Random Comics News Story Round-Up

* this article on E&P summarizes reaction to a Theo Moudakis cartoon on the automobile industry that ran in the Toronto Star. This is an underrated underlying cause to the decline of the editorial cartoon -- the traction afforded the objections of actors and agents portrayed in such cartoons not so much on the basis of accuracy but on more vaguely-defined, asserted values like being properly supportive or fairness as a principle of equal acquiescence to any and all self-defined realities.

* here's a really long, fun interview with Lynda Barry in two parts. Barry is a phenomenal talker, so the longer the interview, the better. I would watch a reality show that did nothing but follow Barry around while she talked and lectured, and the only TV for which I currently make time is White Shadow re-runs.

* the comics retail employee and industry issues writer Chris Butcher has joined the Tor.com group blog.

* the LA Times' Hero Complex blog is running a three-part interview with Neil Gaiman on the 20th anniversary of his Sandman comic. The first part is here; the second part here; the third part goes up tomorrow. On the one hand, it's hard to see why this has to be broken into three parts, but on the other, it's Neil Gaiman talking about comics. Come on! Who doesn't love that? It's kind of amazing to see Sandman discussed not just as a publishing event from a certain number of years ago but as a creature of that time operating within a publishing context that no longer exists. One issue that comes up that I'd never thought about is that Sandman really crystallized the strategy of a writer working with different artists on different stories within a larger series. Another is that the series presents a certain model for success within the comics industry that feels a bit like it may have run its course, or at the very least is winding down.

* I thought this a nice primer on digital comics formats, from Sean Kleefeld.

* one thing to remember about comics' desire to become like other entertainment industries is that other entertainment industries can be totally depressing. If you think this is too far removed from comics because of the performance aspect, let me assure you that if you pay attention to book publishing, you see shit like this all the time. Fortunately, I'm smoking hot, but I know not everyone can be.

* the cartoonist Bryan Lee O'Malley has released the final cover image for the fifth volume in his popular Scott Pilgrim series. I like the forthright way O'Malley makes these announcements. It's really easy to cross the line into aggressive hucksterism, and O'Malley never seems to come close.

* mainstream comics publishing giant Marvel announces more on-line first efforts. The writer of the post to which I'm linking notes that these aren't the kind of comics that will convert the comic shop devotee into an on-line consumer, but I would imagine that's a good thing.

* finally, here's a great mini-essay by Mark Evanier on the proto-comics store Cherokee Book Shop. One of Evanier's anecdotes suggests that the buying and selling of old comics may have started from a single person walking into Cherokee and declaring that they wanted to buy the things, steamrolling into newspaper articles of the kind with which we're all still familiar and other people deciding they wanted the same. It also cursorily describes a real-life collection of the kind that Wimbledon Green might hunt. I know that a lot of younger comics readers probably look at articles like this with a raised eyebrow bordering on contempt, and indeed my own adult life reading comics has almost nothing to do with hard-core comics collecting. But for anyone that grew up before a widely-established Direct Market, say those of us over 35, comics collecting was for a time just about the only avenue for comics reading beyond the funnies page in a local paper and the 15-20 titles available for a week or so from a couple of nearby spinner racks. The same way film buffs that came of age before widespread availability of the VCR look at midnight cinema shows and underlining movies in the TV guide so they could get up in the middle of the night and watch them, so do certain comics readers regard musty old book shops and pawn shops and the treasures contained therein.
 
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