Rants & Raves

THE BORN LOSER AT 45

The Born Loser celebrated its 45^th year on May 15 even though it was May 10 that the strip debuted in 1965. Art Sansom, the originator of the feature, had been producing artwork and sometimes realistically rendered comic strips for NEA since joining the syndicate staff as an illustrator in 1945. Among the early strips he collaborated on were Peggy, Chris Welkin - Planeteer, and Vic Flint - Private Investigator. After twenty years drawing others’ creations, he concocted his own strip about hapless Brutus Thornapple, the loser who was apparently born to arrive missing whenever the train left the station. Art died July 4, 1991, and the strip has been continued since then by his son, Chip, who was merely 14 when his father invented Brutus and his wife Gladys, his Scrooge-like boss Rancid Veeblefester, the wonderfully named panhandler Wastrel P. Gravesite, and numerous others, all of whom fare better than Brutus on a day-to-day basis.

Chip had been helping his father for years. He first tried the business world after graduating from Case Western Reserve University with an applicable degree in about 1973, but after four or five years, he said, “I discovered I couldn’t stand it. At the time, my father was looking for an assistant.”

Father and son shared drawing and gag-writing chores. They started each week with a Monday morning gag-writing session. As Art remembered it for an article about the strip’s 25^th anniversary: “We’ll sit down and toss around the best 15-20 gags we can come up with, back and forth, then narrow that down to the best seven.”

But gag-writing goes on all the time, day after day, no matter where the cartoonists might be. Said Art: “Inspiration can strike at the most inopportune times. I’ve discovered that a good way to clear out an elevator is to start chuckling to yourself.”

In 1981, Art and Chip teamed up on a humorous strip about life on a Texas dude ranch with the title character, Dusty Chaps, a country western singer patterned somewhat after the Urban Cowboy fad. But this effort, more realistically (albeit still simply) drawn than the Loser, didn’t last long. These days, Brutus and his ensemble cast circulate to more than 1,300 newspapers in 35 countries, and Chip signs the strip with both his name and his father’s.

“I am very happy that The Born Loser is still as appealing to readers, new and old, as it was when it first appeared 45 years ago,” Chip said in the syndicate press release. “It is a tribute to the great characters my dad created and his universal and timeless premise that Brutus Thornapple is an everyman, taking the fall for the rest of us in the trials and tribulations we face everyday.”

The strip continues to be a family affair with Chip’s wife, Brooke, assisting him in much the same way as when he started working for his father. Daughters Jacqueline and Isabel are a constant source of material for the strip. Appropriately, Chip now works in his father’s old studio in the Sansom family home in Lakewood, Ohio.

Here’s the anniversary strip (in color) with samples of the strip for 1969, when Art Sansom was still doing it solo, the drawings rendered in a rather more languid manner than later on. 
 

PENNY ARCADE

Back in May, Time published its annual “100" issue, dated May 10, alleging that the 100 persons listed are “the most influential people in the world.” The usual suspects line up on the cover — Bill Clinton, Steve Jobs, Sarathan Livingston Palin — and, inside, such undeniably August personages as Glenn Beck, Lady Gaga, and Conan O’Brien as well as numerous people from all around the globe whom I’d never heard of (but no one, I ween, the equal of Glenn Beck or Lady Gaga: apparently only in this country are such people influential). I was mildly surprised to find Scott Brown listed — how much influence can a freshman senator have? — but I was glad to see cartooning represented.  The representatives are Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik, the creators and proprietors of the online comic, Penny Arcade. The accolade seems perhaps a little grandiose until we read editor Richard Stengel’s explanation for “Time 100": this issue of the magazine, he said, is “not about the influence of power but the power of influence. ... We sought out people those ideas and actions are revolutionizing their fields and transforming lives.” Penny Arcade, I assume, reflects the fate of comics, hence Holkins’ and Krahulik’s place on the listing: they’ve been plugging away at digital cartooning more successfully and longer than most of their online cohorts, implying by their tenure and achievement the future of the medium. The drawing skill manifest at Penny Arcade is also much better these days than it was at the beginning, the result, Krahulik tells us in The Splendid Magic of Penny Arcade: An Eleven-and-a-Half Year Anniversary Book, of his persistent self-tutorial.

