Internet Kill Switch

An internet kill switch? Whatyoutalkinaboutwillis? Just because Egypt has done it doesn't mean we should do it. My mom use to say to me, "Well Ava just because everyone else is doing something doesn't mean you should too! If they all jumped off of a bridge, would you wanna do that too?" Honestly?  - Inside my little Greek coconut - I think I always did want to secretly jump off that imaginary bridge my Mom referred to. But don't tell her that.

I do have many fans in Egypt and this whole switching off the internet has really taken a toll on my blog numbers. But seriously, there are so many other stupid things that other countries have come up with but thankfully we were smart enough to sit back and say, "I don't think so."

Here is a list of foreign inventions that thankfully never caught on in the United States.

Portable Sauna, Finland

Baby Cage, England

Dog Restraint, France

Baby Holder, England

I am hoping beyond hope that the Internet Kill Switch is not something the United States Government ever seriously considers or uses. I say this for a reason.

A few weeks ago I did a blog about Facebook shutting down on March 15th. It was by far one of my most popular blog posts because so many people were seriously concerned that it might be true. And all of that concern was over just the potential of one website shutting down. I can not even imagine the uproar over shutting down the entire internet. Can't happen.

So what do you think?

Blessings,

Ava

xox

That Time Gene Yang Came To My Grad School And Blew Everyone's Mind

So I think I mentioned this once before on the blog, but I just started making my way towards a Masters of Fine Arts in Writing For Children at St. Paul's Hamline University. And when I say "just started" I mean my first contact of any kind with any person or work connected to school was a ten-day intensive residency earlier this month. In fact, "intense" is a pretty good word for the experience as a whole. When I arrived in the Twin Cities, my plan for absolutely no comics work on the week was crushed when Marvel named Axel Alonso Editor-in-Chief. Meanwhile, they were warning us about the cold weather with phrases like "flesh can freeze in seconds."

BUT, one crazy twist to my first residency at Hamline that made me feel right at home was that one of our required readings coming into the workshop week was Gene Yang's American Born Chinese. And – if you couldn't guess by the post title – Yang played guest lecturer to talk about the creation of the book and generally blow the minds of everyone in attendance.


Think of it this way: the crew that works for and attends my Masters program write kids books for a living (or are trying to). That includes classic picture books, chapter books, and novels that range from zany middle grade and tween tales on through some provocative and smart Young Adult stuff. But the majority of these people had ZERO experience with comics before reading Yang's book. So much so that "comics" didn't even break into the vocabulary for a lot of the folks. The writers at the school were introduced to our medium (if they'd been introduced to it at all) through the term and category of "graphic novel" which might not sound like too big a distinction but really stood out as the week went on.

I mean, there were a few comic woks that were familiar to members of the residency – all of them produced and promoted through the lens of the book industry. I heard more than a few people mention David Small's Stitches. Everyone was passingly familiar with what Bone is. Neil Gaiman is a rock star and a half in this world for reasons other than comics, but I think most people knows he wrote them before blowing up as a novelist. But most importantly like I said, anyone at least partially interested in kids book publishing these days understands that graphic novels have spent the past few years as the super hot category. They think of what we do as the "cool new thing" in general and want to know more about it even when they're a bit confused by it.

Being the resident "comics guy" in the group (a position I happily played up perhaps too much by weeks end), I fielded a lot of questions and comments through out the week because of that. Common things I heard:

"I was trying to read this, but some times I was confused on what I was supposed to be looking at. Am I following the pictures? Do I read the text first?"

"So the difference between a comic and a graphic novel, what is that? A comic is silly, but a graphic novel is like a real book, right?"

"I'm really interested in writing a graphic novel myself. How would I go about doing that?"

I don't mention these as a put down to any of the supremely intelligent and creative people who I learned a whole hell of a lot from about writing in those ten days. I just wanted to express how strange it was to be in a position where I'm talking about the thing I spend my entire working day talking about but where I can't assume any of the basic knowledge or terminology I rely on. So it was pretty tough at times for me to try and speak on comics without sounding super jargony or super nerdy or both.


