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The last New York show of the year is on its way with Comic Arts Brooklyn taking place November 8-9th and this year the festival will be associated with several art shows and exhibits which all pretty top notch, including a very rare appearance by Julie Doucet, an Al Jaffee art show, a repurposed animation cel show and an exhibit of work by the Finnish collective Kutikuti. All FREE! Here's all the dates and times:

Comica is going on in the UK right now, a month long celebration of comics and graphic novels with a ton of event and art exhibits which you can see in the link. and here's another one; S.M.A.S.H. a series of three panels discussing various aspects of the art form. It sounds great—if we were in London on November 15th this is where we'd be. Info:

Where to even start? By Chandler Banks-- Kelly Sue DeConnick is a long time hero of mine. I met her at NYCC this year, and my heart melted when she looked me in the eyes and talked to me about the importance of non-compliance (that's a big thing in her upcoming series, Bitch Planet). She's important to me, and her characters are so dear to my heart I wear a Captain Marvel necklace every day.

We haven't done a ton of solicitation listings at the Beat recently, but it's something we're going to start up again, because...well, look at all the nice art. Here are the #1s and the Kaboom and Boombox titles from Boom's January solicitations—new creator owned titles include Feathers, a smart looking new kids title, and Burning Fields, a caper with a burning Iraqi oil field as the setting. Also here are all the KaBOOM titles for January with as many variant covers as have been released by some funky fresh artists like Ian McGinty, Lorena Gomez and Christine Larsen.

More Marvel footage unless you are totally over it already.

by Edie Nugent The main stage spectacles of NYCC saw panels filled with celebrity actors and moderators alike, whipping thousands of screaming audience members into...

I was lucky enough to come across the Kickstarter for indy anthology Imaginary Drugs earlier this year. I received my PDF copy a few months ago...

WHOA -- Marvel really did announce a Captain Marvel movie for 2018, and Black Panther for 2017, with Chadwick Boseman (42) joining Robert Downey Jr and Chris Evans on stage. Today's Marvel presser was roundly liveblogged, and it was apparently a tumultuous event at the Disney owned El Capitan theater. The entire Stage 3 line-up was announced and it goes like this:

I'm pretty sure we've posted some of Eric Haven's creepy cool Mancat comics before. But not it's all being collected by AdHouse, in UR. The publisher describes these comics as "Dark, absurdist, and deadpan, these stories reflect the apocalyptic undercurrent of the modern era. Also included is Haven's long-running comic strip "Race Murdock" which appeared in The Believer magazine." Haven is among those cartoonist's whose work is just inherently spooky. In the past his work has appeared in various anthologies, but when he isn't cartooning he's producing the TV Show Mythbusters. A real hyphenate for the season.

There was a time not too long ago when you could fit all the "women in comics" at a big table in a coffee shop. Now there re more than 300 women who just work in comics shops. That's the membership of The Valkyries, a private organization for female comics retail employees. and it turns out the group has been instrumental in promoting a coupld of books that have had great success this year, namely Saga and Lumberjanes. Janelle Asselin interviews group founder Kate Leth for all the details:

Who is Marie Duval? While not a household name in comics circles she's actually one of the most important Victorian cartoonists, artist on Ally Sloper, one of the early cartoon sensations. The tale of a no good lazeabout that ran from 1857 on, it was created by Duval's husband, Charles Ross, but gained its greatest fame after Duval took over in 1859. The Guardian has a tribute to her.

Marvel Studios is holding a press conference at 2 pm edt/11pdt today and you can follow along at the Marvel live blog, or Twitter or smokesignals, or whatever method you prefer. While most guess it could be about the 'Batch being cast as Doctor Strange, it could also be about other mystery slots in the movie schedule, or it could be the Age of Ultron trailer that was supposed to officially debut tonight, or about Katee Sackhoff starring as lady Captain Marvel in Avengers 3.