Congrats to ADDTF for one solid year of reading comics naked.

Also, welcome back ADD and In Sequence.

Did I miss anyone?

 
Priorities!

Where are they? Somehow I let school sidetrack me enough that I didn't even get one blog entry done within the week. To all two of my readers, my heartfelt apologies. It won't happen again.

Toronto the Good!

Courtesy of EGON, it looks like the Beguiling is sponsoring quite the Comic Convention in Toronto. This looks like it's going to be a killer show, as they say in the Rose City. Just take a look at the guest list!

The Beguiling will also be having other events, including a signing by Darwyn Cooke to coincide with the release of the Wolverine/Doop team-up, which will be set in Toronto itself. Peter Milligan and the Allreds, from X-Statix, may also be joining him. Also upcoming, a visit by Jim Woodring and a lecture on Frank King of Gasoline Alley fame. Oh, to live in Toronto. Why doesn't Ottawa have even one-tenth this scene?

Comic Reading Club Bonanza!

Ever notice when you learn a new word or hear a new song, and suddenly it's everywhere around you, but you never noticed before? Well, the same thing happened with me when I started this blog. Now it's happening again, except with Comic Book Reading Clubs.

The Beguiling will begin a book club program early in 2003, according to the Tornto Comics site.

The Comics Journal message board will be hosting a book club with Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Kim Deitch. Especially interesting is the discussion that lead to the creation of the book club. It's worth reading itself, and is one of the best dialogues on comic criticism I've read in a long time. Other spin-offs to that lengthy debate include a look at possible selections from outside the "scene" and a list of common terms used in the examination of the medium.

For more superheroic tastes, the Comic Book Resources Classic Comics Message Board has had discussions on Various Batman books (Year One, Dark Knight Returns and Killing Joke), Maus, Watchmen, and Sandman. They also have a listing of their future selections.

And the Barbelith Reading Club soldiers on. We're still knee-deep in Batman - Year One, and plan on delving into Hellboy (Conquerer Worm in particular) for the New Year. You may want to check out the Lone Wolf and Cub discussion while you're at it.

The Man!

In case you haven't heard, Marvel will be relaunching one of their old western characters, the Rawhide Kid, in a new mini-series. Since they're all about making sales through controversy these days, Marvel has decided to play the "gay" card and try and make this an historic event. Never mind that many publishers, including Marvel themselves, have had gay characters already. Regardless, it appears to be working. CNN Crossfire had a discussion concerning the Rawhide Kid's coming out, and it was both hilarious and somewhat uncomfortable. From naming Stan Lee as the creator of Superman, to trying to coerce him to say that Robin is gay, it was just the kind of lacking in research circus you would expect from CNN.

Favourite part, though there are so many to choose from.

"LAFFERTY: Kids pass these comic books around. There's this rating on them. Kids pass them around like trading cards. It's a constant and continual pushing of the envelope. And to take this comic book, and to homosexualize it, I think parents are going to be upset about."

It's like it's from another world. I think the last thing she has to worry about is having kids read this.

Scroll down about two-thirds of the way for a transcript of the show.


posted by Steven at 2:21 AM