This has nothing to do with anything, but it is always fun to post Mitch O’Connell art of Tura Satana.

That survey looked readable in the preview.

I’ll be honest with you kids, it is hard to write about comic books right now when a meeting of our greatest leaders to decide how to stave off a depression (not recession) ends in finger pointing and shouting and begging. When the biggest bank in the country has gone under. And our potential vice president can’t coherently answer tough questions from Katie Couric.

It’s all worrying.

But…I’ll keep trying.

PS: We’re off on the road to Baltimore today, so look for some road dispatches and Twittering.

With today’s grisly economic news, Tom’s already-worthwhile interview with Scott McCloud becomes even more timely:

McCLOUD: All of them, that’s the point. [laughter]

I like that we have an economy of free and DIY and a growing market for graphic novels and an all-ages movement. Although the manga scene doesn’t have an effect on too many creators here, there’s that, and there’s the traditional superhero realm. Diversity is healthy. When you have more diversity in the marketplace, it’s healthier. When you don’t, you have crossbreeding and degradation. It’s hard to find another period of history in comics in North America where you’ve had this much diversity, maybe by a factor of three or four over the last few years. It’s pretty astonishing.

The problem is that in a few years this may result in a diversity of ways to make no money. [Spurgeon laughs] To me, that’s the sole danger. I have a problem seeing any other downside.

My big worry is what’s gonna happen to the Lehman building (above)? I used to just stand on the corner and watch the LED screens for 15 minutes at a stretch.

Finally, in these trying times, we need something to believe in.

Post by David Friedman.

BONUS: Bookstore sales drop in July.

If you have been confused by the news of the imminent oblivion the world faces at the hands of the supercollider, now there is a comic book to explain it in the words and pictures method that we postliterates require. Jorge Cham of PHD Comics took a trip to the CERN supercollider, and made a comic about it.

PS: Best video ever about the end of the world, courtesy of Mitchell & Webb:

Okay, so we haven’t quite awoken from vacation mode yet. Based on our email, neither has anyone else.

What would Clive Owen do?

What would Salma Hayek do?

What would Herbie and the Flaming Carrot do?

I woke up the other day to read this on my Facebook home page:

[Redacted] is now single.
Comment

Well, should I comment in public on my friend [Redacted’s] breakup? “He was cheating on you anyway.” “She was so fat, it was about time!” “I told you you needed to get your teeth whitened.” “Look, I never wanted to tell you this, but he liked watching midgets wrestling.” “You can do better.” I mean, what are you supposed to comment on?

Am I the only person who finds a newsfeed of my friends’ and family’s personal lives run as an ad-based network rather frightening? People now use Facebook for party invites, abandoning such olden timey modes of communication as email or, god forbid, mail. People (myself included, God help me) are so addicted to their friends’ status updates that they follow it like a rolling soap opera of work frustrations, dating outcomes, and life ennui.

The disturbing thing about this exciting new mode of communication is that it is actually a money-making enterprise designed to use your demographic info to make gabillions of dollars:

Mark Zuckerberg & Co. stood up in front of the advertising community in New York today and unveiled Facebook Ads, an ad system that allows companies to use the Facebook social graph and to develop highly targeted ads. Large brands such as Coca-Cola (KO), Sony Pictures (SNE) and Verizon (VZ) have signed on for this effort. Part of the engine powering this new ad system is called Beacon, which takes data from 44 web destinations and mashes it up with Facebook’s internal information to help build more focused advertising messages.

Although Facebook did make some changes to its Beacon advertising system after consumer outcry, it didn’t go away. It is still a privacy nightmare, and now Blockbuster is being sued for its participation in Beacon:

As if Blockbuster didn’t have enough problems trying to justify its existence by making an ill-conceived buyout offer for Circuit City. Now, it is being sued for privacy violations related to its Beacon ads on Facebook. And, no, the plaintiff is not Michael, although he did once point out that the way Blockbuster used the names and images of Facebook members without permission to hawk its service could be a violation of their privacy rights. It could also be a violation of the Videotape Privacy Protection Act, which prohibits video stores from sharing customer rental information without written consent. The plaintiff is a woman in Texas, who is suing under that law and seeking class-action status.

For a more general take on the poopiness of “social networking” in general, here’s cranky Tom Hodgkinson in the Guardian:

And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn’t it rather disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos in cyberspace, while chained to my desk? A friend of mine recently told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our workstations.

I doubt that millennials and post-millennials– raised in the specter of post-9/11 security, cell phone connectivity and the general neon glow of the Internet — have any idea what privacy means except not letting your significant other get hold of your password. Sharing your every ephemeral thought with hundreds of your friends is as natural as peanut butter.

Is there any way to fight back against this Michael Rennie-like invader? It’s probably way too late for that, especially as smart phones and iPhones link us all with GPS. In Japan, cell phones beep when a friend is near. Who needs Big Brother any more? We’re all doing the job.

