The movie gods are smiling upon us today, as we have a two-fer-one deal on silver screen coverage.

AOL Entertainment’s Canadian division has news of James Preston Rogers’ screen ambitions. Who? Well, take a look here — he’s apparently running against the likes of Brad Pitt, Gerard Butler, and Viggo Mortensen for playing the Mighty Thor!

A 6’6” former wrestler from Canada, I can’t look at this guy without thinking of Mickey Rourke. You can imagine Rogers a little bit better (maybe) if you watch this. Or maybe not.

And in other news — Entertainment Weekly has reported that none other than Scarlett Johansson is in discussions to play the Black Widow in Iron Man 2. Now, I love Emily Blunt as much as the next guy (she is great in the upcoming Sunshine Cleaning), but if Scarlett takes the part, it is going to be Heath Ledger-style anticipation for the next Iron flick. Of course, in totally useless trivia, if Johansson is cast as the Black Widow, hers will be a Marvel movie household, as her husband, Ryan Reynolds, is playing Deadpool in the upcoming X-Men Origins: Wolverine film.

The Vertigo panel at NYCC left me fairly salivating for new upcoming books, but even among the awesomeness promoted there (new Mike Carey series! New original Peter Milligan series!) there was one book that stood out for me as something I had to have, ASAP.

Dean Haspiel announced an original graphic novel written by the woman he described as his “second mother,” Inverna Lockpez. Lockpez, an artist, is from Cuba, and there was a lot Haspiel didn’t know about her past. So recently, when he asked her to “purge” after reading some of his works, he found out a lot of her incredible story–and brought her to Karen Berger to pitch a comic.

I’m fascinated by this for a lot of reasons. One, of course, is that I really like Dean Haspiel. As an artist, and as a person, and when he says this will be his most personal project, I really want to see what he’ll turn out. But more than that, I am fascinated with the story. Here in the U.S., what we hear about Cuba is pretty simplistic. I am thrilled with the idea of getting a story from the ground, from a person who saw good and bad, but lived through it all.

And yes, part of me is even more thrilled that it’s a woman. Because stories like this one–Lockpez was a surgeon, and in Castro’s militia–so often revolve around men. And while I don’t think fundamentally the story is that much different, I still like to see women’s stories told.

Learning history on a grand scale, the themes and political actors, is of course important, but I think that we only really feel history when we see the events through one person’s eyes. Comics and graphic novels offer a unique way to tell these stories, providing visuals as effective as the biggest Hollywood blockbuster, but on a scale that’s accessible and feels more intimate, somehow.

I don’t want to wait til 2010!

Between the weekly Best Shots column on Mondays and my own weekly NYPL commentary, I find myself sharing with the readers here at Newsarama my thoughts on many of the comics I read. However, I often read a comic that I feel isn’t new enough to justify going into Best Shots (and given that I frequently discuss titles six months or more after publication, my idea of “new” is relative) or that I have not taken out of the library. So I thought I’d share with you some thoughts on comics I’ve read this year.

The Eternals vol. 1-2, by Jack Kirby. Marvel.

My first impression, honestly, was that The Eternals reminded me a lot of Kirby’s Fourth World comics. Substitute the Eternals for New Genesis’s New Gods, allow the Deviants to fill in as subpar versions for the forces of Apokolips, and insert the Celestials as a more active, but still unknowable and all-powerful, incarnation of the Source. You are essentially left with a slightly watered down version of a previous Kirby masterpiece.

But look, even a slightly pale version of the New Gods is still pretty damn fun. The book does start to run a little bit on fumes, late in vol. 2,  when Ikarus spends three consecutive issues fighting a cosmic-powered Hulk robot, which is repeatedly referred to as “a Marvel character.” (It’s very entertaining that, a SHIELD reference at the beginning of the series excepted, The Eternals tends to treat the Marvel Universe as a fictional world, as if The Eternals’ world were our own.)

Kirby does good work balancing an ensemble cast, moving back and forth between the humans, the Eternals and the Deviants. We see each of the three groups working together at points, while other elements in each of the three camps work against the greater good. None of the trios are without sin, yet all show reasons for redemption. My favorite storyline followed Eternal Thena’s relationship with Deviant Kro, as well as Thena’s attempts to redeem two Deviants (Karkas and the Reject) and introduce them as constructive members of the world society.  It’s in these subplots surrounding Thena that Kirby shows how human the Eternal and Deviant races truly are.

