Culture

Everything's coming up Vinnie Colletta! After some brisk discussion here and elsewhere on the inking giant, John Morrow writes to say that...

I went to the American Library Association trade show and conference in Washington DC. I was slated to moderate a panel during the three...

Announced via PR yesterday, Devil's Due, the long-running indie publisher is leaving Diamond as their distributor, for both books and periodicals, and...

The New York Times reports on the new manga eye fad, popularized by Lady Gaga, of giant contacts that make you look like...

Over the recent holiday weekend, we had occasion to spend a fair bit of time going through posts from the Old Beat, clearing out some spam and trying to clean up the database for various purposes. Along the way we were forced to violently relive the last few years of the last decade. It all seemed so simple once. So many news stories that never went anywhere -- a few we jotted down for future investigation, but there were also things like this fellow who spent money in 2007 to announce his new blog. Now it's only a reseller placeholder. They had such big dreams, but those big dreams crawled under a rock to die.

We're gonna try not to have minutely news updates on this year's San Diego, but it's probably gonna be daily from here on out, so here's a round-up of pertinent links and ephemera. Which reminds us....isn't it time San Diego was renamed Douche Prom?

§ Why is this totally AWESOME quote by Dan DiDio not getting the attention it deserves??? The pants are really intentional for the...

Batman Forever does something that Batman and Batman Returns were unable to do: it makes Batman a proper protagonist, with goals and desires of his own. Not merely reacting to events, Bruce/Batman is after something in Forever. His various allies and antagonists, seductions and betrayals are all thematically consistent and relevant to his struggle. This does not mean that the finished movie is without flaws. WHAT DOES THE PROTAGONIST WANT? Bruce Wayne wants to lead a "normal life." He wants to be able to fall in love, put his demons to rest and have a fully integrated personality. Life has, as life will, other plans, first in the form of Two-Face. Just as Bruce is motivated by an unending revenge for his parents’ death, Two-Face is motivated by an irrational desire for revenge upon Batman. Two-Face’s sense of justice (arbitrary and cruel) and divided-down-the-middle personality are twisted mirrors of Bruce. Bruce would love nothing better than to put away Two-Face, settle down with that nice Dr. Meridian (astonishingly, yet another blonde with a bat obsession — how lucky can one guy get?) and hang up his cape for good.

Ken Quattro uncovers the transcript of testimony in the 1939 lawsuit DC vs Victor Fox. The suit involved C suing the other publisher for a Superman knock-off which has been producer by the Eisner./Iger shop and then 22/year/old Eisner was called on to testify, an event covered in both the Andelman/Eisner biography and The Dreamer.

This week, a quick one, while he's away: Are Chris Ware and John Romita Jr. working in the same medium? Was Wonder Woman in the Avengers back in 1993? Do you still not care about the World Cup? And does the most interesting new comics release this week start with a "W," too?

TRIPWIRE Magazine, the excellent comics magazine edited by Joel Meadows, will have a new issue out in time for you-know-what. PR Below. TRIPWIRE is back...

A look at most of the past 600 issues of Wonder Woman's various runs show many changing fashions in heroism, art styles and just how much of a butt shadow you can safely show.