CAPTAIN AMERICA: HEADED TO THE BIG SCREEN

Captain America, the most iconic of the Marvel Universe’s superheroes, has yet to make it to the big screen, but plans are afoot to get him up there for a summer 2011 release, reported Nicole Sperling in Entertainment Weekly (March 26). In the planned adventure, Cap will be in World War II London battling his arch nemesis of that period, the Red Skull. The search for the right actor to play the part was complicated by part two of the plan — an all-star Avengers movie for the next summer, 2012, in which the same actor will impersonate Captain America while Robert Downey Jr. does Iron Man, Samuel L. Jackson does Nick Fury, and Chris Hemsworth does Thor. Chris Evans finally won the part, but he’s not likely to make Alex Ross happy. Ross, who painted Captain America in the upscale funnybook version, said: “We’ve been saying for years, if you don’t sign Jon Hamm to play this part, you’re crazy. Captain America is supposed to be patriarch of the Marvel Universe. To get a guy in his early to mid-20s [like Evans] is only thinking about where the character began, not what he ultimately needs to become.” A young Apollo like Evans might be fine for WWII-era antics, but as the leader of the Avengers, Cap needs gravitas — and a few more years.

A WEB OF DISPUTATION AND ANGUISH

Neither Tobey Maguire nor director Sam Raimi will be involved in “Spider-Man 4,” which, saith the Associated Press, will focus on Peter Parker in high school. The change in personnel is occasioned, some said, by “creative differences” about the future of the franchise. Jerome Maida at the Philadelphia News recorded some reactions: "I actually think it's a good idea," said local writer/artist J.S. Earls (Pistolfist). "It's all about communication and if you keep telling stories with the same actors and directors, it's more difficult to communicate with your audience effectively."

 Said writer Brandon Jerwa ("Battlestar Galactica"): "Personally, I wish Sony would go with the more mature Peter Parker, employed as a teacher and juggling a couple of girlfriends, Mary Jane and the Black Cat, maybe? They'll never go that route, but Neil Patrick Harris would be my pick if they did. I don't necessarily think anyone should freak out over the reboot, but I'm definitely a little nervous about how this will play out. Ultimately, I blame Jay Leno."

Said IDW Publisher Chris Ryall: "I think a near-decade is a long time for comic-book movies where the characters aren't supposed to have aged much at all. So rebooting the franchise and getting Peter Parker back in high school for the next movie sounds right to me, especially if Brian Bendis' masterful 'Ultimate Spider-Man' comic is used as the template."

Writer Jimmy Palmiotti (Jonah Hex, Power Girl) was fatalistic: "They will forever re-boot properties," he said, “—look at Bond. Look at Sherlock Holmes. Look at Hulk, Superman. It's the nature of the business."

Some fans, however, were somewhat cynical (and maybe correct). "This is absolute classic spin," said Dave Blanchard. "They must teach this in PR 101 classes now -- spend the maximum number of words saying absolutely nothing. That line about going back to Peter's roots [as a high school student, which would permit a new, younger actor to take the Maguire role] cracks me up. How many years did Parker actually age throughout the three movies -- two? three? Why don't they just come right out and say, 'We couldn't afford Raimi and Maguire any more, so we're going to try to make this movie on the cheap.'"

To which Brent Frankenhoff at the Comics Buyer’s Guide responded: “While costs may be a factor, Dave, I think it's more a matter of Raimi's vision clashing with that of the producers, and the two groups choosing to part ways rather than continue down that path.”

And Dave reposited: “I think the producers' vision was: ‘We want to do this movie on the cheap.’ Hence, the ‘creative differences’ spin.” 

MY LIFE WITH CHARLIE BROWN

The latest addition to the ever-growing comics criticism library at the University Press of Mississippi (one of my publishers) is My Life with Charlie Brown (216 6x9-inch pages, b/w; hardcover, $25), a collection of the major prose writings of Peanuts’ creator Charles M. Schulz, edited and with an introduction by M. Thomas Inge, a popular culture scholar (and a friend of mine) and author or editor of more than sixty tomes on such esoteric subjects as author William Faulkner and African-American cartoonist Oliver Harrington as well as comics generally. Inge, who is the general editor of two UPM series, Great Comics Artists and Conversations with Comics Artists, edited the first volume in the latter series, Charles Schulz Conversations. (At Inge’s invitation, I did the second, Milton Caniff Conversations—just so you are perfectly cognizant of the incestuousness of all this. And, to commit in shallow grasping merchantilism, we sell copies hereabouts.)