Luckily, Gene Yang is the straight up Jedi Master of talking comics in front of book people. I can't imagine how many times he's had to talk about ABC in front of librarians or school groups or teachers or traditional YA writers, but his behind the scenes breakdown of what cultural and visual influences shaped the book was as engaging and accessible and well rehearsed as any talk on comics I've ever seen (and I've seen art spiegelman speak on comics like four times so I feel pretty confident saying that Yang was on his #%@&!ing GAME).

The real defining moment of the whole experience was Yang's breakdown of Cousin Chin-Kee, the highly over-the-top caricature of Chinese stereotypes who plays a central role in ABC's story. He took a lot of time to explain the cultural references that influenced Chin-Kee's creation from early racist political cartoons about Chinese immigrants and railroad workers to Long Duck Dong on through to the recent response to/debate over the sudden popularity of "American Idol" reject William Hung. Over the days following his speech, I heard several classmates confess that they'd initially been put off by American Born Chinese because they felt uncomfortable with Chin-Kee's role in the story until they heard Yang place the satirical elements of the caricature in context. The act of cartooning as satire and commentary rather than just being broad stereotyped comedy hadn't even occurred to them.

And on a nuts and bolts craft level, there were so many ideas about how comics are made that came out and caught the audience totally by surprise. The idea that Yang would script pages before drawing was revelatory for some. Others asked about why someone else would color his work for him. And even the briefest mention of the punk rock respect comics self-publishers get had people looking around going "Whaaaaaaa?"

[I should note that the kind of "THAT'S how they do it?" experience hit me in the reverse sense later in the week as we discussed the ins and outs of picture book creation. I had to have it explained to me several times that the authors and illustrators of something like 95% of picture books have no creative interaction or collaboration. You write some words, you send it to a publisher, and they get it drawn by someone. In fact, pitching picture books as a writer/artist team is really frowned upon...which is INSANE to me still today. One professor told us a story about a woman who wrote a picture book manuscript meaning for the characters to be two children, but the illustrator decided to make them cats, and that was that. Writers in comics would go apeshit if they experienced that lack of control, which is saying something.]

Finally when Yang read his NY Times Magazine strip turned First Second graphic novel Prime Baby and his incoming Level Up, I began to see people really "get" what comics could offer on their own as a medium. The rhythm of his in-panel jokes, the power his page turns held and the raw emotional information given off by his cartooning had everyone completely pumped by lecture's end. In fact, for the rest of the week I don't think I heard one person refer to Yang without some variation of "And Oh My God...Gene Yang!" being uttered.


Okay...so why the hell am I doing all this anecdotal blathering on my comics blog? I guess partially I just wanted to illustrate for any comics folks out there how big the gulf between what we assume and understand about the medium and what even the most literate and engaged "general audiences" think about comics. Even a decade or so into the graphic novel book store boom, our status amongst readers and publishing professionals is still very new and not at all assured in a long term sense. Just because Comics Project X earned Major Accolade Y recently doesn't mean that the book publishing world will continue to find comics a necessary part of their business model.

And it would be TERRIBLE at this point to lose the interest and resources of that market. Even with book stores in general in rotten shape, the kinds of material that have a chance in those outlets but have such a harder time in the Direct Market can have a fighting chance at big publishers. And while we all know that artists looking to work in that segment of publishing should know how that game is played, I think it's of equal importance for us core comics folk to reach out to traditional book people and open channels of discussion on why comics are rad.

I've been thinking a lot about how to do this lately in terms of my writing about comics here and at CBR as well as my work in the Hamline MFA program. As a first step on the latter front, I put together a suggested reading list for my classmates and profs at the end of residency which included ten comics aimed at the kids-to-YA market and five more from the literary publishing spehere. I won't post all the descriptions and stuff I gave the Hamline crew, but the books I suggested were:

1. Blankets by Craig Thompson
2. The Comics of Hope Larson
3. Owly by Andy Runton
4. Smile by Raina Telgemeier
5. Selections From The TOON Books Line Edited By Francoise Mouly
6. Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi
7. Mouse Guard by David Petersen
8. Saltwater Taffy: The Seaside Adventures of Jack And Benny by Matthew Loux
9. Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane by Sean McKeever, Takeshi Miyazawa & David Hahn
10. Runaways by Brian K. Vaughan and Adrian Alphona

1. Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth by Chris Ware
2. Fun Home by Alison Bechdel
3. It's A Good Life If You Don't Weaken by Seth
4. Wilson by Daniel Clowes
5. Love & Rockets by Los Bros. Hernandez

Was there anything I missed? I will say that so far, my playing comics pusherman seems to be working as thanks to the help of my comics-literate classmate Peter Pearson, some of the folks on the staff went right out and bought Blankets, and my advisor for the semester – the super awesome Anne Ursu – got Understanding Comics on my recommendation the week we were at school.

