Yesterday, the judges for the 2010 Eisner Awards (which will be held at the San Diego Comic-Con on July 23 of next year) were announced, and yours truly is one of them. I'm really honored to be among these other great judges (get to meet them all here) and I'm looking forward to taking part in the whole process, which is going to be rigorous, challenging, and a whole lot of fun. Here's hoping I'm up to the task!

Read more »

Two TV shows with comics-related content have caught my attention this season, one new and one old. The new one, which I'm enjoying quite a bit, is the new conspiracy puzzler FlashForward. I love it (and by the way, I'm going to say I love what ABC is doing this season by preparing for Lost's end with FlashForward and the new V...even if their execution isn't always perfect, I think it's great that the opportunity for good sci-fi on TV is there). Anyway, one of the mysteries of FlashForward is the identity of a person named "D. Gibbons." A nod to Dave Gibbons, one of the creators of Watchmen? It would seem so. I hope Dave is watching and enjoying.

Read more »

Sheldon Dorf died on November 4 in San Diego. The 76-year-old passed away from kidney failure apparently due to complications of diabetes. We all owe Dorf a debt of gratitude for the magical thing he founded in 1970: the San Diego Comic-Con.

Read more »

Last month, the New Jersey State Library announced a new grant that will help 14 libraries across the state establish graphic-novel collections. In what seems to be a first, the grant—$3,000 for each library, all made possible by the Florence Taylor Tischler and Nathaniel Tischler Memorial Fund—will help the libraries build their graphic collections from the ground up.

Read more »

In the foreword to his book 1,000 Comic Books You Must Read, Tony Isabella mentions that we indeed are. He asserts that, with the breadth of quality comics now being published, as well as the ready access to easily affordable reprints of classic works, this is the true Golden Age, one that’s better than any ever before. It’s hard to disagree, but I’ve been pondering it ever since reading it.

Read more »

Greg Sadowski is one of comicdom’s great historians. As an editor, he’s won both the Harvey and Eisner Awards, and he’s just been nominated for YALSA’s Great Graphic Novels for Teens list for Supermen: The First Wave of Comic Book Heroes. Recently, he’s just announced he’ll be doing seven new books for Fantagraphics, beginning in June 2010. The upcoming titles include Four-Color Fear: Forgotten Horror Comics of the 1950s; Setting the Standard: Alex Toth at Standard Comics 1952–1954; The Road to Plastic Man; The Comic Book Frankenstein; and more. Here’s your chance to get to know Greg a little bit better.

Read more »

Carol sent me this story, and it moved me beyond words. It shows what the power of comics really is: The ever-inspiring belief in the best in yourself and the ability of that part of you to overcome whatever is thrown at you.

Read more »

The Harvey Awards were held last night, and it looks like it was quite a star-studded event! I wish I could have attended, but alas... However, I was so happy to hear that Alex Robinson's Too Cool to Be Forgotten won Best Original Graphic Album last night. Robinson's book, about a late-30s guy who gets hypnotized to quit smoking and then suddenly finds himself transported back to high school (which is when he started smoking), is one of my recent favorites.

Read more »

We hear about it all the time: digital piracy. The scourge of the entertainment industry, digital piracy has been taken on by music companies, movie studios, and major publishers. But what of comic piracy? Does it affect the industry as a whole? We talked to three people in graphic publishing to see what the state of matters is and how they are combating illegal downloading.

Read more »

My first job after college was as a copy editor, and even now, I manage to supplement my income with some copyediting jobs here and there. That’s the first full-disclosure part, and here’s the second: I by no means claim that this site is error-free. People make mistakes all the time, be they silly, embarrassing, or even unnoticeable (and sometimes those “mistakes” are not really errors at all—style decisions and differences in opinions can account for a lot of things that catch people’s eyes. For example, I prefer to use serial commas, but I have no problem splitting infinitives or ending a sentence with a preposition—this latter preference is one many would disagree with).

Read more »