Speaking of Wuthering Heights, which is one of our favorite books, we forgot to mention that Dame Darcy is doing an illustrated version of Jane Eyre. Everything’s coming up!

Meanwhile, Tintin Pantoja posted a picture of Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice at her LJ.

Okay we reallt screwed this up, but that’s what happens late at night. DAME DARCY is doing JANE EYRE by CHARLOTTE BRONTE, which is ANOTHER ONE of our favorite books. NOT Wuthering Heights. That was the English guys.

•DC has starts a “Ask CMX” page. Getting a little more down with the otaku is always good.

Dear CMX
I’ve heard that CMX is releasing EMMA manga. When does it come out, and will it stay faithful to the anime?
- Anna Y., Simi Valley, CA

Dear Anna,
EMMA volume 1 will indeed be out in stores this September. The anime is actually based on this manga, so it will be very faithful! Thanks!
-CMX

•The New York Sun looks at this weekend’s Dark Shadows convention..

•We seem to remember covering this story a while ago, but a semi-autobiographical comic is aimed at slowing the suicide rate among Canadian aboriginals (which would be Native Americans to us.)

Suicide within the Aboriginal community is not just a distant concept for Native comic book illustrator Tania Willard.

“The story I tell is a true story told through a child’s eyes. An older cousin of mine, who I idolized when I was younger, killed himself,” says the British Columbia-based Aboriginal.

Willard is part of an initiative started by the Vancouver Coastal Health and the Healthy Aboriginal Network. Willard produced a comic book aimed at Aboriginal youth called Standing Together. One of the stories she wrote and illustrated was based on her personal experience with suicide.

(The above image is form an unrelated project by Willard.)

•Meanwhile, in England, they’re using comics to introduce a new generation of readers to the Brontë’s:

IT is a turbulent tale of love, hate, revenge and tragedy. A classic Victorian novel set on bleak Yorkshire Moors.
But now one of the greatest works of English literature has been given a radical makeover by a local writer and an artist, who have transformed the story into a comic book novel.
Emily Brontë’s original Wuthering Heights was scorned by critics when it was first released but the passage of time often shows critics to be wrong.
Next month commentators will be able to cast a critical eye on a modernised version when it is released as part of the Radical Brontës Festival, to be held in Bradford.
The book, adapted by Yorkshire-based poet and playwright Adam Strickson and illustrated by Siku, one of the country’s leading graphic artists, who has worked for Marvel comics and 2000AD, was commissioned by the festival.

It was a dog:

The body of the dead animal found in Turner, Maine, according to DNA tests conducted on behalf of and paid for by the Lewiston newspaper, the Sun Journal, belonged to a member of the genus Canis, not a Tasmanian devil, not a rodent, not a Chupacabras, not a hyena, not a werewolf, not an Eastern Bigfoot, and/or not from any wild species speculations that were heard over the last ten days. Nevertheless, it is important to understand, the real Mystery Beast is still out there!

Have we mentioned we’re going to be in Maine for a week?

It used to be t-shirts.

You know, people were always giving you t-shirts. If you work in the media biz and go to even a few conferences, chances are you have a whole bunch of t-shirts you got for free. If you’re The Beat, you long ago stopped taking t-shirts that only come in large, double large and triple large. We can only work out so often, and we’re a little long in the tooth for the t-shirt as a dress with leggings look, especially when the t-shirt has a picture of The Punisher on it.

Recently, everyone started making t-shirts in women’s sizes. So we started taking those. Now we have more t-shirts than we know what to do with or have room for. We own like 6 or 7 black baby doll t-shirts, all with attractive and sporty logos on them. But that is more than we’ll need in a lifetime. So when some one offers us a t-shirt, we just say no. Except once in awhile we do take one, because it’s the only polite thing to do. And even those are stacking up.

