Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* here's a really long story on lesbian manga, upon which I have a hard time commenting due to an empty mental crater where my knowledge of lesbian manga might otherwise be resting. I might suggest that Speed Racer's box office shudder and collapse was probably not all that great for manga's reputation as a source of films, but the rest of it could be totally made up for all I know.

* one comic shop owner suggests that something that all retailers might do in the face of uncertain economic times is concentrate on being able to supply the basic services for which your shop is known.

* the writer Mark Evanier notes that the San Diego Convention Center has announced some reasonably firm plans for increasing the size of the facility. Increasing the convention center's size will help them keep Comic-Con International.

* the comics writer and columnist Steven Grant has a nice column up. It's strongest up top on the issues of interchangeability and why work for hire going away really wouldn't solve anything. It's a bit more scattered further down on the idea of making the industry better. I don't agree with Grant that a lack of consensus makes industry improvement more difficult -- at least not exactly the same way he does. I believe that a lack of consensus is likely to be impossible even on broad issues, let alone specific conceptions of what improving the industry means. Still, if enough people were to adopt values of ethics in business, excellence in art and sustainable growth, I think the industry improves over time. I think it has in the past despite not everyone being on board. I don't think of a better industry as a robot you build but as a room to clean. Hopefully if you pick up a broom others over time will follow your lead and there will be a tipping point. If they don't, you still did the right thing.

* not comics: I have to admit, I saw the photo accompanying this article and my first thought was, "Has it really come to someone out there doing Brother From Another Planet comics?" He's a young-looking 61, that Joe Morton.

* finally, do you know what I always forget? To love myself. Do you know what else I forget? That Drawn and Quarterly has an entire separate blog devoted to their bookstore. It's worth it for the photos alone, or for the twin posts where someone mixes up the Oliveros Family with the Brown Family, which funny on more than one level.
 
posted 7:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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