Vintage Grant Morrison in an interview with A. David Lewis at PWCW:

GM: Yeah! Because it’s the obvious, isn’t it? Again, this isn’t a mystical concept, because I’m not a mystical person sometimes. I got into magic to see if it was real. If someone says, “Ok, a demon will appear if you do this spell,” I just say, “Bullshit.” So, I did this spell, and then the demon appeared. So I had to revise my vision of what the world was and how it worked. Again, that’s another element of magic for me, trying to figure out, why do these things happen—what are we doing to our nervous systems to make us believe a demon has entered the room? It became to me about the actual “nuts and bolts” of it, not the fantastic thing or the mystic thing or the names of angels. I became interested in what’s actually going on.

PWCW: But you tried it out, and a demon did appear?

GM: Yeah!

PWCW: Wow.

Graeme McMillan rounds up all of the complaints and dark sides and whatnot in a fairly brilliant post all should read:

It was the con that, it seemed, confounded a lot of people. Press shut out of panels, celebrities turned away from parties, comic publishers vowing never to return and 125,000 fans all in one building for four days without end. Every year, San Diego Comic-Con ends with people griping that it has gotten to be too big and that something has to change, but was this the year that lived up to the complaints?

He has a few good quotes, including this from mediabistro.com, with a title we’re stealing forever more: The Land of Wanders:

Anyway, we are posting this after midnight because there is no filing room. We were directed to an outlet in the hallway for all our computing needs. We promise to never bitch about the burnt gratis coffee in normal press rooms again.

We haven’t mentioned it in a while, but Comic-Con has absolutely the crappiest press room of any event we’ve ever been to. We promise to go see EAGLE EYE just because they gave us free Wi-Fi, but next year, some movie about teen zombies on a sex rampage at sleepaway camp really needs to sponsor a better press room, with nuclear lemonade or something.

Graeme quotes Tom McLean’s must read on the problems of covering Comic-Con, but what caught our eye was the first comment:

As a longtime Con-goer I just want to say that Comic-Con is not a press event and was never intended to be, it is a FAN event and it is refreshing that an event exists that doesn’t cater to press, big-wigs or anyone except fans.

That would be nice if it were true, “Longtime Con-goer,” but the truth is, marketing is the reason for the explosion of Comic-Con. Since there are really 90 different events rolled up into one, we hope that “Longtime Con-goer” can continue to appreciate the show on his or her own terms.

Some of the most interesting group coverage of the show was that from the locals, The San Diego Tribune’s Comic-Con blog. The coverage we saw was definitely from a non-fannish viewpoint, and included such things as a report on a strip show.

Finally, poor Barbara Vey, our fellow PW blogger, was at the show and had a great, great time, but as a book blogger, not as a comics blogger, she learned the meaning of “faux pas”:

There were no celebrity spottings for me today, but I was told I “just missed” the star of Supernatural. I did manage to catch up with author Greg Rucka, whose novels I’ve been reading for years. When I mentioned that I didn’t know he had written comics, there was an actual gasp from his fans waiting in line. I scrambled to say that I did read his regular books and I’d check into his comics, but the crowd started getting nasty. I think I was this close to tar and feathers.

Her conclusion?

Bottom Line: Never mention that you don’t read comics at Comic Con.

A lesson for all, Barbara, a lesson for all.

Gordon Bennett! It takes a whole week just to catch up with all the Comic-Con stuff online! We are done after this — we absolutely promise…unless there is something else really cool and smart that catches our eye.

§ It seems that the tumult and jacked-up atmosphere at the con led to a lot more “incidents” than usual. For instance, even at a panel spotlighting peace-loving Hobbits, people got all aggro:

By the time the panel started every seat was filled and by the time it ended, security and convention staff had arrested or detained one angry individual who didn’t have a chance to make it inside the event. All signs indicate: Fans are excited for the Hobbit, to the point of nearly inciting riots. After the panel was over, Con staff informed TORn that “at least 400″ people had been turned away.

One of those people was The Beat. We’d hoped to attend holding up our “Imrahil or bust!” banner, but got turned away — but thankfully, not “detained.” BTW, Director del Toro was at one point slated to appear but perhaps it’s just as well he’s saving it for NEXT year.

§ A nice con report by Martha Thomases: SDCC: Little Earthquakes.

It’s nearly a week since Comic-Con ended, but still it haunts my dreams. I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, then the fifth largest city in Ohio (behind Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Akron), yet there were more people in the San Diego convention center.

§ Jim Lee has a multi-part blog that covers what it’s like to be a superstar, which entails the above, but also a schedule that looks like this:

PS: Get well, Carla!

§ Jaunty Jamie Coville has recorded a ton of panels that we couldn’t attend. The panels are:

•How Not to Break Into Comics,
•The Future of the Comic Pamphlet,
•Golden Age/Silver Age of Comics Panel,
•That’s 70’s (Comics) Panel,
•Jim Warren spotlight,
•Colleen Doran’s Resources for Creators Panel,
•The Black Panel,
•The World of Steve Ditko,
•Fan vs Pro Trivia Panel and again,
• The Eisner Awards Ceremony.
Let us all give Jamie a thunderous round of applause for this boon to mankind!

PLUS: Audio of the World of Graphic Novels panel at TCJ.

