The Mix : What are people talking about today?

Getting personally graphic

Getting personally graphic

Via BoingBoing, the Seattle weekly alternative paper The Stranger features two personals sections – one called Lovelab and the other Lustlab (the latter probably Not Safe For Work). Graphic artist Ellen Forney has been choosing one Lustbalb personal ad each week and illustrating it on her website, and as of today she’s expanded the concept and doing the same for Lovelab.  A terrific exercise in translating and interpreting often haphazard and rambling personals into cogent and meaningful single visuals.

All the news that’s fit to hear

All the news that’s fit to hear

Mega media news, including the JLA #7 jam cover with about 40 million characters and the seven-and-one-half minute Spider-Man 3 trailer. Wendy Pini gives us the lowdown on her newest project and her brand-new webcast comics, Timeline visits 1974, and once again we dip into our ComicMix mailbag.

All this courtesy of ComicMix’s very own Podcast Master Mike Raub, available by pressing this magic button:

Because you demanded it, True Believer!

The fan mentality is often a wonder to behold. It’s a constant double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have a passion for the subject matter that often knows no bounds. On the other, you often find a complete disregard for the minds behind the creation of that subject matter.

Never is this more apparent than with comic book readers, and particularly those readers who decide to review the books. With other forms of entertainment, it’s all but impossible to ignore the performers. You couldn’t discuss Buffy without mentioning the actors or Joss Whedon. It’s difficult to review a Harry Potter book without acknowledging that it’s all from the mind of JK Rowling (or a Harry Potter movie that doesn’t talk about Daniel Radcliffe & co.). So why do so many comic book reviewers have no compunction whatsoever about going on at length about the storylines and characters while completely ignoring that these fictional entities have no independent existence outside of the writers and artists who create them?

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Political cartoonists at WAM!

What better way to celebrate International Women’s Day than by announcing that political cartoonists Stephanie McMillan, Mikhaela Reid and Jen Sorensen will be the panelists on a session about women’s comics to be held on Day 2 of the Women, Action & the Media conference in Cambridge, MA on April 1? 

No foolin’, the panel is called Resistance Through Ridicule even though I can’t actually find details about it on the conference session site.  Considering all these cartoonists have very active blogs as well, I suspect that’ll be a secondary topic…

Keep your eye on the body

Keep your eye on the body

I got a note from a long time comic book reader on Wednesday. He was incensed that Marvel disgraced themselves by killing Captain America. Worse, they did it sneakily, without telling the retailers this was the issue so it sold out to the fan boys before the general public could see the bloody body for themselves.

Marvel certainly got a nice boost from the coast-to-coast coverage Captain America’s death received.

But, is Captain America – Steve Rogers – really dead?

It used to be that a death to a major character was a major event. Writers would find themselves running out of interesting stories to tell with a character and decided to shake up the title character’s life by killing off a familiar face. Spider-Man writer Gerry Conway has always said that’s why Gwen Stacy had to go.

That happened time and again, at both DC and Marvel and it made the fans uneasy, since you never knew what would happen next. That certainly helped sell comics for a while. Then, killing the title character seemed the next logical step. Jim Shooter and Jim Starlin helped pioneer that with the Death of Captain Marvel graphic novel and then there was the phone in stunt that saw Jason Todd, the second Robin bite the big one.

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PeterDavid.net temporarily offline

PeterDavid.net temporarily offline

Yes, I know it’s offline, as is BobGreenberger.com. I’ve got my webmaster hat on and I’m trying to resolve the problem ASAP.

UPDATE: Servers restored.

Shazam! gets thumbs up

Shazam! gets thumbs up

Jeff Smith does all the PR work so we don’t have to: His latest blog post links to all the mainstream (i.e., outside of the comics press) coverage given to the premiere issue of Shazam! The Monster Society of Evil, including articles from Entertainment Weekly, the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the Washington Post and Las Vegas Weekly. 

Vegas baby, Vegas!  You know you’ve hit the big time now, Jeff!  The second issue goes on sale in comic shops today.

Bechdel has Fun in NYC

Bechdel has Fun in NYC

For those New Yorkers who missed seeing Alison Bechdel at the New York Comic Con, she reports that she’s in town again today and tomorrow, appearing at National Book Critics Circle award events.  Her graphic novel Fun Home has been nominated for one of these awards, and Bechdel reports that "There’s a reading of all the finalists Wednesday evening at 6pm at The New School University, Tishman Auditorium, 66 W. 12th St.

"There’ll be some pretty fancy people there. A real literary smorgasbord. You should come! It’s free and open to the public. Then on Thursday the 8th, the award ceremony happens. That also appears to be free and open to the public, and also happens at 6pm at Tishman Auditorium. Though it probably won’t be as interesting as the reading."  More info on the NBCC site.

Captain America big news

Captain America big news

You’d think that, what with the Libby verdict and the ongoing Walter Reed scandal and the presidential campaign horse race in full swing a year and a half before the general elections, it wouldn’t be that slow a news day.

You’d be wrong.

Everybody who’s anybody in mainstream news out there in the Real World seems to have grabbed onto the "shocking event" that Marvel is planning to kill off Captain America.  Here’s the CNN take, complete with a tiny spoiler alert intro which appears about a half inch above the actual revelation.  There’s also a pretty thorough Q&A with Joe Quesada about comic character death.  Watch out, retailers — this could be the biggest thing to hit the "real" news world since… the death of Superman!