In any event, let me know what you think in general in the comments, and I'm sure we'll swing back around to this topic sooner rather than later. In the meantime, I'm blogging about my grad writing and reviewing a metric ton of kid lit at my Rockopolis blog if you're interested.

[Note: Props to my rad classmate Tracy Pagel Wells for snapping the shots of Yang lecturing at Hamline.]

Allah's forgiveness

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh to all beloved friends.

The prophet salla allahu alaihi waasallam said:

"Allah the Almighty has said: O son of Adam, as long as you call upon me and put your hope in Me, I have forgiven you for what you have done and i do not mind.

O son of Adam, if your sins were to reach the clouds of the sky and then you would seek My forgiveness, I would forgive you.

O son of Adam, if you were to come to Me with sins that are close to filling the earth and then you would meet Me without ascribing any partners with Me, I would certainly bring to you forgiveness close to filling it. "

***********

Allah's blessing are uncountable.

John Barry

Woke up this morning to the news that musician and film composer John Barry has died at the age of 77; I shouldn't be taking it personally, but it's hard not to. He had a rare gift for infusing high drama with a melancholy that made it soar.

Dnt Txt N Drv

Alex Brown

Today's blog is dedicated to remembering Alex Brown. Alex Brown was a Texas teenager who was full of life. While texting and driving she lost the control of her truck in a single car accident and flipped - ejecting her. Alex and her wrecked truck were found along side a road by her mother. Alex died from her injuries.

Normally I do not use my blog to promote other causes - only because there are so many of them that would love to get me to lend my name I just can't say yes to everyone and everything. Right or wrong, I have it in my little Greek noggin that I can be far more effective helping a few charities and doing as much as I can for them, rather than spreading myself so thin over lots of different causes where my efforts would not be nearly as effective.

But the Remember Alex Brown Foundation is one new cause to me that I feel deserves my attention and support. The Foundation was started by Alex's parents after her death to bring awareness and educate others about the dangers of texting while driving.

To honor Alex's memory her parents  formed The Remember Alex Brown Foundation (RAB).  You can access their website here.

After hearing Alex's story I have signed the pledge to never text and drive. You can download a copy of the pledge here.

I have my other causes that I also support:

The Progeria Research Foundation is very important to me.  I am very passionate about spreading awareness about this disease.  These kids are simply amazing angels.  Click here to learn about the research they are doing to  make the lives of these children better and to find a cure for this heartbreaking disease.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation  is making the lives of young people with diabetes better.  Click here to learn how you can be a part of the work they are doing.

The ASPCA does amazing work helping animals all over the United States.  Click here to learn about these true heroes and how you too can help animals in need.

Please check all of them out and help me support these very worth causes.

Blessings,

Ava

xox

Why super speed beats flight

If you ask most people what super power they’d like to have, most will say flight. Yes, some pervs will say telepathy and Tim Dillon will say the ability to generate and manipulate ice, but seriously, on the whole, two out of three times, you get flight. Not entirely sure why, but so it goes.

Not me. Hands down the answer has always been super speed.

It’s been this way for me since I was little. I always thought being able to whiz by everybody on the ground seemed much cooler than hovering thousands of feet above them. Perhaps it’s because I crave human companionship and feel flight would be an extremely lonely super power? Maybe it’s that while being in a plane doesn’t fully simulate the experience, it comes closer than, say, a car being able to replicate true super speed? Whatever the initial reason, I dressed up as The Flash when I was five, not Superman.

But of course, there’s the rub: Superman can do more than fly. Really there are very few comic book characters that can only fly because while it seems initially neat, it’s fairly weak in terms of the offensive capabilities it can provide. Guys like Superman or Martian Manhunter or Captain Marvel (either one) or dozens of others have flight as their “showiest” power, but then always have the requisite super strength plus loads of other stuff piled on to make them more formidable.

