2. BN Duncan, Weirdo contributor and mainstay of the Berkeley street and publishing scenes, passes away.
3. Harvey Awards nominations are announced, leaving many suspicious of the Awards' ability to sustain a reasonable number of voters during its nominations process.
Quote Of The Week
"Wouldn't it be better if the Lone Ranger was really the bearer of some kind of elemental 'Ranger totem' or something?"-- Matt Maxwell
*****
today's cover is from one of the great publications of the underground comix era
CompuServe, 1969-2009?
I'm not going to pretend I can figure out this cascade of dates, but it seems that in some significant fashion the embers of what was once with early AOL (its eventual buyer, I think... maybe) one of the initial, commercial places on the Internet a lot of folks talked about comics have had water poured over them. I remember well the golden afternoons of 1994, when we crowded around our office's single linked-up computer to insult each others' children and to hash out which person tangential to comics was most dishonored by the Journal and in what way and why. Seriously, that old Comics and I think Animation forum was the least friendly place to alternative comics in the entire world. It was like going to a bar where within the first 30 seconds a bouncer would punch you square in the face. It was like a suggestion box people could poop in. This is sort of what it was like, except that you couldn't run away. Participation on the CompuServe forum led to at least TCJ's more general on-line presence, in the sense of Gilligan and the Skipper building a raft to get all the castaways off the island. It probably also drove a lot of other on-line efforts in a much more benign fashion. I will spend the waning hours of this getaway day thinking of Pat O'Neill and Don Labriola.
Your Danish Cartoons Hangover Update
There's only one of these this time out: an invitation related the Danish Cartoons Controversy is cited as one of the reasons for the departure of a director and staff from a high-profile journalist protection agency in Qatar. Longtime RSF head Robert Menard and his staff have left the Doha-based advocacy and funds-dispensing group after what they claim is increased pressure from the government of Qatar. Critics of Menard say he never quite understood how to function within the conservative nation, and cite Menards decision to let Muhammed cartoon publishers Jyllands-Posten send staffers to attend a World Press Freedom day sponsored by the center.
(18 of you have since written in to remind me of this piece in EW, to which I respond "d'oh")
* Bill Watterson's mid-'90s (I think) essay for one of the Krazy Kat collection is reprinted here. I was hoping when I saw the name it would be Watterson reading something, but I guess not.
* speaking of Watterson, who made his own comics masterpiece with Calvin & Hobbes, the writer Nevin Martell sento word that if you e-mail him through he won't use it to spam you or anything but will send you a chapter from his forthcoming Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip. I can't guarantee this isn't an offer from Satan himself, but it sounds genuine.
Angela Merkel's Cartoon Biography
Okay, I'll admit it: this news story about a cartoon biography of Angela Merkel isn't much of a news story. I'm drawing your attention to it anyway because a) it sounds way more entertaining than that comic book about the Obama family's dog, and b) I made a solemn vow I would always provide blogging attention to any writer about comics that manages to employ the word "gormlessly."
Random Comics News Story Round-Up
* I like Kyle Garret's write-up on Grant Morrison's recent appearance at Meltdown Comics more than any other I've yet read.
* it's hardly news, but the color in these Richard Sala Delphine Ignatz-format books is really pretty.
* Dan Nadel writes about Grant Morrison and some of his recent superhero works.
* not comics: there are brand new Bone t-shirts. I liked the original Bone t-shirts quite a bit. Comics t-shirts of the indy/alt variety never sold really well for most folks, but those might have been an exception.
* the writer and longtime industry observer Mark Evanier weighs in on the Harvey Awards discussion out there.
* I'm not sure what to make of an attempted running re-launch for Wowio. Luckily, Sean Kleefeld digs in.
* during this week's previously-mentioned discussion of the Harvey Awards, I fairly skipped over this little gem about the Geppi companies filling in ballots for employees in past years. Wow, that's... ugh.
* finally, I have to say that the conversation surrounding the legitimacy of these awards was disappointing to me, even by the low standards of issues-discussion in comics. I think it's important to separate issues of "I don't like those nominations" from questions over whether or not the awards have a place, and work, and should continue to be supported. But most people don't feel that way, and there was the usual weird argumentation over whether or not comic X could conceivably, arguably be good enough to be nominated. The facts are, those awards have never taken hold according to the standard they've selected to distinguish themselves, at some point an awards show is defined by low turnout and all the goofy incidents surrounding it more than the reflected glory of its namesake and some projected future for it asserted in an Internet posting, no one has come close to making a counter-argument for what those awards do well, and as the years build up a broken show fails in greater and greater fashion to honor the people it's out to honor. It's not about taking such awards over-seriously as much as being matter-of-fact about how they function, particularly relative to one another. I still hope they end, but it's not like they really exist now in any significant way.
* the writer Kurt Busiek has re-launched his web site, and among its many features offer up a blog. Kurt Busiek always wins when he's on the road, so for him to develop a home field is slightly terrifying. Anyway, there should be a bunch of cool ephemera on the site as well as news and opinions regarding the modern stuff, so bookmark away.
* there will apparently be a collection of Johnny Hart's religious-themed strips, I Did It His Way, according to a post at the Oregon Faith Report. This was something that the late cartoonist had been working on just before his 2007 passing.
* I think I'll be writing one of these every week until the damn thing is in my hands, but Brett Warnock notes that Alec: The Years Have Pants is at the printer. If all the other publishers suspended publication, the second half of 2009 would still be a big hit for this book.
* there will be an English-language version of Reinhard Kleist's Johnny Cash biography out this autumn.
* the Gosh! comics blog has news of two projects about which I knew nothing: a Sunday Press collection of early 20th Century Oz comic strips called Queer Visitors From The Marvelous Land Of Oz and The Actress and The Bishop #1, collecting some of Brian Bolland's sporadic feature of the same name.
* King Features has launched a feature called Captionary through its on-line services. As one might guess, this is feature where people are allowed to write captions for cartoons provided by a line-up of King Features cartoonists.
* Dan Nadel 
* there will apparently be a collection of Johnny Hart's religious-themed strips, I Did It His Way, 
