TANTALIZING TIDBITS

 

            ■ James Hibberd’s “Fall TV Face-off” in October 17's Entertainment Weekly says: “Fox’s ‘Family Guy’ posted its biggest ratings in four years due to its ‘Simpsons’ crossover.”

            ■ Alerted by the latest issue of Previews, the comic book catalogue from Diamond, I know now that I can purchase a Buddy Christ plush doll. Yes, the “Spokesdiety Buddy Christ is now a super-cuddly 8-inch tall doll with finely stitched details” just awaiting your conversion — er, purchase.

            ■ Gary Groth is the 2014 Stranger Genius Award winner in Literature. The Stranger is a Seattle alternate newspaper; Groth’s Fantagraphics resides in Seattle, in what was once a two-story residence on Lake City Way NE. And I’ve written for (and been paid by) Fantagraphics for nearly 40 years. No bias here, kimo sabe.

            ■ New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast admitted to Michael Cavna at the Washinton Post’s ComicRiffs blog that it’s been “exciting” to be the first cartoonist to be a nonfiction finalist for the National Book Award.