Item: Ryan North calculates the odds of Batman existing. (What are the odds that a dinosaur would do this?)
Item: Brian McLachlan pens a tutorial on 14 Classic Comic Book Cover Compositions.
Item: The only superhero comic in Canada that you can read on a regular basis is Faith Erin Hicks’ charming The Adventures of Superhero Girl, which runs as a webcomic and in print in The Coast (Halifax). I really like how the strip balances beginner superhero angst with gentle strip-style gags, and yadda-yaddas the slugfests. Nice design and storytelling. Check it out.
Item: Um, Beyoncé loves Beto?
Item: TCAF organizer and Beguiling blogger Chris Butcher lets us know how he feels about the state of so-called comics journalism.
Item: Speaking of yadda-yadda, did you know that Seinfeld guest actor and Twilight Zone alumnus Bill Erwin was also a New Yorker cartoonist?
Item: Wow. There’s a passionate market for Dave Sim Cerebus art.
Item: Caitlin Black’s porcine deities.
Item: I (very) briefly chatted with Deb Aoki while she was selling books at TCAF but I know her best from her blogging and incessant tweeting. Manga expert par excellence, she lists her picks for most anticipated manga of 2011, including her #2 pick, Shigeru Mizuki’s Onwards Towards Our Noble Deaths, due from D+Q in May.
Item: The Michael Ignatieff graphic novel?
Item: Finally, my local shop, The Dragon, has a semi-regular podcast. This Xmas Wishlist episode, featuring Amy Chop, Jenn Stewart, and Robert Haines, talks a bit about the new Bande Dessinee from Quebec they have started to stock (La Pasteque, Mecanique Generale), kids comics, Wednesday Comics, Absolute All-Star Superman, Paul Pope, Ryan Sook, Planetary (“a weirdo comic,” “odd”), Joss Whedon, Charles Burns’ X’ed Out, Clowes’ Wilson (“just a jerk”), cartooning muscles, and Jeff Lemire’s “weirdo sci-fi” Sweet Tooth and Essex County (Robert mentions that Essex County is out of print but this can’t possibly be true, can it????), The Doug Wright Awards, Noel Tuazon‘s Broadcast, Scott Chantler, etc.