At any rate, it seems companies figured out that everyone had enough t-shirts because now they are making tote bags. Tote bags and even satchels. We had a bit of a closet clean up here at SBM this weekend, and were aghast at the number of tote bags we now own. We’re not talking shopping bags, we’re talking sturdy, cloth-handled vinyl totes that are really useful. Some of them are even stylish.

But we just don’t need them.

Now, we do like our Viz bags. Those are super useful. One functions as a gym bag (just enough room for an oversized t-shirt and padlock), one goes back and forth to the office, and one is for…well overflow.

But it didn’t stop there. We probably found 20 tote bags, computer cases, back packs and satchels crammed into the broom closet. (We also found a shopping back with Clive Owen on it that Disney gave away to promote KING ARTHUR. We threw it out.) Some of them are incredibly handy and not shameful for a grown woman to walk around with. But, unless they are in an unusual color or have a LOT of pockets or have a matching make-up bag AND planner…we’re going to have to say no from here on. We are not going to need another tote bag until 2008, at the very soonest.

In the meantime, we’d like to suggest a NEW giveaway for companies, especially comic book companies. We’ve always been partial to the small 5-function utility knife. It comes with tweezers and a toothpick, for crying out loud! And check it out, the t-shirt costs $2.50 to make, the 5-function utility knife barely over a dollar! And they are incredibly useful around the house and for opening packages; trust us, we know. And, we repeat…toothpick! Of course, with all the trouble flying and terrorism and all, maybe carrying around a tote bag full of five-function utility knives is not such a good idea.

Okay, then, can we suggest going back to THE MUG as a promo item? Once again, it costs less than a T-shirt or a tote. And it’s smaller. We even have a collection of vintage promo mugs going back 20 years, when someone gave us our first “You’re a great secretary!” mug. You can’t part with an item like that. We have a nice peg board above the sink — a new mug can easily be added there without causing a storage crisis.

OR, may we suggest “stress relief” promo items. Everyone will get good use from those. Here’s one we like:

“Stress Ball - Construction Cone
Reward “constructive ideas” with this bright orange cone.”

That’s the very meaning of incentive!

If you’re going to go for a high ticket promo piece, check out the computer gear now available to be imprinted with your logo.
Mini-Flash drives and network finders! Come on! People will be lining up.

In conclusion, no more t-shirts or totes. We’re done with those for now. Maybe in a few years it will be okay, but we just don’t need any more for now. We’re full up.

*****

Just to see if anyone is still reading this, we’ll be on vacation in the land of dial-up starting tomorrow and for the rest of the week. Tons of bloggers are taking the week off, and we won’t be going that far, but we’re going to be easing up on the link-blogging and perhaps tackling some weightier subjects with some essays that we’ve long been pondering. There may be some “classic ” material as well. It’s known a “recharging” and it’s badly needed.

Hopefully this will stay up for a while — a pilot for a Plastic Man cartoon prepared for the Cartoon Network. The work of Ren & Stimpy vet Stephen DeStefano and Clone Wars vet Andy Suriano is clearly seen, while Sponge Bob Tom Kenney does the voice.

From PR, a cool event for Monday night:

Local New York author Arie Kaplan will host an event to celebrate the release of his new book, Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed!

The launch party takes place on Monday, August 28 from 6:15–9:30 p.m. at Museum of Comic & Cartoon Art (MoCCA, 594 Broadway, Ste 401, New York, NY, 10012) and will include a panel discussion on “Comic Books: Past, Present and Future� featuring guest panelists J Jerry Robinson, R. Sikoryak and Danny Fingeroth. Robinson is profiled in Kaplan’s book. Eddy Friedfeld will moderate the discussion.

A slide show of integral pieces of comic book art will accompany the discussion. This event is free to the public. Kaplan and Robinson will be available for book signings after the event. For further information on the event, contact Matt Murray at (917) 8163591 or mmurray@moccany.org.