§ FINALLY, Ali Kokmen’s call to arms.

…in a piece on foreign graphic novels:

Americans don’t buy a lot of foreign novels, but go to any neighborhood bookstore and you’ll find whole shelves devoted to international comics.

The trend began with Manga, illustrated comic serials from Japan, which feature big-eyed, heavily stylized characters. Milton Griepp, who publishes the online comics trade journal ICv2, says that more than 1,500 different Manga titles were published in the U.S. last year. That’s a 25-percent rise over the year before.

Sorry we disappeared off the face of the earth yesterday. A combination of heat-stroke, malaria and dengue fever struck us and we were a bit under the weather. After a few doses of quinine water and Mango Fruit Blast from Baskin Robbins we’re back in the saddle.

San Diego, city of gas explosions and grease fires. The landmark Kansas City Barbeque, a locale well known to convention attendees and viewers of TOP GUN, was gutted in a fire last week:

A fire that started in an open cooking pit Thursday at Kansas City Barbeque gutted the landmark Marina area eatery, known for being in the 1986 Tom Cruise movie “Top Gun.”

The fire broke out about 2:15 p.m. in the restaurant on West Market Street, located across the street from the Manchester Grand Hyatt hotel towers and near Seaport Village. It initially created so much smoke that clouds of it could be seen billowing behind Petco Park, where the Padres were playing an afternoon baseball game.

Arrevederci. barbecue. Back to Ralphs yet again.

Did you notice a couple months ago when there was an IRON MAN themed phone?

Well, it’s Batman’s turn.

I only found out about this when I was paying my cell phone bill and saw the ad for the new Nokia DARK KNIGHT Edition. Article about it here.

Posted by Mark Coale

§ Laura Park (above ©2008 Laura Park)

§ Jane Be Pure Mineral Gel Eyeliner

§ July 11th

§ Blog posts on horrible black and white comics of the 80s

§ Amir Sadollah

§ Free Afrodisiac story on Vulture, preferably accompanied by Luke Vibert’s favorite Johnny Hawksworth.

Why do Westin Hotels no longer provide shower caps?

If you’re like The Beat — and we’re certain that you are — you were sent into major drool-bucket mode at the announcement of the $200 3G iPhone. However such technology comes at a price. We’re certain this Slate post is but one of a myriad of warnings going up about how this soon-to-be-as-ubiquitous-as-an-iPod device will accelerate the sinister Hive-i-fication of society:

Apple’s new phone also has the potential to take GPS technology to a level that Garmin and its competitors have not. GPS will no longer be for driving directions alone; instead, it’s going to be a way to provide location-based services. With applications like Loopt, iPhone users will be able to see if their friends are nearby. In a perfect world, the GPS iPhone might even do the impossible—make Twitter useful. Eventually, it’s easy to imagine a scenario in which you walk into a bar and see how many of your Facebook friends are in the room.

We can imagine such a scenario indeed, although any technology that makes obsolete the old “walking into a bar and checking out who’s there” technology may not be entirely desirable.

To whoever gave us that box of Jacques Torres chocolate covered espresso beans at NYCC — someone whose identity we have completely blanked out on in the ensuing head trauma — you are a great person. Those beans have kept us going for the past four weeks!

Send more chocolate covered espreso beans whoever you are!

Dan Didio’s office chart. (Click for larger version.) Via Newsarama.

I think this speaks for all of us.

“It’s so stupid to guess about the future. Biggie Smalls died before he could hear the word ‘blog.’”

–Rich Stevens

Click for more.

Via his LJ:

As known, last night I was alone, and checking out today so I could check back in with Sean Dulaney later today. Before I did this however, I plugged my laptop into the wall to do some scripting. However, the socket was loose and the moment I did? I was blown back by a shock that had me land on the bed, expletives galore.

Did Tony go into a coma and give up? Or did he get upgraded into a suite and end up at the press box at Shea Stadium? Tune in for the next SHOCKING episode of TONY IN NEW YORK.

Well, it’s official! 3 out of 4 people we surveyed today agree that New York Comic-Con has now become a midi-San Diego in terms of stress and anxiety!

In fact it reached a plateau previously only hit by SDCC by inspiring anxiety dreams for The Beat days beforehand! Rock and roll! Lock and load! Hit the deck! Hit the drugs!

Our stiff neck is under control thanks to massive amounts of Aleve, but any more pain and we’re going straight to the Valium.

We’ll have more NYCC round up news tomorrow. We can tell from our email and IMs that everyone out there is just as stressed as we are. But it will be worth it in the end, right?

Nancy, the comic strip beloved of ontologists every where, will be appearing in color starting Monday, E&P reports. The strip is currently drawn by Guy Gilchrist.

In the first color strip, Nancy will start a new activity — karate. “I’m into the martial arts myself, and have seen how empowering it is to girls, boys, men, and women,” said Gilchrist. “Thankfully, it can also be pretty funny!”

Is this change to the eternal Nancy just a fun and progressive upgrade, a nod to emerging technologies or the first sign of the apocalypse? Find out on Monday.
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