 

The collection at hand includes some pieces never before published — for example, the essay he wrote when taking a course in novel writing at the Santa Rosa Junior College in 1965, about which, Schulz wrote: “I took a college course in the novel a few years ago, and oddly enough I got an A in it. When I was a kid, I was a lousy student, the way Peppermint Patty is. I never knew what was going on, never did my homework, never did the reading assignments. This time, I did all the reading and wrote a paper on Katherine Anne Porter’s book, Pale Horse, Pale Rider. As I wrote it, I pretended I was writing for The New Yorker. Afterwards, the professor said to me, ‘I just want you to know that this is a perfect example of what a paper should be.’” This essay alone — entitled “Don’t Give Up” — is worth the price of the book for the paragraph I just quoted: it is one of the few times Schulz admitted to having unabashed talent. But there are other such occasions, and many of them are in the prose of this book. (His Porter essay, by the way, reads much like a typical New Yorker piece: it begins with what appears to be an irrelevancy, which Schulz then makes relevant.

 

Most of these essays are culled from the introductions to various Peanuts reprint volumes; the value of this compilation is that it brings all such endeavors together in one place. I was happy to find herein my favorite fragment in Schulz’s speech to the National Cartoonists Society in May 1994: “I’m still searching for that wonderful pen line that comes down — when you are drawing Linus standing there, and you start with the pen up near the back of his neck and you bring it down and bring it out, and the pen point fans out a little bit, and you come down here and draw the lines this way for the marks on his sweater and all of that. This is what it’s all about — to get feelings of depth and roundness, and the pen line is the best pen line you can make. That’s what it’s all about. If there’s somebody who is trying to be a cartoonist or thinks he is a cartoonist, and has not discovered the joy of making those perfect pen lines, I think he is robbing himself — or herself — of what it is all about. Because this is what it is! The time you make these wonderful pen lines and make them come alive."

 

It is perhaps the perfect short explanation of why cartoonists — and, indeed, all other graphic artists — spend their lives drawing.

 

The essays, 25 in all, are arrayed under three headings: My Life, My Profession, and My Art. There are some illustrations, about a dozen Peanuts strips (a few of which are stupidly spread across two facing pages, straddling the gutter, making the pictures — and speech balloons — in the middle panel wholly undecipherable), but Schulz’s graceful prose is the reason for this book. With this volume and the other Inge-edited book of Schulz conversations, we meet the authentic Schulz, I think — a creative individual a good deal more in touch with the sources of his creativity than you might imagine if you read only David Michaelis’ biography of the cartoonist. You can find both UPM books — and others in its comics library — at its website.

NINA PALEY: SITA SINGS THE BLUES

From Jeffrey Long at the Telegram & Gazette Reviewer (quoted in italics): Innovative movie animation can catapult into fantasy ("Avatar"), sting with social criticism ("Waltz with Bashir"), or, as with "Sita Sings the Blues," delightfully enliven an ancient folktale from halfway around the world. This quirky, vibrant film has won awards at more than two dozen film festivals and has spawned a mushrooming cult following, both online and at cinemas. Nina Paley, whose creative talents outnumber Vishnu's arms, drew, wrote, and produced nearly every aspect of this feature-length cartoon, which is an imaginative retelling of the epic Hindu love story known as the Ramayana. With its tagline "The Greatest Break-Up Story Ever Told," this free-wheeling adaptation focuses upon the fortunes and misfortunes of the goddess Sita, whose patience and virtue face severe tests in the face of the wrongful treatment accorded her by her husband, Lord Rama. Paley tweaks the traditional structure of the "Ramayana" narrative with entertaining cross-cultural devices. She has morphed the story into a bluesy musical that incorporates several soulful jazz tunes sung by the noted 1920s performer Annette Hanshaw. Poignant and lilting jazz strains thus punctuate the story.

 

Paley has been a fixture in the alternative press for years and tried, earlier in this decade, to get syndicated with a comic strip about a lusting and loving young couple, The Hots, written by Stephen Hersh; but, alas, to no avail. It ran only about a year in the public prints although it continues to lurk in the alternative venues. So it’s a delight to see her achieve a measure of success and acclaim with “Sita Sings the Blues.” You can watch the film at sitasingstheblues.com — for free; although a donation would be nice.