Chronicling the lives and careers of 11 significant comic book and graphic novel artists, Masters of the Comic Book Universe Revealed! presents a revealing look at the evolution of comics as they transformed from a low-brow medium into a well-respected art form. Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Neil Gaiman, Jerry Robinson, Trina Robbins, Art Spiegelman, Gilbert Hernandez, Kyle Baker, Dwayne McDuffie, Ho Che Anderson and Marjane Satrapi are profiled in this conversational history.

HUMAN EVENTS ONLINE, which bills itself as “The National Conservative Weekly” and includes ads for such things as Ann Coulter and a website for beleaguered conservatives who can’t bear to date another liberal, has an article saying that the graphic novel version of 9/11 is not seemly or befitting the Memory of Those Who Died :

In just a few short days the comic book shot up to No. 11 on Amazon.com and to No. 1 on my own personal list of creepiest ways to remember 9/11. At the beginning of the first chapter, the 19 Muslim terrorists aboard the four planes are drawn to mimic the newspaper front pages that showed all the terrorists. Judging by Slate’s rendition, the 19 terrorists look like a bunch of caucasian skateboarders (no offense meant toward America-loving skateboarders). I couldn’t bring myself to flip through all the pages, but there were a couple stand-outs that range from absurd to creepy to disgusting.

The writer and artist use the comic book format to portray the Vice President showing virtually no emotion as he casually points to a television showing a second plane hitting the World Trade Center. In another frame, a pear-shaped and messy Karl Rove tells a robotic President Bush that “A twin-engine plane has crashed into the World Trade Center, Mr. President.” President Bush replies, “Oh no! Must have been pilot error!”

The crass images that really got to me were the Batman-like KAPOW! that was drawn over a fiery Pentagon (BLAMM!) and Twin Towers (R-RRUMBLE… and WHOOOM!). Onomatopoeia never seemed so sinister.

The writer of the piece suggests that giving out pins and standing around flags is a better way to commemorate 9/11.

Personally, I feel that education is a better means of preventing another terrorist act within the United States than standing around a flag. But what do I know, I only live here, as opposed to the writer of the piece who lives in a world where Karl Rove is not pear-shaped.

Newsarama reports on X-office head Mike Marts moving across town:

And no, it’s not a case of Marts being a disgruntled employee. “Far from it,â€? Marts said. “In fact, things have been very good at marvel for me the past several years–I’ve worked with some of the best creators in the business, the editorial staff is top notch, plus, for the first time in a long time, I feel as though the X-books have all the right creators working on them and are headed in a great and exciting direction. And I can’t say enough good things about my bosses at marvel. Both Dan Buckley and Joe Quesada are the best of the best, and I’ve learned a great many things from both guys.

“But, all that being said, I’ve been at Marvel a long time, and the urge to try new things, to face new challenges has been very strong.�

Marts will mark the first DCU editorial hire above the assistant or associate level since Dan Didio joined the company. “Mike not only comes with a great resume of books that he’s worked on, but also comes with the highest recommendations from the talent that’s worked with him, so we’re looking forward to him coming in, and bringing a fresh set of eyes to the DCU,� Didio said.

The only project announced for Marts in the piece ias working on the ALL-STAR line, specifically ALL-STAR WONDER WOMAN.

Funnily enough, in recent weeks we had several conversations with folks about the best editors in comics, and Marts was always one of the first names mentioned, so this is quite a find for DC. It’s also the first new senior hire in editorial in four years. Marvel is also losing its softball team captain, so in theory this could be the start of DC overtaking Marvel at last, on the softball diamond at least.

According to his email newsletter, there are now SEVEN free Kyle Baker cartoons on the web. They would be a bargain at any price:
1. THE BAKERS IN: NOSE
2. THE BAKERS IN: HEROINE
3. THE BAKERS IN: TASTE
4. THE BAKERS IN: THE SOFATEERS
5. THE BAKERS IN: GIANT STEP
6. THE BAKERS IN: DISCIPLINE
7. CELEBRITY COOKBOOK

Baker’s irregular newsletter also reports that NAT TURNER #1 is back in print, and the second collection is due in December.