The traditional “flight only” characters in comics, Hawkman and Angel of the X-Men, even got beefed up when it became evident just being able to kick a guy from slightly higher up wasn’t much of a tactical advantage, getting centuries of weapons training and razor-tipped killer wings in the bargain.

But getting away from super heroics and back to as close to real life as a post like this can get, super speed has it all over flight in the practicality department, and that’s the reason I’ve stuck with it beyond my formative years. There would certainly be a “wow” factor in terms of being able to go up into the clouds the first few times, and no doubt you could elicit some attention from members of the opposite sex (provided you don’t drop them), but once the novelty is gone, you’re going to get bored among the birds, so to say.

However, if you’re incredibly fast, your life will always be better. You will never be late again. You will be able to travel lengthy distances without being bored or inconvenienced. You can acquire awesome gifts and goodies for your friends, loved ones and the objects of your affection in an eye blink.

And that’s just with running!

Per the lame joke I have made many times to groaning response and once for the world to see when I interviewed the Motor City Machine Guns and asked this very question (Alex Shelley said he’d want Jamie Madrox’s powers for similarly convenience-minded reasons—truly a man after my own heart), I would not want to just run fast, but do everything fast, except that one thing (kids, ask your parents). That’s how guys like The Flash have always rolled, and so it would be for me in this fantasy land I have constructed for myself.

My room is dirty? Nope, now it’s clean. I need to do some reading? I just did it. Afternoon of errands to run? It just became five minutes of errands to run (albeit probably having stolen multiple items rather than paid for them).

Unlike flight, super speed makes everything in everyday life easier!

And yes, were I somehow to find myself as an adventurer fighting the good fight, I could punch the bad guy 100 times in a second and he’d be done as opposed to staying two feet above his reach until somebody actually useful came along to help.

To end on a poetic note, if super speed is indeed like a Geoff Johns-written Flash comic, it would be pretty neat to be able to literally dance between the raindrops, watching them each as they slowly fall to the ground and the people around me go by in slow motion; actually, that second part sounds somewhat terrifying, but the first part sounds pretty.

And so concludes one of my nerdiest posts to date. Which says something.

Paragraph Movie Reviews: Catfish

If you don't have plans to see this movie, you can check the spoilers here and then come back.

Half hour or so removed from finishing this and still somewhat wrapping my head around what I thought of it, including to what degree I liked it, so this may be a bit less focused than my typical review (if that's possible). A huge part of my viewing experience mirrors most other people, I wager: I was devoting a great deal of effort to trying to figure out if this was a legitimate documentary or not. At first I did not, then started doubting as it went; according to what I looked up after, the creators claim it's legit, though many folks are dubious. The main reason I thought it was fake was what I chalked up as poor acting from Nev Schulman, but apparently he wasn't acting, so I'm not quite sure how to evaluate it then. Indeed it's hard to really quantify the quality of most aspects of this piece given that it (supposedly) is real; even other documentaries I've seen set out to tackle a subject and put a spin on it, whereas this was a case of two guys apparently having the insight and or lucking out in chronicling a fairly interesting story as it developed and sticking around as it became something much more. The stuff I can judge--the editing, the filming, the visual cues--were all well done, particularly the way they incorporated actual Facebook graphics into cuts. Iit was a job well done and can't find any glaring technical faults. The "story" was extremely engaging and they did a good job walking the line between uncomfortable and touching. However, it didn't strike me as revolutionary and I don't have any strong desire to watch it again despite having probably missed a lot while trying to play detective. Going with my gut, I'll rate this above average but wouldn't go any farther than that.

Boys vs Girls

"The thing about chicks is you only have to be a fraction as nice to them as you are mean to them to get them to like you again..."

-Puck, from Fox's hit TV show Glee

This sentiment might make you giggle, but let's face it... for 99% of girls it's 100% true.

So why is it that if a girl disrespects a dude, it's adios, but a guy eliciting the same behavior toward a girl gets chance after chance? Could it perhaps be related to the same mentality that makes it ok for a guy to string along multiple girls earning him a pat on the back and the honorary title of 'player,' while a girl doing the same thing gets branded with the scarlet letter 'S'... for slut?

...To be honest...
who cares?

