Good morning! I hope you’re starting your week off well. It’s been a couple of weeks since we rounded up the news, but we’re back at it! First, here’s the more recent stuff:
You may have noticed some changes around here! WWAC has some sisters now; our games coverage has split off into a separate entity by the name of Sidequest, and our TV/Film coverage is now being handled at Ms En Scene, and book coverage has moved to Bookmarked. All of these fall under our new publisher umbrella, Bleating Heart Press. As you can imagine, preparations for these have been underway sometime, but there still may be a bit of tidying up to do, so bear with us through any growing pains!
The Beat announced last week that they’ve been purchased. Reactions have been mixed; there’s something of a conflict of interest in a comics publishing company owning a comics news site. That said, both The Beat and Lion Forge have been above board in acknowledging this, which is good to see. Interesting too that the purchase was not done directly through Lion Forge, but through a newly minted sister company by the name of Syndicated Comics, LLC. Our own Claire Napier took the time to ask them what Syndicated Comics does as a business besides “own The Beat” and it seems the answer is…not much else. The focus seems for now to be on providing a stable backbone for the site, whilst staying out of editorial and content affairs.
Zines are making the mainstream news, as women in Jakarta turn to them to discuss the concepts of feminism and their own sexuality. This is no small matter for the country, as it’s in the grip of struggles with extreme fundamentalist sects, and still subject to laws that allow women to be caned for kissing and hugging whilst unmarried. Girls there are producing these zines and fighting for quality in the face of actual raids, so this is some pretty admirable stuff.
In more personal news, here’s an extremely touching eulogy of the late, great Steve Dillon, by Kelly Kanayama. Do you have tissues? Get tissues. You’re going to need them.
Here’s some stuff you may have missed over the last couple of weeks:
The Broken Pencil Zine Awards have announced their winners! You can check them out here, and if you’re interested, there’s also a link on that page to the actual livestream of the ceremony itself.
Jim Davis, creator of Garfield, has put his experience drawing characters with large appetites to good use, contributing a Galactus story to Squirrel Girl.
Image Founder, Comics Superstar, and Jeans Model Rob Liefeld has come out swinging against Diamond Comics after the company has failed to ship him quite a few printings of a comic he’s working on. It’s not just the customer Diamond likes to screw over!
After the news about Harvey Weinstein broke, specifically in regards to Rose McGowan’s years of being blacklisted, Katie Skelly has penned this essay at The Comics Journal to remind us that these sorts of things happen in comics too–regularly, in fact, and often without consequence. We’ve reported extensively on harassment and assault here at WWAC, but it just seems to keep happening, doesn’t it? On a related note, here’s your regular reminder that Eddie Berganza is still employed at DC Comics.
Here’s a fun interview with Bitch Planet creator Kelly Sue DeConnick about the inherent political nature of comics!
Speaking of comics and being political; are you aware that Puerto Rico is still in dire straits following the destruction wrought by Hurricane Maria? Here’s an easy thing you can do: buy a t-shirt. No really–the art on it is by none other than Bill Sienkiewicz, and 100% of the proceeds go to Puerto Rico relief efforts. You get cool clothes and you get to help people in need. There’s really no downside!
That’s all I’ve got for you this week–be sure to check out our sister sites!
