Culture

As long rumored, the much maligned Comics Journal website has re-launched with a new editorial team: Dan Nadel and Tim Hodler, founders of the Comics Comics website and zine, will bring their view of contemporary comics to the hallowed brand of TCJ.com. Hodler started things off with an editorial which, amazingly, did not talk about how crappy websites are; insead it laid out a pretty exciting vision for the new site:

This site is divided into several sections which will continue to grow over the days and weeks and months to come: Feature articles, including lengthy interviews, investigative journalism, and long-form critical and historical essays; regular columns on a variety of subjects; a steady stream of book reviews; thorough and easily navigated event listings; an ever-growing archive of The Comics Journal‘s thirty-plus years as a print magazine (by the end of 2011, each and every issue will be online)—this will be available in full to magazine subscribers only; and of course this daily blog, which will be a catch-all for short items, selective link-blogging, and a forum for guest voices and bad jokes.

The long awaited Wizard World Digital magazine has debuted, and it's basically a pdf that you can read on your computer or iWhatever.

Although comics are such a cool, welcoming place that sometimes it seems no one ever goes away, that isn't true. People drop in and out all the time. Two recent blog posts rack down some of the most missed MIAs. At Comics Comics, the indie side of things gets covered with Frank Santoro and friends recalling Guang Yap, (above) Joel Orff, Jeff Nicholson among others. The long comments thread brings u many other memories and ideas of Things That Are Best Left Forgotten:

They just don't make 'em like they used to. UPDATE WITH DANZIG!!!

Last night Bosch Fawstin, the former-Muslim-turned-ant-jihadist crusader, was quizzed on the Daily Show regarding his alarm over Nightrunner, Batman's parkour-practicing Muslim French sidekick. Aasif Mandvi does the interviewing, and he also gets Chris Sims (one 'm') from Comics Alliance to explain what's happening from a comics blogger point of view.

Major changes, the Twiter brain drain affects one cartoonist, and farewell to an original.

In the spirit of Cthulhu Family Circus and other great remixes, Jon L. and Chris D. present Sheen Family Circus. In case you have been in Shaolin seclusion this week, actor Charlie Sheen has been on a manic-phase media run with a series of hyperventilated interviews highlighting our new found media ability to watch famous people pathetically and tragically act out right in front of us. As distasteful as it all is...these quotes are comedy gold.

As part of a Giant Robot Video Game art show Hilary Florido and Farel Dalrymple have created the art you see here. More in the link.

We've seen trading cards for everything from NASCAR to bakeries, so why not cartoonists? Trading cards were a huge fad in the '90s, so it's not surprising that most of the cartoon trading sets we've seen hail from that era. But now, the current crop of superstars is getting its OWN trading card legacy, courtesy of the CBLDF and Cryptozoic Entertainment, called The Liberty Trading Cards. The set will spotlight the Fund's exploits in defending the First Amendment and include sketch cards, chase cards and autographs, along with more than 70 of today's top creators.

Via PR, this week marks the opening of the "Will Eisner’s New York: From The Spirit to the Modern Graphic Novel" show at the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art in NYC; in conjunction with this show of Eisner art, the museum will present a concurrent "In the Spirit of Will Eisner" show with Eisner-influenced pieces by many luminaries.

Maybe it's just the way Twitter brings all your snarky friends from around the world together to be snide at once, but from the very beginning of last night's Oscar™ telecast, it was obvious that the youth movement of Anne Hathaway and James Franco was going to be dire.

It is explained here. Everything is explained here.