The point is - Why do girls do this?
It's annoying, unbecoming, shows a lack of self-respect, and for one thing, is one of the reasons why I sometimes prefer to hang out with boys.

Case in point:

My old roommate. Sweet girl, but completely naive. I became avoidant of her when I came home for fear of bombardment with boy-related details from her recent flings. I squirmed as she launched her theories on waiting to sleep with a guy till she knows he respects her (hmm a week 1/2?) and her reasoning that it's ok to text naked pictures of yourself to him until then (Ya, because those will never come back to haunt you). I held my tongue and feigned interest as she told me she was falling for the guy she'd known for 2 weeks and as she justified coming to his house at the drop of a hat at 3 a.m., because 'his schedule was just so busy...'

Bottom line... Ladies, you need to knock it off.

If you want to get with a guy, do it. Just don't expect him to respect you if you haven't given him the time to develop that respect.

Don't spend every waking second talking about dudes, especially the self-imposed heartache that they cause you. Get a hobby and a life, quit boring your friends with the details and wisen up to his mistreatment while you're at it. You're friends will thank you for it.

Quit blaming other girls for your guy's bad behavior and take it for what it is, a sign of disinterest. As my girl Tina Fey says: "You need to quit calling each other sluts and whores. It just makes it ok for guys to call you sluts and whores."
Mean Girls (2004)

...So...
The moral of the story isn't boys > girls, but I do think that something can be said for acting more like a dude.

I won't pretend that I haven't been guilty of any of the aforementioned behaviors, but I will say that life is a lot easier when you don't let yourself fall into their traps.

...So, I'm offering...
My guide to avoiding the pitfalls of needy girl mentality:

1) Quit playing the victim.
When a guy breaks your heart take it for what it is: either a) he was a douche, b) you didn't carry yourself in a way that merited the treatment you deserve, or maybe just maybe c) you were the one being an ass.

2) Don't set yourself up to be used.
Unfortunately the old adage- 'He won't buy the cow if he gets the milk for free' sometimes rings true. Even if you don't want to be 'bought' per se, it's important to know your own boundaries and make them clear in any new relationship.

3) Just do you.
Let things unfold naturally. If commitment isn't what your looking for, then have a good time, but own up for it. Don't psychoanalyze his or your own behavior. Trust me, the guy isn't boring his friends with the details of how he 'totally lingered in the hallway clearly hoping you'd come talk to him' and you shouldn't be either.

...And finally...
While I realize that some of the above ascertations might have come off a bit harsh, I want to reemphasize the importance of recognizing what you deserve and not accepting anything less. If a guy breaks your heart take the appropriate time to recover...

**General rule of thumb from fave movie Out Cold (2001)= 1 week for every month you were together**(That's right, you're 2 week fling earns you 3 days of mourning)

...but also make sure you learn from the situation. Don't waste your time pining. Go out and have fun, because trust me, Mr. right is out there somewhere and Mr. Wrong was over it from the second you called it quits.

Bad Day

So my manager Mr. Bricks asked me what my blog was going to be about today.  I told him the title was "Bad Day."  Mr. Bricks then asked me - "Bad Day? So what is it going to be about?" I know why he was asking. Mr. Bricks is very worried I am going to go all negative in my blog posting. No worries.  Not happening.

This week I posted a couple of positive quotes on my Facebook page from one of my all-time favorite books, "When God Winks"  by  SQuire Rushnell.

‎"Shoot for the moon, and the worst that can happen, you'll land among the stars". Tony Orlando

‎"Destiny is not a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice. It is not something to be waited for. It is a thing to be achieved". William Jennings Bryan

I always try to find the positive in everything I do. However, I am no Blonde Greek Pollyanna. That's an oxymoron. All Greeks have opinions and we need to express them - good or bad. I feel that you don't have to ruin someone else's day just because you are having a bad day. Like wise, you can't let someone else ruin your day either. You alone have the power to make it a good day or bad day.

Remember that song "Bad Day" a few years ago from Daniel Powter?

I love some of the lyrics to that song! Like the title of my blog today,  "Bad Day" by Daniel Powter sounds negative, but really it's not. It's all about turning things around. Yes, we all have days we'd rather forget. But there is nothing going to be gained by having a pity party. In those tough times you need to find a reason to buck up, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, or however you want to say it.

