§ With Heroes vanished, Smallville ending and The Cape and No Ordinary Family beginning, the superhero is sort of a television mini-genre. With that in mind, CNN lays out the rules for small-screen superheroes – which turn out to be sensible stuff like make your characters believable. Jeph Loeb also offers this: “Don’t try to be “Lost” (or “Heroes”)”

“What we’ve talked about is more of the model on ‘Smallville.’ It may have had an overriding arc, but it was more of the emotional arcs that we were following,” he said. “We want to start each show with a problem, and resolve that problem at the end of the episode. Whatever the emotional arc is going on, that’s what you care about. If you don’t care about characters, you’re not gonna care about the show. We don’t want a show driven by the plot, we want a show driven by the character.”

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§ Joe Vince at the OC Weekly has a fine wrap-up of the New Crop of Female Comic Creators, including Amy Reeder, G. Willow Wilson, Joelle Jones, Julia Gfrörer (above), Julia Wertz, and Kate Beaton.

§ Check yo nutz: Comic Books Raise Testicular Cancer Awareness

The end result was two comic books -” A Courageous Journey” and “Cancer: Screening and Diagnosis” that so far have had positive feedback. A Courageous Journey highlights a young man’s journey through cancer diagnosis and treatment. The comic also addresses psychological, social and financial issues encountered during treatment. The second is about how to perform a testicular self-exam and when to be worried if something is abnormal.

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§ J.K. Parkin’s list of Six awesome WildStorm titles could also have been called “Six really well known WildStorm titles” and commenters rightly chide him for not looking at such gems as THE WINTER MEN (one of the best comics of the decade), AUTOMATIC KAFKA, ARROWSMITH, GLOBAL FREQUENCY, and other overlooked titles. There’s been some fretting about whether WildStorm books will be kept in print, and this is where the power of the backlist and DC’s new business structure will come into focus. There are easily 50 WildStorm trade collections that should be perennials — how will they be branded going forward?

§ What is an Italian comics festival like?

§ Colleen Doran went to the Senate, got to ride the secret Senate train, and consulted on the new IP laws.

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§ The Haspiel Era defined: The Dean? No, the Godfather of Brooklyn’s comic scene

§ Top Cow’s Filip Sablik has a Blog@ post called “Back the New,” or “Fighting Cynicism” which sounds promising, but it’s mostly about the new Pilot Season comics. But who is Bagus Hutomo?

A WHOLE BUNCH OF OLD LINKS WE NEVER POSTED IN ALL THE EXCITEMENT LAST WEEK:

§ Paul Dini’s new TV show Tower Prep has been getting rave previews, being described as “It’s like watching ‘Lost,’ ‘Heroes’ and ‘Harry Potter’ all at the same time; it premieres Oct. 19 on Cartoon Network.

§ Old wall art by

Marie Severin

§ We never properly linked to this interview with writer Paul Levitz:

Levitz: My natural speech pattern is fairly long sentences, and somewhat pedantic. My early writing tended either to mimic that too much, or to build sentences for my characters that had far too many short, colorless words. The teachers (whose names I sadly don’t recall offhand) were two NY POST editors living through the shift from the left-leaning and gentrified POST under Dorothy Schiff to Murdoch’s early, right-leaning and British style tab…but in between telling tales of their suffering, they taught parsing sentences well, and the joy of brevity.

§ Kate Beaton has moved to Brooklyn and adjusts to life in these here United States.

§ Bob Fingerman examines the history of cat people

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To me, the long, lithe, tacky, Na’vi put me in mind of Reed Waller and Kate Worley’s anthropomorphic porn/soap comic book series, Omaha the Cat Dancer

1 COMMENT

  1. Read wintermen @ library here in NZ. Damn this is some awesome art work en the writing is superb really really good stuff. Amazing hu that it sold so bad jeez.

  2. While that is terrible, if someone broke into my apartment and stole my belongings, that does not in and of itself make me uniquely suited to comment on legal matters. One has nothing to do with the other.

  3. People are robbed all the time, so no, that would not make you unique. Because it happens all the time. A publisher trying to steal the entirety of an intellectual property a young artist has created by claiming the copyright is a much more complicated issue than whether someone steals your television. That example is analogous at best only on a cursory level.

    I think Doran has a great deal to offer from a creator’s perspective on the impact that theft has had on her career, the lessons learned, the research and education she has undergone to understand her rights as a creator and the work she has done to educate other young creators.

    She’s not writing legal opinion, she is consulting.

  4. Even if the burglary comparison *were* accurate, I would hope that the people crafting the laws to prevent robbery and protect TV owners would consult with actual TV owners and people who have been robbed. Being robbed does not qualify you to *write* laws, but people who write laws should consult with victims.

  5. This is one of those discussions that will bog down quickly, and the original analogy was tossed off the cuff in any case, but suffice to say that I disagree with the sentiment that having your television stolen somehow makes you any kind of expert on how laws regarding theft should be constructed. Being in a car accident does not give me any special insight into how cars should be designed.

    Given Patrick Leahy’s (and Orrin Hatch’s) already blinkered bit of legislation and their complete lack of understanding regarding, well, anything involving the internet or copyright or digital distribution, I’m not sure dragging Colleen Doran into the case makes me any more confident in a positive outcome.

    In fact, I’ll be quite happy to see this proposed law die as part of the inevitable upcoming governmental gridlock.