News

With the slow news cycle, we've been doing some much needed maintenance around Stately Beat Manor -- trimming unread email lists, pruning RSS feeds, and so on. We've also been pondering our commenting system. We've recently put a few posters on "time out" because they were basically rude, insulting brigands, and we don't like their kind. Biting wit and a droll put-down is fine. Name calling and invective is not. Frankly, we're always amazed when we go out and meet all the smart, talented people who read the Beat daily -- we'd love to get some of those folks to comment more but it might require a complete overhaul of the commenting system. Also, it's always been our observation that the better the modding, the better the commenting, and we don't have the time it probably requires.

ICv2 has its first comprehensive interview with DC co-publishers Jim Lee and Dan DiDio since the publisher restructured in February. The interview runs in three parts. There's a hint that some of the CMX titles that weren't finished may get picked up by a different publisher, perhaps Dark Horse, and an acknowledgment of the need to keep prices down from DiDio:

Via PR, as alluded to in an earlier post, the Hero Initiative is introducing a new award to be presented at the Harveys on Saturday, Dick Giordano Humanitarian of the Year Award.

They said it couldn't be done but at Saturday's Creative Arts Emmys, Dean Haspiel was a winner in the Main Title Design category for Bored to Death, along with collaborators Tom Barham, Marci Ichimura, and Anthony Santoro. Haspiel is shown here with series creator Jonathan Ames and their Emmy. Other nerdcentric winners were Neil Patrick Harris for Glee, Robot Chicken for Outstanding Short-format Animated Program and Isaiah Mustafa for the best Commercial, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like. And of course, Betty White.

You cannot say that indicted former Illinois governor Rod Bagojevich is not a smart and pragmatic man. Although recently convicted on a single count of federal corruption, Blago, as he is known to fans, had a mistrial on 23 others, so he's still out and about. And what does a pol do while out on bail to feed the family? He takes it to the people, and makes a little spending money by signing autographs at Wizard World Chicago/Chicago Comic-Con. Blago is well aware that cashing in on celebrity is the best follow up to a political fall, and while thwarted in his attempt to appear on 'm a Celebrity... Get Me out of Here!, has been a contestant on The Apprentice. So he's gone where all reality stars go.

The nominations for the 14th annual Ignatz Awards have just been announced, with the winners to be presented at the Small Press Expo in Bethesda on Saturday, September 11, 2010 at 9:00 PM. Nominees were chosen by a panel of five judges: Anders Nilsen, David Kelly, Rob G, Joshua Cotter and Trevor Alixopoulos. Winners will be chosen by attendees. As always, it's an eclectic mix, with many lesser known gems very much worthy of your attention:

The late John Callahan -- the paraplegic cartoonist who passed away last month -- is remembered with some excerpts from one of his cartoon collections.

If the long, long battle over the rights to Superman were a DC "event" comic, we would be into the colon-bedecked spin-offs by...

A few things from hither and yon: § Archie Comics' aggressive new management team is profiled in a big story in the NY Times'...

Can you believe The Beat is on the move AGAIN? It's true! This time...it's a WEDDING.

Late last night Twitter flared with anger over a post entitled How to hire an artist by a designer of Flash-based computer games. Although we usually don't quote things so extensively, it seems that running enough of an excerpt to get the whole story is important here (plus is may be taken down). This is what the author, Christopher Gregorio, has to say about selecting an artist for a game project:

Friends of Lulu president Valerie D'Orazio announces that this years Friends of Lulu Awrds will have a new home -- the Long Beach Comic Con. Nominations are open to the public, and can be made here -- but hurry the deadline is August 23rd. After nearly shutting down just a few weeks ago, Friends of Lulu has reemerged with an interim volunteer board. In addition, missing financial records have been recovered, and the organization is moving forward once again.