With all the technical problems and ch-ch-ch-changes this week, I didn’t get around to posting several items. So, I’ll unload some of them here …
• I first saw mention of The Vertigo Encyclopedia over the weekend in one of Bully’s posts from BookExpo America. ICv2.com checked in on Tuesday with the details: The 240-page hardcover, from DK Publishing, features in-depth entries on 72 major Vertigo properties, and an “A to Z Gazetteer” to cover the smaller releases. And writer Brian Wood gives the DMZ and Northlanders sections a thumbs up. The $30 book, written by Alex Irvine, is due out in September — and will most certainly find its way onto my Christmas list.
• I’m a bit behind on my comics reading, so I only recently got around to The Invincible Iron Man #1, by Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca. I can’t recall the last time I picked up an Iron Man title — it was probably some random issue in the late ’80s — so my familiarity with that corner of the Marvel Universe is limited to the basics. However, I really enjoyed this issue. What I liked most is this minor detail: that Tony Stark refers to his armor as “the Iron Man,” placing distance between the man and the machine. He’s not Iron Man; the suit is. It’s simply a piece of technology, like a computer or a gun. As I said, it’s minor — and it may not even be new — but it jumped out at me.
• Who’d have guessed that, with Final Crisis, Secret Invasion and Batman: RIP, it would be Captain Britain and MI: 13 that created a stir in the mainstream press? Specifically, it’s the first issue of the Secret Invasion tie-in, which depicts British Prime Minister Gordon Brown rallying U.K. superheroes and secret agents against the Skrull threat. I mentioned some of the initial coverage on Monday, but since then it’s blown up in the British press and beyond. Writer Paul Cornell writes about the mainstream interest on his blog: “Most of the interviewers assumed he was going to be a superhero, but I managed to plug our selling out the first edition, and Leonard Kirk’s lovely art, and came away from most of them with a score draw, I think.”
George Gene Gustines, who covers comics for The New York Times, notes: “The appearance of heads of state in comic books is not new, but they are usually obscured by shadows or depicted generically. (This usually has more to do with keeping the heroes from aging than respect for the office. After all, it may seem like a good idea, in 1992, for Batman and Robin, say, to meet President Clinton. But, in 2008, if you show them making reference to President Bush, comic fans will pounce on that as proof that Batman should be ready for retirement and that, unless Robin’s getting left back every year, there’s no way he should still be in high school.)”
• This isn’t directly comics related, but I still found it interesting: Brandweek reports that while most dailies are struggling for readers and advertising revenues, college newspapers are thriving. A recent survey by Alloy Media+Marketing found 82 percent of students read their campus paper — more than double the rate of most major metros.
• Cartoonist Hope Larson has redesigned the website for her graphic novel Chiggers. It’s very nice, with downloads, a “making-of” section, and … a Chiggers song.
• Cartoonist Brian Hurtt has been posting some terrific character sketches on his blog.
• Newspapers around the world are still writing about Kami No Shizuku (The Drops of God), the manga that spawned a wine craze in South Korea. (This is at least the fourth time I’ve blogged about it in the past year.)
