Now with ketchup!

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This report of D&Q at the Boston Book Festival has been up for a few days but it’s charming and includes a picture of two of our favorite comics folks, Peggy Burns and Sasha Watson, (above) so how can we not link to it?

§ Simon Jones has some tart words for Kodansha’s premiere in the US, notably Ghost in the Shell:

What’s the point of giving us a GitS that is nearly identical to the first edition released by Dark Horse so many moons ago? Why is it flipped, and missing pages (which Dark Horse restored in later editions)? I love the work Frederick Schodt and Toren Smith had done with GitS, but do you really think this is what the current market of manga readers expect from you? This would be the fourth copy I own of the first GitS (well, 5th since I accidentally purchased 2 copies of your edition.) Do you believe I bought this release because I just had to have GitS with a matte interior finish?

§ Speaking of Fred Schodt, here’s an interview with him at Anime News Network.
§ Geoff Boucher found a lot of nerd crossover at the U2 show at the Rose Bowl, which should come as no surprise, considering Bono and the Edge are big on Spider-Man:

It was time to head for our seats so I assumed the fanboy subplots were over but I was wrong. The startling set for the show, the cosmic claw, looks like something that Jack Kirby would have dreamed up. Bono mentioned Scarlett Johansson, star of “Iron Man 2” and “The Spirit,” at one point but that was just a footnote. The great line came midway through the show (a show, by the way, that was absolutely astounding) when Bono began a tongue-in-cheek introduction of the band members. He described the Edge as a mad scientist and an alien visitor, whose mission has “gone where no other guitarist has gone before.” I wondered if, somewhere in the crowd of 97,000, Abrams fell out of his seat at that line. Bono added, “He’s Mr. Spock to us, he’s the Edge to you.”


§ An old issue of ALBEDO #2 featuring Usagi Yojimbo sells for a surprising amount on eBay much to Stan Sakai’s amazement.

§ Denny O’Neil continues his common sense lesson plan in writing for comics:

This week, we’re lowering our foreheads and eschewing discussions of aesthetics and craft to blather a bit about selling the damn stuff. Sorry to disillusion he more tender-minded among you, but writing for a large audience–doing any creative thing for a large audience–is always going to be somewhat about money, and those who have it, and convincing them that you are The Man or The Woman. (Remember: while he was painting the big ceiling, Michelangelo had to deal with Pope Julius II, not his favorite person, who owned the ceiling and probably paid for the paints.)


§ In his always excellent weekly comics buying survey for Comics Alliance, Douglas Wolk alludes to the fact that AMBUSH BUG jumped from issue 5 to issue 7 because of internal content issues with #6. We hope someone has been keeping a diary about all this stuff, because it is going to make very amusing reading in about 15 years.

1 COMMENT

  1. I wondered if, somewhere in the crowd of 97,000, Abrams fell out of his seat at that line. Bono added, “He’s Mr. Spock to us, he’s the Edge to you.”

    Two questions:

    1. Does Geoff Boucher think that JJ Abrams created Star Trek?

    2. Why is it so freaking amazing that someone made a Star Trek reference? It’s only been a popular show and continuing pop culture phenomenon for, what…45 years or so? Yeah, my goodness, I can’t BELIEVE someone referenced Star Trek!

  2. It isn’t so freaking amazing that SOMEONE made a Star Trek reference. It’s freaking amazing that BONO made a Star Trek reference.

    U2’s concert at the Rose Bowl was the best concert I’ve ever been to. It was awesome.

  3. To Denny O’Neil’s credit, he wrote some editorials in the old EPIC mag which are still good reading. Been revisiting them recently.

  4. Bono or no, how is that amazing? Star Trek has been around for more than four decades. And it’s not like it’s an obscure cult thing. EVERYONE knows about Star Trek. Everyone knows who Spock is. Hell, a lot of people know what frikkin’ Tribbles are, and they were only in one episode of the original series.