THE iPAD AND THE COMICS (Part Two)

Another enterprising observer of the passing digitalis, Chicago Sun-Times columnist Andy Ihnatko, anticipating, perhaps, the advent of iPad, interviewed honchos at both Marvel and DC Comics to see if the Big Two were poised to plunge into the electronic surf. DC Comics, he reported on March 29, currently has no digital publishing initiative to speak of. Marvel, on the other hand, launched its Marvel Digital Comics Unlimited subscription service two years ago. “It offers all-you-can-eat access to an ever-expanding library of comics (7,500, as of this week) for little as five bucks a month” ... but “it's more geared towards deep back issues rather than new releases, and you can only access these comics through the service's Flash-based website. You can't download them onto a mobile device for Internet-free reading.”

 

Despite these differences, neither publisher is ready to jump into digital publishing just yet. Both are waiting until “the ground firms up a lot more.” Said  John Rood, DC’s executive vice-president of sales, marketing, and business development: “I would say that we haven't seen an opportunity as being missed yet. We're not going to rush into any new platform or new partnership, especially if it's going to result in a sub-optimal product or a sub-optimal enjoyment, or a sub-optimal business plan."

 

Tom Brevoort, Marvel's VP and executive editor, described digital comics as "a new thing that's sort of off in the distance. I don't think it's entirely crystalized exactly what they're going to be, how the delivery system is going to work, how we're going to adapt the style of storytelling and the kind of things that we do to this new medium."

 

Neither company contemplates the disappearance of the printed comic book. Jim Lee, co-publisher at DC, has done his own informal market research, and while he encountered many who are Torrenting comics, when he asked them how they would prefer to read their comics, “they always prefer to read it on paper. People do put a premium on actually holding a comic book.”

 

Writes Ihnatko: “Both companies expressed a commitment to print publishing and described digital distribution as just another way of getting their stories and characters in front of an audience.”

 

Both companies, Ihnatko added, “stressed the importance of building a digital model that would ultimately bring more customers in to comic book shops.” Comic book shops are like mini-comicons, said Marvel's Ira Rubenstein, executive vice president of global digital media. "Going to the shop on Wednesday [when new comics arrive every week] is where they gather with the other fans and it's a real experience. I don't think you can replace that experience virtually."

 

Their goal, Ihnatko said, is to use digital to expand the market for printed comics, and not simply replace it.

THE iPAD AND THE COMICS (Part One)

The CAPS (Comic Art Professional Society) Newsletter discussed comic books and the iPad in its March issue, to which Jeff Zugale (“an admitted Apple fanboy”) contributed an article assessing the impact of the new device. Here are snippets from the piece, direct poaching is in italics.

 

The main difference from the iPhone/iPod touch, of course, is that iPad’s size is about 8x10 inches — exactly the size of a modern printed comic book page. But physical compatibility is but a tiny aspect of funnybook future in iPad. Most of the future lies in the marketplace. Zugale turns to the Direct Market, the most viable of outlets for comic books, and finds it seriously wanting. Looking at the Top 300 titles on a monthly basis, he finds that while the No. 1 comic book sells about 100,000 copies, sales drop off pretty drastically, slipping to below 10,000 a little over halfway down the ranking.

 

If a publisher expects make a functional businesslike profit, he must be in the top 150 on the top 300 list. How many books that aren’t Marvel or DC are in the top 150? For December 2009, it was 15 — 10% of the total. And the comic book at last place “averages about 3,500 copies sold.” Calculating from the cover price $2.99-3.99, Zugale says the comic book at 300^th place returns a gross $4,185-5,586 to the publisher. Print/ship costs for that short a run on a color comic often exceed $1 per copy, leaving you with a paltry few hundred dollars per book (I figure around $1,200 on the average) to pay for everything else — all direct business overhead, marketing (including a Diamond Previews ad, which ain’t cheap) and paying your creators. In short, the Direct Market is not much of a market for comic book publishers.

