Seventy years ago tonight, Orson Welles’ now-legendary adaptation of The War of the Worlds was aired over the CBS radio network, triggering a panic nationwide as countless listeners believe the report of a Martian invasion to be real.

That’s the story, in any case. The reality, one media historian claims, was far less dramatic.

“Nobody died of fright or was killed in the panic, nor could any suicides be traced to the broadcast,” Michael J. Socolow writes in the latest issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education. “Hospital emergency-room visits did not spike, nor, surprisingly, did calls to the police outside of a select few jurisdictions. The streets were never flooded with a terrified citizenry. Ben Gross, the radio columnist of the New York Daily News, later remembered a ‘lack of turmoil in front of CBS’ that contrasted notably with the crowded, chaotic scene inside the building. Telephone lines in New York City and a few other cities were jammed, as the primitive infrastructure of the era couldn’t handle the load, but it appears that almost all the panic that evening was as ephemeral as the nationwide broadcast itself, and not nearly as widespread. That iconic image of the farmer with a gun, ready to shoot the aliens? It was staged for Life magazine.”

It’s an interesting article that examines how the legend took root and grew, thanks largely to the showmanship of Welles and the news media’s craving for a good story.

This being the 70th anniversary of the broadcast, it seems like a perfect time to read Ian Edginton and D’Israeli’s adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel on the Dark Horse website.

Somewhere, that Dark Knight-inspired Joker jack-o’-lantern is sending trick-or-treaters screaming into the night. With wet pants.

(Via Slashfilm)

You can’t make stuff like this up. Well, you could, but it wouldn’t have the same delightfully bizarre quality.

Anyway, The Australian is reporting that a Japanese man is currently engaging in a nationwide campaign to make it legal for humans to marry cartoon characters. No, seriously! He’s got a petition and everything! And the amazing thing is, people are actually signing it! Presumably without irony!

Taichi Takashita launched an online petition aiming for one million signatures to present to the government to establish a law on marriages with cartoon characters.

Within a week he has gathered more than 1,000 signatures through.

“I am no longer interested in three dimensions. I would even like to become a resident of the two-dimensional world,” he wrote.

“However, that seems impossible with present-day technology. Therefore, at the very least, would it be possible to legally authorize marriage with a two-dimensional character?”

The story notes that marriage is on the decline in Japan and many there find it difficult to find romantic partners, which may help explain the situation a bit, though it doesn’t make it any less goofy.

Of course, there’s every chance Takashita is pulling everyone’s leg, in which case I hope he doesn’t end up running into any of his more devout petition-signers.

• I found this postmortem of Claremont, Calif.’s Comic Bookie, which closes on Friday after 18 years in business, interesting and a little sad. [Daily Bulletin]

• Irene Gallo talks with Freaks of the Heartland artist Greg Ruth about the planned movie adaptation, his early career, and his work process. [Tor.com]

• On a related note, Percy Carey chats with Freaks of the Heartland writer Steve Niles. [Complex.com]

• What could an Obama presidency mean for political cartoonists? [Gawker]

• Joseph Szadkowski profiles Silent Hill and Criminal Macabre artist Nick Stakal. [Washington Times]

• Amazon.com has a brief Q&A with writer Brian Azzarello about his new graphic novel Joker. Curiously, it’s a PDF file. [Amazon.com]

• John Klima spotlights the webcomics Templar, Arizona, FreakAngels and Jump Leads. [Tor.com]

A mother in Halsey, Ore., has filed paperwork to have Andy Riley’s popular The Book of Bunny Suicides removed from the Central Linn High School library.

But Taffey Anderson, whose 13-year-old son borrowed the book from the library, refuses to return it so a school district committee can review her complaint. Instead, she reportedly plans to burn the graphic novel.

“I understand her feeling very strongly about her rights, values and responsibility as a parent,” Principal Julie Knoedler told The Oregonian. “But I’m disappointed that she is forcing us to buy another copy before we can review the book.”