However human it might be, The Eternals is still a Jack Kirby comic, so it’s got a huge scale, plenty of great action and lots of questions about the future of humanity and our ability to overcome our petty biases to achieve greatness among the stars.  In other words, it’s still tremendous comics and great fun.

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Blog@ Contributor (and, oh yeah, Oni Press managing editor) Randal C. Jarrell sent this along. It’s director Edgar Wright’s MySpace blog, and it’s home to the first picture of Michael Cera as Scott Pilgrim.

Fun pic, but how awesome would it be if the whole thing were done while the cast were wearing giant Disney-Park-esque character heads, with expressions designed by O’Malley?  No?  Okay.  Enjoy anyway.

The Deformitory

by Sophia Wiedeman

48 pages, 4 3/4″ x 7″,$8

www.sophiadraws.com

Are those claws on the girl on the cover of The Deformitory? No, far worse. And what’s a deformitory? Sophia Wiedeman takes us there in her book that recently won the Xeric grant, a source for self-publishing comics founded by Peter Laird, co-creator (with Kevin Eastman) of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Among Xeric grant winners, what sets Wiedeman within the sphere of rising stars is her agility as a storyteller, her willingness to tap into our common insecurities and turn them into fiction in refreshingly new and weird ways.

The book revolves around Delores, a Kafka-like city dweller stuck in the rut of working in an office. Instead of turning into a cockroach, her hands, overworked from typing, turn into claws, each literally with a mind of its own. These claws have faces and they can talk. With cute little eyes, they could pass for muppets.

Desperately lonely, Delores finds the bright side of things and instantly becomes friends with them, giving them names, Cornelius and Buster. It’s as if Kafa’s Gregor Samsa, upon awakening to find himself a cockroach, decides to enjoy being an insect. 

Delores loves hanging out with her new friends, getting lost in conversation on the subway, buying three lattes when she used to buy only one. Wiedeman’s delicate line work helps to beautifully sustain the story and evokes vulnerability. It reminds me of the work of Gabrielle Bell who taps into the surreal quality of life in the big city.

But being a misfit is not all fun and games. If Delores thought she had problems before, her new claws have further ostracized her from her normal routine. They’ve taken control too as they guide her to The Deformitory, a secluded place where they suggest she can find peace. It looks like a tower out of a fable and functions as a condo for freaks. It also functions as a plot device that allows us to see other poor souls like Delores. 

We get an overview of some of the tenants early in the book before we know who they are and it’s fun to see them as they weave their way through the story. There’s one subplot about a rivalry among mermaids which is very engaging. It speaks to the cruelty we all can easily inflict upon others and it’s done with a nice dose of dry wit. The slug at the end of this subplot, who bears the rejection from the ugliest of mermaids, returns home to the apartment she keeps with Delores. Both of them engage in some numb housemate pleasantries just as Delores leaves for a fateful date which will prove her undoing.   

It is during this date that the claws, the seemingly innocent Cornelius and Buster, show their true colors by attacking the young man Delores is having dinner with. The power to this tale resides in what happens between Delores and her claws so much so that I could see taking the risk of just telling the story between the three of them and the few characters directly related to it. Paring down to the essentials would add to that Twilight Zone vibe in the main plot. Nevertheless, The Deformitory is a very satisfying read and demonstrates the handiwork of a sly writer.

This is my first review with Newsarama and I look forward to many more. I am a cartoonist and writer with an interest in literary and art comics and pop culture in general. If you’d like your comic considered for review, feel free to contact me.

Our pals at ActionFigureInsider, which include Blog@ contributors Julius Marx and Toy Otter, have been on the scene at Toy Fair in New York City.  While the guys will be around soon with some run-downs of the big stuff, they’re already furiously posting pix at the AFI site.  Here’s one that my son will be digging.

Among some of the more interesting news:

Hasbro’s committment to Marvel Universe continues in a big way.  The Batman: The Brave and The Bold line expands.  And the Ghostbusters look oustanding.

More to follow here and at ActionFigureInsider.

No, Batwoman’s not the first of one of those, either: “She is also, we believe, the first red-headed superhero.”

I believe they now outnumber The Avengers, and are closing in on the X-Men: Brian Hibbs is expanding his team of critics into what now seems to be an army of critics. Over the weekend, he announced five more contributors to Savagecritic.com, all rather familiar names to those of us who spend a lot of time reading online comics criticism, and they unleashed a flurry of introductory posts and reviews. One of the old new guys, Douglas Wolk, has a review of Neil Gaiman’s Batman issue up that brings up a fairly interesting point about DC Comics in an era where not only Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan are back from the dead, but even Barry Allen: “It was once the case that one version of a character could pass on his trademark to another, or even die, and it could be more or less expected to stick… No threat of change can be effective any more; the gravitational force of How It Was in ’83 is impossible to escape, and growing stronger all the time.” Well worth a read.

