* the writer Marc Sobel continues his issue by issue look at the best comic book series of all time, the first volume of Love & Rockets. He's just exiting what I thought was a magic period for the book when a lot of hugely awesome short stories supplemented a lot of the longer serials, but the longer serials that were still going proved to be pretty astonishing.
* the Thought Balloonists team takes a two-sided look at Brian Chippendale's Maggots. I disagree with a lot of the premises floated -- I could give two shits if Maggots has an influence on future Marvel Comics, and I don't see all that much wisdom in the kind of snotty, dismissive statement from a student I was in the habit of making 20 years ago because I was a hungover punk who didn't want to put effort into understanding anything -- but Maggots is a work that deserves to be discussed at every opportunity.
* the publisher and packager Dynamic Forces/Dynamite signs with Diamond for exclusivity up and down their various targeted distribution companies. It's always amazing to me when a company does this, because I always assume that they already have a deal like this one.
* my father loved this book, and I think it's one of the best titles to any collection ever.
* finally, Tim Broderick writes on promoting one's work. It's a fine piece of its type, although I always get a little irritated by the notion floated that only giant authors receive publicity support. There are a lot of fine, hard-working PR people that work at smaller and boutique publishers. For that matter, there are a lot of ineffective douchebags that work at big publishers, too.
* the Thought Balloonists team takes a 
