Of course, Sequential is not at Comicon in sunny San Diego (in fact, it’s raining here in my little part of Canada), but many culture warriors from the frozen north have made the trek to the show. As well, there is still lots of comics news to be absorbed here.
Item: Contingents from the Shuster Awards, D+Q, The Beguiling, and many other artists, writers, publishers, and journos have already begun making announcements and sending back reports live from the floor of the con. Several big Canadian-created books, like the new Palookaville and Blake Bell’s Bill Everett bio, Fire & Water have made their debut.
Item: As well, one of the big stories should continue to be the various events planned around the new Scott Pilgrim book and movie. Toronto is still recovering from the launch of Scott Pilgrim Vol. 6, as reported here.
Item: So far, the best con news I’ve seen is the Helen Mirren Harvey Pekar tribute.
Item: In non-Con news, The U of Sask’s Sheaf reviews Stone by David Robertson and illustrated by Scott Henderson: “The comic flits back and forth between a modern-day hospital and a Cree community at the beginning of the 19th century.”
Item: The National Post’s Barbara Kay writes on this report from the Canadian Council on Learning about the positive effects on boys of reading comic books: “Research into the reading habits of young boys suggest that they may be less interested in reading because their literary interests—which include science fiction, fantasy, adventure stories, “how-to” manuals and comics—are under-represented in their schools and classrooms. Research also suggests that comic books serve as an effective gateway to reading prose-based works and that they contribute to the development of visual literacy (the ability to understand and respond to a visual image). As well, reading comic books can help develop many of the same literacy skills as reading prose-based books…”
(full report)