It had to happen! The Lincoln, Obama, Captain America, Spider-Man comic you demanded!: As you’ve probably heard, Marvel is celebrating President’s Way with a digital versiaon of that awful Obama meets Spidey story, expanded by a few pages, and, more exciting still, a six-page Matt Fraction/Andy MacDonald story entitled “Gettysburg Distress” starring Abraham Lincoln, Spidey and Cap. I couldn’t figure out how to read it, but provided you’re not as mystified by computers as I am (I still say they’re witchcraft), you may have better luck. You can read it here. (I’m told).

Have a bad Valentine’s Day? It was probably better than Oscar Wilde’s: Kate Beaton, the dissemination of whose comics justifies the existence of this terrible force of evil known as “the Internet,” posted some comics she drew.

Not comics, but still comical: You know who else had a pretty terrible Valentine’s Day? Valentine.

Hey, I’m a “comic book aficionado ” and I’ve never heard of Lion Man: This is a pretty good write-up on an exhibit entitled “Comics in Color: African-American Superheroes.” Good enough a write-up that I’ll even forgive the writer for forgetting the hypen in Spider-Man.

Now, the intersection of comics and music isn’t altogether new — Greg Capullo made waves for drawing the CD covers for Korn, and the series about KISS drew two generations of Simmons into the comics world.

But I think Chicago-based band Algren will be doing something new: commissioning an original graphic novel to complement the release of their first album.

The April 2009 graphic novel is based on their album A Wayward Sound Floods the Streets, and will be created by writer Jason Hissong and artist Brian Defferding of Deftoons Comics and Illustration. According to a release by the band:

The short graphic novel is an abstract work featuring a protagonist who witnesses the destruction of his city and struggles to fight the corrupting influences. The story’s look, characters, and environment all share the social observationist perspective taken by Algren, many of whose songs are reflections on corporatization, consumerism, cultural decay, and societal resignation.

You can hear more about the band here.

By Filip Sablik

Apparently the only thing you need to do to get a truckload of responses on a blog entry is to make it about Superman! I was really impressed with the amount of comments and responses I received both on the main Blog@Newsarama page and on the linked page on the main Newsarama page. A fellow industry pro emailed me to suggest that the only thing I could follow it up with would be a blog entry about President Obama. I’ll save that one for when readership drops off entirely…

But enough about the past, let’s move on to the present. If you want to skip to the meat of my post, just head to the bottom of the page where you can get it encapsulated in a priceless one sentence kernel.

I’ve worked in different parts of the industry and as a result I’d like to think I have a cosmopolitan viewpoint when it comes to comics. I’ve worked as a creator, freelancer, retailer customer service rep for Diamond, publisher/vendor liaison at Diamond, Marketing and Sales guy at Top Cow, and now as a Publisher. And of course, before all of this I was a fan. I think the only thing I haven’t done yet is work behind the counter at a comic shop (Los Angeles retailers – feel free to hire me for a day, will work for free). During my time in the industry, I’ve watched the comic internet community develop; from BBS message boards to the early comic fan sites or full grown news and social communities like Newsarama. I’ve looked at these in all of my different roles and my outlook on them has changed as I’ve moved through the industry.

I’ve noticed one thing has been pretty consistent throughout – the internet comic audience is a mean and ornery lot. Well, you are. Not all of you as individuals, but in general people say things online that they wouldn’t say in person. And it’s okay. The anonymity of the Internet is nothing new. There’s a beautiful protective quality in the fact that no one knows who SuperLuvrMan805 is in real life.

Some of the recent reactions to Frank Miller’s Spirit movie made me think about this phenomenon though. As Peter David commented on Blog@Newsarama and Heidi MacDonald somewhat echoed on The Beat, “Even when Frank Miller falls, he falls from heights that most of us cannot hope to achieve, myself not excluded. If it’s too much to think that you should show at least a modicum of respect for someone who has devoted his life to this medium, then at least acknowledge that the reason you’re doing the happy dance over the failure of someone who has achieved more in his life thus far is than you likely ever will in the entirety of yours is because you’re unspeakably petty and ungrateful and ungracious.” In other words, he deserves the respect that his many successes have earned him. In a way, I think all comic creators deserve that kind of respect. In working with writers, pencilers, inkers, colorists, and letterers I’ve come to realize that they all work their butts off. The myth of artists blowing off deadlines to go play video games is for the most part just that… a myth. The majority of writers and artists I know in the comic industry are working ALL of the time. Twelve or fourteen hour days are not uncommon. They work weekends and nights.

