We’re in transit today, so totally normal service will resume tomorrow.

In the meantime, check out our vacation photos!

We’re taking a little R&R for the next few days, and maybe even taking a much needed internet/Twitter-cation. Check back daily for special features in the meantime!

Apropos of time off, Neil Gaiman discusses some fans’ “entitlement issues” and the working process:

Some writers need a while to charge their batteries, and then write their books very rapidly. Some writers write a page or so every day, rain or shine. Some writers run out of steam, and need to do whatever it is they happen to do until they’re ready to write again. Sometimes writers haven’t quite got the next book in a series ready in their heads, but they have something else all ready instead, so they write the thing that’s ready to go, prompting cries of outrage from people who want to know why the author could possibly write Book X while the fans were waiting for Book Y.

I remember hearing an upset comics editor telling a roomful of other editors about a comics artist who had taken a few weeks off to paint his house. The editor pointed out, repeatedly, that for the money the artist would have been paid for those weeks’ work he could easily have afforded to hire someone to paint his house, and made money too. And I thought, but did not say, “But what if he wanted to paint his house?”

In the meantime, here’s some art by Aidan ‘BRUTE! Hughes, best known for his cover art to KMFDM’s catalog.

We meant to comment on this piece by Lucas Siegel from Blog@Newsarama for days, but never got around to it; the title was “My Opinion Is Right: Comics Press is Crippled Like No Other Industry” but despite that bold statement, the offending incident came from Marvel’s very active staff Twitter community

There has been a bit of an uproar on Twitter in the last 24 hours, primarily instigated by three big names at Marvel Comics complaining about tweets, posts on the microblogging social network, being reposted on websites such as this one, CBR, and many others. The contention by Tom Brevoort, Brian Michael Bendis, and Joe Quesada is that this shouldn’t be done without permission or even payment to the person who made the original 140 character or less post.

This was really a tempest in a teapot — Joe Q, in particular complaining about people reposting his Tweets — let alone PAYING to do it — was odd, since he’s one of the most media-savvy comics personalities out there. It seems that the agita — if it wasn’t all a big put-on — on Marvel’s part was over Twitter aggregations like this gathering up CB Cebulski’s advice on how to break into comics.

Setting aside the fact that apparently Cebulski actually GAVE permission for Blog@ to collect his thoughts, the main thing it made US wonder was…why on earth would ANYONE post any information of any real value on Twitter?

As our colleague Calvin Reid observed to us the other night, Twitter is like a 24-hour rolling cocktail party. There really isn’t enough time in the day to read EVERY Twitter in your feed, and why would anyone want to? CB went to the trouble of typing out some very sound information on breaking in to comics — and then it rolled on. Back to CB’s daily culinary adventures, Wil Wheaton’s making dinner for his kids, Themediaisdying posting about some magazine closing, Wossy making a TV show, and a thousand complaints about computer problems.

Has Twitter crested yet, please God? Well, Techcrunch reports the dual assault of Ashton Kutcher and Oprah has overrun the levees:

Twitter’s march towards world domination continues apace. This morning comScore released its global numbers for March, 2009. Worldwide visitors to Twitter.com increased 95 percent in the month of March from 9.8 million to 19.1 million, according to its estimates. This compares to 9.3 million visitors in the U.S. alone.

What really amuses us is the Internet’s supposed “march of progress”. Six or seven years ago, when blogging was just getting started, we remember countless web articles on how you needed to blog to extend and market your brand. Now we are reading countless blogs about how to use Twitter to extend and market your brand. What’s next? We predict some kind of rolling symbol site — like in the Matrix — where folks just type in little pictures to say how they’re feeling — the bad news is that everyone will need a Chinese computer keyboard to participate.

And what’s a “brand” anyway? Is it the same thing as, gasp, content?

The Twitter fad is notable in that everyone PREDICTS it’s a fad and not a new means of communication, even while they’re trying to make use of this new means of communication. What really worries us is that so much on the web is far less lasting than that moldy, uninteractive print. In its own way the closing of GeoCities is a massive loss of information. If you want to see the Web as it existed ten years ago just find any webpage hosted on GeoCities. And yet, these were mostly pages written by people who were driven by passion. They were also trailblazers of web info, scanning and writing and posting information that has since been disseminated in Wikipedia and the other pro sites that come up whenever you Google anything. They were the frigging pioneers!