Some times those so-called bad days will be days you can laugh about later. Case in point, my initial meeting with my manager Mr. Bricks. We met at Felidia Ristorante on East 58th Street in the city. It's a nice italian place with great food. (of course, because they have a woman head chef - just sayin') Anyways, I'm not going to lie, I was a little nervous meeting Mr. Bricks, because we had spoken on the phone a few times before and I could tell we would work well together. I wanted the meeting to go well.

When Mr. Bricks showed up the first thing I noticed was he had forgotten to mention on the phone that he had one lazy eye. - Ok, I am not a judgmental person - I can deal with a manager with a bum eye.  I also remembered he was wearing black jeans and the whitest shirt I had ever seen.

Well, as you can imagine I had to sit on my hands and just try to not talk, talk talk and dominate the conversation. I'm very good at doing that! I also didn't want something silly coming out of my noggin. Silence was going to be my approach.

Mr. Bricks was talking and eating and somewhere along the line a glob of marinara sauce, about the size of a 50-cent piece landed on his shirt - and he did not notice.

Now in a split second decision I had to decide do I tell him and risk embarrassing him? Or do I just shut my pie hole and pretend I don't see it? I know, I know I do normally pride myself on always trying to do the right thing, which would have been to tell him so he could have possible treated the stain immediately. But that time I chose to keep my yapper shut. I didn't tell him. Truth be told, I think even Stevie Wonder could have even seen it! It was a giant red glob of marinara on a crisp white starched shirt - I was dying inside. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry, I chose neither.

After lunch was over we talked for a little bit longer. My eyes were torn. I did not know what to look at. I did not feel comfortable staring at his lazy eye. I did not want to look at the marinara experiment now growing on his shirt -- so I concentrated my gaze just above his right shoulder. It gives the illusion I was looking at him, but I wasn't really for the two reasons I just stated... it's a trick I learned in acting class!!

Later that night Mr. Bricks called me. He said, "Well I have bad news Ava. It's not a good day for me." I thought for sure he was going to then say, after thinking it over I decided not to represent you. But instead he said, "It's not a good day because I just ruined my favorite white Claiborne shirt - but good day for you, I would love to represent you!" Woot Woot score one for the Greek Blonde Girl!!

I truly believe other managers would have handled it differently. I think they might have been embarrassed when they finally realized they just sat through an entire meeting with a new client with a side of spaghetti clinging to their shirt. Then they would have just passed along their bad day on me by saying they did not want to represent me - even though it had nothing to do with me - but was all about their bruised ego, sloppy eating habits and ruined shirt.

Having a bad day is all about how you handle it. How would have you handled it if you were in my sneakers at that first meeting with Mr. Bricks and the now infamous marinara sauce incident had happened?

I like the way Mr. Bricks handled it. Oh and now I  just make sure I ask for a bib for him whenever we eat at Italian restaurants.

Blessings,

Ava

xox

Linko! LXIX

Ladies and dudes,

We're back to Linko! It's been a while since I had time to do a lot of these because I was dealing with the back-to-back traumas of the holidays and my first residency at school (more on that later!), and my browser kept crashing and losing all the links I'd been saving (I know, I know). Still, before we get into some recent internet goodness, there's two things I can't possibly let slip by even though they are weeks out of date.

* Man, it's a real bummer that Dirk Deppey is no longer blogging for The Comics Journal or anywhere for that matter. My general view is that I want to see more smart and discriminating minds engage the comics industry online rather than less – even when the more in question enjoy taking the time to call me stupid and shitty. Dirk's Journalista blog seems completely down on TCJ.com right now. That can't remain that way forever, can it? Ugh. In any event, best of luck to him, and I hope the TCJ folks have a pretty radical move on tap for the future of that site. Sean has more thoughts on all this.

* Right before New Years, the ComicsAlliance kids did a great job covering the breadth of the digital comics landscape right now, particularly David Brothers. Take some time to read their essays on censorship/price and reader desires as well as interviews with BOOM!'s Chip Mosher, IDW's Jeff Webber, writer Mark Waid, DC's Hank Kanalz and Fantagraphics Eric Reynolds. I think there's a few more interviews they did I'm missing here. Go to the site and search for "Digital December."