The reason for the delay is embarrassing: THE BOOKS WERE MORE SUCCESSFUL THAN I EXPECTED! That’s right, in spite of the fact that I hadn’t completed the story and that I’d done very little to publicize the NAT TURNER comic series, the thing became a runaway hit, and Liz and I were overwhelmed fulfilling orders! I spent more time at the post office than at the drawing board! To be fair, I was spending a lot more time at the bank also, so thanks to the folks that bought ‘em! Anyway, we’ve happily decided to delegate the publishing responsibilities for NAT TURNER and some other KB books. In a few weeks, I’ll be able to reveal some exciting new publishing alliances which will ensure you regular and timely access to Kyle Baker cartoons from now on! By the way, Liz and I don’t handle the kylebaker.com gift shop orders personally, so if you do buy something there, you’ll get it quickly!

Baker has relocated to LA temporarily to work on PHINEAS AND FERB for the Disney Channel.
as gift ringtones aringtones cellutstarcom for cricket ringtones cdm-7025one without embarq ringtones monthlyringtones alltell for customersphones for ringtones cellcomringtones for dangermda ringtones for Map

The cover to DORK #11 by Evan Dorkin has been posted. It is coming. Go to link for larger version.

The last issue of DORK came out in 2002 as near as we can figure.

Vera’s Particular Sketchblog has launched. On it she mentions that she is working as a story artist on CORALINE, Henry Selick’s animated adaptation of the Neil Gaiman book.

BeaucoupKevin is posting remixed pages of Watchmen as if they were written by Stan Lee. Let’s all get together and reward Kevin for his hard work? Like maybe we could buy him a gift certificate for MENSA or something?

Need more be said?

Her first guest is Tycho Brahe (Jerry Holins) of PENNY ARCADE.

In this installment, Tycho shares his inadvertent exposure to porn, his love of words, and tries to get me to throw down on Internet drama. Next week, we talk Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice, and Austen fanfic good and bad. No kidding.

Steve McNiven, remember him? The guy who destroyed the comics industry? Yeah, that’s right.

We kid about the destruction thing, but the life of the modern comics superstar is thrown into relief by this item @ Comic Book Conventions.com. It seems that McNiven was to be a guest at the local Comic Expo but couldn’t take the time to appear all three days when the fate of comics now rests on his drawing speed. :

Due to my schedule on MCW I was about to cancel my THREE DAY appearance at Canada’s biggest comic book event, Hobby Star’s Canadian National Comic Book Expo in Toronto. After speaking to the con’s organizers I was informed that they had sold a huge number of advanced tickets to fans who were coming specifically to meet and get my signature. While completely unexpected and unbelievably flattering, this has caused me quite the unforeseen dilemma. Not wanting to disappoint all the great fans who have been so supportive of me and the wonderful folks at Hobby Star, I’ve managed to come up with a compromise that I can live with and that has the complete support of my family and Marvel. While unfortunate, I will be flying in and out of Toronto and will only be able to sign for one day. I’m sorry for this inconvenience but I feel that his is truly the only compromise I could make while not disturbing my current working pace on Civil War. I’ll be signing on Saturday starting at 11:30 and finishing , well, when the last book is signed.

•George O’Connor is guest blogging at First Second blog and talking about his research fo Journey into Mohawk Country.

•Cartooner Tim Kreider’s impassioned defense of former planet Pluto led to an appearance on Nightline last night:

Due to the convergence of forces beyond my comprehension, I have become a media Go-To Guy on the subject of Pluto’s demotion. I will be appearing on ABC’s Nightline (and possibly World News Tonight, if they get the tape in time) tonight, August 24th. I also have a commmentary on ABC online. I do not know when any of these shows are on. Please do not tell me if I look or sound like an idiot.