Yahoo is closing it GeoCities site this year.

Yahoo bought GeoCities for more than $2.9 billion in dot-com-priced stock in 1999, when GeoCities had more than 1.1 million users. However, while the idea of having a personal presence on the Internet has caught on, GeoCities turned out to be a backwater, not the mainstream.

“We will be closing GeoCities later this year,” Yahoo said in a note on the site. “We’ll provide more details about closing GeoCities and how to save your site data this summer.”

For perspective, Harry McCracken does a “Where are they now” for the top 15 websites and brands of April, 1999 and it’s not pretty.

And now, it looks like the entire publishing world might go the way of GeoCities.
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Sigh. Every once in a while, the image uploader on The Beat just takes a holiday. It’s like a play by Alberto Casella. It was a long time until we had the uninterrupted time to sit down and figure it out, but we did, and now things are working just fine and dandy again. But first we have to post all the things that got stuck in the hopper YESTERDAY. This catch-up thing is getting old, we know.

We’re back online, and back at work, but rather than try to play catch up, we’re taking this outage as the great “Wipe the slate clean!” break that we so badly needed. So all those old tabs are permanently closed and we’re just moving FORWARD.

While we rediscover the joys of the internet, you might want to check out the SIDEBAR. Our able-bodied Elite Beat Operative Aaron Humphrey has updated it with a ton of new and improved links. If you’d like to be added, drop us a line.

Please give Aaron a big thank you!

Or…thank you Time Warner Cable.

Well, that was annoying. Ironically, we didn’t even know the Beat was down because our home home internet has been out since yesterday afternoon! You sure miss a lot when you are off the Internet for a day. It’s like living in 1997.

Behind the outtage does lie a comedy tale, which, although it has nothing to do with comics, we would love to recount here for educational purposes, but it would take far too long.

Anyway, we will probably not be able to update The Beat at length until tomorrow afternoon because our cable modem is fried and the repairman can’t come until tomorrow morning. Sigh. So, hang in there, baby.

We enjoyed a much needed internet vacation this weekend, which happily coincided with the arrival of some uplifting spring weather. We definitely needed a vacation, but we definitely need a longer one, so we’re going to kind of take it easy this week while we catch up on some old stuff and gear up for some exciting new stuff.

It’s kind of frustrating because we know that this blog is read by a lot of people — many have it bookmarked, may have it on their main RSS feed, some even read it first thing in the morning with their coffee. That’s important. And daunting. We take it as a sacred charge.

But it’s taxing. And sometimes we just miss things. We especially want to apologize to everyone who has been sending us their event listings that didn’t get listed. That’s one of those improvements we’re looking at.

But anyway, while we regroup a bit, we’ll still be around so keep the tips and emails and IMs coming.

Cover art by Nicollet.

A tweet yesterday about “packing up my office” prompted some concerned private messages, and I am always touched by concern, but I am just moving office, not leaving office. However, I’ve been packing up all the stuff piled in my cubicle and it’s just insane. My packrat nature has rarely been such a burden. Plus, I’m recovering from a sprained ankle and putting extra weight on it (like say lifting a giant box of books) results in an unpleasant bulgy feeling.

Plus what to do with all these p-p-…comic books. Tons and tons of comic books that I think I will someday get around to reading, just like someday I will get around to climbing Annapurna.

I took heat from one poster yesterday for saying I called comic books periodicals instead of pamphlets, heat which was somewhat justified. In my fatigued state, I should have added the word “now.” I certainly have written about floppies and pamphlets many times, often derisively, but in their current, endangered state that seems kind of below the belt. While editing articles for PW Comics Week, I sometimes find our writers using the word “pamphlet” in a business sense — pamphlet publishers, pamphlet industry. The word “periodical” seems more dignified, perhaps.

The origin of the phrase “32 page pamphlet” as a negative term for periodical comic books is usually attributed to either myself, Kurt Busiek or Marv Wolfman. Specifically it goes back to PROcon, a gathering for comics professionals, back in the early ’90s, that was sort of an industry issue conference. Attendees listened to panels of other pros, and spirited hand raising debates often began. And everyone wore togas.

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We’re trying, but it’s hard, because Battle for Wesnoth 1.6 came out this weekend.

You know, this is why we won’t have a gaming console in our house. If we can get so hooked on a simple little turn-based fantasy game, can you imagine what would happen with real video games? You’d never read another word from us.

