Tag: History
Did Watchmen Steal From The Outer Limits, Or From Jack Kirby?
At the end of Watchmen, a television set in the background announces a rerun of The Outer Limits episode "The Architects Of Fear." This was a...
The strange history of the Fantastic Four movie franchise
This weekend's new superhero movie is Fantastic Four, not to be confused with Fantastic Four
or Fantastic Four
Or even The Fantastic Four
The 1978 cartoon version...
Unassuming Barber Shop: In Search of the Fantastic Four
On April 12, 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gargarin became the first human being to achieve Earth orbit, effectively winning the space race. At NASA,...
Dave Sim receives a $500,000 bequest to turn his house into a museum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpVEbuuhLxc
In his latest weekly video, Cerebus creator Dave Sim reveals that an anonymous donor has agreed to leave a bequest of $500,000 to The...
Manga triumphalism—heck yeah!
As I'm probably too fond of saying, each year's San Diego Comic-Con represents the end of comics' fiscal year, and we're now in a new cycle of sales, renewal and looking forward to the next thing. Although the con was not that memorable on its own, it did mark a new plateau in the direct sales era for comics penetration into the mass media, and for having a variety of voices and genres that the medium has probably has never been seen before.
This situation, while far from ideal, still represents a dream come true for a lot of us who have been toiling in the comics industry for a while. I remember as if it were yesterday sitting in various comics industry think tanks in the 90s wondering WHAT could be done to expand the audience for comics, how to bring in genres that weren't superheroes, and how to overcome the tyranny of the "32 page pamphlet" as it was dubbed by either Kurt Busiek or Marv Wolfman, depending on who you ask. These tasks seemed daunting at the time, and it actually took 25 years to get to a place where it could be argued that its true, and everyone at those meetings is a certified old timer now.
SDCC ’15 – Comic Book People at Comic-Con
Want to know what comic-cons are really about? Get these books.
In my previous post I talked about the importance of community -- it is...
11th Anniversary Special: Really Famous People Holding Comics Books, world politics division
In honor of the Beat's 11th anniversary ehre are two epic photos from recent social media. In the first, Congressman John Lewis presents signed...
Know your exploiters in comics: a brief guide
This is an old link, but Robort Boyd has posted a slideshow he delivered on Comixploitation! that rounds up some of the more egregious...
Flashback Friday: historic photos of San Diego in the 80s
While I was poking around the internet for the history of Marriott Hall the other day, I chanced upon some photos of San Diego in the 80s taken during and just after the construction of the Marriott Marquis and Marina. The first photo is prior to the hotel's completion in 1987. I'm not enough of an expert in San Diego history to know the history of the marina, but as you can see, it bears very little resemblance to the glitzy high rise neighborhood of today. There's no convention center, no Hyatt, no Embassy Suites, no Petco PArk, no Omni...nothing really.
RIP Earl Norem
Prolific cover artist and painter Earl Norem has passed away at age 91 as reported on Facebook by family members including his daughter:
As my...
HIstory: DiDio always had it in for Robin and the Superman/Lois marriage
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D&Q’s 25th Anniversary spotlights the long march of female cartoonists
Over the weekend, Drawn & Quarterly got some much deserved attention in the New York Times for their 25th Anniversary and the astonishing accompanying...