And that tends to hold true for the people behind the scenes, whether it’s at your favorite (or least favorite) publisher, distributor, news source or comic shop. They put in long hours and in all of my conversations with industry folks I’ve found only one common thread – they do it for the love of the medium. People in comics LOVE comics. Again, the conspiracy theories of how there are secret cabals of executives plotting on how to destroy your childhood hero in dark board rooms is… a myth.

So what’s the point of this rant? I’d ask you to think the next time you go to post that angry, ill conceived post on Newsarama or your favorite message board. Take a moment to see if you can inject a little bit of civility and respect into your commentary. Because what took you 15-30 minutes to read and 1 minute to comment on, took an entire team of people months of blood, sweat, and tears to create. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t critique books you don’t like (although if you haven’t read a title for 10 years, you probably should keep silent), but I am suggesting you express your critique in a constructive, respectful way. Think about it, you wouldn’t want me coming into your place of work and telling you that you’re doing your job poorly. Unless you are my local Starbucks barista, in which case I will let you know when my Grande Low Fat, No Sugar, two pump Cinnamon Dolce Latte isn’t up to snuff.

The kernel is this: We all love comics more than what is healthy, let’s not be jerks to each other.

Take care,

Filip Sablik

Publisher Guy

Filip Sablik is the Publisher of Top Cow Productions, Inc. He’s been in the business for eight years and just officially entered his thirties. Occasionally, he does a bit of writing and drawing. He loves comics. Top Cow Productions, Inc. was founded by Marc Silvestri, co-founder of Image Comics. Top Cow currently publishes its line of comic books in 21 languages in over 55 different countries. The company has launched 20 franchises (18 original and two licensed) in the industry’s Top 10, seven at #1, a feat accomplished by no other publisher in the last two decades.

On Friday, we talked about all of the genre fare hitting that day.  Now that the weekend smoke has cleared, how did the films and TV shows actually fare?  Well, it’s kind of a split decision.

Jason Kills:  The reimagining of Friday the 13th conquered the box office with the largest horror remake opening ever.  Its 42.2 million dollar bow set February records as well, according to Media by Numbers.  Industry observers were surprised that it roughly handled two Valentine’s Day sure bets, including last week’s champ He’s Just Not That Into You and the new Confessions of a Shopaholic (an anemic fourth).

TV: Fox may be rethinking their new “Sci-Fi” Friday.  Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles was down 30% according to TV Guide.  It probably didn’t help that its timeslot competition, Ghost Whisperer, had over 10 million viewers.  As for Joss Whedon’s highly anticipated Dollhouse?  TV Guide points out that its debut nabbed 4.7 million viewers, which was shockingly close to the average week for Firefly during its tenure on the network of Murdoch.

So, what do you think, readers?  Good news for horror?  Bad news for Whedon and Fox?

Saturday’s Art Director’s Guild Awards saw The Dark Knight pull down another honor.  It took the prize in the “Fantasy” category, while The Curious Case of Benjamin Button was recognized as the “Period” entry.  Slumdog Millionaire got the “Contemporary” slot.  George Lucas was given an honorary award for “contributions to cinematic imagery”.

With less than a week until the Oscars, it seems that momentum for Best Picture continues to pile up for “Millionaire”, while buzz is pretty consistent for the late Heath Ledger.

(you get a cookie if you get the reference.)

1. This is more of a public service announcement, really: Peter Milligan is joining the already-packed-with-goodness Standard Attrition blog. Like G. Willow Wilson, Brian Wood, Jason Aaron, Cliff Chiang, Jock, and David Lapham weren’t enough. (There’s also a link to a LOCAL short film over there, so this is a two-for-one. Go already.)

2. Smart comics writers writing about other smart comics: Kieron Gillen takes apart Scott Pilgrim 5, peers at its insides, pokes at it a bit, and then still leaves me wanting to read it more than I ever have in the past. This is what good criticism does, people. It improves the reading experience.

