Mike Sterling, of Progressive Ruin and Sterling Silver Comics, put up a post recently that brought back all kinds of memories. He looks at long-time comic bloggers (a group I am privileged to be part of, having run this site for over 20 years, although I like to think of it as a combination blog/website, since “blogging” feels as a term a little more self-indulgent than I aim for). Mike has been going over 16 years himself, and he’s unique […]

The premier American small-press convention has been cancelled for this year. The Small Press Expo, held every September in Bethesda, Maryland, has been called off in 2020 due to COVID-19 (as it should be, given the amount of uncertainty). (By the by, I miss the spxpo.com URL, which has apparently been abandoned and claimed by squatters.) Their festival prize, the Ignatz Awards, will be streamed, held virtually. How voting will happen is still to be determined. Interested and eligible artists […]

Chooseco is a company that owns the “Choose Your Own Adventure” trademark. (It was formed in 2003 by series founder R. A. Montgomery to bring the 80s books back into print.) Which means that other people who want to do similar multi-threaded stories need to call them “pick your path” or something else. This is relevant because at the end of 2018, Netflix put out an interactive movie, Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, that it billed as “choose your own adventure”. And […]

Some favorite holiday songs! “We Need a Little Christmas” – The Muppets from A Muppet Family Christmas “Christmas Wrapping” – The Waitresses “Christmas All Over Again” – Tom Petty “Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)” – U2 “All I Want for Christmas Is You” – Mariah Carey “Santa Baby” – Eartha Kitt “Baby It’s Cold Outside” – Dean Martin and the Golddiggers “Fairytale Of New York” – The Pogues featuring Kirsty MacColl “Riu Chiu” – The Monkees “The Closing of the […]

A lot of people were surprised when ICv2 reported that Funko, the makers of those cute little blank-eyed pop culture figures, had sales that were “nearly the size of the entire comics and graphic novel business”. They did over $200 million in the first half of this year, although they ultimately ran a loss due to debt and taxes. This was all leading up to their IPO, their initial public stock offering, which happened last Thursday. Unfortunately, it didn’t go […]

There are many many comics being offered every month through comic shops. The ordering catalog I’m looking at right now has over 640 pages, for goodness’ sake! That means that there are many many titles, the trend of which currently seems to be to pick a single word when naming them. As someone who tries to keep up with the comic market, these generic titles don’t stick in my head. There are just too many. And when you’re on issue […]

A 59-year-old woman is working on her bachelor’s degree at a Wisconsin university. She took an Advanced Creative Writing Poetry course but didn’t agree with the assigned reading, so she sued her professor, demanding an A in the course (she got an F) and that the professor be fired or suspended for a year without pay. Nowhere in the linked article is the answer to the question “why not just drop the course? or take one focused on old male […]