Just thought I’d remind everyone that James Jean, Fables cover artist and illustrator extraordinaire, has a solo show at the Jonathan Levine Gallery in New York City now through February 7.

I went to the opening Saturday night–along with what seemed like half of Manhattan. Honestly, it was so crowded when I arrived, around 7, that my friend and I perused the other galleries in the building, sampling their free wine and enjoying the breathing room, and then went back later when we could actually walk around and enjoy the art.

I am the furthest thing from an art critic, but as the cliche goes, I know what I like. And if I had thousands in spare cash lying around, one of the first things I’d spend it on would be this painting. Looks like someone beat me to it, though.

Instead, I’m making do with the Fables covers art book that my lovely friends gave me for Christmas. And I’m enjoying that artists from the comics world are getting larger recognition. I may know less than nothing about visual art, but you all know I hate elitism, and I’m sure you agree with me that artists in the comics world are as deserving of recognition as anyone else.

James Jean has done a clothing line for Prada already, and I wish him all the best in his continuing career. And I selfishly hope he won’t leave the comics world completely behind in his success.

Or that I’ll win the lottery, so I can afford one of those paintings and those Prada bags.

Newsweek says it’s The Corrections, which I haven’t read. But it took me about two minutes to come up with my definitive Bush-era fiction.

It’s DMZ.

I picked up DMZ #1 way back in 2005 and reviewed it for Best Shots (wow, I’ve been doing this way too long). Since then, I’ve read and dropped many other monthly comics, but DMZ has stayed on my pull list. I’ve given it as a gift, made my professors read it, and flogged it mercilessly on this very site.

But aside from being an excellent story, it’s a story that at its core is about all the major questions of the Bush era.

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The New York Comiccon has announced a tentative lineup of its panel schedule!

Here are some of the highlights for this year’s programming:

The Do’s and Don’ts of Being a Comic Professional: Creating the work is one thing, but what should you keep in mind in order to present yourself well to an editor? Do personality and rapport play a part in how you’re perceived? What’s the difference between a pro’s attitude and a novice’s? How do you balance doing quality work with making the deadline? What’s the proper way to pitch? (Friday, 2-3pm)

BOOM! Studios: BIG! BOLD! BOOM! Join Mark Waid, Ross Richie, and Chip Mosher as they run down the most exciting new projects at BOOM! Including a special announcement by Mark Waid that is sure to make your head explode! (Friday, 2:15-3:15)

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In my Internet trawling yesterday, I came across this Hathor Legacy post (background: The Hathor Legacy is a blog about female characters in media, including comics and the like) on the Neverwhere TV series.

The blogger, Jennifer Kesler, critiqued the female characters (Door and Hunter), noting that Gaiman as scriptwriter avoided all of the predictable pitfalls for writers of women, and many of the less predictable one. Her main complaint was that the female characters were othered–were portrayed as distant and unreadable. She made excellent points about the difference between the way male and female emotions are shown in literature, and noted that after all, men and women aren’t so different, and the best way to write the opposite gender is simply to write them as humans.

The comment thread, for once, is as good as the post. Neil Gaiman himself showed up to comment, and the author and several commenters discussed the pitfalls of extrapolating a critique of one of the author’s works to his entire oeuvre, especially when one hasn’t read every one of those works.

Go ahead and read it. All of it. I’ll wait.

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It seems to be a rule that every Neil Gaiman book will eventually be adapted into a comic. I’m certainly not complaining–I think everything should be done in comics format, actually. Imagine Crime and Punishment as a comic…OK, maybe not.

Anyway, P. Craig Russell, who worked with Gaiman on some of the most acclaimed Sandman tales, was given the charge of adapting Sandman: Dream Hunters to official comic format, and there’s a nice video mini-documentary of him talking about the project. So for a little holiday treat…here you go.

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, Columbia Pictures and director Sam Mendes are taking a shot at producing a movie based on Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon’s Preacher. Hopefully, the third time is the charm, since a previous movie adaption and an HBO series have both failed to get off the ground. No casting announcements have been made yet, but since comic fans love to speculate about this sort of thing, I’ll add my two cents about who should bring Jesse Custer and crew to life.

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Death comes like an old friend. . . (cue groans).

So I picked up the first issue of Madame Xanadu months ago but wasn’t really sucked in. Since I’m on grad student budget, this means tradewaiting lots of books that don’t immediately thrill me but have potential.

I had to get it last week, though, because Death was on the cover along with Xanadu. Though I admit to snagging the Frank Quitely cover, the inside art was even more gorgeous. Dear Vertigo, please, please, please have Amy Reeder Hadley draw a Death miniseries. We’re overdue! We’ve been good! It’s almost Christmas!

Seriously though, Hadley’s art is just gorgeous and her Death is pitch-perfect, down to the smile and the sparkle in her eyes. It’s worth way more than the $2.99 this issue will cost you just for the art, but the story isn’t bad, either, with Xanadu taking a page from John Constantine’s book and gambling her life with Death on a tarot spread. And as a bonus, you get to witness the execution of Marie Antoinette. Sort of.

This is some of the best art on the stands, and I think after reading this that the problem I had with this book is, well, stilted period dialogue. Death shows up and like always, speaks sassy common sense in modern English, and breathes a whole bunch of fresh air into the story (yes, yes, I know).

There’s a reason that writers like Brian Wood put their period stories into modern language, and it’s not to read the griping emails from fans complaining that Vikings didn’t talk like that. When you’re trying to write in a dialect, even a historically-accurate one, that you don’t speak, you’re concentrating more on getting the words right than getting the point across. Writing in modern language is just as rational as writing English for characters who would be speaking Japanese, or German, or whatever.

Anyway, that said, I think I’ll be giving Xanadu another chance.