Moving on, there was much less squawking in the blogosphere over the San Diego Hotel Lottery this year, proving that humans are adaptable and they all comprehend matters now. When you ponder the fact that four-day passes sold out four months ahead of time, hotel rooms sold out four months ahead of time, and the wait list for exhibitors is estimated at two-three years, you see that the entire concept of “con spontaneity” has gone the way of the cassette tape. Despite all the struggle, we’re still looking forward to the show this year, as much as we ever have. Because there will be veins of pure fun to be discovered and mined. Plus, it will be our 25th San Diego in a row. (Aren’t we supposed to get an Inkpot for that?)

Speaking of The Con, Mark Evanier has his annual commentary on why the show shouldn’t move to Vegas, and compares the economy of Comic-Con to the economy of CES, which is held in Vegas every year and was, at its height, even BIGGER (gasp!) than Comic-Con. He also has some very sensible advice about commuting to the show via the wonders of modern mass transit:

In the meantime, if you tried to get a room for San Diego this year and failed, do not despair. More rooms should become available so check the site from time to time…and ask around, look around. A lot of folks make multiple reservations, then cancel all or all but one. Some people book outside the convention reservation system and then, if and when they get a cheaper or more convenient room, they let the less desirable booking go.

You might also consider taking the train to San Diego for a day (as I suggested here) and I should append another tip. Many folks have told me of the joy and ease of using the San Diego trolley system to get from the train station to the con…or from outlying hotels and motels to the con. I’ve never taken it but everyone tells me it’s comfy and clean and reliable and cheap. Here’s a website where you can see where it wanders. The con also, of course, has shuttle buses from many close-by hotels that will get you to the convention center.

Which reminds us that Fantagraphics’ Jason Miles is just now getting around to putting up his pictures from SDCC ‘08, which makes us think maybe we should put up the pictures from ‘07 we never posted but…maybe not. It does, however, lend some credence to the metaphysical notion that somewhere, there is an eternal ur-Con going on, and we’re all stranded there in a time loop.

Sadly, we’re still out of commission, catapulted into a savage world where witch doctors resurrect hideous zuvembies wearing polka dot boxer shorts. We’ll straggle along as best we can, but rest assured, we’ll be back as soon as humanly possible.

Religiously patrolling our comment section as we do, in between all the spammers who think this is an excellent site and would love to talk to my webmaster — it was just what they were looking for — we’ve noticed that our peanut gallery is turning into more of an Ensure gallery, as crotchety old folks argue about newfangled devices like the ballpoint pen and what it will mean for the comical picture book industry.

Now, being something of a cranky old coot in training ourselves, we can see how easy it is to fall into this trap. But it is tiresome! Come now, people, wake up and smell Gears of War! While it’s our duty as host to attempt some manner of timeliness, we’re going to be more vigilant and punitive about pointless whining and moaning. Step lively, now!

I remember summer!

Via Sleestak.

Now that we’ve all woken up, let’s talk meta. Let’s talk THE BLOGGING LIFE AND THE TOOLS THEREOF. The other day Marc-Oliver gave a nice shout out to dedicated daily bloggers, and highlighted Dirk’s truly ghastly schedule, which sometimes requires him to wake up at 10 pm. Ours isn’t that bad — for some reason our best hours for blogging are between midnight and 4ish, but we can’t do the vampire thing — we have to be up well before noon. We dunno how Tom does it, but once we were on a panel together and he said it took him an hour or so to do TCR, which, given his great powers of focus and discipline (which we lack), we can see.
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While we were mocking Japanese bi-porn star dolls just the other day, another thing the people of Japan excel at is books of pictures of kittens in boxes:

The Kittens of Boxville answers the vexing, age-old question: what would a city constructed by cats look like? Biteable cardboard, of course! Originally published in Japan, this quirky and adorable book features more than a hundred photographs of an energetic group of kittens romping around dozens of miniature cardboard houses, cafés, and restaurants. Here, a daring cat explores an abandoned farmhouse; there, a lonely kitten knocks on a friend’s window; and what’s that over there? Two kittens hugging!? Appropriately, the book features a die cut cover that reveals an irresistibly cute little kitten peeking through the front (his tail pokes through the back).

Irresistibly cute. Indeed, this book will attach itself, lamprey-like, to your eyeballs, sending you into spasms of cooing, oohing, and other toxoplasmosis-esque symptoms.