 

Into that abyss, however, comes iPad. iPad will bring to market a lightweight (1.5 lbs.), portable e-reader capable of displaying comic book pages at an appropriate size and in full color. ... iPad is the right size and shape for comics. Full -color comics are likely to look pretty nice on this thing. ... While I’m told line art comics look excellent on them, the Kindle, Reader and nook cannot match this because they do not feature color.

 

Zugale then turns to the Big Question about the digital empire: how does one make money? The Internet has failed in this respect, but Zugale thinks iPad will offer a solution because Apple plans to offer books through a new iBookstore and will probably charge just as it does for an App from the App Store, an already-proven way to market digital content and feel assured you’ll get paid for it. ... If you can get people to download your comics at $2.99 each, you’d make $2,093 per 1000 units downloaded instead of just $1,196, the present rate of return via Diamond. On the downside, working through Apple’s stores has not always been smooth for small companies ... and, recently, in a controversial unilateral move, Apple has deleted all Apps containing “adult” material. ... There’s reason to be concerned about that aspect of their total control of the conduit.

 

But advantages may overpower disadvantages. There are only about 2,000 or fewer comic book shops in the U.S. and Canada, a tiny market. iPad is bigger. Even if the iPad is not as successful as Apple’s other devices, it will still stimulate competition and imitation. Then Zugale predicts: How about — by 2012 there will be 20 million e-readers capable of nicely displaying color comics pages out there. If you can somehow find and sell to even a tenth of a percent of that market — just 20,000 people — you’ve got a real chance to sell your comics as a functional, profitable business. If you are currently a print publisher, you cannot afford to ignore this kind of market potential.

THE MANGA MARKET

According to the Research Institute for Publications, Japan’s manga market has experienced a 6.6% drop over the last year, the largest decline in history, reports W. David Marx, Tokyo editor of cnngo.com. Analysts blame the lack of hit titles, general anemic consumption stemming from the recession, and the proliferation of manga fans reading titles at manga cafes rather than purchasing magazines and books at stores. The decline of the manga market may well affect other niches of the entertainment industry: anime, live-action tv, and feature films get creative inspiration from manga. “With fans' sales as the only way to measure popularity,” said Marx, “producers may not know which new comic series to adapt to another medium. Hence, we can expect lots and lots of remakes of old manga in coming years.”  

INDIE COMIC SHOPS

James VanOsdol at Chicago Weekly’s Journal of Vitriolic Observer blog (JVO) dropped by the Challengers Comics Store in early March and asked store owner Patrick Brower “a few questions about the health of indie comic shops, circa 2010.” Asked about the impact of the economic down-turn in his shop, Brower said:

 

Comic books are the ‘comfort food’ of the entertainment industry: even while everything else is tanking, comics still seem to do okay. They're cheap, disposable and can make you feel good about life and yourself pretty quickly. And once you buy one, you own it. It’s not an experience: it's a product you can use over and over. You can read it again and again. And aren't you worth $3, even on the shittiest of days? Sure you are. Just skip one lousy cup of coffee, and you can have a comic book forever. Now that people are starting to have some money again, they most want to treat themselves to the things they've denied themselves for so long, whatever they may be. What they're not, is comics. People have called comics ‘recession-proof,’ but when the recession is over that's when the comics industry really starts to feel it.”

 

Brower doesn’t think iPad will have much of an impact. “Rich Johnston (BleedingCool.com) as already proclaimed it the first nail in the comic book coffin, but I disagree. First and foremost, all of my tech friends who were anxiously awaiting the announcement were left underwhelmed by the iPad, be it design or lack of function. Call me old-fashioned, or blame it on me being a paper retailer, but I just don't see printed comics going away. I see the digital versions only supplementing the actual, tactile comics. I'm only going with my personal opinion here, but the majority of comic fans read comics because they want to own comics. You don't own a digital copy. You can't put a digital copy on your bookshelf. You're not going to have the same memories of your "first digital comic," as you do with real comics. I applaud the decision of companies such as Marvel releasing their back catalog in digital format, I just don't see iPad comics replacing actual comics.”