3. Speaking of smart people writing about comics, Leigh and Laura are still killing it at the Cereblog. (Cerebus being yet another thing I haven’t tackled yet, and taunts me from the same sort of place that Finnegans Wake does: “Do you have the ovaries to do it, kid? Do ya? I dare you…”)

4. Girl-Wonder.org needs your help! Some of the best comics criticism I’ve read has come from the bloggers at Girl-Wonder, and they aim high. I don’t have a lot of time to help volunteer with them, but if you do, drop on in and let them know. At least I can help out by spreading the word, right?

5. In news that shocks no one, Becky Cloonan is still awesome. In news that made my fangirl heart go “Squee!” Becky Cloonan is writing a Buffy comic. (Yeah, I’m late to the game on this one, but shush. Becky Cloonan is awesome.)

6. As much as I loved Wednesday’s Child’s recap of the Graphic Novels and Academic Acceptance panel, I did not love the writeup on the Women in Comics panel. First a person who is admittedly not a comics fan slags the panel off, and then Paul, who did not go to the panel, agrees? I was at the panel, and while yes, I had my own problems with it (some of the questions, yes, were a bit obvious) I certainly didn’t share the writer here’s utter contempt for it.

I’ve stated before that I don’t think “strong” women characters are the answer, nor that feminine has to be obliterated, but the gender-essentializing here grated on my last nerve. Citing one’s female friend saying “she knows there are clear differences between her and a man” doesn’t make the argument any less annoying. I don’t want women in comics “masculinized,” but neither do I want anyone making arguments that to make them central characters or action heroes is necessarily making them masculine. Picking on Abby Denson‘s portrayal of Aunt May as the entire focus of the panel is not only wrong, but conflating two arguments. If you want to read Denson’s Aunt May comics and critique them, fine. Don’t claim that everyone on the panel wanted to turn every female character in comics into Spider-Man, because that was pretty clearly not the case.

I am picking here because I enjoyed Paul DeBenedetto’s other writings so much that I clearly think he could do better than this. (I also think women in comics panels would be better with a larger cross-section of the industry represented, and that was reflected in the comparative difference between this panel and the Men are from Krypton, Women are from Paradise Island one.)

This is perhaps the single most confounding comic book collection I have ever read.

It collects the seven issue Savation Run miniseries that ran between November of 2007 and June of 2008, and reading it as it is presented in its current trade collection format, retitled JLA: Salvation Run, is a bit like sifting through a large pile of question marks.

The story itself is fairly straightforward, at least on a plot level. It’s easy to imagine that even a reader largely unfamiliar with the characters, their backstories and their places in the DC Universe at the time could make it through just fine.

I’m not at all sure why any would want to, though, or why DC would want them to. What on earth is the purpose of this comic book series? Why does it exist in this state? Why did DC bother to publish it? What was it supposed to accomplish?

You could ask these questions of any comic, I suppose, but answering them regarding most any other comic is usually pretty straightforward. Not here.

Let’s talk about it, for a few thousand words, after the jump.

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According to my email from Planned Parenthood this morning, it’s National Condom Week. They sent out a link to their playlist of their favorite condom videos on YouTube, but I found something even better:

This is from Neil Gaiman’s “Death Talks About Life,” a PSA comic about HIV and condom use, from 1994. It’s out of print now, but was collected in Death: The High Cost of Living, which was one of the first comics I ever bought. Or you can read the whole thing at that link. (Also will soon be in an Absolute Death from Vertigo, so for those of you who are fangirls like me, rejoice!)

While I’m referencing holidays and comics writers, it is my duty to repost the sentiments of the wicked Warren Ellis:

Happy Valentine’s Day to all. And to those who hate the day, I say this: Valentine’s Day is a Christian corruption of a pagan festival involving werewolves, blood and f***ing. So wish people a happy Horny Werewolf Day and see what happens.

I don’t think Grant Morrison, Marv Wolfman or George Perez could help, but I wouldn’t mind watching them try: “Chris Brown seeking crisis expert”

75,000 1910s: Top Shelf, the new home of Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neil’s League of Extraordinary Gentleman, have announced a 75,000 print run for LOEG: Century 1910, the first of three planned volumes that will make up LOEG Vol. 3. I don’t know much of anything about sales figures, but that seems to me to be a little on the low side for a new work from one of comics’ greatest living writers (i.e., it’s significantly less issues than, say, your average New Avengers). Maybe that has to do with New Avengers being cheaper or people liking Spider-Man and Luke Cage teaming up more than Mina Harker and Orlando teaming up though. Anyway, maybe you wanna ask your local retailer to preorder you one or something? Jog and Alan David Doane both seemed to like it a lot.