Published in 2003, the darkly humorous book is a mix of single-image gags and multi-panel strips depicting, as the title suggests, cute little bunnies committing suicide in imaginative ways.

“I saw poor bunnies going through meat grinders; people, like, throwing them in there and they’re getting shot out,” Anderson told the Albany Democrat-Herald. “People in Nazi helmets, and there’s a bunny, and they’re shooting him.”

In her complaint to the school district, she wrote, “This book has absolutely no curriculum value to anybody.”

Anderson pledges not to return the book. And if the library were to replace it, “I’ll have somebody else check it out and keep that one. I’m just disgusted by the whole ordeal.”

I am, too. Just not about the book.

(Via Examiner.com)

Update: As a reader points out in the comments, Bunny Crisis appears to be over, at least mostly. According to an item posted Tuesday on American Libraries, Anderson has returned the book and, after numerous negative articles, has softened her stance.

She nows says she’d be satisfied if The Book of Bunny Suicides is kept behind the circulation desk and restricted to high-school students. The Central Linn High School Library serves both high-school and junior-high students.

If you’re the type of comics fan who occasionally likes to peruse the newsstand (and bless you if you do), it should be duly noted that this week’s issue of The New Yorker is their annual “Cartoon Issue,” with Steve Brodner talking about how he sees McCain and Obama everywhere; editorial cartoonist Mike Luckovich counting down the ways he’ll miss about Dubya; a cute two-page spread by Bruce McCall; a smattering of gag strips pertaining to current events; reviews of Tamara Drewe, Burma Chronicles and Bat-Manga!; spot illustrations by Joost Swarte and — for the piece de resistance — an awesome four-page strip by Robert, Aline and Sophie Crumb about their attending a Crumb family reunion in Minnesota. Hey, Drawn and Quarterly even took out an ad for this issue!

But if you can’t find a hard copy, the magazine’s Web site has a good bit of comics-related content as well, including Cartoon Editor Robert Mankoff answering readers’ questions; an audio file of McCall dissecting his cartoon; a video of Brodner drawing and satirizing the election; and an interview with Dilbert creator Scott Adams:

C.L.: Back to the new book, “Dilbert 2.0.”—What is included?

S.A.: It’s a big, beautiful, ten-pound coffee-table book with a few thousand of my favorite comics, including the ones too naughty to get published in newspapers. It also has stories about the trouble I got into for strips that did get published. I tell the story of how I went from cubicle to cartooning, which required lots of luck and the kindness of strangers. We also include a disc that has every “Dilbert” comic published in newspapers from 1989 until we went to production

Comedian Rich Kuras ventures inside the World of Warcraft to gauge opinions on Election ‘08. How many electoral votes does Azeroth have, anyway?

(Via Andrew Sullivan)

– Artist Shepard Fairey, who designed the “Hope” Obama poster, tells Boing Boing he’s pleased as punch to have his work parodied by Mad Magazine: “I consider a high point in my career for pop culture recognition.”

– Laura Hudson talks to James Kochalka about the 10th anniversary of his diary strip, American Elf.

– Hudson also interviews librarian and comics advocate Karen Green, who has a column over at Comixology.

– Doug Wolk looks at Bill Willingham’s upcoming plans for Fables, which include a prose novel.

– Bookslut talks to Phoebe Gloeckner.

– I hadn’t heard about this — cartoonist Carol Lay has a book coming out entitled The Big Skinny, about her lifelong battle with her weight. Wendy Werris has more details.

– Geeknerd’s annual Halloween Costume Bingo is up.

– Frank Santoro takes a look at the new Bat-Manga! collection and declares it good.

– Kristy Valenti takes time to remember the 1986 graphic novel Greenberg the Vampire, one of Marvel’s early entries into the graphic novel market.

– Noah Berlatsky thinks superhero comics are at their best when they don’t take themselves too seriously.

