Reading: The New Yorker
Music: Kingston Trio
TV/Movie: For Your Consideration
Link o' the Day: The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund

Could this week be moving any slower?

I shouldn't complain, as I'm slowly gaining on backed up work. Within the next couple of days I'll have two magazines put to bed, and maybe a few days before I have to worry about the next issues (on both). That's going to leave me with the Foxo Reardon book which ios coming along nicely, but man... chapter six has a _lot_ of strips that need to be tweaked. Tedious. But I'm trying to get the first draft done by Sunday night. Keeping fingers crossed.

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This week's New Yorker has a great article on a recent book that has drawn a lot of attention from comic book fans. The Ten-Cent Plague: The Great Comic-Book Scare and How It Changed America by David Hadju (pictured below, the cover looks like it was drawn by Dan Clowes (one of the betst underground comic book writers and artists around). I just checked the New Yorker site and it looks like the complete text is available for a free read, so I won't waste much space here telling you what you can read for yourself.

Suffice to say that comic books were once blamed for causing juvenile delinquency, and what makes this interesting in a modern context is when one looks at the parallels with the video game industry. Blamed for a lot of delinquency and such, video game manufacturers created a self-imposed rating system, which is good. And unlike the one self-imposed by the Comics Code Authority back in the 50s, this one doesn't mean that products are censored out of existence, but rather that fair warning regarding content is given up front, and its up to the consumer (and/or the consumer's parents) to decide if it's appropriate.



I'm going to want to read this book myself to see if the author draws the same parallel, and if there are other angles to this.

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And in keeping with the comic theme, today's link leads to The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund fighting censorship, so you don't have to. Well... they'd like some money. And they deserve it. What's nice is you can help by buying certain comics. Take a look at their website when y'all get a chance.

Who watches the watchmen?

Cheers!

--John