§ Abhay Khosla has a particularly touching reminiscence of Mike Wieringo.

§ Mark MIllar had a swell time at Chicago:

The nights, of course, were even more mental than the days and whatever the fuck happened in room 1041 caused so much excitement John Cassaday, Pat Ayers and I got the Hell out ASAP. We watched an armed cop push his way in and scream at the 50 or 60 people squeezed into that tiny room to leave, but not before a Wizard writer peed off a balcony, two girls passionately made out and other stuff I can’t even mentioned. There seemed to be a party on every floor of the Hyatt, Caligula meets Foil Holographic Covers, and Pat, Cass and I popped our heads in and visited most every night before settling down in the bar that never ends in the lobby area. Thanks to all who were so very kind with their praise and their booze, too many folk to mention by name, but everyone a laugh. We had a truly great, great time and I must have agreed to four more shows this year, caught up in all the enthusiasm.


God forbid he find out what goes on at San Diego.

§ Manga legend Kazuo Umezu wants to cover his house in stripes— and neighbors are NOT pleased.

§ Steinblogger reports on Paul Gravett’s talk at MoCCA, which we also attended, but we were late and got in while he was talking about Ad Reinhart:

For me, the Big Thought of the Night was on the perceived difference between comic book art and fine art. Images in comic books, according to Gravett, are “expendable.” The reader is “driven by the pulse of the eye-stream that takes you across the page.” Fine art, as in a gallery or museum, on the other hand, is slowly taken in, contemplated. You take your time with it. Taking a slow, contemplative manner with comics gets in the way of the narrative “eye-stream.”

(An aside: I love that combination of words: eye-stream. It encompasses what web comic books need to achieve to be a great way to read comics. By the way, a really interesting “infinite canvas” — a la Scott McCloud — was created for an exhibition Mr. Gravett talked about. Check it out.)


§ Dealer Robert Beerbohm on why he won’t exhibit at a Wizard World any more. Janitorial theft only one reason.

§ The Comics Podcast Network podcasts the podcasting panel from San Diego:

§ Magazine circ highlights. TIME falls, HELLO rises.

§ Mother Jones looks at Fangirls Fighting Back:

Of course, sudden-death plot twists are nothing new in comic books. Neither are angry readers: Comic-book fans are known for their fanatical love for their favorite characters—and their ferocious scorn for anyone who dares to mess them up. But the new wave of feminist fangirls has taken this obsessiveness even further, geeking out about the ways that superwomen are shortchanged by dumb story lines, flat characterization, and titillating art. They love their comics as much as the sweatiest fanboy—and they hate nothing more than when real-life problems like the glass ceiling intrude on their escapist fantasies.


§ The FAQ for Italian comics strip Julia unintentionally reveals the dangers the fangirls are attacking about:

For a man, gaining insight into a woman’s psychology is like untangling a fascinating terrible mystery, like entering into an alien world and learning to interpret its language. The art of story-telling is fundamentally an act of mimesis. My generation was brought up in an age of pronounced differentiation between the two sexes: males were supposed to be male both in their exterior and interior characteristics. And the same for females.

A cultural model that became a pressing invitation to get rid of that percentage of the opposite sex all human beings carry within them. Over the years, I’ve realized this was an impoverishment. So I’ve started to cultivate my female part very carefully. Today I identify it with sensitivity, perception and creative imagination.