 

What about the impact on comic book sales of such movies as “Iron Man”? Brower snorted: “Did you see ‘Iron Man’? Pretty sweet, right? Do you want to see ‘Iron Man 2'? Sure you do. Do you want to read an Iron Man comic book? Well don't feel too bad about saying ‘no’ because you are not alone. ‘Batman’ and ‘Batman Returns’ brought a tremendous amount of new readers into comic book stores. Thousands and thousands. Pretty great, right? Well that was almost the only time the comics market saw that kind of an influx. I could list for you a dozen movies you saw that were originally comic books and while you'd say, ‘I didn't know that was comic book!’ you still wouldn't want to read it. That's just the way it works. Here are a few: A History of Violence, Surrogates, Road to Perdition, Men in Black, Art School Confidential, 300, Persepolis, From Hell, Constantine, Whiteout. And there are many, many more. More every day. But a hot comic book property does not translate into comic book sales for the same character. Iron Man (comic book) sales did not go up when ‘Iron Man’ (the movie) came out. Toy sales did, sure — I even bought some Iron Man action figures for myself — but the comics did not. Part of the reason may be that there was no comic out that looked or read like the movie, but a bigger part of that is that people just don't care. Which is too bad, because the current storyline for Invincible Iron Man is amazing.”

NEW RECORD

When Detective Comics No. 27 (Batman’s first appearance) sold for $1,075,500 at Heritage Auction Galleries in February, it trumped Metropolis Collectibles’ sale of Action Comics No. 1 (Superman’s first appearance), which had become the first comic to sell for $1 million just a few days earlier. And then ComicConnect broke the record again in late March by selling another copy of Action Comics No. 1 for $1.5 million. Both of the previous record-breakers were CGC-certified 8.0 on the 10.0 Overstreet grading scale. ComicConnect’s copy was a CGC-certified 8.5 copy. According to Jake Coyle at Associated Press, only about 100 copies of Action Comics No. 1 are believed to exist, and only a handful in good condition. The issue just sold had been preserved through happy oversight: it had been tucked inside an old movie magazine for years before being discovered.

iPAD

In a press release, IDW Publishing announced that the Apple iPad featured four IDW comics applications at its launch. “Taking full advantage of the iPad's full-screen, full-color capabilities, each IDW store front will offer the next level of reading experience to fans. The free IDW iPad comic shop apps each include a selection of comics with the initial download, and offer more comics as in-app purchases. Fans can choose apps for their favorite brands, like Star Trek, G.I. Joe and Transformers, or download the IDW Comics And app for access to all the company's iPad releases.”

And ICv2 reports that Marvel is making Mark Millar and John Romita Jr.’s Kick-Ass comic book series available in a single issue format across a variety of digital platforms including the iPad, iPhone, and iPadTouch via Comixology, Iverse, and Panefly applications, while owners of Sony PSP players can down load issues directly to their device.

And in all the four-color excitement about iPad, where are the newspaper funnies? Rob Tornoe, editoonist at Politicker.com, has scored a gig in print at the monthly Editor & Publisher, and here's his second piercing comment on the state of journalism and the digital future.

ARCHIE: THE BEST OF DAN DeCARLO

From Scoop: “Since last year’s announcement that Archie would team up with IDW Publishing for a series of retrospective hardcovers and trade paperbacks, fans have eagerly eyed the schedule for the name Dan DeCarlo.” The wait is almost over: in May, the late artist’s work gets is own showcase in Archie: The Best of Dan DeCarlo — Volume One, full-color, 156-page hardcover ($24.99), which will collect strips from the mid-1950s through the early 1970s. And what does the legendary late DeCarlo get out of the deal after nearly 50 years limning the Riverdale High gang? The Archie company effectively disowned him a few years before he died, denying, at the same time, the cartoonist any rights to characters he’d invented—Josie and the Pussycats, for instance, whose lead singer bears DeCarlo’s wife’s name.

GOING MOBILE

Because the daily newspaper hosts comic strips, we keep an avid eye on the comings and goings of the newsprint medium. The next big thing in content distribution is mobile, according to Steve Buttry, director of community engagement for the Washington metro-area digital-only news project backed by Allbritton Communications. Faced with this dawning new age, newspapers that are chasing after the Web are “fighting the last war,” he says, quoted in Editor & Publisher (March 2010). “A news organization that wants to be successful in the future is going to be focusing hard in the coming years in thinking mobile first.”