•A local Vermont music critic is baffled by Kochalka’s new CD, SPREAD YOUR EVIL WINGS AND FLY, feels it signals decline in civilzation:

To add to his musical laurels, his song “Hockey Monkey” performed with The Zambonis is used as the theme song on the Fox television sitcom “The Loop” which is entering its second season. This type of recognition should lead to a hefty royalty check for Kochalka and get other local musicians, whose music might be more polished, to consider changing course and also entering the realm of cartoon-like music.

All this makes me wonder as to what is happening in the world of commercial music. Is the American cultural slide into trivia steeper than most have predicted. Has the obesity plague reached such momentous proportions that teens and post teens cannot distinguish real music from kitsch, while the right side (the artistic lobe) of their brains has become nothing more than gray post-digestive mush?

•Although rather confusing to the non-initatiated, this translated blog posting at ComiPress looks at what seems to be the Japanese Shonen Jump’s pandering to yaoi readers:

*Fujoshi:

(1) Literally “rotten girl” (è…?女å­?). A pun, based on the homonymous term for women (婦女å­?). Ironical self-description by readers of Yaoi/Boys Love. (Urban Dictionary)

(2) Pertaining to manga/anime, girls who like gays (translator)

translator’s aside: it would help to have a basic understanding of otaku terminology such as fujoshi (explained above), yaoi/BL (explained in the article) and moe before reading this article.

[Preface]
- The author has been reading Shonen Jump for 10-odd years now.
- The article below is based on assumption, hypothesizing and the author’s personal opinions.

[Fujoshi Who Disapprove of Shonen Jump’s Catering to Fujoshi]

Generally, titles mocked as Fujoshi-centric have several common characteristics:
- There is no plot to speak of*
- Numerous prettyboy characters make appearances
- The story is interspersed with pointless episodes of male bonding and re-affirmation of male friendships.

•Marvel’s Kevin Feige says there’s enough Spidey for 50 more movies:

“There will be many more Spider-Man films to come,” he promised. “We already have stacks of ideas for the next one because of the wealth of stories in the comics. We could be making Spider-Man movies for the next 20 years, based on the 50 years of Spider-Man history we have.”

Please do not make a movie out of that one where Spider-man gets his eye plucked out, that’s all we ask.

•Idiots can no longer get married 24 hours a day in Vegas.

From Bad Signal, Warren Ellis writes:

Well, falling ill almost immediately after I made the call for submissions has slowed things down a bit. As did getting vastly more submissions than I expected (and I’m still sorting through them). Also, I’m giving a few people the time they need to get set. And I have to stab someone with a sharpened robot, too.

So right now I’m looking at launching the site in mid-September, with everyone in the first wave in place.

It’s going to be a massive thing. The equivalent of a fat anthology. I don’t expect you to like everything there. That’s not how anthologies work, after all. I do, however, figure that most people will find something to love in there, and that the association of the work will lead you to try something new.

And, frankly, I’m amused by the idea of MICKEY DEATH, Molly Crabapple, Rachel Nabors and Daniel Merlin Goodbrey in the same place once a week.

So it’s getting there. The work is being assembled. I think there’ll be a surprise or two in the final thing.

And ROCKET PIRATES t-shirts are being arranged.

Spread far and wide as you see fit.

The Rocky statue, a timeless artwork that references man’s struggle for dignity, the triumph of the underdog, and beauty of the Everlast logo, has been struggling to find a place to be exhibited, having been kicked around Philadelphia by snooty anti-Stallone forces for years. Not arty enough for the PHiladelphia Museum of Art, they sniffed. Sha, right.

Now it seems, a home has been found. Cinematical has the whole run down, including imploded stadiums and civic squabbling.

[NP:Negresco from the album “Kerrier District” by Kerrier District (Luke Vibert)]*

¡Journalista! is back!

Now we’re not going to just roll over and play dead. Even though we feel like it. Not because of Dirk. No, no we’re happy and thrilled to have Dirk back. That means when WE are on vacation we can go somewhere ELSE and see what is going on.