* As I was still trying to dig my way out of school-created e-mail hole, my peers were really killing it covering the official demise of the Comics Code Authority. I'm kinda of two minds on this whole thing. I agree and understand that the end of the Code is a noteworthy historical event, but I'm nowhere near the level of jump up and down happiness that some folks seem to have hit (not just that link...I've seen a lot of cheering). I personally think that comics as a whole shook off the whole "Wertham" influence in the past decade and maybe even sooner. It just keeps getting brought up because comic folks as a whole carry their beef around in mylar bags so they can bitch from a position of absolute certainty.

Anyway, there's been some interesting historical digging going on in the wake of all this and even some legitimate news in terms of the state of the organization's archival material. For one, MEGA props to Vaneta Rogers and Newsarama who not only broke Archie's half of the Code dissolution story but also did the lion's share of work in regards to the actual state of the organization and its members. Mark Seifert also did a nice job at Bleeding Cool of tracking down some of the tax records of the Code, Werthaming aside. Finally, Heidi seems on top of the quest for the Code's actual physical records. You'd think if DC was de facto in charge, they'd just issue one release and put all this shit to bed, right?

* And hey...Wizard was cancelled. I'm having a much harder time getting worked up over this than some of my bros, but then again, I expected the magazine to get killed about a year and a half ago. I think I may post a little something on that later this week, but for now you should check out Sean's roundup of responses and his brief follow-up. Also: I thought this remembrance by "before my time" Wizard staffer Doug Goldstein was a good indicator of how one group of editorial employees viewed the company just as my former co-worker and current Dark Horse staffer Jim Gibbon's piece on the Wiz was indicative of how a lot of us felt.


* In other "worthwhile comics reporting" news: Zack Smith's web comic series at Newsarama has been fun. Read his latest with Lucy Knisley here. Shaun Manning did a fine job rounding up the news on Shannon Eric Denton's latest Actionopolis kids initiative. Alex Dueben similarly rocked it in this Jeffrey Brown Change-Bots interview. And hey, if I can talk my own shit up for a moment (it is MY blog), I thought this chat with Alex Ross and Kurt Busiek turned out well (it's about Jack Kirby!), as did this roundup of retailer reactions to the death in this week's Fantastic Four. So there.

* And hey, I don't want to make it seem like I didn't dig on this Graphic Policy interview with David Hine about the response to his French Muslim Batman character, because I did. But the real reason to check it out is to see Hine's official headshot. BAD ASS.

* And hey, I was happy to see Heidi MacDonald (or ANYONE really) taking some time to talk to Ed Catto and then to Steve Rotterdam about their new Bonfire Agency venture. I'm still not quite sure that anyone in the comics reading population gets or cares about this kind of thing, and I'm not 100% that Bonfire looks to be an organization that works much outside the hobby shop establishment of production and promotion...still, good on them for trying something new.

* Dustin Harbin doing interviews? Rad. Dustin Harbin interviewing David King. Yes pleas. (Via Tom!)


* Is it just me, or is it a little crazy that the above is a page from an upcoming Marvel comic book? It's just me? Okay then.

* Love that someone is doing this that's not me: a super in-depth analysis of the history of Tim "Robin" Drake. Part 1. Part 2. Part 3. Future installments will update at this tag.

* Catch up on the new Tezuka manga coming to the U.S. thanks to Katherine Dacey at Manga Critic.

* EVERY FUCKING YEAR I am reminded that my alma mater of Michigan State University hosts an annual Comics Forum by a random link about a week after it happened. It doesn't help that this year's installment was in January while last year's was in March. Here's the link to the website anyway.

* At least I've still got time to see the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art's comics exhibition tomorrow.

* My buddy Brian Warmoth and his ladyfriend Julia have a new phone app/social initiative in Chicago called Wish State. Looks pretty boss.

* Joseph Gordon Levitt seems like a pretty bright dude. Coulda guessed it, huh?

* William Gibson on modern computer hacking. Autoreblog.

* Carlton Cuse on life after "Lost." Ditto.


* Let's wrap this week with four really interesting (at least to me) info graphics that got forwarded my way this week:

Every actor connection in every Coen Brothers movie.

Every Generation 1 Transformer Autobot.

The 3,400% growth of Foursquare users last year.