BTW, Chris Butcher characterized me as having “been in kind of a doom-and-gloom funk for the past few months.” Which contrasts with the other, anonymous fellow who said I was a “rah-rah cheerleader.” So which is it? Am I just bi-polar?

After I wrote my last doom ‘n’ gloom post, I actually got private correspondence, telling me not to lose the faith because people need hope, I guess. I actually think alarmism is very destructive right now. So with that in mind, for all you folks out there who have been looking up to me as a beacon of sunshine over the years, I’m going to try to keep my pecker up. I’m a clear-eyed realist, sure, but who doesn’t want to get Obamafied?

In answer to 1000 questions, we’re feeling a lot better but we’re definitely going to lose our voice before this show is over, and we’re definitely not killing ourselves to do anything. So we’re taking it a little easy for now, just to get through it all.

• All the party invite info for New York Comic-Con has been flooding into our inbox over the last few days — thank goodness, we’ve already scheduled a nourishing meal each evening, or else things would be looking way too liquid.

We’ll be posting most of our info on the show TOMORROW (Wednesday) so if you haven’t gotten us your schedule, hurry up and do it!

• Due to con-related activities, we’re only going to be posting the essential need-to-know stuff here. Assuming our server doesn’t shut us down again.

• For all those who were wondering if The Beat was caught in some sudden layoffs, don’t worry, if we ever get the boot, everyone will know loud and clear. In the meantime, you can subscribe to our Twitter feed for battlefield updates and fast breaking news — but also a lot of shit that takes place on the streets, overheard conversations and sandwich reviews.

• Speaking of Twitter, we’re as addicted to it as everyone else, including celebrities. It seems to be peaking about now, as people that we used to enjoy long, collegial message board conversations with are now reduced to fleeting 140-character bursts of excitement, hunger pangs, hype, and satisfaction with tasty sandwiches. We learn, for instance, that Neil Gaiman likes to take baths and does a lot of interviews, Jonathan Ross hangs out with famous people, and Joe Quesada and Brian Bendis have a lot of in-jokes. Indeed, Marvel’s mastery of the Twitter-verse is quite thorough, a modern incarnation of the Bullpen persona that you can follow along with in real time.

It does seem that when everyone is on Twitter, no one is on Twitter, as eventually we’ll all have too many people to follow or reply to and it will just be another swirling miasma of meaningless information that’s too vast to make sense of. Plus, how is it supposed to make any money?

• FINALLY, we’re going to let the whole “complimentary copy” brouhaha settle down. But a few parting shots: The word “complimentary” does, as Douglas Tonks suggested, lend itself more readily to a breath mint or a hand towel. If you’re going to mention where you got it, the phrase “review copy” is more in the spirit of the process — unless it was a gift, and if it’s all for transparency, you might as well break it down further.

FINALLY, we do regret that folks like Ed Sizemore took the term “amateur” to be synonymous with “amateurish,” which it isn’t. We liked Sizemore’s review of PLUTO so much we gave it a prominent post all to itself, mainly because the content was excellent, thorough and thoughtful. And the disclaimer at the end about the galley was appropriate because galleys can differ from the final product. And I respect the reviews of Johanna and Matthew Brady, as well (and probably several other people who use the dread disclaimer.)

In the end, I didn’t change my mind a bit about the disclaimer, but I did think a lot more about the 256 shades of grey on the Internet, and some other people solidified their stances. I think disquisition over ethics and criteria are part of the process of putting one’s thoughts before the public — or should be for anyone who is serious about it.

• Plus I haven’t been such a target of blogger vitriol since “CBG Dome” back in ‘04!

Sorry for the outage, but based on all the emails and phone calls and IMs, you really do read The Beat! It’s a touching thought and we won’t let you down again.

(Above: The Gulf Stream by Winslow Homer)
Well, people, in case you haven’t noticed, it is a grim time in the empire. When people ask how we’re doing, we keep thinking of the haunting story of the Essex, an 1819 whaleship sunk by an angry whale (one of the few such incidents on record) whose survivors endured a grisly two-month journey in some leaky rowboats. The ordeal included madness, cannibalism, and (ironically) several survivors keeping detailed diaries, since it was before the Internet and they couldn’t Twitter about it.

To sum up, we feel like we’re in a leaky little boat and we just ate Roger the cabin boy, but there is no land in sight.

