Culture

Cartoonist/journalist Susie Cagle has a full report on the events on the night of her arrest along with 100 other Occupy Oakland protesters, from the fires at the barricades to jailhouse indignities.

On October 21st, Stephen Bissette from The Center for Cartoon Studies met up with Oliver Goodenough from The Vermont Law School to discuss Jack Kirby and his relationship with Marvel Comics. The Comics Journal put the audio up and it is a good listen with a nice James Sturm introduction

Will LA ever get a good comics show? It seems as elusive as a football team. This weekend saw first time show Comikaze unfold at the LA Convention Center, scene of much heartache over the years. Held just one week after the Long Beach Comic Con, Comikaze still was a sell-out, according to IGN, but first hand reports were very mixed.

Hey, Beat Fleeters! Guess what time it is!

Cartoonist Susie Cagle -- who was previously teargassed during another confrontation -- was arrested as part of the Occupy Oakland protest on Wednesday night. Cagle was not there as a protester, but as a reporter, covering the scene for Spot.us. According to Cagle's father, Cagle was arrested despite having a prominent press pass and the arresting officer actually knowing her and her work. After being held overnight at Santa Rita Jail, Cagle was released, and charged with the misdemeanor of "present at raid." On her twitter stream she mentions she's currently trying to retrieve her wallet and housekeys from the Oakland police.

Following up news of Monday's arrest of Steve "The Dude" Rude on charges of assault and violating a restraining order, Tom Spurgeon got further details of the night in question from Rude's wife Jaynelle. It seems that on Halloween evening, Steve was outside, in costume, giving out Halloween candy, when barking dogs in a neighbor's yard distracted the Dude, which led him to throw rocks at the fence in front of the dogs. The owners of the dogs -- who had previously obtained the restraining order against Rude -- came out and an argument ensued, which ended with Rude physically shoving one of the neighbors and ripping his shirt off. Rude then returned to handing out his Halloween candy until the police showed up and arrested him.

You might not expect to find an interview with Jesse Moynihan up at Newsarama, but he's got so much cool stuff going on, including Forming, his visually stunning webcomic retelling the origin of the world via a pan-pantheistic mythology. If all that sounds hopelessly highbrow, he also gets to subvert America's youth (and stoned adults) as a storyboard artist on Adventure Time. Zack Smith gets him to explain how he does it:

Converse and DC have teamed for the DC Comics x Converse Chuck Taylor All Star Hi Collection,, which features high top sneakers based on Batman, Superman, the Flash and the Joker. We like! More pics in the link. A DC comics poster comes with each shoe purchase.

Over the three years (!) of the Great Recession, it's been noted many times that the Fantasy Economy has held up better than many other segments. Yes, comics sales are down overall, but they took a while to take a hit and rebounded strongly when something interesting happened (New 52). But why? Maybe it's because America's stay-at-home male population is also growing, as Politico notes.

As you all know, Stan Lee pacts the way other people breathe. Here's a new one -- a contest with online community MASScanvas to design a t-shirt; a portions of the proceeds of the winning design will go to the John Wayne Cancer Institute. Winners get their very own congratulatory video from Stan, as well.

This article on the "Speed Dating" sessions at the recent New York Comic Con paint an interesting picture of the social dynamics of Nerd World, especially with the growing participation of women due to the anime and Vampire influences.

Two comics icons together -- this is a real don't miss event.