– Everyone and their uncle seems to be talking about Inio Asano’s Solanin, now in stores courtesy of Viz.

Empire magazine has a new batch of images from J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, plus a cover that gives a nod to that classic photo of Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner as Spock and Kirk.

Star Trek opens in May 2009.

Although IDW Publishing’s biographies of the presidential candidates have been getting the lion’s share of the attention, there are two other memoirs hitting stores this week. Who knew?

The barely publicized bios, titled McCain: The Comic Book and Obama: The Comic Book, come from Antarctic Press, better known for such titles as Ninja High School, Gold Digger and Yeti vs. Vampire.

The San Antonio Express-News manages to work a “BAM!” and a “POW!” into its article on the titles while noting that the comics don’t rely on those cliches.

“When you show somebody that looks heroic doing something heroic, then it seems that would be a natural thing for them to do,” artist Chris Allen tells the newspaper. “But if you show somebody who’s just human doing something heroic, then it comes off as these people made extraordinary decisions and followed them through.”

You can see previews of both comics here.

The tenure of new Japanese Prime Minister Taro Aso has been dealt its first political casualty: his comics-reading time.

The self-professed otaku, elected last month after the surprise resignation of Yasuo Fukuda, complained Sunday in a stump speech that, “It’s hard to read comic books as my time is now restricted.”

“This is already Sunday this week,” Aso told a crowd in Tokyo’s famed Akihabara district. “I’ve read Sunday and Magazine of the last week but haven’t got to Jump and Morning.” (He was referring to three major manga anthologies for boys, and one for men.)

It’s no coincidence that Aso chose the pop-culture paradise as the backdrop for his first street speech since taking office on Sept. 24. He used it as a platform from which to hail manga and anime as key exports.

“Japan’s subculture of animation has been overwhelmingly accepted in the world,” he said. “Japan’s culture is not only kabuki or no play. Comic books, our subculture power, have been widely read in not only Asia but Europe, the United States, Latin America.”

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but we may be on the verge of shifting to an economy based on vintage comics and Smurf collectibles.

Oh, I tried to warn readers of this weeks ago, but did anyone pay attention? Now I know how Cassandra felt.

Today sees two stories about the rising value of decades-old comics — and presumably much younger alpacas — and the apparent wisdom in sinking your money into vintage copies of Action Comics or Beano instead of, say, the stock market.

The U.K.’s This Is Money notes that Action Comics #1 is valued at more than £500,000 ($789,000 U.S.), an increase of 9 percent from last year. Amazing Fantasy #15 is priced at around $47,000. Of course, if nobody has the money to pay you for those comics, the actual value is probably somewhere closer to … zero.

Oregon’s KVAL, meanwhile, touts Golden Age and Silver Age comics as “hard assets.”

“Superman and Batman; golden age, silver age comics are steady investments that are really, really healthy,” says Darrell Grimes, owner of Nostalgia Collectibles in Eugene.

That story mentions alpacas, too. However, they don’t fit neatly in longboxes.

And BBC News focuses on the lasting popularity of Peyo’s Smurfs, which celebrate their 50th anniversary this week. Some of the little blue collectible figures are reportedly going for as much as $1,500.

So while the economy circles the bowl, I’ll be in the attic searching for Smurftastic Hallmark figurines and a set of Hardee’s drinking glasses from the ’80s.

One has lifelong experience in defense, the other is a staunch environmentalist. Together, they’re virtually invincible on Election Day.

