§ Beat Pal “Casey” writes to say:

Brian Michael Bendis was on Howard Stern Tuesday morning. He wasn’t on the actual show, just an interview with the Howard News team that they play in between the breaks. Kinda neat!


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§ Wizard interview STAN SAKAI, who has been at USAGI YOJIMBO for 22 years, a run of some 160 issues that may just be second behind CEREBUS for continued achievement. And he’s still going.

Q:…so if you look at everything you’ve done with Usagi to date, from when you self-published through Fantagraphics and Mirage and everything, what goals did you have back then that you feel you’ve met with the book? And how have your goals for the book changed?

SAKAI: Well, it’s changed a lot, because especially back then, I just hoped to get the next issue in before the deadline. It was pretty much thinking one or two months in advance. “I’ve got another story to write, and I hope the sales continue to [rise] so Usagi can continue on.” Now, though, it’s about thinking in the long term. It’s not just what’s happening next month, but next year or two years from now or even more. There are stories that I’ve laid groundwork for that won’t be told for another three or four years.


§ Larry Young and Mimi Rosenheim star in a short film about AIT/PlanetLar.

§ See Spurge deliver a great punchline.

§ Our reporter who has learned about comics for the day comes from the Deseret News which gives us all kinds of useful definitions along the way. Emphasis ours.

Graphic novels are a loose genre comprising lengthy comic books — often hundreds of pages long — that contain literary elements such as a plot and characterization.

Some graphic novels feature favorite comic figures, such as Superman. Others are fantastical adventures, Japanese comics, or attempts to retell Shakespeare. One of the most famous graphic novels is “V for Vendetta,” by Alan Moore and David Lloyd. It was made into a movie and released on DVD last August.

Among Arrington’s favorite graphic novels are “Fullmetal Alchemist” books by Hiromu Arakawa, a tale about orphans who try to bring their mother back to life with alchemy. “It’s a wonderful story,” said Arrington, a ninth-grader at Orem’s Lakeridge Junior High. “It’s so invigorating. I just love it.”

§ The Phoenix Comicon went well:

§ When he’s not producing operas, Shannon Wheeler likes to drink civit shit coffee.

1 COMMENT

  1. Seriously, Sakai’s putting out an awesome book and his consistency is amazing. I read through all twenty available volumes again pretty recently and I never stopped being impressed. I can’t wait to see what he’s got planned for future volumes. He also treads the line between story arcs and one-offs pretty well and uses them to spice up the intervals between his more epic storylines.

    I got my wife to read them and she loved them enough to bring them into her class of fifth graders and now those fifth graders are asking her every other week: “Is the new Usagi out yet? Did you bring it?”