§ They’re celebrating comics in Korea at the 14th Bucheon International Comics Festival (BICOF).

This year’s festival highlights the potential and wide range of comics in the digital era and introduces foreign works of digital comics.
The event explores the past, present and future of Korean digital comics.

The exhibition consists of five themes ― Pioneers of Digital Comics; Hyung Min-woo and Priest; the Digital Restoration of the Ninth Myth; Present Conditions of Korean Digital Comics; and Digital Comics Technique.


Guests include Scott Macleod (!) Daniel Merlin Goodbrey and and Milton Greipp, and a spotlight on PREIST creator Hyung Min-woo.

§ Marvel has launched a DAREDEVIL audiobook for the visually impaired. The book will be voiced by writer Mark Waid and Marvel Editor Tom Brennan.

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§ Jim Shooter’s blog continues to be a fascinating repository of his remembrances of his Marvel days, and long gone controversies. This time, it’s a look at the banishment of the writer/editors— basically, Roy Thomas, Marv Wolfman, Gerry Conway, Archie Goodwin, Steve Gerber and Len Wein all had a deal where they could edit their own writing. This wasn’t a practice that Shooter much cared for, and eventually a lot of these folks left Marvel under “strained” circumstances. In the latest episode, Shooter goes over Roy Thomas’s objections to things like the above cover, which originally read “Fiends of the Flame Knife.”

I don’t see things like the above as insignificant. NO PROFESSIONAL PUBLISHING HOUSE SHOULD ALLOW CRAP LIKE THAT TO MAKE IT INTO PRINT! It is pathetic. It is unacceptable. Things like that drive me crazy. Roy may be fussbudget #1, but I’m first runner up, and neither of us is Miss Congeniality to the incompetent nitwits who screw up.

It just ruins your work. You don’t need extra copies of issues that have idiocies like that in them, because you’re certainly not going to give any away as samples.

P.S. The examples cited above are only some of the ones Roy wrote letters about, and the ones he wrote letters about were only a small portion of the grand total. I can absolutely assure you that Roy had a telephone and wasn’t afraid to use it.


All of this is a good reminder, as we keep saying, that today’s hushed up scandal is tomorrow’s memoir.

§ It is hard to say which it more troubling regarding Fantagraphics; the fact that they have left Julie Doucet’s abandoned cat carrier sitting in a hallway for 18 years; or the staff’s continuing and widespread anxiety dreams involving Ernest Borgnine.

§ The Philadelphia Alternative Comic Convention was this weekend — we’re awaiting a full report — but this lady went, and it was her first comic-con ever and she liked it!

This wasn’t the spandex clad crime fighter type of convention, it was a smaller, but well attended event for the fans and creators of more personal stories. This was an alternative convention where dedicated artists produced their sequestered labors of love by any means necessary. Being that we’ve been working on our own labor of love, we wanted to see what the other kids were doing. The Rotunda at 4014 Walnut Street which hosted PACC was packed despite the terrible weather and the sweltering temperatures within. It was a terrific opportunity to make new discoveries or to put a face to a favorite comic, and show a little appreciation. It was upbeat. Positive feedback swirled about the room. I met a lot of nice and incredibly talented people!

§ Two review roundups: Noel Murray in the Onion and Andrew Smith on a variety of mostly historical comics.

1 COMMENT

  1. I really wanted to exhibit at the Philly show this year, but I think they were full up pretty much from the beginning! As far as I know, they never even had an open call for vendors this year, which is pretty impressive if you think about it — that they could fill up an entire list of guests just based on word of mouth and friends.

  2. The PACC was started and is run by friends of mine, and it is wonderful to see it get national write ups after only a couple of years of existing. It’s a magnificent show that is simply bursting at the seems with love and inventiveness.
    It is far and away the “indiest” of the well run shows out there, and its only getting better.
    If you’re looking for hand crafted, art, or mini comics, this convention has more per square in than anywhere else.