Culture

Wow, February 1 is a banner day in comics history. It is also the day that Image Comics was created—20 years ago. Via Facebook co-founder Jim Valentino shared a photo of the founders and one pal on that fateful day, from left to right Erik Larsen, Hank Kanalz, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Marc Silvestri, and Jim Valentino. They'e all still in the game, all better off than they were 20 years ago. Collectively, they've changed the industry a time or two. It was also a day when people wore denim shirts. Ah, what a time...

Given that she was the Person of the Year for 2011, and enjoyed a bestseller with her Hark! A Vagrant collection, it's no surprise that Kate Beaton has been getting lots of offers lately, ranging from children's books to television work. Thus it will also come as no surprise that she's going to be spending less time on her webcomics to work on some of these opportunities:

It was 13 years ago that an "amateur" comics journalist named Gail Simone ran a survey about the phenomenon of "Women in Refrigerators" in comics. That site—currently housed here—used the moment of Kyle Rayner came home and found his girlfriend stuffed in the refrigerator as a lens for the entire phenomenon of female comics characters getting beaten, crippled, stabbed, mutilated, assaulted, and devalued. Luckily, since then, everything has been fixed!

We've mentioned a few times here a lawsuit for copyright infringement by DC against an outfit called Gotham Garage, which sells replica Batmobiles—based on the '60s Batman TV show in particular—as well as other vehicles based on famed fantasy cars, like the Mach Five. If you were thinking of buying one, better hurry, because a judge has ruled that the Batmobile is subject to copyright.

Speaking of ACT-I-VATE, charter member and Beat contributor Michel Fiffe is running a Rockethub campaign to fund issue two of his comic ZEGAS. I believe a few hours are left to contribute—the first issue was outstanding and the second will be a double-sized 44-page issue.

Another birthday being celebrated today is the web collective ACT-I-VATE which launched six years ago. Meaning a baby born that day would now be in school. Yikes. Founder Dean Haspiel celebrates here. It's been six years of some outstanding comics and memorable parties; THE ACT-I-VATE PRIMER is a really gorgeous book well worth tracking down if you don't have a copy.

Submitted for your perusal: pages 1-6 and 9-10 of tomorrow's Captain Victory#3 from Dynamite. Available at a comic shop near you.

Recently, Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich declared his support for the idea of a moon colony. Even more recently, he was roundly mocked for this even thoughmanned space flight is one of the glories of American history. Wired asked space enthusiast Warren Elliswhat he thought of the plan:

The internet FTW once again.

Hints From Heloise is a venerable newspaper column (remember those) that usually covers topics such as what to do when you scorch your husband's shirt while ironing, and how to fix a squeaky hinge. But now it has hinted up comics.

All week DC Women Kicking Ass has been running polls to pick the favorite artists on various DCU heroines, such as Wonder Woman and Batgirl. It's fun to see the great artists who have drawn these characters over the years. It is also fun to observe how community standards have changed with regards to superheroines. Take Black Canary. It's a pretty safe assumption that even when the character was created by Carmine Infantino and Robert Kanigher in 1947, a woman in fishnet tights was assumed to be hot stuff. However, first general prudishness, and later the Comics Code, kept her sort of modest. In recent years, she's been unchained.

Soon after posting yesterday's fret fest over the state of the cartoonist, we had to hurry off to the world premiere of JOANN SFAR: DRAWING FROM LIFE, a documentary by Sam Ball about the French comics superstar. A mellow, thoughtful 46 minute film, it captures Sfar a few years ago when THE RABBI'S CAT was on its way to selling 600,000 copies in France and his work was being published here in the US by First Second...but BEFORE he became more renowned in his homeland for directing.