Gartner Research predicts that mobile phones will overtake computers as the most common Web access device worldwide by 2013. Clyde Bentley, a professor in the Missouri School of Journalism, says: “If Gartner’s prediction is accurate, newspapers really have just 18 to 24 months to position themselves as the leading news content provider for mobile platforms. This is a killer deadline: within 35 months, the whole newspaper industry needs to move its emphasis from the static Web to the mobile Web.”

On the cusp of a new paradigm, newspapers have a chance to do something to take charge of it instead of being victimized by it. They must not make the mistake of giving away content again. The New York Times and Associated Press already have applications that have been downloaded by millions: the adoption of the iPhone app for the Times virtually doubles the paper’s Sunday circulation. The Times plans early this year to roll out a metered pay model, and “once the online pay strategy is in place, the company will charge for its mobile site and applications.” CNN is already charging for its app. The Wall Street Journal introduced its app for free in September 2008 then slapped a price on it a year later. And advertisers appear willing to go along: WSJ has doubled its ad revenue from mobile since last year. And AP reports “the sheer number of advertising insertions orders has ballooned since November and every week since.”

All of which is vastly encouraging as well as intimidating: move now or get left behind. My bet, and that of others quoted in the E&P article, is that newspapers have learned their lesson and won’t let history repeat itself. Now — where are comics in this new mix?

SOUTH PARK SCANDALS

Denver is a hotbed of medical marijuana machinations. The state legislature is struggling to find a way to regulate an industry that it set loose in earlier spasm of law-making, weed devotees are storming the state’s borders, and in Nederland, a notable hippie refuge a few miles into the mountains west of Boulder (the nation’s “happiest town”), they’re contemplating holding a maryjane festival. Meanwhile, Denverites Trey Parker and Matt Stone, creators of tv’s “South Park,” devoted the March 31^st episode of the show ("Medicinal Fried Chicken") to the issue. The show’s Facebook page tells us that “Randy is first in line to get his medical marijuana, but is turned away when a doctor finds nothing wrong with him. That begins his quest to find a medical excuse to smoke marijuana.”

Meanwhile, Parker and Stone have written a musical comedy, “The Book of Mormon,” which is slated to open on Broadway in New York next March. Songs about polygamy, no doubt, will abound. And if the lyrics express approval of multiple wives, perhaps “The Book of Mormon” will ease the plight of the partners, who lately were warned by a radical Muslim bunch that they could face “violent retribution” (saith the Associated Press) for depicting Muhammad in a bear suit during a “South Park” episode aired the week of April 12. “The posting by Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee warns Parker and Stone that they could face the same fate as Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch filmmaker who was murdered in 2004 after directing a film written by a Muslim woman who rejects the Prophet Muhammad as a guide for today’s morality.”

Islamic hooliganism is alive and well.

THE FATE OF MANGA

From Bamboo Dong at Anime News Network (ANN): Frenchy Lunning is a researcher and lecturer at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. Specializing in Japanese popular culture, she is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Mechademia, a journal that focuses on anime and manga. She is also the co-founder of Schoolgirls and Mobilesuits: Culture and Creation in Manga and Anime, an annual workshop featuring lectures from notable anime scholars and other events. Lunning was brought in as an expert in the case of Christopher Handley. Asked whether the ruling in the case will affect academic studies in manga and anime, she said: “It will affect the people — fans — who live under the same myth that Mr. Handley did: that your private mail is private. Under the law that Mr. Handley was prosecuted under — a Homeland Security act — we have lost many rights, including the right to privacy in the mail. [I’m not sure about this; I think Handley was prosecuted under another law. But Homeland Security laws have undoubtedly undermined individual privacy. — RCH] And since pornography laws state that pornography is established by "community standards" the Lolicon was judged pornographic and thus illegal under this law. One of the positions I took was that Mr. Handley's community was not the good people of Iowa, but our online fan community. Although I feel this is true, that one apparently didn't sell with the court. Scholarship in this area will continue: one of the advantages of scholarship is that it is primarily words, and the academic press is rarely under much scrutiny: we are too dull for most readers, and certainly for curious postal workers!

“Our culture bears the mark of our Puritanical ancestors,” she continued. “Our colleagues in other countries have not had that cultural upbringing and it does make a difference. ... Japanese do not hold sex to be "horrific" as we do. This is part of the entire problem. I do not know about many other countries, I know it is also easier in France, mainly because they have a stronger comic book culture there to protect and exert a stronger market demand than we do.