(Michael Cho, via Bad Librarianship)

• Mariko Tamaki and Jillian Tamaki’s Skim has been shortlisted for the Canada Council for the Arts’s 2008 Governor General’s Literary Awards in the Children’s Literature-Text category. [Xtra]

• An Italian prosecutor claims that a vampire manga — which one, I don’t know — inspired Raffaele Sollecito to kill Meredith Kercher in 2007. The defense calls the theory “stupid.” Curiously, earlier this year British tabloids tried to link the bloody murder to Akira. [BBC News]

• Designer and author Chip Kidd talks briefly about Bat-manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan: “”It was a labour-of-love project, an act of graphic-novel reclamation, if you want to call it that.” [National Post]

• Suzan Colón of The Advocate is encouraged by the promise of two non-heterosexual characters in James Robinson’s new Justice League series: Batwoman and the alien Starman. She also rattles off a list of “seven of the most memorable queer heroes.” [Advocate.com]

• If you’re thinking about starting a blog, don’t. Paul Boutin says the Age of the Solo Blogger is over: “Scroll down Technorati’s list of the top 100 blogs and you’ll find personal sites have been shoved aside by professional ones. Most are essentially online magazines: The Huffington Post. Engadget. TreeHugger. A stand-alone commentator can’t keep up with a team of pro writers cranking out up to 30 posts a day.” [Wired]

Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, founded in September 2006 by Diamond Comic Distributors CEO Steve Geppi, is more than $700,000 in debt.

Maryland’s Daily Record reports the Baltimore pop-culture museum has accrued about $622,500 in unpaid rent to the Maryland Stadium Authority, and owes more than $77,000 in late fees and unpaid electric bills dating back to February 2007.

According to the newspaper, the stadium authority has worked out an agreement with the museum so the outstanding rent will be paid off by the end of the year.

The museum, located in the upper floors of Camden Station, began having financial problems shortly after its high-profile opening. The Daily Record notes Geppi’s began missing rent payments two months after it opened, and a legislative audit of the stadium authority criticized some expenditures.

The 16,000-square-foot museum is home to several permanent exhibits, including displays of rare comics, early 20th-century collectibles, and a look at changing American pop culture in the ’60s.

Paul Richmond’s painting Batmobama and Robiden, which (obviously) depicts Sens. Obama and Biden as Batman and Robin and Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin as The Penguin and Catwoman, is making the rounds. (I saw it at Corey Lewis’ blog.)

If you’re into that sort of thing, you can purchase a 9.25″ x 14″ limited-edition print here. Or you can buy a Batmoboama and Robiden T-shirt here.

(And, yes, I realize there’s a McCain-Palin banner in heavy rotation at the top of the page.)

Andrew Smith, better known as syndicated columnist Captain Comics, has a bone to pick with DC Comics about Supergirl #34, which begins “the new direction” for the meandering title.

Namely, he doesn’t care for the depiction of the Daily Planet — not the organization, but the actual newspaper. Mr. Smith, you have the floor:

… What cheesed me off was the opening sequence, where the venerable and prestigious Daily Planet runs a full-page, front-page opinion piece by the paper’s gossip writer, complete with a six-column file photo. Leaving aside the file photo (no newspaper worth its salt settles for anything but fresh art on A1), respectable newspapers DO NOT run opinion pieces on the front. They run news in the news section, and opinions in the opinion section. But, no, the gossip writer gets the entire front-page for a hatchet job on Supergirl, with veteran newshawks Clark Kent and Perry White meekly going along for the ride.

There’s more, including a reference to a “festering scab,” and a defense of the Fourth Estate.

The Supergirl creative team should expect a phone call from Columbia Journalism Review any minute now.

At last night’s Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner in New York City, both presidential candidates delivered pretty funny speeches, taking jabs at each other and themselves.

But while Sen. John McCain’s address probably was funnier, Sen. Barack Obama may have scored more points with the nerd crowd with two comics references.

The first came in his opening when he said, “I was thrilled to get this invitation and I feel right at home here because it’s often been said that I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith and the ears of Alfred E. Neumann.”

The second, and far funnier one, was when he addressed a repeated question from the McCain campaign — “Who is Barack Obama?” — and the mocking, and rather messianic, label “The One.”

“Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger,” he told the crowd at the white-tie charity roast. “I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El t