Mary Talbot, a semi-fictionalised...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WlGUvg4vBU Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which opens today, tells of how the enhanced apes, led by Caesar, strive with humans for supremacy...

He was just at HeroesCon, running around, smiling and putting this amazing work (done with Scott Hampton) in the auction (I know it doesn't...

In last week's issue of Captain America, #22, two characters were shown having a few glasses of wine and tumbling into bed only to wake up the next morning wondering what happened. The characters in question were Sam Wilson, aka The Falcon, one of the few prominent African-American characters in both the Marvel comics and film universes. The woman was Jet Black, aka Jet Zola, the daughter of Arnim Zola. Although she runs around in a skimpy costume reminiscent of Leeloo from The Fifth Element, this is perhaps explained by her having been raised in an alien dimension. Although she was born only a few years ago in real world time, she has aged more in comics time.

As mentioned earlier this week, The Beat is 10 years old this month! What was it like in the primitive days of 2004? Thanks to the wonders of digital archiving we can tell you! We can even take you back to San Diego 2004 for a look at skinnier but not necessarily better versions of many Beat favorites. So step with us behind the veils of time for....

Anders Nilsen—Don't Go Where I Can't Follow, Big Questions, Rage of Poseidon—is surely one of the finest cartoonists of the last decade. Big Questions...

They totally went there.

As long as we're harkening back to the internet of 10 years ago, as we are in this AMAZING THRILLING BEAT 10TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL, one of the great hallowed traditions of the internet came under fire yesterday, with TCJ.com co-editor Tim Hodler wonderedif TCJ.com should turn off comments and encourage a "letter's page" instead. Oddly, this inspired a flurry of comments. The "letters page" idea goes back to Blood & Thunder the letters page on the old print Comics Journal where industry titans would throw rocks at each other. Seriously these are a goldmine of Bronze Age defensiveness and invective. Would the same spirit be upheld in a world with instantaneous communication in every medium known to humankind? Not sure.

Despite the glut of unscripted reality TV shows and the lack of recent breakout hits, there is still some slightly untilled ground. For years...