Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* the current chief executive of National Lampoon, which was built on and retains the name of one of the better comics-featuring magazines of the last half-century but has since become better known as a comedic film brand name, faces charges of attempting to manipulate stock values. (thanks, Robert Boyd)

* here are two reports on the New York stop of the KE7 tour... that second link is stuffed with a lot of great photos. I particularly like the one where they show the custom pillowcases someone made in which to carry copies around. I opened my own copy of the over-sized volume yesterday, and I enjoyed the heck out of my flip through its pages. I look forward to a full read. I later saw one of my brothers sitting on the floor reading it and the book's gigantic size made him look as if he were only three feet tall. When your brain chooses to process the person reading it rather than the book as a different-than-usual size, that's worthy of note.

* don't forget the charity auction being held on behalf of the Fabers and the Hoffmans.

* people keep sending me this, so it must be making the rounds and I apologize to whomever had it first. It's a caustic rejoinder to a renewed comics snobs argument that is sort of burbling along out there somewhere, I'm guessing because of the new Blog@Newsarama team being much more inclined as a group to favor mainstream US comics than the old team was. I enjoyed the piece, although I have to say I'm at a point in my life where I just don't care to have those arguments over again. Even the uglier part of that dialogue, with its accusation that people recommend in inauthentic fashion certain comics because they feel they must, just doesn't interest me all that much.

* this post made me laugh.

* not comics: a good friend of mine passed along a link to this article about the recent blows felt by the publishing industry. There's a quote at the bottom of the page that compares what's going on to the general decline of American industry in the face of industrial technology changes at the beginning of the 20th Century that crosses the line into the slightly humorous, if only gallows-humorous. It's interesting that with publishing like a lot of industries you're hearing perfect storm analogies -- which seems to foist blame onto some unstoppable combination of economic downturn and paradigm-shifting encroachment of new technologies. Lot of perfect storms out there these days.

* again with the not comics: news that the Detroit paper is dropping home delivery strikes me as slightly insane, and pretty indicative of the strain for the most profits possible that has made so many media industries vulnerable to this latest economic downturn. My personal experience is that 30 years ago I always got the paper left to me inside my door by some paperboy or papergirl making toy or date money or contributing to the family bottom line. This became an adult in a truck heaving it towards my door from his cab -- sometimes making it there, sometimes not, sometimes skipping delivery altogether. I was always assured this was the best financial deal for newspapers. Not to get all Grandpa Simpson and all, but eliminating the option altogether does seem the logical next step.

* finally, a lot of you had the same reaction I did when links to this artist's site popped up on some general culture blogs yesterday: "That guy must have read that one Gilbert Hernandez story with all the statues underwater."
 
posted 6:30 am PST | Permalink
 

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