Jean and Scott, Gambit and Rogue and…Beast and Dazzler?: Max Romero of Great Caesar’s Post asks, “Hey, remember that time Dazzler and the Beast fell in love while on the run from anti-mutant hysteria and ended up joining an underground gladiatorial fight club in Hollywood that was controlled by the illegitimate son of Doctor Doom?” If you don’t, don’t worry; he does, and he’d be happy to tell you all about it in this four-part “Beauty and the Beast” series.

Didn’t we just go through this a few weeks ago when all those “Stan Lee to create first gay superhero” headlines were popping up?: “KAPOW! DC Comics reveals first gay superhero: Batwoman” This next one at least narrows it down to first “DC Comics” gay hero, but is still wrong. And this one gets a little closer to accurate still, adding the qualifier “headlining,” although I suppose it depends on whethr or not you count Midnighter as a DC character or not. Heidi MacDonald rounds up some more headlines here.

Gwyneth Paltrow and I have something in common: I haven’t seen the Iron Man 2 script yet either.

Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s not what the guy dressed like Robin was thinking about after being attacked: An LA Times story about attacks on people dressed like superheroes and other characters near near Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood still manages to work a “Holy ____, Batman!” reference into the story, but oddly eschews the “Biff! Bam! Pow!” which would actually have been somewhat appropriate in this context.

Quick, some one make a Plastic Man movie before it’s too late!: There’s apparently a Stretch Armstrong: The Movie in development…and not for the first time.

Come to think of it, Hank and Janet’s relationship actually seems pretty great compared to Ultimate Hank and Ultimate Janet’s…: Topless Robot’s nine most dysfunctional comic book couples.

You may have experienced this in your neck of the woods, I know all of the sudden our local outlets are a little lighter. The Chicago Reader this week has addressed one particular medium in the dwindling newspaper industry that’s taken a huge hit, alternative weeklies.

While Matt Groening is set for the next several generations, thanks to The Simpsons, most creators of comic strips found in free weekly newspapers are finding less and less places to call home.

Readers, have you felt the hit in YOUR favorite local weekly?

Edit: The above comic is courtesy of Ben Claassen III. Thanks, Eden!

No, no, it will never end!

Actually, Graphic Novels and Academic Acceptance was one of the panels that I didn’t catch and desperately wanted to. It was at the same time as another panel I needed to catch, and so when Dean Haspiel passed along this link to the Wednesday’s Child blog and this excellent recap of the panel, I was thrilled to read it.

This passage in particular caught my eye, but I urge you to read the whole thing.

One person commented that when he teaches comics he uses them as a pedagogical tool. For example, he makes his students read Watchmen, which in turn prepares them to read Plato; it teaches them the way they SHOULD read. Comics can teach you how to see the world in different ways, yet its really easily accessible to a lot of people. This was an interesting point to me, because first it implies that the way one reads comics is the “correct” way to read. If this statement is true its a pretty big step in the right direction for comics as far as academic acceptance, though I suspect its a bit of a stretch. Secondly, it presupposes that comics are so accessible, yet I’m not completely sure that’s the case either. Just the idea of it as niche culture, as it is in our society today, creates a sort of inaccessibility that the average person may find frightening.

As a somewhat overeducated comics fan myself, and a huge supporter of teaching comics, I find all of this fascinating, and I really wish I’d been able to catch the panel. Still, this blog captured so well the feeling of being there–so thanks, Paul!

But wait! It hasn’t even happened yet! Here’s a more in-depth look at the Wonder Con Schedule, taking place in San Francisco Feb. 27- Mar. 1. If I could attend said conference — and if I could split my body into multiple clones — these would be some of my top picks of the con! Read on after the cut, or read the whole schedule here!

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While I’ll take a more specific look at the Wonder Con schedule later today, it caught my eye that Blog@’s own Brian Andersen — creator of our serialized webcomic So Super Duper — will be speaking at the San Francisco con!

(This is Brian. Hear him roar.)

Brian will be one of a seven-person panel called “Self-Publishing Queer Comics.” If you’ve got an LGBT comics idea, this is definitely a panel to hit. Other panelists include Jane’s World creator Paige Braddock, Hard to Swallow’s Justin Hall, Andy Hardell of Monday fame, Gravity Faggot creator Johnny Nolen, and Sean Z, creator of Myth. The panel will take place at 2-3pm on Sunday, March 1st.

Which is okay, because that’s why Al Gore created embedding.

The DVD and Blu-ray editions both drop on March 24th.

[Via MTV.com]