No, it’s more of a meta thing. You see, the world of comics is exploding around us. Honesetly, we think linkblogging now will tax Dirk more than it did back in the day becuase there is just exponentially more stuff to blog about. Since we started posting in the morning, we’ve noticed how Comics Reporter, Blog@Newsarama, and The Beat, have almost more than 50% different content and links. When we first started this thing, more than two years ago, almost all the sites would post mainly about the same things, thanks to all using Open Source Google technology.

Now with MySpace, LJ, every living creature on earth having their own blog, and the amount of comics coverage in the mainstream press having exploded like a laptop battery, or a tube of lip gloss on an airplane, the sheer amount of content available is more than any one person could even hope to READ, let alone link to. And more importantly, you would not WANT to read it.

Tom, Dirk, myself and the Blog@ crew are more than ever gatekeepers. Is this the best use of our time? I’m not even sure at this point.

Since moving to PW, the traffic for this site has SOARED. Yesterday’s traffic was the equal of the day after San Diego, normally the second biggest day of the year. (The biggest is the TUESDAY after San Diego, when everyone gets home and wants to find out what happened.) The way things are going, we’ll soon eclipse that day. Our bandwidth is way beyond what we anticipated. To what do we attribute the rise in traffic? Mostly, the addition of comments, we suppose, but our referrals are up, as well.

The old Beat was ranked as the 2,507th blog by Technorati, a more than respectable showing after two years of linking. The new Beat, after only two months online, is already at 10,559, with 745 links, half of the old site.

We’re not even sure where all this maundering is leading me. We’re going off the grid next week for a real internet vacation, taking the ferry to lonely Selidor, and that’s not even a metaphor. It is a time to take stock, to drink Moxie, to watch as the first tinge of autumn drifts across the blueberry bog.

Developing.

*I always wanted to see what that iTunes button on Ecto did.

Cartooners talk books, and readin’ and comics and what not. And no cracks about how you didn’t know they had libraries in Queens!

Click for larger image.

by Marc-Oliver Frisch

July was a very busy month for DC Comics, in terms of new projects. The publisher’s line of mainstream superhero titles was headed by the first issue of crime novelist Brad Meltzer’s Justice League of America and the highly propagated first appearance of the new Batwoman character in the weekly 52. Other focal points of attention were the arrival of new high-profile creative teams on Batman, Superman and Detective Comics, the debut of three more titles spinning out of the “Infinite Crisis” event and, at the company’s Vertigo imprint, an exercise in franchise-building with the launch of Jack of Fables.

Also on sale in July from DC Comics: the much-delayed reappearance of Supergirl with a new regular writer; the return of Astro City for a one-shot special; two new Garth Ennis miniseries; a comics adaptation of Superman Returns; the debut of yet another fantasy title; a superhero limited series written by a fantasy novelist; and, finally and somewhat unusually, the first issue of Rush City, a six-part advertisement in comics form, as commissioned by an automobile manufacturer. Busy month, you see.
(more…)

Speaking of Rick Spears, he has a new book coming out from Image, Pirates of Coney Island, drawn by Vasilos Lolos, and Newsarama has a little preview up, which looks fierce, free-spirited and ready to take no prisoners.

All the issues will have variant covers by Becky Cloonan. There’s also an interview with Spears about the book at Comics Nexus.

Manolis: Are you a fan of the Pirates genre in movies and comics? If yes, are there any particular sources of inspiration for you while creating the Pirates of Coney Island?

Rick Spears: I grew up in Virginia Beach and spent a lot of time on the Outer banks of North Carolina and Pirates including Black beard use to sail those waters. It’s always sparked my imagination. I also love Pirate and sea faring fiction. The Sea Wolf is a particular favourite.

[snip]Manolis: Although these characters call themselves Pirates, they don’t actually even own a ship. Can you explain what are the elements that make this a pirate book even though it’s firmly set on land?

Rick Spears: The Van is their SHIP! They have a super secret hideout in an old military bunker, they live outside the law by their wits. They’re mean, nasty and violent. They are totally Pirates!!

