Friday, August 22, 2003

Vegas Tips

Anthony Curtis is the main man behind The Las Vegas Advisor, your best guide to how to spend your bucks in that city. (It's also one of the few that isn't subsidized by hotel advertising, so they actually review things.) Most of the LVA site requires a subscription but if you go to Vegas, it's probably worth it. In the meantime, you can read this article on another site. In it, Mr. Curtis describes how a couple can have a terrific three-day vacation in Vegas, complete with an awful lot of cheap alcohol, for a little under $500.

• Posted at 6:06 PM · LINK

Kirby Kwestion

Apparently, a number of comic book discussion boards are simultaneously discussing the fact that when Jack Kirby drew the Jimmy Olsen comic book in the early seventies, the company retouched his work. I am suddenly receiving a flurry of e-mails asking me to clarify what was done, who did it, etc. So I've written up a piece and posted it over in the section we call NOTES from me.

• Posted at 4:10 PM · LINK

Harvey Pekar

Just found out that Harvey Pekar, creator and subject of American Splendor, has his own weblog.

I met Harvey exactly once...in the "Professionals Hospitality Suite" at a comic book convention in Chicago. Someone introduced us, Harvey immediately complained that there were no donuts on the refreshment table, then he walked out. I never got to tell him that I liked his work and occasional TV appearances, but given his style and personality, I was somehow not disappointed by our brief encounter.

• Posted at 3:09 PM · LINK

¡Journalista!

One of the websites I check every morning is one that's offered up by The Comics Journal. It's called ¡Journalista! and it does a fine job of reporting on what's happening in the world of comic books and strips. Today's installment (here's a direct link to it) reports on a comic book company that seems to be very slow about paying its talent. I don't know a thing about this particular dispute but I think it's great that, since resolving it in private seems not to have worked, this kind of thing is getting covered.

¡Journalista! also points our way to this interview with Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and to this reproduction of a 1933 fanzine story by Siegel and Shuster. It was called "The Reign of the Super-Man." Not a bad name for a comic book character some day...

• Posted at 1:03 PM · LINK

Recommended Viewing

I don't think I've mentioned him before but I really like Mark Fiore's little animated political cartoons. Here's a link to his latest one, which is about the George W. Bush action figures. You need the Macromedia Shockwave plug-in to view such things. If you don't have it, click here to get it.

• Posted at 11:36 AM · LINK