Should I work for free?

Green Grass

Is the grass really greener on the other side?...Or do we just want what we can't have?

....School...
Occasionally I catch myself wishing I was working. I romanticize the 9-5 schedule that would allow me to leave work at work and come home to a personal life that is completely separate and so much simpler.

...What about my friends that work?...
They constantly tell me how they envy my freedom. Sure I have scheduled classes and I have to study, but at least I get to choose when to study vs them who have to deal with scheduled appointments and shifts.

...And what about boys?...
The surest way for me to fall for a guy? Let him decide he doesn't like me and suddenly the boy that didn't originally merit much thought becomes the funny, smart, and fun guy that I've been looking for. The fact that I don't have him makes me want him. I'll forget that I like being single and think of how much better life would be if I were in a relationship. I'll work to get them to notice me again, but once his affections return... so does my disinterest.

.The point.
The grass is always greener and you always want what you don't have.

Though not to be admired, I don't think this is a mentality specific to my own state of affairs. Is it simply human nature to be chronically dissatisfied or is it just a flaw in mainstream thought that leads us to think that everyone else's lot is better than our own?

To be honest, I'm not sure.
But either way, this school of thought is not one that I'd like subscribe to. Self-improvement and personal advancement should be striven for for their own merit and not as an attempt to reach that next 'greener pasture.' You should be happy with what you have, not chasing what you don't for the sheer utility of attaining it. Dissatisfaction breeds discontentment and discontent is not something that you or I should want to be.

So, the next time you start thinking how great life would be if this or that were different, why don't you try remembering how much you love school, your job, or having dates with 3 different guys in the last 2 weeks (true story).

...Just something to think about...

**And now, just because we can... Let's close things up with a modern example of 'The Grass is Greener Phenomenon.'**
Are your Facebook friends really having more fun than you?
An article featured on TheWeek.com detailing the tendency for people to think another's life is more fun or exciting than their own based on a false impression of their happiness via status updates and fun photos.
Oh Fb, the ways you permeate modern culture never ceases to amaze.

Tough Questions

Happy snowy Saturday from me to you!!   I hope you enjoy a little fun as I ask my manager Mr. Bricks some very tough questions in today's cartoon. Enjoy.

Blessings,

Ava

xox

Pernicious

Have you ever heard a word somewhere and you we're too clueless and/or embarrassed to say that you don't know what it means? But when you heard the word for the first time it had a magical effect on your coconut! It's like that time in 3rd grade when your eyes lock in on that special person that makes you totally forget about everything else. Just seeing this special person makes you want to give up your graham crackers and milk. It's a weird warm feeling like when you were little and peed your pants and you didn't know why your insides felt like cold spaghetti, but they did. That's exactly what hearing a new cool word does to me, minus the peeing the pants part.

Your new BWF (best word forever) is so cool sounding that you just want to run home and fill your noggin with everything about it so you can start using your new BWF to seem semi-intelligent in your next conversation.  Hey fake it until you make it. That's how I roll - just sayin'. I shouldn't be letting you in on all of my Greek Blonde secrets.

Here is my newest BWF that I recently heard at a dinner party.

per·ni·cious

–adjective

1. causing insidious harm or ruin; ruinous; injurious; hurtful:pernicious teachings; a pernicious lie.

2. deadly; fatal: a pernicious disease.

3. Obsolete . evil; wicked.

I love this new word. Seriously. Not as much as I love coffee or sneakers, but I do have a very strong "word crush" on it.  After I looked up the word pernicious and finally had a grasp of what it meant, I was ready to unleash my newest BWF  on unsuspecting family and friends. Shortly there after I received a phone call from my manager Mr. Bricks. He was too easy.

Me: So Mr. Bricks, are you going to have one of those Pernicious McRib's for lunch?

Mr. Bricks: Whatchyoutakingaboutwillis?

Me: You know Mr. Bricks with all of that fake processed pork in the McRib you are liable to contract some sort of pernicious disease.

Mr. Bricks: Pern-i - what?  Hey Ava are you talking Greek again?

Me: Are you kidding me? You mean you don't know what the word pernicious means?  You need to expand your vocabulary Mr. Bricks.

And then Mr. Bricks' lazy eye started wandering again.

Blessings,

Ava

xox