More guests! More events! More TUMBLERS! It’s almost time for the Baltimore Comic-con, an always fun sojourn down on the Inner Harbor. While we just received an updated list of show exclusives which you can read after the jump, this year’s Baltimore show will be notable for several things:

1) It marks the debut of the Harvey Awards at the show. Details on buying tickets for dinner and attending here. Tickets for the awards dinner are $50, but the ceremony itself is open to the public for $10 or free with two day admission to the show.

2) The Diamond retailer summit will take place right after the convention, meaning Sunday will be the best schmoozing day in comics, as people arrive and just hang around.

3) People hoping to attend last minute may be in for a rude shock. With the Yankees in town, the availability of hotel rooms makes San Diego look like Vegas, with hotels in the Inner Harbor going for $350 a night or else completely sold out. Rooms are still available at the airport, luckily. Damn Yankees!

Those who do manage to get down to the show will find one of the nicest convention experiences of the year, a clean, friendly, well-run show that offers plenty of time to get autographs, visit with friends or hang out at one of Baltimore’s many fine restaurants. You can see the guest list here.
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Speaking of rock’n'roll and cartooning, LA CityBeat interview Joe Sacco on BUT I LIKE IT, his early account of touring Europe with the pre-grunge punk band The Miracle Workers. Ah, those days, we remember them well… :

Cramped conditions in their conveyance notwithstanding, this tale never reaches the depths of misery in his refugee stories, but it shares with them his eye for telling details and subtle way of revealing his subjects’ humanity … along with his own. Amid the rolling thunder of decibels and debauchery, “Long Hair� offers fleeting moments of vulnerability: Trautmann’s longing for a “girl to talk to� amid the parade of groupies, Mohr’s flu-fueled regret over undertaking the tour, and Sacco’s own funny/disastrous attempts to “swing� with the chicks.

It also documents a nearly forgotten nanosecond of rock history: the “but they’re big in Europe� era. In the late ’80s, the Miracle Workers were among a handful of L.A. acts sporting a ’60s-garage/’70s-punk aesthetic just as heavy-metal hair bands were taking over the Sunset Strip. Many couldn’t get arrested here but were adored by garage-rock-crazed crowds overseas. The Miracle Workers scored bigger local audiences than most, but they had nothing on Guns N’ Roses. Still, they shared with their bandanna-festooned rivals a love of traditional rock ’n’ roll swagger that would soon go the way of the dinosaurs, once grunge reared its greasy head.

ICv2 Newshas brought Anne Gassere on as Managing Editor:

ICv2 is proud to announce that Anne Gassere has joined the company as Managing Editor, a new position. In that role, she will manage publishing operations for both the ICv2.com Website and the ICv2 Retailers Guides.

Gassere comes to ICv2 from American Girl, where she had the position of Managing Editor, Book Development. Prior to her time in American Girl’s publishing division, she worked for Capital City Distribution, where she was managing editor of ICv2’s predecessor, Internal Correspondence.

James Kochalka SUPERSTAR! Now you can enjoy the galvanizing songs and tranformagtive experience of see James Kochalka LIVE as he embarks on a mini tour in support of his new CD Spread Your Evil Wings and Fly. “This tour will be acoustic-duo style James Kochalka Superstar… just me and my guitarist Jason X-12,” he tells us.

Here’s the line-up, starting TOMORROW in Boston.

Fri 8/25 CAMBRIDGE, MA — Middle East upstairs, 472 Mass. Ave. * w/ Neil Hamburger, Morgan Murphy, World’s Greatest Sinners
* JKS/X-12 on first @ 9pm!! *

Sat 8/26 PHILADELPHIA, PA — Tritone, 1508 South Street
* other acts, set times TBA *

Sun 8/27 NEW YORK, NY — Cake Shop, 152 Ludlow St. (btwn Stanton & Rivington)
* w/ Monsterface, Dream Bitches
* show starts early !! 7pm *