…and there may not be for a while. Still, idylls of cannibalism and exposure are a bit extreme. After all, the free market will inevitably pull out a sextant and make for dry land, right?

Like John Carter of Mars always said when he was being pursued by some flesh-eating plants and headless Kaldanes…”I still live!” Even if there won’t be any postal delivery on Saturdays any more.

So yeah, in answer to many emails and IMs and PMs and so on, it has been a shaky week here at Stately Beat Manor, not because of anything that happened to me personally, but just the general gloom and doom. But this too shall pass.

In the spirit of survival, struggle, Barsoom references and giant apes, here’s a painting of John Carter of Mars by Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell. Because nothing says hope like half-naked people fighting.

Okay, you people have me plum tuckered out. If we haven’t been “debating” men vs. women, we’ve been “debating” liberals vs conservatives, and now racial stereotyping? Except that the debate quickly devolves into the same 10 people arguing the same tired stuff over and over.

What is to be done? Turn off the comments? I really don’t have time to moderate them more, and I have found over the years that some of the best information comes in the comments section, so I’m loathe to close it up.

However, I think it’s time for a rest. Or new voices. Or an iced tea. Or something. I am not allowing comments on this post, but I will read PRIVATE emails on the subject. That way, I know you are not just blabbing to hear yourself blabbing on the Internet, like I am doing right now.

We’re gingerly climbing back into the saddle, but won’t be galloping for a little while; thanks to everyone for the “Get well” wishes. We really do need some time to resume ramming speed because while we were sick we took an almost complete Internet vacation — even email and Facebook — and that was a pretty transforming experience. Sometimes you need to step back and realize there’s a whole other world out there, a world of juice and tissue and Mucinex and sitting around in your bathrobe playing Battle for Wesnoth. Yes, it is important that all of us take an Internet vacation from time to time.

Regular posting will resume later. It’s a great day to reflect and celebrate.

Top, cartoon by R.J. Matson. Bottom, New Yorker cover by Drew Friedman.

BUt The Beat does have the cold that’s going around. WE’ll be back in a bit with all the day’s rather stunning developments.

And there’s a lot of it…

We had a nice holiday, but it taught us one crucial, crucial lesson…don’t ever, ever start playing Desktop Tower Defense.

Yep it’s the end of the trail for 2008, a year which had some high points (Nov 4) but which an overwhelming number of our friends can’t wait to end. To which we can only say:

Everything looks better when seen through the lens of a J.C. Leyendecker baby in a Russian Constructivist pose.

As always, thanks to the crew — Zena, Trish, Suzu, Amy, Elim, Marti, Jon, Max, Potts, Desi, Sara, Dino, Sara, Frank 3, Nelson, Scummy, Eric, Jah Furry, Brian, Calvin, Amanda, Jimmy, Charles, Nikki — for helping with so much, and of course, to dear Future Mr. Beat, Ben McCool, for all the laughs, and probably to a bunch of folks we’re forgetting because we basically can’t remember anything. Special Big Ups to the Beat Operatives, Aaron, Mark, Steven, Marc-Oliver, and Paul, for helping with their time, wit, and wisdom.

And of course, most special thanks, as always, to YOU, our wonderful readers, who keep us on our toes and inspire us to get better and better.

We’ll be back over the next few days before going back to the grindstone next Monday, with our wrapup thoughts and forward-looking statements.
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We’re back at the keyboard after a week of horrible holiday travel…As bad as it was, other people had it worse. As we finally got home after a four-hour delay on Saturday night, we saw people sleeping on the floor of the shabby Delta terminal at JFK, and stories of people stranded for 2 or 3 days over the holidays have been everywhere. All things considered, we generally got to where we going on the same day we were supposed to, and suffered no nerve or limb damage, so it wasn’t all that bad.

Things are still on holiday time, so this week we’ll just be hitting the big stories.

Since THE BEAT herself might not be in a position to post right now, I’m fairly certain this is a sentiment that she would most likely want expressed at this festive time of year.

US AIRWAYS = !^%#&^!%$!*!@(*

I don’t know if it’s the crappy weather all over the country or the amount of people flying, but, I have to say that the last time I flew US Airways (BWI to LA in September), there were four segments and all left on time with no real problems. That said, there was the time we flew them on business at my old job, and we could have driven from Charlotte to Virginia Beach quicker than the flight, with all its delays, ended up taking.