“I recognize Bloom County’s influence but I’ll stop short of embracing it, as I do a porcupine”: Here’s another Berkeley Breathed interview timed to coincide with the release of the first volume of IDW’s Bloom County: Complete Library, this one conducted by John Geddes for USA Today. That’s Breathed trying to answer what he calls a difficult-to-answer question.
“Is Archie Andrews a bigamist?”: Well at the very least, he’s awfully indecisive. The New York Times notes the dropping of the other shoe—Archie’s much-publicized possible future wedding to Veronica will be followed by a possible future wedding to Betty. (UPDATE: Registration now required, because the NYT are a bunch of selfish old media jerks).
Fan goes to court for reading Ultimate X-Men graphic novel: I mean Method Man, not fan. And he wasn’t there for reading Ultimate X-Men, but for alleged tax evasion…he was just reading Ultimate X-Men while he was there.
“The mild-mannered Michelin Man is about to undergo a makeover, emerging as a tire-chucking superhero”: According to CNN, the creepy, white, swollen, tire pitchman is going to take a more aggressive stance on whether or not people should use his tires. The piece is worth a look for the awesome picture of a cigar-smoking, bicycle-riding Michelin Man chucking rubbing tires from his own abdomen. Is it just me, or does anyone else see a little of Golden Age Marvel robot hero Flexo The Rubber Man in the Michelin Man…?
“Most people in the U.S. would rather watch a movie or listen to a CD or even read a book than pick up a comic”: Noah Berlatsky takes a look at how horribly the sales of the best-selling comics stack up against hits in other media. Unsurprisingly, comics don’t fare very well against DVDs, music or books of the non-comic variety. Something to keep in mind the next time you see a publisher triumphantly trumpeting news of an issue selling out.
“Coach Daniel, the gym teacher at the school where I work, spied the cover of my Teen Titans comic and said, ‘Damn! They’re not teens anymore! She’s hot‘”: Nina Stone tries to read a random issue of Teen Titans, and is largely ambivalent about what she saw in #75. But she didn’t hate it, and wasn’t totally confused by it, so it could certainly have been much, much worse.
“What impressed me was the sense of community that Belent and Golightly manage to build within the pages of the book”: Prominent blogger Cheryl Lynn reviews an issue of Tarot: Witch of The Black Rose on what seems to be a dare, and the result is an extremely fair, evenly toned review of what she thought worked and didn’t work about the comic. I found that interesting in large part because I never see anyone write anything about Tarot ever, other than Invinceable Super-Blogger Chris Sims, who has probably written more about Tarot than anyone else on earth with the exception of Jim Balent himself.

